flickering pictures

According to a new study, nearly a third of Canadians diagnosed with asthma may not actually have it. The CBC reports: In Monday’s online issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dr. Shawn Aaron of the Ottawa Health Research Institute and his colleagues looked at 496 adults from eight Canadian cities — Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, [...]

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The Los Angeles Times reports that peeling a strip of Scotch tape off the roll in a vacuum chamber releases enough energy to x-ray your finger. The process is called triboluminescence and apparently creates visible light, too — something you can try at home — though you likely haven’t noticed unless you’ve been taping things [...]

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Reason #874 why I love the Times of India. The article is actually pretty interesting too — apparently the Indian state of West Bengal is losing out on millions of dollars from the international Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use because its chief minister refuses to set an example by kicking the habit. West Bengal [...]

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A new study apparently shows that the birth control pill messes with a woman’s pheromone recognition process, making her more likely to be attracted to men who are genetically similar to her. That’s a bad thing — broad genetic diversity minimizes nature’s “mistakes,” and children resulting from parents with similar genes are more likely to [...]

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From an exchange between the eminently reasonable British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) and the lunatic hothead American Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), in the movie Dr. Strangelove (1964): Ripper: Mandrake? Mandrake: Yes, Jack? Ripper: Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water? Mandrake: Well, I can’t say I [...]

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From the Telegraph: Viruses are glorified scraps of genetic code that are exquisitely designed to pirate a host to reproduce: the common cold virus needs cells in the nose and respiratory tract to reproduce, before being spread with a sneeze. But the discovery of a giant virus that itself falls ill through infection by another [...]

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If that’s not the strangest thing you’ve read today, I’d like to know what is. From the Telegraph: Mak Erot developed a family business empire offering penis extensions and cures for other sexual maladies using the power of Muslim prayer and a cocktail of 141 herbs. One of her 40 grandchildren, Haji Saifuloh, 37, explained [...]

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Translated literally from Japanese, “karoshi” means “death from overwork,” and has ended the lives of thousands of Japanese employees over the decades. Since the term was coined 20 years ago, authorities have started to take notice, commissioning studies but seemingly doing little else to protect workers like Kenichi Uchino, who according to The Economist “died [...]

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That number shoots up to 40 per cent among teens who actually admit to having had sex. I’m not sure how the rest of them contracted their diseases, but I’m guessing public toilet seats didn’t have much to do with it. And those figures don’t even reflect gonorrhea, warts, HIV/AIDS or other nasties that researchers [...]

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It’s called trepanation, and this extreme cousin to acupuncture has been around for at least 8,500 years. Though it’s recently fallen out of favour — mainly because it comes with a pretty fair chance brain damage, death, or searing agony at the very least — the practice is aimed at heightening the consciousness of the [...]

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