SKIRMISHER

There’s a healthy reason why God made all those wonderful breasts: they actually keep the doctor away.

Like many accidental discoveries (such as Sildenafil citrate or Viagra being originally meant to treat angina, but instead has since been used on making the vagina happy. There’s a joke there somewhere), the drug Flibanserin was originally meant to fight depression. Tests showed it’s a stinking failure as an antidepressant, but boosted the libido of [...]

In a study of 515 brain tumor and multiple sclerosis patients, researchers found that men are assholes.

If you have limnophobia, this breathtaking view of a serene lake would have given you the screaming mimies.

Just one of the 29 rare and unusual phobias that plague mankind.

A pill bottle system, designed by a start-up called Vitality Inc., automatically sends you an SMs message to make sure you don’t forget taking your meds. Next: an even smarter pill bottle system that tasers your testicles to really, really remind you to take your fucking meds. That could be fun, even for the olds.

No job is more exciting than having the freedom to sink your rubber-gloved fingers into piles of thawed infant poop that had been frozen for decades, like the job of this bunch of Norovirus researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The shit-sifting team analyzed a shitload of frozen infant shit [...]

Lack of sleep, especially the long-term, night-after-night thing, has serious effects on human health and well-being. And hey, it can actually kill you.
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Don’t hate those people who are perky and efficient after only a few hours of sleep. They can’t help it. New research suggests that a genetic mutation may explain why some people sleep less.
Researchers don’t know exactly why some people do fine with as little as 4 hours of sleep a night, while others need [...]

What are the odds of you staying alive next year? In the next eight years? Let’s look at the numbers from meticulous Brit Benjamin Gompertz, who first had the genius observation that people actually die:
This startling fact was first noticed by the British actuary Benjamin Gompertz in 1825 and is now called the “Gompertz Law [...]

After 2,000 years of studies (not non-stop, but you get the picture), researchers have finally nailed down the exact role of this organ called the spleen — and here I didn’t even know the goddam thing existed:

Scientists have discovered that the spleen, long consigned to the B-list of abdominal organs and known as much for [...]

Six freaking minutes.
Scientists set out to test the well-known saying that just one drink can quickly go to your head.
Only six minutes after consuming an amount of alcohol equivalent to three glasses of beer or two glasses of wine, leading to a blood alcohol level of 0.05 to 0.06 percent, changes had already taken place [...]

Animals, like the gila monster and venomous snakes, have long been indirectly contributing to the development of important life-saving drugs for humans.
The words “drug development” may conjure images of white-coated scientists, working at benches with pipettes and petri dishes.
But the real experiments have been occurring in nature for millennia, where life on land and sea [...]

In a statement sent to member countries Thursday, the WHO said it decided to raise the pandemic warning level from phase five to six — its highest alert — after holding an emergency meeting on swine flu with its experts. WHO officials said the declaration will trigger drugmakers to speed up production of a swine [...]

Thinking of good memories for just 20 minutes a day can make people more cheerful than they were the week before, and happier than if they think of their current lives, report researchers from Loyola University.
Most people spontaneously reminisce when they’re alone or feeling down—or both—which suggests that we reach for pleasant memories as an [...]

In light of all this shitty swine flu hysteria, one important fact surfaced: Afghanistan has only one — ONE — pig, and it’s now safely quarantined, thank you very much.
– from “Flu? Don’t blame the pig.”

The World Health Organization said on Wednesday the world is at the brink of a pandemic, raising its threat level as the swine flu virus spread and killed the first person outside of Mexico, a toddler in Texas.
“Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in [...]

EVEN a “mild’” swine flu epidemic could lead to the deaths of 1.4 million lives and cost the global economy more than $US330 billion ($463 billion) in lost output.
The figures, based on economic modelling of an influenza pandemic, also reveal that the most serious “ultra” scenario would cost 142.2 million lives around the world and [...]