It’s always the nastiest things which produce the worst body odor. Being forced to run the mile in gym class.  A first date gone horribly wrong. Or maybe things are nasty because of bad BO. Either way, it’s safe to say that BO and nastiness go together like casual environmentalists and revolving doors. And as lung cancer kills more than one million people each year, I’d say it’s pretty nasty. So it should have some very distinct BO, right? Fortunately, it does.

You've probably noticed that more and more of your friends and co-workers are switching from the once ubiquitous plastic water bottle to stainless steel or glass water bottles. Most likely, they made the switch because they're concerned about the effects those plastic
bottles have on their health.

Over the last decade or so, we have come to understand that plastic is not the innocuous and stable material it appears to be.  Bisphenol A (BPA), a molecular building block of many 

Would you pay $20 a week to reduce your risk of Parkinson’s disease? No, I’m not about to trail off on a commentary about the public health option. I’m talking about making better-informed decisions as we push our carts down the produce aisle at the local grocery store.

Parkinson’s disease is the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder--an illness in which certain neurons in the brain are lost over years or even decades until the person ultimately dies. (The most common is Alzheimer’s.) In Parkinson’s, neurons in the substantia nigral region of the brain are destroyed, manifesting as motor symptoms including muscle rigidity, slowing or loss of physical movement, and a resting tremor.

On bad days I find it a convenient excuse, but on more fanciful days it seems like a super-power: I am only 1/10 human!  Although my dimples and chin are a demonstrable fusion of my mother and father's genetic material, the vast majority of the cells in my body are a dynamic consortium of bacteria.  It's estimated that there is a kilogram of bacteria in your gut alone, and since the majority of bacteria refuse to be cultured, we have underestimated their diversity and probably underestimated just how intimately they are involved in human health.