Friday, December 13th, 2013  Decades ago it was commonly
understood that ulcers came from stress. Where parasites or
other nasties were suspect in ailments of the lower gut, it was
obvious that nothing could live in the toxic soup of human
stomach acid. In the early 1980′s, however, it was discovered
that a specific bacterium was alive and well in the stomachs of
many people suffering from ulcers:  Although stress and spicy
foods were once thought to be the main causes of peptic ulcers,
doctors now know that the cause of most ulcers is the corkscrew-
shaped bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori).  More
recently, the conventional wisdom that human beings need to
drink eight glasses of water each day in order to be healthy was
also challenged. Having heard this advice most of my life, and
having generally ignored it except during an epic mid-July
crossing of the Mojave Desert in a non-air-conditioned vehicle,
and having known of no human being who did follow that advice, I
often wondered about its basis in fa