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If you love loud music, watch out: it can cause your lungsto collapse.

Doctors have discovered several cases where fans of loudmusic had their lungs collapse. One man was listening to aloud “boom box” radio while driving his car, when heexperienced breathlessness and chest pain. In the secondcase, a man experienced sudden severe pain in the left sideof this chest while standing next to a loud speaker in aclub. A third man got a collapsed lung while attending arock concert, where he stood near several large loud speakers.
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When Thomas Butler noticed vials of plague bacteria weremissing from his Texas Tech University lab, he informed theFBI?and was put in jail for doing it. “I’ve sat down withTom’s children,” says his attorney Jonathan Turley. “I’vetried to explain what has happened to their father, but Ican’t. It’s about as rational as getting hit by alocomotive.”
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Chinese characters are so complex that it seems likeeveryone there would be dyslexic. However, despite having tomemorize 6,000 different characters, only about 7% ofChinese children have dyslexia, compared with as many as 15%in the U.S. This may be because the languages are processedin different parts of the brain.

Chinese schoolchildren with dyslexia have problems in adifferent brain region than children using alphabet-basedlanguages like English. However, it does appear to beinherited, so the same genes are probably responsiblewhether a child reads English or Chinese. It can also resultfrom brain injury before birth.
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A new report from the European Environment Agency saysEuropean winters will disappear by 2080 unless globalwarming slows down there. This may be why global warming isin the headlines in the U.K. and Europe, while it’s hardlycommented on in the U.S. press.

Gaia Vince writes in New Scientist that Europe is warmingmore quickly than the rest of the world and has moreheatwaves, floods, rising sea levels and melting glaciers.The EEA’s Jacqueline McGlade says, “What the report shows isthat, if we go on as we are, we have less than 50 yearsbefore we encounter conditions which will be uncharted andpotentially hazardous.”

This may be why, while neither Presidential candidate isemphasizing global warming,TonyBlair has made a statement saying, “Time is running out.”read more