Do you stand clear of spiders, kill them with your shoe, or remove them from the house by carefully holding them in a cup or a wad of...

Did the sparkling New Year’s Eve ball drop last night? You don’t remember. You find yourself in bed, unclothed and unable to recall all...

At a recent mystery writer’s conference, a panelist discussed book cover colors and mentioned that green had been considered a color that...

The title of this blog is a line from my 2019 novel The Queen of All Poisons, spoken by Chad, Dr. Lily Robinson’s Agency contact. “You...

I love a good cup of hot cocoa or a large square of almond-laden dark chocolate bark this time of year. And I wouldn’t turn down double...

Try your hand at identifying these poisons. Good luck! --Dr. Lily Robinson Answers below All rights reserved bjmagnani.com

In 1982 seven people died in the greater Chicago area after cyanide was substituted in acetaminophen capsules sold in stores. Once the...

The umbrella had been modified to inject a small pellet that contained a lethal toxin. In 1978 Gyorgi Markov, a Bulgarian journalist, was...

Mad about that cup of tea? Honey pours from the bottle in slow motion—the thick syrup forming a column of sweet goodness that dissolves...

A picture puzzle in small pieces. During my medical training, my team encountered a case of a child with developmental delays. Not...

“Twinkle, twinkle, little bat, how I wonder what you’re at.” So starts the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland...

Are you sitting dreamily with a vision of a potential lover in your life? Ignite the romance with flowers, chocolate, poetry, or perhaps,...

I remember riding my horse on trails through the New York woods as a child and stopping to break off a twig of the black birch tree,...

Kitty’s licking her paws after walking in nutmeg sprinkled on the kitchen counter, and Fido just gobbled the dark chocolate that dropped...

Isn’t it the dose that makes the poison? Paracelsus, the Swiss physician, born in the late 1400s, is credited with saying, “What is there...

“Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” The Three Witches brewed prophesy for Shakespeare’s Macbeth, but what...

91,799. This is the number of people who died in 2020 from a drug overdose. And more than 932,000 people have died since 1999. About 75%...

One side will make you grow taller, and the other side… Well, actually, no. Either side will kill you. But nonetheless, the mushroom...

It’s believed that after the victim is bitten, he or she will be able to walk only a hundred paces before perishing. In regions where the...

The Box Jellyfish or Sea Wasp (Chironex fleckeri) is perhaps the world’s most venomous creature. The name is derived from Chiron—the...