PCBs SWIMMING UPSTREAM

Salmon travelling to Alaska's previously pristine lakes to spawn are carrying large doses of industrial pollutants [mostly PCBs] with them, a study has shown. Great. That's just another advantage of animal fat: Not only is it good at storing toxins, it's always on the move!

SHARPSHOOTAPALOOZA

This is the typical short-term thinking involved in animal-killing as a "solution:" Iowa City hired "White Buffalo Inc., a Connecticut-based wildlife management company, in 1999, 2000 and 2001," reports the Iowa City Press-Citizen. "During that time, sharpshooters reduced the urban deer population from 556 in 1999 to 201 in 2002." The article goes on to observe that "because the city opted not to sharpshoot last year, the deer population nearly tripled to 565." So massive deer kills is a "solution" that has to be reapplied every single year until...? Meanwhile, remember, there's no time to investigate ways to make contraception work (no mention whatsoever in the article)... after all, that's much too inefficient!

ATKINS - A DIET TO DIE FOR

Britain's Food Standards Agency, the equivalent of our USDA, has issued a statement warning the public that the Atkins diet can be deadly. The nutritionists detailed "health risks of low-carbohydrate diets, including Atkins, claiming that they are linked to heart disease, cancer and even obesity." In a sidebar, Guardian Health Editor Jo Revill visits San Antonio, the fat capital of the world, and reiterates the current "supersizing" myth - you know, it's not what we're eating, but how much, that's the problem. Sorry, no. You can supersize a salad of leafy greens as big as you want, and it'll never make you fat. It's what you eat - especially if you're eating Dr. Atkins' fave, saturated fat.
UPDATE 9/25: CAROLYN FEIBEL of North Jersey Record and Herald News tried Atkins... "By the third morning, I felt almost sick. The breakfast felt greasy and heavy. I cut out the bacon and struggled along with the eggs, which are not my favorite food." She notes that the diet's expense makes it "only practical for affluent Westerners with the luxury of choosing among many different kinds of meats, fish and cheeses." Finally, she opines, "the Atkins regimen is not permanently sustainable - if not for me, then for the planet."
UPDATE 9/29: But at least Feibel didn't have to be rushed to the hospital for her low-carb foray. Tracy Libby, 29, developed renal failure and dehydration after eight months on the diet. Here's her perspective, entitled I NEARLY DIED ON ATKINS.
UPDATE 9/30: Dr. John McDougall says a JAMA study proves the dangers of Atkins.

LOW-CALORIE DIET THE SECRET TO LONG LIFE?

Yes, researchers have breathlessly announced that a low-calorie diet extends the lifespan... of fruit flies. Great. That's just what we need. Longer-living fruit flies. As far as I'm concerned, if the ones in our kitchen live more than a day, it's too damn long.

SHOOT TO KILL

That's what soldiers are taught is the solution to life's little problems. So when a bunch of drunk peacekeepers in Baghdad wandered into the zoo and started taunting a tiger, and it took a swipe out of one, BANG! No more pockets of resistance from that menace to society. Classic.

CHEESE BALLS

Aw, c'mon - who could pass up that headline? But it's no joke: Men who eat a lot of cheese could be at a higher risk of contracting testicular cancer, Canadian researchers conclude in a new study.