Just in Time for the Holiday Party Season

With all the noise from the right recently, questioning the soundness of the scientific method, it's sometimes easy to forget just how useful science can be in our daily lives. Case in point: this article from the New York Times today.

As soon as alcohol is consumed, he said, the body starts to break it down, but some is always absorbed directly into the bloodstream.

Having food in the stomach — particularly proteins, fats and dense carbohydrates — slows that absorption process.

The things that speed it up are carbonated mixers, like soda, and higher temperatures. (Warm drinks are absorbed faster.) Once alcohol is in your blood, Dr. Stratyner said, neither coffee nor a cold shower will get it out any faster.

THE BOTTOM LINE Drinking on an empty stomach makes you drunk faster.

Now that's news you can use.