Category: Science

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This Simple Dating Test Helps You Identify Potentially Abusive Partners

Here’s a shocking stat: intimate partner violence affects nearly 20 people around the U.S. every single minute. That’s over 10 million victims every year! It’s clearly a problem that needs to be tackled head-on, and we simply can’t afford to keep it hidden behind closed doors any longer.

Abusive relationships are notoriously difficult (and dangerous) to escape, so naturally, the best solution would be to never enter one in the first place. But with abuse so common, and abusers so sneaky, how can people possibly avoid them all?

One domestic violence counselor has a test to help out. The “No Test,” as he calls it, can help identify potential abusers early in a relationship.

Photo Credit: Pexels

“The No Test is basically to watch out for the way your partner responds the first time you change your mind or say no,” Rob explained on ABC News.

“While expressing disappointment is OK, it’s not the same as annoyed. Annoyed is ‘how dare you,’ a sign of ownership or entitlement.”

Rob points out that this test isn’t new knowledge for most women. Instead, the test helps validate that gut feeling that abusers are so good at manipulating you to ignore. It’s okay to say no to people. It never warrants anger.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

An important thing to remember, too, is that people don’t enter relationships with abusers on purpose. Abusers are quite good at charming people, and ending up in a relationship with an abuser is never your fault. Some abusers would pass the No Test with flying colors!

But if a partner fails this test? It’s a bright red flag that they’re a dangerous person, and you should trust your instinct.

As Rob said: “The only person who can stop the abuse is the person who is doing the abusing.”

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Police Solved a 25-Year-Old Murder by Using Ancestry DNA Data and a Dirty Napkin

Most of think that all these new DNA testing services are just a fun way to find out what mix of ethnicities you really are. Maybe you’ll discover an ancestor who was on the Mayflower, or get connected to a long-lost cousin.

It turns out, however, that the DNA databases you’re submitting your sample to can also be utilized by law enforcement agencies, helping them do things like, oh, let’s say, linking the DNA they got from the spit on your Chipotle napkin to the evidence from that cold-case murder you’ve managed to keep covered up since the 1990s.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Hope you enjoyed that extra guac. It’s the last you’re going to get for a while.

Minnesota businessman Jerry Westrom, 52,  was arrested by police after his DNA was linked to crime scene evidence from the scene of 35-year-old Jeanie Childs 1993 stabbing death. They got that DNA from a napkin he tossed into a trash can at his daughter’s hockey game. He was brought in for questioning and, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, denied all allegations, but the hard evidence meant he still had to post $1 million bail for his release. (Lest you feel sorry for Mr. Westrom, the DNA matched sperm found on a towel and a comforter in the murdered woman’s apartment. Gross.)

Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office

This isn’t the first time a personal ancestry company has helped police solve a cold case. DNA that matched records from one such company helped solve the 1986 murder of a 12-year-old girl in Washington State, and also helped catch the notorious Golden State Killer. A lot of people are up in arms about the ethics of using DNA matches from these databases to justify arrests, saying that most people send their spit to these companies for entertainment’s sake, and they don’t expect their distant cousins to get arrested as a result.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Police say that’s too bad. They’ve been using DNA evidence to solve cases, both hot and cold, for decades. Bio-data companies, recreational or not, are just one more source of that information – and they’re exploding in popularity. Considering that these services can match you up with third and fourth cousins based on one little q-tip of spit, a lot more criminals can look forward to the very real possibility of being arrested for a crime committed decades ago.

So, if you have any literal skeletons in your closet, or really anywhere that police may have noticed at any point in time…you may want to think twice before throwing out your used napkins.

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New Research Reveals Sleep Deprivation Can Actually Damage Your DNA

Tough news for anyone who’s having trouble getting enough sleep (so, basically all of us): a recent study published in Anaesthesia confirms that lack of sleep is so bad for your health, it can actually f*** up your DNA. This, in turn, can cause serious health problems down the road. It’s the first study to “quantify DNA damage directly in young adults who are required to work overnight shifts.”

The research team was out of Hong Kong and studied 49 healthy doctors. 24 of them worked overnight shifts between 5 and 6 times a month. The participants gave blood when they were rested and also after they pulled all-nighters, and gave other health information as well in order to rule out factors that could influence the study.

Image Credit: Pixabay

What they found was that even when the doctors who regularly went without sleep were well-rested, their DNA had lower gene expression, more DNA breaks, and generally appeared more damaged than those doctors who never stayed up all night.

Why does it matter? Well, DNA damage has been linked to a host of health issues, like heart attacks, diabetes, and certain types of cancer – a meta-analysis of 2 million people found a link between working night shifts and the incidence of breast tumors.

Dr. Siu-Wai Choi of Hong Kong University and senior author of the study, said in a statement:

“Although this work is very preliminary, it is clear from the results that even a single night of sleep deprivation can trigger events that may contribute to the development of chronic disease.”

This is, of course, just one single study, and more research is needed to determine the significance of the relationship between the DNA damage and the sleep deprivation. The sample doctors who were often pulling overnighters tended to be younger than the other group and all of the participants were of Chinese descent. A much wider study would need to be conducted to confirm findings.

Image Credit: Pixabay

“This study is important in that it will allow future researchers to study the impact of changing the way we work and other interventions by evaluation DNA breaks in the same way as the authors of this groundbreaking study have done.”

There are other factors that could come into play, like shift workers having a greater predisposition to suffering from chronic illness, changes to activity and eating patterns, and disruptions to circadian rhythms and sex hormone balances.

Even though the findings need to be confirmed, it seems safe to say that if you take care to do everything you can to stay healthy in the future, don’t skimp on the sleep – it’s as important as anything else you do with your body.

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China Had to Close their Everest Base Camp Because It’s Basically Just a Pile of Garbage

That’s gotta be humiliating!

China recently had to tell tourists that their Mount Everest base camp is closed… because it is too full of trash.

Photo Credit: Twitter/PretoriaRecord

According to Xinhua Net, that not only are tourists prevented from entering the zone, but climbing permits will be limited to only 300 per year. That’s a third fewer than normal.

So, is this China’s fault?

Nope.

This has been a problem that has been happening for YEARS.

According to South China Morning Post, Nepal has implemented a $4,000 trash deposit cost per team due to all the trash that climbers leave behind.

Only problem with that are climbers are usually rich, so they don’t care about the deposit. Only half the climbers in recent years have been bringing down the required amount of garbage.

And that doesn’t even take into account the fecal matter. Because, yes, people go to the bathroom on the mountain. 12,000 lbs. worth every year.

Here’s hoping that China can figure out how to get their camp clean, and then help work on the rest of this mess.

Yuck.

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Mom Calls out Anti-Vaxxers After Her Newborn is Exposed to Measles

Never as a child growing up did I think we would one day live in a world where anti-vaxxers were as big of a thing as they seem to have become these days. Even though cases of vaccines causing adverse effects are exceedingly rare, and the concern about links to autism has been thoroughly debunked, they still continue to endanger everyone else via their stubborn refusal to accept science. Thanks to anti-vaxxers, previously eradicated diseases like measles are now making a comeback.

Jennifer Hibben-White posted about her experience on Facebook. Thankfully, her son didn’t get measles, but her story should be read by every anti-vaxxer.

She starts with a picture of her son, and then the facts:

Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

Her doctor advised her to take precautions, which left her enraged (understandably):

Photo Credit: Facebook

She directs her rage at the ones who deserve it: those who have chosen not to vaccinate their children. And she doesn’t hold back:

Photo Credit: Facebook

Hibben-White reveals the heart-breaking reason that underlies why she’s so passionate about vaccinations—the loss of her daughter at five years old. She would have done anything to save her daughter, yet people are taking their access to life-saving vaccines for granted.

Photo Credit: Facebook

Finally, she calls out anti-vaxxers on their hypocrisy:

Photo Credit: Facebook

So savage.

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Scientists Find Whiskey Makes You Live a Longer, Healthier Life. Cheers to That!

I love when science gives me a reason to drink! According to new research, drinking whiskey in moderation can yield serious benefits such as helping increase your lifespan, improving your overall health, and even boosting your creativity.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Yes, you read that right. A study recently presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science has found links between moderate alcohol consumption and increased life span.

Claudia Kawas, a neurologist at the University of California, Irvine, has been studying the lifestyle habits of people in their 90s for the last 15 years. Her team found that people who drank two units of alcohol daily had a lower risk of premature death.

“I have no explanation for it, but I do firmly believe that modest drinking improves longevity,” says Kawas.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Whiskey also contains ellagic acid, an antioxidant that helps to fight cancer. In fact, whiskey actually has even more antioxidants than red wine – long held to be the reigning champion of “healthy” alcohols.

Moderate whiskey consumption (no more than six portions a week) has also been found to reduce the risks of strokes, heart attacks, and dementia by nearly half! Finally, a study by the University of Illinois also discovered that participants were more creative at a blood alcohol content of around 0.075.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

So, raise a glass to health! But just one – seriously, moderation is vital.

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NASA Just Made it Possible For You to Check the Weather on Mars

Modern living has given us a lot of great things – smartphones, the internet, DoorDash. But this next one might be one of the best examples of humanity’s greatness and ingenuity. You see, you can now check the daily weather on another planet!

The reports are a part of NASA’s InSight Lander’s – short for Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport – mission, which is to give Mars a “checkup” of sorts. The robot is set to report temperature, wind, and pressure readings for the foreseeable future.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Mission lead Don Banfield reminds us that the lander “is close to the Martian equator – just north of the equator – so it is experiencing Martian winter.”

And Martian winter will have you saying prayers of thanks for the polar vortex you might be experiencing Earthside.

“I didn’t think we’d see any evidence of the storms that are 60-degrees north latitude, but we’re already seeing evidence of the high and low pressure-signal waves that create weather on Mars,” Banfield continues. “We can see those waves all the way down near the equator, as the waves are big enough that they have a signature. That was a surprise.”

Compared to the systems we see here on Earth, the high and low pressures on Mars are far less chaotic, but the coldest temperatures on the red planet average around -139 degrees at 5am. The sunrise heats it to around a balmy 23 degrees, though, so you know. Livable.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL

If you could breathe the air.

InSight will also be recording tectonic activity and meteorite impacts in real time, and monitoring the planet’s crust, mantle, and core.

If you’re one of those people who think colonizing another planet would be super fun, you might want to log on and start gathering your own data on what kind of clothes you’ll need to bring along.

But, you know. Warm stuff for sure.

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So… Apparently, If You Hold In a Fart, It Might Leak out Your Mouth

Well, this is extremely disturbing. Apparently, the old saying “better out than in” definitely applies to farts.

Clare Collins, a nutrition and dietetics professor at the University of Newcastle found that pent-up gas can actually pass through your gut wall, eventually re-absorbing into your bloodstream where it then circulates through your body.

If that happens, the gas has nowhere to escape except…yup, you guessed it – your mouth.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

“A build up of intestinal gas can trigger abdominal distension, with some gas reabsorbed into the circulation and exhaled in your breath,” she writes on The Conversation.

A 2010 paper on “Methane and the Gastrointestinal Tract” supports Collins’ comments about farts making their way elsewhere if you hold them in, stating that methane, hydrogen sulfide, and other gases that are produced in the body are mostly eliminated via the anus, but can also be “expelled from the lungs.”

But there’s so much more we can learn from these scientists who study flatulence as part of their profession! In one study, 10 volunteers ate a half a can of baked beans in addition to their regular diet, then signed up for rectal catheters that measured their expelled gas for the following 24-hour period.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

No word on where they find the people for these studies or what they offer them in return, but it’s got to be something good, right?

The outcomes showed that the average number of gaseous episodes per 24-hour period was 8 with no difference between men and women.

A second study showed that high-fiber diets led to fewer but bigger farts, while a third found that diets containing foods that broke down into sulfur were behind the smelliest sort of gas.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

I can only hope the people judging this horrifying contest of toots made it out of the room without passing out on the floor.

In conclusion, science says go ahead and let those farts out because holding them in can lead to excess belching, more gas, bloating, and intestinal pain. It can even, in some severe cases, lead to diverticulitis. Plus, you know, some gas may come out your mouth.

And nobody wants that.

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Here’s What Experts Say about Eating for Comfort vs Enjoyment

If you’re anything like me, you may have a bad habit of eating your feelings. It’s actually a very common thing, but it can be seriously bad for your health if you’re not practicing moderation.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Experts agree that if we eat for comfort and it becomes a habit, we can hurt ourselves physically from overeating, while also doing emotional damage because we’re using food to avoid facing our feelings.

Karen R. Koenig, an eating psychology expert, blogger and author shared this with Huff Post about comfort food:

“A misleading misnomer if there ever was one, comfort is not something we want to keep associating with food. We want to file food in our brains under nourishment and occasional pleasure. We want to seek comfort through friends, doing kind things for ourselves and engaging in healthy activities that reduce internal distress.”

Sarah Allen, a psychologist who specializes in eating disorders has some additional advice:

“As soon as you start looking for food, stop. Think, ‘Am I hungry? Do I need food in my stomach, or is one of my triggers going off? What do I need right now?’”

But yeah, that’s good and all… but why is it so hard to NOT do those things?

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Susan Albers, author and clinical psychologist, explains the underlying factors.

“When we’re stressed, our bodies are flooded in cortisol. That makes us crave sugary, fatty, salty foods.”

Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone. It regulates how our bodies process all the macro nutrients we consume (carbs, fats, proteins), so when stress and anxiety enter our emotional equation… we carbo-load like crazy.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

The experts agree that while a hormone like cortisol is a powerful trigger to comfort eat, we need to practice more mindfulness when eating. So instead of letting our mood drive consumption, we need to concentrate on meals, not snacks. Also, emotional eating usually ends up in overconsumption, which means we aren’t even tasting the food we eat. Experience a meal, savor the flavors and understand how you feel when you’re full.

One last bit of advice? Never go cold turkey. People put unrealistic expectations on themselves, which leads to being unable to meet goals. Start off with manageable, achievable goals and then continue to build up to your ultimate goals, whatever those may be.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Basically, enjoy those treats! Because we deserve them. But try to view eating that cookie or candy or baked good or WHATEVER as a way of enjoying yourself, not consoling yourself.

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Scientists Say Beards Keep You Healthy and Handsome

I mean, as a bearded fella myself, I might be a little biased about this but I, for one, couldn’t be happier about this news.

A study from the University of Southern Queensland, Australia, found that men who have thick, rugged beards receive benefits that make them healthier and more handsome.

Photo Credit: Pexels

In what must have been a very strange sight, the researchers left mannequins in the harsh Australian outback and studied the results. Some of the mannequins had beards and some were bare-faced. The study found that the beards blocked 90 to 95% of harmful ultraviolet rays on the mannequins from the blazing sun. This help beards reduce the risk of skin cancer in the skin they cover.

But don’t think you can just get by with a little stubble. One of the researchers said,

“Facial hair has an Ultraviolet Protection Factor (UPF) of anywhere from 2 to 21. The percentage of UV blocked to the skin depends on the thickness and angle of the sun…Provided the beard is of reasonable thickness, I do not think there is a need to slather sunscreen over the beard due to the protection it provides. It has to be a thick bushy beard and not just stubble.”

Photo Credit: pxhere

Having a large beard also protects the face from irritants and can keep the face youthful by retaining moisture and blocking harsh wind.

Bottom line: embrace that beard of yours if you have one! It’s good for you!

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