Finger Jerky, Perhaps?

You know after you remove a Band-Aid that’s gotten soaking wet: That white, wrinkly, squishy look that your skin gets where it’s been covered up? They need a really good name for that.

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Wash Your Hands

It’s gonna get dirty out there. We have a bleak window of maybe 10 years, where we are going to have to use the antibiotics we have very wisely, but also grapple with the reality that we have nothing to treat these infections with.

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Ill

Taking my first sick day in months… can’t remember the last time, actually. It’s amazing how being ill can totally derail all your plans, make everything suddenly take a back seat to your recovery, and delay everything you have going on. And at the same it can be liberating: No one expects you to get…

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Planes, Trains, and Vaporettos

Just back from 8 glorious days in Italy… jet lagged like nobody’s business, but replete… Thinking about all the forms of travel required to get from here to Florence, around Tuscany, to Venice, back to Florence, and back to San Francisco. Looks a bit like this (not including copious amounts of time spent on foot):…

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Sometimes Sleeping Is Hard

Had insane dreams last night. People (even some dead ones) from the distant past playing major roles. Espionage and hitmen after me, holed up in a hotel room. My kids were overgrown to 5’6″ tall (but still 4-7 years old). Things got so weird I was woken up and told that I was having a…

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Be Mad

It’s healthy! An Australian psychology expert who has been studying emotions has found being grumpy makes us think more clearly. In contrast to those annoying happy types, miserable people are better at decision-making and less gullible, his experiments showed. While cheerfulness fosters creativity, gloominess breeds attentiveness and careful thinking, Professor Joe Forgas told Australian Science…

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BPA: We’re All Screwed

Society laughs at your fears about the BPA-laden plastic water bottle. “When people talk about polycarbonate bottles, they talk about nanogram quantities of BPA [leaching out],” Warner observes. “The average cash register receipt that’s out there and uses the BPA technology will have 60 to 100 milligrams of free BPA.” By free, he explains, it’s…

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In Other News, Ukranian Cash is Known as the Hryvnia

Note to self/world: If you drop money into a toilet, let it go. The emergency workers removed tiles, drilled the toilet out of concrete floor and cut the outlet pipe, but the man’s arm remained trapped in the chute. Hydraulic shears and a plumber’s torch were finally used to cut the man free.

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