Monday, January 21, 2008
I know you have been waiting for this: Why curly hair doesn’t get tangled..
While teaching physics at Ecole Polytechnique in France, Physicist Jean-Baptiste Masson used hair fibers as an example of a complex system that could be modeled simply. The example made him wonder: Does curly hair get more tangled than straight hair? He thought that a person sporting, say, Shakira’s...
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Sunday, January 20, 2008
Put Your Fat Thighs on a Coffee Diet...
Do your thunder thighs make you unhappy? Dose them with a new coffee-based cream, which contains seven percent caffeine. Brazilian researchers tested the cream on 99 women for 30 days, and found that more than 80 per cent of women had reduction in thigh circumference and almost 68 per cent had...
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Friday, January 18, 2008
And in Britain: A Warm Reminder of Grandma...
Capturing waste heat helps reduce energy cost. Officials near Manchester are considering diverting heat from the crematorium to warm the adjacent chapel after mourners have complained about a chill in the room. Officials say they will consult the community before going ahead, but the Rev. Vernon...
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Thursday, January 17, 2008
Stop Climate Change: Emit Gas like a ‘Roo
Scientists in Australia are examining the possibility of transplanting a special bacterium found in the guts kangaroos into cows and sheep. Bovine and sheep flatulence produces methane, which accounts for 14 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in that country, but ‘roos produce no methane at...
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Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Food for Symbolic Thought...
A cave on the southern coast of South Africa contains a bowl’s worth of edible shellfish dating back to about 165,000 years ago. Besides pushing back the earliest known seafood meal by 40,000 years, the discovery also marks the earliest time when people might have engaged in symbolic thought....
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Monday, January 14, 2008
Weight Loss on Shaky Ground...
Exercise takes energy, and presumably that is what combats obesity, but provocative experiments now suggest that jiggling might be enough. For 15 minutes almost every day, for 15 weeks, scientists at Stony Brook University had mice sit on a buzzing platform that almost imperceptibly vibrated at 90...
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Sunday, January 13, 2008
Get Lost Bozos...
It’s about time the world started paying attention to a serious medical disorder: coulrophobia – the fear of clowns. For years, parents have ignored this affliction, assuming kids just naturally adore those curly-haired freaks with red noses and floppy shoes. They don’t. In fact, a new study funded...
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Saturday, January 12, 2008
Forever Young...
Older really does mean wiser! A new study out of Denmark reveals that the human brain actually sharpens with age – rather than diminishing. After tracking more than 4000 people over a 20-year span, researchers found that math skills remain relatively constant, while verbal and writing skills improve...
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Friday, January 11, 2008
Belly Dancers With Moustaches
A well-known preserve of women, belly dancing by men is making a comeback in Cairo. Banned after the 1952 abdication of King Farouk, male belly dancers are again turning up at festivals, weddings and cafe openings. Tito Seif, a star of what's known in Egypt as 'Oriental Dancing', says: "I don't...
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Thursday, January 10, 2008
It’s a Dog’s Life…
Things are looking up for the dog owned by the late Leona Helmsley, which inherited US$12 million from the hotelier. The white Maltese is being sued by a former Helmsley employee for biting, and had gotten kidnapping threats. But Trouble’s handlers say she’s in the pink, thanks to a simple diet....
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