Surprising Science — May 26, 2011

The Brewmaster’s Cure

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Brooklyn Brewery Brewmaster Garrett Oliver suggests this hangover cure: a greasy bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, strong coffee and a lot of water. “Then think strongly upon your sins.”

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

The head of a man and a woman are shown side by side in a research study focused on ketamine and depression.

Neuropsych

A vaccine for depression

Ketamine’s remarkable effect bolsters a new theory of mental illness.

The baskets are filled with different kinds of vegetables.

Health

Fruits and vegetables are trying to kill you

Antioxidant vitamins don’t stress us like plants do—and don’t have their beneficial effect.

Strange Maps

Umami: You never say its name, yet you taste it every day

Sweet, bitter, salty, sour. These are the four basic tastes we were taught in grade school. But there is a fifth: umami. And it’s everywhere.

Hard Science

The weird, dangerous, isolated life of the saturation diver

The divers spend their waking hours either under hundreds of feet of water on the ocean floor or squeezed into an area the size of a restaurant booth.

Two men engaging in a brain-teasing game at a table.

Neuropsych

Why your brain hates other people

And how to make it think differently.

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