Nohmul, Belize A Belizean construction company has bulldozed one of the country’s largest ancient Mayan pyramids. The 2,300-year-old Nohmul mound was dug out and crushed into gravel for use in road building. “It’s like being punched in the stomach, it’s just so horrendous,” said Jaime Awe, the head of Belize’s Institute of Archaeology. “Why can’t these people just go and […]
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Russian teens are killing themselves en masse, and the authorities “seem oblivious,” said Alexander Tretyakov. The country has long had one of the world’s highest teen suicide rates, and in the past decade it’s gotten worse. Thousands of teens have joined “suicide forums” on Vkontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook. There they share stories of abuse and desperation and trade […]
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Scientists predict that we may have a cosmic collision which will cause space fireworks and launch us into exile. We do have some time before this will happen so we can prepare ourselves. According to astrophysicists we could be threatened by an asteroid smashing into earth in the distant future. We may not be able to survive a collision between […]
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Proud parents aren’t doing their kids any favors by constantly telling them they are “special” or “exceptional.” Such praise may be intended to bolster kids’ self esteem, but new research suggests that frequently telling children they are superior to other kids may instill a toxic personality trait: narcissism. The researchers studied 565 children ranging from 7 to 12 years old […]
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Britain’s “decayed seaside resorts” have become a dumping ground for society’s outcasts, said Libby Purves. Towns like Blackpool, Margate, and Clacton-on-Sea were holiday destinations for generations of English families. But they began to decline in the 1970s, when package tours abroad became cheap and popular. Housing prices fell, and authorities began seeing the towns as places to warehouse people difficult […]
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China’s wealth gap has widened so much that the country now one of the most unequal outside of sub-Saharan Africa. A respected Chinese institute found this week that China’s Gini coefficient, a number that represents income inequality, has soared from 0.41 a decade ago to 0.61 today. Anything over 0.5 is considered to be destabilizing, and South Africa, where opulent […]
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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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Prague, Okla Tremors from fracking: Scientists have linked Oklahoma’s largest earthquake—a 5.6 magnitude quake near the town of Prague, in 2011—to hydraulic fracturing, supporting claims that the process increases seismic activity. Fracking, as it is known, injects water and chemicals into petroleum deposits in order to extract trapped gas. This week, researchers at the University of Oklahoma, Columbia University, and […]
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Training for a marathon and other extreme workouts may be more harmful than healthy. After reviewing over 50 studies, researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that more than an hour of intense aerobic activity per day put runners and cyclists at heightened risk of serious heart problems, including an irregular heartbeat, clogged arteries, and scarring. Habitual marathon runners and professional […]
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Researchers have found 5 ways to help you to live about a decade longer. They studied 125,000 people for about 30 years, checking their health records, what they ate, how they exercised, and if they smoked. They were asked to not smoke, eat a healthy diet, exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, maintain a healthy weight, and not […]
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