TikTok Ads Portray App as Force for Good as US Ban Looms

In an emotional advertisement running on Facebook and Instagram over the past month, a young woman, Katie, talks about being diagnosed with an illness that resulted in kidney failure at age 19. But she was able to find a transplant match “because a stranger was scrolling on TikTok.” Thanks to that stranger’s kidney, she continued,…

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Is ‘Chia Seed Water’ Good for You?

Q: I keep seeing “chia seed water” all over social media, with influencers saying it helps with constipation, bowel regularity and weight loss. Is that true? In a video on TikTok, a woman waves a plastic water bottle containing chia seeds, lemon juice and water in front of the camera. She’s on her fourth day…

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It’s a Good Time to Be an Egg Hater

Sometimes food aversions have an inciting childhood incident, such as misery or vomiting, but often there’s no traumatic history. The scent is one possible explanation: In certain preparations, eggs give off a sulfurous tang, which evokes “a bodily odor” or a “smell of digestion,” says Rachel Herz, 61, a neuroscientist at Brown University and the…

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