■ Tourists at a Los Angeles hotel were distressed to learn they’d been drinking, bathing, and brushing their teeth with water from a rooftop tank in which a dead body had been decomposing. The body was discovered by a maintenance worker who was trying to figure out why the water pressure was so low. “The water did have a funny […]
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The eight-hour work day is becoming obsolete, as companies pressure employees for “productivity”—that is, long work days. But employees ‘may pay the ultimate price for overworking, a new British study finds. Researchers followed more than 7,000 healthy, middle-aged U.K. government employees for roughly 12 years and discovered that those who reported clocking 11-hour days had a 67 percent higher risk […]
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Shops selling traditional medicines and foods in Hong Kong and Sydney say business from Chinese tourists is the poorest in years. Noah’s Trading Company is usually bustling with customers during the Lunar New Year holiday, but this year the aisles are empty. Similar scenes are playing out in traditional Chinese medicine shops in Hong Kong’s old Sheung Wan district. Stores […]
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Since NASA has made missions to the moon, Mars, and Pluto they are now getting ready to mission to the sun. This spacecraft will come within four million miles from the sun’s surface to explore its atmosphere and observe how this star works. The probe called Solar Probe Plus will have a shield on it so that it can survive […]
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Stephen Hawking: ‘There are no black holes‘ – Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has declared that black holes do not exist – at least not in the way we normally think about them. In a new paper, he tackles a scientific paradox regarding a black hole’s event horizon. This is the threshold past which nothing can escape it’s gravitational pull. Under […]
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Why do people complain? Not to torture others with their negativity, surely. When most of us indulge in a bit of a moan, the idea is to “vent.” By getting our emotions out, we reason, we’ll feel better. But science suggests there are a few serious flaws in that reasoning. One, not only does expressing negativity tend not to make us […]
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Awe-inspiring experiences, such as viewing works of art or overlooking a scenic vista, may have physical as well as mental health benefits, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, found that the positive emotions triggered by these encounters can have an immune-boosting, anti-inflammatory effect that helps protect the body from heart disease, depression, autoimmune conditions, […]
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A desparate farmer killed himself in public, and India’s politicians do little more than point their fingers. Gajendra Singh, 43, climbed a tree and hanged himself during a rally against the government’s new land acquisition bill. A suicide note said his crop had failed and he could not support his three children. Singh joins “a long list of farmers who […]
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■ A Japanese town wants to put underpants on a replica of Michelangelo’s David. The 16-foot-tall statue has caused a stir since it was presented to the town of Okuizumo as a gift. “It’s frightening the children and worrying the adults with its nakedness,” said an official. “Several people have asked us to cover it up with underpants.” Officials are […]
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Scientists have found there are mass quantities of clean water ice below Mars surface. They don’t know the properties of this water ice, like how pure it is, how deep it goes, and what type of shape it’s in. In order to mine for drinking water, farming crops, or be able to convert it to hydrogen for fuel they will […]
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