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Are those cheery ads, featuring celebrities with a milk mustache, actually beckoning you towards a shorter life and telomeres? Or is this just another "nutritional nowhere" situation? A recent study reports definitively, perhaps.

The question "What is truth?" is perhaps the hardest one ever posed. Science is based on the correspondence theory of truth, namely, that truth corresponds to reality. But others say that truth is based on consensus, while others say that truth is entirely relative. So, what's the truth about truth?

Here's a chemical scare: marijuana will cause men to grow boobs. Unlike most chemical scares, this one is scientifically plausible and probably real, something CNN.com just wrote about. Will Victoria's Secret's business model now expand to include what "Victor" might need?

The actor, who played the Hulk in The Avengers movie series, spoke on Capitol Hill on an incredibly important public health topic. What expertise does he have in that area? Well, none. But he is a 9/11 truther who rejects the scientific consensus on GMOs while spreading conspiracy theories about the Zika virus.

It's only early December, but already there's been some nasty norovirus outbreaks in the U.S. One was bad enough to close an entire school. Another hit 400 people at the U.S. Air Force Academy. In response, some bits of wisdom (and humor) about this dreaded stomach bug.

For many years, one's family motto has been “often wrong, never in doubt.” Overconfidence is a cognitive problem, present to lesser and greater degrees in us all. And it grows in the presence of two conditions.

Plenty of attention is focused on the growing number of cases in China of the Wuhan coronavirus -- also known as 2019-nCoV -- and those around the world. According to the New York Times, as of this writing, there are at least 132 reported deaths and nearly 6,000 confirmed cases of the disease. While the number of fatalities continues to grow, let's take a moment to understand what these numbers might mean.

Here's what's grabbing our attention this time: Making the perfect cup of coffee ... a scientific basis for the generational transmission of traumatic events ... a book describing the "Forrest Gump" of the early 1800s ... and considering atmospheric gas responsible for an enormous loss of species.

Dr. David Shlaes has written numerous times on "pull incentives" to encourage new antibiotic discovery, and why professional societies (like the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the AMA) aren't providing enough input to emphasize the importance of emerging bacterial resistance. Today our ACSH advisor expands on both topics.

A new, nutty fad is called "activating nuts," which is described as a laborious process that falls just short of making them germinate. Those involved in this have got to be kidding. What's the motivation behind all this? Angela Dowden explains.

It's quite likely that the human toll from COVID-19 will not be as bad as the prediction models forecasted. That's because models contain simplifying assumptions that rarely hold true in the real world; our human response is probably the least predictable of all. And yet, while all models are useful, all models are also wrong.

Early clinical trial results from Gilead show that its antiviral drug, remdesivir, has promise in treating patients with severe COVID-19. Though there are major caveats, there is good reason for cautious optimism.

To understand how severe and lethal COVID-19 really is, we need to know how many have been infected, which, in this equation, is the "denominator." An early study from Stanford of Santa Clara County says we may be underestimating how many cases there already are, which inaccurately gauges COVID-19’s infectivity and eventual mortality.

ACSH, among others, has been criticized as “racist” for using the “Wuhan virus” early in the pandemic, before COVID-19 became the universal descriptor. We were using a description based on location, like Lyme Disease, from Lyme, Connecticut, not a racial description.

The coronavirus pandemic has devolved into just another partisan battle. In the process, it has revealed how poorly served Americans are by their leaders and the media.

So much news, so much confusion and so many questions – especially those around what different terms mean. What exactly is a therapy for COVID-19? Is it a cure, or something else, like a vaccine? To help sort it out, we prepared this summary; it may help a bit. And to go with it, a riddle: What do you call anti-vaxxers once a coronavirus vaccine becomes available?

A recent poll shows that 78% of Americans support stay-at-home orders. As the economy comes crashing down to levels not seen since the Great Depression, our social fabric will begin to rip, and the public will change its mind.

DeSmogBlog, a climate activist website that ruthlessly smears scientists, is headed by Brendan DeMelle, an anti-vaxxer who helped RFK, Jr. write an infamous and since-retracted article linking vaccines to autism.

When coronavirus patients are admitted to all general hospitals, the risk of infecting other patients as well as hospital personnel is a serious concern. One way to address this problem is to consider isolating coronavirus patients to certain designated medical centers thus reducing the likelihood of exposure to other patients and their attending medical staff.

Just when you thought the pandemic of misinformation could not get worse, Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's personal attorney, surfaces to add his misinformative spin. His website has two video presentations on suspect therapies for COVID-19. Let's consider them in turn.

Dr. David Shlaes, an infectious disease expert and ACSH advisor, is incensed over the nation's lack of preparedness for the coronavirus epidemic. A scenario like this has been discussed for three decades, yet we are still in the middle of a disaster. Here are his thoughts.

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." -- Rahm Emmanuel [1]

Over the past several years, as marijuana has gone from illegal to recreational, its use among seniors has increased by 700%. We shouldn’t be surprised. After all, those Boomer seniors use to be young when marijuana was less a gateway to hell -- and more a gateway to Woodstock Nation.

There are many different ways to make a vaccine. Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, Inovio, and Moderna are all taking different approaches to tackle COVID-19, the Wuhan coronavirus.

Would you like to learn how the "kinematics of wok-tossing" can impact fried rice quality? Or, do herpetic monkeys running around Florida concern you? Or maybe you're curious about what happens when you strap yourself to a rocket to prove that the earth is really flat? Then, strap yourself in, folks -- cause it's time for Bizzaro News!