Circumcision is a very debated method in the medical world. However a report from the World Health Organization comes in to support the fact that male circumcision could reduce female-to-male HIV transmission rates by 50 to 60 percent.

“Based on the evidence presented, which was considered to be compelling, experts attending the consultation recommended that male circumcision now be recognized as an additional important intervention to reduce the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men,” the WHO report said.

Since lots of African men might overwhelm hospitals for a circumcision intervention and there aren’t enough specialized doctors to perform it, Physician David Tomlinson designed a “tool” to do the job.

He worked in his spare time with a team of collaborators from the Brown University and Clinical Innovations to develop a sterile device called AccuCirc (510k) which is almost foolproof.

Tomlinson got the idea of building it after performing circumcision on over 200 babies and noticed that almost every device existent right now, could harm.

AccuCirc can be used only once, protects the glans beneath the foreskin from injury and requires only minimal training. Here are some demo videos.

A Finnish hotelier company had an amazing idea of creating glass igloos for its visitors. In case you didn’t know, the igloo has been the first kind of shelter in the arctic area. The Eskimos built igloos because they offered protection of bad weather in the frozen lands.

The resort from Saariselkä, Finland, is just 250 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. The Hotel Kakslauttanen is in fact a Igloo Village. Obviously the visitors could opt for snow igloos, but today’s technology has offered them the possibility to built the glass igloos using a thermo glass that keeps them warmth and comfortable. Furthermore, the ones who go for the glass igloos will experience an idyllic sensation. They can contemplate the frozen landscape or admire the northern lights. Due to the thermo glass technology, igloos inhabitants won’t feel any of the polar cold. I would love to stay there at least for a single night.

via Dvice

That’s a weird one, but it’s true. Some geeky researchers (can’t imagine someone else to spend time on that one) managed to “make” LEDs from salmon sperm which is considered a waste product of the fishing industry. Professor Andrew Steckl of the University of Cincinnati, used the DNA found in salmon sperm to make LEDs more intense and called them BioLEDs. Steckl is developing them with the help of the Air Force (serious).

Source

Have you ever heard of super li-ion batteries? They were hot last year when the first details came out and apparently they charge “super fast” and last for much more than we are expected with the batteries these days. However, these days Toshiba just announced that they developed the Super Charge ion Batteries (SCiB) that will be used for industrial purposes at first and should be able to recharge in just 5 minutes (a 90% recharge).

This would probably be the development we needed to make hybrid cars a success and this is where Toshiba’s batteries will head at first. Another interesting feature is the fact that it can be recharged 5,000 times so I’d say that’s a lifetime of more than 10 years.

We should see it live in March 2008.

via DoDevice

Did you know that there is a connection between violent behavior and the levels of lead in gasoline? Apparently it increases your cognitive and behavior traits such as aggressiveness, low IQ or impulsivity which is, as you know, very much related to crimes.

An article in The New York Times a few days ago, explained how the Clean Air Act of 1973 for less pollution and smog in the air phased out the leaded gasoline with a result, violent crimes fallen sharply, by 56%. Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, an economist at Amherst College, conducted research on lead poisoning with the main source, gasoline.

Her research compiled a table that linked crimes and lead levels in the air and though I am not sure this isn’t just an accident that these two are correlated Reyes could be right. If she is right, then warnings should be sent to countries that didn’t ban leaded gasoline because their children are just growing up now and violent crimes may increase in the upcoming years.

Research paper (PDF)