■ A Canadian man was scratching his back when he noticed a pointy protrusion. It turned out to be a 3-inch knife blade that was buried in his flesh three years earlier. Billy McNeely, 32, said he’d often complained to doctors about chronic back pain after he was stabbed in a 2010 brawl, but physicians told him it was just […]
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Why are Americans so fat—and getting fatter with every passing year? said Brian Stelter in The New York Times. Seventy percent of adults in the U.S. are either overweight or obese, and so are one third of children and teens. This week, HBO began airing a four-part documentary, The Weight of the Nation, that aims to serve as a “wake-up […]
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Spending evenings in front of a glowing computer, TV, or cellphone screen can put you at risk of depression, Science News reports. Nighttime exposure to light from gadgets has already been shown to contribute to insomnia, cancer, obesity, and diabetes. Now, a new study shows that screen glow can cause mood-related changes in the brain. For weeks, researchers exposed hamsters […]
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Marijuana may now be legal in Colorado, said Jordan Weissmann, but do purchasers really know what they’re buying? New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd highlighted that problem last week by describing what happened when she went to Denver to sample edible marijuana. Dowd ate too much of a weed-laced candy bar, which had no dosing instructions, and spent eight hours […]
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A mother-of-eight, 30, died suddenly from a cardiac arrest because she drank up to 18 pints of Coke every day for years, a coroner has ruled. Natasha Harris died at home in Invercargill on New Zealand’s south island. An inquest revealed that she would drink at least four 2.5 litre bottles of the fizzy drink each day, consuming more than […]
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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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■ A California woman is getting plastic surgery to become a real-life Barbie—and hypno-therapy to make her as dumb as a doll. “I just want to be the ultimate Barbie,” said Blondie Bennett, 38. “Being brainless is a big part of that.” Bennett has spent over $41,000 on plastic surgery, lip fillers, and Botox to make herself look like a […]
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Linfen, China A suspected Chinese organ trafficker gouged out the eyes of a 6-year-old boy to steal the corneas for the black market. The boy was playing outside his house in Shanxi province last weekend when a woman kidnapped and drugged him. His parents found him hours later with bloody eye sockets, and the eyeballs were found nearby missing the […]
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