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The latest episode of Psych Crunch, a new podcast hosted by Science of Us pal Christian Jarrett, is all about habits, and it includes a reference to what is maybe the weirdest habit-breaking strategy ever: Imagine your brain, say psychologists Kim Jenkins and Katy Tapper, is a city bus. This city bus is filled with noisy weirdos, as city buses often are; think of the noisy weirdos as your craving for chocolate, or the urge to bite your nails — whatever habit you're trying to break. And you, they continue, are the driver of said bus. You can't help hearing...

<p>Overdose deaths attributed to fentanyl, a prescription opioid up to 50 times more powerful than heroin, tripled in New Jersey in 2014, new data show, adding a destructive new wrinkle to the state's heroin and opioid crisis.</p> <p>State data show that 143 overdose deaths were attributed to fentanyl in 2014, up from 49 in 2013. It's a growing worry for law enforcement officials who know a single use of the drug, often unknowingly used to lace heroin, can lead to death.</p>

Happy Father's Day to Caitlyn Jenner. On the first Father's Day since the 65-year-old Olympian, formerly known as Bruce, first introduced Caitlyn to the world, daughter's Kylie, Kendall, and Khloe shared heartfelt messages on social media. "Happy Father's Day my little light of sunshine," Kylie, 17, captioned a throwback photo of her as a little girl along with Kendall, Bruce and mom Kris. She then seemed to quote her father's comforting words as he began making his transition to life as a woman. "You can still call me dad, Kylie. No matter what I'm always going to be your father....

A man walks down the street with his wife, who is pregnant with the couple’s first child. With no kids, he has existed until now in his own orbit and paid little attention to the offspring of others. He notices a woman with a baby and the moment causes him some consternation — he feels very little for the child and worries that perhaps he lacks the empathy to be a dad. Are certain men, he wonders, hardwired to respond better to infants than others? Pregnancy and parenting research has disproportionally favoured mothers, for obvious reasons, but there is a...

Hollywood star Samuel L. Jackson became an unlikely poster boy for veganism after losing 3st on a diet – and now he has revealed his motivation: he recently survived a life-threatening blood clot near his heart. The 66-year-old Pulp Fiction actor, who is fronting men’s cancer charity One For The Boys, claims adopting a no-meat, no-dairy lifestyle has transformed his health. ‘Because I was losing weight, people thought I was dying. They feared I had cancer, but I was just on a hardcore vegan regime,’ says the star. ‘My doctor said it was my greatest chance of staying alive –...

More than half the Canadian population regularly uses vitamins and minerals in order to stay healthy, according to Health Canada. Yet most are likely not aware that high doses of many common vitamins can increase the risk of cancer or death. “Vitamins have become synonymous with health, but there’s this false idea that, if a little bit is good, a lot has to be better,” says Dr. Tim Byers, associate dean at the Colorado School of Public Health. Byers challenged this idea recently at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting. “We now have direct evidence that a lot...

A study published this month in the Journal of Medical Ethics examined the “deliberate” euthanasia of patients in Belgium without their explicit, voluntary consent as required by law. The study’s author, Raphael Cohen-Almagor, a professor of philosophy and ethics at the United Kingdom’s Hull University, found that life-ending drugs were used “with the intention to shorten life and without explicit request” in 1.7 percent of all deaths in Belgium in 2013. In 52.7 percent of these cases, the patients were 80 years of age or older. The decision to euthanize was not discussed with the patient in 77.9 percent of...

SEOUL, - North Korea claimed it has developed a vaccine that cures the deadly diseases MERS, SARS and AIDS. The remedy contains "rare earth resources" and includes ginseng extract, cultivated in the North Korean city of Kaesong with the aid of fertilizer, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported on Friday. North Korea's independently developed "Kumdang No. 2 Vaccine" was touted as an extraordinary panacea. Pyongyang's state-controlled media KCNA said the immune system activator was capable of preventing MERS, SARS, AIDS and pneumonia, South Korean newspaper Hankook Ilbo reported. The claims remain dubious, if not absurd, according to South Korea media....

“Their doctors sent them to me because they had headache pain or some sort of neurological problem,” he said. “Their primary physicians didn’t know they were having the problem due to abduction. But I would find out as part of my interview when I would ask how long they’ve had the problem, when did they first notice it. … Then they’d tell me.” As part of his regular testing of patients, Russo used his $200,000 dense-array electroencephalography, or DEEG, machine — the only one of its kind in Hawaii — to map the electrical activity in the brains of his...

Biologists Invoke the Past in Modern Bacteria By swapping ancient genes into modern E. coli, scientists hope to tease out the rules of evolution. Yaman OzakinBetul Kacar, a research fellow at Harvard University, has revived an ancient protein in E. coli. By: Emily SingerJune 18, 2015 One of the greatest challenges in evolutionary biology is trying to piece together the history of life based on fragmentary evidence and limited knowledge of the forces at play — the rich tapestry of climate, geology and living things that forms the backdrop for evolution. How, for example, did the light-sensitive molecules that enable...

Thousands of boxes of strawberries have been stolen from a farm in Vinslöv, in Skåne, southern Sweden, with the search for the thieves gripping Swedes planning to feast on the fruits over Midsummer. The berries were taken from Vinslöv in the early hours of the morning, just a day before Swedes celebrate Midsummer, when the sweet fruits typically take centre stage. News of the heist quickly went viral, with reports of the theft among the most read in Sweden by Thursday afternoon. Swedes measure their strawberries in litres, and it is understood that 3,420 litres of the fruits were taken,...

A hospital in Stockholm is set to become the first in the country with an emergency department specifically for male rape victims. The clinic at Södersjukhuset is scheduled to open this autumn.Södersjukhuset already has the largest emergency care unit in the Nordic region and runs a round-the-clock walk-in clinic for women and girls who have been sexually assaulted in the city, treating between 600 and 700 patients a year. On Wednesday, the hospital announced that from mid-October, it would also admit men and boys as part of a strategy to ensure "gender equal" emergency care for rape victims of both...

A man has died of massive internal burns after mistakenly being served undiluted detergent, which was being stored in an empty bottle of white wine.The 49-year-old man died of internal burns after drinking cleaning fluid he thought was white wine in the city of Benicarló in the Spanish province of Castellón. Andrés Lorente was in bar Raconet, on Isabel de Villena square, for a Sunday afternoon drink on June 14th when he was served what he thought was a glass of white wine. In fact the liquid he was served was cleaning fluid that had been stored in an empty...

Bryson went in for his last surgical procedure Wednesday, the 17th

The adolescents had been involved in experiments that had been designed for measuring working memory and their ability for focusing their attention on information relevant to a task. The participants’ impulsivity has also been evaluated in a task that tested their ability to delay gratification. The levels of “sensation seeking”, the tendency for seeking excitement without thinking had been self-reported in this study.

Soccer star Brandi Chastain is asking all players to reverse their jerseys to show support for a rule change: no headers for players under 14. With the soccer world focused on the Women’s World Cup, Chastain is promoting the Safer Soccer Campaign. She says heading the ball can lead to concussions. Chastain was one of the first to jump on the effort — a former star who scored the winning penalty kick to give the United States the title over China in the 1999 World Cup, and memorably ripped off her shirt in exultation. Now she is a youth coach...

A program designed to promote ethanol and biodiesel fuels will be expanded to companies using plant-based plastic, rubber and fiber in manufacturing products such as bottles and packaging, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Wednesday. The USDA is proposing in a new agency rule to add manufacturers of these plant-based products to a loan guarantee program that has provided more than $844 million for 10 biofuel projects since 2008. Loan guarantees allow companies building new plants to borrow money at lower interest rates. Under the proposed new rules, loans of up to $250 million will be offered to projects involving...

Fran Drescher was honored Tuesday at the Stonewall Community Foundation Vision Awards and thanked everyone including her “gay ex-husband.” Honored for her advocacy, she quipped, “I have a gay art dealer, a gay dermatologist — not to mention my hairdresser. I have a gay ex-husband! People always say to me [of her ex], ‘How did you not know?’ He loves decorating and fashion and clothes, but we actually did have sex a lot.

When a doctor told Susan Levin her 4-year-old son, Ben, was autistic, she was shocked. It was October 2007, and autism wasn’t mentioned in the media nearly as much as it is today. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God. What are we going to do?’ ” Levin recalls. “Everyone knew autism was a lifelong disorder and couldn’t be cured.” Except that in Ben’s case, it could be. And it was.

"This is a plant that only grows in Israel, Jordan and the Sinai, and has been used traditionally by Bedouins for controlling diabetes. I've been screening different Israeli plants for diabetes and this is one of the best candidates." –Jonathan Gorelick (Israel)—[Israel21c.org] Ingesting an indigenous Israeli aromatic shrub called Chiliadenus iphionoides (more commonly, "sharp varthemia" or "Goldilocks") could improve insulin secretion and glucose absorption in people with diabetes, according to plant biologist Jonathan Gorelick, scientific director of the Judea Regional Research and Development Center in Israel. (Photo via Israel21c.org) The center's efforts to isolate the plant's active compounds—and to assure...