5 Insane Sacrifices Made For Science!

With a Dutch company planning to send astronauts to Mars for life—and make it a reality show—no other scientific endeavor could ask more of people … right? Well, the Wall Street Journalruns down the competition:

• 90 people offered to work on ships near the Navy’s Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests in 1946, to help scientists gather biological data. Humans were “more satisfactory than animals,” Navy researchers admitted, but they feared a public relations disaster and turned down the volunteers.

• University of Alabama professor Allan Walker Blair let a black widow bite him for 10 seconds to guarantee a full shot of venom. Blair spent days in hospitalized agony; a physician said he hadn’t seen “more abject pain manifested in any other medical or surgical condition.”
• Japanese pediatrician Shimesu Koino downed 2,000 intestinal roundworm eggs so he could closely study its life cycle. The infection got so bad, he coughed them all up.
• Herbert Woollard and Edward Carmichael, doctors based in London, piled weights on their testicles to see how the pain would move through their bodies.

Why the self-sacrifice? The Journal borrows President Kennedy’s line that people do such things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

The Oldest Tree in the World!

As the harsh wind whistles around the ancient, branched giants, visitors can’t help experience a sense of awe, faced with the trees’ magnificence. This humbling feeling is well justified: these trees are older than any other single living organism known to man. And, as the visitors come and go, the wise old trees simply stand, impassive, as if gently guarding the world.

In this beautiful night shot, a bristlecone tree trunk sits against a backdrop of star trails in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in eastern California’s White Mountains. This particular trunk can be found in the park’s Methuselah Grove, which was named after the oldest of its inhabitants, “Methuselah” (in turn named after the oldest person in the Bible) – an unmarked bristlecone pine that is, by some accounts, 4,844 years old! Yup, that’s right, we didn’t add an extra digit at the end by mistake; the tree really is just 156 years short of living for five millennia, making it 1,000 years older than any other tree on Earth!

Poor Carpenter Builds Awesome Tree House With Materials Found On Craiglist!

Joel Allen completed his amazing tree house on Whistler Mountain, in Western Canada, two years ago, but chose to keep it a secret for fear it would be torn down. Now, his secret’s out and the Hemloft has become one of the most talked-about architectural wonders on the Internet.

Hemloft, named after the hemlock tree supporting it, is definitely one of the most charming tree houses I have ever seen, but it’s actually the story behind it that’s most fascinating. Its creator, Joel Allen, was 26 when he decided to quit his job as a software developer and pursue a get-rich quick scheme. That didn’t exactly work out the way he planned, and he soon found himself strapped for cash. Joel found his calling as a carpenter, and one day got the brilliant idea of using his new-found talent to build a wooden tree house on Whistler Mountain, right in the middle of one of the world’s most expensive housing markets. He didn’t have the money for it, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be done.

The egg-shaped house he envisioned would have cost him tens of thousands of dollars in materials, but it was the land he was going to build it on that he was worried about. He couldn’t afford to buy a strip of land on Whistler Mountain, right on top of some of the most luxurious homes on Earth, so young Joel decided to just build his lovely Hemloft on Crown land he didn’t own and just hope the wrong people didn’t find out about it. When he began work on his round cabin, in 2009, he spent $6,500 on the roof and frame alone, and quickly realized the rest of the materials he needed would be much more expensive. He couldn’t afford to work on it any longer, so for two years, the Hemloft remained a work in progress.

It was searching for a couch in Craiglist’s free section that got Joel Allen questioning what else he might find in there to help him finish his wooden dream house. Soon, he was using his carpenter skills to turn ash hardwood floor into a cabinet, or a double sliding glass door into windows for the Hemloft, and he just kept pressing the refresh button on Craiglist to make sure he didn’t miss out on great materials people were getting rid of. It wasn’t long before his apartment became full of stuff for the Hemloft, and Joel and his girlfriend, Heidi, barely found a place to sleep anymore. He ended up saving over $10,000 on materials, and in August 2010 completed the now famous Hemloft.

Because it was built without a permit, on government land, Joel chose to keep it a secret from the rest of the world. He knew there was a small risk of him actually getting arrested for building the Hemloft, but he didn’t want to risk it. Still, at the urging of a friend, he sent some photos of the tree house to Dwell Magazine, who published them in their April edition . Since then, the Hemloft has become a subject of fascination for many Internet users. ”Coming out of the bush about the Hemloft is fun,” Allen wrote on his website. “However it poses a few problems; if people know about it, they might try to find it. And if the wrong people find it, they may make me take it down.”

Allen believes building a tree house on Whistler Mountain, among the other expensive houses would not be looked favorably upon, so he’s now looking for safe ways of revealing the location of the Hemloft, to keep it from being destroyed. The young carpenter is currently taking into consideration opening it to the public, making it a geocaching location or turning it into a campsite. Whatever he decides to do with it, we’d like to congratulate him on his hard work and resourcefulness building such an extraordinary tree house.

Bridgette Jordan Named As New Shortest Woman!

A 22-year-old student from Illinois has been named by Guinness World Records as the new ‘Shortest Living Woman’ — standing at just 2 ft 3 in (69 cm) tall.

In addition to this title, Bridgette also holds the record for the ‘Shortest Living Siblings’ alongside her brother, 20-year-old Brad Jordan, who measures 3 ft 2 in (98 cm) tall.

While their reduced height is caused by Majewski osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism type II the pair live normal lives and both study at Kaskaskia College.

Bridgette’s hobbies are focused around her love of music; dancing and cheerleading while Brad says he likes to play basketball… no, that was not us making a joke.

On her record-breaking achievement Bridgette says: “It feels awesome.  It’s great to be small.  I believe that everyone should be confident in themselves.” Commenting on their shared title her brother Brad adds: “hopefully this will go a little way to helping people realise it’s ok to be different.”

Bridgette breaks the record of Elif Kocaman (22), from Kadirli, Turkey, who measured 2 ft 4.58 in (72.6 cm).  Jyoti Amge (17) from Nagpur, India, is currently recognised as the ‘Shortest Teenager’ standing at just 2 feet tall (61.95 cm).

Bullfrog Served ALIVE At Japanese Restaurant!

A video shot in Japan recently went viral after it showed a bullfrog served in a Japanese restaurant still blinking and twitching on the plate, after being skinned alive and cut into pieces.

This is definitely one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. Singaporean website STOMP recently released a series of photos and a video shot in a Japanese restaurant where apparently people like to eat bullfrogs while they’re still alive.

The video shows a customer going into the restaurant and how the cook there simply picks up a big frog, sticks a knife in it, removes all its inedible innards and skins it alive. Then the focus moves on the smiling customers who enjoys a healthy serving of bullfrog sashimi while the animal is looking at her from her plate, blinking and twitching… That doesn’t seem to bother the young woman much, as she even gives the thumb-up sign for the quality of the dish.

I have no problem with people eating raw food, or even frogs, but eating pieces of them while their technically still living just makes my skin crawl. I don’t know if this qualifies as animal cruelty, just plain disgusting, or both, but it’s definitely not right. Although some have argued that in the wild animals are eaten alive every day, I don’t think comparing humans to animals makes very much sense…

I didn’t post the video here, as it’s pretty disturbing, but if you want to see the bullfrog literally eaten alive, check out the original article.

Canine Comfort: Do Dogs Know When You’re Sad?

Plenty of pet owners are comforted by a pair of puppy-dog eyes or a swipe of the tongue when their dog catches them crying. Now, new research suggests that dogs really do respond uniquely to tears. But whether pets have empathy for human pain is less clear.

In a study published online May 30 in the journal Animal Cognition, University of London researchers found that dogs were more likely to approach a crying person than someone who was humming or talking, and that they normally responded to weeping with submissive behaviors. The results are what you might expect if dogs understand our pain, the researchers wrote, but it’s not proof that they do.

“The humming was designed to be a relatively novel behavior, which might be likely to pique the dogs’ curiosity,” study researcher and psychologist Deborah Custance said in a statement. “The fact that the dogs differentiated between crying and humming indicates that their response to crying was not purely driven by curiosity. Rather, the crying carried greater emotional meaning for the dogs and provoked a stronger overall response than either humming or talking.”

Humans domesticated dogs at least 15,000 years ago, and many a pet owner has a tale of their canine offering comfort in tough times. Studies have shown that dogs are experts at human communication, but scientists haven’t been able to show conclusively that dogs feel empathy or truly understand the pain of others. In one 2006 study, researchers had owners fake heart attacks or pretend to be pinned beneath furniture, and learned that pet dogs failed to go for help (so much for Lassie saving Timmy from the well).

But seeking out assistance is a complex task, and Custance and her colleague Jennifer Mayer wanted to keep it simple. They recruited 18 pet dogs and their owners to test whether dogs would respond to crying with empathetic behaviors. The dogs included a mix of mutts, Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers and a few other common breeds.

The experiment took place in the owners’ living rooms. Mayer would arrive and ignore the dog so that it would have little interest in her. Then she and the owner would take turns talking, fake-crying and humming.

Of the 18 dogs in the study, 15 approached their owner or Mayer during crying fits, while only six approached during humming. That suggests that it’s emotional content, not curiosity, that brings the dogs running. Likewise, the dogs always approached the crying person, never the quiet person, as one might expect if the dog was seeking (rather than trying to provide) comfort.

“The dogs approached whoever was crying regardless of their identity. Thus they were responding to the person’s emotion, not their own needs, which is suggestive of empathic-like comfort-offering behavior,” Mayer said in a statement.

Of the 15 dogs that approached a crying owner or stranger, 13 did so with submissive body language, such as tucked tails and bowed heads, another behavior consistent with empathy (the other two were alert or playful). Still, the researchers aren’t dog whisperers, and they can’t prove conclusively what the dogs were thinking. It’s possible that dogs learn to approach crying people because their owners give them affection when they do, the researchers wrote.

“We in no way claim that the present study provides definitive answers to the question of empathy in dogs,” Mayer and Custance wrote. Nevertheless, they said, their experiment opens the door for more study of dogs’ emotional lives, from whether different breeds respond to emotional owners differently to whether dogs understand the difference between laughter and tears.

To Sleep Better, Partner Up!

The snoring, the sheet-stealing, the random kicks: Sleeping with a partner may sound like bad news, but the Wall Street Journal reports that it might actually be good for your health.

Writing for the Journal, Andrea Petersen notes that some recent studies’ findings “run counter” to previous ones indicating that women get better sleep when solo and both men and women move around more when slumbering as a duo.

She points to a 2009 study that followed women for six to eight years and found that those who were in a long-term relationship during that time nodded off more quickly and woke up less frequently than their always- or sometimes-single counterparts. Petersen points out that the “science is in the early stages,” but reports on potential theories behind the observations: that sleeping as a pair increases feelings of security, raises anxiety-reducing oxytocin, and reduces cytokines, which play a role in inflammation.

Says the researcher, “The psychological benefits we get having closeness at night trump the objective costs of sleeping with a partner.” And sleep-related companies are cashing in on couples dealing with those objective costs, with mattresses that stop motion from one side to the other and comforters whose two halves have different thicknesses, for instance.

‘Dead’ Brazilian Boy ‘Sits Up In Coffin At His Own Funeral And Asks For WATER!

In a case that seems almost too incredible to be true, a two-year-old boy sat up in his coffin and asked for water before laying back down again – lifeless.

Kelvin Santos, 2, stopped breathing during treatment for pneumonia at a hospital in Belem, northern Brazil.

He was pronounced dead at 7:40pm on Friday and his body was handed over to his family in a plastic bag.

An hour before his funeral was due to take place on Saturday, the boy apparently sat up in his coffin and said; ”Daddy, can I have some water?”

The boy’s father, Antonio Santos, said:

“Everybody started to scream, we couldn’t believe our eyes. Then we thought a miracle had taken place and our boy had come back to life. Then Kelvin just lay back down, the way he was. We couldn’t wake him. He was dead again.”

Santos then rushed his son back to the Aberlardo Santos hospital in Belem, where the doctors reexamined the boy and confirmed that he had no signs of life.

“’They assured me that he really was dead and gave me no explanation for what we had just seen and heard.”

The boy’s family decided to delay the funeral for an hour in the hope that he would wake up again, but ended up burying him at 5pm that day in a local cemetery.

Convinced that his son was a victim of medical malpractice, Mr. Santos has now registered a complaint with the police, who have launched an investigation.

The local state department today confirmed the boy had been admitted to hospital in critical condition and was declared dead after suffering cardiac-respiratory failure.

First zombies, now people are rising from the dead. In the immortal words of Kanye West: “That sh*t cray.”

Sleeping Pills Save A Man From Committing Suicide!

Yang Jun, 30, desperately wanted to commit suicide after months of depression over broken marriage.

He wanted to make sure that he succeeds in his attempt – so he took 50 sleeping pills and prepared to hurl himself from the top of a 150ft high bridge – Haiyin bridge in Guangzhou, eastern China. Interestingly, before he could jump, he fell asleep and was saved!

But as he talked to negotiators, dad Jun found he couldn’t keep his eyes open and nodded off snoring loudly before he could leap to his death.

Rescuers then strapped sleeping Jun into a safety harness before winching him down to waiting paramedics.

“I couldn’t make up my mind which was better – an overdose or jumping. So I decided to use both.

“However I was feeling very sleepy by the time I got to the top and the next thing I knew I woke up in hospital,” said Jun, now reunited with his wife.

[Orange]

So, let me see – the sleeping pills saved him from the jump and eventually got him reunited with his wife?

This Is What They Call Pets In Africa!

I remember a time when everyone of my friends wanted to get a pitbull as a pet, just so they can look cooler, and brag about how dog their dogs were. Now staring at these pictures I realize Africans are at whole other level, anyone of those pets, be it the hyenas, baboons or the python would make a pitbull beg for mercy.

Still it looks very cruel, taking wild animals, slapping a huge chain on them and using them as pets, it doesn’t look at all natural.

Chinese Boy Has 15 Fingers and 16 Toes!

A Chinese hospital has released images of a 6-year-old boy who was born with 15 fingers and 16 toes. Since more isn’t always better, he’ll soon undergo surgery to have the extras removed.

With a total of 31 fingers and toes, the boy, who’s identity hasn’t been revealed, has beaten the previous record of 25. According to scientists, the excess of fingers and toes is a result of gene mutation.

Photos via ImagineChina

Why Are Genius And Madness Connected?

Many of history’s most celebrated creative geniuses were mentally ill, from renowned artists Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo to literary giants Virginia Woolf and Edgar Allan Poe. Today, the fabled connection between genius and madness is no longer merely anecdotal. Mounting research shows these two extremes of the human mind really are linked — and scientists are beginning to understand why.

A panel of experts discussed recent and ongoing research on the subject at an event held Thursday (May 31) in New York as part of the 5th annual World Science Festival. All three panelists suffer from mental illnesses themselves.

Kay Redfield Jamison, a clinical psychologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the findings of some 20 or 30 scientific studies endorse the notion of the “tortured genius.” Of the many varieties of psychosis, creativity appears to be most strongly linked to mood disorders, and especially bipolar disorder, which Jamison suffers from herself. For example, one study tested the intelligence of 700,000 Swedish 16-year-olds and then followed up a decade later to learn which of them had developed mental illnesses. The startling results were published in 2010. “They found that people who excelled when they were 16 years old were four times as likely to go on to develop bipolar disorder,” she said.

Bipolar disorder entails dramatic mood swings between extreme happiness (known as “mania”) and severe depression. How might this brutal cycle engender creativity? Research by another panelist, James Fallon, a neurobiologist at the University of California-Irvine, suggests an answer.

“People with bipolar tend to be creative when they’re coming out of deep depression,” Fallon said. When a bipolar patient’s mood improves, his brain activity shifts, too: activity dies down in the lower part of a brain region called the frontal lobe, and flares up in a higher part of that lobe. Amazingly, the very same shift happens when people have bouts of creativity. “There [is] this nexus between these circuits that have to do with bipolar and creativity,” Fallon said.

As for how the brain patterns translate into conscious thought, Elyn Saks, a mental health law professor at the University of Southern California, explained that people with psychosis don’t filter stimuli as well as other people. Instead, they’re able to entertain contradictory ideas simultaneously, and become aware of loose associations that most people’s unconscious brains wouldn’t consider worthy of sending to the surface of our consciousness. While the invasion of nonsense into conscious thought can be overwhelming and disruptive, “it can be quite creative, too,” said Saks, who developed schizophrenia as a young adult.

For example, word association studies, which ask participants to list all the words that come to mind in relation to a stimulus word (such as “tulip”), demonstrate that bipolar patients undergoing mild mania can generate three times as many word associations in a given time period as the general population. As for how this leads to strokes of genius, it could be that the sheer bounty of unsuppressed ideas means a greater probability of producing something profound.

Of course, no one is bursting with creative energy during a severe bout of depression or schizophrenia. Above all, these conditions are debilitating and even life-threatening, the scientists said, and although society benefits from the productivity of its tortured geniuses, those individuals don’t always consider their moments of brilliance to be worth the extensive suffering.

Saks put it this way: “I think the creativity is just one part of something that is mostly bad.”

Woman Grows Nails for 22 Years Trying To Become Famous

Jazz Ison SInkfield, 48, from Atlanta, Georgia, hasn’t cut her finger nails in the last 22 years, in the hope that they might one day bring her the fame and glory she’s always been dreaming of.

Although she has difficulties performing the easiest of household chores, Jazz claims she feels “very, very blessed”. The nail-obsessed grandmother thinks she has a talent for growing and taking care of her long nails, because it’s not something anyone can do. I’m not very sure that’s true, considering she regularly visits the nail salon, for five-hour nail care sessions and spends over $500 every time; I’d say most other people choose not to spend their time and hard-earned money like that and avoid the complications that come with such “trophies”.

Mrs Sinkfield considers her long fingernails “a girl’s best friends” and can’t even conceive ever having to clip them. “I just can’t stop loving my kids, so how can I stop loving my nails?” she asks. Her longest fingernail is 24 inches long, and all of her painted “babies” add up to 19 feet. She’s very proud of what she’s accomplished and of the attention she draws whenever she goes out, but admits that not everyone is impressed. Some women will turn their nose up to her, but according to Jazz that’s only because they’re jealous. She feels everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they don’t have to be mean about it.

According to her husband, Antonio, Jazz Sinkfield pays more attention to her precious fingernails than she does to him. Plus, she needs help with almost everything, because her nails make her very slow. Washing her hgands can take up to 10 minutes, texting and typing are a lot more difficult when you can’t use your fingers, and she can’t even tie her own shoes. She can’t even take off her jewelry, because she’s afraid she might damage her diamond fingernails, and all because she wants to be famous and meet celebrities the likes of Oprah Winfrey. Do you think that’s worth it?

The record for the World’s Longest Nails was previously held by Lee Redmond, who had a total of 28 feet of nails, before losing them in a car accident, in 2009. Now Jazz probably has a chance to gain even more notoriety for setting a world record.

Man Tried To Sell Wife’s Genitals!

Der es Salaam – Tanzanian police said they arrested a man who tried to sell his wife’s head and other body organs including breasts and genitals.

Police said the man confessed during interrogation to killing his wife to sell her body parts because he heard that human organs were in demand in his Shinyanga region in the north of Tanzania.

“The suspect had a plastic bag and claimed to be carrying pork, but police guards at a bank… checked the contents and discovered a human head, breasts, genitals and other parts,” said regional police commander Diwani Athumani.

The man, arrested on Friday, will undergo a psychiatric test before trial, police said.

Sale of human body parts is not uncommon in the east African state where dozens of albinos have been murdered for their body parts used by witchdoctors to concoct lucky charms.

Swimming Pools: Public Toilet!

If you’re taking a refreshing dip in a pool with four other people, odds are one of you is urinating. This is not gross-out myth, but cold, depressing fact from a recent survey conducted by the Water Quality & Health Council, a scientific research group sponsored by the American Chemistry Council.
The survey, conducted in April, asked nearly 1,000 adults whether they urinate in pools. One in five bravely admitted their mistakes. And those are the ones who admitted it.

We may act like potty-trained adults on land, but something about a body of water, even a small one, opens our natural floodgates and, according to doctors, puts us all at risk.

“No matter how easy it is to pee anonymously in the pool, swimmers should avoid doing so,” says public health expert and WQHC chairman, Dr. Chris Wiant.

It is easy isn’t it? Maybe that’s because many of us were taught as kids that chlorine counteracted any accidents. Technically, that’s mostly true. If pool operators maintain proper chlorine and pH levels, most waterborne germs are killed on contact.

But 54 percent of public pools tested by the WQHC last year failed to provide the proper chlorine levels and 47 got low marks for pH balance. You can blame poor pool maintenance, but frequent urinators don’t help.

“Anything foreign that gets in the pool consumes disinfectant and makes the pool less capable of catching the next bug,” Dr. Wiant tells Yahoo! Shine. So while chlorine is working overtime to clean up someone’s mess, it’s weakened by the time more serious bacteria dives in.

That comes from the germs we carry on our body even before we get into to the water. While only one in five of us cop to peeing in the pool, seven in 10 say they don’t shower before they swim. As much as a cold pre-swim shower ruins that first dip feeling, Wiant makes a good case for why it’s crucial.

(You may want to stop eating lunch right now, before reading on.)

The additional bacteria we carry on skin, in particular sweat and traces of fecal matter (yes even on adults),gets mixed in the pool. “If disinfectant isn’t right, bacteria is allowed to grow in pools, so someone accidentally consumes a mouthful of water like we all do when we’re swimming and suddenly they’re subject to serious bacteria like E.coli or salmonella.”

The high risk offenders, according to the Center for Disease Control, are those water recreational parks, a dangerous combination of packs of young swimmers and lots of accidental gulps. One targeted study by Georgia’s Division of Public Health found that e.Coli infected at least 26 people at one water park in the summer of 1998, ultimately resulting in one fatality. Another study found the parasite Cryptosporidium survives even well-chlorinated water parks, posing a potentially fatal threat to those with lowered immune systems.

But small private pools and large public ones are also potential health hazards, depending on how they’re maintained. The CDC notes a rapid rise in gastro-intestinal illnesses borne from dirty swimming pools across the country in the past two decades.

Short of getting pool maintenance certification or sweating out an unbearable summer, what can you do?

The first step is to be a good pool Samaritan. Take it to the restroom, folks, and emphasize lots of bathroom breaks for your kids. Another important to-do: always shower before getting in the pool. If you’ve done your part, you still can’t trust your blissfully clueless fellow swimmers.

To find out of your pool is safe, look for some tell-tale signs of bacteria.

“Check if you see the bottom,” says Dr. Wiant. “If a pool is clear it’s likely very clean and balanced, but if it’s it cloudy or the sides are slimy, those are signs that bacteria is prevalent and the pool isn’t filtering out germs the way it should.”

Hyper-vigilant swimmers can also purchase pool test strips at any drug store and do their own scientific assessment. “They’re easy to use,” he adds, “just crack one open and dip it in the pool and you’ll be able to tell right away if the pool is clean.”

Another signal it’s time to get out of the pool: burning, stinging eyes. Although it’s not seriously harmful, when “urine combines with chlorine it becomes an irritant,” Wiant says. So if you find yourself squinting in pain after a dive, ask yourself why that person doing the backstroke in the next lane looks so relaxed. It’s not that nice of a day.

What women think of porn

Young women who report that their romantic partners look at porn frequently are less happy in their relationships than women partnered with guys who more often abstain, new research finds.

The study bolsters some anecdotal evidence that men’s porn use can shake the self-esteem of their girlfriends or wives, though certainly not all couples have conflicts over pornography, said study researcher Destin Stewart, a clinical psychology intern at the University of Florida. Stewart decided to investigate the effect of porn on relationships after some of her clients revealed that they were struggling with the issue.

Discovering explicit material on a partner’s computer “made them feel like they were not good enough, like they could not measure up,” Stewart told LiveScience.

What women think of porn

A number of studies that have interviewed women about pornography find a range of feelings on the topic, from “scathing to mildly positive,” Stewart and University of Tennessee psychologist Dawn Szymanski wrote online May 6 in the journal Sex Roles. Nevertheless, concerns about measuring up to the images found in pornography were a common theme. In one 1999 study, for example, a participant told researchers, “These men look at these pictures and say, ‘Look at her. She’s just beautiful. Why can’t you be like that?’”

Few of these studies had hard numbers to back up the interviews, however. Stewart wanted to understand how widespread these feelings might be. She recruited 308 college women, ages 18 to 29 years old, to fill out online questionnaires about their current partner’s porn use as well as their relationship quality, sexual satisfaction and self-esteem. All of the women were heterosexual and most were white.

The results showed that women who reported that their boyfriends or husbands looked at more pornography were less likely to be happy in their relationships than women who said their partners didn’t look at pornography very often. When women were bothered by their partner’sporn use, saying, for example, that they believed he was a porn addict or that he used porn more than a “normal” amount, they were also more likely to have low self-esteem and to be less satisfied with both their relationship and their sex life.

Sex and self-esteem

The findings showed that the statistical link between frequency of porn use and relationship dissatisfaction was partially explained by low self-esteem among the women in these relationships. But that doesn’t prove that porn necessarily caused the women’s self-esteem to drop. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem, Stewart said: Women whose partners watch a lot of porn might begin to feel more insecure. Or women who feel bad about themselves might seek out or stay with porn-loving guys more often than secure women.

The study is limited to a youthful demographic, and most of the relationships were short-term, Stewart said. Because most of the couples weren’t co-habitating, the women might not know how much porn their partners actually watched, she said.

“You might be more dissatisfied knowing that your husband of 10 years is looking at pornography versus your 18-year-old boyfriend where you have no idea what he looks at on his computer,” Stewart said.

When pornography does become a problem in relationships, Stewart said she counsels women not to compare themselves with porn starlets. In couples counseling, she encourages communication and compromise.

“It’s just about trying to do some education about what is realistic and unrealistic and trying to get couples to be honest about what their wants and needs and desires are,” Stewart said.

9 Health Risks That Aren’t Worth Taking!

1. Holding your cell phone up to your ear.

Although the overall risk is still very low, research suggests that people who have spent the past decade or more frequently talking on their cell phones in the traditional way are more likely to develop brain tumors. John Walls, a spokesperson for industry trade group CTIA: The Wireless Association, points out that no major American health organization has said that wireless devices are a public health risk. (The World Health Organization, though, has expressed concern.) And texting or talking while driving–which boosts your chances of having a car wreck by a factor of four–poses a far bigger risk than the radiation may. But considering that you can get an earbud-type hands-free set for as little as five bucks, whynot take the safest tack? “I think the data are strong enough that using a hands-free set with your cell makes a lot of sense,” says public health expert Ted Schettler, M.D., science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network.

2. PVC shower curtains.

That funky, chemical-y smell of new polyvinyl chloride (PVC) shower curtains comes from volatile organic compounds, which may be carcinogenic over time and can cause nausea and headaches in the short term, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “I always recommend the good old-fashioned fabric curtains,” says preventive-medicine expert Suzanne Pham, M.D. Want something waterproof? Look for vinyl acetate, which is safer, she says.

3. Microwaving in plastic.

Heat releases some of the chemical building blocks in plastic, sending them into whatever food or drink you’re warming up. One such chemical, bisphenol A (BPA), “can mimic the effects of estrogen in the body, potentially leading to issues like premature puberty and breast or testicular cancer,” says Pham. Even BPA-free plastics could release substances that can have negative effects, so it’s best to avoid microwaving any plastic container, says Jennifer Lowry, M.D., a medical toxicologist at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, MO. All of our experts agree: Heat food or drink in glass or ceramic.

4. Flea and tick collars. Adults who play with a cat or dog while it’s wearing a flea and tick collar are exposed to up to 500 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s safe level of pesticides, according to a first-of-its-kind study by scientists at the Natural Resources Defense Council. For children, the levels can be 1,000 times higher than what’s safe. The worst are collars containing chemicals called (get ready for a mouthful) propoxur or tetrachlorvinphos, which kill pests by disrupting their nerve pathways. Four out of five top-selling brands we shopped for contained one of these, so check labels. Luckily there are other effective pest-killing options. “Pills that pets take internally seem to be safer,” says Jerome Paulson, M.D., chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics council on environmental health. Two common brands are Capstar and Program, which you can get for between $20 and $60 online or from your vet.

5. Constantly running a humidifier.

Those little steam machines can be a life saver for parents with a stuffed-up kid who can’t sleep, but using them too often might make things worse. A study by the New York State Department of Health found that one of the biggest predictors of whether children developed asthma was the frequent use of a humidifier at home. “Too much moisture promotes mold and dust mite growth,” which could be a problem for the whole family, explains Morris Nejat, M.D., a pediatrician and allergist in New York City.

6. Certain antibacterial soaps and toothpastes.

Triclosan is a germ killer found in a lot of antibacterial hand soaps, body washes, and even some brand-name cavity-control toothpastes. But the American Medical Association recommends againstthe use of triclosan in our homes, because it may encourage the development of scary bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. “Studies have shown that these triclosan products don’t work any better than regular cleansers or toothpastes, but they damage the environment and potentially place our long-term health at risk,” says Susan Shaw, Ph.D., an environmental scientist at the State University of New York, Albany. Not sure whether triclosan lurks in your favorite products? Just check the labels.

7. X-ray airport scanners.

You know those “backscatter” full-body X-ray machines at airport security gates? Europe banned them several months ago because of health concerns, but the machines are still in use in some airports in the States. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) says the amount of radiation emitted by each scan is minuscule, but independent research suggests the dose to some parts of the body is at least 45 times higher than the TSA claims and may even increase cancer risk, particularly for the elderly and women predisposed to breast cancer. Since you’re already going to be exposed to radiation by flying, avoid the extra rays and ask for a pat-down, says John Sedat, Ph.D., a professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco.

8. Colon “cleansing.” Celebs may swear by this kind of thing, but colonics and colon-cleansing pills could be dangerous, our experts said. The intestines are self-cleaning, so unless you’re getting a colonoscopy, there’s no reason to sweep the whole thing out, says gastroenterologist Lisa Ganjhu. The pills are poorly regulated and could make you laxative-dependent, she says; colonic enemas carry a risk of intestinal perforation, which requires surgery to fix. To keep your digestive system working smoothly, says Ganjhu, stay hydrated; eat lots of fruits, veggies, and whole grains; and exercise. If you regularly have gas or constipation, a probiotic supplement may help by adding more healthy bacteria to your gut.

9. Ready-to-feed canned baby formula.

Bisphenol A (BPA) isn’t only found in plastic–it’s also used to line the inside of cans to keep bacteria out. And according to tests conducted by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, one of the foods that ends up most contaminated with BPA is canned liquid infant formula. (Powdered formula, on the other hand, contains almost no traces of BPA from its packaging.) If you must use liquid canned or bottled formula, make sure not to warm it up in its original container, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends.

16-Year-Old Boy Kills Mother Over PlayStation Argument!

Kendall Anderson was a 16-year-old student who grew up in Philadelphia. However, following a lengthy argument with his mother over a PlayStation-based punishment, Kendall quickly became a 16-year-old criminal who has been charged with murder, possession of an instrument of crime, and abuse of a corpse.

Kendall initially attempted to murder his mother, Rashida Anderson, in her sleep by using a hammer. When his original plan failed, the son instead tried to “cremate her” in the kitchen oven. Following this second failure, Kendall’s third course of action was to repeatedly beat his mother with a chair leg before hiding her corpse behind the house.

Unsurprisingly, Kendall was put on trial for the murder of Rashida Anderson after confessing his crime to the Philadelphia Police Department.

Anderson had the following to say about the death of his mother, as mentioned during the trial:

“If I could, I would not do it again. I really miss my mom . . . she was the only person who cared for me.”

Here is a small picture of the victim:

Teen Cheyenne Cherry Taunts Animal Activists After Guilty Plea For Killing Kitten In Oven!

A remorseless cat killer who helped roast a kitty in a 500-degree oven was sentenced yesterday to two years in prison.

Cheyenne Cherry, 18, had nothing to say as Bronx Supreme Court Judge Margaret Clancy gave her two years for attempted burglary and one year for animal torture – to run concurrently.

She’s also barred from owning a pet for three years.

Cherry and a 14-year-old accomplice trashed her former roommate’s apartment on May 6.

She stood by as the 14-year-old stuffed little Tiger Lily into the oven.

Cherry, who pleaded guilty in July, told cops after the incident that it was “just a joke.”

At a recent court appearance, she stuck her tongue out at an animal activist and said, “It’s dead, b—-!”

Her younger accomplice got 18 months in a juvenile facility.

At a time whenbreastfeeding in public is already controversial, pictures of two military moms doing so while wearing their uniforms is sparking outrage.

The photo is part of a local breastfeeding awareness campaign by Mom2Mom of Fairchild Air Force Base, a support group launched in January by Crystal Scott, a military spouse and mother of three. Among the intimate close-ups of smiling young mothers cuddling their adorable babies, the images of the two airmen stand out.

“People are comparing breastfeeding in uniform to urinating and defecating in uniform. They’re comparing it to the woman who posed in “Playboy” in uniform [in 2007]” Scott told Yahoo! Shine in an interview. “We never expected it to be like this.”

“I’m an X-ray tech and I breastfeed in my uniform all the time,” Scott says. “Granted they’re scrubs. But people do it all the time in their uniforms. If you have a hungry baby, why would you take the time to change completely?”

Terran Echegoyen-McCabe, a member of the Air National Guard who was photographed in uniform nursing her 10-month-old twin daughters, says that she’s surprised by the reaction to the photos.

“I have breastfed in our lobby, in my car, in the park … and I pump, usually in the locker room,” she told the “Today” show, adding that she usually nurses her babies while on her lunch break during drill weekends. “I’m proud to be wearing a uniform while breast-feeding. I’m proud of the photo and I hope it encourages other women to know they can breastfeed whether they’re active duty, guard or civilian.”

All of the women in the photos volunteered to appear in the awareness campaign, and Echegoyen-McCabe is featured — wearing civilian clothing — in a few of the other candid shots. None of the photos are posed; the women are simply feeding their babies the way they usually do. But even though some of the other photographs are just as revealing, only the ones of Echegoyen-McCabe and her friend Christina Luna in uniform have been criticized.

“The Air Force has never endorsed these photos,” the photographer, Brynja Sigurdardottir points out on her website, where she posted several other photos from the Mom2Mom campaign. “These women just happen to be in the Air Force, in their uniform, breastfeeding their babies.”

When it comes to talking about breastfeeding in public, comparing it to other bodily functions — and even sex — is common, in spite of the fact that breastfeeding is legal and protected while defecating or having sex in public is not. But the fact that two of the moms are shown breastfeeding in public while wearing military uniforms makes the entire controversy more complicated. The Army, for example, didn’t even come up with a combat uniform for women until 2010, so accepting the idea of a uniformed soldier breastfeeding a baby may be especially jarring. And the uniforms themselves come with their own sets of rules.

According to Military Spouse Central, public displays of affection — even something as innocuous as holding hands — are not allowed while wearing a military uniform. Also forbidden while in uniform: eating, drinking, or talking on a cell phone while walking, carrying an umbrella that’s not black, and (in some cases) smoking or even chewing gum. While there is no policy that addresses breastfeeding in uniform, Air Force spokesperson Captain Rose Richeson told MSNBC: “Airmen should be mindful of their dress and appearance and present a professional image at all times while in uniform.” Military moms who are still breastfeeding are encouraged to pump and bottle-feed their babies while they’re in uniform.

Scott suggests that the issue might have less to do with the uniform and more to do with our own internal conflicts. “I think a lot of people think that you can’t be a mom and be a soldier,” she says. “This is not something that’s out of norm for them. They breastfeed in uniform all the time — it’s just not something that’s usually captured on film.”