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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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Signs of the Times Australia / NZ edition — lifestyle, health, relationships, culture, spirituality, people — published since 1886 |
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hunger
and heredity
Giving obese people top-ups of a naturally occurring gut hormone could help fight obesity, suggests a UK study. The research reveals that obese people have one-third less of the hunger-beating hormone PYY3-36 in their blood than their leaner contemporaries. Giving the weight-challenged infusions of the hormone cut appetite by about a third, reducing deaths due to obesity, diabetes and heart failure.
budgie burglar
Armed robbers, one with a shotgun, held up a man in Rio de Janeiro to steal his pet canary. Why? It was Brazil’s champion songbird. The owner, after being deeply depressed over his loss, recovered enough to offer a $2500 reward for information on the bird’s whereabouts.
height of stardom
Rebecca Shedden, from Yorkshire, has climbed Britain’s three highest peaks in 24 hours. She and her father, Rob, conquered Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis—3048 metres in total—in 23 hours, 15 minutes. But what’s so special about that? Rebecca is just eight years old.
beat the heat
Busy Indians beat temple traffic jams during a recent Hindu festival, sending text messages to pay homage instead offerings to their gods.
lonely hearts
A 102-year-old Italian has advertised for a wife in a lonely hearts column. The man, who has been widowed twice already, said: “I’m healthy, have a flat, a pension and am still in a position to fulfil all my duties as a man.”
giant crayfish
Brian Hoult holds a 1.34 metre crayfish weighing 6.3 kg that he caught while fishing for snapper at Whangarei, New Zealand. The crayfish has been given to George Campbell, a fromer curator of a fish museum, to look after until it sheds its huge shell. The cray is probably a female packhorse, possibly 100 years old.
freeway free-for-all
Traffic on a German autobahn was halted for some 10 minutes when drivers stopped to help themselves to Euro-cash drifting across the median. The cash came when a motorist drove off leaving a briefcase containing tens-of-thousands of Euros on the roof of his car. Police recovered only E3000 ($A5000).
indolent ibis
Researchers provided a flock of lazy and disorientated rare birds with a car and driver because they were incapable of migrating on their own! The group of northern Bald Ibis refused to take their annual 800-km trip to Northern Italy this year, apparently because they were being so well looked after by the researcher.
heart helper
Eating dark chocolate can boost the level of heart-protecting antioxidants in the blood. Dark chocolate contains about twice the amount of antioxidants as milk chocolate, and therefore is the healthier way to go if you’re an enthusiast. But beware; drinking milk at the same time reduces these benefits to nil.
supersonic sale
After more than 30 years mainly on Atlantic crossings, the Concorde has taken its last flight. The last two seats on the final flight (October 24) from New York to London were auctioned for $US60,300 on eBay by the Today show. British Airways was selling one-way seats during the week before the flight for $US7154. A charitable
auction will see memorabilia sold from the Concorde fleet, including a machmeter, a nose cone, crockery and passenger seats. Profits from the sale by British Airways will be donated to a range of charities.
Sources: www.ananova.com
www.newscientist.com www.theage.com.au
“The emotions depend upon the thoughts, and the thoughts upon the emotions,” said Signs cover story of January 12, 1953, adding: ”An emotion is a sort of undercurrrent of mental experience by which the whole body is induced to repond to some unusual circumstance.” Fifty years ago, Signs was presenting a holistic view of health.
Extract from Signs of the Times, December 2005.
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This article comes from a
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