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Omega-3 supplements based on fish oils may have cardiovascular benefits for some people. But how do you know if you are one of them?

These four pieces sketch a portrait of modern knowledge: abundant, persuasive, and riddled with blind spots. Kale’s “superfood” halo dims when we look closely at what the body actually absorbs, and food’s “dark matter” reminds us that nutritional science is still mapping vast unknowns molecule by molecule. That same uncertainty echoes in Tyler Cowen’s warning to trust literatures over single studies, especially when storytelling blurs the line between insight and embellishment. The promise of Medical AI becomes another version of the same question: can we use better tools to make decisions more accurate and timely without sacrificing the most human parts of care?

After nearly three decades of scientific review, regulatory reversals, and political hesitation, perchlorate is back on the EPA’s agenda—this time by court order. The Agency’s proposed national drinking water standard reflects less a newfound public-health urgency than a legal obligation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Yet this long-delayed regulation may finally force meaningful action where it matters most: the cleanup of contaminated military sites and surrounding communities.

Surgeons are supposed to have the steadiest hands in the hospital, But is that hard-earned skill, or just professional mythology reinforced by loud confidence? A delightfully tongue-in-cheek study found that while surgeons were fastest and most successful, they were also the most profane.

GLP-1s are basically appetite’s off-switch: suddenly you’re “full” after three bites. Congrats on the smaller meals and better numbers—just don’t act surprised when your nutrient intake also quietly declines. Weight loss is great; losing the nutritional plot along the way not so much.

Had a chance to navigate the cough and cold aisle of your pharmacy? Good luck getting what you're looking for. And even if you do, it may very well not work.

Imagine a world where your pill could actually tell your doctor: “Yes, I’ve been taken.”
That’s no longer science fiction. MIT engineers have created a revolutionary smart pill that reports from inside your stomach the moment it’s swallowed.

A new social-science paper delivers a surprisingly unsettling result: give dozens of expert teams the same data and the same question, and you get a wide range of answers. Even more striking, those results don’t scatter randomly—they tend to drift in the direction of the researchers’ own views.

In a world where nutrition headlines swing wildly from fear to hype, even cheese can suddenly become a “brain-boosting” superfood. A recent Swedish study sparked excitement by suggesting that high-fat cheese might lower dementia risk—but the real story is far more complicated.

As our tools get faster and smarter, what happens to the slower, human ways of knowing, reading closely, listening deeply, and caring attentively? Whether it’s the shift from a culture of books toward more fluid, AI-shaped communication, the way war supercharges innovation, or medicine’s growing dependence on screens, scribes, and algorithms, the pattern is familiar: “productivity” rises while human-centric nuance is endangered. Together, these readings probe the price of progress, who pays it when context, empathy, and reflection get compressed into data.

National Pie Day is here, which is strange because pie needs no holiday—it’s already the undisputed champion of foods. Still, if society insists, we might as well use the occasion to study pie’s rich history, questionable physics, and weaponization.

Music tastes vary wildly: one person melts into Mahler, another lives for Sinatra, and someone else wants Snoop on repeat. But while most of us chalk this up to preference, neuroscience suggests something deeper may be happening. For some people, music simply doesn’t deliver pleasure the way it does for everyone else.

While much effort has focused on avoiding anthrax, history has also seen attempts to explore using the bacterial spores to inflict harm.

The Kilauea volcano, in Hawaii, has been acting up lately, and all kinds of nasty stuff is pouring out of it. But perhaps the chemical of most concern – sulfuric acid – doesn't come from the volcano itself. It results from the expulsion of huge amounts of sulfur dioxide gas, the chemical precursor of sulfuric acid. Let's take a look at some hideous chemistry.

Recently at a White House event where President Trump signed an executive order instructing the DEA to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III drug, CMS Director Mehmet Oz announced plans to have Medicare pay for specific formulations of CBD. He may be motivated by good intentions, but the plan is at odds with Congress, which recently effectively banned CBD. It might also harm the millions of non-seniors who benefit from CBD by making it less affordable and harder to obtain.

Non-sugar sweeteners are neither miracle cures for obesity nor hidden health threats. Recent evidence shows they can modestly support weight loss, help reduce sugar intake and fit safely into a balanced diet. The "uncomfortable truth" is clear: these sweeteners are context-dependent tools, not standalone solutions. Over-relying on them or ignoring overall eating patterns won't deliver big results. Let's take a closer look.

It‘s tragic when a parent or guardian is falsely blamed for a child’s injuries. While any miscarriage of justice is disconcerting, erroneous convictions in child abuse cases can be catastrophic. Not only does it traumatize the accused, but it results in separating the child from his or her parent. The consequences of this legal mishap have been portrayed in fiction and TV (e.g., A Little Life). But it has also occurred in real life, notably in the Maya Kowalski case.

Radiation therapy is often described in clinical terms, but rarely through the eyes of the person lying on the treatment table. After decades of working with medical radiation professionally, I found myself on the receiving end of the beam. This is what radiation therapy looks and feels like.

Following Congress’s repeal of the FDA’s long-standing animal testing requirement, the Environmental Protection Agency is now taking major steps toward adopting faster, cheaper, and more human-relevant alternatives. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s recent commitment signals a significant shift toward modernized, animal-free regulatory science driven by organoids, human-cell platforms, and predictive AI.

Based on years of walking alongside my patients through uncertainty, risk, and irreversible choices, I believe I understand what shared decision-making actually requires. At stake, in my opinion, is whether medicine treats people as true moral agents, or quietly hands them a burden they were never equipped to carry.

Despite years of scientific consensus debunking the "Blood Type Diet," the D’Adamo family has successfully transformed a biological myth into a commercial empire. By leveraging pseudoscientific claims about blood antigens and lectins, they have created a self-sustaining cycle of books and supplements that prioritize marketing over medicine.

Aspirin shortages in the UK have left some patients wondering what to do if they can’t find it at the pharmacy. If someone turns to an old bottle in the medicine cabinet and notices a faint vinegar smell, it’s easy to assume the aspirin has gone bad and should be thrown away. In reality, that smell is far less alarming than it seems.

For decades, body mass index (BMI) has been the dominant tool for defining obesity, despite longstanding concerns that it poorly reflects individual health risk. Growing evidence suggests that the waist-to-height ratio, a simple measure of abdominal fat distribution, outperforms BMI in predicting cardiometabolic disease and mortality. Now, with large-scale data confirming its advantages and the US military adopting it as a new fitness standard, this long-overlooked metric may finally be moving into the mainstream.

Most of the fat we carry is white adipose tissue, the body’s primary energy-storage system, designed to stockpile excess calories for later use. In contrast, brown adipose tissue burns energy to generate heat, especially during cold exposure. Cryotherapy enthusiasts claim that extreme cold can activate brown fat and rapidly torch calories, but the science behind these dramatic weight-loss promises is less convincing than the marketing.

Twelve years ago, ACSH produced a video based on our publication titled: The Effects of Nicotine on Human Health. In a recent interview, ACSH's Director of Bio-Sciences, Cameron English, and Video Producer Ana-Marija Dolaskie revisited the topic to discuss how much, if anything, has changed on vaping and its safety, and whether or not the video's core message remains true today, more than a decade later.