Cold Season

Recovering from a cold today, so I’ll keep it short.

First, I spent several minutes looking through our medicine closet today, trying to find a simple cough medicine. Unfortunately, due to market forces, it is getting harder and harder to find one that does not also contain antihistamines, decongestants, or pain relievers. The best I could do was a combination cough suppressant and expectorant ("to make your coughs more productive!"). Why do they need to make my cough more productive if their medicine is supposed to stop my cough in the first place? Have they that little faith in their product?

Second, I would like to recommend the book “Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World” by Nick Lane. The book discusses the role of oxygen during the last 4 billion years on Earth, including its effect on both planetary chemistry and the development of life. It’s a great read, and includes both currently accepted ideas as well as less accepted hypotheses. The author may spend a little too much time discussing oxygen’s role in aging in the later stages of the book, but it was still hard to put down. It is not a new book (it was written in 2004) and I actually read it last year, but I highly recommend it.