A surprising reason! – Most of us realize that a high-priced item creates the impression that it’s better than the same thing bought at a lower price, despite the fact that advertising tries to create the opposite impression. It turns out placebos work the same way.
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Hurricane season is returning soon, and researchers at the University of Colorado have predicted that there will be four major hurricanes this season. The predictions do not suggest where they might make landfall, but it is expected to be an intense season because of the effect of Pacific cooling caused by the active La Nina formation in the central Pacific, and unusually warm waters in the south Atlantic.
When La Nina conditions exist in the Pacific and the south Atlantic is warm, as it is now, Atlantic hurricanes can be especially strong. The record for hurricane formation is 2005, when 28 tropical storms and hurricanes formed in the Atlantic. Last year, there were 14 tropical storms, six of which became hurricanes.
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Fish is an extraordinarily healthy food, but many of us are nervous about eating it, because of mercury?and other kinds?of contamination. Which fish?if any?are safe to eat? This may soon be a moot point, since recent fish shortages mean that there soon may not be many fish LEFT TO EAT. For the first time in 150 years, fishermen on the West Coast will not be allowed to fish for salmon.
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The great fear about bird flu is that the virus will mutate, so that it can pass between humans (the way regular flu does) and not just between poultry and people. A father in China has been diagnosed with bird flu that he probably caught from his sick son. But this MAY be because they share the same genes!
Researchers note that the other cases of suspected person-to-person transmission have also been between blood relatives, leading them to suspect that some people may have a genetic susceptibility to bird flu. BBC News quotes virology expert Wendy Barclay as saying, “The experience here reinforces the idea that there are still several barriers the virus must overcome before it acquires human transmissibility.”
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