Hasta La Gadget!

I’m not the bicycling sort and I’m more of a gearhead, but I know cycling is a very popular pastime around the world. If you’re a serious cyclist who prefers to practice indoors when the weather won’t allow you to go outside, you may be interested in a new product from Wahoo Fitness. The device is an iPhone-controlled bike trainer called the Kickr Power Trainer.

The device replaces the back wheel on your bicycle and uses apps on the iPhone to control its resistance. The device is compatible with some of the most popular bicycling apps out there including TrainerRoad and Kinomap Trainer. The Kickr is able to accurately replicate all sorts of real-world conditions from coasting downhill to riding up a 15% grade. The app allows the user to track their power in watts and speed using iPhone. The trainer is compatible with both Bluetooth 4.0 and ANT+ technologies.

It’s not clear if the KICKR includes an iPhone mount, but Wahoo does sell a variety of models if you don’t already have one. The KICKR is expected to launch in November in the US at an undisclosed price.

Sweating is part of the summer. No matter where you are, especially with the heatwaves of this year, you’ve probably sweat quite a bit over these last few months. If you tend to sweat a lot from your pits, and would like it to stop soaking your clothes, you could always microwave them so that they completely stop sweating.

miraDry uses microwave energy to zap your armpits and kill off 22,000 to 30,000 sweat glands in that area, reducing the amount of sweat that you generate when you get hot. It’s supposed to work in 90% of patients and reduce sweating by 82%. The effect is supposed to last for a year, but you’ll need a couple of sessions for this to work well.

Aside from evaporating your sweat glands, it will also evaporate some of your cash as this procedure costs $3,000. For some reason, it doesn’t sound like a good idea to mess with you body’s biological processes this way. What happens if you overheat? Sweating is a nature’s way of cooling us down.

[via DVice]

We’ve talked about some strange medical conditions over the years here. Most recently, we mentioned the woman who had a live spider living in her ear for several days. Another very strange medical mystery has surfaced with the case of Shanya Isom, who has been visiting doctors around the world in an attempt to figure out what is causing her severe allergic reaction. Isom is having some sort of allergic reaction that is so bizarre that it’s causing fingernails to grow from hair follicles all over her body.

“Black scabs were coming out of her skin,” said her mother, Kathy Gary. “The nails would grow so long and come out and regrow themselves. They are hard to touch and stick you.” The young woman is unable to walk without assistance because of the reaction. Physicians at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore where the young woman is being treated told her family that she is the only person in the world they are aware of with this condition.

The disease first surfaced when the woman was in her junior year in college studying criminal justice in 2009. The woman went to the emergency room for an asthma attack and was given a large dose of steroids. Doctors suspect that caused an allergic reaction. She had itching after returning home from getting the steroid shot, and was given Benadryl but the reaction got worse. Doctors remain baffled by the condition.

[via Atlanta BlackStar]

The FDA has issued approval for an interesting medical gadget that is designed to be swallowed. The digestible sensor is designed to report back to doctors on a patient’s adherence to medications, as well as to share their vital signs. The device is called the Ingestion Event Marker system and uses what appears to be a pill with a sand grain sized transmitter embedded inside.

The product comes from a company called Proteus Digital Health and the information the sensor gathers is collected on an iPhone app. The sensor was approved for use in Europe in 2011. The sensor itself is embedded inside of a pill or other consumable item and gathers power from stomach fluid.

The sensor sends signals to a patch worn on the user’s stomach that then sends information out to a smartphone application. Information the sensor gathers includes heart rate, body position, and activity. Once the data is received by the smartphone application it can also optionally be sent automatically to a physician. The sensor eventually makes its way out of the body and into the toilet.

[via CBS News]

As someone who has eyes that get irritated easily, I can definitely appreciate a good design for the classic eye dropper. Even though I use eye drops on a regular basis, I still find myself blinking uncontrollably as I squeeze the drop over my eyeball.

Designer Ilmo Ahn is probably well-aware of this, which is why he came up with the Easy Eye Drops dispenser. It’s basically an eye dropper that comes with a mechanism that’ll help keep your eyes open when you prop it against your eye.

The container has a pair of soft, eye-safe silicone flaps at the end, which hold your eyelids open while you drip in the droplets. When not in use, the silicone flaps are stowed inside the container, and never need to be touched by hands.

That means you don’t have to hold your eyelids open anymore when you’re getting ready to use the eye dropper on them. The Easy Eye Drops is a 2012 IDEA Awards entry.

[via Yanko Design]