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It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Andrew Wakefield. The scientist (I use the word here with a little scoff) partially set off the vaccine/autism panic with a 1998 study, published in the British medical journal the Lancet, that argued that the MMR vaccine was connected to autism and the bowel disorders that some parent believe accompany it. ...

Thanks, Brow Beat readers: The great hogchoker mystery of 2010 is closed. Yesterday, the North American flatfish mysteriously made it to items No. 1 and No. 8 on Google Trends' ''Hot Searches.'' Since we at Slate couldn't puzzle out the oddly named fish's sudden rise to fame from news, blog, and Twitter searches, we asked you, dear readers, to ...

It's usually pretty easy to figure out how a word, phrase, or name makes its way into Google Trends' ''Hot Searches,'' where the search behemoth lists the queries that are burning up the algorithm. The Consumer Electronics Show is ongoing, so lots of people are searching for info about gadgets like the Nexus One phone and the Blio e-reader; death ...

The complete Fraggle Rock is now available on DVD in a 20-disc set that, the box promises, contains ''over 47 hours of rockin' fun.'' And rockin' it is. The Jim Henson Co. met my entertainment needs from birth to graduation (at least from elementary school): Sesame Street for the early years, Fraggle Rock once I was ready to move on from the ...

June Thomas is out of the office today, so Torie Bosch is filling in for this week's Project Runway recap. Is it almost time for Bryant Park yet? Everyone seems to be running low on fresh material this week. The bad-tempered designers are accusing one another of swiping ideas, and the challenge itself is to ''create a new look based on your best ...

For Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two journalists held in North Korea since March, the nightmare is apparently over: The Hermit Kingdom’s state-run news agency has announced that the two have been pardoned and will be released. Now that they’re free, I hope that Ling and Lee will talk frankly about their experiences in North Korea. To save face ...

16 and Pregnant has been appointment television for me since I reviewed it for Double X's “Xxtra Small” and was thrilled to learn it’s been picked up for a second season. But like Jess, I find myself wondering whether the show will keep any teens from becoming moms. I suppose the National Campaign To Reduce Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy, which ...

Emily, I suspect S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford’s wife, Jenny, was hinting at her husband’s infidelity during her interactions with the press while her husband was AWOL... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)

I, too, applaud the move to make Plan B available over the counter for 17-year-olds, but, Kerry, I have to raise one problem that could accompany making hormonal birth control OTC: insurance. Many insurance plans don't cover OTC medication, unless it's a special program intended to keep costs down, like providing an incentive for people to use a ...

Dahlia's recent article on ''sexting'' asked whether it makes sense to charge teens who exchanged naked photos with producing or possessing child pornography. Apparently, that's not the only cell phone behavior that can leave a kid in cuffs. According to this report from the Smoking Gun, a 14-year-old high-school student in Wisconsin was arrested ...