Don’t Waste Your Money On Altitude Training Masks

Training with a high-altitude mask makes breathing harder, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to improved cardiorespiratory fitness. Get the truth about this popular training fad!

Source: Do Elevation Masks Work?

If you really want to reap the benefits of the mask, it’s suggested that you actually wear the mask for 20-22 hours of your day (five days a week for at least four weeks) and remove it for the hour or so of exercise you do—the complete opposite of what you’d expect!

Bottom-line: there may be some benefits if used correctly, but for the most part there is currently no evidence to suggest physiological benefits from training with the mask.

This Is a Very Strange Cure for Cyanide Poisoning

Cyanide poisoning is not a nice way to go. Essentially it’s open-air suffocation. Cyanide ions in the body interact with an enzyme called cytochrome oxidase. This enzyme works with hemoglobin in the blood. It preferentially picks up cyanide when it should be picking up oxygen, meaning the body slowly dies for lack of “air.”

Source: This Is a Very Strange Cure for Cyanide Poisoning

There’s a classic joke about how to get intoxicated at hospitals by claiming you drank methanol to get an IV with an ethanol solution.  It’s not that methanol will kill you or make you blind…  The problem is that the liver enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase turn methanol into formaldehyde (or methyl aldehyde).  Ethanol binds to the same enzyme to inhibit the production of formaldehyde.

How To Use A Condiment To Get Away With Murder

So the honeymoon is over…

We’ve all seen an intrepid investigator spray down a crime scene with luminol and turn off the light, and a seemingly innocent room glows blue, illuminated by the leftover traces of gore. This is usually a sign someone was horribly murdered in that room. But in reality it’s also possible that they got into a food fight.

Source: How To Use A Condiment To Get Away With Murder

Don’t go all Gone Girl just yet…

I mustard-mit, it has its possibilities.  You could try to use a condiment, but eventually they’d ketchup to you.  Then you would be in a pickle.  Hopefully you can deal with being peppered with questions by the cops – consider a plea dillMayo get the punishment you deserve, too.  But we can still relish the idea of that perfect crime.  Lettuce hope, or I’m toast.

Guide to Decoding Your Blood Test Results

Spoiler alert: They don’t mention INR.

Apart from the puzzling jargon, the design of bloodwork lab reports is dismal. Wonderful makeovers have been envisioned, but until they’re in use, we’re stuck deciphering highly technical and administrative-looking documents that make tax forms look like an ecard from mom.

But have no fear. You can become literate in your blood test results. Our guide isn’t a comprehensive glossary of technical terms, but it provides basic definitions and a better overall visual sense of how the information on a typical blood test report is presented and organized so you can interpret your blood work with confidence.

Source: The Ultimate Guide to Decoding Your Blood Test Results

Hypochonriacs: Just because something is outside the normal range, does not mean its something to worry about. A lot of times things will be transient and things are often technically abnormal when they aren’t actually clinically significant. For example some people have very low blood pressure, but unless you’re having symptoms of low blood pressure most doctors would not give it a second though.

The article mentions hangry, which has been covered before.