From a nutritional standpoint, the empirical evidence proving organic foods are better for you is pretty sketchy. Still, there is one clear benefit: Organic foods, by definition, are grown without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

The amount of fertilizer and/or pesticide used to grow commercial fruit and vegetable varies. Some get a lot more exposure than others. According to the Environmental Working Group, a public health nonprofit, here are the Top 10 worst offenders: apples, celery, cherries, imported grapes, lettuce, nectarines, peaches, pears, strawberries and sweet bell peppers.

So, maybe think twice next time you're in the produce department. And if you buy any of the above, wash twice, too.

BODY OF KNOWLEDGE

Male pattern baldness suggests it's a gender-only affliction. Sorry, ladies. Roughly 30 percent of women also suffer from age-related hair loss (pattern alopecia) by the time they reach age 40.

NUMBER CRUNCHER

A Starbucks' Caffe Mocha (grande size) with whole steamed milk, chocolate syrup and whipped cream contains 400 calories, 198 from fat. It has 22 grams of total fat or 34 percent of the recommended total fat intake for a 2,000-calorie daily diet.

It also contains 80 milligrams of cholesterol (27 percent); 160 milligrams of sodium (7 percent); 43 grams of total carbohydrates (14 percent); 2 grams of dietary fiber (8 percent); 33 grams of sugar; and 13 grams of protein.

MEDTRONICA

Inside my mind

blogcatalog.com/blog/inside-my-mind-coping-with-schizophrenia

A personal, and sometimes heart-rending, account of a Florida woman's lifelong fight with schizophrenia.

MEET GERM

Molluscipox virus is a fairly common but benign skin ailment that afflicts only humans, causing a rash of tiny, painless bumps that can spread to other parts of the body (or to other people) through contact.

There is no antiviral treatment or vaccine. In most cases, the skin lesions disappear in six to nine months, though sometimes it takes up to four years.

STORIES FOR THE WAITING ROOM

Neurologists are warning that women who wear oh-so-fashionable but oh-so-tight jeans risk a nerve problem that produces tingling and burning in the legs. It's called meralgia paresthetica and can be caused by tight jeans unduly squeezing the femoral cutaneous nerve in the thighs.

The condition isn't new, but until the tight-jean-look took off, it was mostly restricted to construction workers, pregnant women and obese people.

"The nerve, in some people, is susceptible to compression," Dr. John England of the American Academy of Neurology told the New York Daily News. Fortunately, England said, the nerve is purely sensory and the condition temporary once the pressure is reduced.

PHOBIA OF THE WEEK

Anemophobia — fear of drafts

OBSERVATION

"I like the coffee shop model. I think it goes well together, like a restaurant that serves alcohol that goes well with a meal."

— Richard Lee, president of Oaksterdam University, a cannabis education group in Oakland, Calif., on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call to debate the legal adult use of marijuana

CURTAIN CALLS

On Halloween night in 1990, Joseph W. "Amazing Joe" Burrus attempted to commemorate the death of his idol, the great escape artist Harry Houdini, by imitating one of Houdini's more famous stunts.

Burrus chained and locked himself inside a clear plastic coffin that was lowered into a 3-foot-deep hole, and then covered by seven tons of wet concrete. But before Burrus could extricate himself, the heavy concrete crushed the plastic coffin, killing Burrus exactly 64 years after Houdini died from complications of a different stunt gone wrong.

To find out more about Scott Lafee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.