Watchu talking about, Willis?

I have been curating news for an app/website — www.inside.com/science.  You can find the app on iTunes (please do, and recommend it, it’s great for news junkies).

Basically, I read articles and listen to podcasts about science and write about the pieces.  I end up reading a lot about, well, science stuff and learn something every time.  This is what I learned today…

Avoid squirrels.  They get a certain kind of boravirus that attacks the brain and causes it to swell.  They can now pass it to people.  Three died last week in Germany.  They’re cute but will kill you.

Avoid the University of Colorado at Boulder.  Apparently tranquilized bears are just falling out of the trees there.

Want to go to Mexico, Chile or Indonesia?  Don’t.  Massive volcanoes are erupting there.

Thinking about visiting Long Island?  You probably should avoid that place, too.  Not only are the beaches teeming with Portuguese Man-O’-Wars but dead whales keep washing ashore.

And if you think you can remember a hundred things at a time, you’re wrong.  You can blame your parents for your anxiety, it’s inherited.

If you think something is wrong with you because you can’t feel as much empathy as you’d like when you read about thousands of people dying, don’t be so hard on yourself.  It’s your biology. But if you are mean, be careful, you might be evil.

On the bright side, if you want to drop acid, a study in the medical journal, the Lancet, says that’s pretty safe so have at it.

And that’s some of what I learned today.