 | Perspective Volume VIII 
Sunday Sep 29, 2002
Perspective is a weekly features of unorthodox news reports from around the globe. Some of the reports serve to prove the point that we Nigerians are not as unique as we may be thinking. To put any news report in Perspective please send a note to
perpective@ekiti.com
|
| 
Headlines
Swazi king chooses tenth wife Back To TopSwazi monarch King Mswati III plans to marry once again, bringing the total number of his official wives to 10.The 34-year-old king chose high school student Nolichwa Ayanda Ntenteza, 18, as his new bride two months after marrying wives number eight and nine. King Mswati, Africa's last absolute monarch, can choose a new wife every year from among thousands of virgins who parade at annual reed dance ceremonies. Official biographers say Mswati's father, King Sobhuza, had more than 125 wives during his reign of 61 years, which ended when he died in 1982. "A private traditional ceremony will be held at the royal village with the bride's family," the palace source told Reuters news agency. No date for the wedding was set. However, King Mswati, who has ruled the tiny southern African kingdom since 1986, is expected to pay Ntenteza's family the traditional fine of one cow for violating his own five-year-ban on sexual relations with young female subjects, the Associated Press news agency reports. Under the ban, Ms Ntenteza would be considered to be under age. He announced the reinstatement of the traditional chastity rites of umchwasho last year in an attempt to stem the high rate of HIV infections in his country. Normally, Swazi royal weddings take place during cold weather and follow an unusual protocol. Traditionally, the bride is made to sleep with her husband-to-be and, in the middle of the night, relatives of the groom call her to come out. The groom then opens the door for the women who shout abuse at the new bride. When she is outside, she is required to bare her chest and forced to hold down a spear on cow dung. She is then insulted and she cries until dawn. Relatives of the new bride are then called to her rescue after being presented with a bull by way of a fine. Neither the bride nor her relatives are ever informed of the pending marriage. Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2275830.stm
Crabshell toothpaste 'fights decay' Back To TopA toothpaste made from crab's shells could cut dental infections and reduce the number of trips to the dentist, researchers claim. The paste contains a sticky chemical substance which can kill bacteria.It lodges around parts of the teeth and gums where bacteria grow and cause gum disease and tooth decay. Water breaks the particles down, allowing them to release an antimicrobial chemical, triclosan, inside them. A toothpaste made from crab's shells could cut dental infections and reduce the number of trips to the dentist, researchers claim. The paste contains a sticky chemical substance which can kill bacteria. It lodges around parts of the teeth and gums where bacteria grow and cause gum disease and tooth decay. Water breaks the particles down, allowing them to release an antimicrobial chemical, triclosan, inside them. Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2275652.stm
Kentucky governor admits to affair Back To TopFRANKFORT, Kentucky (AP) -- Gov. Paul Patton on Friday tearfully admitted to having an "inappropriate personal relationship" with a woman who is suing him for sexual harassment. He denied he used his influence to assist or damage the nursing home she operates, as she has alleged."I have now apologized to the people of Kentucky and asked for your forgiveness," the married governor said. "I do believe that now I am on the right path. "It's not easy for me to discuss private failures in a public forum but I do so because I want to be honest with the people of Kentucky and try to earn their trust and respect again." He said he already apologized to his wife of 25 years, Judi, and members of their family. Patton initially denied the allegations made by Tina Conner. "The denial was another mistake," Patton said Friday. His wife, who stood by her husband's side at a Wednesday news conference, did not appear Friday. Tina Conner alleged that she had a two-year affair with Patton and that the governor turned state inspectors loose on her nursing home in western Kentucky after she ended the relationship. Patton denied it. "Under no circumstances have I or anyone under my direct control tried to punish Mrs. Conner," he said. "I hope she will go forward with her life as I am going to try to go forward with mine." Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/20/kentucky.governor.ap/index.html
Drunk Driver pulled over 3 times in 3 hours Back To TopSTOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish police caught a drunk Norwegian driver three times in as many hours over the weekend, a Swedish newspaper reported on Monday.Police pulled the man over after spotting him hitting speeds of 140 km per hour (85 miles per hour) on a stretch of road where the limit varies between 50 and 70 km per hour, the daily Aftonbladet said. Officers found he had an alcohol level of 0.66 parts per thousand, or more than three times the maximum allowed under Swedish law. Police confiscated the man's driver's license, but set him free. Undeterred, he drove on toward Norway but was caught, and released, a second time. The Norwegian tried his luck a third time but was caught yet again, and this time a prosecutor confiscated his car. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1483002 Editorial Note:"If you drink and drive, whatever happens is no accident" - anonymous
Millionaires Lining Up to Buy Personal Gene Maps Back To TopLONDON (Reuters Health) - A service to map a person's entire genetic code is being offered by America's genome entrepreneur Craig Venter, according to the Sunday Times.The newspaper said that for 400,000 (US$621,500), a person would get details of their entire genetic code within 1 week. "Armed with such information, the individual would be able to check for mutations linked with illnesses such as cancer and Alzheimer's," the Sunday Times reported. The article noted that, at present, scientists know the genetic abnormalities associated with only a few dozen diseases, but it pointed out thousands more were expected to be discovered in the coming decades. Venter is said to have already signed up several millionaires, though he has declined to name them. "I have been approached by a number of people who want to have their individual genome decoded," he said. "Initially, we will be able to decode people's genes in less than a week but hope eventually to bring it down to less than a day." According to the report, 25 million ($38.9 million) will be spent on the new facility, which will offer the service starting later this year. But others researchers, already upset by Venter's commercial approach to the Human Genome Project, are skeptical. Dr. Tim Hubbard, head of human genome analysis at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge, one of the laboratories involved in the Human Genome Project, said knowing someone's genome was not the same as understanding it. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=healthnews&StoryID=1484340
Detroit Zoo Shark Credited with 'Virgin Births' Back To TopA shark held with no male counterpart at Detroit's Belle Isle Aquarium for the past six years has produced three babies in what zoo officials are calling "virgin births."The first two offspring hatched in July and the third was born earlier this week, Doug Sweet, curator of fishes at the aquarium, said in an interview on Friday. The female trio and their two-feet-long mother, a white spotted bamboo shark common to waters in the South Pacific, are all doing well and a fourth offspring is expected in another couple of weeks, Sweet told Reuters. "With fish, amphibians and reptiles it does happen sometimes, it is kind of rare but it can happen," Sweet said of the unusual hatchings. He said they were thought to be the result of a process called parthenogenesis, which is the ability of unfertilized eggs to develop into embryos without sperm. "The other option here is that perhaps there's a chance that the female might be a self-fertilizing hermaphrodite. That is, she might have testicular tissue inside her as well as ovarian tissue, and it's possible she could be fertilizing her own eggs. Either way you look at it it's pretty weird," Sweet said. He said the only other adult bamboo shark in the 680-gallon tank where the mother is held is also a female. "There's no male around and there hasn't been any male around for as long as we've had the sharks, and we've had them for over six years," Sweet said. Though the births in Detroit were thought to be extremely rare, Sweet said a bonnet head shark, also held without any male companion, reproduced in late 2001 at a zoo in Omaha, Nebraska. Unlike the biblical account of Jesus' birth and the Virgin Mary, "in nature, during parthenogenesis, it typically is always a female that is produced," Sweet said. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=sciencenews&StoryID=1476964
The crowning of the most beautiful woman in the universe has turned ugly. Back To TopThe former Miss Russia, Oxana Fedorova, said Monday that she quit her role as Miss Universe after just four months on the job because "the duties really interfered with my education."The Miss Universe Organization, however, said the 24-year-old Russian beauty was fired -- the first time in the 52-year history of the pageant that has happened. The organization did not give an explanation as to why Fedorova was ousted, but said a news conference will be held Tuesday in New York. A new Miss Universe -- Justine Pasek, 22, of Panama, who finished as the first runner-up in the May competition -- was named Monday morning, although her formal crowning will come at the Tuesday press conference, said Esther Swan, a spokeswoman for The Miss Universe Organization. Swan refused to go into details about why Fedorova is no longer on top of the universe. Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Northeast/09/23/miss.universe/index.html
Bullets fly as voting begins in Kashmir Back To TopBy NORIMITSU ONISHI for New York Times Srinagar, India — Suspected Muslim separatists and Indian security forces traded heavy gunfire in Kashmir's main city on Tuesday as polling booths opened in a state poll militants have vowed to derail.Smoke hung heavily in the air where the militants were holed up in house near a heavily guarded polling booth in Srinagar. They were believed to be the same gunmen who fired on security forces in the area on Monday night, killing one policeman. At least one building was on fire as rifle shots rang out. The clash marred the start of voting in the second phase of a state assembly election that India sees as a test of Pakistan's pledge to rein in Islamic militants whose raids triggered a military standoff earlier this year between the nuclear-armed rivals. "We can hear loud explosions and heavy fire," Imtiyaz Ahmad, a resident of the suburb of Gogji Bagh, told Reuters. Three policemen taken hostage by the militants were later rescued, police said. More than 470 people have died since the four-stage elections were announced on August 2 by India, which is banking on the polls to boost the legitimacy of its rule in Jammu and Kashmir, its only Muslim-majority state. Srinagar, along with the state's winter capital Jammu and the third town of Budgam, are voting to elect a parliament for Kashmir. Hundreds of thousands of security personnel were in position across the cities, with flak-jacketed soldiers checking roads near polling booths for mines. Polls opened at 7 a.m. (8:30 p.m. EDT) and close at 4 p.m. (5:30 a.m. EDT). Pakistan has dismissed the elections as a farce. Source:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/ 20020923/wkash0923/Front/homeBN/breakingnews
China school stairway collapse kills 21 Back To TopBEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Twenty-one children plunged to their deaths and 47 were injured when a guardrail gave way in an unlit stairwell at a Chinese school, the official Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.The accident occured on Monday at the No. 2 Middle School in Fengzhen city in the region of Inner Mongolia about 270 km (160 miles) northwest of Beijing, Xinhua said. Some 1,500 students had finished evening studies and began leaving the school when the guardrail gave way, Xinhua said. "In conditions with absolutely no light, they began swarming downstairs," it said. "The guardrail suddenly collapsed and students toppled to the ground one after another. Students behind could not see clearly and continued to press forward," it said. More than 260 medical workers rushed to the scene and special teams were set up to investigate the cause, it said. The accident was a grim reminder of China's poor safety standards blamed for killing five people and injuring more than 90 students after a giant construction crane toppled on to a school building in western Gansu province in December. This month, 38 people, mostly children, died after eating breakfast snacks laced with rat poison at a thriving fast food store in China's eastern province of Jiangsu. Source:http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/09/24/china.accident.reut/index.html
Cuddling a cat beats talking to spouse Back To TopSpending a few minutes cuddling a pet can do more to relieve stress than trying to talk about problems with your spouse, a new study says.Researchers also found that having a pet present when you carry out unpleasant tasks is more effective than human support. "While the idea of a pet as social support may appear to some as a peculiar notion, our participants' responses to stress, combined with their descriptions of the meaning of pets in their lives, suggest to us that social support can indeed cross species," said Karen Allen, a psychologist at the State University of New York in Buffalo, and lead author of the research. To conduct the study, published in today's edition of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, researchers turned to 240 married couples, half of whom had a cat or dog as a pet. Each participant underwent two "stress tasks": mental arithmetic problems and submerging one hand in ice water for two minutes. They conducted the tasks in the presence of, separately, spouse and pet, and their blood pressure and heart rate were monitored. Those who did arithmetic in the presence of a spouse made the most errors. When pets were present, participants not only did better at math, but were less stressed by the cold-water test and recovered more quickly. There was no difference in results between dog and cat owners. "The findings demonstrate that pets can buffer reactivity to acute stress as well as diminish perceptions of stress," Dr. Allen said. A second study, also published in Psychosomatic Medicine, found that arguing with your spouse is not only stressful; it can damage your heart. Laura Glynn, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, said an argument not only causes a person's blood pressure to rise, but ruminating about drives blood pressure up again in a way that physical stresses do not. "Exposure to emotional stress may be of greater potential harm to cardiovascular health than stresses that lack emotion, even though both types of stress may have been provoked by the same initial responses," she said. Source:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/ 20020924/UPETSN/Health/health/health_temp/6/6/12/ Editor's Note: Obviously, this people have too much money. Why would someone need a study to find out that any human looking over ones shoulder will add more stress during a math test. I suspect that same subjects of the studies will even perform better if these pets were not present during their tests. While pets may not add to the stress, they are distractions.
Drink Sends Bank Robber to Sleep on Duty Back To TopGRAZ, Austria (Reuters) - A man went to rob a bank in the Austrian city of Graz but was found by police asleep in his car after downing a bottle of schnapps for courage, police say.A passer-by alerted the police after noticing that the parked car had different number plates at the front and back, a police spokesman told Reuters Tuesday. On the seat next to the slumbering driver police found a balaclava, a pistol and an empty bottle of high-proof schnapps. The 33-year-old man admitted he had planned to rob the bank but had drunk the schnapps to calm his nerves. He was arrested for questioning and will have to answer charges of attempted robbery in court. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1495113
This Magic Cow Cures All Ailments Back To TopPHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Reuters) - Hundreds of stiff-jointed Cambodians are flocking to see a large brown cow whose lick is believed to cure rheumatism and other ailments, officials said Wednesday."Over the last four weeks, as many as 20 people per day have been coming to see this cow," Puth Chandarith, governor of Kompot province in southern Cambodia, told Reuters. "Even I went to see it yesterday." Ailing peasants in the impoverished southeast Asian nation offer incense, candles, flowers and water to the beast, which consumes the latter and then performs its licking duties on the prostrate patient. The cow's owner, Thun Nao, 59, a local teacher, said it all started after the animal escaped from its pen and started massaging his leg with its horns. "I was having problems with my legs and could not walk to school, but one day the cow ... came up to me and rubbed its horn against my leg. Afterwards I could walk fine," he told a local newspaper. Authorities are keeping a watchful eye on the cow and its owner to make sure gullible patients, who buy their offerings for the cow from its owner, are not taken advantage of -- and that nobody ends up regretting their bovine faith. "Some people believe that it works, but if they are seriously ill, I would urge them to go to hospital instead of magic cows," Puth Chandarith said. Belief in the magical powers of animals is a relatively common phenomenon in Cambodia, where over a third of the population lives on under $1 per day and cannot afford modern medicines. Snakes and turtles are often associated with supernatural healing powers. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1495091
Coffee Can Kill Pain... but Only in Women Back To TopLONDON (Reuters) - Coffee can kill pain, but only in women, a British newspaper reported on Wednesday.The London Times said researchers in London had asked a sample of men and women to plunge their arms into buckets of freezing cold water and keep them there as long as they could. They then gave the volunteers coffee in the expectation that it would ease the pain. Caffeine increases blood pressure which usually, according to the paper, leads to a lowering in the perception of pain. The study found that while the caffeine did little for the men it had "a strong impact" on the women. "A double espresso probably would make the pain of something like leg-waxing more bearable," the paper quoted one of the researchers as saying. Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2269057.stm
Cop Set on Fire for Confisicating Umbrella Back To TopRIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A street vendor in the busy center of Rio de Janeiro set fire to a police officer in broad daylight after his umbrellas were confiscated, police said on Thursday."The vendor ran after the police car, poured alcohol on one officer through the open window and threw a match," a duty official at the municipal police force said. The officer suffered severe burns to his face and chest, and another one inside the car was lightly injured. The vendor fled in the mayhem that followed, police said. The violence occurred on Wednesday during a routine police clampdown on illegal street vendors swarming in the city center. Some shots were fired in the air during the operation and some vendors were arrested. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=humannews&StoryID=1500854
Malaysian couple to sue religious police Back To TopBERLIN (Reuters) - Germans mulling joining the army may think twice now thanks to a new regulation banning soldiers from having sex while in active service.A Malaysian couple who have been married for 22 years plan to sue government officials who burst into their bedroom and arrested them under strict Islamic morality laws. Abdul Halim Zainal Abidin and his wife Nooriah were staying in a rented room when the incident happened two years ago. They were unable to produce their marriage certificate immediately, so the officials detained them for seven hours under a law which forbids unchaperoned close contact between unrelated Muslim men and women. The couple, who have three children, are seeking compensation for wrongful arrest and humiliation. The couple were arrested when religious department officials in Perak state burst into their rented room in Ipoh - 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of the capital, Kuala Lumpur, after midnight in October 2000. The New Straits Times newspaper said Abdul Halim and Nooriah were handcuffed, taken into custody and held overnight in police cells at separate locations. The next day, Mr Abdul Halim was allowed to telephone a friend who fetched the marriage certificate and brought it to the police station. Abdul Halim - a civil servant - said he was taking legal action because he had become frustrated at waiting for an apology from state officials, the newspaper reported. Correspondents say religious department officers often raid hotel rooms or public parks frequented by lovers in the mainly Muslim country, detaining unmarried couples caught together. Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2281241.stm
Ugandan thieves steal Aids drugs Back To TopPolice in Uganda have arrested 15 people after anti-Aids drugs donated by the US were stolen and then put on sale. The police said those arrested were health workers and businessmen.Nearly 300,000 tablets designed to treat Aids were donated to Uganda in February and distributed to health centres around the country. An estimated 9.5% of adult Ugandans - 1.9 million people - are HIV positive, according to the Uganda Aids Commission. The rate of mother-to-child transmission is estimated at 15-25% and access to effective treatment, including anti-retroviral drugs, is very limited. The medicines donated by the United States were sent to health centres across Uganda for free distribution to HIV/Aids patients. The New Vision newspaper reports that the tablets, called Diflucan, were in bottles clearly marked "Donation Programme - Not For Sale". Many of the tablets were then stolen, with the alleged collusion of health workers, and passed on to private clinics for sale for at least two dollars each. When news of the scandal emerged last week, the Health Minister, Brigadier Jim Muhwezi, expressed shock and asked what donors would think. The theft and sale of the tablets was first recorded by the US drug company, Pfizer, which produced the tablets. The company informed the Ugandan Government, which then launched a police investigation, according to New Vision. The health minister said that the drugs had been sent to 110 health centres, but many had been stolen by "unscrupulous people". "This is very serious. It's a shame. "It's scary to imagine what people out there (donors), who are concerned about our suffering, think what type of people we are," the minister said. Uganda has the highest number of orphans in sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 1.1 million children below the age of 15 years have lost a mother or both parents to Aids. Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2279091.stm
Scientists Grow Pig Teeth in Rat Intestines Back To TopBOSTON (Reuters) - US doctors have managed to grow pig teeth in rat intestines, a feat of bioengineering they said on Thursday could spark a dental revolution.Researchers at the Forsyth Institute said their successful experiment suggests the existence of dental stem cells, which could one day allow a person to replace a lost or missing tooth with an identical tooth grown from his or her own cells. The research may signal that the days of synthetic dental implants--dentures, bridges and crowns--are numbered. "The ability to identify, isolate and propagate dental stem cells to use in biological replacement tooth therapy has the potential to revolutionize dentistry," said Dominick DePaola, president and CEO of the Boston-based research institute. The experiment involved taking seeded cells from immature teeth of six-month-old pigs and then placing them within the intestines of rats. Within 30 weeks, small recognizable tooth crowns--containing enamel and dentin, a bone-like material found under the enamel--had formed, the researchers said. The researchers said they hope that within five years they will have developed techniques to grow teeth of a specific size and shape, and that within 10 years it will be possible to regenerate human teeth. The research was due to be published in the Oct 1 issue of Journal of Dental Research. Source:http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=healthnews&StoryID=1501505
Teacher Earned $7.9M in 18 minutes!!! Back To TopDETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- A Detroit public school teacher's pay was enough to make Bill Gates or Donald Trump envious.Thanks to a computer glitch, the teacher was paid $7.9 million before taxes for 18 minutes of work. The teacher, who wasn't identified, received $4,015,624.80 after taxes. Someone alerted the school district earlier this month, and the money was returned after six days, chief financial officer Ken Forrest said in Thursday's Detroit News. The error occurred when a clerk entered an employee number in the hourly wage field for the teacher's wage adjustment check. The district's payroll software didn't catch the mistake. "One of the things that came with (the software) is a fail-safe that prevents that. It doesn't work," Forrest said. The district has since installed a program to flag any paycheck exceeding $10,000, he said Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/Midwest/09/27/offbeat.teacher.paid.ap/index.html
U.S. developing laser weapons Back To Top(CNN) -- Up in Space, at least in the movies, laser weapons have been the standard equipment.Now, they could be on real fighter planes by the end of the decade. CNN Bruce Francis reports on the technology that will give U.S. Forces a new class of light-weight weaponry. He says the first airborne laser weapons are scheduled to be tested within the next two years Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/09/25/laser.weapon/index.html Editor's Note: A time may come when the concept of super power will be meaningful only with respect to means of delivery of weapons. Save the cost of delivery, a few thousand dollars will probably make chemical or biological and now laser weapons.
Marijuana plans go up in smoke Back To TopFITCHBURG, Massachusetts -- Two men suffered life-threatening burns when they tried to remove $100,000 worth of high-grade marijuana that was hidden in a car gas tank.Octavio Soto, 44, and Jose Cezares, 23, are recovering at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston with third-degree burns after the August 18 flash fire. Soto has burns over 65 percent of his body, while Cezares suffered burns over 30 percent of his body. While investigating the fire, authorities noticed that a gas tank had been removed from a car and weighed more than it should have. Investigators cut the tank open to find two sealed metal containers containing an estimated 60 pounds of marijuana, which reportedly had a street value of more than $100,000. The fire was caused by an explosion, ignited by Soto's and Cezares' efforts to saw into the tank they had removed from a 1995 GMC Yukon. A spark from the saw ignited gas vapors from the tank, police said. Soto and Cezares will be charged with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, according to Fitchburg Police Chief Charles M. Tasca. Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/09/27/ctv.stupid.crimes/index.html#3
Thief gets stuck in church Back To TopHIGH POINT, North Carolina (Court TV) -- After receiving calls from suspicious neighbors about someone trying to rob a Baptist church, police arrived and landed their main clue almost immediately -- a suspect's torso stuck and sticking out of a small window.Spotting Ronald Stutts, 28, wasn't hard, but freeing the 6-foot, 235-pound man from the window took four officers some time and effort. Authorities said Stutts, who was drunk at the time, was trying to steal a handful of painting supplies and food from the church. His strategy, however, was lacking. Stutts broke in through a large window but tried to exit through a small bathroom window, even though there was a door that he could have unlocked just 10 feet away, according to High Point Police Officer Lt. Jim Tate. Stutts was charged him with larceny and breaking and entering. http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/09/25/ctv.stupid.crimes/index.html#1
Deadbeat dad ordered to cease impregnation Back To TopMEDINA, Ohio -- A convicted deadbeat dad and father of six will go to jail if he carelessly impregnates any more women in the next five years, a judge ruled earlier this month.Medina County Common Pleas Judge James Kimbler imposed the unusual probation requirement on Sean Talty, 30, who was found guilty in July of failing to pay $38,000 in support for two of his six children, according to a court spokesman. Talty, a construction worker and high school dropout, must make payments of $75 per week, and "make reasonable efforts to avoid conceiving children while he is under supervision," a judge ruled Sept. 6. Vickie Kinder, who currently lives with Talty and is the mother of two of his children, told reporters that she and Kinder will adhere to the ruling, but noted her displeasure with the restrictions on conceiving. Talty's attorney Joe Gorman says he plans to appeal on the grounds that the sentencing "violates both [Talty's] state and federal constitutional rights." Source:http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/09/25/ctv.stupid.crimes/index.html#3 Editor's Note: There must be an "Amendment Right" that says the state may not order you to not sleep arround. Is this Sharia or what? This ruling seems to represent everything American stands against including the campaign to lift the one family one child restriction in China. American activists argue that the state(China that is) has no business in anyone's bedroom.
Your cup of tea can prevent cancer, heart disease, stress... Back To TopTea could soon join fruit and vegetables on the list of must-have health foods. Recent studies have suggested the traditional cuppa protects against a range of conditions including cancer, heart disease and Parkinson's.But scientists in the United States now believe that the health benefits are so great that everyone should be urged to drink tea. Experts believe antioxidants in tea help to repair cells in the body which have been damaged by sunlight, chemicals, stress and many foods. Damaged cells can lead to cancer and heart disease as well as a host of other serious conditions. Scientists made their case at a meeting in Washington organised by the US Department of Agriculture, the American Cancer Society and the Tea Council. Officials from the Department of Agriculture outlined findings from a study which suggested tea reduces the risk of heart disease by lowering cholesterol. Joseph Judd, acting director of the department's Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center in Maryland, tested eight men and eight women who agreed, for a period of three weeks at a time, to eat and drink only what they were given at the Beltsville lab. "We gave them a beverage that mimicked tea - water flavoured like tea," he said. For a second three-week period the same volunteers got five cups a day of tea to drink. "We found that their blood lipids, when they drank tea compared to the placebo beverage, had up to 10 % lowering of low density lipoprotein, the 'bad' cholesterol," Mr Judd said. Overall, total cholesterol was lowered 6 % on average over the three weeks, his team found. "There was no effect on 'good' cholesterol," he added. "HDL remained constant." In another study, researchers at the University of Arizona tested 140 smokers to see if drinking tea reduces the risks of cancer. They examined whether tea repaired damage to cells caused by smoking. In particular, they looked at the affects on a chemical called 8-OhDG, which is found in urine and is believe to cause cell damage. For four months, volunteers drank either green tea, black tea or water. "They were asked to eat whatever they were eating and just add tea to their diet," said Dr Iman Hakim, who headed the study. Researchers tested the participants' urine for levels of 8-OHdG. "What we found was a 25% decrease in the green tea group," she said. However, no changes were seen in the people who drank black tea or water. "We think green tea, in our group of smokers, is associated with a reduction of oxidative stress in their urine," Dr Hakim said. The meeting was told that efforts should be made to encourage Americans to drink more tea. More than 135 million cups of tea are drunk in Britain every day but so far Americans have failed to convert from their beloved coffee. William Gorman, executive director of the UK's Tea Council which represents the tea industry, is at the Washington meeting. He said the research being presented there was "very interesting". "The body of evidence has been growing substantially. There is a lot of strong scientific information being presented here," he told BBC News Online. Mr Gorman added: "The tea industry has always been very cautious about presenting the science around tea but certainly the organisations behind this meeting are very confident in the data." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2280353.stm Editor's Note: In another year or two new findings will suggest that tea causes cancer, heart disease, kills smokers, causes nausea, .....
Blondes Headed For Extinction Back To TopThe last natural blondes will die out within 200 years, scientists believe. A study by experts in Germany suggests people with blonde hair are an endangered species and will become extinct by 2202.Researchers predict the last truly natural blonde will be born in Finland - the country with the highest proportion of blondes. But they say too few people now carry the gene for blondes to last beyond the next two centuries. The problem is that blonde hair is caused by a recessive gene. In order for a child to have blonde hair, it must have the gene on both sides of the family in the grandparents' generation. The researchers also believe that so-called bottle blondes may be to blame for the demise of their natural rivals. They suggest that dyed-blondes are more attractive to men who choose them as partners over true blondes. Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2284783.stm Editor's Note: Finally, there will be no more blondes for the comedian to ridicule. The blondes can celebrate their rescue from the comedians. Wouldn't that be blondish? | ||||||