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A natural hormone, shock treatment and marijuana are the basis for three promising new ways to lose weight. An injection of a hormone normally found in our intestines can cut the calories we consume by one-third. “The discovery that the hormone suppresses appetite could be of huge benefit to those struggling with weight problems,” says Stephen Bloom of Imperial College in London. The hormone PYY3-36 is normally released after eating, and the more calories we eat, the more hormone is released. Studies of rats show that the hormone travels to the brain and blocks the activity of neurons that make us hungry.
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Scientists now think it depends on whether you use an older, analog phone or a newer digital model. They?ve decided that the main danger of cellphone use lies with long-term users of first generation analog cell phones, who have up to 80 percent greater risk of developing brain tumors than non-cellphone users. A study of 1,617 Swedish patients diagnosed with brain tumors between 1997 and 2000, compared with a control group without brain tumors, found that those who had used Nordic analog cellphones had a 30 percent higher risk of developing brain tumors than people who hadn?t used them, particularly on the side of the brain that was used during calls. For people using analog phones for more than 10 years, the risk was 80 percent greater.
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The Earth could be entering into an irreversible greenhouse state, meaning there will be no more ice ages in the future. This would end a weather cycle that has taken place on Earth for 2.8 million years. But now, global warming caused by emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases could tip the Earth into a completely new climate state in which cycles of freezing and thawing are switched off.

The two previous instances of global warming lasted about 10,000 years and occurred between ice ages, meaning that the current period of global warming should end naturally soon, since it started more than 10,000 years ago. But Andr

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Tokyo has become so crowded that the accumulated heat from all the human activity is changing local weather patterns. “We are seeing more than just an increase in temperatures,” says Shuhei Akashi, of Japan’s Central Meteorological Agency. “It is changing rain patterns and humidity as well.”

The warming of crowded cities to one or two degrees higher than the surrounding countryside is effecting the weather of cities around the world, from Toronto to Los Angeles to Shanghai. The large number of cars and air conditioners, which pump out hot air and greenhouse gasses, raises temperatures. Computers and other electrical appliances in office buildings add more heat. Asphalt and concrete absorb heat from the sun, while the lack of greenery means less shade.
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