Acupuncture kids! Stem cells! Text bullies! Boundary effect! Pig drugs! Tainted jerky! Elderly pain! Light brains! And the super Greek diet that will save us all! It's your Monday Health Watch, where we watch your health—pointedly!

  • Big surprise: new so-called "research" by someone probably in the tank for Big Acupuncture says, you guessed it, acupuncture is totally safe—for kids. "Please, just take the needle away from my kid, I'll write whatever you want," pleaded the researcher, as Big Acupuncture cackled incessantly.
  • Geron Corp. is abandoning its stem cell business. "I'm abandoning this," said Geron Corp, gesturing towards its stem cell business.
  • "Text-message bullying becoming more common." This story was listed in the "health" section. Bullshit. You know what I'm saying?
  • Have you ever walked into a new room only to find that you've forgotten what you went in there for? You're a victim of "The Boundary Effect," which is a polite way for researchers to describe you as being dumb.
  • A line cook at a Big Boy in Ohio was arrested for spiking the restaurant's coffee with three vials of pig drugs. I wonder what that would do to your health? Potentially help it, if you were a pig with a certain condition.
  • Has your dog gotten sick lately? Has your dog eaten chicken jerky products from China lately?? Well, put it all together, man! The chicken jerky products from China could have made your dog sick! Or maybe it was the rat poison I lovingly fed your dog, tablet by tablet, telling him "good boy" all the while. Grrr, China!
  • Explain this one to me, Hippocrates: old people who go to the ER complaining of pain are less likely to get pain meds than younger people who go in with the same complaints. Do doctors just hate the elderly? They have to see them all the time, so probably, yes.
  • Shining light on a depressed person's brain can literally make them happier, in the same way that "letting my light shine" with one of my trademark infectious and endearing smiles tends to put everyone around me in a better mood, particularly the ladies. Ladies? Tell them.
  • If you want to live longer, just try the Greek diet: the blood of Persians.

[Photo: Alanna Ralph/Flickr]