- You don't need to use antibacterial soap at home. Normal soap is just as effective as antibacterial one (almost) and has no disadvantages.
- Your vision does not worsen if you wear (incorrectly adjusted) glasses, but wrong glasses can cause headaches and visual fatigue.
- Your vision does not worsen if you read with too little light, for example. But bad habits can cause headaches and visual fatigue.
- Underarm hair does not cause you to sweat more, but it provides the bacteria with a bigger target, possibly resulting in stronger odor.
- It's not fresh sweat that smells, but older sweat where the bacteria start to cause more and more odor.
- If you have shingles (herpes zoster), see a doctor within 48-72 hours, who will usually give you aciclovir (and paracetamol).
- "Sensations (information delivered by organs like our eyes) can be distinct from perceptions (ideas about sensations formed by our brains)." (Jim Davies)
- "Just as blind people do not sense the color black, we do not sense anything at all in place of our lack of sensations for magnetic fields [unlike geese/birds] or ultraviolet light. [...] When you look at the scene in front of you, it has a boundary. Your visual field extends to each side only so far. If you spread your arms, and draw your hands back until they are no longer visible, [...] [t]his space does not look black. It does not look white. It just isn't." (Jim Davies)
- Exercising makes you emotionally resilient and reduces your risk of getting depression. This is due to raised levels of PGC-1alpha1, producing a substance that breaks down kynurenine.
- There are two ways you can improve your endurance performance: Increasing your oxygen supply (VO2 max) or lowering the oxygen demand by your muscles (running economy). Supply more and demand less.
- "Any patient in a hospital, when we take their clothes away and lay them in a bed, starts to lose identity; after a few days, they all start to merge into a single passive body, distinguishable ... only by the illnesses that brought them there." (Terrence Holt)
- Drinking lots of coffee on a regular basis won't enhance your mental performance. Part of the problem with caffeine is we quickly develop dependency. "Regular caffeine consumers who'd been without caffeine overnight, [are] slower on [a] reaction time task, [are] sleepier and [are] less mentally alert than non-users." They [...] improve after they [get] a caffeine drink, but only up to the level the non-users [achieve] without caffeine. (Peter Rogers)
- "With [so many] office workers in cubicles or open work spaces, it's [...] important to create one's own cocoon of sound. That brings us to a psychological answer: There is evidence that music relaxes our muscles, improves our mood, and can even moderately reduce blood pressure, heart rate, and anxiety. What music steals in acute concentration, it returns to us in the form of good vibes." (Derek Thompson)
- "Seating people with their backs to a high-traffic area leads to a constant sense of unease and vulnerability." (Matt Blodgett)
- If you listen to music with earbuds or headphones at levels that block out normal discourse, you are in effect dealing lethal blows to the hair cells in your ears. (Dr. Michael D. Seidman)
- "Drowning doesn't look like drowning" (Mario Vittone): "Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs. [...] Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe. [...] From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs." (On Scene Magazine - Fall 2006) Drowning people "[a]ppear to be climbing an invisible ladder" (Mario Vittone).
- Hairs around the belly button steal tiny fibres from clothes and deposit them into the navel where they accumulate as "navel fluff". Shaving belly hair prevents the accumulation of that lint.
- “Most adults function best after seven to nine hours of sleep a night. [...] When we get fewer than seven hours, we’re impaired (to degrees that vary from person to person). When sleep persistently falls below six hours per 24, we are at an increased risk of health problems.” (James Hamblin)
- “[W]hen animals are sleep-deprived constantly, they will suffer serious biological consequences. Death is one of those consequences.” (David Dinges)
- “[R]esearchers kept people just slightly sleep deprived – allowing them only six hours to sleep each night – and watched the subjects’ performance on cognitive tests plummet. The crucial finding was that throughout their time in the study, the sixers thought they were functioning perfectly well.” (James Hamblin)
- “Thanks to caffeine, many of us stimulate [a] fight-or-flight response not just occasionally, under dire circumstances, but daily, in our offices.” (James Hamblin)