Before we dive in … Day 3 …
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Honey, Have You Seen…?
I’m like, big into vibe-coding now, and one of my not-ready-for-prime-time creations is an app I’d previously joked about building forever. It’s called Honey, Have You Seen…?
Open it, type in something you’ve misplaced — your keys, your wallet, the reading glasses that were on your head — and the app responds the way a helpful spouse would:
Could it be in the car? Did you check the counter? Is it in the pocket of the jeans you wore yesterday?
(Also me: Oh my God, I have so much I have to get done today!)
Anyway, it turns out that “honey have you” dynamic may be doing a lot more than helping you find your sunglasses. It might be correlated to a lower likelihood of getting cancer.
Researchers at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami analyzed more than 4 million cancer cases between 2015 and 2022 and published their findings in Cancer Research Communications.
The main question: are married people less likely to get cancer? The results:
Adults who had never married had substantially higher rates of developing cancer than those who were or had been married.
Men who had never married were about 70% more likely to develop cancer than married men.
Women who had never married were about 85% more likely to develop cancer than women who were or had been married.
For some specific cancers, the gaps were even more pronounced.
Of course, getting married doesn’t magically prevent cancer. People who smoke less, drink less, and take better care of themselves may also be more likely to get — and stay — married.
But a few mechanisms are worth taking seriously. The benefit associated with marriage may have less to do with the institution itself and more to do with what it tends to provide — a built-in accountability partner who asks the questions you might otherwise skip.
Married people tend to have stronger social support and more economic stability — plus a partner who notices when something’s off.
The kind of partner who says: You’ve been coughing for three weeks. Maybe call the doctor.
The associations were especially strong for cancers tied to infection, smoking, and alcohol — areas where a partner’s influence could plausibly matter — and stronger in adults over 50, suggesting the effect builds over time.
This study began in 2015, the year same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide, specifically so it could include married same-sex couples — hence why it’s one of the more contemporary and inclusive analyses on this topic.
“With the prevalence of marriage decreasing in the U.S., this is something that should be further studied,” said co-author Paulo Pinheiro, a professor of cancer epidemiology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
The researchers aren’t in the business of dispensing relationship advice, but the study has a clear practical takeaway.
“If you’re not married, you should be paying extra attention to cancer risk factors, getting any screenings you may need, and staying up to date on health care,” said Frank Penedo, associate director for population sciences at Sylvester.
So the next time your spouse asks where you’ve been and reminds you that you’re two years overdue for a physical, maybe resist the eye roll.
After all — and I say this as someone who built the app — there’s a version of Honey, Have You Seen…? that ends not with your keys, but with people (me!) acting like a grownup and taking care of themselves a bit more than they otherwise would.
Other things worth knowing …
The Hill: President Trump and his political allies are pointing to Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner as proof of the need for his planned ballroom on White House grounds. The Department of Justice called on the National Trust for Historic Preservation to drop its lawsuit against the administration over the ballroom in the wake of the shooting. A lawyer from the preservation group said no.
Yahoo News: UFC CEO Dana White’s description of the chaos at the WHCA: “Tables getting flipped over, guys running in with guns and they were screaming ‘Get down.’ I didn’t get down. It was f*cking awesome. I literally took every minute of it in, and it was a pretty crazy, unique experience.”
NBC Sports: Kenyan Sabastian Sawe broke the two-hour barrier in the marathon, winning the London Marathon in an unofficial 1 hour, 59 minutes, 30 seconds, shattering the previous record of 2:00:35. The runner-up on Sunday, Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha, ran 1:59:41 in his marathon debut.
USA Today: A bipartisan group of lawmakers joined forces on a bill to broaden access to a beloved grocery store staple, aptly called the “Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act.” The idea is to let recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) use benefits to purchase the popular cooked chickens. Currently, the purchase of hot prepared foods is prohibited under SNAP.
The Hill: President Trump endorsed the idea of changing the name of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to National Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which would give the agency the acronym NICE. “GREAT IDEA!!! DO IT,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Defense One: The Pentagon replicated a Ukrainian-style drone attack in Florida. Now it’s changing its counter-drone strategy.
The Telegraph: No sex please, we’re on Mars! Inside the simulated red planet mission: Six participants live and work under conditions that mirror long‑duration Space expeditions.
Thanks for reading. Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.