Scientists have identified a key microbe in our guts that helps us glean more calories from food. The discovery backs the idea that the type of microbes in our gut help to determine how much weight we gain, and that seeding the intestine with particular bugs could help fight obesity.
Samuel Buck of Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, and his colleagues focused on one microbe called Methanobrevibacter smithii, which is effectively a waste-removal bug. It eats up the hydrogen and waste products released by other microbes, and converts them into the methane that escapes from our rear ends everyday. "It's a minor component of the gut flora with a major impact," Buck says tactfully.
Nature - More
The popular social bookmarking systems - Furl, Digg & del.ici.ous amongst others - tend to have a lot of the same "
top urls." However Furl is unique in that it is the only one that regularly has listings from
Times Select which is the New York Times paid for subscription service.
And it's not just the odd Times Select listing now and again. Today, there are 4 Times select listings in the top 25 - none of which appear on the other top urls lists. In fact out of the top 25 Furl listings today, there are 9 New York Times listings. Del.ici.ous has none. Coincididence?
Looking at who has Furled all these Times links results in: anonymous, anonymous, anonymous.
Has the net descended into such a mess that even The Times is spamming now?
Koro is one of a number of names for a hysterical condition known medically as Genital Retraction Syndrome, whose victims become convinced that their genitals are disappearing into their bodies. It can be contagious, sparking off "penis panics", such as the one that overtook Singapore in 1967 in which thousands of men became convinced that their penises were being stolen; it was contained by a complete media blackout on the condition. Often blamed on witchcraft, Koro typically strikes in less developed parts of the world, including Africa and Asia, where belief in sorcery remains strong. It's thought to be an extreme overreaction to normal genital shrinking from cold or other causes. Koro can be treated with medical reassurance and anti-anxiety medications.
Sydney Morning Herald
Advice is a form of nostalgia.
Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal,
wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts
and recycling it for more than it's worth.
- Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen
I'm just saying'...
If you're interested in the Singapore Elections, Yawning Bread's photo-essay has captured an interesting aspect apparently lost on local media:
PAP's Rally at Hougang (1 May)
Worker's Party Rally the night before (April 30)
Interesting. No comment... I'm just sayin'.
