Until now, most doctors agreed that when appendicitis strikes, the appendix has to go. This deep-seated idea began in 1889. Appendectomy was so successful at saving lives that it has been largely unchallenged since. If you didn’t remove the appendix, it might burst and lead to death. Today more than a quarter of a million [...]

What should parents do now? The FDA has finally, in January 2010, reversed its earlier position of calling exposure to small amounts of bisphenol A (BPA) safe. They now agree with the National Toxicology Program at NIH that there is reason for some concern about the potential effects on the brain, behavior, and body of [...]

Right before our eyes there’s a dark hole in what we see. Not only don’t we see some of what’s right in front of our face, but we don’t even notice the gap. Our illusion of a seamless visual world is so strong that scientists used to think that the spot where our optic nerve [...]

Recent headlines have trumpeted an exciting study about how pomegranate juice may prove very useful at preventing and even treating breast cancer. In test tubes, it’s proven quite effective against breast cancer cells. It turns out that pomegranate juice functions as something we call an aromatase inhibitor. Aromatase is an enzyme that takes testosterone and [...]

Once again, my take is different than that of most. About 70 percent of Americans measure their liquid medicines in kitchen spoons. But when smart college students were asked to pour a real teaspoon of liquid medicine into a kitchen spoon, they averaged either eight percent less or twelve percent more than the amount prescribed, [...]

I’ve already memorized, by number, all 64 of Michael Pollan’s fabulous Food Rules, found in his slim guidebook of that name published December 29, 2009. Last March on Tara Parker Pope’s Well Blog at The New York Times, Pollen asked readers to contribute their best brief rules of thumb for navigating food choices. He collected [...]