Cinco Vidas

“Just once, I want to look really good,” says Kate, one of the main characters in the new movie, My Sister’s Keeper. “I look like a freak!”

The movie, based on Jodi Picoult’s novel of the same name, tracks a family’s journey through Kate’s acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Each is affected in a unique way, from the older brother who becomes almost invisible to his driven parents, to the younger sister who was genetically engineered to donate blood and bone marrow to her sick sibling. The movie is very powerful, and we strongly recommended it to anyone. (more…)

Remember that icky-smelling stuff that used to preserve the soon-to-be-dissected frogs in your junior high science class? Yep. Formaldehyde. We warned you about it showing up in nail polish in a former post. A colorless gas used to manufacture building materials, to serve as a preservative, and to make certain substances adhere to surfaces (as in nail hardeners and polishes), it made our “ingredients to avoid” list because of its reputation as a carcinogen. Just in case you weren’t convinced, here’s some more evidence for you!

A new study conducted by scientists from the National Cancer Institute followed 25,000 industrial workers in formaldehyde-producing plants for three decades, (more…)