ArcaMax

The film "Gerry," staring Casey Affleck and Matt Damon, tells the story of two boys who wander -- and wander and wander -- in the desert without food or water. The movie bewildered film critic Roger Ebert, who said the more he watched it, the less he liked it and the more he admired it.

What we admire is folks who know how good it is to walk --...Read more

It seems like every week, the Food and Drug Administration issues an alert about salmonella contamination in the food supply. You're told to avoid eating prosciutto and salami (we say they're always to be avoided anyway) or to ditch your dog's fancy food. Recent outbreaks of salmonella illness have been linked to contaminated fruit and ...Read more

We'll start with the good and tasty news: Pecans (as in a pecan-pomegranate salad or the newly available pecan milk, not the sugar-disaster that's pecan pie) can help you stay healthy in important ways. And since 80% of the world's supply is grown in the U.S., pecans are never in short supply.

A study out of the University of Georgia (natch!) ...Read more

Sarah Hyland of "Modern Family" has had multiple kidney transplants. That means she's immunocompromised, because of the anti-rejection drugs she has to take and because her original condition strains her immune system.

When she got her COVID-19 vaccine in March, she declared, "HALLELUJAH! I AM FINALLY VACCINATED!!!!!" Now, she sounds like a ...Read more

Time travel that lets you zip ahead 1,000 years to see what's going to happen in the future is a concept that's fascinated everyone from H.G. Wells, who wrote "The Time Machine" in 1895, to Stephen Hawking, in his 2018, posthumously published "Brief Answers to the Big Questions." But it's only recently that people have been talking about the far...Read more

The Hollywood Reporter says that when movies laced with strong language end up on TV, the offensive words are often taken out and others that sort of fit the speech patterns are dropped in -- whether they make any sense or not. When "The Usual Suspects" was broadcast, one irate thug ended up shouting, "Hand me the keys, you fairy godmother."

...Read more

There's no way to describe the plot of Laurel and Hardy's 1935 movie "Tit for Tat" -- suffice it to say, it involves misplaced revenge, a lemon meringue pie and shoplifting. Nonetheless, the takeaway is worth paying attention to: Bad choices lead to even worse results.

That's the same point that's made in a study published in Nature Food: The ...Read more

When Tony Soprano's loyal enforcer Paulie "Walnuts" did a job for his boss, you could bet someone's health was going to take a turn for the worse. In real life, there's nothing about walnuts that threatens your wellbeing. In fact, according to a new Harvard study, eating walnuts a few times a week can help you live longer and healthier.

The ...Read more

The Interborough Rapid Transit underground subway line opened in New York City in 1904, running for around 10 miles between City Hall and 145th Street in Manhattan. But it got longer and stronger over the decades as it became a major part of the city's 248-mile-long subway system.

Another form of IRT -- isometric resistance training -- can help...Read more

The fig tree has a place in the history of many cultures. Buddha is said to have achieved enlightenment in 528 B.C. while sitting under a fig tree. In Greek and Roman mythology, figs are sometimes associated with Dionysus/Bacchus, god of wine and drunkenness, and with Priapus, a frisky satyr. In India, the goddess Nirantali is credited with ...Read more

Comic-book villain Ann Darnell, aka Vapor, has the power to transform her body into any gas -- from oxygen to mustard gas. But her complex abilities often backfire, like when the Hulk defeated her while she was in the form of hydrogen. He sprayed her with oxygen, and she turned into water!

Vapers are equally in danger of being knocked out by ...Read more

JLo Beauty launched in 2020, joining a long line of high-end, celebrity-led skincare lines. But it doesn't take a major investment to access skin-protecting, skin-loving "products." They're found in everyday foods that are good for you inside and out.

Vitamin A in your epidermis absorbs skin-damaging, wrinkle-producing ultraviolet radiation! It...Read more

-pop girl group NiziU sings "Sweet Bomb": "call me sweet bomb," they could be describing the TikTok-inspired, flavor-enhanced coffee drinks that folks are being encouraged to order at their local coffee shop. Ten extra pumps of sugary caramel syrup are just the beginning. One "recipe" calls for a venti (20 ounce) Strawberry Creme ...Read more

Business magnate Richard Branson has said, "I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics." Now, we're not sure that's a good idea when you're heading to space, but it turns out your gut's instincts are sure worth paying attention to.

You may think that heart woes come directly from eating red and processed meats ...Read more

Remy, the animated rodent in the movie "Ratatouille," had the right attitude about food when he declared: "If you are what you eat, then I only want to eat the good stuff."

Unfortunately, many kids (and parents) don't share that attitude. A study from Tufts University reveals that 67% of the calories that kids and teens eat come from ...Read more

When David Archuleta sings "A little spark to get through the night/ Could be enough to see a new day/ 'Cause a little goes, it goes a long way," he is describing perfectly just how little it can take to turn your life around.

If you're 65 to 79, sedentary and obese, a randomized, controlled trial of 160 adults published in the journal ...Read more

At the 2019 Golden Globe Awards, hosts Andy Samberg and Sandra Oh arranged for health care workers to come onstage and offer audience members free flu shots -- a first for a Hollywood awards show, for sure. But we wonder how up-to-date folks are going to be with this year's flu shot. One study, looking at managed Medicaid and some Medicare-...Read more

Herman Melville, author of "Moby-Dick," said: "We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men." A wonderfully true observation -- but these days, with what we know about nutrition (and language), he might have said, "A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow humans -- and the trillions of microbes that ...Read more

In 2018, the ketogenic diet was hugely popular and being touted by celebrities as diverse as the Lakers' 6-foot-9-inch LeBron James and 5-foot-1-inch singer/actress Vanessa Hudgens. But in 2020, a Food and Health Survey of Americans found that intermittent fasting was ranked ahead of keto as Americans' favorite dietary pattern. That's good, ...Read more

On July 12 of this year, actress Rita Wilson took her husband Tom Hanks out for a bike ride to celebrate his 65th birthday. A great idea for many reasons -- including one we bet that Hanks, diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2013, didn't know about.

It turns out that for folks with diabetes, cycling is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of ...Read more