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POPSMy Resignation As An Adult I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, dreams, the imagination, the Tooth Fairy, a kiss that makes a boo-boo go away, making angels in the snow, and that my dad and G-d are the strongest people in the world. There are a few more at the source. . :)
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POPSThe Girls 'Sexualised' At Age Of Five Researcher Dr Eileen Zurbriggen said that girls as young at four are at risk. "The consequences of the sexualisation of girls in media today are very real and are likely to be a negative influence on girls' healthy development," she said. "As a society, we need to replace all these sexualised images with ones showing girls in positive settings. "The goal should be to deliver messages to all adolescents - boy and girls - that lead to healthy sexual development." Michele Elliot, of child protection charity Kidscape, said: "Bratz dolls are little sexualised creatures which give the wrong message to kids. "Let them be kids. We have got children of 12, 13 and 14 who are ashamed that they haven't had sex yet. They think sex is the be all and end all." A spokesman for Bratz said that children see the dolls as being pretty rather than sexy.
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POPS The Execution Of A Teenage Girl CRUELTY OF SHARIA LAW PENALTIES imposed by Iran's religious mullahs include: THEFT: Amputation of hands or feet for persistent offenders. sion, death. ADULTERY: Death by stoning. UNMARRIED SEX: 100 lashes. CONVERSION TO RELIGION OTHER THAN ISLAM: Death. SODOMY: Death for adults, 74 lashes for consenting child. LESBIANISM: 100 lashes, or on the fourth occasion death. HOMOSEXUAL KISS: 60 lashes. RUBBING ANOTHER MAN'S THIGHS OR BUTTOCKS: 99 lashes - on 4th occasion, death.
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POPS10 Things you might be better off not knowing! The average male foot exudes half a pint of sweat each day. A person will pass about 11,000 gallons of urine in a lifetime. A man weighing 200lb would provide enough meat to feed 100 cannibals in one sitting.
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POPSSchizophrenia: The Curse That's Almost a Blessing
A recent study may have found what kind of process goes awry in schizophrenic brains. Researchers found that DISC1 regulates the migration of new neurons in the adult brain. When the levels of DISC1 were reduced in mice during adult neurogenesis, the newborn neurons sped up and overshot their intended targets within the hippocampus, When the neurons finally reached their destinations, they forged an unusual number of connections with neighboring cells, a series of events that might give rise to the abnormal—and quite crippling—brain functions associated with schizophrenia, according to Hongjun Song, a Johns Hopkins neurologist who also worked on the study. It is possible, Song says, that further research will lead to a drug that treats schizophrenia by restoring normal neurogenesis. So what evolutionary advantage could schizophrenia-related genes bring to people who have some of the genes but not the disease? For now, this remains one of the many open questions.
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POPSWhy you never see a baby pigeon It seems that the babies don't leave the nest until they look very similar to adult pigeons. We probably do see babies, but we can't recognize them.
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POPSYour Bi-Lingual Kitty "It’s kind of nice to think your kitty has gone to the effort to learn a second language to communicate with you. Sure, she did it mostly out of necessity, but also out of affection. She wouldn’t meow just for your attention if she didn’t enjoy a relationship with you."
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POPSAlgorithmic Inelegance Life is a collection of kludges taped together by chance and filtered by selection for functionality; it all works magnificently well, but if you look under the hood you are simultaneously appalled by the sheer inelegance of the molecular gemisch and impressed with the accumulation of complexity.