Who doesn’t love hijinks? Last week, science journalist John Bohannon brought the hijinks. He wrote on io9.com about how he joined a sting operation designed to reveal the lightning-quick path from bad science – about fad diets – to big headlines. Here’s the short version. They ran a short clinical trial on 16 volunteers, collected some data, […]
Health/Medicine
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about an old friend of mine named William of Occam. You know the guy I’m talking about, right? Skinny little kid in the monk’s robe who doesn’t say much. Sure you do. Some guys call him “Sharp Willy” or “Billy the Knife.” I’m not sure why, I assume it […]
It’s a beautiful spring day here in the Canadian Rockies, and inside my head I’m a slightly less perky Julie Andrews running through the fields singing The hilllls are alive, with the soouund of muusiiiiiic. I’m feeling much more upbeat than I was a couple of months ago. Sixteen hours of daylight stretch gloriously before […]
I’m not the kind of girl who ordinarily irons her underwear. But two weeks ago I found myself hunched over a flimsy wooden board doing just that. I was visiting friends in Mozambique, and they assured me that everything must be ironed—shirts, pants, sheets, towels, and, yes, even underwear. It’s not about aesthetics. You need the […]
In the weeks after I bought a Fitbit, I noticed I was acting bizarre. I started carrying bags with my left arm so my right arm – the one with the Fitbit – could swing freely to ensure the Fitbit’s accelerometer would count my every step. In the evening, I would pace around my apartment […]
This was originally published 8/23/2011. More should have changed by now. This is a sort of permanent redux.Today is my birthday, a good time to reflect. And one of the things I have found myself brooding over lately is my love of Baltimore. As fans of The Wire know, the city has more than its […]
On September 27, 1937, Susie Mae DeLoach caught her leg on a strip of barbed wire. The wound festered, and the infection spread, eventually reaching her heart. None of the remedies DeLoach’s doctor recommended seemed to have any effect. And by the time her family called Dr. Johnston Peeples for a second opinion, she was gravely […]
When you’re carrying a child, you make certain sacrifices. I knew I’d have to give up Tanqueray and the occasional guilty cigarette. I was even prepared to forgo sushi. But I soon learned that the list was far longer than I imagined. No hot tubs, the experts advised. No queso fresco. No Advil. No deli meat. […]