HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

April 23, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news that could impact your health and our future.

HEALTH

• UC San Diego Study: Electronic Cigarette Smokers Aren't Less Likely To Quit (KPBS)
• Use Of E-Cigarettes Triples Among U.S. Teens (NPR)
• Mad Cow Disease In Texas Man Has Mysterious Origin (NPR)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

• How shoes that grow could help change the lives of children in poverty (CS Monitor)
• 3-d printing aircraft parts may be in Israel's near future (JPost)
• 5 years after BP spill, drillers push into riskier depths (AP)
• We Might Welcome Robot Lawn Mowers, But Astronomers Aren't So Happy (NPR)

For excerpts and links to full stories, click “read more” and scroll down.

HEALTH

UC San Diego Study: Electronic Cigarette Smokers Aren't Less Likely To Quit (KPBS)

 In a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, UCSD researchers found that smokers who used e-cigarettes — also known as vapor inhalers — were 49 percent less likely to decrease cigarette use and 59 percent less likely to quit altogether, compared to smokers who never used e- cigarettes./ The population-based study followed 1,000 California smokers over one year, according to UCSD.

Use Of E-Cigarettes Triples Among U.S. Teens (NPR)

 Even as the use of traditional cigarettes and most other tobacco products dipped or stayed the same from 2013 to 2014, the use of e-cigarettes climbed among students in high school and middle school.

Mad Cow Disease In Texas Man Has Mysterious Origin (NPR)

It's only the fourth case of the deadly disease in the U.S. And it has doctors on an international hunt. 

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

How shoes that grow could help change the lives of children in poverty  (CS Monitor)

(CS Monitor) -- Inspired by a trip to an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya, Kenton Lee was inspired to create a pair of shoes that would fit kids for as many as five years.

3-d printing aircraft parts may be in Israel's near future (JPost)

"The topic of 3-d printing is making its first strides in the manufacturing process."

5 years after BP spill, drillers push into riskier depths (AP)

Five years after the nation's worst offshore oil spill, the industry is working on drilling even further into the risky depths beneath the Gulf of Mexico to tap massive deposits once thought unreachable. Opening this new frontier, miles below the bottom of the Gulf, requires engineering feats far beyond those used at BP's much shallower Macondo well.

We Might Welcome Robot Lawn Mowers, But Astronomers Aren't So Happy (NPR)

The company that makes the Roomba vacuum is developing a lawn mower robot. But the frequency on which it would work is also used by radio telescopes. A mini-battle is being played out in FCC filings.