In 1964, then 49-year-old Norman Cousins collapsed in the middle of his living room floor. Cousins was rushed to the hospital, and he was diagnosed with sudden-onset degenerative collagen disease — a connective tissue condition which gave him severe back pain and almost left him quadriplegic. He was given by his doctor a one-in-500 chance to recover (that’s only 0.2%).

Cousins, however, decided that he will recover and beat the odds.

“He knew that there was research and evidence showing that negative emotion — fear, anger, anxiety — was bad for you,” said Anne Harrington, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University, as quoted in the book Fingerprints of God. “But he felt that there had been little study of whether positive emotions might have the opposite effect on your health, that it might be good for you. He felt he had nothing to lose, because he wasn’t going to get better through conventional means, and perhaps he had a lot to gain.”

Cousins checked himself into a hotel room and developed his own treatment. He hired a doctor to pump doses of vitamin C through his IV and prescribed himself a “laughter routine” in which he read funny excerpts by E.B. White and watched episodes of “Candid Camera” and Marx Brothers films.

According to Cousins, it worked.

He, however, is unsure of what happened to him, and he says that it is quite possible that what happened to him is an example of the placebo effect.

Cousins is not the first one to explore the idea of using laughter as medicine. It has its roots way back in the Middle Ages, in the early 14th century.

Know more about the history of laughter therapy over at Medium.com.

(Image Credit: FabiArts/ Pixabay)

Despite many insurance companies accepting chiropractic as a treatment, a number of studies do not confirm whether it’s effective.

Over the years, chiropractic has been widely accepted in the U.S, and today there are over 70,000 chiropractors in the country. However, a number of scientific studies do not show that chiropractic is more effective than placebo of pharmaceuticals.

The history of chiropractic treatment goes way back in 1896 in an office building in Iowa.

D.D. Palmer, a fan of magnetic healing and anti-vaxxer, ran into the building's janitor, who was suffering from back pain; he was also deaf. It's not quite clear exactly how Palmer adjusted the janitor's vertebral subluxation—a term unique to chiropractic that implies an undetectable spinal misalignment—as, with all origin stories, details are murky. Supposedly, Palmer claims the adjustment cured him of deafness; the second patient he treated apparently left with no more heart disease.

Palmer was a metaphysics fan and correlated physical symptoms with spiritual phenomena; chiropractic is based on the idea that energy flows block the "innate," which manifests in things like back pain. Not only did he believe chiropractic had a religious and moral purpose, he also claimed he "received" it from a deceased physician. He called chiropractic a religion; he even tried to use the freedom of religion clause to circumvent the fact that he wasn't a licensed medical professional, a move that got him jailed and fined. He ended up selling his school to his son, who apparently killed him in 1913.

While Palmer's emphasis on the nervous system was an early contribution to an important physiological discourse that doctors are still uncovering today, chiropractic is still considered pseudoscience. Regardless, this is America, where suspect folk remedies and metaphysical interventions are commonplace. Within three decades there would be over 80 chiropractic schools established in the United States.

Despite scientific studies not showing the effectiveness of chiropractic treatment, it can alleviate pain, but only temporarily. As Derek Beres puts it, “chiropractors provided temporary relief without ever pointing to the cause of the pain.”

Know more about Derek’s experience on chiropractic over at Big Think.

(Image Credit: OSTC/ Pixabay)

Engagement photo shoots usually emit an intimate, peaceful and romantic vibe. This engagement photoshoot of couple Madison Moxley and Mason Whitis is different. Despite this being different, it is still intimate and romantic, but not peaceful — rather, it is highly spirited.

It should be noted, however, that the couple does not dress or look like this usually. They really just wanted their photoshoot to be fun.

See their photos and their story over at Bored Panda.

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: Madison Moxley/ Facebook / Bored Panda)

There are many stories about the exploits and adventures of William Kidd. He had been an experienced sailor long before he was at the helm of his own ship.

Time passed and his name spread around England, which later got him commissioned for various tasks. In the latter part of his life, one of those jobs was to hunt pirates which ended in failure.

Because Captain Kidd proved himself invaluable during the war between the English and French, he was commissioned to police the American waters. He was supposed to protect English interests, and attack any pirate ships in the area.

However, instead of cruising up and down along North America’s eastern coast, Captain Kidd sailed off to the Indian Ocean. He decided to become a pirate and began attacking ships. Word of Captain Kidd[']s deeds soon reached England and North America.

When he arrived back in North America, he was apprehended and brought to trial in England. He and his crew were found guilty of piracy, while Kidd was also convicted for the murder of William Moore, one of his crew. And so they were sentenced to the gallows.

Until the very end, Kidd maintained his innocence of the accusations hurled at him and even cited that the failed first attempt at hanging him was a sign from God about the fact. Read more about the execution of Captain William Kidd and the details of his life and death.

(Image credit: Jean Leon Gerome Ferris/Wikimedia Commons)

Have you ever wondered why Siri is called “Siri”? If you did, then you’re not the only one, and there’s already an answer for you, coming from none other than the co-founder of Siri Inc., Adam Cheyer.

As a startup company, Cheyer and his team wanted a name that was “easy to remember, short to type, comfortable to pronounce, and a not-too-common human name.” They also wanted to get the domain for a not-so-expensive cost.

Once Siri became the leading candidate, everyone on the team had their own favorite explanation of the meaning. Dag Kittlaus, our Norwegian-American CEO, once considered using Siri as the name of his child, and liked the Norse meaning: "beautiful woman who leads you to victory."

For me, Siri, which means "secret" in Swahili, was a tip of the hat to our pre-named days when we began as stealth-company.com. I also liked the fact that it was the reverse of Iris, a software system I helped build as part of the CALO project, which Siri spun out of. Some liked the resemblance to SRI, which was the research institute that ran the CALO project.

We knew that Siri [meant] "beauty" in Sinhalese, but missed that SHIRI [meant] "butt" in Japanese (they're not the same word, but the pronunciations are close).

And it was all a big surprise that Apple decided to keep the original Siri name for its launch as part of iOS. There were other candidates that were leading up until the final weeks.

Via Mental Floss

(Image Credit: JESHOOTS-com/ Pixabay)

Neo Bye was driving through Kruger National Park in South Africa when he happened on a curious scene. This young leopard would like to eat a slow-moving porcupine, but can't figure out how. He almost gives up when he gets a few spines in his mouth, but curiosity draws him back in. -Thanks, Bruce!

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Megatherium is the genus of an extinct 20-foot-long South American ground sloth. It was also the name of a very exclusive club. The Smithsonian Institution was established in 1846 in Washington, DC, a town not known for science at that time. That meant it offered wide open opportunities for young, adventurous scientists to get in on the ground floor of a project that could afford to fund their expeditions, experiments, and writing. They could also hobnob with like-minded fellows in a shared boardinghouse.  

Like their English counterparts, the members of the Megatherium Club were united by youth, ambition, intelligence and a deep and abiding love of the natural world. Their days were spent in the bowels of the Smithsonian, hunched over jars of marine worms in alcohol or endless trays of fossils. Thanks to Baird, who was known as a “collector of collectors,” specimens arrived at the Smithsonian from all over the world. Stimpson and the other taxonomic zoologists sorted, described and classified this avalanche of specimens. Their work provided a solid foundation for future biologists by updating and standardizing the classification of flora and fauna.

At night they were ready to cut loose—drinking until dawn. Then they’d recover from their revelries with long walks on Sunday mornings, "the true Church for sedentary men," Stimpson said, when a friend wondered if perhaps they should attend church instead. Courting young ladies, especially with picnics along scenic Rock Creek, was another favorite leisure activity. “Spring is coming fast, glorious season which gives us new life while nature lures us to her arms," Stimpson wrote, in a letter to the geologist Ferdinand Hayden. “I shall now have more time and take more out-door recreation especially in the form of picnics with the girls, the dear angels some of whom I should certainly try to marry were it not for the pain of leaving the others.”

The young men may have partied hard, but they needed mutual support as they helped establish the Smithsonian as a respectable science organization. Read about the Megatherium Club at Smithsonian.

She hasn't even been born yet, but this child is already tied into the machine. It's a startling image within an otherwise homey and comforting depiction of humanity. This piece, titled Crypto Connection, is typical of Federico Clapis, an artist in Milan. His works often show an intersection between humanity and technology, where one establishes order for the other.

Christina Meador was to be the maid of honor at her sister's wedding. The bride, Deanna Adams, told her she could wear anything she wanted to. So she showed up to the nuptials in a T-rex costume!

“When you’re maid of honor and told you can wear anything you choose … I regret nothing,” wrote Christina Meador alongside a Facebook photo of her wearing a T-Rex costume last month.

The photo — which shows her towering over the bridal party in the costume — has since gone viral with more than 35,000 shares on social media.

Adams didn't mind, and said she meant it when she said Meador could wear anything she wanted. A good time was had by all. -via Fark

(Image source: Christina A. Meador)

Something went wrong when downloading your requested image file. The perfect duplicate of one of the ornate and richly-detailed still lives of the Dutch masters was garbled in transmission.

This is the work of Filipino artist Olan Ventura. It's one of several acrylic paintings that tweak a classical style for a digital age. He perfectly shapes and blends his paints so that subjects appear to dissolve into incoherence.

-via Colossal | Photo Yavuz Gallery

Before Stephen King's 1986 novel It was a film in 2017, it was a TV miniseries in 1990. Those who were born later and saw It on home video probably never realized it was full of big name TV stars of the day. Anyway, the theatrical film released a couple of years ago had the advantage of an R rating and digital special effects, so even though the 1990 version was a hit that became a classic, it suffers by comparison, as you'll see in this Honest Trailer.

Now that DNA analysis of long-dead animals is possible, scientists found that fossils of bison that have been collected turn out to be about 75% male. A majority of males has been found in fossils of mammoths and brown bears as well. Why is that? Before reading the article, I came up with two possibilities, extrapolated from what I know of humans. First, young males tend to take more risks, and would be more likely to end up as young healthy fossil specimens. Second, I don't know if osteoporosis was a thing among prehistoric animals, but if so, it could have rendered female bones less likely to be preserved. The first idea occurred to the scientists studying the anomaly.

Bison herds usually consist of one dominant male surrounded by a gaggle of females. Less dominant males leave the herd to find a herd of their own or form bachelor groups.

“A lot of those males are going to be roaming around the landscape and they're going to do silly stuff. They have on average more dangerous behaviours or they would be exposed to more predators,” says Llamas.

The upshot of these foolhardy males galumphing all over the place is that when palaeontologists come along millennia later looking for fossils, the chance of finding a male is greater.

On the other hand, when you find a female, it’s likely to be clustered with other females. The research team identified just a handful of such sites.

The research team posed other possibilities, some having to do with math, but osteoporosis is not mentioned. While there is no definitive answer yet, you can read about the research at Cosmos magazine. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Stefan Didam)

An attempt to trap a mouse goes horribly wrong.

If California has In-n-Out, and New York has Shake Shack, then the Lone Star State, Texas, has Whataburger. Thanks to a video that appeared on Facebook this weekend, however, you might want to think twice before going to the burger chain to eat their midnight bacon and cheese Whataburger with fries.

In the video, a person behind the counter begins turning over the containers in an attempt to trap the mouse. But mice, as you might know if you've ever had one, are sneaky, and instead of being caught, the mouse takes a big, brave leap… straight into the deep fryer. Screams of "oh my god" and "deep-fried rat!" follow. The people behind the counter talk about trying to scoop out the mouse, but a Whataburger employee doesn't seem to know how to turn the fryer off.

Lewis's video has gone fully viral, having earned over 2 million views on Facebook, plus reposts on Twitter and various news publications. "The entire restaurant has since been cleaned and sanitized. We addressed this situation as quickly as possible, reinforcing procedures with our Family Members," Whataburger wrote in a statement, per KVUE. "While we’ll continue to be very diligent, it’s important to know there was no history of this type incident at this unit and there is no ongoing issue."

The Bastrop branch was pest control notified and temporarily closed, but it has since been re-opened.

(Image Credit: Brushawn Lewis/ Facebook)

Over 200 people across the U.S have come down with a mysterious illness that seems to be linked with vaping. Perhaps it is our body’s way of telling us the potential serious health risks of using e-cigarettes.

As of August 27, there were 215 cases of severe respiratory disease in 25 states since late June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Friday. All patients reported using e-cigarette products. But while officials believe their illness is associated with vaping, they haven’t been able to single out which ingredient or device may be causing the problem.

So far, the patients have a few things in common. They suffered from respiratory symptoms, including coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, and difficulty breathing. Some have gotten seriously ill, even winding up in intensive care units on oxygen support through ventilators or intubation. Most are in their late teens and 20s with no underlying health issues. Many cases also involved vaping THC-containing liquids (though it’s not clear whether that was from cannabis e-cigs or nicotine e-cigs), and the CDC singled out black market products as another potential commonality.

More details of this news over at Vox.

(Image Credit: lindsayfox/ Pixabay)