So there’s this fellow—an inquisitive sort, even if not particularly bright—whom one day is asked by his ogress of a wife to drive to the store to buy a ham. Obediently, he does so, finds an impressive specimen of meat at the store, returns home and, grinning widely, places it proudly on the kitchen table [...]

Recently, while I was getting drinks at a pub with about a dozen or so other biologists, I was involved in a very animated discussion about circumcision — because that’s what biologists argue about when they’re drinking, apparently. "They do it to increase stamina. It desensitizes the penis," said a microbiologist. (There’s some evidence to [...]

Evidence for the long-term health benefits of circumcision for newborn boys has been mounting for years. Today the influential group the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) declared that the procedure is, indeed, beneficial—and that it should be covered by public and private health insurance plans. The recommendation was published online August 27 in Pediatrics. Previously [...]

Circumcision might reduce a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer by 15 percent, according to new research published online March 12 in Cancer. Of 1,754 men surveyed who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, fewer—percentage-wise—had been circumcised than the 1,645 men who did not have prostate cancer. Men with more aggressive forms of prostate cancer [...]

Conventional wisdom has it that the only thing that will unite races, religions and political factions will be the landing of a hostile Martian space ship. It’s a little hard to plan for the exact moment of the next Mars attack. So invoking global terror from extraterrestrials might not be such a great strategy for [...]