Free Republic

Eating nuts "significantly" boosted the number and health of sperm in young men in a scientific trial, researchers said Wednesday. The findings "support a beneficial role for chronic nut consumption in sperm quality," they said, but stressed the study participants were all healthy, apparently fertile men. The potential benefits of nuts for men struggling with fertility have yet to be probed. For the study, researchers recruited 119 men aged 18-35, who they divided into two groups. One group ate 60 grammes of almonds, hazelnuts, and walnuts daily on top of their usual "western-style" diet, while the second group got no...

Kevin Costner has been revealed as the celebrity accused of performing a sex act while having a massage at a prestigious hotel in Scotland, after a tribunal ruled there was not a strong enough reason to keep his name suppressed. The Hollywood star was accused of taking off his towel during the massage at The Old Course Hotel in St Andrews, Fife, in October 2004, exposing himself and then performing a sex act. An earlier legal ruling had prevented his identity being revealed, but the tribunal chairman Nicol Hosie ruled that following widespread newspaper and magazine reports outside Britain, as...

A woman who lives near Silt says her husband found a condom in a shell of one of the nuts she purchased in bulk at Wal-Mart in Rifle. Diane Geist brought home the mixed nuts, still in their shells, over the holidays. She said her husband, Brian, discovered a condom in one on the morning of New Year's Eve when he was reading a book and dining on some nuts at their home south of Silt. "My husband cracked open a hazelnut and a condom popped out. He couldn't believe it. He just sort of sat there and stared at...

Euphemisms abound for the, uh, delicacy that will be the focus of a festival Saturday in Mount Sterling, Ill., about 90 miles north of St. Louis. Kevin Huston, who owns the Sportsman's Club bar, which is hosting the festival, has heard 'em all: cowboy caviar, swinging beef, mountain oysters, lamb fries. But folks in Mount Sterling (population 2,077) don't mince words, so the festival is known simply as the Sportsman's Club Testicle Festival. "They're not really like chicken or a beef steak," Huston says. "They're in a class of their own." The festival, which will feature beef, pork, lamb and...