Green tea generally gets all of the love from health aficionados. It has been associated with improved brain function, fat loss, cancer risk reduction and lower chances of developing heart disease.

But in a new study of half a million Brits, researchers reported that black tea (the most common tea consumed in the United Kingdom) correlated to a lower risk of death from any cause.

The effect was modest: a 9 percent to 13 percent lower risk of death for people who consumed two or more cups of black tea daily compared with people who did not drink tea.

The few other studies of black tea have produced mixed, conflicting results.

Ideally, social media connects people, allowing them to share their stories, lives, thoughts and ideas in a matter of keystrokes. It’s supposed to foster relationships and social support, but often it produces just the opposite: increased isolation, depression and alienation.

The National Institutes of Health has put out a short list of tips to promote the former and reduce the latter.

1. Use your time wisely and proactively. Engage in social media in ways that help you connect with others and share benefits. Don’t spend hours passively scrolling through content, especially content that is upsetting and likely to spawn negative thoughts and feelings.

2. Connect carefully. Social media reveals a world that is often disconnected from reality, one in which unhealthy behaviors are depicted as the norm.

3. If social media is producing negative effects, it can also provide remedies. This is especially true for persons who feel marginalized or alone. The key is to identify sites that are legitimate and well intentioned.

Humans have seven neck vertebrae, the same number as all mammals (from mice to giraffes) with the exception of manatees and sloths, which have six. Birds, who need to turn their heads a lot to preen, have many more neck vertebrae. Owls have 14; ducks have 16; the mute swan has a whopping 25.

October is awareness month for eye injuries (and home eye safety), breast cancer, ADHD, dental hygiene, Down syndrome, spina bifida, sudden infant death syndrome and sudden cardiac arrest, which most people are probably immediately aware of.

The FDA is considering an application for the first over-the-counter birth control pill. Since their introduction in the 1960s, hormone-based birth control pills have required a prescription so health professionals can screen for conditions that raise the risk of rare, but dangerous, blood clots. The makers of the OTC brand argue that women can do this screening themselves, and that their pill uses a single synthetic hormone to prevent pregnancy by blocking sperm from the cervix.

Obdormition describes the numb feeling you might experience when “you’ve slept on your arm wrong.” Paresthesia is the subsequent prickling, tingling sensation as it comes back to life.

Fear of riding in a car

Trimethylaminuria is colloquially known as fish odor syndrome, in which afflicted persons are unable to break down an organic compound called trimethylamine. The result is a body odor/breath/fluids emission reminiscent of the smell of rotting fish. The condition occurs in people who have specific mutations of the FMO3 gene.

There is no cure, but avoiding certain foods can help reduce the smell. Otherwise, it’s an emphasis on good hygiene, clean clothes and avoiding activities or stress that make one sweat.

“Medical science has made such tremendous progress that there is hardly a healthy human left.”

— English writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)

This week in 1997, American biologist Stanley B. Prusiner won the Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering “prions,” described as “an entirely new genre of disease-causing agents.” The name means “proteinaceous infectious particle.” Prions cause brain diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or “mad cow disease” and its human variants: Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease and kuru among some peoples in New Guinea.

Prions are too small to be seen with normal microscopy. They are self-replicating but contain no nucleic acid. They are highly resistant to destruction or denaturation by common chemical and physical agents, such as disinfectants, formalin, heat, UV or ionizing radiation. Incineration of infected tissues requires a temperature never below 900 degrees Fahrenheit for four hours.

Q: If you get a selective amygdalohippocampectomy, what is the procedure intended to remedy?

A: The surgery involves removing parts or most of two brain regions: the amygdala and the hippocampus. The hippocampus helps form new memories and the amygdala helps you process and remember emotional reactions. Removal is used to treat disabling seizures originating from these areas when medications fail.

Astronomer Mark Aaronson, 36, was killed in 1987 when a design flaw allowed the 150-ton revolving dome of the Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona to continue rotating after it had been switched off, catching and crushing Aaronson in a hatchway. The design flaw was subsequently fixed.

LaFee is a health science writer at UC San Diego.

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