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It seems as though a new food-related health scare pops up every week. Potential Salmonella contamination has prompted the recall of peanut butter, lettuce, cantaloupe and dog food. Spinach and popcorn have been recalled because of listeria concerns. E. coli contamination has led to the recall of beef. Is anything safe to eat these days? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 5,000 people in the United States die each year from foodborne disease, and food contamination causes an estimated 76 million illnesses.

Ranking the deadliest foodborne illnesses is a tough task. The best starting point is CDC and National Health Institute information, but some of this information is obsolete and contradictory, as more recent data has become available. Some diseases, such as staphylococcal food poisoning, once killed hundreds of people a year, but kill far fewer now; on the other hand, several of the most deadly pathogens today, such as E. coli 0157:H7, campylobacter and listeria, were not even known to cause food-related illnesses 20 years ago. Given all this, here are some statistics on the deadliest foodborne illnesses in the United States. (Editor’s note: This article is not intended as a diagnostic tool. If you suspect you have one of these illnesses, contact a healthcare provider immediately.)

While federal workers get to enjoy a day off each year for Columbus Day, most Americans treat the holiday with total indifference. In 1937, the United States made Columbus Day a federal holiday, commemorating his arrival in the New World on Oct. 12, 1492. Public sentiment is not so kind to Columbus today. Critics note Columbus didn’t actually “discover” a land where Native Americans had lived for thousands of years, and they contend his arrival in the New World touched off hundreds of years of colonialism and genocide toward indigenous people in the New World. That debate aside, it’s somewhat strange we commemorate the journey of a man who erred in so many ways. Even Columbus’s supporters would agree that the famous explorer suffered through a calamity of miscalculations, misconceptions and errors in his adventures in the New World, and his greatest discovery not only came about by accident, but he never realized what he had discovered. Here are five of Columbus’s biggest follies.

I remember as a kid trying to figure out just how old I would be when the year 2000 rolled around. That year seemed impossibly far off, a time straight out of the pages of science fiction. Would we live on Mars and commute via jet pack? Now that we’re well into the 21st century, it’s a bit strange that many red-letter dates from the science fiction of my youth have already come to pass, and many more are just around the corner. While the infamous Skynet computer network from the Terminator movies series is not operational yet — more on that later — I now carry in my pocket far more computing power than was available to the Apollo space missions. That said, here are 12 significant fictional dates in sci-fi history.

We’ve been hearing for years that stress is not good for people. Stress has long been blamed for high blood pressure, heart problems, weight gain and crippling emotional conditions like depression. Yet stress can have a negative impact on our lives in many other ways as well. When you encounter a stressful situation, your heart rate becomes elevated, and stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol flood your body. These reactions are extremely beneficial in “fight or flight” situations of temporary stress. But when we are under chronic stress, these responses can cause harm over time. When your body is constantly on guard and never allowed to rest, it’s no wonder that a whole host of physical and mental problems can arise, with a few surprising conditions listed below.

Sea monsters are just a myth — or are they? You tell us after checking out the following strange but true aquatic animals, some of which are monstrous-looking, monstrous-acting or both. Most of these creatures are perfectly harmless to humans; some we dare say are even kind of cute. But at least one can venture inside the human body and wreak havoc, especially if you don’t pay attention during your bathroom breaks near the Amazon River.

During the 2012 Democratic and Republican national conventions, funnyman Conan O’Brien and his team scoured presidential campaign footage to develop some hilarious alternative campaign slogans to President Barack Obama’s “Forward” and Mitt Romney’s “Believe in America.” A few gems included: “It’s Every American for Themselves,” “America: Just Another Place With a Flag on the Map” and the blunt, “I Made a Lot of Money.” O’Brien specializes in satire, but sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, as throughout U.S. history a number of presidents and presidential wannabes have employed some slogans so ridiculously bad, we remember a few of them more than 150 years later.

Few relics of American history have captivated the American imagination to the same degree as the legendary U.S. Route 66. Opened in 1926 and originally stretching a total of 2,448 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles, Route 66 played a role in the classic The Grapes of Wrath, was celebrated in songs, featured in a TV series, and alluded to in the animated movie Cars. The road earned a handful of nicknames, including the Main Street of America and the Mother Road.

The demise of Route 66 literally began the moment President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, launching construction of more than 40,000 miles of Interstate highway across the United States. As the years passed, interstates such as I-15, I-40, I-44, and I-55 began bypassing more and more stretches of Route 66. The highway was finally decommissioned in 1985. But even today, almost 30 years later, many Americans still love the road and the lore surrounding it. Tourists set off throughout the Midwest and West, cameras, maps and GPS in hand, searching out old sections of the famous highway. Here’s a look at some of the sights and events to be found along this lost but still beloved highway.

Youth rules in Hollywood. That’s been the case since the earliest days of silent films, and it’s still true today. Even the best actresses, no matter how accomplished, receive fewer roles, and less prestigious roles, as they move into middle age and beyond. Leading men and character actors can hang on to the limelight a few more years, but even they eventually begin losing those roles to younger actors. Then there are those performers who somehow manage to buck the youth trend and continue landing prime roles well into their later years. Here’s a look at five timeless stars who are still going strong well into their sixth, seventh, eighth or even ninth decade in entertainment. They haven’t been around forever … but it sure seems like it.

The closer we get to each election, the more promises, “statistics” and divisive talk we hear from both sides of the party aisle. And while the Internet has made more “facts” available than ever before, the web has also given rise to increasingly sophisticated techniques to manipulate the media and public. Special interest groups hire PR firms to spread fabricated news under the guise of factual articles, while individuals with biased viewpoints establish websites plagued by untruths and inaccurate statements to advance a particular viewpoint. Both phenomena have contributed to a flourishing environment for fact-checking organizations and websites that dig deep into stories, press releases, etc. in an effort to establish the truth. Ironically, political fact checkers have become so entrenched in the political landscape that they even became part of the 2012 presidential campaign, when a pollster for GOP candidate Mitt Romney declared, "we're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers." That said, here’s a look at five of the best-known sites dedicated to exploring the facts behind the rhetoric.

The popular imagination often sees the history of warfare as a series of epic confrontations decided by physical courage, inspired leadership and exotic weapons. These factors all play a role in great victories and terrible losses. However, like all human endeavors, war is subject to more mundane factors like bad luck, mistaken assumptions, overconfidence and even bad weather. The chaos and uncertainty that is an inevitable part of battle is often referred to as the fog of war and has been the bane of military commanders who found themselves on the wrong end of a crushing defeat. Here’s a look back at five battles in which a calamity of errors ended in massive death, destruction and failure for one side.