John Augustus Larson was the inventor of the modern polygraph. Although, some list the polygraph as one of the greatest inventions, many scientists consider it to be pseudoscience. Â Yet, many...
Restaurants often offer mints to their patrons after a meal. This is an old tradition geared to reducing the chance of untoward gaseous emissions. Gas builds up in the intestine in various ways....
A woman became allergic to her husband after twenty five years of marriage. She developed pain all over her body every time he approached her. The cause? A pain killer!  The husband was a dentist...
Many athletes regularly smear a black greasy substance known as “eye black†underneath their eyes to reduce glare from the sun or stadium lights. Amazingly, this trend was started by the most...
Ali Maow of Somalia has the distinction of being the world’s last recorded victim of smallpox, a disease he acquired in 1977.  For the first time ever, through a program of vaccination and...
Cranberries are commonly associated with Thanksgiving but in early America they played a varied role. Besides the berries serving as food, the plant’s leaves were commonly used for tea or as a...
A single experiment in 1828 destroyed the theory of Vitalism which held that “organic substances†found in living systems could not be made in the laboratory because they were empowered with a ...
The Old Testament offers up some dietary advice about not mixing milk and meat. Milk provides a hospitable environment for bacteria on meat to multiply, so this does make sense. Religious...
In the Middle Ages much of beer brewing was carried out by monks. Water is a source of many disease causing organisms which cannot survive in alcohol. Trial and error demonstrated that beer...