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You may be able to blame some of your unhealthy habits on our genes. Everyone has one of two genes that cause them to either taste, or not taste, a certain bitter substance. The ability to taste these substances developed long ago, to protect people living in places where bitter tastes were a way to identify poisons. Today, the ability to taste?or not taste?that compound influences what people eat and even whether they become smokers.
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A superbug is bacteria that evolves inside hospitals to beresistant to the latest antibiotics. The danger is not onlyto the patient who has it, but to the other patients in thehospital as well. And if it gets into the outside world, itcould sweep through the population until?and if?a newantibiotic can be created that can destroy it. A newsuperbug has been discovered among wounded soldiers in Iraq.

William Cole writes in the Honolulu Advertiser about ClaudeBoushey, a soldier who had surgery in Germany after ahelicopter crash to insert a titanium rod into his left leg.He found out he tested positive for the superbugAcinetobacter baumanii. Boushey says, “I was kind of alarmed. I was like, what is it? It took me aweek just to pronounce it.”
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Global warming will eventually change the areas whereagriculture thrives, as well as the kinds of crops that aregrown. In big countries, the change will happen gradually,once farmers and the government accept the idea that weatherchanges are here to stay. But a small country like Cuba hashad to make drastic changes already.

In Cuba, tropical storms have been alternating with droughtand this has caused farmers to switch to heartier crops.They’re growing varieties of plants that have resistance todrought and they also need crops that can resist the highwinds of tropical storms, since recent storms have destroyedstanding crops.
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Want to lose weight? Get enough sleep. Instead of spendingan hour a day jogging, new research shows that if you spendthat time in bed, your diet is more likely to be a success.

Leptin, a chemical released during sleep, controls body fatby letting us know we’re full. Lack of sleep also affectsthe hormones which help burn off calories during the day.

Researchers followed 500 adults, aged 27 to 40, for 13years, and found that their average sleep times declinedfrom 7.7 hours to 7.3 hours for women, and from 7.1 hours to6.9 hours for men. They put on an average of five poundsduring that time, and those who gain the most were the oneswho slept the least.
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