Kenny Markiewicz of Duluth had just stepped into what looked like a regular puddle when he was sucked into a hidden sewer. 'I thought I had lost you!' he cried, when he was finally reunited with his mother.
Society's Child
© flickr/noii
In a surprising contrast with patterns seen in the US and Europe, the highest rates of suicide were found amongst young, wealthy and educated Indians, the authors wrote in "Suicide mortality in India: a nationally representative survey". Females were also more likely to kill themselves than males, the reverse of what researchers usually find.
Quite why that contrast exists is hard to say. Writing in the Indian newspaper the Hindu, lead author Vikram Patel of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine theorized:
One possibility is that the higher rates of suicide in the more developed and educated communities of India may be attributed to the greater likelihood of disappointments when aspirations that define success and happiness are distorted or unmet by the reality faced by young people in a rapidly changing society where jobs may be higher paying but less secure and where social networking more accessible but loneliness more common.Crucially, there's a large difference between suicide rates in different regions, and that points to the role of social factors contributing to suicides, Patel told the Times of India.
The study found that despite claiming a larger percentage of deaths than AIDS or maternal deaths, suicide was rarely talked about in Indian society, and also recommended restricting access to pesticides, which many people use to kill themselves.
Canada, Quebec - A private girls' school has learned a lesson of its own - don't hypnotize your students.
Officials at the College du Sacre-Coeur in Sherbrooke, Que., explained today that they didn't know 14-year-olds were more susceptible to hypnosis than other people when they booked an end-of-year hypnotism act to entertain students.
But the act went awry and one girl was left in a four-hour trance after the show by the young hypnotist, who had to bring in his mentor to snap people back to normal.
Five other students were in a daze and 13 students reported feeling nausea and headaches after the act.
Daniel Leveille, the school's director-general, said there were no long-lasting ill effects following the performance and everyone is back to their old selves.
Officials at the College du Sacre-Coeur in Sherbrooke, Que., explained today that they didn't know 14-year-olds were more susceptible to hypnosis than other people when they booked an end-of-year hypnotism act to entertain students.
But the act went awry and one girl was left in a four-hour trance after the show by the young hypnotist, who had to bring in his mentor to snap people back to normal.
Five other students were in a daze and 13 students reported feeling nausea and headaches after the act.
Daniel Leveille, the school's director-general, said there were no long-lasting ill effects following the performance and everyone is back to their old selves.
© dundanim, Shutterstock
Why do people become confused, agitated and violent and then suddenly drop dead? A new case report suggests so-called excited delirium may be the missing piece of the puzzle.
Why do people become confused, agitated and violent and then suddenly drop dead? A new case report suggests so-called excited delirium may be the missing piece of the puzzle.
Police reports indicated the man was "acting very strange," "agitated," "babbling" and "yelling and sweating profusely," according to a case report published online June 4 in the Journal of Emergency Medicine. Essentially, the man was in a state of what doctors call "excited delirium."
The attending physician at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., found that in addition to delirium, the man was suffering from Long QT syndrome, a heart-rhythm disorder that can cause fast, erratic heartbeats. In some cases the erratic heartbeats persist so long they lead to sudden death, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The man was successfully treated with fluids and sodium bicarbonate for his symptoms.
As such, the police may have saved the man's life, as well as shed some light on a weird phenomenon in which individuals die suddenly after a display of confusion and delirium (and often after being subdued by police, making the headlines). Perhaps some of these deaths are caused by the abnormal heart condition, compounded by excited delirium, Dr. William Bozeman, an emergency medicine physician at Wake Forest Baptist, said in a statement.
It's been described as one of the largest disciplinary actions in the history of the Transportation Security Administration. After a two-month investigation, the TSA fired five workers and suspended more than three dozen others at Southwest Florida International Airport. Now, two of the fired supervisors are fighting back.
The two-month TSA investigation found dozens of security agents at Southwest Florida International Airport were not following security procedures.
While all bags were screened, the random screenings weren't done.
Roy Foxall represents two of the five TSA supervisors facing discipline.
© ABC
Organ traffickers continue to exploit poor people around the world.
Organ traffickers continue to exploit poor people around the world.
The latest estimates show that organ traffickers are exploiting poor people in China, India and Pakistan to cash in on the rising international demand for replacement kidneys.
Professor Jeremy Chapman, past President of the Transplantation Society, says that much of the demand for organs comes from citizens of developed countries.
"People feel a great pressure here, and in other developed countries in the world, where almost all around the world the needs for transplantation are not completely met by our ability to find organ donors," Professor Chapman told the ABC.
Now, she's in the fight of her life against cancer and faces one of the biggest travesties of all: no health insurance.
Susan's life took another drastic turn in 1989 when her father, a 30-year veteran and decorated Chicago police detective, murdered her mother, Roberta, with his department-issued service revolver - a .44 magnum - then took his own life. Susan vowed to, for the rest of her life, speak for the victims of domestic violence - what she has termed "intimate partner violence" - to give them a voice and the tools to survive.
Susan, diagnosed in early June with stage IV cancer, isn't unlike many Americans who find themselves in similar circumstances without adequate medical coverage. Besides being pricey, the variations of coverage often don't pay the cost of treatment. According to a 2010 survey by the Center for Disease Control, 46 million Americans are without health insurance. One person, by my way of thinking, is too many.
© tneel.uic.edu
The study, "Stagnating Life Expectancies and Future Prospects in an Age of Uncertainty," used time-series analysis to evaluate historical data on U.S. mortality from the Human Mortality Database. The study authors reviewed data from 1930 through 2000 to identify trends in mortality over time and forecast life expectancy to the year 2055. Their research will be published in an upcoming issue of Social Science Quarterly.
© Gene J. Puskar / AP
Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky leaves the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa., Wednesday, June 20, 2012.
Former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky leaves the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pa., Wednesday, June 20, 2012.
A lawyer for Matt Sandusky said the man told authorities that the former Penn State assistant football coach abused him.
Matt Sandusky is one of Jerry Sandusky's six adopted children.
His lawyers, Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici, issued a statement on Thursday naming Matt Sandusky and saying that the 33-year-old had been prepared to testify on behalf of prosecutors at his father's sex abuse trial.
The statement says Matt Sandusky is 'a victim of Jerry Sandusky's abuse,' but doesn't go into specifics.
NBC News reported that Matt Sandusky was to take the stand as a 'rebuttal witness' if Jerry Sandusky testified.
New research from Microsoft suggests that email scammers maximise profits by entrapping only the most gullible.
Machine learning expert and Microsoft researcher Cormac Herley suggests in a paper released yesterday that "by sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select."
Herley's reasoning is that scammers have to go to a lot of effort to successfully extract money from their victims. "At the interface between the digital and physical worlds effort must often be spent," he writes. "Each respondent to a Nigerian 419 [advance fee fraud] email requires a large amount of interaction...each potential target represents an investment decision."
The most profitable way to earn money through email scams, Hurley finds, is to only invest in those targets most likely to pay out, rather than maximising the number of targets "attacked". This is why 419 emails contain fabulous stories that most people find laughable - or that savvy internet users will see through with a quick search or based on their experience.
© Morburre via Wikimedia
Please Fax Us Your Account Number!
Please Fax Us Your Account Number!
Herley's reasoning is that scammers have to go to a lot of effort to successfully extract money from their victims. "At the interface between the digital and physical worlds effort must often be spent," he writes. "Each respondent to a Nigerian 419 [advance fee fraud] email requires a large amount of interaction...each potential target represents an investment decision."
The most profitable way to earn money through email scams, Hurley finds, is to only invest in those targets most likely to pay out, rather than maximising the number of targets "attacked". This is why 419 emails contain fabulous stories that most people find laughable - or that savvy internet users will see through with a quick search or based on their experience.
