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White noise is a type of noise that is produced by combining sounds of all different frequencies together. If you took all of the imaginable tones that a human can hear and combined them together, you would have white noise. The adjective "white" is used to describe this type of noise because of the way white light works. White light is light that is made up of all of the different colors (frequencies) of light combined together (a prism or a rainbow separates white light back into its component colors).

A tax in Philadelphia intended to reduce consumption of sugary drinks is working, according to a public health expert who presented her findings at a national conference centered on interventions to reduce obesity. Sugar sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes – aimed at fighting the nation’s obesity epidemic - have been gaining momentum since Berkeley, California passed the nation’s first SSB tax in 2014.

Eating spicy foods can help people eat less salt and have lower blood pressure -- potentially reducing their risk of heart attack and stroke -- according to new research in the American Heart Association’s (AHA) journal Hypertension. “Previously, a pilot study found that trace amounts of capsaicin, the chemical that gives chili peppers their pungent smell, enhanced the perception of food being salty,” said senior study author Zhiming Zhu, M.D., professor and director of the Department of Hypertension and Endocrinology at the Third Military Medical University in Chongqing, China. “We wanted to test whether this effect would also reduce salt consumption.”

Men develop a type of irregular heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation, about a decade earlier than women on average, and being overweight is a major risk factor, according to a large new study published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation. In atrial fibrillation, the upper chambers of the heart, or atria, quiver instead of beat to move blood effectively.

A new study concludes that walking has the potential to significantly improve the public’s health. It finds regular walking, even if not meeting the minimum recommended levels, is associated with lower mortality compared to inactivity. The study appears early online in American Journal of Preventive Medicine.