My favorite nutrition author, Gary Taubes, has an essay in yesterday's New York Times: "What Really Makes Us Fat."

The historical and scientific background is familiar to those of use who have read Taubes's Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet and Disease and Why We Get Fat (And What to Do About It).  The new ( Read more... )

My favorite nutrition journalist and historian, Gary Taubes, has an essay in the New York Times today: "Salt, We Misjudged You."  Taubes lays out how current public policy and conventional wisdom on salt consumption are not only not supported by the latest and greatest science, they were not even supported by the science at the time the policies ( Read more... )

much_madness just let me know that science journalist and historian Gary Taubes has an engaging new essay in Newsweek magazine this week, which we can read online at The Daily Beast: "Why the Campaign to Stop America's Obesity Crisis Keeps FailingIt's inspired by a new HBO documentary pushing the same old advice.  For those of us who are already fans of ( Read more... )

Here's another nutrition/health book worth your time: Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health by William Davis, MD.  This is not just for celiac sufferers, but genuinely for all of us living through today's food supply system.  The writing is engaging, energetic and studded with personal anecdotes from the ( Read more... )

Have I mentioned lately that I adore science journalist and historian Gary Taubes, and that I believe everyone should read him?  Take your pick: his easy, short, 2011 book (Why We Get Fat); his hard, long, 2007 book (Good Calories, Bad Calories); his articles; his blog...

And speaking of his blog, he just posted an incisive, compelling take-down ( Read more... )

I heard on NPR last week about the discovery that women can produce new eggs later in their reproductive lives, but the radio article was so hurried and brief that I misunderstood many things about this important biological discovery - most of all, I failed to grasp that this isn't just a stem-cell-enabled innovation, but rather an outright ( Read more... )

As remembered from high-school chemistry, an electrolyte is "any substance containing free ions that make the substance electrically conductive," and over in biochemistry, that human life requires the specific electrolytes: "sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), calcium (Ca2+), magnesium (Mg2+), chloride (Cl−), hydrogen phosphate (HPO42−), and hydrogen ( Read more... )

They'll have to duplicate and explain these results before I'll get too excited, but: "Roll over Einstein: Pillar of physics challenged" by Frank Jordans, Associated Press."Scientists at the world's largest physics lab said Thursday they have clocked neutrinos traveling faster than light..."

"New Drug Cures Multiple Viruses in Human Cells: Single treatment can kill 15 virus types in 11 mammals, study shows" by Christine Dell'Amore in National Geographic News (August 22, 2011 ( Read more... )

We've all seen Jon Stewart interview Neil deGrasse Tyson on The Daily Show.  Now, hear Neil deGrasse Tyson interview Jon Stewart about science, politics and talk shows on StarTalk Radio (Season 2, Episode 20).  The program is available for streaming or download; live new episodes come on Sundays at 6 PM Eastern.