Literally Guarding Kids From Sugar Parents are now guarding Philadelphia corner candy stores – keeping their kids out. Right now 20% of American children are obese. Are ad hoc “militias” of parents blocking candy stores a smart way to prevent future obesity? This is no way to run a country – or a health […]
Florida does it again – voting to ban children from playing outside (4/06/11)
Keep Them In Tim Dorsey and Carl Hiaasen, move over – Florida reality again trumps both fantasy and novelistic legerdemain. Perhaps it’s the effect of earthquakes and oil spills (our one year anniversary of the BP disaster) but strangeness pervades the state. Some weeks ago five teenagers in Silver Springs Shore snorted the remains of […]
Does sleep loss give me the munchies, or do I just get high? (4/1/11)
How to Gain Weight Without Even Trying Sleep less, weigh more. Even if might feel temporarily high from staying up all night, keep staying up and you’re going to put on weight. Quickly. Columbia University researchers rigidly controlled the life of 13 men and 13 women for six days. One group slept 8 hours, the […]
Does sleep loss make you take bad risks? (3/21/11)
Gambling With Time Las Vegas at night cools outside, but not inside. The desiccated desert air does not affect environments designed and run as separate worlds where the temperature, the atmosphere and the staff’s friendly glare never change. There are no clocks. Some years ago I returned to Las Vegas after decades to see what […]
Your kludgy brain (and how to use it – 3/2/11)
Seeing Without Sight Ever wondered how congenitally blind people “see” what they’re reading? It’s because they’re using the visual processing part of their brains to decipher words. It turns out your brain is a group of kludges – Rube Goldberg machines of tacked together parts that get the job(s) done. Darwinian evolution never went to […]