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Most cases are not life-threatening, which is also what makes the virus a historic challenge to contain.

Soap absolutely annihilates the coronavirus, a chemistry professor explains. --- One side of the soap molecule (the one that’s attracted to fat and repelled by water) buries its way into the virus’s fat and protein shell. Fortunately, the chemical bonds holding the virus together aren’t very strong, so this intrusion is enough to break the virus’s coat. “You pull the virus apart, you make it soluble in water, and it disintegrates,” he says. Then the harmless shards of virus get flushed down the drain. And even if it the soap doesn’t destroy every virus, you’ll still rid them from your hands with soap and water, as well as any grease or dirt they may be clinging to. Soap will also wash away bacteria and other viruses that may be a bit tougher than coronavirus, and harder to disintegrate. The trick is this all takes a little time to happen, and that’s why you need to take at least 20 seconds to wash your hands.

This suggests that sun is better for us than previously thought, and the potential risks of minor skin cancer outweigh the risks of not getting enough sunlight. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That MSG isn’t the poison we’ve made it out to be has been well-established. News stories are written regularly about the lack of evidence tying MSG to negative health effects. (Read here and here, for example. Or here, here, here, here and here.) Still, Yelp reviews of Chinese restaurants tell tales of racing hearts, sleepless nights and tingling limbs from dishes “laden with MSG.” Even when the science is clear, it takes a lot to overwrite a stigma, especially when that stigma is about more than just food.

Infographic on the scientific evidence for effectiveness of popular dietary supplements. ‘Showing tangible health benefits when taken orally by an adult with a healthy diet.’

A ton of scientific studies are flat-out wrong. And most of it doesn't really matter anyway. "‘Science is a noble endeavor, but it’s also a low-yield endeavor,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure that more than a very small percentage of medical research is ever likely to lead to major improvements in clinical outcomes and quality of life. We should be very comfortable with that fact.’"

"Your Guide to Quackery, Health Fraud, and Intelligent Decisions"

"Capable psychonauts who think about thinking, about states of mind, about set and setting, can get things done not because they have more will power, more drive, but because they know productivity is a game of cat and mouse versus a childish primal human predilection for pleasure and novelty which can never be excised from the soul. Your effort is better spent outsmarting yourself than making empty promises through plugging dates into a calendar or setting deadlines for push ups."

"Atul Gawande gave the commencement speech at Stanford’s School of Medicine last week. Here is what he told the graduating class." On the need for building interconnected systems of care in medicine, rather than a hodgepodge of specialists not communicating with each other.

Written with the opinion that this is necessarily a Bad Thing. Revisit; this is interesting.

So if people are naturally creative or not, to what degree does 'encouraging' creativity even work? And do we understand this enough to know what aspects of creativity we are encouraging, or rather I should say: do we know how to encourage the 'good' parts of being creative and not make people into schizophrenics/sociopaths?

Portrait of the INTJ Myers-Briggs Personality Type: The Scientist

From the US National Library of Medicine, a huge collection of free, public-domain images from anatomical atlases. A great wealth of material. Wish it were designed better and that the books were all scanned rather than some photographed.

"Our obsession with physical appearance may not be so shallow after all." Symmetry and youth rule.