NOTICE
HEALTH
TOMORROW'S NEWS: musical condoms
Safe sex and spontaneity have always been odd bedfellows. It's tough to stay in the moment and still have the forethought to have a condom handy. So, anything that allows safe sex and even gives condoms the mere potential to be more romantic would be a welcome innovation, indeed.
This is, however, likely to become one of the greatest novelty gifts of all time.
It's the Force-Sensitive, Sound-Playing Condom. The U.S. patent holder, Paul Lyons of Southbridge, Mass., has found a way to combine tried and true prophylactic technology—your basic condom—with piezoelectric sound transducers—think old-school cell phone ringtones—to create the first musical condom.
Though it would look and function just like a regular condom, this invention would also allow the user to record a song, message or sound effect to the tiny chip contained in the base of the condom. This sound would then be played on a loop when the contacts of the circuit are closed during use, and the transducer is "activated by forceful movements."
Sadly, this isn't it.
The recorded sound could be anything from a romantic message, a clip of
your partner's favorite love song, or the dirty talk you've been thinking to yourself but hadn't yet got up the nerve to say out loud. If it doesn't go over well, you can just blame it on the condom.
"I might just get one for the novelty of it, just to see how it works," says Dhyana Coil, Colorado Springs, Colo., senior. "But I think the sound would get kind of muffled from all the action."
Though it's currently just a patent, the Force-Sensitive, Sound-Playing Condom might not be far off. As the ringtones of cell phones have improved, we could soon see a polyphonic prophylactic that's capable of producing some high-quality audio. And if the speaker were sufficient, this condom could even add some bumpin' bass to your love-making.
No matter how thoughtful the sentiment behind the musical condom may be, the condom in its existing patent would probably sound at best like a Casio keyboard from 1981, which isn't likely to improve the quality of your sex life.
Unless you're into that sort of thing.
Matt Bechtold
coffee shop smoothies
You've got the mid-afternoon stomach grumbles, and in an effort to be healthy, you decide to buy a smoothie instead of your usual snack. Although that delicious blend of fruit and yogurt is typically thought of as healthy, drinking a store-bought smoothie could mean guzzling up to a quarter of your daily caloric intake.
Sarah Wamsley, Wichita dietician, says when it comes to beverages like smoothies, Americans tend to consume too much. The key, she says, is portion control.
Sheryll Clarke, dietician at the Wichita Clinic, says that the fruit smoothies you find at specialty stores run high in calories. Healthier smoothies may have as few as 200 calories, but some can have up to 500 or 600 calories. For someone operating on an average diet—2,000 calories a day for men, 1,500 a day for women—a store-bought smoothie could make up enough calories for an entire meal, Clarke says. But most people consider smoothies a snack, not a meal.
Not all smoothies are bad, of course. "When you move into coffee shops,the smoothies move more into taste than health,and they tend to be highly caloric," Wamsley says. But some specialty stores advertise healthy smoothies,she says,and those do tend to be better for you.
If you want to ensure your smoothie is healthy, make one at home. It only takes three types of ingredients: yogurt, fruit
and a liquid. Wamsley says to use low-fat or non-fat yogurt. She recommends plain or vanilla yogurt, because the fruit-flavored yogurt tends to have added sugar. Frozen fruit and bananas are good choices for fruit. As for the liquid, Wamsley recommends skim milk as opposed to juice."Juice adds calories. Milk does, too, but it also adds calcium."Wamsley says.
So, if you want a healthy snack, make a homemade smoothie and steer clear of store-bought ones.
VERDICT: BAD FOR YOU
—Susan Melgren
TOMORROW'S NEWS: cocaine energy drink
Energy drinks are a dime a dozen these days, so in order to grab the attention of consumers, Redux Beverages has introduced Cocaine, "a high-caffeine energy supplement."
Jamey Kirby, inventor of the drink and president of Redux Beverages, says the name for the drink came to him while doing an Internet search in his home office.
"I was doing some research on energy drinks and information about cocaine kept popping up." Kirby says.
"The term is synonymous with energy. That's the main reason for using the name."
Cocaine contains 18 grams of sugar and 280 miligrams of caffeine, which is equivalent to drinking three cups of coffee or three and a half Red Bulls.
The drink doesn't actually contain narcotics, but Kirby says it does give people an instant rush with no crash.
"We use simple sugars, which are a little bit easier on the body than high fructose corn syrup and cane sugar."
The Food and Drug Administration didn't approve of Redux Beverages' branding and marketing. The drink originally said "Cocaine, the legal alternative," but has now been changed to, "Cocaine, a high energy supplement."
Kirby says.
The drink has been banned in Texas and Illinois, and Connecticut has threatened to sue Redux Beverages because of its name.
"We've been attacked by the FDA not because of what's in the product,
but because of the product's name;" Kirby says.
Redux Beverages has started a legal fund and accepts donations on its Web site, wwwdrinkcocaine.com. You can also rock out to a YouTube video of Eric Clapton's song "Cocaine," which is posted on the site.
—Nina Libby
December 4,2008
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