There are some horror stories told by low-caste people in the sub-continent. Kalli Biswokarma was tortured by neighbours in her village in Nepal for two days and forced to eat human waste before she finally gave in and confessed to practising witchcraft. Those who beat, punched and kicked the 47-year-old mother of one accused her of casting evil spells on a schoolteacher who had fallen ill. "I was victimised because I am a poor woman," said Biswokarma, who bel...

Some things do not change even if everything else does because of unforeseen events. The cockfighting must go on, even after earthquakes, so the roosters have been bathed, their claws sharpened, and they wait in cages in the red-carpeted ring, the crowd anxious and gripping cash. The referee has weighed them and announced their names -- Doudou versus Zo La Plaine -- and now he wants a moment of silence for prayer. Everyone stands, heads bowed. After a couple mi...

There is a total collapse of all systems in Zimbabwe, but education does not seem to be a victim. "No disruption to learning" touts a newspaper ad for a new private Zimbabwean school, one of many springing up in living rooms, backyards and plots across Harare. It's a big selling point in a country where government schools lost an estimated 20,000 teachers in 2008, a year when students attended class only 50 days. Teachers launched a new strike on Friday, raising worries a...

Five crates of whisky and brandy belonging to polar explorer Ernest Shackleton have been recovered after being buried for more than 100 years beneath the Antarctic ice, explorers said Friday. The spirits were excavated from beneath Shackleton's Antarctic hut which was built in 1908. "To our amazement we found five crates, three labelled as containing whisky and two labelled as containing brandy," said Al Fastier of the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust who previously b...

Five crates of whisky and brandy belonging to polar explorer Ernest Shackleton have been recovered after being buried for more than 100 years beneath the Antarctic ice, explorers said Friday. The spirits were excavated from beneath Shackleton's Antarctic hut which was built in 1908. "To our amazement we found five crates, three labelled as containing whisky and two labelled as containing brandy," said Al Fastier of the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust who previously b...

Five crates of whisky and brandy belonging to polar explorer Ernest Shackleton have been recovered after being buried for more than 100 years beneath the Antarctic ice, explorers said Friday. The spirits were excavated from beneath Shackleton's Antarctic hut which was built in 1908. "To our amazement we found five crates, three labelled as containing whisky and two labelled as containing brandy," said Al Fastier of the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust who previously b...

French luxury goods sector performed well in 2009 despite the recession thanks largely to China's growing taste for high-end products, encouraging thoughts of a better 2010. Following the trend set by other global luxury brands, Hermes and LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) announced fourth quarter sales growth on Thursday and Friday, suggesting the worst of the crisis could be over for the sector. After announcing that annual profits fell 13 percent to 1.7 billion euros ...

Google has gone techno-chic, debuting fashion designs inspired by the US Internet giant. An "old-fashioned magnifying glass pendant" priced at 200 dollars was for sale online at googlestore.com along with a 300-dollar knit scarf in the firm's trademark colors and "peace" T-shirts for 85 dollars each. The pieces were the work of emerging designers who last year were asked to come up with "one-of-a-kind" items inspired in some way by Google, whether it be the firm's colors,...

The worldwide death toll from swine flu has risen to 15,174, up 463 from a week ago, but the pandemic is steadily losing momentum around the world, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. "As of 31 January 2010, worldwide more than 209 countries and overseas territories or communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 2009, including at least 15,174 deaths," the WHO said. According to the latest bulletin from the UN health agency, t...

A day before the International Day against Female Genital Mutilation, experts and workers on the ground said Friday that men had a key role to play in the fight against female circumcision in Africa. "If men decide to abandon the practice, it is certain women will follow", doctor and Malian deputy Omar Mariko told AFP, men are the ones saying the practice is our tradition and our culture, he added. Elise Johansen from the World Health Organisation said in many countries i...

The French government was urged on Friday to ease its taboo on statistics on ethnic origin in a report commissioned by President Nicolas Sarkozy's "diversity tsar" to look at ways of fighting discrimination. The report said France's ban on officially classifying people by ethnicity or asking questions in the national census about their race or origins should be maintained. But it recommended that censuses should henceforth include a question on the nationality or place of...

Debate over the obesity epidemic sweeping parts of the world has focussed on whether lifestyle -- too much junk food and couch-potato living -- is the big culprit or whether genes are also to blame. A new study may help tip the balance in favour of those who claim that fat runs in their family and there is little they can do about it. People who are morbidly obese lack a tiny stretch of DNA containing around 30 genes, according to the investigation released on Wednesday b...

Lawyers have revealed that the owner of the "Heart Attack Grill" in Arizona is suing "Heart Stoppers Grill" in Florida, accusing the outlet of plagiarizing his death by burger brainchild. Jon Basso, the owner of the original Arizona joint, is fiercely defending the intellectual property rights of his medically-themed restaurant, which boasts death-defying meal options such as the quadruple bypass burger. Last week, Basso filed a plagiarism lawsuit against "Heart Stoppers ...

Investigators said on Wednesday they had made important lab discoveries in mosquitoes and the parasite which causes malaria, opening up new paths for attacking a disease that claims nearly a million lives per year. In one of two studies published in the British journal Nature, Yale University researchers said they had found more than two dozen smell receptors in the mosquito Anopheles gambiae that enables the insect to home in on human sweat. Some of the receptors "could ...

A malaria vaccine tested by US and African researchers in Mali produced a healthy immune response in young children, the group most vulnerable to the mosquito-borne disease, a report released Thursday showed. The vaccine, based on a single strain of the falciparum malaria parasite -- the most common and deadliest form of the parasite found in Africa -- was tested on 100 children between the ages of one and six in a rural part of the west African country of Mali. The child...

Australian researchers said on Friday they had debunked the "baby brain" myth which projected that a woman's ability to think was impaired by pregnancy and mothering a newborn. An Australian National University team conducting a 20-year population study on health and ageing analysed the mental function of a group of women before and during pregnancy and in the early stages of motherhood. "We didn't find any difference between the women before and after pregnancy, or befor...

Indonesian film producers said Friday they had withdrawn a horror-comedy movie about a menstruating ghost from theaters due to threats from hardline Muslims. "We did this because the reaction to the film is outrageous. The situation is still tense," K2K production house manager Evelin Hutagaol told AFP. "Hantu Puncak Datang Bulan" (The Menstruating Ghost of Puncak) was screened to a selected audience in Jakarta earlier this week and was due for general release on Thursday...

Respiratory diseases allegedly cause by air pollution cannot be traced back to the South Koreaan government and the country's five main automakers, a court ruled here on Wednesday. A group of 23 patients suffering from asthma or other respiratory diseases brought the rare lawsuit in February 2007, claiming 30 million won (26,000 dollars) in damages for each plaintiff. They claimed the government's lack of anti-pollution measures and automakers' negligence worsened air pol...

A study published on Wednesday reveals that a man who was presumed to be in a vegetative state for the past five years can apparently communicate yes and no via his thought patterns. In 2003, the man, who is now 29, sustained a severe traumatic brain injury in a road traffic accident. He remained physically unresponsive and was presumed to be in a vegetative state for five years, according to the researchers in Belgium and Britain. Using functional magnetic resonance imag...

The day when restaurants will serve garlic grasshoppers or beetle larva skewers is getting closer in Costa Rica, where scientists are "growing" insects for human consumption. Entomologist Manuel Zumbado's research into this alternative food source is inspired by practices in Africa, where insects have long been part of people's diet. With its rainforests playing host to countless insect species, including thousands that have yet to be identified, Costa Rica is a perfect b...

Chinese officials have banned independent reporting on the latest toxic food scandal involving melamine, a chemical blamed for the deaths of six babies in 2008, according to a press watchdog on Thursday. The International Federation of Journalists, citing local sources, said censors in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong had ordered that media outlets "must only use information formally released by the authorities". There was no immediate comment from authorities i...

Blood Pressure Treatment Through Vaccine-How it works

How much better would life be for a hypertensive person if you could simply have a vaccination for high blood pressure and do away with the nuisance of your daily tablets?

In a trial which was carried out earlier this year a group of 72 people (65 men and 7 women with an average age of 51 years 6 months) who were suffering from mild or moderate hypertension were injected with a low dose (100 micrograms) vaccine, a high dose (300 micrograms) vaccine or a placebo. This process was then repeated after four weeks and at the end of three months.

Two weeks after the final injection it was found that the people given the high dose vaccine were showing a fall in excess of 5 mm Hg in their systolic blood pressure and nearly 3 mm Hg in their diastolic blood pressure.

Possible more significant, it was also found that the usual, and possibly dangerous, spike in blood pressure that happens in the early morning between 5 am and 8 am was also down considerably by 25 mm Hg systolic and 13 mm Hg diastolic.

The trial patients all tolerated the vaccine without problem and there were no safety issues during the trial.

The trial vaccine, which is called CYT006-ANgQb, is designed to work in the same way as the existing drugs and so may clearly be an alternative for those people whose high blood pressure is now controlled using ACE inhibitors or AT-2 receptor blockers.

So what about those people whose blood pressure is currently being controlled with the alternatives of beta blockers (such as Sectral, Kerlone, Blocadren, Ziac, Tenormin, Toprol XL, Betapace, Lopressor and Zebeta) or calcium channel blockers (such as Norvasc, Cardizem, Calan, Sular, Tiazac, Vascor, Lotrel, Adalat, Procardia and Verelan)?

Of course, it is early days yet and further trials will be necessary before we see a vaccine in everyday use for the treatment of high blood pressure. However, if the researchers are correct, it seems likely that this vaccine is going to be effective for a lot of sufferers, whatever the treatment currently being given.

Naturally time will tell, but this is clearly an extremely encouraging development.

When you are trying to lose weight, there are some foods that are more conducive to natural weight loss than others. Diet and nutrition are crucial to healthy weight loss, and, if neglected, can severely stall your efforts.
That said, it can be difficult to know when you are in the grocery store exactly which foods will support your new way of living and which will work against you. Following are a list of healthy, nutritious foods that are good choices for natural weight loss or any healthy diet in general.

Fish

Fish is one of the healthiest forms of meat that you can eat, and cold water fish tend to be even better. They contain a particularly high content of omega 3 fatty acids, a heart healthy fat that occurs in other forms of protein in much lower amounts. Omega 3 fatty acids help combat insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes that is very common in people who are overweight. Salmon, sardines, herring, tuna, and anchovies are all examples of cold water fish.

Vegetables

Salad Greens – High in fiber and vitamins, salad greens make a great addition to any diet. Add on a bit of nuts or healthy salad dressing and you can build a thousand dishes on the same leafy base. The great thing about salad greens is that they are also very high in water content, allowing them to fill you up without adding a great deal of calories.

Cabbage of Various Forms – There are many vegetables in the produce aisle that are healthy, nutritious, as well as cabbage in disguise. Broccoli, cauliflower, and kohlrabi are all variations of cabbage that each have their own distinct appearance and flavors. Where they are similar, however, is that they are all low in calories, high in fiber, and very high in vitamins and minerals.

Grains

Flaxseed – Other than being very high in fiber and manganese, flaxseed is also an excellent source of omega 3 fatty acids, which are severely lacking in the diets of most people. Omega 3s reduce inflammation, protect against heart disease and diabetes, and promote healthy bones.

Wheat – Wheat is low in fat and calories while at the same time being high in protein and fiber. It makes a great replacement for plain white rice and can be made into a risotto or pilaf that satisfies those carb cravings every time.

Fats

Olive Oil – Of all the fats you can use, olive oil is among the very best. This is due to the high content of monounsaturated fats that make it up, which are known to be good for promoting heart health. Consuming small amounts of olive oil regularly are linked to improving blood chemistry and reduced instances of colon cancer, possibly due to its high antioxidant content.

Residents of Rio de Janeiro are sweating it out through a summer heatwave. With temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahreinheit), there's no option but to run to the closest shore for at night for some respite. Hundreds of them can be seen laying on the sand of beaches like Copacabana and Ipanema -- zones usually avoided at night because of muggers but currently patrolled because of the summer vacation season. The shore, with a slightly cooler breeze blowing in fro...

The global humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF - Doctors Without Borders) on Tuesday lambasted the conditions at camps for refugees and migrants in Italy, labeling them "ineffective". "The way migrant centres are run seems to be in great part ineffective," MSF said in a statement. "More than 10 years after the centres for migrants were established in Italy, they are managed as if they were thought of as emergency camps" and are capable of "barely satisfying p...

US lawmakers have set out on a war footing to tackle childhood obesity and First Lady Michelle Obama is leading the full-on attack. "We're in the process of launching a nationwide effort to dealing with the obesity epidemic in this country," she said at the start of a meeting which included Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. One of the "pieces about this challenge is that this problem is imminently solvable, and that's the good news. But it's going to require us working ...

A 1998 study wrongly linking autism with inoculation against three childhood illnesses was finally withdrawn by medical journal The Lancet on Tuesday. The paper was responsible for an uproar on the issue and an enduring backlash against vaccination. The British journal said it was acting in the light of an ethics judgement last week by Britain's General Medical Council against Andrew Wakefield, the study's lead researcher. "We fully retract this paper from the published r...

The UN emergency food agency said Tuesday the number of hungry people in southern Sudan has quadrupled since last August to some 4.3 million because of conflict and drought. Across the country some 11 million people will need food aid this year, the Rome-based World Food Programme said in a statement, adding that it has a shortfall of 485 million dollars (350 million euros) in its programme there. "This spike in the number of hungry people in southern Sudan comes just ah...

There was a time when Mohammed Zafar Iqbal used to cash in on his beautiful face and graceful moves, dancing bedecked in midnight blue veils and dresses for clients who sought his perceived closeness to God. But like most of Pakistan's eunuch and transsexual community -- mocked, pitied and shunned by society -- his life has mostly been marred by hardship and suffering, peaking seven years ago when he was brutally attacked. A jealous admirer, furious at being spurned by a ...

After struggling for years to explain why some apparently healthy babies die suddenly in their sleep, a study published Tuesday finds serotonin deficiency as a key culprit in sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) or cot death. Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston found that infants who died of cot death, which is the leading cause of death in babies under the age of one in the United States, had significantly lower levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin and the enzyme that helps...