The 12-year-old collected ice samples from five restaurants in South Florida — from both self-serve machines inside the restaurant and from drive-thru windows. She then collected toilet water samples from the same restaurants and tested all of them for bacteria at the University of South Florida.

In several cases, the ice tested positive for E. coli bacteria, which comes from human waste and has been linked to several illness outbreaks across the country.

Source: ABCNews

Is this something new? No, it’s not! Even in Malaysia, almost everybody know the “cleanliness” of the eateries, but people still likes to eat out. Some said it’s good though, to help our immune system build up the body defense system. What do you think? I would rather cook by myself, cheaper and cleaner.

Scientists have found that the tongue has taste receptors for fat, which might explain why we like fried foods.

Conventionally, experts have thought that the tongue detects five tastes – sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami taste for protein rich foods.

But tests on rodents showed a receptor on the tongue tastes fat – it is not known if it is the same for humans.

Source: BBC News

This is an interesting find. I’ve always been wondering, why do we, humans like eating foods which are bad for our health such as fatty foods. Could this be the possible answer? Fish and chips, fried chicken, fried sausages….when you hear the names of such food, you’re salivating, aren’t you?

However, this study is still not conclusive, as it has only been tested on rodents. Bear in mind though, that rodents don’t differ much from human beings in terms of their genetic constituent.

To document the trend, he and colleagues have been randomly examining students and found a disturbing and growing incidence of what is known as noise-induced hearing loss. Usually, it means they’ve lost the ability to hear higher frequencies, evidenced at times by mild ear-ringing or trouble following conversations in noisy situations.

Hearing specialists say they’re also seeing more people in their 30s and 40s — many of them among the first Walkman users — who suffer from more pronounced tinnitus, an internal ringing or even the sound of whooshing or buzzing in the ears.

Source: CNN

I think it’s a very true report. I actually don’t like to listen too much with headphones, my ears get kinda weird after a period of time. And now, if you go to a public place and throw a stone to the crowd, it’s 99% chances you’ll hit someone with an iPod *exaggerating*.. But to be honest, more and more people are wearing headphones/earphones wherever they go.

I prefer to listen more to the sounds of nature, that’s why I seldom wear earphones. Well, at least I know by doing this, I can reduce the chances of hearing loss. I hope you’ll do the same too, listen to the sounds of nature!

“In the future,” Meinke says, “I hope people will wear ear plugs the same as they wear their bike helmets or wear a seat belt.”

Let’s hope this will not become true.

Further reading

Even the most ignorant cannot know less than nothing. After all, negative knowledge makes no sense. But, although this may be true in the everyday world we are accustomed to, it has been discovered that negative knowledge does exist in the quantum world of very small things.

Source: Link

Can you know less than nothing? It’s like, if I tell you something, your knowledge becomes less than before. Wow, really difficult to understand! Well, that’s quantum theory.

Read more on the link if you’re interested.

Link