MARILYN CORNWELL: April 29 2020 - Asteroid Streaking By diverted by what not to buy from Costco

There's an asteroid streaking by this morning, but the headline below it diverted my interest - 14 products to never buy at Costco. The picture shows chocolate chip cookies in plastic clamshell containers. My reaction is that this might be an expose article on things like terrible contents in food and/or horrible factory practices in foreign countries. We are invited to ask: How terrible could the contents be?

And this one then diverted me from Costco: Study reveals after you die, your brain knows you're dead. This reminds me of "Headless Body in Topless Bar". It is contradictory making it humorously curious. So we would expect the headline to be the fun and the content would dwindle into suppositions and anecdotes.

It is interesting that I predict these things - I seem to have read a lot of articles. So let me find out how accurate I am.

Costco, and things to never buy. Which article will we read? There are at least 10 articles with this headline - so is it 6,7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 17, 27, 33 things? Some of the articles' subheading are what workers reveal to never buy. But the exposes aren't there. These are opinion articles on health, living habits, and other behaviours associated with greedy over-buying.

Our Headless Body equivalent headline has a number of permutations and they are funny. This one from The Mirror: When you die you KNOW you're dead because your brain still works - and you could even hear your death announced. Here's the original reference in 2017: The Sun's Andrea Downey article headline: After you die, your brain knows you’re dead, terrifying study reveals. The Guardian's version is: The man who could bring you back from the dead.

Didn't I just reference The Sun? There's the revelation right there. The UK Sun is considered to be neither reputable nor trustworthy. So we can expect Sam Parnia's study conducted out of New York University Langone School of Medicine to be something lesser/different. The excerpts from his study on brain activity after heart cessation don't reveal anything out of the ordinary. I found a notice for a New York Academy of Sciences moderated panel on the topic HERE with Sam Parnia as moderator. He is all over the news on this study - it was in Time magazine in 2008 - so I assume he is enjoying it all.

Perhaps we need a little bit of sunshine to clear away the laughter of satire and cynicism. Here's a happy greeting today.