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A noisy neighborhood is no mere nuisance; it can be a major health hazard. Cars, planes, and commercial bustle can disturb sleep, create stress and hearing problems, contribute to cardiovascular disease, and impact cognitive development in children.

...Farrell built HowLoud, an interactive sound map of Los Angeles and Orange counties. Punch in an address within the area, and the map offers a “Soundscore”: a local noise level (where higher numbers are quieter, counter-intuitively) based on the “type, time and intensity of noise from vehicle and air traffic, bars, restaurants and many other sources.” It also offers other, more qualitative sound measures, as well as a handy list of local noise-makers.

(via HowLoud Is a Map of Neighborhood Noise Pollution You Can Really Use - CityLab)

Tell It About Your Mother Can brain-scanning help save Freudian psychoanalysis?

Tell It About Your Mother - The New York Times

We draw on the same brain networks when we’re reading stories and when we’re trying to guess at another person’s feelings.

Can Reading Make You Happier? - The New Yorker

A simple blood test might one day predict cancer years before an actual diagnosis. Researchers say that a distinct pattern—characterized by a rapid shortening of blood telomeres followed by a stabilization three or four years before cancer is diagnosed—could ultimately yield a new biomarker to predict cancer development with a blood test.

Can this blood test predict cancer years early? - Futurity

bogus visual feedback created by virtual reality can actually trick the brain into boosting or reducing a person's range of pain-free movement. The study highlights the ways in which sensory perceptions, and not just physical signals, can make us feel pain—and how that effect can be manipulated to design new therapies.

Federal regulators on Wednesday approved a novel dieting device that acts like a pacemaker for the stomach by manipulating the nerve pathway that makes people feel hungry or full.

The initiative to use big data usually comes from health insurers who face pressure from both politicians and their competitors to offer coverage of services as comprehensive as possible at a given premium. If insurers enjoy the freedom to contract with service providers of their choice (which is the exception outside the United States), they face the crucial challenge of matching a given group of patients with health care providers that are willing to treat them at comparatively low cost. To make this match, health insurers need a great deal of information about their potential patients and about their potential contractual partners. For instance, it can be important to know whether Hispanic patient X has a preference for Hispanic physicians — or whether she prefers white physicians due to personal biases or perceived advantages. Yet, Ms. X may feel uncomfortable when asked to disclose her preferences. To get around this problem, the insurer may buy information provided by a chain store revealing details about her purchasing habits and favorite brands, data that may be extrapolated to make predictions about her preferences. For insurers who are prepared to invest in this type of analysis, big data holds considerable promise.

What Does ‘Big Data’ Mean In The Context Of Coordinated Care? – Health Affairs Blog

#amplifieddog

Callisto allows a survivor to choose to have his or her evidence forwarded to authorities automatically once another person uploads evidence about the same assailant. This way, a survivor can upload evidence knowing that he or she will not be the only accuser. It also allows a person, even if unsure about reporting his or her own case, to supply information that can help another person’s case and prevent future assault.

How economic theory can help stop sexual assault | Making Sen$e | PBS NewsHour

We have less than 1 percent of the information that people will have in the future. So to me, we’re just starting the genomic era now.

Now, Aragón has authored a paper on such incongruous (or “dimorphous”) behaviors that will soon be published in Psychological Science. Her research reveals that expressions like “tears of joy,” “smiles of sadness,” and “nervous laughter” may have a basis in science. The key is emotional regulation.

A start-up will contribute an interesting answer to the million-dollar food-policy question: If healthy food was as easy as junk food, would we eat more of it? (via The Dreadful Inconvenience of Salad - The Atlantic)

Francis, a therapist, sits in an observation room with two monitors in front of her; one displays her clients – a grandmotherly woman and a toddler (their names have been changed to protect their identity) — in the playroom next door, and through the other she sees her virtual trainer, psychologist Dawn Blacker, who observes from her office hundreds of miles north at the University of California, Davis.

One-way mirrors, monitors and a whole lot of training — how Parent-Child Interaction Therapy works « ACEs Too High

For Los Angeles County, which committed itself to an overhaul of its child protection system last year, the idea of applying “predictive analytics” to child maltreatment response and prevention has gained a new currency. Its Blue Ribbon Commission on Child Protection recommended that the county implement a predictive analytics model piloted in Florida that is meant to reduce child fatalities. It also pointed to Putnam-Hornstein’s research, which could be applied to targeting services to families and individuals, like Miranda Sheffield, before a call of abuse is ever made.

How can big data help improve child maltreatment response and prevention? « ACEs Too High

The results from the recycling bins painted a much more accurate picture of how seniors were drinking. It was so instructive, in fact, that Clapp hopes to replicate the experiment on college campuses. But he stresses that substance abuse isn’t just a young person’s disease. “You used to literally have people tell you well there are no old drinkers,” Clapp says. “When you retire, period, that’s a risk for starting to drink more.”

Now That Everyone’s Living Longer, Scientists Are Studying How Seniors Get Drunk | Co.Exist | ideas impact

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