HealthTap

HealthTap Express Puts a Doctor on Your Smartphone, Ready to Answer Questions
http://lifehacker.com/5844191/

Back in 2008, I put a note in my computer to come up with a Web site to provide a Q&A exchange with doctors on basic questions about health... looks like HealthTap beat me to it and they did a great job! I asked a question a half hour ago and it was already answered by two doctors! Here is my question with answers below:

How long can I use the same water bottle before washing or acumulating harmful bacteria?

Ryan Sep 27, 2011 Report

Dr. Robert Kwok answered:

Wash it twice a week

A healthy person using a water bottle to carry clean drinking water is unlikely to get an illness from "harmful" bacteria in the bottle. Neither the water nor the bottle are sterile, so there will be some bacteria, but probably won't cause disease. Rinsing the bottle with a little drinking water at each refill will help keep the bottle clean. Actual cleaning of the bottle can be done twice a week.

2 minutes ago

Dr. David Finke answered:

Less than a week1st answer

First, make sure the bottle is BPA free and avoid reusing commercial one-time use water bottles over and over. Keep the water bottle out of hot environments and rinse it frequently. I wash mine with soap and water every 2-3 days.

DampRid to the Rescue: Cell Phone + Water = Disaster

I must share this embarrasing moment with the world so that others might have the same luck as I have recently had after DROPPING MY CELL PHONE IN THE TOILET while it was flushing! (My phone is pretty outdated and slow and I was planning on getting a new one.)

Fortunately, 80% of the water had flushed, so it was only submersed for about 2 seconds. As soon as I grabbed the phone, I immediately POWERED IT OFF, just as I had recalled reading in the incredibly useful Apple Core Blog at ZDNet by Jason O'Grady in his article HERE: How to survive an iPhone liquid submersion (hint: it's not rice). The blog gives step by step instructions on how to increase your odds of success.

Unfortunately, I had to run to a meeting and did not have time to go to Lowes, so I did in fact put my phone in an airtight lock-n-lock container with about a cup if rice. Three hours later, I went to Home Depot, (in the pouring rain no less) and purchased 1 box of DampRid that comes in 2 "Sachet" bags. I followed The Apple Core steps, sandwhiched the phone and kept it sealed in a ziplock bag for about 30 hours.

I nervously turned on the phone, and noticed a faint charge symbol illuninated on the screen - almost as if the screen was broken at 10% brightness, so I plugged it in. Five minutes later, my phone came back from the dead with the sound of 40 texts and no voice message notifications*!

*One thing that really saved me was being able to forward my phone to Google Voice. I called ATT at 11 PM that evening and spoke to their after hours tech support crew. They were able to forward my phone to my designated Google Voice number. The great thing about Google Voice is that any messages are transcribed to text. Very helpful. I was going to forward all calls to a new Skype number, but that was $18/3 months, so I held off on that option.