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The state Supreme Court in California is allowing voters this November to consider a plan to define marriage as one man and one woman, a move that could overturn that same court's ruling in May that same-sex duos should be recognized as "married." Jennifer Kerns, communications director for Protect Marriage.com, which collected more than 1.1 million signatures on petitions in support of the vote, confirmed that the high court today simply dismissed the pending challenge to having Proposition 8 on the ballot. "Obviously, the Supreme Court decision delivers a significant blow to our opponents," she told WND. "It does send...

NEW DELHI: It's a simple act, yet most of us neglect it. We tend to take it lightly, sometimes dismissing it as unnecessary, little realising its importance. Yet, grandma’s advice about washing hands still holds true. Every time we scrub our hands clean, killer germs get washed away. Though various studies have established that washing hands with soap reduces the risk of normal diarrhoea by nearly half and life-threatening diarrhoea by more than half, very few people take this seriously. In fact, a study conducted in West Bengal and Tripura last year found that only 49% washed their hands after...

LOS ANGELES — Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Department of Water and Power are expected to announce on May 15 a revised water use and management plan for this city that includes using recycled wastewater to recharge drinking water aquifers, according to a May 15 Los Angeles Times article. The new plan allocates about $1 billion for the proposed reclamation system, also known as “toilet-to-tap” or “sewer-to-spigot.” The city would recycle about 4.9 billion gallons of treated wastewater to drinking standards by 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported on May 15. Villaraigosa, who less than a decade ago opposed such...

NESS CITY, Kan. - Deputies say a woman in western Kansas became stuck on her boyfriend's toilet after sitting on it for two years. Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the 35-year-old Ness City woman's skin had grown around the seat. She initially refused emergency medical services but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital. "We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

LONDON - An artist is inviting Londoners to come face-to-face with the wretched labour of one of India's lowest castes - by filling an art gallery with 21 big blocks of human excrement. The monoliths are the brainchild of Santiago Sierra, whose previous work includes pumping a former German synagogue full of poisonous car exhaust (visitors wore gas masks) and an attempt to write the word "Submission" in giant, flaming letters near the U.S.-Mexico border. Elena Crippa, curator at the Lisson Gallery where the work is being displayed, said the Spanish-born artist's intention is to confront audiences with the horror...

Close window Published online: 4 May 2007; | doi:10.1038/news070430-13 Maggots eat up resistant bacteriaCreepy crawlies are the latest weapon in the anti-MRSA arsenal.Katharine Sanderson It looks bad, but it works: maggots can clean out some foot wounds better than drugs. The drug-resistant bug MRSA has a new adversary — the maggot. Researchers in Manchester, UK, have just won a grant to compare maggots with other more hi-tech treatments for people with diabetes who suffer from infected feet. A quarter of all people with diabetes are at risk of foot ulcers, because of the reduced blood circulation caused by the...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Julio Cesar Cu wanted to be an oceanographer but instead he swims through foul-smelling sewage in underground tunnels where the occasional dead body bobs beside excrement and car parts.

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — A 45-year-old Vero Beach woman accused of having a sexual relationship with a boy since he was 8 years old was arrested Tuesday and held without bond at the Indian River County Jail. Elizabeth Filsell, 45, was arrested about 4:30 a.m. and charged with two counts of capital sexual battery on a child. Sheriff's detectives started to investigate Filsell on Monday evening after a man reported the boy, now age 14, was attempting to pull swimsuits off of other children while swimming in a pool earlier in the day, according to the arrest affidavit. The man's...

Residents of a drought-stricken Australian town will vote this week on whether they're prepared to drink water recycled from sewage -- the first such scheme in the country and one of only a handful in the world. The controversial proposal has divided the town of Toowoomba in the state of Queensland, which has faced water restrictions for a decade. Local Mayor Dianne Thorley, who is leading the "Yes" campaign, said that without drought-breaking rains the town's dams could dry up within two years. She insisted the 73 million dollar (US 55 million dollar) plan to pump purified wastewater back into...

A robot designed to crawl through the human gut by mimicking the wriggling motion of an undersea worm has been developed by European scientists. It could one day help doctors diagnose disease by carrying tiny cameras through patients' bodies. The team behind the robot includes scientists from Italy, Germany, Greece and the UK. They modelled it on polychaetes, or "paddle worms", which use tiny paddles on their body segments to push through sand, mud or water. "We turned to biological inspiration because, in the peculiar environment of the gut, traditional forms of robotic locomotion don't work," says Arianna Menciassi, a...

LONDON (AFP) - London mayor Ken Livingstone has lifted the lid on his toilet habits, revealing he has not flushed the loo in 15 months. ADVERTISEMENT Livingstone said there was "no earthly reason" to bother if there was just urine in the bowl, he said Tuesday. He said people were misguided about what urine actually is -- and said bluebottles steer well clear of his. The mayor flushed out any misconceptions and tried to spark a chain reaction as he urged Londoners to waste less water when getting rid of their own waste. "Red Ken" said it was all based...

Oh lookie at what steroids does to ones ummmmm....

Judge used 'penis pump' during murder case Sep 26 2005 icWales   A US judge will go on trial today charged with three counts of indecent exposure after allegedly masturbating using a “penis pump” while presiding over a murder case.Witnesses claim they could hear the noise of the device coming from beneath the robes of Donald Thompson as he sat on the bench.The 58-year-old former district judge had served at Creek County Court, Oklahoma, where he was charged, for 22 years.The sex toy will be presented as evidence during the trial.The court has also permitted testimony that a second pump...

A research team is proposing a new technique that would allow meat to be grown in a laboratory for mass consumption, according to a report. Researchers in the U.S. say the technology now exists now to produce processed meats such as burgers and sausages, starting with cells taken from cows, chickens, pigs, fish or other animals. Growing meat without the animal would not only reduce the need for the animals -- which often are kept in less than ideal conditions -- but may also address a number of environmental ills blamed on meat production. Cultured meat could also be tailored...

Health authorities yesterday warned villagers not to eat crickets or sell them as food after more than 100 people in Ban Phai district were hospitalised with nausea and diarrhoea this week. The patients all had eaten fried crickets that were bought either from a local market or from street hawkers. A handful of villagers were hospitalised late Sunday night with nausea and diarrhoea, with the number swelling by around another 100 on Tuesday, said Ban Phai Hospital director Dr Prayoon Kowit. All said they ate fried crickets that were either bought at Ban Phai Market or from street hawkers driving...

Already the subject of a hit rock song and a film script, Germany's convicted cannibal is now destined for the small screen as the star of a television documentary, its producer said on Friday. Armin Meiwes, who was jailed in January for more than eight years for killing and eating the flesh of a willing victim, has signed over the media rights to his case to the Hamburg-based production firm Stampfwerk. Managing director Guenter Stampf said the documentary would "come to terms with an unusual criminal case". He added that a book deal was also in the works but would...