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Woody Guthrie Hated 'Old Man Trump'

When Donald was a toddler, Fred was folk singer's landlord

(Newser) - Trump was a name that Woody Guthrie knew and despised when Donald Trump was a 4-year-old, professor Will Kaufman discovered to his surprise on a trip to the Guthrie archives in Tulsa, Okla. Trump's father, real estate developer Fred Trump, became the folk singer's landlord in 1950 when...

Study on Fairy Tales Proves Brothers Grimm Right

They're much older than thought

(Newser) - Many traditional fairy tales, long thought to be a somewhat recent invention, have actually been around for thousands of years, according to a new study . "Versions of Beauty and the Beast, Rumplestiltskin, and Jack and the Beanstalk have probably been around since before the existence of many modern European...

This May Be First Evidence of Hunter-Gatherer War
This May Be First Evidence
of Hunter-Gatherer War
NEW STUDY
Jan 21, 2016 12:49 PM CST

This May Be First Evidence of Hunter-Gatherer War

27 people killed in 10,000-year-old massacre in what is now Kenya

(Newser) - Scientists working on the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya have uncovered a grisly scene : the bodies of 27 people, killed around 8,000BC. Experts say the spot, called Nataruk, may be the first to reveal evidence of a massacre—or perhaps even war—between two nomadic hunter-gatherer groups, one...

Centenarians Not So Rare Anymore

Numbers spiked 44% from 2008 to 2014: CDC report

(Newser) - This should boost your hope for a long life, especially if you're a woman: The number of Americans living past 100 has spiked by 44% over the past six years. Centenarian numbers have risen from 15,000 in 1980 and 50,281 in 2000 to 72,197 in 2014,...

150 Friends on Facebook? You&#39;re Close to Only 4
150 Friends on Facebook? You're Close to Only 4
NEW STUDY
Jan 21, 2016 7:21 AM CST

150 Friends on Facebook? You're Close to Only 4

No, social media isn't helping you grow the number of your friends

(Newser) - Social media may make managing friendships logistically easier, but perhaps unsurprisingly, Facebook and the like aren't actually helping you grow your circle of true friends. So reports evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar this month in the journal Royal Society Open Science, after analyzing research conducted in April and May of...

Using Chemo to Treat MS Shows 'Remarkable' Promise

It's part of treatment that essentially resets a person's immune system

(Newser) - Chemotherapy is well-known as a cancer treatment, but it could also be a big part of the cure for many with multiple sclerosis, the Guardian reports. Over the past few years, about 20 MS patients in the US, England, Brazil, and Sweden have been given a new treatment—known as...

Scientists: There May Be a Giant 9th Planet Past Pluto

Sorry, Pluto—'Planet 9' may be more of a 'massive perturber' than you

(Newser) - Pluto is gonna be PO'd. While the dwarf planet tries to fight its way back into the good graces of Those Who Deem What Counts as a Planet, another icy orb even further out may snatch that designation first. Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology say a giant...

Here Are the 10 'Best Countries'

Germany, Canada, UK make the top three; US is fourth

(Newser) - US News ranks everything from hospitals to diets —and now also countries. In a first, the publication has come out with a list of the best 10 countries in the world, based on the perceptions of more than 16,000 people, who were asked to score countries on...

Behold the Biggest Prime Number Ever—All 22M Digits

It was discovered on a computer that went in for routine maintenance

(Newser) - The longest prime number ever found has been discovered by a computer in Missouri, and it's a doozy: 274,207,281–1 has 22,338,618 digits, the Guardian reports. The number also known as M74207281 was found by a computer tied to the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search...

Poll: 10% of Grads Think Judge Judy Is on SCOTUS

Standards are obviously slipping, education group says

(Newser) - A ridiculous proportion of American college graduates believe that daytime TV's Judge Judy is actually Justice Judy of the US Supreme Court, according to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni . The nonprofit group, which pushes for high standards in education, says a poll of 1,000 grads found...

Study: Overfishing Is Worse Than We Knew

 Overfishing 
 Is Worse Than 
 We Knew 
study says
Jan 19, 2016 6:40 PM CST

Overfishing Is Worse Than We Knew

'The world is withdrawing from a joint bank account of fish'

(Newser) - Global overfishing might be much worse than previously thought, Discovery reports. A new study finds that UN figures have vastly understated the problem and that yearly fish hauls are declining three times faster than realized. According to the study, the UN—using numbers from the Food and Agriculture Organization—stated...

Study: Pot Doesn't Make Teens Stupid

Study of twins refutes conventional wisdom

(Newser) - Smoking dope doesn't actually make you a dope. That's the takeaway from a new study on hundreds of pairs of twins—one of whom smoked pot as an adolescent and continued for over 10 years while the other abstained. Though a 2012 study linked marijuana use with a...

10 Most Popular Leaders, According to Facebook

President Obama is the easy winner, but Queen Rania is in the top 10

(Newser) - Well, it's one way to measure world leaders: The PR firm Burson-Marsteller has taken a look at the Facebook pages of global bigwigs and provided a ranking based on their number of likes. Personal pages are counted separately from institutional pages, which is why President Obama's page and...

100 Species of Bugs Live in Your Home

Don't fret: Most are harmless, say scientists

(Newser) - You thought Asian camel crickets were bad. A new report in journal Peer J finds hundreds of bugs likely lurk in your home, including spiders, beetles, ants, and book lice. Scientists got down on their hands and knees and combed 50 houses in the suburbs of Raleigh, NC, picking up...

High-Rise Dwellers More Likely to Die of Heart Attack

In study, not a single person living above the 25th floor survived

(Newser) - As the world's ever-more urban population increasingly lives more than three stories above ground, there may be repercussions for anyone suffering a heart attack at the wrong end of a long elevator ride from the ground floor. Medics and other researchers have analyzed 8,216 cardiac arrests in private...

Lyme Disease Ticks Spread to Half of All US Counties

Which is why cases have tripled since 1990s

(Newser) - Nearly half of all counties in the US are now home to ticks that carry Lyme disease, including areas where they'd never before been documented, researchers at the CDC report in the Journal of Medical Entomology . That's up from 30% of counties in 1998, with the Guardian reporting...

Cocaine Makes Your Brain Eat Brains
 Cocaine Makes Your 
 Brain Eat Brains 
NEW STUDY
Jan 19, 2016 5:51 AM CST

Cocaine Makes Your Brain Eat Brains

Researchers autopsied brain cells killed by drug

(Newser) - Much like rampaging zombies, brain cells on cocaine can't stop eating brains, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Scientists already knew that the drug killed brain cells, but "autopsies" on the dead brain cells of mice given '70s-rock-star levels of cocaine revealed that...

Cosmic Particles Could Hold Pyramid Clues

Team has collected muons inside Bent Pyramid

(Newser) - An international team of researchers said Sunday they will soon begin analyzing cosmic particles collected inside Egypt's Bent Pyramid to search for clues as to how it was built and learn more about the 4,600-year-old structure. The president of the Heritage Innovation Preservation Institute says that plates planted...

The KKK Began Wearing Hoods for an Odd Reason

You can thank Hollywood, according to a new book

(Newser) - See someone in a white robe and hood, and what do you think? Klansman, of course, but apparently they didn't always dress that way. A new book titled Hood (Object Lessons) by Alison Kinney looks at the garment's history, from torturers to medieval clerics to Red Riding Hood—...

How Citrus and Red Wine Could Improve Your Sex Life
How Citrus and Red Wine Could Improve Your Sex Life
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jan 17, 2016 3:30 PM CST

How Citrus and Red Wine Could Improve Your Sex Life

Flavonoid-rich foods come with a lower risk of erectile dysfunction

(Newser) - Up to half of all middle-aged and older men are affected by erectile dysfunction, and the answer may not be a little blue pill. Men who eat foods rich in flavonoids are less likely to suffer from the condition, and that risk is even lower if they also exercise regularly....

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