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When it comes to assaults, firearms get much attention, although there are many other means of mayhem. That includes knives in stabbings and using blunt objects, including fists; guns are just the most efficient at causing injury and death. A new study looks at the healthcare costs for assaults. Why should you care? Because in the world of city budgets, we should at least consider these expenses when we redefine where policing policies are directed. 

1988 Seoul, South Korea. Olympic diver Greg Louganis attempts a reverse two-and-a-half pike and hears a “big hollow thud…” his head hitting the springboard. [1] A few stitches and he returns to ultimately claim the Gold Medal. Not all of us are that lucky. Can physics help us understand the risks?

Based on data gathered by the CDC, in 2020, the rate of suicide in the US population was 13 per 100,000, far more frequent in men (21 per 100,000) than in women (5.4 per 100,000). Firearms were the most common means, again higher amongst men than women. For fifty years, identifying the individuals at risk for suicide has been no better than a coin flip. A new study looks at whether there are markers that can improve the ability to identify the group of individuals using guns to take their life.

Sugar-sweetened beverages, SSBs, contain added sugar, or in some cases, noncaloric sweeteners, and are nonalcoholic. As global waistlines have increased, so have taxes on these “bad boy” products – now implemented in “45 countries, including numerous subnational local jurisdictions.” A systematic review considers the impact of these taxes on raising revenue and improving health.

For those of us working, or in my case, having worked in the medical community Don Berwick is a well-known gentleman. He is the former administrator of the Center for Medicare Services, President Emeritus of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and the author of healthcare’s triple aim – expanding care, improving quality, and lowering cost. He has a new message today, the Ten Teams.

McKinsey & Company, those highly paid consultants to entrepreneurs, corporations, and governments, make some general suggestions about “greening” our grocery stores. Let’s take a look at what they are suggesting.

Tracking cookies – those bite-size snippets of code that log your internet behavior – come in as many forms as recipes for chocolate chip cookies. They are ubiquitous on all commercial websites, but as it turns out they can often be found on governmental websites. How did that come to be? Part of Big Brother’s surveillance or could it be a quiet “smash and grab” by social media companies?

We spend quite a bit on body-affirming surgery in the US. According to the Aesthetic Society, in 2021, we spent $14.6 billion on procedural care, including liposuction and breast augmentation, to mention the top two. That doesn’t include the nips, tucks, revisions, or injectables to fill or paralyze. One form of body-affirming surgery remains quite controversial, genital gender affirming surgery – a new study follows up on our earlier reporting.

The FDA has tried to fight opioid addiction by asking patients to mail their excess prescription pain meds to the agency for disposal. It's an absurd proposal. There's lots of anti-pesticide 'facts' floating around the internet; let's debunk the most popular of these claims.

Politics vs. public health. California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have authorized safe consumption sites to help prevent drug overdoses, an example of harm reduction. Dr. Jeffrey Singer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and member of the ACSH Scientific Advisory Board strenuously disagrees.

The global population is becoming increasingly sedentary, an inevitable result of labor-saving technologies. Some might argue that our couch-potato ways go against our evolutionary design; we were hunters and gatherers, and that rarely allowed time for sitting around. A new study considers whether sitting is the great Satan of a healthy life.

If you find yourself wondering why the science press is afforded so little respect these days, maybe overhyped claims are contributing. Last week, various lay publications and press releases reported that posture significantly affects how fast the body absorbs medicine. The results were based on a new model to simulate drug dissolution in the human stomach. Sounds important and impressive, no? No. Read on.

Certainty and extremism
Will we ever know the origin of COVID-19?
What can the Talmud teach us about Twitter and Facebook?
And now, a moment with Hans Rosling.

A paper in the journal Science describes a new method for breaking down forever chemicals (PFAS), which, as their name implies are not so easy to destroy. Can this method be used to remove traces of these chemicals from our water? Or for anything else?

In 1974 I called a nuclear engineer to interview him for a term paper on nuclear fusion power. We talked about all the advantages of fusion power, its prospects for the future, the impact on civilization, and so forth…and at the end of the interview, I asked him when he expected to see commercial fusion power. “I think it will be about 20 or 25 years from now that we see the first fusion reactor come online.” And that’s been the standard joke about fusion power since before I wrote my paper – that it’s about 25 years in the future…and always will be. But maybe that’s changing.

One measure of the safety and quality of nursing home care is the presence of a pressure ulcer on its residents. CMS reports these numbers to the public as a star-ranking on Nursing Home Compares and penalizes nursing homes with more observed pressure ulcers than anticipated. The system relies on the self-reporting of pressure ulcers to CMS. A new study finds that nursing homes “substantially underreport” these events.

Of all the world's problems, arguably the most pressing is "which Tootsie Pop flavor is the most natural?" Another would be "why is Dr. Oz's head in that picture?" A lesson on artificial flavors and people.

With the announcement by Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control, that “The CDC has to change,” the season for bureaucratic changes in response to its failing pandemic responses is fully underway. But to misquote William Shakespeare, I have come to neither bury nor praise their work. Instead, I want to discuss their efforts through the lens of “midinformation.”

“The CDC has to change.” Those are the words of the Centers for Disease Control’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky as she announced a reorganization and change in leadership stemming from its flawed handling of the coronavirus pandemic. But, will such a shake-up lead to a shape-up? We have our doubts.

Water (H2O) is essential to life and is ubiquitous; found even on planets, asteroids, and comets. It is a deceptively simple but very complex entity with many facets. Many people in developed countries consider access to quantities of drinkable (potable) and other water to be a given and at a low cost. The United Nations says that access to sufficient, safe water is a human right, but you get what you pay for.  Access to universal assured safe drinking water has existed for only about 120 years with the development of microbiology to test for pathogens and engineering for filtration and disinfection water treatment.

I like Marion Nestle, although I do not always agree with her point of view. She writes a food blog entitled Food Politics, and in her current article, it seems that the emphasis here is on politics rather than food.

There is no question that health, fitness, and anti-aging issues dominate our culture and have risen to a cult level of obsession for millions of people who have turned the simple task of feeding and taking care of themselves into a religious obsession. 

A recent study has reporters worried that "ultra-processed" foods accelerate cognitive decline. Don't panic just yet.

We sure need a new pain medicine without the baggage of NSAIDs or the stigma of opioids. Johnson & Johnson thinks it might have an answer - a derivative of Tylenol without the associated liver toxicity. But does it treat pain? Not very well.

If you're sick and tired of hearing about yet another Omicron subvariant taking over the world you're not alone. But there is one subvariant called Centaurus, aka B.27.5, that provides a fascinating example of how a seemingly-minuscule mutation can have a profound effect on the virus. And, at no extra cost, a Dreaded Chemistry Lesson From Hell! Plus a gratuitous shot at Dr. Oz.