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• The Obesity Threat Level Today Is Orange

  Obesity and its potential affect on our future health is being compared to the threat of terrorism by British public health experts.
  
  We assume this comparison is in reference to its severity, widespread reach, and the urgency with which it should be addressed.
  
  It might also be in reference to the ominous and inescapable grip obesity, which can lead to diabetes and other health problems, is gaining on its "victims": according to recent studies, obesity can be caused—or at least influenced—by ear infections, tonsillitis, being clumsy or having poor coordination as a kid, genetics, environmental factors... And sometimes, even by eating a lot.
  
  Image: Andras Kallai's Fat Barbie, 2006; from the 2007 Venice Biennale
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  • Date: Aug 15 2008
  • Posted by alexandra_m

• Exercise In A Pill; Simplification In An Article

  Ronald Evans, a mustachioed researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, has found what the LA Times is calling "exercise in a pill." When tested on mice, Evans' new chemical compound, AICAR, transformed their muscle tissue "from sugar-burning fast-twitch fibers to fat-burning slow-twitch ones—the same change that occurs in distance runners and cyclists through training." One pharmacologist quoted in the Times article says "You're getting the benefits of exercise without having to do any work."
  
  That's really overselling it. We're sure there are uses for this stuff. Maybe when our space colonists have to go into hibernatation, AICAR can help prevent muscle atrophy or something. But if people started replacing actual exercise with AICAR, they'd miss out on all of the well-documented psychological benefits of actually running around. It's cool, it's interesting, but it's no "exercise in a pill."
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  • Date: Jul 31 2008
  • Posted by Andrew Price

• Slow Food Nation: Victory Gardens

  One of our Choose GOOD partners has been receiving heaps of hard-earned, positive press. Slow Food, whose name distills its mission statement into two tiny syllables, has turned the lawns of San Francisco's City Hall into food-bearing gardens with its Victory Garden planting party on July 12, 2008.
  
  If you missed out on the planting, fret not. The garden will be operating through September 21, at which point there will be a community harvest (and food will be donated to those who need it most). Prior to that, the first harvest will be held on Labor Day Weekend, when Slow Food Nation's main event makes like a tree and leaves its heart in San Francisco.
  
  Photo by Scott Chernis. Check out some more stunning SFN photography and charming SFN blogging here.
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  • Date: Jul 28 2008
  • Posted by Patrick James

• Austrian Transplant Bans Trans Fats

  California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law today that bans the use of trans fats in restaurants. The response was the to-be-expected mix of cheers and jeers that inevitably follows any law that both improves public health and hints at authoritarianism. Here's what the man in charge had to say:
  
  "California is a leader in promoting health and nutrition, and I am pleased to continue that tradition by being the first state in the nation to phase out trans fats...Consuming trans fat is linked to coronary heart disease, and today we are taking a strong step toward creating a healthier future for California."
  
  Link.
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  • Date: Jul 25 2008
  • Posted by Patrick James

• Truman Show Delusion

  We all knew reality tv was bound to have some intensely adverse affect on our functionality as humans, but beyond it being relatively insipid, no one had put a finger on a specific reason it should cease and desist. Oh, got one! Brothers and psychiatrists from Montreal, Joel and Ian Gold, claim it's been eroding away people's whole grasps of reality. They've diagnosed a handful of patients with a specific psychological malady that causes the affected to imagine they are the "focus of attention by millions and millions of people," coining it "Truman Show Delusion." From the handful of patients who are now undergoing treatment for the illness at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital, looks like the most susceptible population is men aged 26 to 35. Gasp... Young, New York men? Suffering from the delusion that the whole world revolves around them?? Based on personal experience, some of us fear this illness might be far more widespread than currently documented. Via Gothamist
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  • Date: Jul 22 2008
  • Posted by alexandra_m

• M. Night Shyamalan Film Has A Point(?)

  A deadly new type of dementia has been discovered in 16 Americans, and of those, it has killed 10. Similar but distinct from the fatal and incurable degenerative neurological disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, it causes its victims to gradually lose the ability to think, speak and move. How the disease originates, if and how it spreads, and how many people have suffered from it are all unknown. Spooky, right? OK, now cue minute 00:55 of below "The Happening" trailer. Just a coincidence, certainly. ...
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  • Date: Jul 11 2008
  • Posted by alexandra_m

• Watermelon: Viagra Of Summer Fruits

  Little-known facts about the physiological repercussions of watermelon consumption: it's a diuretic. And beyond that, scientists in Texas are comparing the effects of a certain amino acid in watermelon to the effects of Viagra. (Note: Texas is one of the country's top watermelon producers. Coincidence? Or marketing ploy?) Bhimu Patil of Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center said, "Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it's a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects." Todd Wehner, a rival watermelon expert at North Carolina State University, called the comparison "interesting" but felt compelled to clarify that watermelon is not necessarily interchangeable with prescription erectile dysfunction drugs. Interesting indeed. Depending on the truth value of the Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center's theory, it could introduce into the world of the family picnic a host of new opportunities for intense awkwardness.
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  • Date: Jul 10 2008
  • Posted by alexandra_m

• Your Heart's Desire: The Unmediated Outdoors

  Peter Kahn, a psychology professor at the University of Washington, has just given us further proof that unmediated access to nature is good for you. Kahn gave 90 subjects a series of stressful tasks and then measured their heart rates to gauge recovery time between efforts.
  
  "One group recovered between tasks near a window that provided a view of the outdoors. Another recovered near a high-definition plasma screen that displayed the same view."
  
  Kahn's study found that heart rates returned to normal more quickly when subjects could see the real outdoors, rather than a video feed on a screen. Apparently the knowledge that you're actually in a pleasant environment, rather than just receiving images of one, has real, positive psychosomatic effects. We wonder if heart rate recovery varies depending on just how pleasant the natural scene is.
  
  Photo of "Nature's Window" in Australia from here.
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  • Date: Jul 07 2008
  • Posted by Andrew Price

• Ask Alice

  According to a study in a Johns Hopkins University laboratory, psilocybin (the drug in hallucinogenic mushrooms that makes all the wackiness happen) is good for you. That is to say, the hallucinations it induces can have long-term psychological benefits. It also might be helpful for treating alcohol and drug addiction. Now, it's still considered dangerous and categorized as an illegal drug, and the findings aren't all that conclusive. The only thing we know for sure is that mushrooms are very helpful for concocting stories about the bricks of the building you're beholding under a melting midnight campus sky wherein the bricks all work in a brick factory and get paid in bricks and, on Christmas, if they've been especially good bricks this year, are allowed some extra salt when they dine on their Christmas brick.
  
  Link. Image via Flickr.
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  • Date: Jul 01 2008
  • Posted by Patrick James

• This Sh*t Is Bananas!

  Our office kitchen is stocked with bananas. For now. It appears they might go extinct when a new strain of "Panama disease" reaches Latin America. Giving up bananas might be part of a positive trend towards more locavorous eating, though, according to Banana expert Dan Koeppel: "In recent years, American consumers have begun seeing the benefits — to health, to the economy and to the environment — of buying foods that are grown close to our homes. Getting used to life without bananas will take some adjustment. What other fruit can you slice onto your breakfast cereal?" Strawberries, obviously. We'll switch if we have to. We probably shouldn't be supporting the labor practices on Ecuadorian banana plantations anyway.
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  • Date: Jun 23 2008
  • Posted by Andrew Price