Category: Health

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10 of the Most Bizarre Declassified Government Documents

Some people are really into conspiracy theories – or more prone to believing that the government is hiding certain truths from us, maybe – and still others have just watched too many episodes of The X-Files to trust that we’re being told every last detail.

But if these 10, slightly terrifying declassified documents are any indication, people are definitely right to ask questions, because the truth is often buried behind miles of red tape.

10. Okay so this needs to be a movie, if it isn’t.

In East Germany a committed freedom fighter and her husband had dealt with having her home raided while she was away, being arrested on the way to protests and all sorts of state sponsored harassment. After the wall fell she was able to read the documents the Stasi had kept on her and found out her own husband was an undercover agent and had written many reports on her activities with a bloodless banality.

9. Everything about the Challenger explosion is horrible.

When the space shuttle Challenger was destroyed, it was reported that all 7 astronauts were killed instantly. It was revealed decades later that some, if not all of the astronauts survived the initial explosion, as the cockpit cabin had enough protection to not be breached. For 2 minutes and 45 seconds, they were awake and aware, as they plummeted toward the Atlantic Ocean.

Understandably, NASA knew that the news of their terrifying death would have crippled the space program even more than it already was.

8. Evil people sometimes have security clearance.

Canadian here… The Somalia Affair Not sure if it was ever classified but definitely a horrific scandal. A now disbanded division of the Canadian military torturing a kid to death in the 90s, and taking hero pics with him while doing it… I think it’s important to remember when your country does something shitty – it’s not always the “bad guys” who can be fucking evil.

7. This seems awfully small and petty when, you know, actual life should scare people enough.

Devil Eyes

The plan after 9/11 to make figurines that look like Osama Bin Laden and give them to kids in South Asia. After it’s left in the sun for a certain amount of time, it’s face would peel off to reveal a “demon-like visage with red skin, green eyes, and black markings,” basically a demon. The objective was to scare kids and their parents so Bin Laden and Al Qaeda would lose support.

6. This idea was actually floated, so what’s not possible?

Operation Northwoods; A plan for a false flag operation that came from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Department of Defense in 1962 and given to JFK who turned it down. The plan called for the CIA to commit terrorist actions against US Civilians across the United States and frame Cuba, allowing us the right to invade and depose Castro and the communist government there. It was declassified and can be found online at the JFK Library. Terrifying that no one knows or seems to care that this was suggested by our government to the President.

5. We have to prepare for all contingencies.

The Nixon Administration had a speech prepared for if the moon landing had failed, and it’s chilling.

You can read it here

4. The Manhattan Project was terrifying from the ground up.

My hometown was littered woth radioactive waste by the federal government as part of the Manhattan project. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/01/nyregion/big-atom-waste-site-reported-found-near-buffalo.html

then we wonder why cancer and thyroid conditions thereare the norm.

3. It really seems likely that we’re going to wipe ourselves out on accident.

There are over 50 mishaps with nuclear weapons by the US Airforce in the 1950s alone.

2. So as you can see, we’ve never been a society that puts children first.

They tested Iodine on “retarded children” as well. In that time, oftentimes orphans and children who were behind in school ended up at these institutions.

The US government also inserted radioactive material into a man after a motorcycle crash and didn’t tell him.

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/03/us/panel-urges-us-to-apologize-for-radiation-testing-and-pay-damages.html

1. Drug testing on clueless citizens. That’s not scary.

Operation Midnight Climax

The government hired sex workers to dose “johns” with LSD for research purposes so to speak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Midnight_Climax

 

Some of these going to haunt my thoughts for weeks, and you know…the truth is out there, y’all.

Are you into conspiracy theories? Do these documents tickle your sixth sense? Let us know!

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A Starbucks Worker Passed Away Because He Couldn’t Afford Kidney Dialysis

To the people out there who continue to argue with their heart and soul that the United States has the best health care on Earth, maybe you should read this story.

Oh, and, you’re wrong.

Most of us know the American health care system is pretty bad for a large segment of the population, but it’s stories like this that really drive the point home.

James Farmer was an employee at Starbucks who tragically passed away on August 11 due to kidney failure. Farmer was only 22 years old, and his story has gone viral because it highlights the failure of the American health care system to protect its citizens in many cases. James Farmer was unable to take off work to have his dialysis treatments because he couldn’t afford to miss out on any paychecks because, like many Americans, he lived paycheck-to-paycheck.

Posted by James Farmer on Thursday, August 23, 2018

A writer named Allison Robicelli was friends with Farmer, and she shared his sad story on Twitter to shed light on a situation that untold numberas of hourly and low-wage workers across the country have to deal with. Robicelli included the #ChickenSandwich hashtag in her tweet to reference the hoopla surrounding the Popeye’s chicken sandwich and how people should refocus their thoughts and priorities on things that literally amount to life and death.

Robicelli wrote, “The people who serve you coffee and sandwiches, the people who barely get by because a living wage ‘isn’t in the best interest of shareholders,’ the people who so many believe don’t deserve to be paid fairly: they are people.”

For the record, Starbucks says that it offers its baristas healthcare coverage if they work an average of at least 20 hours per week. All Starbucks employees also get one hour of paid time off for sick days for every 30 hours worked.

A sad story and one that will hopefully inspire those in high places in business and government to make a change.

A GoFundMe page to pay for Farmer’s funeral expenses already exceeded its goal, but you can still donate to honor James Farmer’s memory.

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The Deadly Incident at Lake Nyos Is One of History’s Most Bizarre Unknown Natural Disasters

Have you ever heard of this story before?

Lake Nyos in Cameroon is a crater lake – the water there poured in after an incredibly explosive volcanic eruption forged the large divot. It appears innocuous and silent, and even though the view is spectacular, the lake could be easily overlooked.

If you know its eerie history, though, you’ll definitely spend some time contemplating its calm surface.

On August 21, 1986, thousands of cattle and 1746 people living near the lake died within moments of each other.

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On August 21, 1986, a rare natural disaster occurred in the West African country of Cameroon. A large cloud of carbon dioxide gas spewed from Lake Nyos and blanketed nearby villages, killing 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock while they slept. .. News of the tragedy took a few days to reach international newspapers, with the first reports appearing in North American papers around the 24th. (Independent Record, 08.25.1986). . . . . . @independentrecord #cameroon #lakenyos #historybuff #historylover #historygeek #historynerd #historylesson #oldnewspaper #newspaper #newspapers #newspaperclipping #newspaperarticle #historicalnewspapers #doyouremember #otd #onthisday #thisdayinhistory #todayinhistory

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When the bodies were discovered, authorities discovered no signs of physical damage or distress.

Though the locals were ready to blame vengeful spirits or the government testing chemicals, geologists quickly uncovered the real killer: carbon dioxide.

When water from the lake was captured in vials, it popped the lids off the sample jars. It was packed with the colorless, odorless gas, and scientists concluded in their official report that the lake had released a sudden and large amount of the gas. Denser than air, it rolled over fields and down slopes toward the local villages, smothering everything breathing in its path.

The lake sits above a system of still-active volcanos, and since carbon dioxide is a common feature of magmatic systems, the fact that it bubbled up into the water isn’t a surprise. Typically, though, the gas simply leaks out of the water slowly and harms no one – people wouldn’t even be aware of it.

At Lake Nyos, though, the huge amount of very still water ensured that pressure remained high enough to keep the gas dissolved in the water. It hosted a defined layer of CO2 that accumulated for several centuries, undisturbed by any kind of current or waves, until each gallon of water had collected an astonishing 5 gallons of carbon dioxide dissolved inside it.

Obviously, that is unsustainable.

There’s some debate as to what triggered the massive release of the gas. It may have been a landslide that fell into the CO2 layer, or a sudden release of fresh CO2 into the water, but, either way, it was like breaking the seal on an over-carbonated bottle of soda.

Water would have shot up and out in a geyser hundreds of meters tall, expelling 1.2 cubic kilometers of CO2 in a mist that blanketed villages as far as 15.5 miles away. The lake turned from blue to red, a result of the iron at the bottom floating toward the top after the massive disruption.

Entire villages perished – there were only 800 survivors in the area, most of whom suffered symptoms of CO2 poisoning.

Authorities installed a degassing system in the lake, as well as a solar-powered warning system, in the hopes that there will never be another mass asphyxiation event like this in the future.

Lake Kivu, straddling the border between Congo and Rwanda, is 2000x bigger than Lake Nyos, and is full of Co2 as well as methane. With 2 million people living within killing range of either gas, scientists have pointed out that similar precautions should be taken there, as well.

Efforts to extract the methane to be used as an energy source, or to explore it for potential oil deposits, have been met with words of caution from scientists.

Here’s hoping the governments listen, or another silent, mass annihilation could be on the horizon.

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This Is Why Some People Can Function Well on Less Sleep Than Others

Which category do you fall into?

Some people need a full eight hours of sleep to function no matter what, while others seem to be able to go go go with less than six hours of solid sack time. The latter like to brag about their ability as if it’s something they’ve trained for, or a reason to think themselves a superior human, but what is it about their makeup, really, that leaves them able to function with so few zzz’s?

Cause it’s just unfair.

Well, science has the answer, so hold on.

Neurologists from the University of California San Francisco think they’ve isolated a gene that could directly impact how much a person has to sleep to feel good.

The findings, published in Neuron, show that people with a single-letter gene mutation seem to be able to function well on six hours of sleep or less without suffering any of the adverse heath effects associated with too little time under the covers.

Whereas people without the mutation wake up moody, tired, and subject to the other nasty side effects of sleeping less than six hours a night.

Study author Louis Ptacek explained more in a statement:

“It’s remarkable that we know so little about sleep, given that the average person spends a third of their lives doing it. This research is an exciting new frontier that allows us to dissect the complexity of circuits in the brain and the different types of neurons that contribute to sleep and wakefulness.”

Interestingly, this isn’t the only gene that’s been linked to requiring less sleep – one called DEC2 also typically means a person averages 6.25 hours of sleep per night, as opposed to the 8.06 hours averaged by the people who do not posses the mutation.

This new gene exists in people without the previously known mutation, and it appears to affect neurons and their level of activity in the brain region that controls stages of sleep.

When the mutated gene was engineered into mice, the ones with the new gene mutation not only slept less, but were more active both when they were awake, and when they were in REM sleep. So it seems the mutation affected their circadian rhythms, says Ptacek.

“Sleep is complicated. We don’t think there’s one gene or one region of the brain that’s telling our bodies to sleep or wake. This is only one of many parts.”

One of many parts that I clearly don’t have. Le sigh…

I’m gonna go take a nap.

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A Study Found That Drinking Red Wine Can Contribute to a Healthy Gut

Studies come and go extolling the benefits of having a glass of red wine (aside from stress relief) now and then (and now), so add this one to the mix. It claims that red wine has the potential to improve your gut health.

The study of almost 3,000 drinkers in the U.S., the U.K., and the Netherlands revealed that red wine drinkers have a higher diversity of gut microbiota than those who prefer beer, cider, or white wines, even when controlling for age, weight, diet, and socioeconomic status.

Having a healthy gut microbiome has been linked to physical and mental health, including curbing food cravings and the efficacy of certain medicines.

The King’s College research was led by Caroline Le Roy, who issued a statement about their findings.

“While we have long known of the unexplained benefits of red wine on heart health, this study shows that moderate red wine consumption is associated with greater diversity and healthier gut microbiota that partly explain its long-debated beneficial effects on health.”

They’re still looking into why this might be the case, though they posit it has to do with active compounds called polyphenols that are found in the beverage. The chemicals are found in the grape skins, and have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties that may help fuel the microbes living in our guts.

The same chemicals are found in chocolate and coffee, so maybe take a look at those, too.

“Although we observed an association between red wine consumption and the gut microbiota diversity, drinking red wine rarely, such as once every two weeks, seems to be enough to observe an effect. If you must choose one alcoholic drink today, red wine is the one to pick as it seems to potentially exert a beneficial effect on you and your gut microbes, which in turn may also help weight and risk of heart disease. However, it is still advised to consume alcohol with moderation.”

Moderation is key with alcohol consumption, of course, and the authors point out that people often underreport their consumption, for obvious reasons – and also that there was no way for them to determine the causal relationship between drinking red wine and health.

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It's all about the art of the pour. #PerUs

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The scientific community has spent a fair amount of time trying to decide whether the benefits of drinking wine outweigh the potential downsides, so for now, as ever, consume with caution.

But if you’re going to pick up an alcoholic beverage, red wine seems like the best possible choice.

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Willem Kolff created…

Willem Kolff created the first dialysis machine in the Netherlands during WWII. Lacking materials, he used sausage casings, tin cans, a washing machine, and salt water. He also saved more than 800 people from the Nazis by hiding them in his hospital. And he later invented the artificial heart.

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Here’s How Intermittent Fasting May Enhance Your Immune System

For years, it’s been argued whether intermittent fasting is good for us. Is it worth the hunger? Are there any actual health benefits from doing it?

Over the years, some people have claimed that this method has helped with rheumatoid arthritis and other ailments. Studies have also shown that intermittent fasting has improved multiple sclerosis in mice.

Well, there is more evidence that fasting may be beneficial to our health.

Photo Credit: Needpix

Three new studies explore how fasting might temporarily offer certain health benefits to humans. All three studies saw researchers give mice less food or go on a water-only diet for about a day. Each study researched a different type of immune cell and discovered that each type of cell had a unique response to the fasting.

Two of the three studies looked at the T and B cells. These cells help create immunity against past infections and identify and destroy pathogens. When the mice fasted, the T and B cells disappeared from the bloodstream and the organ tissues. The immune cells took shelter in the bone marrow to protect themselves. In other words, the cells migrated to the bone marrow, which is food rich, to survive during fasting.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The studies further showed that when the T cells did retreat to the bone marrow, they became supercharged. T cells produce molecules to kill pathogens and cancers, so this is potentially a very important find. When mice were injected with a pathogen they’d had in their bodies before, the fasting mice fought it off in only two days, as opposed to the week it took the regularly-fed mice.

Study author Dr. Yasmine Belkaid said, “It’s a striking enhancement. The goal is to [eventually] understand this magic soup in the bone marrow and extract what’s making that response. If we can train our cells to do these things, we can have an extraordinary impact on human health.”

The third study revolved around the white blood cells that attack pathogens. These are called monocytes. When you’re sick, this type of cell induces inflammation. This study showed that monocytes went down in the bloodstreams of both mice and humans when they fasted; the mice’s bone marrow was still producing monocytes, just not as many were being released into the bloodstream.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Fasting somehow creates a “roadblock” between bone marrow and blood for the monocyte cells. If fewer monocytes are moving throughout the body, overall inflammation goes down.

These studies suggest that intermittent fasting can be a good thing, and we can manipulate our immune systems based on changing how much we eat.

Something to think about…that’s for sure.

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A Man Landed in the Hospital After Sniffing His Own Dirty Socks

If you’ve ever done the laundry of a teenaged boy, then you’re probably aware that the smell can get pretty rank, but hospitalization via stinky socks?

Read on, my friends.

A 37-year-old man from southeast China went to the hospital experiencing chest pains. There, he was admitted and given X-rays to determine the cause of his pain, as well as a cough he couldn’t seem to shake.

The diagnosis? A fungal infection deep in his lungs.

It took doctors some time to deduce the cause, and they were only able to do so after the man admitted to a habit (addiction?) of sniffing his dirty socks after they’d just come off his feet.

Feet that, it turns out, were harboring a fungus. Which they then transferred to his socks. Which he then sniffed.

A fungal infection he’d developed on his feet was transferred to his lungs when he smelled his socks, taking in some of the fungal spores (microscopic particles that allow fungi to reproduce and disperse) as he did so.

The questionable habit, combined with a weakened immune system due to life and parenting, contributed to the seriousness of the incident, according to doctors.

The patient had to spend some time in the hospital, but is expected to make a full recovery – as long as he can find a new hobby.

Like, literally anything else.

Parents of teens, be warned – maybe don’t breathe in at all while dumping that laundry in the machine. You never know what’s in there.

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According to the EPA, handling…

According to the EPA, handling most receipt paper (aka thermal paper) is likely dangerous to your health, due to the high levels of BPA, and using hand sanitizer before handling a receipt exponentially increases the amount of the chemical you absorb into your body.

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Lego Launches a Feature to Help Make Their Products Accessible to Blind Children

Unless you know someone who is blind, you probably don’t give a whole lot of thought to how blindness affects people – how difficult certain chores and tasks might be. And that includes hobbies and fun as well, especially for kids.

A young blind man named Matthew Shifrin remembers how difficult it was to just be able to play with LEGOs when he was growing up. Because the instructions for LEGOs are represented with images, a family friend of Shifrin’s had to spend hours writing out the instructions and then Shifrin had to upload them into a program that converted the instructions into braille.

A pretty complicated process for a kid who just wants to build things with LEGOs.

Get some #inspiration. Matthew Shifrin has been working tirelessly for several years to spread audio and Braille Lego building instructions to children around the world. https://buff.ly/2PApHdv

Posted by Mike Parsons on Tuesday, September 3, 2019

That’s why Matthew Shifrin teamed up with LEGO to create braille and audio instructions for the company’s toy sets.

LEGO is intent on making its products more accessible to people with disabilities, and earlier this year, the company launched its Braille Bricks that teach people the braille writing system.

Lego launches new feature to make building sets accessible to blind childrenRead more Technology News Here –>…

Posted by Technology News on Wednesday, August 28, 2019

The new sets that come with braille and audio instructions will be sold until December 31, and they include sets of buildings, vehicles, and a spaceship from The LEGO Movie 2. The sets are available for sale and then people can access free instructions on this website. Users can also share feedback on the site, which LEGO will use to make improvements to their instructions. The company also plans to add more sets with braille and audio instructions next year.

Matthew Shifrin says of the partnership with LEGO, “I just want to foster as many blind Lego addicts as I can and help them get into the hobby because it’s helped me so much … I really want to give back to these kids.”

Here’s a video of Shifrin giving a Ted Talk.

Great work!

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