The human brain is the most amazing and baffling organ of our body, as well as the source of many mysteries. Although the human brain makes only 2 percent of our body weight it has over 100,000 miles of blood vessels! It’s the source of every pain we feel, and yet it doesn’t have any pain sensors inside! The brain develops at the rate of 250,000 neurons per minute in early pregnancy! Check out some unbelievable facts about the most fascinating structure of the world, the human brain:
You know what’s great? Dancing. Chimichangas. Floating on your back in a pool on a cloudless summer evening, when the sky turns from blue to pink and gold and burnt orange. Puppies wearing sweaters. Cold beer. A full season of your favorite TV show. Notably absent from this list? How about snorting a condom.
The “condom challenge” could suggest a number of potentially fun and intriguing feats, but, alas, it means nothing more than snorting a clean condom up one’s nose and pulling it out through one’s mouth, then posting a video on YouTube for all the world to see.
But while the trend has gained a lot of online traction this month, it’s actually been around for years. [A Note on the Obvious: The videos I’m linking to are of young people snorting condoms through their noses. If this is something you do not want to see, do not click on them.] This video, for example, was uploaded in June of 2007. The trend is also not exclusive to the U.S. by any means. Here are two girls from the U.K. participating in the challenge.
“We’re happy free confused and lonely at the same time / It’s miserable and magical oh yeah / Tonight’s the night when we forget about the deadlines, it’s time uh uh / I don’t know about you but im feeling 22.”
In the video, the young woman unwraps the condom, marveling at its ability to stretch. Then, cautiously she sticks the end of the condom into her nose, her eyes fixed on some far-off point. “This feels so weird,” she says. She takes a tentative sniff, then another, the latex sliding up with surprising ease. At first, she’s concerned. “Maybe I shouldn’t be doi–” But the moment is fleeting. The camera looks on, an unblinking eye, as she relaxes and snorts the filmy latex sleeve up her nasal cavity. It tastes of plastic, of spermicide. It tastes like page views. But then — whoa. The thing slides down, into her mouth. She says she feels a brief tinge of fear, a cold sweat forming at the base of her neck, threatening to curl the hair she’d meticulously ironed before setting up her laptop camera. But the mind is a beautiful thing, capable of more than we can ever hope. It “blanks at the glare,” and with sightless eyes and muted tongue, she snorts, harder, and then… And then it’s done. She’s done it.
So, anyway.
Like the cinnamon challenge and the knife game before it, the condom challenge is best left to no one. Or perhaps seasoned carnival performers. Of course, if you want to get in on the trend and , you know, risk death in the process, you can always film a reaction video.
President Barack Obama joked Saturday about his plans for a radical second-term evolution from “strapping young Socialist” to retiree golfer, all with a new hairstyle like first lady Michelle’s.
Obama used this year’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to poke fun at himself and some of his political adversaries, asking if it was still possible to be brought down a peg after 4½ years as commander-in-chief.
Entering to the rap track “All I Do Is Win” by DJ Khaled, Obama joked about how re-election would allow him to unleash a radical agenda. But then he showed a picture of himself golfing on a mock magazine cover of “Senior Leisure.”
“I’m not the strapping young Socialist that I used to be,” the president remarked, and then recounted his recent 2-for-22 basketball shooting performance at the White House Easter Egg hunt.
But Obama’s most dramatic shift for the next four years appeared to be aesthetic. He presented a montage of shots featuring him with bangs similar to those sometimes sported by his wife.
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Talk about a slam dunk!After five years of dating, former NBA star Michael Jordan, 50, and his model-fiancée, Yvette Prieto, 35, made it official with a wedding in Palm Beach, Fla., on Saturday.
About 500 people arriving by tour buses piled into an Episcopal church called Bethesda-by-the Sea, where Donald Trump was married to Melania in 2005.
Jordan invited another 1,500 to join them for the reception at the Bears Club, a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course community in Jupiter, Fla., where Jordan recently built a 38,000-square-foot home.
“They’ve been planning for months and months,” says a source of the nuptials. “He wanted to give Yvette everything she’s ever wanted.”
Jordan, now the owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, proposed over the Christmas holidays in 2011. They applied for their wedding license in March at the Palm Beach County courthouse.
On Friday afternoon, they were spotted attending their rehearsal at the church.
Prieto, 35, met Jordan at a Miami nightclub in 2008.
This is the second marriage for the Chicago Bulls legend. He and his first wife Juanita Vanoy divorced in 2006 after 17 years of marriage, and the couple have three grown children together.
James Everett Dutschke stands in the street near his home in Tupelo, Miss., and waits for the FBI to arrive and search his home in connection with the sending of poisoned letters to President Barack Obama and others on April 23, 2013.(Thomas Wells, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journa/AP Photo)
The FBI has arrested and charged a Mississippi man whose home and business were searched in connection with the investigation into the ricin-tainted letters sent to the president as well as other government officials last week.
FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden confirmed to ABC News that James Everett Dutschke, 41, of Tupelo, Miss., was arrested, without incident, at his home early Saturday morning in connection with the poisonous letters.
Dutschke was charged with knowingly developing, producing, stockpiling, transferring, acquiring, retaining and possessing a biological agent, toxin and delivery system, for use as a weapon and with attempting, threatening and conspiring to do the same, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney Office for the Northern District of Mississippi.
If convicted, Dutschke could face life in prison, a $250,000 fine, and five years of supervised release, the news release stated.
Dutschke is due to appear in U.S. District Court in Oxford, Miss., on April 29.
Dutschke’s arrest comes after the release and dismissal of charges against Paul Kevin Curtis, of Corinth, Miss., who was arrested a day after a letter laced with the poison was discovered addressed to Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. A second letter was intercepted before it reached President Obama and a third letter was mailed to Sadie Holland, a justice of the peace in Lee County, Miss.
Dutschke’s home was searched on Tuesday by federal agents after the charges against Curtis were dropped. Curtis had said that Dutschke has had a long-running conflict with him.
While officials contended that the signatures on the letters matched that of Curtis’ online postings and other letters he had mailed, at a bond hearing on Monday, FBI investigators admitted that there was no physical evidence that Curtis had sent ricin, a poison made from ground castor beans, to the officials. Curtis’s attorney, Christi McCoy, called for his release.
START TIME: 27th April 11:00am
Live from Mt. Irvine Bay
CTV time on air: 11:00am
Jazz on the Beach series is hosted at Mt. Irvine Bay, featuring Arturo Tappin, Etienne Charles and Kaiso, NJ30 from Barbados and Errol Ince Group Click here to access live feed on the day
Katrina Tisdale (pictured) was arrested and charged on Monday with misusing 911, when she reportedly called twice so she could get a refund from her drug dealer, reports the Smoking Gun.
When St. Petersburg, Fla., resident allegedly purchased drugs from her unnamed female drug dealer, she spent her last $50 on cocaine and marijuana only to realize that she’d be penniless until her next social security disability check arrived.
According to published reports, Tisdale tried to get her last $50 back, but was entirely unsuccessful, so she allegedly resorted to calling police to see if they could exercise some form of bully tactics to get her money back.
But when Tisdale revealed her whereabouts to the 911 dispatcher, officers arrived at her location and put cuffs on her. The 47-year-old woman was then taken to the Pinellas County jail, where she is currently being held on a $100 bond.
Meanwhile, Tisdale’s latest scrape with the law isn’t the first. She has been arrested on numerous occasions over the last few years, with six of them being cocaine possession-related.
Apparently, Tisdale has a peculiar affinity for using 911 to report incidents that could be categorized as idiotic. Case in point, in a mid-2011 conviction, she told police that she had been robbed by her drug dealer.
START TIME: 26th April 7:15pm
Live from Pigeon Point Heritage Park, Tobago
CTV time on air: 7:15pm
World Music Night occurs amidst the flora and fauna of the scenic Pigeon Point Heritage Park. Grammy Award winner Melanie Fiona, iTunes album of the year winner Liane La Havas, Bunji, Fay-Ann & Asylum Click here to access live feed on the day
5-year-old Gus Dorman has already memorized the periodic table of elements. (Photo courtesy of Robert Dorman)
Most parents believe their child is the smartest kid in the class, but when Robert Dorman says this, he’s likely right.
His son, 5-year-old Gus Dorman, with an IQ of 147, became one of the youngest members admitted to Mensa, the exclusive high IQ society.
Now in kindergarten, Gus is already reading such books as “Charlotte’s Web,” while his classmates work on mastering the ABCs.
For fun, Gus memorizes the periodic table and a world map. And sometimes he corrects his father on geography.
“He got into an argument with me because I told him that the capital of Alaska is Anchorage,” said Dorman. “But it’s not, it’s Juneau.”
Dorman first noticed Gus’ advanced intelligence when he started to potty train his son at 18-months. Gus started to bring a newspaper to read on the toilet, and was also reading his father’s copies of “Wired” magazine.
Since Gus was their first child, Dorman and his wife, Kotomi, simply thought this was how all children acted.
“We didn’t realize he was gifted,” said Dorman. “We just thought he was like all kids.”
On a camping trip with another family, Gus read the slogan off a fellow camper’s clothing. The family friend was stunned that at age 4 Gus could read, even though her 5-year-old daughter was still learning the alphabet.
“She said, ‘He can read?’ He shouldn’t be able to read,” recalled Dorman of the family friend’s reaction. “I said, ‘He reads all the time. We brought books [on the trip.]‘”
Dorman decided it was time to take his son to get an IQ test, hoping that he might qualify for an out-of-state gifted program.
Gus scored within the 99th percentile in nearly all categories of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, which qualified him for Mensa, whose members must have an IQ of at least 135; Gus’ IQ was 12 points higher than that.
Despite Gus’ high IQ, his father said his son had problems when he started school. Gus would get restless when it came to learning addition or the alphabet. According to Dorman, Gus was already on multiplication and long division.
“He goes to kindergarten, and he likes going to school [but] he gets in trouble,” said Dorman. “He really has a hard time sitting there and listening to low-concept stories, because he’s used to being able to ask questions and do research.”
Dorman has lobbied his school district to provide special advanced education for his son. But Dorman said it’s unlikely Gus would receive special treatment.
“I know there’s no money for gifted programs in Illinois,” he said.
Dorman hopes that Gus will at least qualify for a school for the gifted that provides supplemental online courses through the eighth grade.
“As parents we’re lost,” said Dorman of Gus’ school options. “I don’t think homeschooling is the way to go. He needs the camaraderie in the social portion of school. The books are one thing, but you have to have the social part too.”
For now Dorman said he’s happy to teach his son what he can about Gus’ newest interests, black holes and astrophysics.
NEW HAVEN — A screening test performed on a newborn’s placenta can help determine the risk of that child developing autism, according to research at the Yale School of Medicine reported today.
Knowing that there is a high risk of autism in a newborn child gives the parents a chance to watch for signs of the disorder and to use techniques that could reduce symptoms, according to Dr. Harvey Kliman, the senior author of the study, which is published in today’s online issue of Biological Psychiatry.
“We know that early intervention has a very significant impact on these children,” Kliman said. “From my point of view, because the prevalence (of autism) is one in 50 now … I think that everybody should be screened.”
Kliman, research scientist in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at the medical school, had studied a phenomenon of abnormal folding of placental cells, and saw a connection to disorders of the brain. The latest study confirms more strongly than ever that the cellular abnormalities are a marker for autism, and possibly other brain-related disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive and attention-deficit disorders.
“This is an abnormal structure that only can be seen at the microscopic level. It can only be done after delivery,” Kliman said. “The brain is extremely sensitive to abnormal folding. It’s the most folded organ in the body.”
Since the placenta is discarded, there is no harm in studying its cells, but any abnormalities would appear in every cell, Kliman said.
In the study reported today, researchers from Yale and the MIND Institute at the University of California at Davis examined placentas of 117 newborns whose families already had a child with autism, putting them at higher risk of having a second such child, and compared them with 100 placentas from newborns in families without such a risk.
The results were dramatic: the at-risk placentas were likely to have as many as 15 of the abnormal folds, while the control placentas had no more than two. More than four such abnormalities indicates that the child is almost certainly in the at-risk group, meaning he or she is nine times more likely to have autism, Kliman said. “The actual outcomes of the children won’t be known for at least a year from now,” he said.
Now, family history is the only way to determine whether there is a chance of a child developing autism, Kliman said. Testing placental cells “gives us a tool to identify those children who are at risk at birth, way before any other modality. … I view this as the check-engine light for pregnancy.”
When Chris Sullivan became pregnant with her daughter, Dania, she was a counselor in Moorsville, N.C., who saw families with autistic children. Her clients would ask if there were a way to detect the disorder early. Continued…
The brothers Tsarnaev had plans to drive to New York in their carjacked Mercedes and explode their remaining bombs last Thursday, but their plans went off track when the owner of the car they stole made an escape, the New York City mayor said Thursday.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the information came to the attention of investigators during the interrogation of 19-year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who had at first said the plan was to go to New York to “party” but then changed his story in an interview 24 hours later. At that time Tsarnaev allegedly acknowledged that he and his brother planned a follow-up attack. The brothers had six unexploded devices with them as they tried to flee, Boston Police sources said.
“We were informed by the FBI that the surviving attacker revealed that NYC was next on the list of targets he told the FBI apparently that he and his brother had planned to drive to NY and detonate additional explosives in Time Square, they had built these additional explosives and we know they had the capacity to carry out the attacks,” Bloomberg said at a press conference Thursday.
“The fact is NYC remains a prime target for those who hate America and want to kill Americans the attacks in boston and the news that NYC was next on the list shows just how critical it is for the federal government to devote high risk areas,” he said.
Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the brothers had a pressure cooker bomb similar to those detonating during the attacks on the Boston Marathon, as well as five pipe bombs.
Law enforcement officials also tell ABC News they are preparing to move the accused Boston Marathon bomber from his hospital room to a secured medical facility in one of the region’s prisons, sources tell ABC News.
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