Always Follow the Elephants: More Surprising Facts and Misleading Myths About Our Health and the World We Live in

From The New York Times’s intrepid “Really?” reporter and author of the bestselling Never Shower in a Thunderstorm, more mind-opening health facts (and fictions)

In this follow-up to the bestselling Never Shower in a Thunderstorm, New York Times columnist Anahad O’Connor uncovers the truth behind a hundred more old wives’ tales and conventional-wisdom cures. O’Connor investigates nagging questions of domestic safety, such as whether you can get radiation poisoning from standing too close to a microwave. (You’ll actually be exposed to more watts from your cell phone.) He unearths astounding first-aid “MacGyverisms,” such as the attempts by Vietnam War battlefield medics and professional sports stars to seal wounds with super glue. (The bottom line: it works, but can irritate skin.) And he looks into the claim that a pregnant mother with heartburn should expect a hairy newborn (and is as baffled as the scientists who tallied up the clearly evident infant hairdos).

For anyone curious about whether to starve a fever or a cold, or whether stifling a sneeze will damage the body, O’Connor delivers yet another winning and irresistible collection of tips about our health.

Anahad O’Connor is a reporter for The New York Times covering breaking national news and contributes the weekly column “Really?”—named for his favorite word in journalism—to the paper’s Science Times section. The author of Never Shower in a Thunderstorm (ISBN: 978-0-8050-8312-5), he lives in New York City.