Why you probably don’t have to worry about your little swimmers just yet — There’s nothing we love to hate more than man-made substances. As a society, we have decided that things which we collectively make, regardless of how useful they may be, are secretly killing us in a myriad of ways. Every week there’s a new story about how some common household exposure…

Looking at the science behind the headlines — As a society, we love a good news story about health. You see dozens of these a week, from the stories about coffee saving your life, to the industry-funded belief that blueberries are uniquely healthsome and good for your heart. This week’s story is that Tai Chi — a Chinese…

Looking at the science behind the story — Music is a wonderful thing. There’s something inherently human in our shared love of sound. Whether it be Chopin or the latest Olivia Rodrigo song, there’s a deep sense of connection that we can only achieve when listening to a piece of music that we all love. And, according to…

Looking at the science behind the headlines — PFAS — the collective acronym for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are something that we love to hate. They are a class of chemicals used in a lot of industrial applications, such as clothing and plastics, because they have a bunch of useful qualities. They are also increasingly the focus…

Why recent headlines about ultra-processed foods are wrong — Ultra-processed food is the latest in a long line of ways humans have thought up of trying to categorize things into easy groups of “healthy” vs “unhealthy’“. The idea is that foods which are produced in factories and come pre-packaged are generally unnatural and bad for your health, while things…

What are the rates of long-term COVID-19 symptoms in 2023 and beyond? — It’s 2023, and the individual risk from COVID-19 has never been lower. We’ve developed new treatments, brilliant vaccines, and have very strong immunity to the disease built up over the years since it first emerged. While COVID-19 is undoubtedly a public health issue — it probably always will be —…

A new study casts doubt on the trend of avoiding blue light — Blue light is one of the many things that hits the headlines often, because it is both a symptom of the modernity and also a thing that is vaguely theorized to be potentially bad for you. We all love to hate something we invented only decades ago. One of the…

Explaining the recent news about more cancer in people under 50 — This week, there have been a swathe of scary new headlines about cancer in young people. If you’ve been paying attention to the news, rates of cancer in people under the age of 50 have been skyrocketing over the last decade, a trend that is as mysterious as it is…

We probably won’t be annihilating all solid tumors any time soon — At least once a year, we get a series of media headlines proclaiming that scientists have hit the holy grail. That we’ve found the big one. That the cure for cancer is just around the corner, or potentially already here. We’ve recently seen a perfect example of this hubbub. News…