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2 months ago | 
mcgill.ca | Joe Schwarcz
This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette. The blades descend as they have done many times before, threatening to impale the magician’s assistant lying inside the box. But this time the outcome is different. The illusion has been tampered with so that one of the blades does not retract fully as designed and slightly pierces her skin. Nothing seems out of the ordinary until minutes later when the assistant collapses and dies.
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2 months ago | 
seedworld.com | Joe Schwarcz
“Three thousand six hundred food packaging chemicals detected in human bodies: How reheating food is killing us.” That was the headline that greeted me last week from one of the news services to which I subscribe. There were many others in the same vein. I knew that a slew of emails from worried people would follow wanting to know what to make of this.
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Feb 10, 2025 | 
seedworld.com | Joe Schwarcz
¿Un Arancel Sobre los Cacahuetes, Dices? Por qué es importante: La producción de maní en América Latina es un sector agrícola importante, con países como Argentina, Brasil y Paraguay como productores clave. Argentina es uno de los mayores exportadores de maní del mundo, en particular para los mercados de snacks y aceite. En Brasil, el cultivo de maní se concentra en las regiones del noreste, mientras que Paraguay también desempeña un papel crucial en la producción regional.
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Feb 8, 2025 | 
rethinkingwellness.substack.com | Christy Harrison |Joe Schwarcz |Carrie Dennett
Welcome to another installment of the Rethinking Wellness link roundup! Here I’m offering a small collection of links from around the internet that are relevant to the conversations we have here, along with some quick takes and occasional deeper dives for paid subscribers. This time the take/dive is about whether zinc supplements are helpful for immunity, which I was personally invested in exploring because I’ve been sick so much this season.
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Feb 6, 2025 | 
seedworld.com | Joe Schwarcz
Slap a tariff on peanuts! That was the decision arrived at by the U.S. Congress in 1921 after hearing testimony about how American peanut farmers were being undercut by imported peanuts from China. The witness was George Washington Carver who also expounded on all the uses to which peanuts could be put.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
msn.com | Joe Schwarcz
Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
montrealgazette.com | Joe Schwarcz
For me, the risk would not be enough to discard them, but science should find a way to keep flame retardants out of such items. Author of the article: • Special to Montreal Gazette • • You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.
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Nov 29, 2024 | 
montrealgazette.com | Joe Schwarcz
There were some very useful and interesting episodes of the Dr. Oz Show. Then something happened. Author of the article: • Special to Montreal Gazette • • You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account. Article content“Eat broccoli and exercise.”Article contentWe apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, ortap here to see other videos from our team. We apologize, but this video has failed to load.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
mcgill.ca | Joe Schwarcz
The nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services is a travesty. His ideas about vaccination, raw milk, hyperbaric oxygen, HIV, Wi-Fi and COVID fly in the face of evidence-based science. But once in a while, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn, so not all of Kennedy’s ideas are outrageous. The American diet with its plethora of highly processed foods needs change, the pricing of drugs and some of the advertising antics of pharmaceutical companies need to be addressed.
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Nov 22, 2024 | 
montrealgazette.com | Jordan Zivitz |Joe Schwarcz
Also known as “monkshood,” the flowering plant has been used as a poison as far back as the 2nd century BCE and figured prominently in a Sherlock Holmes classic based on a true story. Author of the article: • Special to Montreal Gazette • • You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account. Article content“When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge.
