Over the past decade, thanks in part to widespread restrictions on when and where people can light up, the number of Americans who smoke has rapidly declined. But despite that reduction, some 58 million Americans are still regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although this is a 50 percent drop […]
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Nohmul, Belize A Belizean construction company has bulldozed one of the country’s largest ancient Mayan pyramids. The 2,300-year-old Nohmul mound was dug out and crushed into gravel for use in road building. “It’s like being punched in the stomach, it’s just so horrendous,” said Jaime Awe, the head of Belize’s Institute of Archaeology. “Why can’t these people just go and […]
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Tired of the pretentiousness of the art world, artistic performer / radio personality Lisa Levy of Brooklyn, New York, took her stance by sitting on a toilet, naked and motionless, to protest artists’ “BS” by presenting herself in the “humblest” way she could conceive. This took place at the Christopher Stout Gallery in January. Visitors were invited to sit on […]
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Ketamine, better known as Special K known to be a psychoactive ‘party drug’ has pharmaceutical companies riding high. Mainly used clinically as an anesthetic in animals and humans, clinical tests have proven it to be effective in treatment for depression, bipolar disorder and suicidal behavior. The effects of Ketamine have a quick onset. Unlike conventional antidepressants, which generally take weeks […]
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Tired of exercising to shed excess pounds? Scientists at Harvard University may have discovered a way to help you lose weight—just by taking a pill. The human body has two kinds of fat cells: white cells, which store excess calories in the form of flab, and brown cells, which burn energy to produce heat. “What we wanted to do is […]
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A new analysis of 166 studies on childhood vaccines has come to a resoundingly clear conclusion: Vaccination does not cause autism and is extremely safe and effective.The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality commissioned a systematic review on the subject in response to the rise of the anti-vaccine movement which has been blamed for recent outbreaks of measles and whooping […]
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A vicious racist ideology is taking hold in Myanmar, said Burmese blogger Maung Zarni. A “neo-Nazi Buddhist movement” known as 969, led by “fascist monks,” is trying to drive the Ro-hingya Muslims out of the country. Nobody is stopping these fundamentalists—not the military, and certainly not opposition leader and human-rights advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been photographed wining […]
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Radioactive residue from the Cold War could provide a valuable tool for stemming the deadly trade in illegal ivory, National Geographic News reports. Poachers killed an estimated 30,000 African elephants last year alone for their tusks—an ongoing slaughter that threatens the long-term survival of the species, whose population numbers about 500,000. Ending poaching has been nearly impossible because it is […]
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A Spanish woman has filed papers staking an official legal claim to the sun. Angeles Duran, 49, states in notarized documents she is now the official “owner of the sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the center of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometers” Duran now wants to impose […]
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A huge energy flare ripped through the heart of our galaxy about 3.5 million years ago. A blast so extremely powerful, it could be felt 200k light-years away and lasted more than 300k years. A study concluded by researchers in Australia and the U.S. found that the former belief that “our galaxy was an inactive galaxy” may in fact not […]
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