Search results

This week’s reading tour spans the fall of elites, the social glue of hobbies, corporations that have lost their way, and Taco Bell’s bold leap into nuggetdom. From crumbling trust in authority to overpriced pine and industrially processed poultry, it’s a buffet of modern times.

If you've been hopping between arms for booster shots, a new study suggests that your lymph nodes remember exactly where you first got jabbed and perform far better when you return to that same arm. It seems location does matter.

We expected miracles; what we got was a legal minefield. As GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic reshape bodies and bottom lines, a growing swarm of lawsuits threatens to upend the billion-dollar industry. Are patients being blindsided, or is this just the next chapter in America's pharmaceutical blame game?

The perennial vegan worrywarts at Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) have once again warned that grilled hot dogs increase colorectal cancer risk. But this potential harm is wildly overstated — as it has been since it first emerged from the dark recesses of nutritional epidemiology many years ago. Your absolute risk of colorectal cancer remains quite low, and the occasional ballpark hot dog probably doesn't move the needle in either direction. Let's take a closer look.

Your vitamin C supplement isn’t organic or natural. It’s completely lab-made, using GM corn. But its chemical structure is undeniable the same as the real squeezed thing. And you can’t tell the difference.

Can science offer clear guidance when the ground beneath it is inherently unstable? This question lies at the heart of many modern policy debates, where data, algorithms, and statistical models promise objectivity while colliding with messy realities. As science increasingly steps into domains once dominated by moral judgment and democratic debate, we’re left to wonder whether statistical precision can truly define fairness — or merely reframe it.

RFK Jr. and his Make America Healthy Again movement are demonizing seed oils. The conversation about seed oils predates MAHA, but the resurgence is pulling even more people into the confusing, junk-science-addled conversation about whether seed oils are unhealthy. We need to learn to navigate this terrain because we will see these tactics over and over again as MAHA takes control of the narrative around healthcare. 

How stupid are chickens? Stupid enough that in 1954, a scientist put tiny prism goggles on freshly hatched chicks to see if they could still find lunch. Not even close. They spent their early lives blindly pecking at phantom food, not terribly different from today's Yankees hitters.

Real science doesn’t settle debates with a show of hands. It builds momentum across studies, disciplines, and data until the picture gets too clear to ignore. H. Holden Thorp, the editor of the journal Science, argues that’s not consensus; it’s convergence. It’s what we should be listening for if we can hear it over the static.

Three hundred fifty thousand of you are predicted to die every year from heart disease caused by exposure to plastics, a new Lancet study says. But you can rest easy: the headlines don't match the threat. You are unlikely to be in a bag, plastic, or otherwise, anytime soon. Here's why.

This week’s reading list is your passport to places you didn’t know mattered and policies you didn’t know would hit your wallet. From Trump-era pharma tariffs to copper that powers your phone, and a banned library lecture that shouldn't be controversial — this is your brain on curiosity.

Red 40, Yellow 5, and Blue 1 may soon be history. Not because science says they're dangerous, but because the court of public opinion has ruled against them. In a move fueled more by consumer fears than by conclusive evidence, the U.S. government has decided to scrub synthetic food dyes from our plates, ushering in a new era of regulatory caution that looks much more European.

While flu and measles are making the rounds and COVID is still lingering, the only thing spreading faster than viruses is confusion over who’s really at risk. It turns out we still are unable to craft smart, evidence-based public health policy when it comes to aging.

It is easy to promise readiness for the next disaster; it is much harder to maintain the political and public will to prepare. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed leadership failures and systemic design flaws that left us exposed. We built a pandemic response system optimized for appearances rather than effectiveness. A recent review moves past partisan narratives, offering a sharper, more unsettling diagnosis: our institutions failed because they were designed against our very human nature.

Nobody denies that science is plagued by an epidemic of fraudulent and politicized research, nor that it wastes billions of taxpayer dollars. But is the problem severe enough to justify completely eliminating public funding for scientific research? Let's take a look.

Medicine has long been framed as a calling, an identity meant to be lived, not simply performed. But when that calling collides with rigid professional stereotypes and changing expectations about work, meaning can fracture into burnout rather than fulfillment. A surprising, and seasonally relevant study of professional Santas reveals how identity fit, not commitment, shapes whether a calling sustains or exhausts.

Our preference for sweet tastes represents an elegant evolutionary adaptation. The ability to detect sweet substances likely evolved to identify energy-rich sources, primarily sugars in fruits, plants, and breast milk, providing essential metabolic fuel. This evolutionary pattern varies across species. While some carnivorous animals, like cats, lost functional sweet taste receptors, the ability to recognize and seek carbohydrates remained crucial for our survival, helping identify food sources suitable for cultivation.

Myocarditis has become a flashpoint in debates about COVID vaccines; however, new research suggests this rare heart inflammation is a window into how powerful immune technologies sometimes misfire in specific biological contexts. By tracing the immune signals involved, scientists are learning how to reduce risk while preserving protection.

More than a decade ago, Addyi—marketed as the “female Viagra”—was approved amid political pressure, heavy lobbying, and a lot of hype. The problem then, as now, is simple: the drug barely works and causes enough side effects that many women stop taking it. Yet, in what can only be described as an FDA boner, the agency has expanded the indication to older women.

Black box warnings are the FDA’s bluntest regulatory instrument short of a recall. Yet despite what headlines, pundits, and influencers often suggest, they are neither a moral verdict nor the final word on a drug’s safety. They are ideally evidence-informed, but like any human institution, they reflect scientific uncertainty and, at times, political and social pressures.

TikTok, or its wellness category #HealthTok, is notorious for spreading misinformation about various science and health topics. Recently, influencers have zeroed in on Gout and the main culprits of cause. Except, most are wrong and focus entirely on fads, often touting their own wellness routines or supplements to curb the painful condition.

December 16 is National Chocolate-Covered Anything Day, which is either a celebration of culinary creativity or an excuse to use juvenile humor. Either way, chocolate has a long history of being marketed as a cure for just about everything. Let’s see what it can actually do—and what it absolutely can’t.

Modern healthcare is increasingly organized as a marketplace, yet much of what makes medicine healing resists pricing or counting. Anyone who has felt steadied by a clinician who lingered, listened, or noticed fear understands this intuitively. This essay explores care as a gift economy, grounded in relationship and presence rather than transaction, and argues that patient dissatisfaction and clinician burnout arise when this gift is treated as a commodity.

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) has published a position paper in its flagship journal about the promises and potential of Lifestyle Medicine (LM). They argue that LM can address the chronic disease burden and can be the spark that transforms healthcare. However, digging into their evidence and claims reveals a less rosy colored picture.

A curious old folk practice claimed that contact with ants could transfer their energy and vitality to humans. This belief grew from ideas of sympathetic magic, where traits of animals were thought to pass through touch or consumption. Modern science, however, offers little support—except for the intriguing possibility of ants helping ferment milk into yogurt.