The Price of (Old) Toilets

According to the EPA’s new WaterSense program, “super low-flow” toilets use 1.28 gallons of water or less per flush. Older toilets, still used in many households, use 4 to 6 gallons per flush. The difference over a single year? A savings of at least 4,000 gallons of water per toilet. I’ve done a fair amount […]

When to Say “When” with Caffeine

How do you get yourself going in the morning? Are you a coffee drinker? Maybe soda does it for you? If you’re lucky, you might not need any caffeine at all, but for so many, that’s just not the case. Caffeine is part of our daily routine, and beverage manufacturers are finding new ways to […]

Bloomberg Takes On Health Care

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of moderating a panel at the National Health Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. At this annual event jointly sponsored by AcademyHealth and Health Affairs, our panel focused on the current status of technology in health delivery systems. The topic and the excellent presentations by the panelists — Shannah […]

New Discoveries, New Reasons to Hope

Cancer is scary — there’s no doubt about it. We all live in fear of it, and 1.4 million are diagnosed each year. Then there’s treatment, therapy, pain, waiting, and either death, recovery or relapse. As a result, patients and families often have a difficult time sustaining hope in the face of a cancer diagnosis. […]

Tips for Avoiding Food-Related Illness

After the recent outbreaks of food-related illness all over the country, I decided to do a little research and find out more about how, exactly, our food can become contaminated with bacteria such as E. coli and why this continues to happen. I assumed that if I was curious and concerned, a lot of other […]

Enviga: Making Nothing Out of Something?

I passed a billboard in Manhattan recently that read “Burning calories is now officially delicious.” Enter Enviga, joint venture of Coca-Cola Co. and Nestle. At $1.45 per 12 oz can, it comes with what the marketers say are “negative calories.” How so? Well, it has 5 calories. But they say that a critical ingredient extracted […]