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Will chronic cardio or regular weight-lifting sessions add years to your life? Conventional wisdom says "yes," though emerging research suggests that your exercise habits and your lifespan are more heavily influenced by your genetics than previously thought. Let's untangle the latest knot in the nature vs. nurture debate.

Real change takes a long time, and when it happens, it must be recognized. The FDA and the NIH have announced their move away from animal testing, improving scientific outcomes and marking a victory over bureaucratic entrenchment. Can we really achieve government-wide change to end animal testing?

This week, I read about the sudden demise of the 👍 emoji, which evidently is now the digital equivalent of a sarcastic eye-roll. I explored the essence of the scientific method via an experiment involving bolts, ghosts, and a particle collider. I considered the slippery slope of replacing thoughtful reading with AI summaries, and finally, I wondered why we are so afraid in an age that’s safer than ever?

Organic” has become the golden label of modern food marketing — but when it comes to poultry feed, does it actually deliver better nutrition, healthier chickens, or safer eggs? Or is it just another pricey halo with little scientific glow?

Want a bespoke baby? Check the beauty, brains, or brawn boxes on the embryo order form. Genetic tinkering is no longer science fiction — it’s a market without legal guidelines or societal buy-in. But what happens when we rewrite the human before reading the fine print?

How much more do we have to endure?

Nutritional meta-analyses often promise certainty but deliver a plateful of confusion. A new study flips the script, embracing the messy reality of conflicting data, offering a fresh perspective on the dietary dangers of processed meat, sugary drinks, and trans fats. By focusing not just on what the numbers say, but how confidently we can believe them, the methodology retools risk, at least until human bias connects the data dots.

It turns out that rhyming, bit-of-advice may not just be relationship wisdom. Forget the old stereotype of the alpha male. In some primate societies, it's the females who call the shots, evict rivals, and control who gets to mate. A comprehensive study of nearly all primates reveals that dominance isn't just a matter of muscle, but also a matter of strategy, social support, and sometimes, simply good timing.

Nicotine vaping continues to outperform FDA-approved smoking cessation therapies in well-designed studies, including a new clinical trial conducted in Australia. This growing body of evidence badly undermines regulations that limit adult access to safer nicotine products that could save their lives.

Here’s an interesting take on gut health: a recent study from Loyola University Chicago shows how heavy drinking and serious burns mess up the good bacteria in your gut, causing big health problems. The research, done this year, found that just one day after a burn injury, the helpful bacteria in your gut drop fast, allowing bad bacteria to take over.

In Los Angeles, a second disaster started with the cleanup. Between exploding EV batteries, asbestos dumping, and a bureaucratic tug-of-war over six inches of soil, rebuilding has become its own kind of wildfire — slow, costly, and smoldering with frustration.

Contrary to popular belief, osteoarthritis may not just be the result of wear and tear accrued over the course of a long life. New evidence points to a deeper evolutionary explanation for why our joints ache in old age. Let's take a look.

This week, my reading ranges from moral collapse and sandwich classification to the existential crises of aging politicians and whether silence is truly golden. In a world that shouts its preferences and clings to power like a toddler with a lollipop, is anything sacred anymore?

What if that long-abandoned theory, that “bad air” makes us sick, wasn’t entirely wrong? As head of HHS, RFK Jr.’s crusade against chronic illness often echoes 19th-century pseudoscience, but it’s built on decades of legal wins against real pollutants. Could today's food dyes, toxins, and stressors be the new miasma?

Sec. Kennedy’s latest maneuver seeks to expand vaccine injury lawsuits, echoing a precarious time in U.S. history when litigation nearly shut down vaccine production, creating dangerous shortages. Behind his lofty rhetoric lies a legal strategy that could enrich lawyers, endanger public health, inflame misinformation rhetoric, and possibly benefit the Secretary himself.

We’ve spent decades tweaking food pyramids into plates, slapping labels on packages, and taxing sodas—yet most Americans still flunk the government's own nutrition test. With sweeping changes on the horizon from the MAHA Commission, is the problem what we eat, how we measure it, or something much deeper? Before new dietary rules reshape SNAP and national policy, a new study offers a metric.

Lars and I discussed the role of AI in education and beyond, starting with a nostalgic nod to calculators and slide rules.

In the U.S., the so-called “moral imperative” to work is bumping up against a less romantic reality: wages that lag behind inflation and benefits that, ironically, make not working a more rational choice. Before we lecture people on self-reliance, maybe we should check the math.

Hear what ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom, Dr. Chuck Dinerstein and Dr. Henry Miller have to say about the falsehoods of thimerosal claims in regards to vaccine safety, and perhaps the unintended consequences of the panel's latest decision to stop recommending flu shots containing the preservative.

For those who feel taking medical advice from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is risky, consider his plan for avian flu. Suggesting we let bird flu run rampant through flocks isn’t bold leadership — it’s a biohazard with feathers. And the fallout? It’s not just a few scrambled eggs.

Are CT scans silently triggering a cancer epidemic — or are we being misled by speculative modeling and media-fueled fear? A new article warns of 103,000 additional cancers from diagnostic imaging, yet offers no empirical evidence, just an alarming prediction based on a controversial theory. Before we let panic dictate policy, it’s worth asking: where’s the data?

When judges dodge science and lawmakers play doctor, kids can pay the price. In Skrmetti, the Supreme Court reviewing legislation banning trans-care for children pirouettes around science and somersault into ideology, leaving both medical expertise and children’s best interests in the dust. And Justice Thomas? He’s so busy slaying “so-called experts” you’d think peer review was a liberal conspiracy.

This week’s reading fizzes through the last surviving NYC seltzer bottler, slides into hip replacements with David Sedaris, and bubbles with questions about DNA detritus and early cancer detection — plus a reminder that we once vaccinated 6 million New Yorkers in two months without social media hysteria. Cheers to your Independence Week, with or without carbonation.

It’s more than a little ironic that proof of how badly we’ve mishandled the opioid crisis comes from West Virginia — the hardest-hit state in the U.S. and a favorite cliché in Netflix dramas. But the data now makes one thing unmistakably clear: prescription opioids are not the real villain in the "War on Drugs." No other state proves this better.

“Health freedom” sounds so American – until you realize it’s been hijacked by RFK Jr. and MAHA to replace science with snake oil, and evidence with vibes. Under the glow of virtue-signaling and supplement-sponsored sanctimony, MAHA isn’t liberating your health choices; it’s monetizing your confusion.