The Checkup: Weight Loss from a Pill?

• To everyone who’s ever wished they could shed their love handles with the help of a pill, hear this: (Super) preliminary new research shows it just might be possible. Researchers sort of stumbled into the discovery after realizing that a cancer-treatment strategy—in which blood flow to tumors is restricted, killing them—might be useful for weight loss. The idea is that the drug could inhibit blood flow to fat deposits, causing them to die and exit the body. Researchers tested a drug designed around this concept on lab monkeys, and found that they lost 11 percent of their body fat in a month. Crazy, right? TIME has all the details (including the side effects).

• Apparently we city dwellers are getting high off carbon monoxide fumes. And, according to this, it’s a good thing (?).

• NPR’s description about how a spinal tap works made me a little nauseous. Proceed with caution.