Year: 2018

Bobby McFerrin’s popular song informs us that, when you worry your face will frown, and that will bring everybody down so don’t worry, be happy. This may sound like some kind of Norman Vincent Peale power of positive thinking pap, but it turns out that your subjective feelings impact your objective measures of health.   Researchers have measures...

Need a rule? For your health, “To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.”  That was Ben Franklin, a million years ago. But it is just as true now as it was then — even more so? A little wine is awesome, a lot of wine is terrible. A little...

Normal grocery stores really do have things you want to put in your mouth. Some of them are produce, some are in cans, some are produced at the grocery store, and others are in bags. But the key to finding them, is to rule out the “Big, Bad Three”....

I grew up in a little town in Southeast Alabama. We had “wiregrass”, an annual Peanut Festival parade (at which I rode a unicycle), and the big ‘ol Piggly Wiggly up the street. Very Alabama. After having gotten out of town and circled the world a couple of times,...

Its so funny. At one point I really wanted to be a historian. Of science! This is the town center of metropolitan nerd-villebergington. You can’t get in the door without an elbow-patched tweed jacket and a vaguely distracted blankness to your face. My neuroscience thesis required a couple of...