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Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health – BBC Future

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Why vegan junk food may be even worse for your health – BBC Future

They might sound like a guilt-free alternative or a gateway for the vegan-curious, but vegan fast food alternatives are often worse for your health than the meat equivalent.

“Obviously the pros are that [veganism] is getting people to think about plant-based foods, but the con is that it makes us think that it is good for you when it can be equally or more unhealthy,” says Megan Rossi, a dietician at King’s College London and author of Eat Yourself Healthy.

“Tofu contains omega 3 but it is a type that is not as active as animal sources,” says Rossi. Plant-based sources contain a type of omega 3 called alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). For our bodies to be able to do anything particularly useful with ALA, we need to convert it into eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) or docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). However, humans are not particularly well equipped to do this.

Lungs ‘magically’ heal damage from smoking – BBC News

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Lungs ‘magically’ heal damage from smoking – BBC News

Your lungs have an almost "magical" ability to repair some of the damage caused by smoking - but only if you stop, say scientists.

The mutations that lead to lung cancer had been considered to be permanent, and to persist even after quitting.

But the surprise findings, published in Nature, show the few cells that escape damage can repair the lungs.

The effect has been seen even in patients who had smoked a pack a day for 40 years before giving up.

The thousands of chemicals in tobacco smoke corrupt and mutate the DNA in your lung cells - slowly transforming them from healthy to cancerous.

A Disturbing Number of People Think Coronavirus Is Related to Corona Beer – VICE

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A Disturbing Number of People Think Coronavirus Is Related to Corona Beer – VICE

It's disappointing that this needs to be written, but the only thing that Corona beer and nCoV have in common is the origin of their names. In Latin, corōna meant 'crown,' and modern languages continue to reflect that; 'corona' still translates to crown in modern Catalan, Spanish, and Italian, among others.

Coronaviruses were named because of the crown-like spikes on its surface, and anyone who has ever peeled the label off a bottle of Corona Light has noticed the crown that sits on top of its "La Cerveza Mas Fina" slogan. The drinkable Corona does predate the virus, though: Corona was first brewed in 1925, while human coronaviruses were not identified until 1965.

China’s Coronavirus Outbreak Reminds Me of the Irish Polio Epidemic I Survived – CounterPunch.org

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China’s Coronavirus Outbreak Reminds Me of the Irish Polio Epidemic I Survived – CounterPunch.org

China is responding to the spread of the coronavirus in Wuhan much as countries have always reacted to life-threatening epidemics. At every level of society and government, fear of death – or, more accurately, fear of being held responsible for death – drives decision-making, which is consequently often ill-judged.

Officials do not want to cause a panic – but then again, nor do they want to be accused of inaction, or of hiding dire truths about the health crisis (many people have become convinced that more people have been infected, have even died, than the authorities are admitting).