A Chinese pedestrian narrowly escaped death after a knife fell from the sky and stuck in his head. XiaoYunzhi, 57, was walking below a high-rise apartment when the wind blew a kitchen knife from an eighth story balcony. The blade became embedded on the side of his scalp, standing straight up. Xiao realized what had happened only when a storekeeper […]
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A dedicated graffiti zone was set up at the Great Wall of China, in the hope it would stop visitors from scratching their names on the historic barrier. Most of the graffiti on the wall, said the Chinese media, is in English.
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One year after Boko Haram abducted 276 Christian teenage girls from a northern Nigerian boarding school, authorities are no closer to finding them—and more have been taken. Amnesty International said this week that the Islamist group has captured at least 2,000 women and girls since the start of 2014. Those who escape say they were raped in forced marriages and trained […]
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Facebook can make you unhappy. Researchers texted study participants five times a day with questions about their social-networking activity and how they felt, and found that Facebook visits directly correlated with negative emotions, such as depression and loneliness. While Facebook seems to fulfill “the basic human need for social connection,” says University of Michigan social psychologist Ethan Kross, it can […]
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Florida Gov. Rick Scott, thought he was announcing the phone number of a meningitis hotline, but provided the number of a phone sex line. Callers heard a woman say, “Hello, boys….”
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A solar-powered airplane landed in India on March 10, completing the second leg of its bid to become the first aircraft to circle the world by solar energy alone. Solar Impulse 2, which launched in Abu Dhabi, will make 12 stops on its 22,000-mile (35,000 km) journey.
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A new University of Washington study has found that 2.1 billion people worldwide are overweight or obese. Here’s a snapshot of the percentage of people who fall in those categories around the world: Saudi Arabia – 69.4% U.S. – 67.4% Germany – 61.1% China – 28.3% India – 19.5%
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The Pew Research Center forecast that by 2050 the number of Muslims globally will nearly equal the number of Christians. Here is how major religions are projected to grow from 2010 to 2050: Islam: +73% Christianity: +35% Hinduism: +34% Judaism: +16% Buddhism: – 0.3%
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After eight years of war, bombings, and brutal sectarian violence, Iraq’s civilian population is now suffering an epidemic of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental illnesses, health officials there say. But there are only 100 psychiatrists to serve a population of 39 million.
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British scientists invented a cellphone battery powered by urine. This “is about as eco as it gets,” said one researcher, noting that urine is a renewable resource.
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