South Korea – Where death is a popular option

south korea suicide

The shocking death of a reality show contestant shined a light on South Korea’s suicide epidemic, said Kim Tae-ick. The contestant, identified only by her surname, Jeon, apparently hanged herself with a hair-dryer cord after telling her mother that she would not be able to live once the Bachelor-style show aired. Sadly, her tale is common. Our suicide rate is […]

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Heavy drinking and binge drinking rise sharply in US counties

As rates of any drinking remained largely unchanged, binge drinking and heavy drinking have increased at the county level, influenced mainly by higher rates of drinking among women SEATTLE – Today, Americans are more likely to be heavy drinkers and binge drinkers than in recent years due in large part to rising rates of drinking among women, according to a […]

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How Supervolcanoes Erupt

  Luckily for most of the U.S., the likelihood this eruption would happen is pretty low: about one in 100,000 any given year. If it did happen, it would be pretty devastating, though. “Thinking about a Yellowstone super eruption is like imagining a large asteroid hitting the Earth,” says Jacob Lowenstern, a research geologist with the USGS and Scientist-in-Charge of […]

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Parents can instill narcissism

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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Mysterious signal from deep space

Mysterious signal from deep space

Mysterious radio signals from space have been known to repeat, but for the first time, researchers have noticed a pattern in a series of bursts coming from a single source half a billion light-years from Earth. Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are millisecond-long bursts of radio waves in space. Individual radio bursts emit once and don’t repeat. But repeating fast […]

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Chinese medicine shops feel the pinch

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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Qatar’s weighty problem

The emirate isn’t just the world’s richest country, it’s also one of the fattest. Half of adults and a third of children are obese, and almost 17 percent of the native population suffers from diabetes. By comparison, about a third of Americans are obese, and 8 percent diabetic. The problem is that Qataris are so rich that they don’t need […]

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