The hardest part, I find, is the math: not just the labor of tracking everything I put in my body but the way in which calorie counting makes the no-free-lunch adage so viscerally clear. Bacon cheeseburgers, chocolate, a martini-all are pleasures now completely ruined by the knowledge that the massive caloric debts that they create must be paid for with days or even weeks of caloric cutbacks. Other abnegations-the dinner invitations regretfully declined, the awkward orders of soda water on the rocks at "drinks" with friends and colleagues, the freakishly ascetic feeling of sitting gaunt and empty-plated before a calorie-packed family dinner-are met with the compensatory feeling one gets when walking a righteous, if lonely, path.

*****

The 1,800 daily calories I've been consuming fall well short of the minimum 2,500 recommended for adult males, and two months on this caloric budget has shrunk my 43-year-old, five-eleven frame from an almost officially overweight 178 pounds to a high-school-era 157. Friends and loved ones, I've noticed, have started sounding more concerned than impressed when they see how much weight I've lost, but here within the charmed circle of tonight's dinner party, I don't feel so much scrawny as trim-dashing, even. Standing around the kitchen's broad butcher-block prep table with these five world-class calorie restricters, I recognize our thinness as sophisticated and sane, the height of a slender, Nick and Nora Charles sort of elegance.

*****

A sixth guest arrives: my friend Adam, whom I've invited along for a variety of reasons, including both his outside perspective and his promise to bring a bottle of wine. It's a Pinot Noir, per April's request-the grape of choice for the calorie-restricted set, rich in anti-aging resveratrol-and she has Adam fill our glasses with exactly 74 calories' worth of it. Well, some of our glasses. Paul and Meredith practice a one-meal-a-day variety of CR, and it so happens they already ate. "Cheers, anyway," says Paul, quite cheerfully, as he and his wife raise their glasses of water with us.

We move to the table, which April has set with the salad course: the aforementioned 24 grams of arugula per plate, dressed with lemon juice and cushioning a couple of scallops sautéed in garlic, white wine, and cilantro. We begin to eat, and I experience a minor culinary epiphany: Mildly sickened by the taste of scallops for most of my adulthood and afflicted, for as long as I can remember, by an aversion to cilantro that borders on the emetic, I find myself now tucking into April Smith's cilantro-infused scallops-and-arugula salad as if it were the best salad I have ever tasted. And I'll be goddamned if it isn't.

*****

For dessert, we get a CR-perfect parfait: organic strawberries, nonfat ricotta, flaxseed oil, and hazelnuts. It's very good, and it's gone too fast, and as long as we're rewriting the book on table manners here, I can't see the harm in scooping out the last bits of ricotta with my fingers.

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Flu Germs on a Plane

Airplanes are the perfect vehicle for spreading flu germs, especially bird flu. A new report states that when air travel dropped by over 30% after 9/11, the flu season was delayed that year.

While there is no way to stop a pandemic completely, the researchers at Children's Hospital Boston said restricting air travel could delay the spread of a deadly virus and buy some time to prepare vaccines, drugs and take other measures.

"For the first time we've been able to show, using real data, that air travel spreads the flu, suggesting that reducing the number of air passengers might ameliorate a flu pandemic," said John Brownstein of the Children's Hospital Informatics Program at the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program, who led the study.

Dr. Kenneth Mandl, who worked on the study, said the team realized they had a "natural experiment" when air traffic fell after the Sept. 11 attacks. The number of people flying internationally fell by 27 percent to 3.5 million passengers in September of 2001 from 4.9 million passengers in September 2000. Mandl and Brownstein had been trying to map the spread of flu. Flu season usually starts in the Northern Hemisphere in September or October, and peaks between January and March. They looked at data from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the years between 1996 and 2005. "When we first looked at our data we noticed that the 2001-2002 flu season was highly aberrant," Mandl said. "At first we thought it was a problem with the data, but then we realized we were seeing the shadow of September 11th cast upon the influenza season."

*****

"The number of airline passengers flying in the United States determines how quickly influenza spreads within the United States," Brownstein said in a telephone interview. "The more domestic travel, the faster the spread of flu, and the more inbound international travel, the earlier the influenza season begins." Influenza is caused by a variety of viruses and usually the mix changes slightly from year to year.

We knew it: that jerk sitting behind you that's coughing and sneezing all through your flight is probably carrying deadly bird flu. Or at least a nasty cold virus. You don't think airport security will look at us strangely if we board the plane wearing a mask, gloves and carrying a bottle of disinfectant spray, do you? Oh wait, no liquids. How about a jumbo box of anti-bac wipes and a gas mask?

Posted on September 12, 2006
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Junk Food Diet Helped Man Live to be 112

A California man lived to the ripe old age of 112 while living on a fun diet of junk food his entire life. He never gained weight, got Alzheimer's, diabetes or cancer. His wife lived to be 92, presumably with the same diet.

George Johnson, considered California's oldest living person at 112 and the state's last surviving World War I veteran, had experts shaking their heads over his junk food diet. "He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles," Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday.

The 5-foot-7, 140-pound Johnson died of pneumonia Wednesday at his Richmond home in Northern California. "A lot of people think or imagine that your good habits and bad habits contribute to your longevity," Coles said. "But we often find it is in the genes rather than lifestyle." Johnson, who was blind and living alone until his 110th birthday when a caregiver began helping him, built the Richmond house by hand in 1935. He got around using a walker in recent years.

Johnson was the only living Californian considered a "supercentenarian," a designation for those ages 110 or older, Coles said. His group is now in the process of validating a Los Angeles candidate who claims to be 112 years old. Coles participated in an autopsy Thursday that was designed to study Johnson’s health. "All of his organs were extremely youthful. They could have been the organs of someone who was 50 or 60, not 112. Clearly his genes had some secrets," Coles said.

We did notice that the happy couple apparently had enough money to live on and never had chidren. Coincidence? Or did their stress-free lifestyle help them live so long? Because somehow we doubt it was the sausages.

Posted on September 2, 2006
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Scientists Discover the All-Important Earwax Gene

It's the scientific breakthrough we've all been waiting for: Japanese scientists have finally found the gene that determines what kind of earwax you get. And it's about time.

Earwax comes in two types, wet and dry. The wet form predominates in Africa and Europe, where 97 percent or more of people have it, and the dry form among East Asians. The populations of South and Central Asia are roughly half and half. By comparing the DNA of Japanese with each type, the researchers were able to identify the gene that controls which type a person has, they report in today's issue of Nature Genetics.

They then found that the switch of a single DNA unit in the gene determines whether a person has wet or dry earwax. The gene's role seems to be to export substances out of the cells that secrete earwax. The single DNA change deactivates the gene and, without its contribution, a person has dry earwax.

The Japanese researchers, led by Kohichiro Yoshiura of Nagasaki University, then studied the gene in 33 ethnic groups around the world. Since the wet form is so common in Africa and in Europe, this was likely to have been the ancestral form before modern humans left Africa 50,000 years ago.

The dry form, the researchers say, presumably arose later in northern Asia, because they detected it almost universally in their tests of northern Han Chinese and Koreans. The dry form becomes less common in southern Asia, probably because the northerners with the dry earwax gene intermarried with southern Asians carrying the default wet earwax gene. The dry form is quite common in Native Americans, confirming other genetic evidence that their ancestors migrated across the Bering Strait from Siberia 15,000 years ago.

*****

But earwax seems to have the very humble role of being no more than biological flypaper, preventing dust and insects from entering the ear. Since it seems unlikely that having wet or dry earwax could have made much difference to an individual's fitness, the earwax gene may have some other, more important function. Dr. Yoshiura and his colleagues suggest that the gene would have been favored because of its role in sweating.

The report goes on to describe its findings about armpit odor and its correlation to earwax, but by that time we were so grossed out we had to stop reading.

Posted on February 1, 2006
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More Bad News For the Depressed and Anxious

In the "life is not fair" category: a new study shows that geeky men who have social anxiety are more likely to die of a heart attack. The study seemingly proves that men who are lonely, depressed and avoid social interaction are more likely to have a heart attack -- and presumably die alone, totally miserable.

Men who avoid social interaction -- not bothering to say hello or even discuss the day's activities with friends or co-workers -- face an increased risk of death from heart disease.

"Social avoidance was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular death independent of the men's baseline heart risk factors," Jarett Berry, MD, of Northwestern University, Chicago, told those attending the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions.

When men who scored high on a social-avoidance scale were compared with men who clearly were more socially involved with co-workers and friends, the researchers found that men with social avoidance were 38% more likely to die from cardiovascular disease.

A 30-year study on 1,947 healthy men found that social avoidance was associated with age-adjusted increases in cardiovascular and heart disease deaths.

So presumably, that really obnoxious loud guy who's always hitting on the secretaries, telling bad jokes and slapping everyone on the back is going to live forever. That's your uplifting news for the day.

Posted on December 7, 2005
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The Fat Vaccine Is On Its Way

Have you been packing on the pounds, but swear you haven't been eating the Henry VIII banquet every night? You may have been exposed to a virus that causes people to get fat. The good news is, that there may be a vaccine for it one day. When you're born, you get immunized from being fat, just like you get immunized for polio.

When babies receive shots against diseases like polio and measles, their vaccinations may in the future include protection against getting fat, according to researchers. Infection by certain pathogens triggers rapid increases in fatty tissue in animals, Nikhil Dhurnadha told the annual meeting of NAASO, the Obesity Society, in this western Canadian city.

At the same time, the discovery that many more obese people than normal-weight people have been exposed to a certain virus suggests a link between obesity and viral infection. "Not all obesity can be explained by infection," said Dhurandhar, of the Pennington Biomedial Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. "Infections can be one of the causes." Popular opinion has long held that most obesity is caused simply by overeating, underexercise and a lack of will power. But viruses are just one of many contributing factors that scientists have recently discovered.

Researchers are reporting at the conference on other fat triggers that include a genetic tendency to store fat among groups whose ancestors survived famines, medications such as treatments for psychotic mental disorders, toxins in the environment like organochlorines, and infectious agents like bacteria, viruses and prions.

"Obesity is multifactoral," Dhurandhar told scientists at the conference. In an interview with AFP, he said there is proof that at least 10 different pathogens cause obesity in animals. They include canine distemper virus, RAV7 and MAM1 avian viruses, the Borna virus in rats -- which is also linked with depression in humans, types of scrapie, three adeno viruses including AD5, AD36 and AD37 which cause fat gain in several species, and chlamydia pneumonae bacteria. Scientists have also found that when mice are infected by general bacteria from the guts of other mice, the recipients body fat increases.

*****

"In 10 years, people may be able to walk into a clinic and be told that their obesity is due to X cause, such as genes, the endocrine system, or pathogens. That may have a more productive outcome than a blanket treatment right now, (which) is not very successful," said Dhurandhar. And because viruses are hard or impossible to treat, he said, prevention through vaccines will be key.

Don't hold your breath, though. This little breakthrough is probably quite a few years away.

Posted on October 20, 2005
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Furious Dieters Suing Dr. Phil

Dr. Phil's in big trouble: his failed diet plan has prompted furious dieters to seek class-action certification in their lawsuit against him, alleging fraud on his part.

The man famous for dishing out advice on national television now needs the advice of legal counsel. TV psychologist "Dr. Phil" McGraw, whose Texas twang and folksy common sense catapulted him to stardom, is being taken to court over his discontinued "Shape Up!" diet plan.

*****

The suit alleges that the plan is useless. It called for dieters to take 22 herbal supplements and vitamin pills a day and cost about $120 a month. The plan also advised dieters to adopt a low-calorie diet and to exercise. The plaintiffs allege that while they lost plenty of money on the plan, they didn't lose any weight. Unhappy dieters told CNN Radio that after listening to McGraw they believed they could lose weight by taking the pills alone.

Dr. Phil discontinued the diet plan last year (perhaps because it wasn't working for anyone?)

Posted on October 10, 2005
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Watch Out for that Chinese Skin Cream

The Guardian reports on a lovely Chinese practice of using the skin of executed prisoners as an ingredient in a number of skin preparations.

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.

Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

*****

He [the agent for the company] suggested that the use of skin and other tissues harvested from executed prisoners was not uncommon. "In China it is considered very normal and I was very shocked that western countries can make such a big fuss about this," he said. Speaking from his office in northern China, he added: "The government has put some pressure on all the medical facilities to keep this type of work in low profile."

The agent said his company exported to the west via Hong Kong."We are still in the early days of selling these products, and clients from abroad are quite surprised that China can manufacture the same human collagen for less than 5% of what it costs in the west." Skin from prisoners used to be even less expensive, he said. "Nowadays there is a certain fee that has to be paid to the court."

Oh well, if it's cheaper to harvest skin from dead (no doubt totally disease-free and really guilty of something) prisoners, then by all means let's go for it. We're not worried about a) whether the "prisoners" were really guilty and/or actually dead when this stuff was harvested or b) that there might be anything weird in that Chinese bottle of skin cream. Nope, not us.

Posted on September 14, 2005
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Enjoy That Caffeine Buzz in the Morning

Finally, there's some good news from the food police: coffee is loaded with antioxidants. Reuters reports:

Europeans have red wine, Asians have green tea but Americans have their own source of antioxidants -- coffee, researchers reported on Sunday. Americans drink plenty of coffee, which is high in antioxidants, compounds such as vitamins that fight damage to cells and to DNA, the study found.

The study listed all these amazing things that coffee does for you, including cutting your risk of getting Type 2 diabetes or liver cancer. But is that enough? Can they just stop there? Of course not. Here comes the whining.

But Americans are not eating enough fruits and vegetables, the sources of antioxidants as well as fiber and other nutrients that dietitians, scientists and doctors recommend, said Joe Vinson of the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.

Presenting his findings to a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, Vinson said this did not mean that coffee was necessarily the best source of antioxidants. "Unfortunately, consumers are still not eating enough fruits and vegetables, which are better for you from an overall nutritional point of view due to their higher content of vitamins, minerals and fiber," he said.

Nag, nag, nag. Gosh! Dang! Shut up, already!

Posted on August 30, 2005
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Scientists Discover Hangover Gene

Why do some people have terrible hangovers? Why do some get really red in the face with just a little bit of alcohol? Japanese researchers have discovered the answer to this crucial issue. It's all in your genes.

Mutations in a specific gene inactivate a key enzyme and slow the elimination of acetaldehyde -- the first product of alcohol metabolism -- from the body, say Japanese researchers reporting in the July issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Their study of 326 Japanese female and male workers found that those with a mutated, inactive form of aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) -- an enzyme that plays an important role in the elimination of alcohol-induced acetaldehyde -- are more susceptible to hangovers and facial flushing when they drink. This mutated form of ALDH is called ALDH2. People with the inactive form of ALDH2 needed to drink "significantly less" than those with active ALDH2 to trigger hangover, study corresponding author Masako Yokoyama, of the Mitsukoshi Health and Welfare Foundation, said in a prepared statement.

The researcher added that men who said they had suffered more than three hangovers in the past year were more likely to report alcohol-related facial flushing and an elevated volume in their blood corpuscles, "both of which are indicators of high acetaldehyde exposure due to drinking in persons with inactive ALDH2."

No doubt the next round of research will be focused on finding a way to allow these genetically less fortunate souls to be able to drink without ever experiencing the dreaded aftereffects of a hangover. Of course, we could all just drink less -- but where's the fun in that?

Posted on July 19, 2005
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Exhaling the Love With Rodney Yee

Rodney Yee is -- hands down -- the coolest yoga instructor out there. His unbelievably calming voice, combined with his killer yoga moves make him numero uno in our book. So we were psyched to hear that he has his own yoga blog for Yahoo. Rodney's latest column shares his tips for when you're forced to attend a family reunion.

Family reunions are safe in short durations, but there seems to always be moments when ancient monsters can be awakened with new vigor. Just when you think you have courageously conquered the old patterns of interacting in juvenile ways, you find yourself acting like a hurt 3-year-old in the sandbox. How can my parents have such a dramatic affect on me?

There is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist practice that I was reading about in one of Pema Chodron's books called tonglin. She encourages us to breathe in pain and exhale love. She says to start with small irritations and then work ourselves to bigger difficulties. I guess I always try to take on too much, because I feel my monsters begin to coil up, getting ready to strike again. Small steps, I have to remember that these mountains are climbed by taking one step at a time and by sometimes resting and getting an overview of the entire landscape.

For a couple of breaths today, try sitting or lying down and breathing in pain and exhaling love. Be a human alchemist and help transform the world one breath at a time.

Peace,
Rodney Yee

Wise words from the Zen Master. It certainly beats starting a family-wide food fight with Grandma's Famous Potato Salad, which was our first instinct.

Posted on July 18, 2005
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Stupid, But Happy?

WebMD reports on a new study that found that being smart doesn't make you happy over time.

"If you are 80 and healthy, then your satisfaction with how your life has turned out bears no relation to how you scored on an IQ test recently or 70 years ago," says researcher Ian Deary, professor of differential psychology at the University of Edinburgh, in a news release. The results of the study appear in the July 16 issue of the British Medical Journal.

Researchers compared satisfaction in old age with intelligence in a group of 550 healthy men and women with no signs of dementia who were born in Scotland in 1921. Each of the participants had their mental abilities tested at age 11 and again at about age 80 when they also filled out a questionnaire on life satisfaction. After researchers converted the test scores to IQs (intelligence quotients) and adjusted them for age, they found satisfaction with life or happiness in old age was not related to intelligence across the person's life span. Although a relationship between happiness and intelligence may have been expected because intelligence is highly valued by society, researchers say that intelligence has its plusses as well as its minuses. For example, higher intelligence may lead to greater achievement, but it also brings with it greater awareness of alternatives, which may lead to frustration.

So, to sum up: smarter people get more opportunities in life, but they also are better able to realize how much better it could have been if things weren't so miserable. Or something like that.

Posted on July 15, 2005
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Live Longer With Friends

Discovery Channel reports on a new study of 1,500 Aussies over a 10 year period that found that friends can help you live longer. The people who had the strongest group of friends lived longer on average than those who had fewer friends. The study also found that close contact with kids or relatives did not change survival rates -- only friends did.

Close contact with children and relatives had little impact on survival rates over the 10 years.

A network of good friends was, in statistical terms, equivalent to a 22 percent reduction in the risk of dying during this period when compared to those who had close ties with their children or other relatives.

An editorial released along with the study speculated that the stress-reducing benefit friends can provide might explain why good friends can prolong life.

Posted on June 20, 2005
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The Two Minute a Day Exercise Plan

Now scientists are telling us that all it takes to stay in shape is six minutes of exercise a week, or a grueling two minutes a day of intense running.

Canada's McMaster University found just six minutes of intense exercise a week could be as effective as six hours of moderate activity. The Journal of Applied Physiology study showed short bursts of very intense exercise improved muscle capacity, and improved endurance. However, experts warn it might be too much for people not already fit.

Sprint training may offer an option for individuals who cite "lack of time" as a major impediment to fitness and conditioning. Under current guidelines, people are recommended to take moderate aerobic exercise for 20-30 minutes three to five times a week. The researchers compared 23 people given different three-times-a-week training regimes. All participants were reasonably fit and active. One group cycled for two hours a day at a moderate pace, and a second cycled for 10 minutes a day in 60-second bursts, at a slightly harder pace. A third group took part in sprint training - cycling at top speed for two minutes in 30 second bursts with four minutes rest between each sprint. The volunteers completed an 18.6 mile cycle ride at the start of the study, and repeated it after two weeks of training. All three groups were found to have improved to the same extent. Analysis showed the rate at which their muscles absorbed oxygen--a key measure of fitness--was the same.

Laughing hysterically, then doing wind sprints for two minutes outside your home every morning used to mean that you were off your meds. Now it just means you're following the hot new LOL Diet and The Two Minute Exercise Program.

Posted on June 7, 2005
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Baby Formula and Just About Everything Else to Move Behind the Counter at Grocery Store

Finding your grocery shopping to be a bit more burdensome than usual lately? Apparently, the powers that be have decided that baby formula is too dangerous to be left on the shelves, so it will be moved behind the counter. Apparently, some drug dealers might use powdered baby formula to cut drugs, so --voila!-- it has to be put out of their reach. This is from the same people that have infuriated allergy sufferers by moving the Sudafed behind the counter in some states, and in others limiting the amount you can buy or requiring shoppers to sign a register.

The high-priced item has long been an attractive target for shoplifters, who typically resell it on the black market at a reduced price or use it to cut drugs. Now, some supermarkets are fighting back, putting formula under lock and key just as they did with cigarettes many years ago.

"There is a point in time when you have to protect your assets," said Ted Seal, general manager of a Super Fresh store near Bethlehem that locked up its supply about a month ago because thieves had been stealing it by the caseload. Customers who want powdered formula now must ask a manager to unlock a case near the front.

At Albertson’s Inc., one of the nation’s largest supermarket chains, with more than 2,500 stores in 37 states, stores often keep a very small quantity on shelves, with signs directing customers to the service counter if they want more.

"It has been a problem for a number of years. People steal baby formula, take it to another store and return it" for cash, said Albertson’s spokesman Walt Rubel.

What's next to move behind the counter and require a signature before purchase? Deadly eye drops (someone might drink them to get high)? Dog food (someone might shoplift it and return it to another store for cash)? Pantyhose (someone might buy them and use them to cover their faces as they rob a bank)? Maybe it's time we instituted a 3-day waiting period on all toiletries.

Posted on June 6, 2005
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The LOL Diet

Bored with Atkins and The Zone? Feeling overwhelmed with ennui at the thought of Weight Watchers? Why not try what we like to call The LOL Diet? That's right, laughter is the new weight loss miracle. Salon has the scoop:

It may not be as good for reducing the waistline as going to the gym or resisting that ice-cream sundae, but American researchers have found that 10-15 minutes of genuine giggling can burn off the number of calories found in a medium square of chocolate. The findings on the weight-loss possibilities of the uniquely human experience of laughter were presented at the close of the annual European Congress on Obesity on Saturday.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, recruited 45 pairs of friends, shut them in a room decorated like a cheap hotel -- scientifically known as a metabolic chamber -- played them comedy clips on a TV screen and measured how many calories they burned when they laughed.

The room was specially designed so the scientists could measure how much oxygen the volunteers inhaled and how much carbon dioxide they exhaled -- the gold standard for measuring energy burning. Noting differences in the oxygen and carbon dioxide patterns before and during laughter allowed the scientists to calculate whether laughter used more energy and how big the difference was. The heart rate, laughter and breathing information was then lined up in the special laughter lab and the tapes were analyzed second-by-second.

"They burned 20 percent more calories when laughing, compared to not laughing," Buchowski said. "Then we calculated what would happen if somebody laughed for 10 or 15 minutes a day and we found that it was up to 50 calories, depending on your body size and the intensity of the laughter."

That means that if you laugh for 10-15 minutes a day, you'd burn enough calories to lose two kilograms (4.4 pounds) in a year, Buchowski said.

In the spirit of The LOL Diet, here are links to The Onion, Fark.com and The Daily Show.

Posted on June 5, 2005
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Trust-Inducing Nasal Spray

Be very careful the next time a date offers you some nasal spray "to help with your terrible allergies," or a politician appears to be spraying the room with an "air freshener." Swiss researchers have found the secret chemical that can make other people trust you. It's called oxytocin and is secreted at various times. For example, when women have a baby they have higher oxytocin levels, presumably to make the mother bond with her child and vice versa. It's the biological basis of human trust.

University students who inhaled the hormone in a nasal spray were discovered to be far more trusting of one another -- eager, in fact, to hand over money to strangers in investment deals.

"We find that intranasal administration of oxytocin causes a substantial increase in trusting behaviour," a research team said. The team was led by Dr. Michael Kosfeld of the University of Zurich, whose findings appear in the journal Nature.

The study already has some cynical scientists musing about whether political operatives will try to crop-dust crowds with oxytocin at rallies, whereas more hopeful researchers see the hormone as a potential boon in treating people with social phobias, or rare genetic disorders that cause children to trust everyone they meet.

Some may worry about the prospect that political operators will generously spray the crowd with oxytocin at rallies of their candidates," said University of Iowa neurologist Antonio Damasio in a commentary in Nature.

Researchers also warn people not to confuse Oxytocin with Oxycontin, the popular painkiller that so many celebrities are addicted to. That's something else entirely.

Posted on June 2, 2005
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Brooke Shields Strikes Back

He's not a doctor, nor does he play one on TV. But that didn't stop "Dr." Tom Cruise from offering medical advice to Brooke Shields. Now, The Sunday Times reports on Brooke's reaction to Tom's comments that she should have just taken some vitamins to get over her severe postpartum depression, instead of using "mind-altering drugs" aka the prescription antidepressant Paxil. Let's just say that she was less than thrilled with his advice -- not to mention his catty comments that the new mom's career is going nowhere. And who could blame her?

Until Cruise took a swipe at her, she had been under the impression her career was going well. "Tom Cruise’s comments are irresponsible and dangerous," Shields said in London last week. "Tom should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them."

Shields was referring to Cruise’s new sci-fi film, but she might have equally been thinking of Scientology, his religion, one aspect of which teaches that Xenu, an extraterrestrial, brought aliens to earth and exterminated them with hydrogen bombs but their souls stuck to the bodies of humans.

Brooke is now appearing in the musical Chicago in London, she has a new book out, her two-year-old daughter Rowan seems quite happy, and she hasn't physically attacked Oprah Winfrey lately. Sounds like her career is doing just fine to us.

Posted on May 31, 2005
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Robot Doctors Are Here

Apparently, England is miles ahead of the U.S. when it comes to technology and robots. And don't even get us started about Japan. Reuters reports that robot nurses named nicknamed "Sister Mary" and "Doctor Robbie" started work at a London hospital today.

The pair allow doctors to visually examine and communicate with patients, whether they are in another part of the hospital or even another part of the world.

"This is a revolutionary concept which opens new avenues in telemedicine research and integrates technology with healthcare," said Professor Sir Ara Darzi in a statement. Darzi, head of surgery, anesthetics and intensive care at London's prestigious Imperial College is also a practicing surgeon at St Mary's hospital in Paddington, west London.

The 5-foot (1.5 meter) high robots are controlled remotely by a doctor via a joystick. Doctors can look at patients thanks to a camera mounted on top of the robot while patients can see their doctors via a screen on the robots' "face." Patients can be asked questions and medical records -- such as X-rays and test results -- can be read.

After a trial period, some egghead will tabulate the results to see if the patients liked the robots and if they worked well or not. No word on how many patients required psychiatric treatment due to trauma sustained from waking in a hospital bed, only to find a robot "doctor" treating them, causing delusions of time travel to the future.

Posted on May 19, 2005
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Earn Your Way to Being a Couch Potato

Health experts in Britain think that British children are way too fat and watch too much TV. But one enterprising grad student thinks he has the solution.

A special insole called Square-eyes that fits inside a child's shoe and tracks his exercise activity. This recorded activity can then be exchanged for sedentary hours watching the telly. It's a simple concept: you run, you get to lounge in front of the TV.

One button on the shoe -- the brainchild of a student at west London's Brunel University -- records the amount of steps taken by the child over the day. Another transmits this information to a base station connected to the TV. It calculates the time earned and once it runs out, the TV automatically switches itself off.

This sounds like it will work great -- until kids figure out how to hack the insole. So how far will little Sally or Tommy be willing to run in order to earn some good couch potato time? The shoe is not on the market yet, so parents will have to wait a bit longer before they can make kids "run for TV."

Posted on May 18, 2005
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Massive Star Wars Sick Out Threatens U.S. Economy

The New York Post just had to blab to employers that all those people who'll be calling in sick Thursday with a case of the "Sith Flu" are really at the premiere of the hotly-anticipated new Star Wars film. Never big on the understatement, the Post warns that the anticipated absenteeism could cost the U.S. economy millions of dollars and implies that the film opening could throw us into a deep recession.

Employers are expected to see a dramatic spike in absenteeism as workers play hooky to see Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, when it opens May 19, according to a new report.

That loss of productivity could cost employers as much as $627 million in the first two days that the picture — the last installment of the epic sci-fi series — hits theaters.

Just imagine the scene at offices nationwide Thursday....scores of empty cubicles, office managers scowling and thumbing rolodexes for the number of a good temp agency.

"There is a lot of anticipation to see the final movie," said John Challenger, CEO of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "With opening day falling on a Thursday, instead of the traditional Friday premiere, we are looking at two days of Star Wars' -- induced absenteeism."

We'd do a longer report on the impending financial doom of the U.S. economy because of the immaturity and irresponsibility of the American worker, but we have to go order our Star Wars tickets online.

Posted on May 16, 2005
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The Bed Bugs Are Biting

An MSNBC.com horror story news article says bed bugs can live for months without food -- patiently waiting for the next hapless hotel guest to arrive so they can feast on him.

Even upscale hotels are not immune to litigation, and bug specialists say the pests can thrive even in a spotlessly clean room. In 2003, a Mexican businessmen sued the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel in New York after he and a companion allegedly suffered numerous bedbug bites to their torsos, arms and necks while staying at the property, which overlooks Central Park.

Helmsley Enterprises Inc., the owner of the hotel, settled the suit quietly last year. Stopping short of confirming bed bugs had been a problem, Howard Rubenstein, a company spokesman, said the hotel had not had any problems with bed bugs since the lawsuit.

Oval-shaped and less than a quarter of an inch long, the brown-colored insects like to settle close to their food source, often hiding out under mattresses and bed frames, in crevices and behind picture frames.

Once attached to a sleeping human, they use a barbed proboscis to bore through the skin and suck their blood meal. They can go months without feeding, patiently awaiting a new host or travel companion.

One woman unknowingly brought home some of the bed bugs after a business trip; her home became infested in no time. And all we can say is "Ewwwww."

Posted on May 12, 2005
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Everything Bad Is Good for You?

Just when you thought you had reached your limit of having yet another expert tell you that everything you do is bad for you, along comes a new book that pooh-poohs all the experts.

Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson is here to make you feel better about all your bad habits. A New Yorker article explains Johnson's theory.

As Johnson points out, television is very different now from what it was thirty years ago. It's harder. A typical episode of Starsky and Hutch, in the nineteen-seventies, followed an essentially linear path: two characters, engaged in a single story line, moving toward a decisive conclusion. To watch an episode of Dallas today is to be stunned by its glacial pace-by the arduous attempts to establish social relationships, by the excruciating simplicity of the plotline, by how obvious it was. A single episode of The Sopranos, by contrast, might follow five narrative threads, involving a dozen characters who weave in and out of the plot. Modern television also requires the viewer to do a lot of what Johnson calls "filling in," as in a Seinfeld episode that subtly parodies the Kennedy assassination conspiracists, or a typical Simpsons episode, which may contain numerous allusions to politics or cinema or pop culture.

But it's not just watching TV that's gotten harder. Games are harder, too.

Twenty years ago, games like Tetris or Pac-Man were simple exercises in motor coordination and pattern recognition. Today's games belong to another realm. Johnson points out that one of the "walk-throughs" for "Grand Theft Auto III"-that is, the informal guides that break down the games and help players navigate their complexities-is fifty-three thousand words long, about the length of his book. The contemporary video game involves a fully realized imaginary world, dense with detail and levels of complexity.

So, let's see if we've got this straight. Playing computer games and watching TV are more difficult than the activities pursued by those who lived before TV was invented. We're smarter than people of 100 years ago whose entertainment might have consisted of playing easy games like chess, reading Plato in the original Greek and enjoying Shakespeare's plays. Got it.

Posted on May 12, 2005
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