Thursday, April 30, 2009

Is Waterbirth A Growing Trend?

Waterbirth is a method of giving birth, which involves immersion in warm water. Proponents believe that this method is safe and provides many benefits for both mother and infant, including pain relief and a less traumatic birth experience for the baby. However, critics argue that the procedure introduces unnecessary risks to the infant such as infection and water inhalation.


Childbirth can be a strenuous experience for the baby. Properly heated water helps to ease the transition from the birth canal to the outside world because the warm liquid resembles the familiar intra-uterine environment, and softens light, colors and noises. Waterbirth is accepted and practiced in many parts of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as many European countries, including the United Kingdom and Germany, where many maternity clinics have birthing tubs. Many independent birthing centers and many home birth midwives offer waterbirth services.


At present, waterbirth is often practiced by those who choose to have a home birth, because the majority of hospitals have not yet installed proper birth pools in their maternity wards, a search on Google will come up with many sites on waterbirth videos.


In 2006, Waterbirth International listed more than 300 U.S. hospitals that offered such facilities. At least two such hospitals were listed in the 2006 U.S. News and World Report "Honor Roll" of best U.S. hospitals: Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri and the University of Michigan hospital in Ann Arbor, MI..

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Drinking Permits At An Earlier Age In The United States ?

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Explanation And History Of X-Rays


Within a year of German scientist Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of x-rays in 1895, people throughout the world knew about Roentgen's work and had seen his first x-ray picture — his wife Bertha's hand, showing her bones, wedding ring, and all. Even before Roentgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901 for his discovery, x-ray studios were popping up that sold bone portraits for display in the home.


As their popularity grew, some publications contained inflated claims about x-rays — they could restore vision to the blind, they could raise the dead. Other people expressed a far more skeptical view: "I can see no future in the field," the head of one x-ray clinic reportedly proclaimed. "All the bones of the body and foreign bodies have been demonstrated."
But x-ray was far from a dead-end technology. Instead, it marked the start of a revolution in medical diagnosis. Like other medical imaging technologies that followed, including ultrasound, computed tomography ( or Cat Scan ) scanning, and magnetic resonance imaging ( or MRI ), x-ray can help doctors narrow down the causes of a patient's symptoms without surgery and sometimes diagnose an illness before symptoms even appear. X-rays imaging can be a useful first step in treating a range of problems, from a simple broken bone to a cancerous tumor.


Roentgen labeled the rays he discovered with the scientific symbol "X," meaning unknown, because he didn't understand their makeup at first. x-rays are actually electromagnetic waves. When they are passed through a patient's body to a photographic film on the other side, they create a picture of internal body structures called a radiograph.


You can view many broken bone x-rays and bone fracture x-rays by doing a search on the web. There are many good sites out there.


The less dense a structure of the body is, the more radiation passes through it and reaches the film. The x-rays expose the film, changing its color after it is developed to gray or black, much like light would darken photographic film. Bones, as well as tumors, are more dense than soft tissues. They appear white or light on the x-ray film because they absorb much of the radiation, leaving the film only slightly exposed. Structures that are less solid than bone, such as skin, fat, muscles, blood vessels, and the lungs, intestines, and other organs, appear darker on the film because they let more of the x-rays pass through. Likewise, a break in a bone allows the x-ray beams to pass through, so the break appears as a dark line in the otherwise white bone.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Live Streaming Webcams Are Fun And Very Popular


Started in 1991, the first live video from a live streaming webcam, called the CoffeeCam, was pointed at the Trojan room coffee pot in the computer science department of Cambridge University. But this wasn't truly a live streaming webcam, it was however, a webcam that took a picture at set time intervals and broadcast the picture over the internet. Much different than the live video we think of now when we say live streaming webcams.

In addition to use for personal videoconferencing, it was quickly realised that internet users enjoyed viewing live video from live streaming webcams set up by others elsewhere in the world.

Today the world has millions of live streaming webcams and live video cams, and more and more are popping up everyday ! One of the most widely reported live streaming webcam sites was JenniCam, started in 1996, which allowed internet users to constantly observe the life of its namesake, somewhat like the reality TV series Big Brother.

Educators use live streaming webcams and live video to take their students on virtual field trips to museums, zoos, historical places, and anywhere else there are live streaming webcams of educational value. People are even using live streaming webcams to monitor the live video of their homes, especially to check on pets, while they're away at work or away from home.

Today there are millions of live streaming webcams, and live video cams that provide views into homes, offices and other buildings as well as providing panoramic views of cities (Metrocams) and the countryside. Live streaming webcams and live video cams are used to monitor traffic with TraffiCams, the weather with WeatherCams and even volcanoes with VolcanoCams. Just about anything you can think of, there is live video from a live streaming webcam out there.

Do a Google search on live streaming webcams or live video and you're sure to find something that interests you.