"I took multivitamins every day for a decade. Then I found out they're useless."

Read and weep.

Though the FDA says on its vitamins information page that there "are many good reasons toconsider taking supplements," it indicates vitamins only "may be usefulwhen they fill a specific identified nutrient gap that cannot or is not otherwise being met by the individuals' intake of food." The CDC estimated in 2014 that "nine out of 10 people in the U.S. are indeed getting enough of some important vitamins and nutrients."

So why are so many Americans still taking multivitamins? Steven Salzberg, a medicine professor at Johns Hopkins, told NPR multivitamins are "a great example of how our intuition leads usastray." "It seems reasonable that if a little bit of something is good
for you, then more should be better for you. It's not true," Salzberg said. "Supplementation with extra vitamins or micronutrients doesn't really benefit you if you don't have a deficiency."

Americans' abysmally bad diets also give vitamin companies some marketing ammunition. When the average American is eating just one ortwo servings of fruits and veggies a day (experts recommend as many as 10 servings of fruits and veggies a day for maximum benefits), a little boost of vitamins might seem like a good idea. But popping a pill isn't going to make up for all those lost servings. "Food contains thousands of phyto-chemicals, fiber, and more that work together to promote goodhealth that cannot be duplicated with a pill," said nutritionist Karen Ansel.

I expect people to say that this is all a plot by BigPharma.

Always look on the bright side of life

It's OK to kick problems down the road. We've got some time!

Life on Earth is wiped out every 27 million years – and we have about 16 million years left until the next extinction, according to scientists.

Research into so-called ‘extinction events’ for our planet over the past 500 million years - twice as long as any previous studies - has proved that they crop up with metronomic regularity.

Scientists from the University of Kansas and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC are 99 per cent confident that there are extinctions every 27 million years.

In the 1980s scientists believed that Earth’s regular extinctions could be the result of a distant dark twin of the Sun, called Nemesis.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1294372/Life-Earth-wiped-27-million-years.html#ixzz0tegIeBx1

Oh my! A food fight at Reason's Hit and Run

Duck (excuse the pun): theological argument organic farming vs. factory farming and everything in between.

One commenter: If you've never busted sod by hand or even with machine you are in for one steep, painful, and hungry learning curve. I don't need luck. I was killing and growing what I ate before I could drive. I have the know how, know how hard it is, and don't plan on doing it until I have the free time and desire. The romantic notion of living the simple life is a myth that couch dwelling urbanites romanticize about. You haven't lived until you spent a 12 hour day cutting heads off chickens, dipping them in boiling water, yanking off their feathers, gutting them, then searing off the little hairs over an open propane flame. All in 90+ degree weather. Just think, you will get to spread that out over an entire year unless you have refrigeration.

And your mom wears Army boots!

Meanwhile, here's some wisdom from a farmer:

"If you really want to hurt the economy, beat the heck out of agriculture," Goehring said. "It is a primary sector in our economy. It is generating new wealth. You can't just rely on services to drive your economy."