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Trying to Slow Down The Clock

3 Feb 2021

Perhaps the oldest formula for trying to beat the aging process can be found in an Egyptian papyrus dating back to circa 1500 B.C. The “Edwin Smith Papyrus” features a “Recipe for Transforming an...

We Need Release from "Science By Press Release"

28 Jan 2021

Chances are that most of you had not heard of colchicine before recent headlines excitedly hyping its potential as a treatment for COVID-19. Unless you suffer from gout. Then you surely recognize...

Tips for Better Thinking: Watch Out for Vague Gobbledygook

26 Jan 2021

It’s hard to underestimate our brain’s ability to find meaning in the banal, the contradictory, even the unintelligible. There is a scene on the television show Silicon Valley in which a tech mogul...

Tips for Better Thinking: Anecdotes Are Not Reliable

20 Jan 2021

There is a popular saying in the skeptical community: the plural of anecdote is not data. The clever putdown is meant to remind the person you are speaking to that no matter how many people swear...

The COVID-19 PCR Test Is Reliable Despite the Commotion About Ct Values

15 Jan 2021

True crime series like Serial and Making a Murderer invite us to sharpen our abilities and to outperform the detectives assigned to the case in figuring out what really happened. We hear the...

Reservations About Resveratrol

14 Jan 2021

In 1940 Japanese researcher Michio Takaoka submitted his thesis for a graduate degree in which he described studies of plants with a folkloric history of having medicinal properties. Such studies...

Tips for Better Thinking: Images Can Be Faked

12 Jan 2021

Faked photographs have been with us since the beginning of photography itself, but the wide availability of software and social media has made the creation and distribution of these visual...

The Doctor Carl Sagan Warned Us About

8 Jan 2021

Predictions made by psychics and astrologers tend to quickly fade from memory because of how wrong they often turn out to be, but one prediction made by Carl Sagan, an astrophysicist and famous...

Boost Your Knowledge about Boosting Your Immune System

6 Jan 2021

“Reinforce and Boost Your Immune System” promised the ad splashed across two pages of a local newspaper. There were products galore! Mushroom extracts, probiotics, collagen supplements, exotic oils...

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