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Bottles of Vitaminwater at a New York City convenience store

Over the past few years, an increasing number of worn-out consumers have reached for a bottle of Vitaminwater after a workout. The sports drink has emerged as a serious competitor to Gatorade and other noncarbonated beverages, so much so that Coca-Coca forked over $4.2 billion in cash to buy the brand from Glaceau back in 2007. On its July 21 earnings call, Coke CEO Muhtar Kent was particularly bullish about Vitaminwater, which is now being sold in 15 markets worldwide, including France, China and South Africa.

But do some of these weekend warriors think they're just getting a healthy mix of vitamins and water, as the name of the product implies, when they chug that sweet drink? Probably so. But they're getting more: 33 grams of sugar and 125 calories, for every 20-ounce bottle. Hey, where's the sugar in the name?

Such mixed-message marketing has caused one food-health advocacy group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), to lead a class-action suit that claims that Coca-Cola is violating consumer-protection laws with its Vitaminwater brand. According to CSPI nutritionists, Vitaminwater's sugar content more than offsets any advertised health benefits provided by the nutrients in the drink. "They added vitamins to crap," says Stephen Gardner, chief litigator for CSPI. "And it's still crap. Consumers shouldn't have to assume that the front of a label is a lie. You cannot deceive in the big print and tell the truth later."

The group achieved a victory last week, when a federal judge tossed out Coke's motion to dismiss the case. In a strongly worded 55-page opinion, Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn said that the health claims on some Vitaminwater bottles may be in violation of FDA regulations since the drink "achieves its nutritional content solely through fortification that violates FDA policy." The judge thinks Coke could be violating the so-called jellybean rule, which says that a food- or drinkmaker cannot load otherwise unhealthy products with vitamins or other nutrients in order to claim it is healthy. A sugar product is a sugar product: you can't say a jellybean fights heart disease because it contains no cholesterol.

Gleeson also ruled that the claim that the Vitaminwater name misleads consumers is potentially actionable, since that key third ingredient, sugar, is conveniently absent from the title. "The potential for confusion is heightened," Gleeson wrote, "by the presence of other statements in Vitaminwater's labeling, such as the description of the product as a 'vitamin enhanced water beverage' and the phrases 'vitamins + water + all you need' and 'vitamins + water = what's in your hand' which have the potential to reinforce a consumer's mistaken belief that the product is comprised of only vitamins and water." 

Coke responded to the judge's ruling in a statement. "Vitaminwater is a great tasting, hydrating beverage with essential vitamins and water — and labels clearly showing ingredients and calorie content," the company said. "The court's opinion was not a decision on the merits, but simply a determination that the case can proceed beyond the initial pleadings stage. We believe plaintiff's claims are without merit and will ultimately be rejected."

If the case goes to a full trial, the judge will ultimately decide whether the Vitaminwater name is legal. But is it ethical? "The inference is that the water contains vitamins," says Terry Childers, a marketing professor at Iowa State. "Vitamins are generally considered healthy so in the semantic network of connections in our brains, it would be natural for the buyer to associate Vitaminwater with healthy. Given the associations and that it contains that much sugar, I think it is misleading to portray it as a healthy drink." 

Marketers, however, get paid to move bottles off the shelf. And this brand managed to merge two words, vitamin and water, which epitomize good health. "From a marketing standpoint, it's brilliant," says Matt Goulding, an editor at Men's Health magazine and co-author of the Eat This, Not That! diet books. "From a corporate-responsibility standpoint, it's not exactly straight shooting."

But isn't the onus on the consumer, who can read about Vitaminwater's sugar supply in the small print, to pick up the bottle and examine what they're gulping? Yes, most people are too busy — or lazy — to read every food label. But should Vitaminwater be liable for that fact of life?

Coke is sure to make this argument as the case progresses. Still, all those exercise fiends might want to get their vitamins the old-fashioned way: a pill and a glass of water. After all, it's sugar-free.

Each day, the physical capabilities that technology gives us is incredible, and we're not just talking about texting friends at lightening pace, or the ability to see our energy consumption in real time. We're talking about the abilities given to us by new tech in the health industry, either to supplement or restore disabilities experienced by people across the globe.

Technology is giving us wonderful options for those of us with physical limitations. From the blind to the deaf, from amputees to burn victims, gadgets are creating a whole new realm of abilities.

Here are eight extraordinary technologies that hold promise for an easier life.

 
1. The Eyewriter
The Eyewriter is an outstanding invention for people unable to use their limbs. It is a set of glasses that can detect where a person's eyes are looking, allow them to literally draw with their eyes. Created for people diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the designers' goal for the Eyewriter project is to develop the most simple and inexpensive eye-tracking headset possible and open source the software so that ALS patients around the world can create art and images on their own.

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

2. The Luke Arm
Named as a Star Wars head nod to Luke Skywalker, the Luke arm is one of the most advanced prosthetic arms ever created. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, awarded $18 million in funding to Dean Kamen in 2005 to bring prosthetics into the 21st century, and boy did he. The Luke Arm is the first bionic upper limb to provide 18 degrees of freedom, a step up from its ancestors that only offer 3 degrees of freedom. It can be controlled by wiring the device to muscles or nerves, or with a foot pedal. It even has a tactile feedback sensor in the hand allowing the wearer to sense what kind of pressure they're putting into their grip. Here is a video of Kamen showing off the arm earlier this year.

Kamen is an impressive inventor, coming up with several inventions intended to improve people's lives, from this Luke Arm to a water purifier that runs off of cow dung for people in developing nations. Check out more about Dean Kamen on Planet Green.

3. A Dozen Different Legs
For amputees who have lost their legs, simply finding a prosthetic leg that allows them to move comfortably and freely can be a challenge. But what if you want to run in a marathon, or have legs that look natural for a formal event? Athlete, fashion model and activist Aimee Mullins has helped bring the possibilities for amputees to new heights. She shows how prosthetic leg design can transform the body into everything from a work of art to a super athlete, or simply help a person easily blend in to a social scene. Here is Aimee during a TED talk on the possibilities held within designing high tech prosthesis.

4. Solar Powered Hearing Aids
Hearing aids are helpful for the hard of hearing but they're very expensive, especially when it comes to the batteries. For people with little money to spare or limited access to replacement batteries, hearing aids are impractical. That's why Howard Weinstein created the Solar Ear, a $100 hearing aid with a solar powered battery that lasts as long as three years. Weinstein is hoping to chip away at the gap between the 600 million people who have hearing loss and the mere 8 million people who can afford a hearing aid.

On top of providing the gift of sound to those who might otherwise go without assistance, the Solar Ear project extends help far into the deaf community through employment opportunities. All of the employees working on Solar Ear devices are deaf.

The project is currently in Brazil, Botswana, West Bank Palestine, and will expand to Mexico, China, India, Canada during 2010.

5. Regrowing Stereocilia - The Hairs that Help You Hear
Stereocilia, or the tiny hairs inside our ears, are an integral part of the hearing system. But overexposure to noise - such as experienced in music concerts or blasting tunes from an iPod - can permanently damage them, degrading a person's hearing over time. Researchers at Stanford, however, have hit a breakthrough in growing hair-like cells that function just like those in our ears. This could mean solutions for damaged hearing.

The research is still about a decade away from offering a solution that can be used in humans, but the potential is there for helping to restore hearing to those with noise-induced hearing loss.

6. Liquid-Filled Eye Glasses
Sometimes low tech is far more effective than elaborate gadgets. Such is the case with Josh Silver's eyeglasses that adjust to the wearer's correct prescription simply with liquid. More or less liquid is added to the lens until the prescription is just right for the wearer. The inexpensive glasses address an important need of more than one billion people in developing nations worldwide who lack access to eyecare. Here is Josh Silver demonstrating how the glasses work and the impact they can have on people, from improving their productivity to their quality of life.

7. Printing New Skin Directly onto Wounds
Skin is an organ that protects our bodies from infection, and for burn victims, it's the loss of that protective barrier that is the biggest threat. Skin grafts - surgically moving healthy skin from one part of the body to the burned area - is one way of aiding recovery. But what if new skin could be created in an instant, sprayed on like a printer sprays ink onto a paper? Turns out, we can do that.

Researchers at Wake Forest University have created a device that can spray new skin cells onto burn victims, supplanting skin grafts as the standard treatment. The device can be wheeled directly over a patient in a hospital bed, where a laser takes a reading of the wound's shape and size, and the precise amount of skin cells is applied exactly where they're needed.

"We literally print the cells directly onto the wound," said student Kyle Binder, who helped design the device. "We can put specific cells where they need to go."

The device still needs to undergo testing by the FDA for approved use on humans, but it has proven to be effective on mice.

8. Wheel Chairs Powered by Fuel Cells and Solar Panels
Wheelchair technology has come a long way for getting people around. Ensuring they have a charge from a sustainable source of energy is part of that improvement. Over the last few years, we've seen Fuel Cell (Hydrogen-Powered) Wheelchairs and Solar Powered Wheelchairs pop up as more environmentally friendly ways of charging up the chairs. While they're not the most streamlined of chairs, using off-grid charging is a big plus and we're certain that in the next few years, we'll see even more innovative and less bulky ways of incorporating alternative energy into mobility.

Two common forms of cancer have been genetically mapped for the first time, British scientists announced, in a major breakthrough in understanding the diseases.

The maps have exposed the DNA mutations that lead to skin and lung cancers, in a discovery scientists said could transform the way these diseases are diagnosed and treated in coming years.

All cancers are caused by damage to genes -- mutations in DNA -- that can be triggered by environmental factors such as tobacco smoke, harmful chemicals or ultraviolet radiation, and causes cells to grow out of control.

Scientists from Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their collaborators have mapped this genetic damage from the tumours of two patients suffering from lung cancer and malignant melanoma, a deadly skin cancer.

"This is a fundamental moment in cancer research. From here on in we will think about cancers in a very different way," said Professor Mike Stratton who led the institute's cancer genome project.

"Today for the first time, in two individual cancers, a melanoma and a lung cancer, we have provided the complete list of abnormalities in DNA in each of those two cancers," he told the BBC.

"We now see uncovered all the forces that have generated that cancer and we now see all the genes that are responsible for driving those two cancers."

The scientists' research, published in the journal Nature, also gained deeper insights into the way the body tries to repair the damage caused by the cancers and stop the disease spreading.

Stratton said the research could in future change the way cancers are treated -- by using genetic maps to find the defects that caused them.

"Now that we have these comprehensive complete catalogues of mutations on individual cancers, we will be able to see how each cancer developed, what were the exposures, what were the environmental factors and that's going to be key for our understanding generally of how cancers develop," he said.

"And for our individual patients, we will see all the genes that are abnormal and are driving each cancer and that's really critical, because that will tell us which drugs are likely to have an effect on that particular cancer and which are not."

Peter Campbell, a cancer-genomics expert involved in the research, said the number of mutations discovered -- 33,345 for melanoma -- and 22,910 for lung cancer -- was remarkable.

"It is amazing what you can see in these genomes," he said on the website of the journal Nature.

The research shows most mutations could be traced to the effects of chemicals in tobacco smoke (in the lung tumour) or ultraviolet light (in the melanoma tumour), supporting the idea that they are largely preventable.

"Every pack of cigarettes is like a game of Russian roulette," he said.

"Most of those mutations will land where nothing happens in the genome and won't do major damage, but every once in a while they'll hit a cancer gene."