Daily Dose of Common Sense

We’ve been taking it easy over the holidays and enjoying some time off. But, that doesn’t mean we’re not paying attention. Here are some of our favorite brief Web stories from this week.

Some people had common sense.

• No one wants to get sick, especially with health care so expensive. NYTimes.com had a great article on how to recover–cheaply–once the sniffles start. Simple stuff is what works, and they give some facts on all the hoodoo and other remedies that do little, if any, good.
• The TSA has dropped their case against two bloggers who posted a copy of the agency’s intense security directive for Christmas day. Shouldn’t they be worried about terrorists, not bloggers? At least our tax dollars won’t be wasted in this trial.
• Experts at exposing flim-flam and wastefulness, Consumer Reports Health Blog posted a list of “9 items not worthy of your holiday cash.” These include such gems as Latisse, the Night-Light Condom, diet pills, and Kinoki footpads. If you thought your body was leaching toxins from your feet at night, we’ve got a bridge we’d like to sell you.

And, some did not.

• A driver passed out at the wheel while some meth was actually cooking in the BACK SEAT. A mobile meth lab really takes some guts, folks.
• In absolutely the CRAZIEST shoplifter story ever, a couple caused quite a ruckus at a Walmart in Tennessee. He’s trying to steal flat-screen tvs, she’s stabbing someone in the parking lot. It’s a like some zany, mad-cap sitcom plot from Hell.
• Maine and California will consider putting a cancer warning on cell-phone packaging, despite the fact that the jury is still out in the scientific community. Way to fear-monger, legislators.

From the Huffington Post, here are 15 toys to avoid for your kids this holiday. Some of them are weird, some disturbing, and some just plain wrong.

Enjoy!

Are you planning on getting up at the crack of dawn on Friday to snag some sales? The stores hope you will. The name “Black Friday” refers to the fact that retailers generally move into the black (in other words profitable) on that day. But, look deeper into the fine print on the sale items and you may decide to stay home instead.

Many stores pull some sleazy shenanigans to get customers in the door. Here are some things to look out for.

Limited quantities
Yes, those deals on the flat-screen tvs look too good to be true. The sales are real, but only for the first few people who can grab one. The stores knowingly limit the amount of items for sale–and there are NO rain checks. So, if there are four tvs available for the deal price and you are number five…so sad, too bad.

Sears has not officially revealed its Black Friday sales. However, the company confirmed to CNNMoney.com that two of its post-Thanksgiving deals include a Samsung 40-inch 1080p LCD HDTV for $599.99, “Only while quantities last, minimum three per store, no rainchecks.”

“Sure, you probably have more, but how do you put out a circular to millions of households and only have three?,” Dworsky asked.

Taking advantage of not-so-tech-savvy consumers
Stores knowingly offer the killer deals on lower-quality products, especially electronics, because consumers won’t know the difference. These have far less features than the standard models in a product line.

Dworsky cautions that retailers usually don’t advertise these models as derivatives. “There’s no way the average consumer will know that the TV model they are buying is not the standard one unless they are savvy enough to compare their model numbers,” he said.

The risk
A Black Friday stampede at Wal-Mart last year resulted in the death of an employee. This year, some stores have changed their policies to avoid chaos, either staying open throughout Thanksgiving night or giving numbers to those in early morning lines. However, not all stores have revised the “winner-take-all” atmosphere of Friday morning. If you’re in the market for one of the hot items, be prepared to hold your own against the masses.

Also, you risk getting up at THE CRACK OF DAWN to come home empty handed. Talk about presentus interruptus. That would be too depressing for words.

Me, I’ll be in bed at 5AM on Friday. I’ll wait for the Cyber Monday deals and shop in my pajamas.

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I’m all for supporting local zoos, but reindeer poop necklaces?

The enterprising “gem”ologists at Miller Park Zoo now are offering necklace pendants from dried reindeer droppings, joining the explosively popular ornaments that debuted last year.

The necklaces go on sale this Friday for $15 each. So, get ‘em while they’re, er, steaming.

[Via PatsPapers.com]

“Every meal includes kid sized American fries & choice of kids drink.” Really, Johnny Rockets?

I know the “freedom fries” and “American fries” trend started as a backlash against the French for not supporting us in Iraq. And, we all know how that turned out. We’ve now learned that there were no weapons of mass destruction, despite what we were led to believe by the Bush administration. So, can we drop the xenophobia already?

I know them as French fries. You know them as French fries. “American” fries just sounds silly. And fattening. At least with “French” thrown in there, I forget about the possibility of obesity as I’m cramming them in my pie hole.

There’s no shortage of products that claim to alleviate arthritis. Copper bracelets are some of the more popular products sold. It is believed by some that wearing a copper bracelet or wrist strap will relieve the pain and discomfort of arthritis. Here is how one site claims it works:

It is no secret that copper is a most excellent conductor of electricity, and besides that, the skin is as much an entry point in the body as a barrier.

Micro doses of copper enter the body and bolster the immune system, and as it’s on the skin, it enters as and when needed (not as in dietary copper).

The copper bracelet seems also to emit elemental and molecular vibrations and other physical phenomena such as a corona effect of the ends of the bracelet.

These vibratory emissions appear to convey some medicinal benefit. In the case of body pains due to some rheumatoid arthritic condition, it appears to be very effective indeed.

Really? Just all from that one tiny bracelet?!

Sounds all very scientific, doesn’t it? Well, as with most products that hint at science but don’t back it up with real facts, it’s bunk. A study just released by a group of scientists in England has concluded that there is no scientific proof of medical benefit from wearing these bracelets. The test subjects experienced no difference in pain, discomfort, or stiffness while wearing copper jewelry. Any benefit felt someone wearing a copper bracelet or wrist band can likely be attributed to a placebo effect.

So, if you thought wearing a piece of copper to cure arthritic conditions sounded too good to be true, you were right.

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If you’ve watched TV with commercials lately, chances are you’ve had to suffer through a Jamie Lee Curtis yogurt ad. After hearing the claims made in this ad, you might think yogurt is the next super food. Yogurt will help my digestive problems! Yogurt will keep me healthy! Yogurt will paint my house!

Okay, we made up the last one. But, seriously…has yogurt ever gotten so much healthy street cred? The secret ingredients in Activia, and other similar products, are probiotics. According to the New York Times:

Probiotics are live micro-organisms that work by restoring the balance of intestinal bacteria and raising resistance to harmful germs. Taken in sufficient amounts, they can promote digestive health and help shorten the duration of colds. But while there are thousands of different probiotics, only a handful have been proved effective in clinical trials.

The bottom line is this: there are a lot of different strains of probiotics. Not all of them have been proven to work. The claims of most of these products are unsubstantiated, as recent lawsuits and rulings have declared. In fact, a $35-million decision in a class-action lawsuit against Dannon (makers of Activia) is forcing them to list the specific probiotics used in the yogurt, as well as remove the word “immunity” from the package.

Science-based Medicine has a great article that busts the “immune-boosting” myth. The author does a great job of explaining exactly what is your immune system, and why any product claiming it can “boost” it is ludicrous.

What does that mean: boost the immune system? Most people apparently think that the immune system is like a muscle, and by working it, giving it supplements and vitamins, the immune system will become stronger. Bigger. More impressive, bulging like Mr. Universe’s bicep. That’s the body part I am thinking about. What they are boosting is vague, on par with chi/qi or innate intelligence. They never really say what is being boosted.

The other popular phrase is “support”. A product supports prostate health, or breast health or supports the immune system. It sounds like the immune system is sagging against gravity due to age and needs a lift.

The immune system, if you are otherwise healthy, cannot be boosted, and doing those things you learned in Kindergarten health (reasonable diet, exercise and sleep), will provide the immune system all the boosting or support it needs.

Most experts agree that more research is needed into these claims to see what helpful effect probiotics have on the body.

“The evidence for the general immune strengthening is just not there,” said Barry R. Goldin, a Tufts professor who helped discover LGG but no longer receives royalties from the patent.

So, eat yogurt and other probiotic products because you want to. Don’t eat them and think you’ll be protected against all of society’s ills. Instead, go for a walk, eat some broccoli, and watch this Activia parody from Saturday Night Live.

A Japanese company has produced a business suit that it claims will protect the wearer form contracting the H1N1 virus.

According to the company:

The suit is coated with the chemical titanium dioxide, which reacts to light to break down and kill the virus when it comes into contact with it.

Well, it’s nice that your clothing won’t contact the virus. But, if you know anything about how viruses are transmitted, this suit won’t solve your problem. The special fabric isn’t going to prevent your hands, face, neck, or head from coming into contact with H1N1.

Unless you wear it over your head. If you do, I suggest cutting out some eye holes first.

[Thanks, Gizmodo!]

As few as 25 years ago, neuroscientists stuck firmly to the belief that as we aged our brains became fixed and static–hence the saying, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. However, new research is saying otherwise. Enter the relatively new concept of brain plasticity and the related practice of brain fitness.

In the simplest terms, brain plasticity is the brain’s capacity for continuous physical, chemical and functional change. Brain fitness is the purposeful exercising of our gray matter to keep it engaged and healthy.

And, while brain plasticity has bona-fide roots and application in the neuroscientific community, brain fitness seems to be a new ‘it thing’ for some quacky websites, books, training seminars, and even diets. The Wikipedia entry for brain fitness notes, “The term is virtually never used in the scientific literature, but is commonly used in the context of self-help books and commercial products.” But, if you wade through the brain fitness drivel, essentially the premise is use it or lose it. Moreover, how you use it is equally important.

One source lists the following the ideal components of brain fitness activities:

• They should teach you something new.
• They should be challenging.
• They should be progressive.
• They should engage your great brain processing systems.
• They should be rewarding. (My personal favorite.)
• They should be novel or surprising.

And there you have it. In order to maintain our brain health and take advantage of the newfound concept of brain plasticity, we need to continually engage our noggins in new and challenging ways.

Hmmm. I don’t think I need a website or seminar to tell me that.

A new weight-loss device puts a spin on the term “comfort food.” A doctor has invented a postage-stamp sized patch that is surgically adhered to a person’s tongue. The patch makes eating painful, and the patient is forced to go on an all-liquid diet to gain nutrients.

The creator claims patients lose as much as twenty pounds in one month. Um, yeah. That’s what we would expect when someone has to drink caesar salad milkshakes and steak smoothies for thirty days. Mmmmmmmmmm….steak smoothies.

I sure hope anyone considering this mumbo jumbo realizes that the results won’t last. What happens when you return to real food? You’re back to your original weight, I’d wager. And, how can you talk with this thing sewn onto your tongue? If it makes eating painful, it’s probably not fun to talk, either. But, hey, if you want to sound like Cindy Brady in your staff meetings, then be my guest. For a real glimpse, check out the photo of the patch’s application.

Losing weight isn’t easy, and people are always looking for a quick fix. Unless you need to fit in your Oscar gown, I think this is just a way to torture yourself for a month.

[Via Pat's Papers]