A new analysis of 166 studies on childhood vaccines has come to a resoundingly clear conclusion: Vaccination does not cause autism and is extremely safe and effective.The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality commissioned a systematic review on the subject in response to the rise of the anti-vaccine movement which has been blamed for recent outbreaks of measles and whooping […]
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■ A Missouri couple have used their record lottery winnings to improve their hometown. Mark and Cindy Hill have spent chunks of their $293 million fortune on the town of Camden Point buying it a new firehouse and baseball field, refurbishing the town’s waste-water system, and topping up the high school scholarship fund.The Hills’ gifts amounted to 25 years of […]
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Despite long-running drought, overall food situation appears similar to previous years. North Korea’s spending on imports of cereals decreased again in August, after recovering slightly the previous month, data from Chinese government figures show. Cereals – which include rice imports – decreased along with nearly every other food as classified by trade groups, and continued a downward trend that contrasts […]
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Mapping the infant universe is no easy task. New data from the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite is giving astronomers their most complete look yet at the very earliest moments of the universe. Planck, which measures microwave radiation, has created a heat map of the temperatures present in the universe a mere 370,000 years after the Big Bang. The data […]
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Every week, more than 50 million Americans take acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol and many other popular painkillers, to ease their aches and pains. But a new study has revealed that the drug also dulls emotions—including happiness. Prior research showed that acetaminophen can help take the sting out of negative feelings like dread, but the new findings from Ohio […]
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■ Having been banned from every tanning salon in New Jersey, Patricia Krentcil — dubbed “a tanorexic” by the tabloids—plans to move to Britain to continue tanning. Krentcil, 44, says that since salons started turning her away she is having “to spend hours covering myself in tanning lotion to get the color I want.” She says that even though she’s […]
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Mike Carmichael simply wanted to do something weird when he and his 3-year-old son slapped a coat of blue paint on a baseball in 1977. The central Indiana resident stuck with painting the ball, which grew large enough to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2004. At that time, it was 9 feet (2.7 meters) across, […]
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After a century of marital bliss, the world’s longest romance appears to be over. Bibi and Poldi—a pair of Galapagos giant tortoises—are no longer on speaking terms after a century together. Keepers at the Reptile Zoo in Klagenfurt, Austria, say the pair fell out after a fight in which Bibi took a chunk out of Poldi’s shell. Now, whenever they […]
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AAA says more than 76 percent of U.S. drivers are parking the wrong way. “U.S. drivers most frequently park their vehicle by pulling forward into a parking spot … a riskier practice that driving experts warn leaves pedestrians more vulnerable.” So it seems, we should really be backing into parking spots instead of pulling in head first. As part of a […]
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