Well, the air in Minnesota is pretty clean, and I grew up there, so I'm identifying  with the rankings there instead of my current state of residence, which got surprisingly low grades.

The annual State of the Air report describes levels of ozone and particle pollution (year-round and 24 hour increments) in monitoring sites across the United States in 2005, 2006, and 2007. Apparently the air quality in the U.S. could use some improvement.

How many numbers should you include in an article? This is debatable, depending on the subject matter and audience. But using too many numbers will lose a reader.

Read this story from the Christian Science Monitor. Interesting story and issue - the Pew Forum on Relgion&Public Life released its "Faith in Flux" survey today, and there's a whole lot of moving and shaking going on.¹

Now I know what happened to Michael Jackson: he tried to self-treat his eczema at home with Clorox.

A study in the May 5 issue of Pediatrics suggested a combination of "bleach baths" and intranasal mupirocin ointment led to statistically significant reductions in the extent and severity of ezcema, compared to children who received placebo ointment and took normal baths. 31 children (6 mos to 17 years) were randomized into "bleach bath" group (half a cup of 6 percent bleach per full standard tub) or normal bath. All patients also received oral cephalexin daily for two weeks.

This guy is the poster child for computer nerd with no social life. Not that I'm making fun - my social life is pretty much nil.

I'm also disturbed that technology moves this fast. I still haven't bought into this twitter thing - I don't tweet or tweetle or twit or whatever, and this guy has already stepped it up to the next level. Thanks, Adam Wilson, for making me feel like an unaccomplished lazy slug.

Adam Wilson, a biomedical engineering graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has figured out how to "tweet" using just the power of his brain. His method uses the Brain Computer Interface, or BCI, software program.

Wilson tells NPR's Michele Norris he got the idea from Roger Ebert's blog in March.

Nobody wants to have a stuffy, runny nose and itchy eyes year-round, or to not be able to breathe deeply. (Or maybe there are some that do. Whatever floats your boat.)

The current magical mystery tour of my immune system, hosted by the coolest allergy, immunology and asthma guy around, has me on two new products to see if we can figure out why my immune system and lungs hate me. I'm ok with the trial and error process at this point, since it's relatively harmless stuff and it's not a life or death illness.