This is opulence. Suddenly, there is extra light blasting from behind my TV screen, making a dayglow title sequence positively atomic. The DreamScreen, a. Divx Movies Dvd Family Guy Presents: Something, Something, Something, Dark Side ' title='Divx Movies Dvd Family Guy Presents: Something, Something, Something, Dark Side ' />There are so few things to enjoy in this life. We can imbibe in booze but only occasionally. In many states, we cant legally indulge in The Devils Lettuce or. A Guide to the Worst Seltzer Take Ever Written. There are so few things to enjoy in this life. We can imbibe in booze but only occasionally. In many states, we cant legally indulge in The Devils Lettuce or even get health care. Thats why so many of us cherish the wholesome party water known as seltzer. Its playful bubbles are a reminder of how carefree life could be if we all stopped yelling at each other online or tweeting tentacle porn. Recently, however, The Sun decided to deliver its piping hot take about seltzer which iswe kid you notSparkling water is really, really not good for you. Everybodys got A Take these days. Inside each and every one of us is a piping hot Take, waiting to burst out of our innards like a baby xenomorph. Still, sometimes the Take is Bad, and the feeler of the Take should feel Bad, tooespecially when its a horribly reported story about something as beloved as seltzer. So, were going to help you figure out for yourself when youve got a bad take. Also, were going to use seltzer, sparkling water and club soda interchangeably, sorry. Lets just start with the headline. If you ever see a definitive statement in a science storys headline or anywhere in the story for that matter instead of might or could, you should immediately be a little skeptical. There are few definites in science. Its an incremental process that involves experimentsyou compare some experimental change with the way things normally go, the control. The results might contain bias based on the design of the experiment and who performed it. Only after repeated, independent experimental results can you say that something is true. And even then, further research might add more complexity or nuance, or even disprove it. The first few paragraphs are just a grabby lead and summary paragraph. But then, the story cites a source Adam Thorne, a dentist in Londons Harley Street. Most people have no idea that fizzy water is extremely acidic, its p. H3 on the acidity scale. The bubbles erode your tooth enameland over time this causes painful, yellow cracked teeth, Thorne told the Daily Mail. But you should immediately note that it doesnt say his qualifications for stating that soda water erodes tooth enamel. Sure, hes a dentist. But has he actually studied the effect of seltzer on teeth Luckily for you, theres the Pub. Med, the National Institutes of Healths database of science studies. Pop into the advanced search and see if theres an entry with Thorne A in the author field and enamel or tooth in all fields. Nothing shows up, so you might be skeptical as to just how much Thorne knows about the effects of acid on your teeth. On top of that, the story doesnt link to any scientific research. Thats another immediate red flag, since a testimony is rarely as solid as actual reported data. So, do another Pubmed search and youll find a number of studies on soft drinks, but few on carbonated water itself. You might poke around to other news sites and see what they say. We found this Atlantic story, and if you dont like the Atlantic, you can at least just skip to the scientific study. One study shows soda water can be potentially bad for your enamel. But even this is just a lab study, meaning its not representative of what really happens in the human bodyyou arent soaking your teeth in seltzer. But, Adam is pretty sure that seltzer has a p. H of 3, so were good, right Its extremely acidic, and thats a bad thing The Suns intrepid reporter clearly didnt think to explain anything about p. H or what it means. But just because added flavors and carbonation make the drink slightly more acidic than boring water doesnt mean seltzer is turning your entire body into an acid soup. This is just a classic scare tactic used in bad reportingnone of the studies say anything about seltzer rotting your teeth. Sure, bacteria might cause tooth decay, but none of these studies nor the new story mention tooth bacteria. Also, the assertion that seltzer has a p. H of 3 is dubious. Perrier, for example, has a p. Watch Justice League Free. H of 5. 5, and San Pellegrino has a p. H of 5. 3. A toddler with access to Google could regurgitate this information. The Sun completely owns itself so hard in the next part it reads like a Kurt Eichenwald tweet. The writer includes a quote from Edmond R. Hewlett, a spokesperson for the American Dental Association, who says that it is the flavoring and not the carbonation that lowers the p. H increases the acidity to a level that can potentially erode tooth enamel with frequent consumption. So, not the carbonation that causes the potential problem. Check. In the second half of the story, youll notice the writer still doesnt link to scientific research, but to more news stories, and that they make the assertion that carbonated water will make you fatter. Terms like fatter should raise a red flaggenerally, this kind of language indicates an oversimplification of what the team really did, used to scare readers. In this case, a few Google searches took us to the paper that the fat claim is based on, linked here. Youll notice that in this study, carbonated water only made rats gain weight, not humans, and plenty of things dont work when repeated in humans. On top of that, the story talks about a hunger hormone called ghrelin and references a study that tests seltzers effects on ghrelin levels in humans. But it only has 2. When reading a suspicious science story, try to see whether word choice is consistent throughout the story, and whether the statements made actually support the claim. In this case, youll notice in the last sentence that the author starts referring to a zero calorie diet drink, rather than seltzer. The evidence that the news story presents only deals with diet drinks, not the claim in the headline, which refers only to sparkling water. Hating on seltzer is a spicy take for sure, but this take is also a bad one. Live fast, die young, and drink your bubble water with abandon.