While watching various matches of the Australian Open, we were bombarded by those videos from the Corn Refiner's Association claiming that your body can't tell the difference between cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) - so they must be the same. But consider that your body can't tell the difference between air and carbon monoxide, either, and low concentrations of CO will kill you. [Read more]

Now is the time for resolutions, exercise and diets - or so we are told in just about every media outlet. But why is this so?

Walking through Barnes and Noble a year or two ago, I noticed Fat History, written by my college professor Peter N Stearns. I'd enjoyed his classes, so I bought the book. I've started and stopped reading it on light rail several times since then, and am still only about halfway through it. I'd probably do about as well dieting.

In his history courses, Stearns generally taught us how things really were then, as opposed to how we believed they were, and how we got to how things are now. One course was called Sex and Death, another Work and Leisure. "Then" was usually the years immediately before the Industrial Revolution, and Stearns would lecture about how and why our attitudes had changed since preindustrial times.  [Read more]

Things are heating up in Chicago and I don't know a soul who is surprised by that.  It's Chicago and it's Emanuel Land.  Last week the Occupy Wall Street Windy City branch decided to occupy Grant Park past the posted 11 PM closing time.  The police, never ones to miss even vague radical clues, guessed correctly that these folks had other things on their minds and weren't going to be ready to leave just because a simple sign said they should.
 [Read more]

A new study reveals that US life expectancy is falling even further behind other industrialized countries. As of 2007, the life expectancy of Americans is 75.6 for men and 80.8 for women, which puts us in 37th place internationally. On average, Americans live three years less than citizens in the top ten longest-lived countries, and those countries pull further ahead of us every year. [Read more]

In Djokovic Rules and Djokovic Still Rules, I've already described how well I think Djokovic is playing this year. Many media pages, like the Wall Street Journal article below, are now devoted to the gluten-free diet he adopted last year - before the streak.

The Diet That Shook Up Tennis? [Read more]

Lest you ever forget the science community is a sausage-fest: [Read more]

Mainstream media reporting initially compared the explosions and loss of control at the Fukushima nuclear plants to the Level Five event at Three Mile Island (TMI). As Fukushima spiraled out of control the media turned to Chernobyl, the undisputed Level Seven nuclear event. A recent article from Reuters concerning nuclear ratings reform mentions only those two events as if nothing else even remotely as serious has ever happened. [Read more]

During their debate on Democracy Now, George Monbiot and Helen Caldicott differed sharply over the actual, documented effects of the radiation from Chernobyl. Caldicott claimed that up to a million had died, while Monbiot claimed that only 43 had died from the effects of Chernobyl. That's an enormous discrepancy between two activists I have always respected, but that discrepancy is reflected in their sources.
 [Read more]

"I think everyone agrees with the goal of reducing abortion by encouraging consideration of other alternatives," [North Dakota governor] Daugaard said in a written statement. "I hope that women who are considering an abortion will use this three-day period to make good choices."

WASHINGTON – Having taken criticism for not attempting any job-related legislation after campaigning on the issue, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced today that Republicans around the nation have been creating jobs with anti-abortion legislation. [Read more]

A while back, my wife told me that one of her relatives was trying a new diet. The woman is plump but not obese, eats processed food, and only gets exercise at work, so I thought it might be a good idea. But then I heard that she had spent a thousand dollars up front for the diet. And just recently I learned the name for the diet: HCG Skinny. So I looked it up:

 [Read more]

Quite a long time ago, I got a part in a local production of Widows and Children First, the third play of Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy. It was my second play as an actor. I played Ed, a bisexual man torn between his straight and gay relationships (and not too successful either way if you ask me). I was both excited and nervous because there are only four characters in the play, and Ed was onstage most of the time. He had a lot of lines and even a bed scene with Arnold. My wife took me out to buy pajamas.
 [Read more]

One of my pet peeves is people that don't shower before swimming in a public pool. Even in upper class neighborhood clubs and Ys, I always see Type A guys that rush in, yank on their jammers and rush out of the locker room to get a lane in the pool. No one is as clean as they'd like to imagine.

Nearly 100 ill after weekend swim meet at Naval Academy

 [Read more]

Talking to CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Bill Gates minced no words in stating his opinion on anti-vaxxers and fraudulent researcher Andrew Wakefield: [Read more]

 [Read more]

 [Read more]

 [Read more]

Well that's a relief. At Forbes Magazine, Editor-in-Chief, former Republican presidential candidate, Heritage Foundation trustee and Fox News panelist Malcolm Stevenson "Steve" Forbes, Jr. proclaims that hydraulic fracturing will not only make money but will also solve US energy woes.

Energy Crisis Over!

 [Read more]

“My story begins on a cold February morning, in the shower. I felt a small, hard lump above the nipple on my left breast. I quickly stopped feeling for it and went on with the day I had planned. The next day, and the one after that, and the one after that, it was still there.

A week later I happened to have an appointment for my annual physical. I mentioned it to my doctor. As she was examining me, her lips were saying ‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about’ but her eyes told me something else.”

–Linda Salter [Read more]

Always a woman to me.

Wolfrum’s Word

Part of having a recurring blog called “William K. Wolfrum’s Morning” means that some mornings William K. Wolfrum will be busier than normal. This is one of those mornings, as I’ll be taking in my 7-year-old Australian Shepherd, Duchess will be undergoing a mastectomy today as a preventative measure against breast cancer. [Read more]