A parasite lurking in your cat’s litter box could make you suicidal. A study of 46,000 Danish women found that those who were infected with Toxoplasma gondii, a common parasite that lives in the guts of cats and is transmitted through their feces, were 1.5 times more likely to kill themselves than those who weren’t infected and the more T. […]
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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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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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The Republicans have a euphemism for undocumented workers— illegals — said Peter Beinart. With a tone of disgust, that single, dehumanizing noun has become the GOP presidential candidates’ preferred way to describe the millions of human beings picking our produce, cooking our food, cutting our lawns, and watching over our kids. It’s “the latest in a long line of euphemisms […]
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BEIJING – The greatest risk China faces in its historic modernization is the massive imbalance between urban and rural areas, according to the country’s top agriculture official. “The most important and difficult task is to resolve issues concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers … to realize the agricultural modernization and the urbanization of most farmers,” said Minister of Agriculture Han Changfu […]
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Researchers have found some 200 million termite mounds that stretch for thousands of miles across northeastern Brazil. The area measures 88,000 square miles an area larger than the state of Minnesota. They stand about 10 feet tall, about 30 feet wide, and may be up to 4000 years old. The only way to see these mounds is by using a […]
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New research suggests that high levels of BPA, a chemical in many plastics and canned food linings, might raise the risk of miscarriage in women prone to that problem or having trouble getting pregnant. While the study is not nearly enough to prove a link, experts say it does add to “the biological plausibility” that BPA might affect fertility and […]
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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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Russian teens are killing themselves en masse, and the authorities “seem oblivious,” said Alexander Tretyakov. The country has long had one of the world’s highest teen suicide rates, and in the past decade it’s gotten worse. Thousands of teens have joined “suicide forums” on Vkontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook. There they share stories of abuse and desperation and trade […]
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Scientists predict that we may have a cosmic collision which will cause space fireworks and launch us into exile. We do have some time before this will happen so we can prepare ourselves. According to astrophysicists we could be threatened by an asteroid smashing into earth in the distant future. We may not be able to survive a collision between […]
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