It will only make things worse. And they’re likely to get mad at you in the process. I’ll bet all you non-worriers have done it to the worriers in your life: told them the equivalent of “Just stop it. It … Continue reading →
Taken for a 1952 photo essay in Life, this picture was one of a series that never got published in the original article:
Continue reading →First we had the hazards of smoking itself. They are real and well-documented, but affect only the smoker, who can sometimes be persuaded to quit after learning about the dangers but sometimes chooses to continue the habit. Then there were … Continue reading →
It turns out that the amount of radiation exposure from the Fukushima reactor accident and any resultant projected increase in cancer cases has been minimal. But people in the comments section at the article refuse to believe this, so strong … Continue reading →
Not so fast, kids, not so fast: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology sent an e-mail to prospective students, erroneously telling them in a line at the bottom that they had been admitted… The mix-up happened when MIT combined two separate … Continue reading →
Here’s an article in the NY Times about a new mammogram study that’s gotten a lot of attention. And here’s the study itself. Compare and contrast. The first sentence of the Times article: One of the largest and most meticulous … Continue reading →
If you’ve been reading this blog a long, long time you may remember that I hate juice. All juice. As I wrote in 2009: To make matters worse, I don’t like fruit juice. Even orange juice. Or maybe especially orange … Continue reading →
…to its lowest point since 1973. That seems like unequivocally good news. The study didn’t examine why it happened, however. Theories: better long-term contraception methods, hard economic times, tighter laws restricting access to abortion in some situations, and greater awareness … Continue reading →
Well, don’t bother: you’ll probably gain weight instead. Another myth shattered. And boy, what some people won’t do for science.
Continue reading →According to a study of the Medicaid expansion in Oregon—which offers particularly fertile ground for research because new Medicaid participants were selected randomly from among those eligible—giving people Medicaid increases ER use, rather than decreasing it as Obama and the … Continue reading →
…this is the rule in California about illegal immigrants and Medicaid (known as “Medi-Cal” in that state): For Medi-Cal, immigration status only affects the scope of service. The services that Medi-Cal provides to undocumented immigrants include, but are not limited … Continue reading →
How would we know if we see exactly the same way other people do? After all, we can’t step momentarily into someone else’s brain. One of those visual differences among people appears to be the existence of something called “visual … Continue reading →