Ed Cunningham quit college football over concussion concerns.
That little click you just heard was another tiny domino falling in the decline of football. I've said before that the NFL was one thing, but it's such a small, relatively well-paid population that it doesn't mean much. Once concern starts spreading upstream into college, high school, and beyond, football is in trouble.
Can a Kibbutz make us happier?
In my neighborhood we've experimented with our version of Kibbutzing: we used to have a monthly (or so) breakfast where everyone in the neighborhood was invited to a single house for pancakes, breakfast burritos, etc. Like so much in life, though, it was overtaken by other Saturday morning chores. It's hard for even a breakfast burrito to compete with kids' soccer, the Home Depot, and volunteer duties. It's time to resurrect our Kibbutz.
Caitlin Thompson doped like Maria Sharapova and liked it.
Caitlin brings up the possibility of this having been a placebo effect. I agree. It's hard to find clinical trial data on meldonium in English; almost all the trials are published in Russian:
And there are no systematic reviews. Wolfgang Schobersberger, Tobias Dünnwald, Günther Gmeiner, and Cornelia Blank wrote a nice narrative review (paywalled) on meldonium's transition to a performance-enhancing drug, though. The take-home from their article is right in the abstract:
The benefit of taking meldonium in view of performance enhancement in athletes is quite speculative, and is discussed without sound scientific evidence.
The FDA is (finally) taking on stem cell clinics.
A few years ago, a stem cell clinic opened here in Kansas, with surprising fanfare. IIRC, they convinced the Governor and even Kansas State Head Football Coach Bill Snyder to attend a grand opening. Coach Snyder is even in a video on their website. Not long after, I reached out to the docs in the clinic through their website to ask to talk about the evidence they were using to justify their treatment regimens. I never got a response. That clinic is not on the list, as far as I can see, of clinics that have been contacted by the FDA.
Is follicle stimulating hormone responsible for post-menopausal weight gain?
I'm skeptical. And I suspect the downstream effects of blocking FSH, which aren't completely known yet, might be worse than an extra 15 pounds.
Burger King is launching its own cryptocurrency that can only be used to buy whoppers. For real.
I hope I'm not being burned by fake news here.