■ South Central Los Angeles is more famous for drive-by shootings than well-kept gardens, but one native son is getting locals to trade their sawed-off shotguns for shovels. Ron Finley, who styles himself the “Gangsta Gardener” is encouraging Angelenos to cultivate vegetable and fruit gardens in vacant lots in deprived neighborhoods. He has co-founded a charity, L.A. Green Grounds, to […]
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Public urination is a problem in most major cities of the world, but now another town is using technology to “pee back” the perpetrators, so to speak. Authorities in the St. Pauli district of Hamburg, Germany, had the walls in this well-known red light district sprayed with a super-hydrophobic nano-coating which is so water repellent that, as tech website gizmag.com […]
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A scary new trend among college students combines starvation with binge drinking, says TheAtlantic.com. Researchers say “drunkorexia” now affects as many as one in four college students, who diet all day so that they can drink at night without gaining weight. In one recent study of 22,000 students at 40 universities, those who reported working out or dieting to shed […]
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Russian orphanages are a scandal, said Jennifer Rankin. State institutions house nearly 400,000 children, a population larger than many cities. But less than one third of these children are actually orphans. Many “fall into the system when their parents, often fighting a losing battle with alcohol or drugs,” lose their parental rights. Even more of them—nearly half the total—have disabilities, […]
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■ A Missouri couple have used their record lottery winnings to improve their hometown. Mark and Cindy Hill have spent chunks of their $293 million fortune on the town of Camden Point buying it a new firehouse and baseball field, refurbishing the town’s waste-water system, and topping up the high school scholarship fund.The Hills’ gifts amounted to 25 years of […]
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AAA says more than 76 percent of U.S. drivers are parking the wrong way. “U.S. drivers most frequently park their vehicle by pulling forward into a parking spot … a riskier practice that driving experts warn leaves pedestrians more vulnerable.” So it seems, we should really be backing into parking spots instead of pulling in head first. As part of a […]
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Jackson, Miss. Belated ratification: Mississippi officially ratified the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery—148 years late. The approval came after University of Mississippi medical professor Dr. Ranjan Batra watched the Oscar-nominated film Lincoln, and began looking into whether the state had ever endorsed the end of slavery. Batra discovered that by December 1865 the measure had been ratified by the three fourths […]
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Researchers have found that if the patient with Alzheimer’s is treated for any bacteria or infections it may help in the reduction of this condition. The immune system is being researched more to see if it can be the key factor in treatment for Alzheimer’s. If it is found out that infections are what may be causing Alzheimer’s then we […]
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■ A police station in northern France is storing so much seized marijuana that officers are getting high off the fumes. “The odor is really strong” said one officer. “After a day, you are stoned.” About 88 pounds of weed has piled up at the Roubaix station because of a strike at the agency that is supposed to dispose of […]
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Pluto may have company out there in the Kuiper Belt according to astronomers. They found that a small icy world called Sedna is out there past the planet of Neptune and may have company. This possible small planet known as 2014 UZ224 is about the size of Iowa which is about half the size of Pluto. Located approximately 8.5 billion […]
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