Medical

Can Science Even Test Prayers?

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 04:11:04 +0000

Praying to heal from illness is possibly the oldest form of alternative medicine. When that prayer is made to a divine being on behalf of someone else—like asking a god to heal an ailing relative—it is known as an intercessory prayer, from the word that means “to intercede.”

Prayers may seem to lay outside of the scope of science. If the being at the other end eludes the laws of our universe, how can science test the value of a prayer?

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Angelina Lapalme — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:01:41 +0000

Movie slumps are the worst. You know when you’re looking through the titles on your streaming services, but nothing sounds quite right? And as you continue to look with little success, you get increasingly frustrated until you decide not to watch anything at all. Okay, that’s a little dramatic but I’m sure it has happened to us all. One way to get out of this slump is to ask for recommendations. Instead of going for Netflix’s usual “you may like…” personalized list, I decided to ask a friend.

Not All Scientific Papers Advance Science

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 18:06:32 +0000

This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette.

Research is the engine of science. But that engine should not be idling, it should be steadily propelling science forward. The extent of that forward motion is to be found in the estimated 10,000 papers spewed out every day by the world’s 45,000 or so peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Mikhaila Peterson Is Reinventing Medicine Badly

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 20:26:33 +0000

Are you looking for love but don’t want to explain why you’ve eliminated seed oils from your diet?

Creatine a Supplement With a Rare Commodity: Evidence

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:33:22 +0000

This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette.

I have always been a fan of the Olympics, particularly the 100-metre sprint to decide “the world’s fastest human.” Like all Canadians, I was elated when Ben Johnson won the event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, then devastated when we learned that he had cheated by doping with stanozolol, a muscle-building synthetic steroid.

Should We Be Reaching for that Greek Cup of Coffee?

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:15:47 +0000

According to Greek mythology, Icarus tried to soar like a bird with wings he had fabricated out of feathers. Unfortunately, he plunged into the sea after the wax with which he had attached the wings melted when he flew too close to the sun. The Greek Island of Ikaria was named after Icarus and has become a focus for longevity researchers because along with Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia in Italy, the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica and Loma Linda in California it boasts unusually high rates of longevity.

Forget the Supplements and Bring On the Berries

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 17:38:05 +0000

This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette.

The Barbie Drug Your Dermatologist Has Never Heard Of

Julia Nevski — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 14:12:37 +0000

Spray it up your nose, or inject it under the skin, and within days your skin turns a deep, even, suspiciously permanent bronze. No sun required. TikTok calls it the “vacation peptide.” The compound is melanotan II, and its more famous nickname, the “Barbie drug,” has been showing up in dermatology journals since at least 2010 — for the tan, plus a side effect serious enough that it later spun off its own FDA-approved libido drug. The name conjures exactly who you’d picture: young, female, chasing an Instagram-ready glow.

Resveratrol Supplements. Trifling Facts. Lots of Conjecture.

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 13:32:12 +0000

A quick online search for “resveratrol supplements” finds dozens produced by various companies. They contain anywhere from 50 to 500 mg resveratrol per capsule and sport labels that scream “source of antioxidants.” But there is no mention of any condition that resveratrol is expected to treat or prevent. For good reason! While there is plenty of speculation about what this compound can do based on laboratory experiments that use cell cultures, yeasts, worms, flies or rodents, it is best to remember that humans are not giant test tubes or colossal rodents.

Should You Worry About a Carcinogen in Your Shampoo?

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 18:54:58 +0000

Our story starts with “surfactants,” a term derived from “surface active agents.” These are molecules with one end being “hydrophilic”, meaning it is attracted to water, while the other “hydrophobic” end is attracted to oily substances or to air. If you like your shampoo to form a luxurious lather, disdain stains on your clothes and dishes and don’t want your face cream to separate into layers, then you want surfactants in your life. But surfactants aren’t grown in fields or harvested from trees, not directly anyway. They have to be chemically synthesized. And therein lies the problem.

Injections of ‘MOTS-c’ Can Make You Live Longer. If You Are a Mouse

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 03:24:15 +0000

This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette.

Handling Receipts at the Supermarket

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 18:18:08 +0000

I was startled by the comment from the shopper just behind me at the checkout counter in the supermarket. “You really shouldn’t be doing that!” Noting the quizzical look on my face, a further clarification was obviously needed. “I mean you shouldn’t be handling the receipt,” she went on. Indeed, I had taken the thermal paper receipt from the cashier and without looking at it tossed it in with the groceries. I now understood my fellow shopper’s concern.

How PCOS Became PMOS

Sophie Tseng Pellar BSc — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

When scientists discover they've been wrong about a disease, changing their minds is only half the battle. The other half is updating everything that came from that misunderstanding: the textbooks, the guidelines, the assumptions people carry around, and sometimes even the name of the disease itself.

That's exactly what's happening with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), which has officially been renamed Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS).

Let’s Rap About Rapamycin

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 13:54:52 +0000

Easter Island in the Pacific off the coast of Chile is famous for the giant stone statues that were erected by natives some 500-700 years ago. The thinking is that the statues were designed to honour eminent ancestors by providing a home for their spirits to inhabit. In the 1960s, Easter Island made it into headlines for a totally different reason. Soil samples were found to contain Streptomyces hygroscopicus, a bacterium that produces a chemical with antifungal activity.

AI Scribes in the Clinic: What Patients Should Know

Sophie Tseng Pellar BSc — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 22:16:13 +0000

The last time I went to the doctor, I was handed a form to sign. It was a consent form asking for my permission to allow the doctor to use an AI scribe during our appointment. I signed it without much hesitation, partly out of habit, partly out of an assumption that this is simply where healthcare is headed in the age of AI technology. Now, months later, after spending a semester conducting a health technology assessment on AI scribes for one of my courses, I realized that moment deserved more scrutiny.