The Checkup: Do You Want to Live Forever?
• I caught a clip on the TODAY show yesterday that I just had to share because it’s so … bizarre? Interesting? Thought-provoking? They did a spot on this emerging field of science in which experts are trying to “fix” the aging problem (yes, they’re couching it as a problem). Work in the field includes regrowing tissue and organs so you can replace parts when your own give out, and altering chromosomes so they no longer cause you to physically age. The result? The possibility—a pretty real one, if you believe this report—that you could live, well, indefinitely. Forever. Given the chance, would you want to?
• I saw more than one contact-wearing Facebook friend post this story from NPR, which reports that just 2 percent of contact wearers actually clean their lenses correctly. And then there’s this:
A separate new survey found that people have turned to beer, baby oil, Coke, petroleum jelly, lemonade, fruit juice, and butter as oh-so-wrong alternatives to contact lens solution.
Read more here.
• At the risk of sounding like your mother, you should really stop fake-and-baking at the local tanning salon. Why? Because in addition to being linked to the most deadly form of skin cancer, melanoma, researchers are now saying fake tans also increase your risk—by 69 percent—of developing basal cell carcinoma. Bronze skin is not worth it, if you ask me.
