Melanoma cure! Cancer treatment! Expensive drugs! Flaxseed fail! Risky gays! Wrinkle bones! Smoking bans! Swiss prostitution! And ER hang-out shocker! It's your Monday Health Watch, where we watch your health—pusillanimously!
After all of the trash talking and "cucumber slurs" between Germany and Spain over where the deadly "mutant" E. coli outbreak originated, we may finally have the culprit: sprouts from a farm in Uelzen, Germany. Samples from the farm are being tested now. A German agriculture official told the BBC that "a connection has been found involving all the main outbreaks" and the farm in Uelzen. Uh, sorry Spanish cucumber farmers!
Does the thought of buying weed from a drug dealer scare you? Or maybe the thought of inhaling smoke is keeping you from getting so high? Fear not, because you can still get (fake) high on totally legal soda!
Unlike a chocolate chip cookie, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus does not taste better in milk. But a new strain of that superbug, aka MRSA, is exactly what British scientists have discovered in milk samples. This news comes on the same day that a "mutant" strain of E. coli was fingered as the source of a severe food poisoning epidemic currently gripping Europe.
This is just what the world needs now: A deadly, never before seen "mutant" strain of E. coli. That's exactly what the World Health Organization says is responsible for killing 17 people in Germany this week. Of the 1,500 people who are sick with the strain being attributed to cucumbers, 470 "have developed a rare kidney failure complication." A WHO food expert, Hilde Kruse, told MSNBC that this new strain shows "various characteristics that make it more virulent and toxin-producing" than regular old deadly E. coli. Oh, boy.
Gluten taste! Chronic fatigue! E. coli! Lady clots! Food symbols! Cilantro nastiness! Sun safety! And eluding mosquitoes with potions made of science! It's your Wednesday Health Watch, where we watch your health—hotly, of course!
Imagine going in for a rather routine dental surgery, and leaving with a foreign accent. That's what happened to Karen Butler after she was put under and had several teeth removed. "I just went to sleep and I woke up and my mouth was all sore and swollen, and I talked funny. And the dentist said, you'll talk normal when the swelling goes down," she told NPR. But she never went back to normal, and now has an accent that's "a combination of British, Irish and Eastern European."
Are you partial to smoking hookahs, whitey? If you're not a college student you're like, "Fuck am I, a college student?" If you're a college student you're like "Totally, check mine out." Either way, you probably have cancer and herpes.
Some Canadian researchers say the drug metyrapone (pronounced "met-yr-a-pone") can stop your brain from recalling the sadness and other "negative" emotions associated with difficult memories—for example, the death of poor little Fluffy, the sweet kitten who never stood a chance.
Fish labeling! Dog drinking! Disease eradicating! Anorexia theorizing! Contaminated fishing! Radiation sexing! Distant-object spotting! Caffeine surviving! And whatever new thing they say about heart disease today! It's your Friday Science Watch, where we watch science—indiscriminately!
The 2010 U.S. census figures have been released. The big picture, basically, is that men are living longer, marriage is downtrending, and the baby boom population is entering their twilight years.
Samurai workout! Kids sleeping! Plastic man-surgery! Lap teen-bands! Abortion fluctuations! Smallpox preservation! New aspirin! Disabled children! And the best sunscreens, revealed! It's your Tuesday Health Watch, where we watch your health—dangerously!
Here's an advisory for prospective summer visitors to California: The state must release around 32,000 prisoners under a new Supreme Court decision to help mentally ill inmates. It is one of the largest prisoner releases in U.S. history. Exciting.
There are already many good reasons to drink alcohol, but we won't begrudge science for coming up with another: Seniors over 75 who have about a drink a day are significantly less likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer's disease.
Ten-year-old Dugan Smith was diagnosed with a rare kind of cancer in his thigh bone, leaving him with a softball-sized tumor. Usually, similar patients have their legs partially amputated and are given cadaver or prosthetic thigh bones. But Dugan wanted to keep playing baseball.
