Uh oh: "We've heard obesity can be 'spread' between friends when we copy each other's eating habits, but a new study in mice suggests obesity could actually be infectious. That's right, infectious. As in, something you can catch. In the study, mice engineered to have a particular immune deficiency developed fatty liver disease and got fatter when fed a Western-style diet. But strikingly, when these immune-deficient mice were put in the same cage as healthy mice, the healthy mice started to come down with symptoms of liver disease, and also got fatter."

Here you will find 28 synonyms for fatness. Your goal is to arrange them in order of formality. The winner gets to be an administrator in the Miami-Dade public school district.

In their ever-widening search for somebody who is not Mitt Romney, conservatives are now souring on Rick Perry and turning their desperate, flailing hopes toward Chris Christie. For his part, Christie says he's not running (but Republicans note that he keeps acting the part). READ MORE

Since everything that happens must now microblogged within seconds of—if not actually during—its occurence, let's take a look at how The Great East Coast Shakefest of 2011 was covered on Twitter.

Some chose to tie the news to current events:

Some saw the opportunity for pop culture/new media/techonology references:

There was culinary humor:

Naturally, the West Coast couldn't wait to tell us how jaded and blase they are about geological disturbances:

And, perhaps inevitably, some got meta about Twitter:

And that's how it happened. I'm a little disappointed in all of you. Except Pareene. Chris Christie fat jokes are gold, I tell ya. Gold!