Every year, freshman at Stanford University, their high school nerdstink still clinging to their strategically selected college reinvention outfits, gather on a quad to be ushered into the prestigious school's community by polite, consent-seeking upperclassmen. You'd think the tradition — known colloquially as the…

Miley Cyrus may have claimed she's disavowed Twerking in her latest interview with Rolling Stone, but she's way into something that could turn out to be much more dangerous: licking things. She's licking a hammer and a rusty chain in the Wrecking Ball video. She's licking teddy bears onstage at the VMA's. She's…

The bubonic plague, which helped build most of 14th century Europe's character, probably wiped out Constantinople in 542, and is the primary antagonist in both a pretty sweet novel about New Orleans called A Recent Martyr by Valerie Martin as well as a pretty sweet movie about New Orleans called Panic in the Streets,…

Just when it seemed like all the super scary diseases had been discovered—flesh-eating bacteria, brain tapeworms, and, of course, HIV/AIDS, among many others—a new one comes along to bring fresh terror into our hearts. Introducing Chagas disease, which is caused by parasites that get into our bodies by way of…

As a thirty-something, I spent my teen years being inundated with warnings about HIV, condom PSAs, sad news of AIDS-related deaths and a general paranoia that sex was potentially deadly. Now, in terrible news, Hepatitis C is now killing more Americans than HIV. According to the Scientific American:

Did you know that spending too much time looking down at your Blackberry is going to give your neck unsightly wrinkles? It's true! It's called Blackberry Neck. Says who? The lady who came up with the treatment for it. [Gawker]

The United States carried out heinous experiments on Guatemalan prisoners in the 1940s, deliberately infecting them with syphilis via prostitutes. It took until today to apologize.

• PETA has found a new calling and this time it's the University of Georgia's mascot, Uga. They say that the bulldog is being exposed to inhumane risks from the hot and humid air. •

Science Now reports: "Herpes Never Sleeps." But under the funny heading comes some bad news - herpes may be much easier to transmit that previously believed. [ScienceNow]

• Apparently, the fatter women get, the harder it is for them to conceive. Funny, it used to be the more underweight a woman was, the harder it was to get pregnant. But Nicole Richie, who just weighed in at a buck o' five, sure turned that nonsense on its head! [The Guardian]
  
• Speaking of pregnancy and overweight women,…

• Jennifer Aniston just says no to that more rotund Vince Vaughn and picks herself up a male model named Paul Sculfor (who we show you almost-nudie, to the left) to date instead. [People.com]
  
• A new development in stem cell research allows for cells to be removed without the destruction of human embryos. We assume…