a new doxology

I’m passing on links to a few interesting articles I read today.

• “Cold and Flu Myths” (MSN): like an episode of MythBusters, this article disproves several well-known myths about common illnesses. For instance; flu vaccines do not cause the flu, colds aren’t caused by going outside without a coat, and you should feed a cold AND a fever.
• “Us? Happy? You betcha!” (Star Tribune)*: an article on the front page of the strib about a recent study ranking each state by how happy its residents are (rankings are based on depression and suicide rates). Which state has the happiest people? According to this study it’s…South Dakota? Equally as suprising, NoDak was ranked number 9 (I have no idea how that happened…have you been to those two states? They are awful!). Also in the Top 10, Minnesota was ranked the sixth happiest state and Iowa (my other “home” state) was fourth. Trailing its fellow MidWest states, Wisconsin came in at number 30 (although I assume the study was done during the past two NFL seasons when the Packers were losing…if it was done again this year, I would predict Wisconsin would crack the Top 5!). *FYI: you may need a startribune.com membership to view the article. Membership is free, you just have to give an email address to signup. They don’t send much spam and it’s worth it because you get access to all their online content (which is basically everything from the print-version of the newspaper).