I am taking a crash course in genetic literacy by having some of my genes sequenced by the two major genetic sequencing services, 23andMe and deCode. I am still in the process of comparing the two sets of results to see which vendor is better, but while coming up to speed in this new realm,…
The heart rate is among the earliest biometrics used by humans to take stock of themselves. Before mechanical clocks were invented, this was hard. The first doctor credited with making objective measurements of the pulse was an Alexandrian physician named Herophilos, from the 3rd century, B.C., who used a water clock as his chronometer. Using…
All of kinds of monitoring technology that may be undesirable when used by others can be useful when turned on ourselves for ourselves. Here is a prototype device currently being developed at Stanford that can be used to monitor behavior types. The researchers are using them for science projects, and as an aid for those…
Smack in the middle of the arena of self-surveillence is this tiny flash-stick-sized location tracker, the Trackstick. It is tiny. Gets lost in your coat pocket, or backpack. You carry it around wherever you go. Once a month you download its records from its built in USB port and plot your course on an online…
The Stress Eraser has been around for more than a year now, garnering positive feedback attracting heavyweights to the advisory board [PDF] of its parent company, and advertising heavily. . In one sense, the Stress Eraser is a classic QS device, a geeky quantitative aid to self-improvement. I almost want one. But the very thing…
As the Gene Sherpa rightly points out, a significant step in knowing yourself healthwise is to create a family health history. In most cases currently organizing the state of your ancestors health will be more informative than getting your genes sequenced. There’s even a federal initiative of the US Department of Health & Human Services…
Hugh Rienhoff advocates the potential of personal genomics on his journey toward understanding his daughter’s rare medical condition.
Kevin [posted earlier](http://www.kk.org/quantifiedself/2007/11/access-to-personal-genomics.php) on self-knowledge through consumer genetics and linked to Amy Harmon’s [story](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/us/17dna.html?ex=1353042000&en=4e47cebf58fa5d93&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) in the New York Times. I spent the weekend catching up on the very successful wave of publicity orchestrated by [23andMe](https://www.23andme.com/ourservice/labs/), with major stories by Harmon in the Times, Thomas Goetz in [Wired](http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/15-12/ff_genomics), David Ewing Duncan in this month’s [Portfolio ](http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2007/10/15/23andMe-Web-Site),…
Personal DNA sequencing is here. The New York Times has an excellent story by Amy Harmon on what happens when you get your own DNA sequenced. She had about half a million SNPs sequenced by 23andMe, a personal genome start up. In the article she explores both her hesitancies and exhilaration in discovering her genetic…
[The Nike + iPod Sport Kit](http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/gear.html) is training people to monitor their physical state in real time. The great thing about the sport kit is not the wireless pedometer, but the integration of the pedometer into a relatively rich system that allows you to program your goals, compare results with others, and receive feedback during…
A team lead by Thomas Kamarck of the University of Pittsburgh, an expert on measuring [psychosocial processes](http://pmbcii.psy.cmu.edu/core_c/index.html), is working on the type of wearable computer that I most want: a wrist-worn device to track physiological change in real time. The emphasis in this study is on psychosocial stress, and the device will measure sound, motion,…
Health Vault is a new initiative from Microsoft that intends to be a solution for putting medical records “online” in a secure and practical way. So far it has gotten some good reviews from progressive doc blogs, such as Medical Quack, primarily because of the “secure” part of the equation. In fact Health Vault’s tagline…
This story from the Christian Science Monitor describes a commercial language learning program called Linkword based on a well known mnemonic technique. “Target words” in a foreign language are associated with sound-alike words in the native language, and the link is represented by a vivid visual image. For instance. The Spanish word for monkey is…
