Turkish leaders reacted with outrage this week after Pope Francis referred to the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War I as “the first genocide of the 20th century.” Turkey recalled its Vatican envoy, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the pope “not to repeat his mistake,” saying, “It is not possible for the Turkish Republic to […]
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The five most popular names for baby girls in 2014 were (in order) Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Isabella, and Ava, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration. For boys, the most popular were Noah, Liam, Mason, Jacob, and William.
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Bao Lulin was always being mistaken for someone else. People would approach her at the restaurant where she worked in Guizho, China, asking why she didn’t recognize them. This October she discovered why: Lulin had an identical twin sister from whom she’d been separated at birth; she was living hundreds of miles away. Each had been adopted and raised with no […]
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A study in JAMA Psychiatry found that women using hormonal birth control had an increased risk of receiving treatment for depression. Those on progestin-only pills or IUD’s were 34% more likely, respectively, to begin using antidepressants than women not on birth control.
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60% – Share of the planet’s largest herbivores, including elephants, gorillas and rhinos, at risk of extinction, according to a new study.
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The oldest person in the world, JeraleanTalley of Michigan, turned 116 last week. The two oldest persons ever known to science, Sarah Knauss of Pennsylvania and Jeanne Calment of France, reached 119 and 122, respectively.
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Yearly odds of a U.S. student being killed at school: 1 in 3 million
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Total number of passenger planes that have gone missing without a trace since 2000: 10
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After decimating the Tanzanian elephant population, poachers have now killed half of the elephants in neighboring Mozambique in just five years. A survey by Mozambique’s government and the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society found that the herd has shrunk from 20,000 in 2010 to just over 10,000 animals today. “This decline is due to rampant elephant poaching in the country’s most important […]
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The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and its supporters produce as many as 90,000 tweets and other social media posts every day. The U.S. State Department is now assigning 80 people to counter ISIS’s propaganda on Twitter and Facebook.
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