selections from today's info buffet

• America’s Health Rankings—a collaborative venture between United Health Foundation, the American Public Health Association, and the Partnership for Prevention—are available for 2008. (These rankings use the World Health Organization's more expansive definition of health, and consequently incorporate socioeconomic quality of life measures as well as the more traditional physical-health measures.) Check out the interactive map. There’s a clear geographic pattern to distribution of most- and least-healthy states. I’m wondering when someone will make comparisons between that map and this one.

• “Time is money,” says Daniel Hamermesh in The New York Times’ Freakonomics blog, as he provides us a fascinating glimpse into the newest form of multi-tasking. (Seems to me like the opening refrain of this Chumbawamba video would be an appropriate accompaniment!)

• I like the premise behind The New York Times Tierney Lab blog:

  John Tierney always wanted to be a scientist but went into journalism because its peer-review process was a great deal easier to sneak through. Now a columnist for the Science Times section, Tierney previously wrote columns for the Op-Ed page, the Metro section and the Times Magazine. Before that he covered science for magazines like Discover, Hippocrates and Science 86.

  With your help, he's using TierneyLab to check out new research and rethink conventional wisdom about science and society. The Lab's work is guided by two founding principles:

  1. Just because an idea appeals to a lot of people doesn't mean it's wrong.

  2. But that's a good working theory.

  
  Check out the TL’s most recent supersizing experiment. I have to find out if they’ve linked up with Brian Wansink and company, who specialize in research about “mindless eating.”

• "Hey, Boss, I'm Not Sleeping I'm Learning." Steve Roesler’s All Things Workplace blog has some useful insights, based on neuroscience research, about the value of sleep to proper mental functioning. (Lots more related info at John Medina’s Brain Rules website. Check out video #7 on the main page, as well as the more detailed slideshow on sleep.)