A food company can invent a chemical, hire its own panel to declare it safe, put it in cereal, and never tell the government. That has been legal since 1958. In March the Environmental Working Group counted 111 such chemicals in food and supplements, likely an undercount.

On August 10 Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced an FDA rule requiring companies to report those ingredients before selling them. Approval still would not be required; the agency says it lacks that authority. For ingredients already on shelves, companies could file a short form that skips the safety reasoning.

When I buy avocado oil it is because I am trying to avoid seed oils. Apparently that is a sham. Researchers at UC Davis tested 54 products labeled avocado oil and 48 of them contained oil that was not avocado, usually soybean. The chips were adulterated 93% of the time, the mayonnaise 71%, and the salad dressings every single time. They ran the same purity test on 20 olive oil products and only one came back impure.

Lead author Selina Wang says the brands may not know. She thinks the substitution starts with oil suppliers, hidden behind layers of brokers.

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On January 25, 2021, Anthony Fauci texted the CDC director and the Surgeon General that the second COVID dose “theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.” He wrote that pregnant women should weigh the potential risks.

9 days later, on a JAMA livestream, he told the public there were “no red flags” about pregnant women. He never mentioned in public the concern he had put in writing. Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul released the texts Monday after HHS handed over his government phone. Their stated concern is informed consent. Pregnant women were never told there was a question at all. A miscarriage of justice, in every sense.

Some scientists have argued since the 1990s that germs help cause Alzheimer's. Nobody has proved it. In May, three researchers, two at Tel Aviv University's dental school, published a what-if calculation in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease: if the germs really cause it, how much would they cause?

Together they came out between 19% and 31% of cases, and up to 52% counting more than one at a time.

Ever tried to make dough in your regular mixer?

The results aren’t pretty: Clumpy texture. Stodgy bread. Overheated motors.

So, we took the same dough-making technology that professional bakers have used for decades and packed it into a countertop machine.

Introducing Ooni Halo Core.

Its secret? Spiral mixing.

In a regular mixer, a single hook chases your dough around the bowl — like someone trying to knead with one hand tied behind their back.

But in a spiral mixer, three synchronised attachments fold and stretch dough as one, replicating the precise and powerful dual-kneading action of a skilled baker’s hands.

The result: Stronger dough, softer loaves and a higher rise.

See it in action

An 82-year-old woman in Bologna had a mass blocking her small intestine. Surgeons opened her up to take it out. The mass was a bezoar, a hard ball of undigested plant matter, about 2 inches across. As they pulled it free, something jumped out of it, alive. They wrote it down as a small live insect. It was actually an isopod, the crustacean most people call a pill bug or a roly-poly. The doctors think she swallowed it with unwashed vegetables or fruit. She recovered from the surgery and was still doing fine 18 months later.

After you vote, there’s a box. Tell us your story there, we read every one.

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜️ Yes, recommending is the right call (82)
🟩🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No, but it’s a start (35)
🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No, he had the power to do more (14)
🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ He went too far already (13)

Great Barrier Reef coral cover rose this year. The Australian Institute of Marine Science, a government agency, surveyed 121 reefs and reported this week that live hard coral covers more seabed than a year ago. A late monsoon cooled the water, which program leader Mike Emslie says likely limited bleaching: heat makes coral expel the algae it feeds on and turn white, after which it can either recover or die.

Cover rose 16.7% in the north and 10.2% in the center, and fell 2% in the south. Last year was already low after the 2024 bleaching.