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

by Anahad O'Connor

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805090002
• ISBN13: 9780805090000
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Care about your Health

This book remind me of the series of "Tell me Why" I grew up with. Always follow the elephants covers useful health facts that you could apply to daily life. Some of my favorites are "Is it dangerous to swallow gums?", "can eating green potatoes kill you?" "can some mixers make you more drunk?", "is drinking hot water from the tap bad for you?" and "do some people dream in black and white?". I like the fact that All the answers are based on scientific research or reliable sources.

As good as the first..

Annahad O'Connors second book Always Follow the Elephants is just as great as his first, Never Shower in a Thunderstorm. He answers those ridiculous questions that we always wanted to ask with his clever and witty humour. A really good read when you just want to relax and learn some interesting facts!

Truths for my secular life

In the hopeless mass of words which bombard us every day, it is nice to simplify things. This book does that.

"Knowledge that could make you the star of any cocktail party."

New York Times science and health reporter Anahad O'Connor receives emails from curous readers who are eager to test the veracity of certain old wives' tales and popular beliefs. Do they have any basis in reality or are they myths? O'Connor consults medical journals and databases, looks for reliable studies, and speaks to experts in order to "nail down the best, scientifically endorsed answers to these pesky curiosities." Some of the more provocative questions and answers appear in "Always Follow the Elephants." This compendium is divided into ten categories, in which the author addresses such subjects as "Kitchen First Aid: Do-It-Yourself Doctoring," "Calories Count: The Battle of the Bulge," and "Drink to Your Health: Of Cocktails and Cures." O'Connor's breezy and lighthearted style, coupled with his concise and jargon-free prose, make this book easy-to-digest. Some of the issues addressed here have already been covered many times in magazines and newspapers (most of us know better than to smear butter on a burn), but others, such as "Do Computer Keyboards Cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?" and "Do Animals Have a Sixth Sense" that warns them when a natural disaster is about to strike (think tsunami), are timely and informative. Readers can leaf through the articles or read them in order. "Always Follow the Elephants" is fast-paced, mildly amusing (O'Connor's jokes tend to be painfully corny), and filled with trivia and fun facts that, if nothing else, will give you something to talk about with your family, friends, and colleagues during conversational lulls. O'Connor includes extensive footnotes and a useful index that will be a boon to browsers. The author teaches us to be skeptical about "facts" that are unsupported by hard evidence. Even scientists tend to contradict themselves and one another. Remember when ulcers were thought be incurable and a nasty side-effect of stress? Now we know that around eighty percent of ulcers are caused by a bacteria, H. pylori. "Always Follow the Elephants" will entertain and enlighten those who enjoy their science mixed with a dose of whimsy.

WHAT YOU WANT TO KNOW AND THOUGHT YOU KNEW

How many folks do you see walking around with a bottle of water dutifully drinking their quota for the day? Is it really beneficial for us to drink 8 glasses of water per day as many claim? Not at all says Anahad O'Connor, writer of the NY Times "Really?" column in his fact fulled collection of information about us and our world. Re the water, "Much of the water we need comes in the form of food and various liquids, like tea, milk, and juice, so there's no need to squeeze a minimum of eight glasses of water into your day if you're already consuming other fluids and eating properly." No telling how many believe what our mothers told us, which is perhaps information our mothers learned from their mothers. Whether accurate or not information that has been passed around from generation to generation has a tendency to develop a factuality about it, sometimes even when it is absurd to contemporary minds. On the other hand, sometimes those old wives' tales are correct. My Mom was a firm believer in dosing a cough with honey. Turns out it can help. O'Connor does an excellent job of debunking some myths and giving others scientific credibility. He divides his myths into 18 chapters, everything from "Kitchen First Aid" to "World Health." Some will especially enjoy "Love Medicine: And Other Bedroom Matters." The title of his book "Always Follow The Elephants"? Remember the dreadful tsunami in 2004 that sprang from the Indian Ocean and killed over 200,000 people? It was a disaster of epic proportions. Yet, there no dead animals. Seems that animals do have a sixth sense when it comes to impending disasters. Elephants "are known to use their trunks and feet - which are highly sensitive - to detect and interpret low frequency seismic signals from other elephants." If you don't happen to have a pet elephant, perhaps some domestic dogs and cats are able to pick up on environmental changes in advance of a storm. There's something for everyone in "Always Follow The Elephants." - Gail Cooke