"Obesity is a multi-hundred-billion-dollar market ready and waiting for device developers to catch up with an enormous unmet need," says Mary Stuart, author of a 2003 research report in Start-Up. Stuart is quoted in the New York Times in their most recent articles in their Obesity Inc. series, "Another Danger of Overweight" and "One Alternative: A Ring That Squeezes the Stomach."

Does it really make you go blind? According to the New York Times, Federal officials are investigating the possibility of a link between blindness and Viagra and Cialis.

Three-headed turkeys, fanged teddy bears, mutant roadkill and a winged monkey wearing a fez, just like the monkeys in Oz: these are some of the less disturbing creatures produced by the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermy. "When the taxidermists aren't busy photographing road kill," writes Molly Priesmeyer in The City Pages, "their works are shaped by the curiosity cabinets of the 19th century, the circus sideshow, surrealism, and the same Victorian-era obsession with horror and wilderness that first made the art form popular." Not for the faint of heart.

Merrill Goozner of the Center for Science in the Public Interest writes, "According to a new survey published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine (subscription required), fully half of all university medical center administrators allow industry sponsors to draft the initial manuscripts that describe the results of clinical trials conducted by their faculty. " In "Industry Gags Academic Medicine" he urges support for the Fair Access to Clinical Trials Act, sponsored by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut), which would would ban clinical trial research contracts that limit or unreasonably delay the publication of clinical trial results.

"Physicians know how to handle drugs," writes Howard Brody, a physician and philosopher at Michigan State University. "It's the drug reps that most of us hooked." Find out how to kick the habit in "Going cold turkey from drug reps: One doctor’s story".

Cellulite: unsightly fat or medical scam? The New York Times says that "cellulite is the archenemy of cosmetic medicine." And you can treat it with "mesotherapy."