An Olympic Effort - Keeping Crowds Safe and Healthy
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Later this month, the 2012 Olympics kicks off in London. With hundreds of thousands of people expected from overseas, is this the perfect trigger for a pandemic? This week we're looking at the public health implications of events like London 2012. We discover why an understanding of crowd psychology can avert disasters, and how mathematical models can predict and prevent jams in human traffic. Plus, a new technique to communicate with "locked in" patients, the evidence for warm blooded dinosaurs, and does ice really help to treat an injury?
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One of the things we have to think about when we gather a large number of people into a small space, such as the Olympic village, is the risk of spreading diseases. We’ve seen in the past how outbreaks of diarrheal illnesses can spread rapidly through hospitals, care homes, and...
Every large building has an evacuation procedure. Most offices and schools have regular fire drills but this isn’t an option in preparation for the Olympics. So how can an understanding of crowd psychology help keep people safe?
How can you communicate if you can’t move a muscle? This is the situation for people with ‘locked-in syndrome’ - but a new study may have a solution.
Heart attacks and strokes are much more common in people who have already suffered a previous vascular event.
It’s not only the athletes taking part in London 2012 who are feeling under pressure at the moment. What about their coaches? For a sport like swimming, the process of coaching is very tricky because you have to assess an athlete’s technique with the added complication of rath...
Make no bones about it, dinosaurs were warm-blooded, new research has revealed.
How smoking fathers risk passing on damaged DNA to their children, Magnetic tornadoes heating up the surface of the Sun and the surprising diet of Australopithecus Sediba...
On a farm in Berkshire, not far from Reading, you’ll find a rather unusual looking campsite. Here special "tents" allow perfect control of plants and pollinators, to help scientists understand this careful balance...
How can mathematical modeling make better buildings? Meera Senthilingham visited the newly refurbished Kings Cross train station in London to meet Steven Bishop, the Professor of Dynamics at University College London to find out how maths can keep crowds on the move......
Can we use virtual worlds to study crowds?
Why don't we quarantine people?
I am a retired family physician.
I am intrigued by the constant use of ice packs for all manner of things including sports injuries, post surgical healing such as knee and hip replacements.
However I have never been able to find any reasonable convincing scientific evidence...
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