There is a very funny scene in Game of Thrones, where Arya, the youngest of the Starks, is stuck on avenging her family. One of the people on her list is the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Queen Cersei. As Arya is wondering through Westeros in her journey to kill the Queen, she encounters a bunch of the Queen's soldiers. She is hungry and tired, and decides to stop and make conversation. I'm going to kill the Queen Everything is going well until they ask her where it...

Generic medication can be a life-saver for a lot of people who cannot afford to purchase their brand-name counterpart. In a recent article, we talked about the cost of medication in the US in comparison to other developed countries. We wanted to follow that up with a recent episode of Fresh Air. In this episode, they spoke to journalist Katherine Eban about her new book, Bottle of Lies. In the book, Eban illustrates the many safety failures we have suffered at the hands of corporate greed and federal...

Eye color, iris color, is one of the most distinctive features of our faces. But in reality, everyone's irises are brown. Let me explain... Like all colors, eye colors, are a result of light being absorbed or bounced off a surface. Depending on the surface, the light that is absorbed, or reflected, will result in different wave lengths. We perceive the length of these waves as colored light. When we see a white desk, we are not actually seeing a white surface. We are perceiving the photons' wavelengths...

While the US has quickly evolved through various means of electronic payments; paypal, venmo, Apple pay, Google pay, credit cards, and crypto, checks remain a widely-used form of transactional payment. You guessed it, not in Spain. No, in Spain and most of Europe, the most common form of transactional payments are either cash or electronic transfers. Most accounts in Europe use a uniform account format; International Bank Account Number (IBAN). Because the account number, or IBAN, is uniform you can transfer money across countries just easily as you...

Yesterday we reported how the industrial processing of foods impacts our desire to overeat certain foods. We showcased a recent study that demonstrated what we had long-suspected, junk-food, or ultra-processed food, causes us to gain inches. We recently discovered another study which has found a link between depression and constipation. The study found that when mice had low levels of serotonin, they also experienced constipation (and depression). In the study, the researchers gave these mice 5-Hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), a naturally-occurring amino acid that promotes serotonin. After ingesting 5-HTP slow...

According to a new study by the National Institute for Health, processed foods (as we've long suspected) cause you to eat more than less-processed foods with equal amounts of calories and nutrition. The study enrolled 20 people whose weight had been stable. This is important because any changes during the study would correlate to the impact of the study on the person's body. The study created two diets, a processed-food diet and a non-processed-food diet. Both diets were similar in the amount of calories, protein, sugar, fiber, etc....

Everyone knows the cost of prescription medications it the US is very high. In fact, there is a whole industry that caters to people that need large or constant quantities of said medication, either due to a person's age or for health reasons, in order to make them affordable. But why? Why is prescription medication so expensive in the US? And is there something we can do about it? There are many reasons that explain why the costs of medications are higher in the US than elsewhere, however,...

For most people, in the days of a consistent stream of shares and updates to social media, anonymity is the exception, rather than the rule. Way back, when the internet first became popular in the US, think early 90s, anonymity was the norm. In fact, that's one of the reasons it took so long for e-commerce to take off, the internet was too anonymous. Fast-forward 20 years and everyone is on the internet. Anonymity has vanished. Big companies know who we are either through cookies, logins or other...

Oh the horror :D. Yes, that is how we felt when we realized that most shopping malls and grocery stores were closed on Sunday. Depending on where you live in Spain or Italy, your experience will vary, but in general try not to shop on Sunday... you've been warned. In California, we had grown thinking all grocery stores were alike. We have Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, Lucky, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, FoodMaxx, etc. These stores vary in terms of price and decor, but they all have one thing in...

It's true! It really depends on where you mother lives and/or what her nationality may be. In the US, Mother's day is celebrated on the Second Sunday in May (today). And if you lived in the other 126 countries that also celebrate Mother's day on the Second Sunday, well... Happy Mother's day to you too. But what if you lived in Norway? Well, then we are way off. In Norway they celebrate Mother's day on Second Sunday of February. How about our neighbor to the south, Mexico. Like...