On:

Behind closed doors, many of us are seeing the value of our investments and retirement plans wrecked. We are seeing our jobs become insecure or losing our jobs. Many of us are losing our homes. And ALL of us are stressed! There have even been some suicides, as people discover that the new bankruptcy laws, created by the same banks that are now failing us and pushed through congress by the awful Tom DeLay, make starting fresh all but impossible.

This offering from the Menninger clinic provides some excellent and down-to-earth advice about how to bear this stress.
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On:

Smoking and drinking?they go together and they’re both worse for women.

When it comes to alcohol, the dividing line between a little and a lot depends on many things, including sex. Women are more vulnerable than men to alcohol?s long-term effects. Exposure to smoke more quickly leads to cancer in women as well.

Women break down alcohol more slowly than men do. If a woman and a man drink identical glasses of wine with the same meal, she will have a higher blood level of alcohol, and for a longer time. This means her tissues are exposed to more alcohol per drink than a man’s.
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It’s not just birds that are ending up in the wrong places due to global warming?it’s SPIDERS too, and some of them can be dangerous?for our crops and (in some cases) for US, since some of these spiders can BITE!

In BBC News, Rebecca Morelle quotes John Partridge of the British Arachnological Society as saying that his organization has had an increase in the number of enquiries about “strange spiders.” According to Partridge, “We are certainly getting more spiders coming into the UK – and it seems that more are spreading around the country once they are in.”
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On:

Countries (including the US) are vying to set up colonies on the moon. But once they get there, they’re going to have to build shelters.

Researcher Houssam Toutanji has developed the concept of creating concrete structures on the lunar surface without the use of water. Traditional concrete consists of cement and water mixed with aggregates. While some parts of the Moon may have water, that resource may be more valuable for astronaut?s consumption rather than building structures. But his research shows that those astronauts can turn to a new type of waterless concrete that uses lunar soil as the aggregate and sulfur as a binding agent.
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