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Coffee Can Break Your DNA!

So many studies say coffee is hurting you or coffee is helping you… everyone wants something out of coffee, but all it wants to do is give! Howdy hot brown water hawkers, Trace here for DNews. Scientists have again, and again, and again tried to find out what coffee is doing to the human body. A study in Scientific Reports lays out nicely, coffee consumption has been linked to protective effects on various common pathologies such as cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, type 2 diabetes, some types of cancer, and hearing functions, and it may predispose to others such as sleep disturbance. Whew. Scientists have been studying coffee since the 1960s, and a 1972 study in Cell's Biophysical Journal tried to find out exactly what it was doing to our cells, noting caffeine binds to broken DNA, and that if it's present during the formation of new DNA, it can cause breaks in chromosomes (which is why we've long known pregnant humans sh...

Why People Get Naked Before Freezing To Death

Getting naked is usually great .. But not this time What's up guys I'm Sapna here for DNews. In the movie Everest that came out in 2015.. kind of a spoiler alert but not really and the movie is based on a true story... but anyway… so towards the end of the movie .. one of the guys who was stuck at the top of Mount Everest overnight in the bitter cold starts to rip off his coat and outer layers. That might seem super weird but it's actually a documented phenomenon unofficially called paradoxical undressing. The reason it's called “paradoxical undressing” is because stripping down while you're freezing to death is the exact opposite of what we should instinctively do to protect ourselves from the cold! But it happens to some people during extreme stages of hypothermia. Hypothermia is when the body temperature dips to dangerously low levels-- below 95 degrees Fahrenheit A study by German researchers in the International Journal of Legal Medicine looked at 69 cases o...

The Ten Most Livable Cities In The World

Every year, the Economist Intelligence Unit releases its ranking of the “most livable cities” in the world. Therein, they attempt to quantify what exactly makes living in a city better or worse. It generally breaks down into five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. So, what are the world's most livable cities? Well, in fact, the top seven cities actually comprise just three countries, with six countries total in the top ten. Although it is not true everywhere, countries with effective policies tend to see positive effects country-wide. However, many major cities around the world can actually be victims of their own success. Cities like New York City or London are world renown, but also have higher crime rates, overpopulation leading to infrastructure failure, and often much higher costs of living. The cities in this list are able to avoid those pitfalls. The top ranked city in the world is Melbourne Australia, a title it has...

Could The Silent Majority Win The Election For Trump?

With the 2016 Presidential race coming to a close, we've heard a lot from supporters of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but there is one group we haven't heard from. Early in Trump's campaign, he said “the silent majority is back” and many have pointed to this silent majority as the driving force behind Trump's rise in the past year. So, what exactly is the silent majority and how will these voters impact the election? Well, the term was popularized by President Richard Nixon shortly after he took office in 1969. Enormous demonstrations against the War in Vietnam were taking place around the country, and the youth were extremely vocal and visible. But in his speech, Nixon called on the “silent majority” who agreed with him on a slower withdrawal from Vietnam. However they remained silent because of societal pressure from the comparatively outspoken 1960's anti-war counterculture. Nonetheless, this silent majority undoubtedly existed, and in fact helped Nixon wi...

What Are The Best Universities In The World?

Harvard and Yale are often referred to as “the best of the best”. But when it comes to the highest ranked universities, these and other Ivy League schools don't even make it into the top five. So what are the world's best universities? Well, according to an index by the Times Higher Education, Stanford ranks 3rd in the world. Most people associate Stanford with tech-capital Silicon Valley, which is where the school is located. And in fact, it's largely because of Stanford that the region is now the global capital of entrepreneurship and technology. In the 1940's and 50's the university heavily encouraged students and faculty to start their own companies, eventually leading to companies like Google and Snapchat. And still today, the school is known to produce some of the most successful entrepreneurs. A Stanford degree is in extremely high demand, and the school maintains the lowest acceptance rate in the country, admitting less than 5 percent of applicants. Much ...

Hard vs. Soft Water: What's The Difference?

Hard or Soft? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW? THEY BOTH LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME! Hey there, Sapna here for Dnews. From the outside, all water is seemingly the same: clear, mostly flavorless, two hydrogens, one oxygen. But once you get past the basics, water is actually pretty versatile. It can be distilled, filtered, tap, bottled, and if you're real fancy, there's water marketed as kosher, organic or kabbalah. But did you know water can also be hard or soft? No, this isn't to describe how the water actually feels. It actually has to do with its mineral content. Water becomes ‘hard' when it has a higher than normal concentration of minerals, primarily calcium and magnesium. Water picks up these minerals from rocks and soil as it flows through rivers, wells or other waterways. Soft water, on the other hand, has a low mineral content, either because it has not yet flowed through rocks or wells - like rain water - or because the rocks it has come in contact with have little to no...

Weed, Guns & Minimum Wage: What Else Is The U.S. Voting On?

We've heard a lot about the presidential candidates in this election, but few people are talking about arguably the second most important vote many will be making on election day. State propositions, which voters can use to change state law directly. Certain important issues have cropped up in multiple states, and may even end up changing federal law. So we wanted to know, what are the most controversial 2016 ballot trends? One of the most attention-getting issues this year is recreational marijuana, the US's most popular illicit drug. Five states have ballot initiatives that could legalize the drug. If passed, California, Nevada, Arizona, Massachusetts and Maine will join the weed-legal Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and the District of Columbia. The major player in this scenario is California. The state has the sixth largest economy in the world with a GDP of nearly $2.5 trillion dollars and it commands 55 seats in Congress. Should marijuana be completely legalized, it...