Slate takes a look at the Alaska Parental Consent Act, put into effect by Sarah Palin.

Quoted: Last week, Democrats approved the first black major-party nominee for president. This week, Republicans countered with their first female nominee for VP. From race to sex to religion, the circle of opportunity is expanding.

In theory, I feel like if you can get drafted to serve in your military, you should be able to buy a beer. But in practice, I'm not convinced that lowering the drinking age will do anything for binge drinking, and I agree with the writer that it could raise the number of drunk driving accidents...

Quoted: Last week, a coalition of presidents from more than 100 colleges and universities called on authorities to consider lowering the legal drinking age.

Emily Yoffee is badass - great piece!

Quoted: A Slate colleague offered this challenge for my next Human Guinea Pig: to see if I could get in shape for the summer. Usually in Human Guinea Pig, I do outlandish things—like make my singing debut or become a paparazzo. But maybe trying to firm up, the kind of firm in which my skin becomes like human spandex, was the most outlandish experiment of all.

Oh no, sad...

Quoted: Randy Pausch, a former Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose "last lecture" about facing terminal cancer became an international sensation, died Friday. He was 47.

Autism is back in the news as a result of Michael Savage's controversial statements on his radio show last week...

Quoted: Children's advocacy groups are demanding that Michael Savage apologize for denigrating autism as the " illness du jour" on his radio program last Wednesday. Savage also attributed the high prevalence of autism and related disorders to faulty diagnoses: "In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out." How do doctors spot the disorder?

Really interesting Green Lantern. It seems obvious, but I never realized how processed soy milk is. Still, it has a slight environmental edge over cow's milk.

Quoted: You've already weighed in on the question of whether veganism or vegetarianism is better for the environment. But I want more specifics: Which is better for the environment, soy milk or cow's milk?

An important article from Slate about the strings that are attached to IMF loans and the corner into which they back a lot of small countries & their economies.

Quoted: Question: The International Monetary Fund often attaches strict conditions to its loans, hoping to help the economies of the recipient countries grow and become stable. For example, in order to tamp down inflation, countries have been required to limit expenditures for education, social services, and health.

The source of the salmonella is still unknown, and officials are saying that consumers should now avoid hot peppers...

Quoted: The U.S. government has declared it’s OK to eat tomatoes again, lifting its salmonella warning amid signs that the outbreak may finally be slowing.

I think this article does a good job of pointing out that the benefits of yoga still far outweigh the risks, and that it's a very individual activity that requires listening to your own body rather than trying to "compete" with other students.

Quoted: Sloppy teaching and growing numbers of overly competitive students are giving yoga lovers serious and scary injuries: slipped disks, torn tendons, even strokes.