Health

The Science of Fat

If you’re anything like over sixty percent of Americans, you’ve got a few pounds of fat you could stand to lose. If you saw what a pound of body fat actually looks like, you might be double-motivated. Yet there are a ton of misconceptions about fat—some of which could inform mistakes in our weight-loss endeavors.…

How Blood Works

It’s red, it flows through your veins, the sight of it makes some people feel faint… but how exactly does blood work? This short video crams a lot of science into an incredibly detailed 5 minutes, which careers through everything from EPO doping to the complexities of your immune system, as well as, umm, how…

Nearly all experts agree that bacterial and viral diseases will have been virtually wiped out [by the year 2000]. Probably arteriosclerotic heart disease will also have been eliminated. — February 25, 1966 issue of Time magazine

Snore Sensing Pillow Automatically Nudges You To Roll Over

It seems like snoring has become more of an epidemic than any of us have realized. At CES, Sleep Number revealed its IQ bed that lets bedmates silence a snoring partner. But now there’s a pillow that can stop a deafening snorer all by itself. Using a built-in microphone with adjustable sensitivity, the pillow listens…

The FDA Has Finally Approved This Swallowable PillCam After Nine Years

Straight out of a 70s sci-fi film, PillCam has long existed as a means to image your insides—but only now has the FDA approved the device for use inside your colon. During an eight-hour trip through your gut, the pill-shaped camera transmits images to a device on your belt. The images aren’t as good as…

More evidence that sweetened foods and beverages are killing you

New research published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine shows that eating added sugar in foods such as soft drinks, cereals, and cakes does more than just make us pack on the pounds, it can also increase our risk of dying from heart disease — and by a significant margin. In a nutshell, here’s what…

A Map of State Life Expectancies (And What Country They’re Closest To)

Americans are living longer, healthier lives—79.8 years on average—ranking 35th in the world in terms of life expectancy from birth. But where you live in the United States has a drastic impact on how far over or under the average your personal timeline will be. This illuminating map by the non-profit Measure of America shows…

A single pound of human body fat looks horrifyingly vile

Don’t worry, what you’re looking at isn’t exactly real but actually a full replica of fatty tissue in a human body. Not that it makes it any better because that’s pretty much how fat looks like inside your body. Which, well, oh my god gross. I don’t want a single ounce of this slimy goopy…

After 120 Years, Doctors Develop New Brain Surgery Technique

A team of surgeons from Johns Hopkins recently came up with a safer, better method of replacing skull fragments after brain surgery. This is good news for anybody who might need a little work done on their noggin in the near future, as doctors have been using the same method since the 1890s. The difference…

Spam, Silkworms, Hydroponics: The Speculative Future of Food on Mars

Last year, NASA held a recipe contest for cooking on Mars. Ordinary civilians like us were invited to submit recipes based on a list of available ingredients—heavy on freeze-dried produce and various meat-flavored “textured vegetable proteins”—to be cooked and judged by crew members of HI-SEAS. HI-SEAS wasn’t actually a mission on Mars, of course; it…

This Is What HIV Looks Like When It Infects Living Cells

This monochrome image of living tissue has some extremely unwelcome visitors lurking within it. Taken from some of the first ever 3D images of HIV at work, those little blue circles show the virus infecting the surrounding cells. The electron microscope images show HIV-1 virions in bright blue, embedded in the gut tissue of a…

What can we actually learn from the UK’s first marijuana ‘overdose’?

Gemma Moss recently became the first woman in Britain “ruled to have been poisoned to death by smoking cannabis,” her sudden death referred to by tabloids as “the tragic proof that cannabis can kill.” But Moss’s story, while undeniably sad, has told us next to nothing about the dangers of pot. At the same time,…

25% of Russian Men are Dead by Age 55

A full quarter of Russian men die before their 55th birthday. Compare that to America’s 1% and the UK’s 7%. Why the disparity? There’s a good chance it has something to do with the country’s vodka consumption. Top photo by christian.senger via flickr Via USA Today: Researchers tracked about 151,000 adult men in the Russian…

What is the world’s most polluted city?

Here’s a hint: It’s not Beijing. (Or anywhere else in China, for that matter.) https://gizmodo.com/its-so-smoggy-in-beijing-the-only-way-to-see-the-sunri-1503511957 https://gizmodo.com/chinas-air-pollution-as-seen-from-space-1482191912 Top Photo: The Presidential Pallace in New Delhi, enveloped in smog | Altaf Qadri/Associated Press According to a study published by India’s Center for Science and Environment, the city with the poorest air quality is actually Delhi, where air…

Scientists Use Acid to Turn Blood Cells into Stem Cells in 30 Minutes

This is a game changer, folks. Whereas mining stem cells has been either an ethical quandary or a months-long affair, scientist can now turn any old blood cells into stem cells in just 30 minutes—by dipping them in acid. That’s right. Take blood cells, add acid, get stem cells. It’s as simple as it sounds.…

An emerging maker culture building Cincinnati, a “Green Line” making a Mexican city healthier, and a car-free festival changing L.A.—all that, plus preserving post offices in an age of email and three plans to save San Francisco from a housing crisis, in this week’s Urban Reads. “In America, nearly every city and town has, or…

NYC’s Charming Water Towers Are Actually Bacteria-Filled Horrorshows

Ah, New York—the sparkling skyline! The bustling streets! The… poop-filled water tanks? According to a new report from The New York Times, the city’s roughly 17,000 water tanks are totally unsanitary and widely unregulated. First of all: Why does NYC still use water tanks? The answer is relatively simple: Many buildings taller than six or…

A 14,000-volt electrical shock gave this man star-shaped cataracts

In the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers recount the fascinating case of an electrician who, after sustaining a 14,000-volt shock to his left shoulder, presented with “bilateral stellate anterior subcapsular opacities of the lens.” Translation: Starburst-shaped cataracts. https://gizmodo.com/this-is-what-happens-when-you-run-15-000-volts-through-5988556 https://gizmodo.com/this-is-what-your-skin-looks-like-after-youve-been-stru-5890173 Researchers Bobby Korn and Don Kikkawa of describe the patient’s initial…

The world’s oldest cancer is 11,000 years old — and contagious

Scientists have finally unlocked the sequence of the world’s oldest surviving cancer — an 11,000-year-old, sexually-transmitted genital cancer that still affects dogs today. Scientists from the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, led by Elizabeth Murchison, published the new research in Science. The cancer first arose in a single dog over 11,000…

Is it really worth having your gut bacteria tested?

How much can you learn about your health from a dab of poop or a swab from your skin or mouth? With various scientific researchers offering to test your microbiome for a fee, it’s natural to be curious about the trillions of microbes living in your body. But is it worthwhile to get tested yourself,…