Rueban Kumar has been wanting to fix his misaligned teeth for years. However, he found metal braces to be too much of a hassle. Clear aligners, on the other hand, which are virtually invisible when worn, cost up to $7,000, and were outside his budget.

So when he came across Zenyum, a Singapore-based start-up promising straighter teeth with clear aligners for just a third of the cost, Kumar decided to give it a try.

“When I signed up, Zenyum was still pretty new and I had my reservations,” said the 27 year-old, who works as an office administrator in Singapore. “But the staff were forthcoming and open … I was very happy with the service.”

Thanks to Zenyum, within just six months, Kumar completed his treatment and now he has the straight teeth that he always wanted.

Kumar is part of the demographic that clear aligner start-ups such as Zenyum are hoping to target – consumers who want to make cosmetic corrections to their teeth, but are unwilling to fork out large sums of money to do so.

Some, however, disapprove of the Singaporean startup company.

Find out more about this over at SCMP.

(Image Credit: Pettycon/ Pixabay)

The ice sheet of Greenland is melting much faster than previously thought, threatening hundreds of millions of people with flooding. This brings some of the irreversible impacts of climate emergency much closer.

Ice is being lost from Greenland seven times faster than it was in the 1990s, and the scale and speed of ice loss is much higher than was predicted in the comprehensive studies of global climate science by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, according to data.

That means sea level rises are likely to reach 67cm by 2100, about 7cm more than the IPCC’s main prediction. Such a rate of rise will put 400 million people at risk of flooding every year, instead of the 360 million predicted by the IPCC, by the end of the century.

Learn more about this worrisome news over at The Guardian.

(Image Credit: Benoit Lecavalier/PA/ The Guardian)

Blood pressure is the “force of blood flowing through your blood vessels,” according to the American Heart Association. It’s best to have your blood pressure checked by a health professional in order to know if you have high blood pressure or hypertension, which may be indicative of a potential health issue. 

And when you do get checked, it’s crucial to have a correct reading to prevent possibly getting misdiagnosed.

It’s probably not your doctor’s fault. Blood pressure is temperamental. Lots of factors can result in an off measurement, meaning you can potentially end up with a misdiagnosis. “People might get overtreated or undertreated if their blood pressure isn’t measured correctly in the office,” says Jordana Cohen, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. In other words, you could be put on meds you don’t need or prescribed a dose higher or lower than necessary. Follow this blood pressure checklist to make sure you walk away with the right reading.

Thankfully, there are tips on how you can ensure your blood pressure reading is as accurate as possible before, during, and after a check-up. Read the original post here.  

Photo by Marcelo Leal / Unsplash

The tech retailer Game developed the original Christmas Tinner back in 2013. It was for gamers in a hurry to eat their Christmas dinner and get back to playing. There was no need to cook. Just open the can and start eating with a spoon. It contained 12 separate courses in layers.

It wasn't an option for vegan gamers, as it contained many animal products. To accommodate their needs, the company has debuted its new vegan option. Metro describes its delicious layered courses:

There’s vegan gravy, mushroom wellington, pigs in aubergine blankets, tofu and stuffing, as well as your go-to winter veggies including squash, sprouts, and parsnips.

Each of those layers sound pretty good, it’s just the aspect of it being crammed into a cylinder that might (definitely) alter the tastes and textures.

There’s also a dessert layer, including vegan custard and choccy cake. Which raises the obvious question, are festive feasters meant to meticulously section off the dessert portion, or simply enjoy a bit of sweetness with every savoury bite?

Yum! Where else could you possibly get red cabbage and chocolate cake in the same mouthful?

-via @ProperOpinion | Photo: Game

A new study has found out that food labels that show the amount of exercise needed to work off the calories might be something easier to understand than calorie counts alone. So from food labels, are we now moving to exercise labels?

Dr. John Torres explains, “Right now, food labels show you calories and nutrients. For a lot of people, that seems a bit confusing, and people frankly don’t even really look at labels all that much, and it hasn’t been effective at weight loss tools across the country and across the world. And so these researchers in the UK actually looked into this and said, ‘What if we, instead of add calories, added the amount of exercise you need to burn off those calories?’”

More details about this over at Today.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Technology giant Google has rejected an attempt by Epic Games to list its hit online game Fortnite on the Google Play Store without paying the standard app charge.

It is the latest in a long-running dispute between the two companies, which revolves around the 30 per cent fee Google takes for Android apps listed on its official app store. It also covers in-app purchases, which free-to-play games like Fortnite rely upon for revenue.

In a statement to The Independent, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said that the charge was unfair for all app developers, considering the market dominance of the Play Store.

Details over at Independent.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: amrothman/ Pixabay)

When you look like an elf, play up the role to your advantage, as Lady Demosthenes did.

For the rest of us orcs, well . . . we have fewer options. No one wants us behind the counter at Starbucks. We can do pretty well hanging onto a garbage truck, though.

-via Aelfred the Great

The Word of the Year for 2019, announced by dictionary editors at Merriam-Webster, is the singular pronoun "they." Sure, it has been in use for a long time as a plural pronoun, so it's not an unfamiliar word. For quite a few years now, new words have been offered as non-gendered pronouns, and so far, "they" is winning out over newly-coined words. In fact, most people already use the singular "they" to refer to someone of an unknown gender, even if they don't realize it. Using "they" for a singular but known person is not a large step, and often preferred by people who don't wish to be referred to as specifically male or female.

English famously lacks a gender-neutral singular pronoun to correspond neatly with singular pronouns like everyone or someone, and as a consequence they has been used for this purpose for over 600 years.

More recently, though, they has also been used to refer to one person whose gender identity is nonbinary, a sense that is increasingly common in published, edited text, as well as social media and in daily personal interactions between English speakers. There's no doubt that its use is established in the English language, which is why it was added to the Merriam-Webster.com dictionary this past September.

One does not need to identify as non-binary to benefit from a non-gendered pronoun- think of job applications, school applications, product pitches, or writing submissions. While those things would begin with "I," they will eventually be discussed by others. If the singular "they" is adopted by the general public, it follows that the singular "themself" would become a real word, instead of a demerit in your English class. Other notable words of the year are quid pro quo, impeach, crawdad, egregious, clemency, the, snitty, tergiversation, camp, and exculpate. Read the stories behind all these words at Merriam-Webster. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: AWang (WMF) )

Gambino the cat is a hospitable sort. He's open and casual with his welcoming meow of "well, hi." I don't know if he's a true Southerner, but he's got a bit of the old South in him.

Hi right back atcha, fella. Sit down a spell and chat.

-via Twisted Sifter

America's favorite Christmas movie is now a live ice skating entertainment show. Die Hard on Ice is . . .

Okay, there's no actual movie yet. It's just a parody trailer. But keep in mind that movie Machete started out as just a fake trailer (NSFW) bundled with the Tarantino film Grindhouse. We could see a Die Hard on Ice movie. This time, John McClaine won't be barefoot on broken glass.

-via Dave Barry

Tanks, firetrucks, airplanes, cars… you name it! This UK company creates all sorts of elaborately designed cardboard kitty toy playhouses, which are available on Amazon. 

A unique alternative to other kitty toys & pet accessorys, [sic] the tank will turn your favourite pets into soldiers on the front line. Supplied with instructions and easy to assemble, it’s a no brainer!

One customer’s cat wasn’t so impressed with it however and later decided that a plain ole empty cardboard box was better. Still, they’re a pretty big hit among humans. The best part? They’re foldable and a good scratching alternative for your cats.

Just purr-fect! Find out more here. 

(Image credit: Suck UK via Megaphone)

Every December, tuba players get together to present concerts of Christmas music in cities throughout the US. They call it TubaChristmas. What does a tuba have to do with Christmas? Well, William J. Bell was born on Christmas Day in 1902. He played tuba with the John Philip Sousa band and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He was also a tuba teacher. In 1974, Harvey Phillips staged a tuba concert in New York's Rockfeller Center, right on the ice rink, on December 22 in honor of Bell, who was his teacher. Ever since then, tuba players have co-ordinated TubaChristmas concerts through the Harvey Phillips Foundation. Those who play the sousaphone, euphonium, or baritone horn are welcome to participate as well. You might be surprised to find a TubaChristmas concert near you. If not, you can see a video of this year's TubaChristmas concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.



(Image credit: Christopher B Hamlin)

These cheap recreations, or "Sweded" movie trailers are getting better all the time. Sure, these folks had no special effects budget, but they have easy access to things like lightsabers and editing software. Everything else is a workaround, made with painted cardboard, and it's really  cute. Here you can see it side-by-side, or actually top-and-bottom, with the original. See if you can tell which is which.



-Thanks, Bryan & Roque!

In the criminal justice system, candy cane assaults are considered especially heinous.

In New York City, the dedicated detective who investigates these vicious crimes is a member of an elite squad & is known as #PeteOnTheBeat. These are his stories. #DunDun pic.twitter.com/LUMGs4n8E4

— NYPD 19th Precinct (@NYPD19Pct) December 6, 2019

You've heard of Elf on the Shelf, now meet Pete on the Beat! Police officers at New York's 19th precinct repurposed the elf for a Christmas campaign by giving him a tiny uniform and putting him in all kinds of situations, from meeting the boss to giving Christmas safety tips to hanging Christmas decorations.

#PeteOnTheBeat Firefly is willing to make a citizens arrest! Will wait for further instructions. pic.twitter.com/C4ORhgpmDX

— Mrs. Wozniak (@wozteacher47) December 10, 2019

You can read more about Pete at Bored Panda, and follow his adventure at Twitter.

David Keller of Prescott Valley, Arizona thinks that it's too easy to call a pet a "service animal" and take it everywhere. It's a system that can be abused, leading to people bringing bags of snakes into public libraries.

To prove his point, he went to a website that registers service animals and created a registration for a beehive as a service animal. AZ Family reports:

A quick web search turns up many service animal registration sites. But Keller's stunt showed that some of them do very little to verify the animals they're registering. "They're very silly. They don't mean anything," said Jaymie Cardin, who trains service dogs at AZ Dog Sports in Scottsdale. "You can go pay for a registry on one of those web sites, and basically, you're just paying for a piece of paper and to put a name on a list."

Cardin says these sites do highlight a real problem -- people trying to pass off pets as legitimate service animals. "Training is how you tell whether it's a service animal or not," Cardin said.

-via Dave Barry | Image: AZ Family