By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

Battle wounds aren't like flat tires but they can now be repaired in a similar way. These tiny medical grade sponges are coated in chitosan (made from crustacean shells) and wood pulp. Packing these into a gunshot wound, for example, is a faster way to stop bleeding and provide a temporary fix. It'll surely save lives. So it's kind of like bike tire Slime without the green mess.

Via: Popular Science
By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

I don't regularly drink coffee. In fact, I don't regularly drink anything that is consumed in mass amounts on a regular basis without doing thorough research. There's a difference between consuming something "beneficial" because it's marketed to us in such a way and consuming something that is truly beneficial because it just plain is. This is where we must consider a fine balance.

The simple statement that "coffee is good for you" is enough to drive consumers back for more coffee every single day no matter what else is inside that warm, tasty, and energizing cup. There is a tipping point where consumers order coffee with anything in it because it tastes good but also because it's coffee and "coffee is good for you." You might have heard this before, "I drink it [coffee] because I enjoy it." I'm not saying there's anything wrong with enjoying something because we all enjoy things every so often. We all have to eat too. We have to eat everyday and sometimes we consume the exact same things everyday. Some of those food items we repeatedly consume are also pretty nasty for our health.

Everything we put into our bodies shouldn't be done so blindly, even if we hear that it's good for us. The coffee bean, for example, is loaded with antioxidants, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, magnesium, niacin, manganese, and potassium. But coffee as a food product (in some cases) is marketed to us loaded with sugar. A Starbucks Peppermint White Cholocate Moca with Whipped Cream sounds amazing (I'll be right back). But it's also loaded with 95g of sugar, 22g of fat, and 15g of saturated fat. I'm not going to count those calories because that's irrelevant after the first 90 grams of sugar, and I shouldn't have to tell you that sugar is horrible for humans in such large quantities, especially when it's in almost everything (in unhealthy quantities)!

Okay, I get it. You drink your caffeinated coffee black. That's a good start. But the caffeine levels do have certain effects on different parts of your body including your adrenal glands. What about the addiction thing? Caffeine itself is classified as a drug for a reason. It does naturally occur in plants but it is also man-made for medicinal purposes. The effects of caffeine can make you jittery and shaky, produce a rapid or uneven heart beat, raise blood pressure, cause headaches, cause dehydration, and cause dependence. I'd stick with decaf.

With the leading cause of death in the United States being heart disease, it's good to know that it's not just caused by spreading butter on your toast. The positive and negative effects of caffeine are out there and the articles mentioning both effects can be contradicting. Remember, it's not just caffeine that I'm so worked up about. It's the other additives, flavorings, and unnecessary things that get dumped into our strained coffee beans that make me so crazy. I'll leave you with these images.

Ref: Authority Nutrition, Men's Health, Wellness Mama, FDA
By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

Via: Lifehacker, NYT
By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Ajazz Tech