Just when you thought it was safe to venture out into the once poop-infested waters around New York, the city's Health Department yesterday closed four beaches — three on Staten Island and one in Brooklyn — "based on review of both water flow through the harbor and evaluation of actual water samples taken in the harbor and at the shoreline." In other words, if you've been swimming anywhere between the Verrazano and George Washington bridges, well, you get the picture.

Fertile China! Psychic dogs! Killer papaya! ADHD safety! Internet addiction! Breastfeeding asthma! Shrinking brains! Love psychology! And uncalled-for lizard posing! It's your Monday Health Watch, where we watch your health—out of sheer desperation!

Here's a news item to take some of the fun out of your summer: The British Red Cross claims that peeing on your friends' jellyfish stings is just an old wive's tale and doesn't actually work. They suggest vinegar or sea water instead. The BRC's first aid director, Joe Mulligan told the Telegraph:

San Francisco supervisors voted 10-1 to require mobile phone dealers to warn customers about radiation from wireless handsets. Can't wait to see where they put that sign in the Apple store.

Fish lead! Sperm coats! Bald hair! Tall cancer! Dissolving tobacco! Tortoise leg! Calorie counts! Lung damage! And the fatalistic approach to our own mortality! It's your Thursday Health Watch, where we watch your heath—soberly!

Birth control isn't free, my friends. I mean condoms cost a few bucks and then some of the fancier technologies that girls get cost—Christ, I don't know, but it has to run into the hundreds. So you can't expect the health insurance industry to bankrupt itself just to subsidize every lout's ability to fuck conveniently! Or can you?

America's favorite presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann, is the subject of what appears to be a hit piece today! Various former aides tell the Daily Caller that she suffers from "stress-induced medical episodes" that we on Planet Earth know as "migraines." But not just any migraines! Destructive, hospitalizing migraines that occur about once a week and can leave her "incapacitated" for days at a time. Ouch! Sounds miserable. But should it matter, for our electoral purposes?

Congratulations to Justin Werner, a 21-year-old from Topeka, whose recent tonsillectomy produced a rare and wonderful thing indeed: a pair of the world's largest tonsils, as verified by Guinness.

The Online Dermatology Journal has a fascinating paper concerning "Pseudomamma on the foot," which is to say "An unusual presentation of supernumerary breast tissue," which is to say: This woman grew a goddamn nipple on the bottom of her foot. There it is! You can see it for yourself! A foot-nipple!

Football brain! Marijuana narcs! Mosquito booze! Grandparents driving! Children sleeping! Teens drinking! Pediatricians lecturing! Big forks! And killer homemade drinks that kill! It's your Monday Health Watch, where we watch your health—no-nonsensically!

Nice baboons! Dead trees! Spiral galaxies! Ipad apps! Macaque alarms! Time machines! Rainbow toads! Eyeball pictures! And the latest news about the fishes and their watery friends! It's your Friday Science Watch, where we watch science—faster than you thought!

Are you one of millions of Americans who looks down with pride at the powerful stream of colorless, translucent fluid flowing out of your body every time your empty your bladder? Who takes great personal satisfaction in knowing you've downed enough bottled water in a single day to satisfy the hydration needs of your average circus elephant? Well, a new study suggests you might be wasting your time.

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association proposes taking obese children away from their parents until their weight can be brought under control.

Two new studies prove that if HIV-negative people take anti-HIV medication they're substantially less likely to contract the virus that causes AIDS. Don't get too excited, gays: It's only proven for heteros.

Neptune day! Lyme disease! Solar dearth! Towel robots! Leg transplants! Runaway elephants! Owl vision! Ocean heat! And the utter failure of the US space program continues! It's your Tuesday Science Watch, where we watch science—extra-terrifically!

Here's some bad news for the summer: From the CDC's latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which by name alone sounds absolutely horrifying, we learn that a new strain of the clap is resistant to cephalosporins — the antibiotics commonly used in treatment.

The next time you feel like paying hundreds of dollars to swim with a bunch of hungover orange dudes on the roof of the Hotel Gansevoort, you might want to consider the implications. The Post ran some tests on six swimming pools across New York, and the Gansevoort came in last:

A new public health report places Mississippi yet again at the top of the lard heap, with a 34% adult obesity rate. That's a lotta fat people! The lowest obesity rate in the country? Colorado's 19%.

The only thing standing between impoverished rural Indians and total physical collapse is the good will of international sugar-water conglomerate PepsiCo, which soon hopes to be making $30 billion a year by selling "good for you" products to people so desperate that they will turn to PepsiCo to find something good for them. "Good," in this context, means "not Pepsi cola." Please allow the WSJ to present tonight's specials at the Rural Indian PepsiCo Cafe:

When you hear the names "Chechnya" and "Grozny" you might be reminded of images of death and destruction from the former Soviet republic's brutal wars with Moscow. Fair enough! But it's totally nice now, and is run by a Moscow-backed murderous warlord, Ramzan Kadyrov, who has an untold amount of innocent blood on his hands and likes to play soccer. In fact, Chechnya is so nice that a 9-year-old girl from Siberia who suffered from narcolepsy was sent there for six months and now she's cured. So, what's the secret? According to a statement on Chechnya's official website: