health

Has Super Broccoli Fallen Into the Wrong Hands?

Hamilton Nolan · 10/26/11 04:38PM

HPV boys! Chest X-rays! Aging secrets! Bat disease! Old pacemakers! Filthy surface! Coffee protection! Super broccoli! And gurl U no U better keep taking that birth control! It's your Wednesday Health Watch, where we watch your health—in technicolor!

Strawberries Will Protect Your Stomach from Alcohol

Max Read · 10/25/11 11:05PM

For once in its life, science has done something actually useful, and taught us all a valuable lesson: strawberries can help protect your stomach (an essential organ) from alcohol (an essential coping mechanism).

Yoga and Vitamins: Worthless

Hamilton Nolan · 10/25/11 11:53AM

I've got news for you: everything you're doing to keep yourself healthy is worthless. Well, by "you" I mean "people who do yoga and take vitamins and generally try to be healthy." I know you just sit around on the internet all day. The point is: it doesn't matter, because you're wasting your time either way.

That Whole Supernova Thing Was a Big Misunderstanding

Hamilton Nolan · 10/24/11 04:05PM

Chambered nautilus! Flying satellite! Supernova mystery! Cycad fossils! Ancient art! Geoengineering recognition! Black scientists! Mastodon extinction! And crazy birds think they can fly around with nail heads? That's crazy! It's your Monday Science Watch, where we watch science—explosively!

Docs Locate the Female Sense of Humor

Hamilton Nolan · 10/21/11 04:34PM

Gel vagina! Too salty! Letrozole victory! Salad sal-monella! Teen IQs! Proton babies! Skeptical docs! Malaria vaccine! And women laugh like this, while guys laugh like this! Right, fellas? It's your Friday Health Watch, where we watch your health—masculariously!

Cell Phones Don't Cause Cancer, If You Trust the Danish

Seth Abramovitch · 10/20/11 10:17PM

Great news, people who don't want brain cancer! A Danish study of 350,000 people over 18 years has found no link between that disease and cellphone usage. This contradicts the WHO's findings, who ruled they might cause cancer. [BBC]

Grocery Store Produce Sections: Now Just For Looks

Hamilton Nolan · 10/20/11 12:08PM

Think of "fruits" and "vegetables" like parsley. Parsley is a vegetable. And here in America, we use fruit and vegetables the same way that we use parsley: as window dressing, as a little green thing that makes the real food (Cheez) look better.

TV Has Probably Already Ruined Your Kids

Hamilton Nolan · 10/19/11 04:59PM

Is your child younger than two years old? Has your child ever caught a glimpse of your household television set in the "on" mode? Congratulations: you're raising a loser.

Never Have Kids, If You Value Your Health

Hamilton Nolan · 10/17/11 04:30PM

Candy medicine! Preemie autism! Medical marijuana! Shy teens! Sick Americans! Aggressive kids! Down's fetus! Coyote cloning! And kids these days can't seem to do a god damn thing healthily! It's your Monday Health Watch, where we watch your health—nurturingly!

Young Woman Ages 50 Years in a Matter of Days

Matt Cherette · 10/14/11 01:06AM

Doctors are baffled at the case of Nguyen Thi Phuong, a 26-year-old Vietnamese woman who says that an allergic reaction caused her skin to sag and wrinkle, effectively aging her 50 years in just a few days.

Here's What Happens When You Try to Get Out of Patti Stanger's Diet Scam

Seth Abramovitch · 10/13/11 09:37PM

Romance-defiling reality hag Patti Stanger has been shilling hard for Sensa — "the weight-loss system" you "sprinkle on your food" (active ingredient: 100% horseshit) — on commercials that run during her Bravo reality show, Millionaire Matchmaker. Well, a reader who gave Sensa a shot wrote in to share her experiences with the miracle product, and we thought we would in turn share them with you.

Harvard Cancer Expert: Steve Jobs Probably Doomed Himself With Alternative Medicine

Ryan Tate · 10/13/11 03:26PM

Steve Jobs had a mild form of cancer that is not usually fatal, but seems to have ushered along his own death by delaying conventional treatment in favor of alternative remedies, a Harvard Medical School researcher and faculty member says. Jobs's intractability, so often his greatest asset, may have been his undoing.

Whoops: Everything Healthy Will Kill You

Hamilton Nolan · 10/11/11 04:48PM

Fat running! Bad vitamins! Low tuberculosis! Peanut allergies! Woman chocolate! Restless legs! Baby talk! Cereal sugar! And your child's selfishness is all too astounding! It's your Tuesday Health Watch, where we watch your health—fruitlessly!

Gonorrhea Possibly Becoming 'Untreatable'

Max Read · 10/10/11 06:44PM

In case you were thinking about heading to Britain and having a ton of unprotected sex—don't! Because the United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency believes that its septic little archipelago is "heading to a point when [gonorrhea] is incurable unless new treatments can be found."

They Found the Sea Monster's Lair!

Hamilton Nolan · 10/10/11 04:25PM

Science stars! Kraken lair! Saturn rings! Persistent chemist! Envious mind! Foreign insects! Baltimore telescope! Ancient language! And a serious geological epochal debate! It's your Monday Science Watch, where we watch science—perilously!

Real Talk: Dead People Don't Need Surgery

Hamilton Nolan · 10/07/11 04:09PM

Cholesterol diabeetus! Docto procto! Death surgery! Concussion athletes! Cantaloupe killers! Cell harvest! Cialis excuses! Man breasts! And you monkeys won't get away with this, after all! It's your Friday Health Watch, where we watch your health—on the real!

You Cannot Stop Junk Food From Eating Your Children

Hamilton Nolan · 10/07/11 12:16PM

You may think that you're one of those "good" parents. You read to your kids at night, and you don't let them play with guns, and you stripped most of the lead paint out of the playroom. Well, according to the latest scientific study, it's safe to give up. Your kids will inevitably die of McChicken-related diabetes sooner or later, no matter what you do.

Scientists Want to Blow Your High Forever

Hamilton Nolan · 10/04/11 04:11PM

Addiction vaccine! HIV contraceptive! Lazy walkers! Alien snails! Autism therapy! Pregnancy diet! Drunk driving! Sun vitamins! And Alzheimer's is already creeping into you, right now! It's your Tuesday Health Watch, where we watch your health—strenuously!

Denmark's Fatty Foods Tax is in Effect

Seth Abramovitch · 10/04/11 01:48AM

As of Saturday, the Danish government is charging a surtax of 16 kroners per kilogram ($6.27 per pound) of saturated fat in high-cholesterol grocery items. That's almost a whole kroner per danish! The goal's to curb heart disease, not obesity.

Nothing Can Stop the Nasty Beetle Invasion

Hamilton Nolan · 09/29/11 04:40PM

Beetle colors! Beetle invasion! Clam fish! Beetle fighting! Beetle resignation! Beetle fear! Beetle immigration! Penguin smell! And beetle beetle beetles all up in your house! It's your Thursday Science Watch, where we watch science—creepily!