A recent trip to Israel included a stop at the Dead Sea. Many people from around the world travel to the Dead Sea for treatment for psoriasis and other diseases. As I have often questioned flawed studies and research without a scientific basis, I wondered whether there are facts behind the claimed beneficial effects of the Dead Sea.
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King Charles III's longstanding opposition to genetic engineering is misguided and unconstructive. Genetic modification has long made products better, safer, and cheaper.
In the Northeast, honeysuckle – perhaps the sweetest smelling flower around – is blooming. It's not just sweet it’s also easily identified. What chemicals make honeysuckle smell so good? You may be surprised.
Television has popularized surgical attire; how else to tell the surgeons from the internists? Does the color of scrubs – traditionally green in most institutions – affect relationships with patients? A new study suggests the answer is ...
Earlier this month, the headline “New Study Finds PFAS 'Forever Chemicals' in Drinking Water from 45% of Faucets Across US” led many news reports. That's after 32 individual PFAS were tested and found in both private and public water supplies, presenting potential hazards to our nation’s health. What did the study really say?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is playing an increasingly important role in health care. This could lower costs and streamline patient interactions—but the technology has a dark side, too. Critics of "ultra-processed" food often claim that certain snacks aren't even food. Let's debunk this myth, with a special focus on Pop-Tarts.
It is seemingly such an easy question: if I need an ambulance, what will it cost me? Unfortunately, there's only a complex answer, summarized as “it depends.”
COVID-19, a respiratory virus, often begins in viruses trapped in our nose and upper respiratory tracts. While universal precautions in healthcare settings require frequent handwashing, enforcing that requirement is lax, and compliance is often low. A new study reports on rhinotillexis, the act of “extracting nasal mucus with one’s finger,” and subsequent mucophagy, the ingestion of said mucus, among healthcare workers in the Netherlands.
It is a palliative care initiative in which clinicians inquire about and implement final wishes for patients who are expected to die imminently. The staff recognize that in their final hours, most people have fears, regrets, and maybe a last, often simple wish.
Both political parties use misinformation
Feynman’s learning technique
Anxious carnivore?
Car Dealers “one of the most important secular forces in American conservatism”?
The chemistry of global warming (GW) driven by heat-trapping air pollutants is measured and reported. Various mathematical models have been used to project future global scenarios. Since natural sources of greenhouse agents are largely beyond our control, here we focus on anthropogenic sources mainly involving combustion – typically byproducts, rather than end products. I use statistical methods to estimate the situation in 2050.
Fast fashion refers to quickly designed clothing, easily produced from low-cost (cheap) materials and offered in trendy stores. Zara might be considered a fast fashion’s model. But what becomes of those no longer desirable clothes when the trend changes and the fashion shifts?
For many complex medical devices such as endoscopes, sterilizing with ethylene oxide is the only method that does the job without damaging the device during the process. Approximately 50% of all sterile medical devices in the U.S. make use of ethylene oxide. The EPA’s ethylene oxide risk assessment demonstrates what happens when faulty data and bad modeling is used as the basis of regulatory policy.
Negotiating for Medicare drug pricing - will it be the end of the world for Pharma?
Clinical researchers have recognized the therapeutic potential of psychedelics for decades. In recent years, veterans groups and some lawmakers have also begun to appreciate this. But none of that matters if law enforcement disagrees.
It is that time of year when my poor dog cowers under the bed as the rocket's red glare of fireworks is seen and heard across the country. Perhaps I am stealing from my fellow writer and chemist, Dr. Bloom, but I just wanted to share what I had learned about the chemistry underlying all that color filling our skies.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good." Mask and vaccine mandates, therefore, are, under some circumstances, constitutional.
Change your words when you speak
Ernie Pyle
Finding a Solution to Food Waste
Instant Pot explains venture capitalism
As the COVID pandemic moves further into our rearview mirrors, questions have been raised about a more prolonged manifestation of COVID, Long COVID. Now, there seems to be a concern about more prolonged symptoms from the COVID vaccines; we can call it Long Vax. What do we know and don’t know?
An allergy to the sugar galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose “alpha-gal” – which causes an allergy to red meat and is spread by a tick – has “climbed 41%” over four years. To add to our fears, the media reported, “42% of health care providers didn’t know about the syndrome, and another 35% weren’t too confident about how to diagnose and treat it.” Is the meat apocalypse upon us? Have the cows found a way to make us eat less of them and more vegetables?
Some have decided it's over and heralded the end of the pandemic; others say they are not sure. The answer to this recurring question requires a few definitions and statistical regressions.
The FDA is allowing women over-the-counter access to one brand of one form of birth control pill. But the agency should follow the advice of medical experts and let women exercise their right to self-medicate with all hormonal contraceptives.
Remember plant-based meats? Ok, then how about plant-based yogurt? Roughly 6.3% of the dairy consumed finds its way into yogurt. The environmental footprint of the producers of that yogurt is significant. How does plant-based yogurt measure up nutritionally against the classic?
Perhaps you've seen the television ads asking women whether they know about VMS. Pharma has wrapped an old symptom – the hot flashes associated with menopause – in its medical description: vasomotor symptoms. Of course, now that it's a “medically recognized” condition, it follows that medical therapy and its payment should be covered costs.
I still remember the thrill I felt when I made my first scientific discovery – feeling that the late nights and hard work had all been worth it. I remember, too, the feeling that, at that moment, I knew something that nobody else – anywhere – knew or had ever known. It was a heady feeling. And then I wanted to tell everyone!
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