Your Health
You don't want to know
When it comes to bacteria, some places are definitely buggier than others. Prevention magazine evaluated bacteria counts around the house and on the road, and found:
The worst stall in a public restroom: The one in the middle has more bacteria than the ones on the end. Isn't that the one you always pick?
The worst place to set your purse: On the kitchen counter - not because the counter's dirty; your purse is. Researchers swabbed purse bottoms and found up to 10,000 bacteria per square inch. A third of the bags even had fecal bacteria - probably the same ones that spent some time on the floor in the middle stall.
The worst place to set fruit before washing it: In the sink, which has higher bacteria counts than a toilet. So the next time that perfect raspberry falls into the sink, rinse it off before popping it into your mouth.
Hair and hearts
Going bald is not something most men welcome, despite the undeniable good looks of a Sean Connery or Michael Jordan. It seems doubly cruel that a receding hairline should be a risk factor for heart disease, as some studies suggest.
Turns out it's probably not. At least half of the studies on this topic, including the latest one, show no link between balding and heart trouble, Harvard Health Letters report.
In the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, researchers found no substantial links between patterns of baldness, or its severity, and heart attack risk. They also found no link between baldness and the buildup of cholesterol-laden plaque in the carotid arteries, a marker of the health of the circulatory system, the health letter reports.
No tipping
Kids love to climb on furniture, but if it topples, they can be seriously hurt. Each year, 8,000 to 10,000 people, mostly children, go to the ER with furniture-tipping injuries and about six are killed.
Safe Kids Worldwide offers these tips:
Fasten top-heavy furniture to the wall with angle braces.
Use furniture tipping restrains to prevent dressers, bookcases, TV carts and other heavy furniture from tipping.
Keep heavy items on lower shelves or drawers.
Tie up loose cords on TVs and other heavy items so children won't pull on them.