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POPSLegendary and Mysterious Art of Snake Charming Revealed But today, snake charming is dying profession for numerous reasons — the rise of documentaries have dispelled much of the fear and revulsion once felt toward the creatures and demystified the practice. Animal-rights groups have made an impact by citing the abuse of a number of endangered species — India passed the Wildlife Protection Act in 1972 which originally aimed at preventing the export of snakeskins with a 7-year prison term for owning or selling them, and in the late 1990’s, animal-rights groups convinced the government to enforce the law on snake charmers as well. Urbanization and deforestation have also made the snakes upon which the charmers rely increasingly rare, which is said to be to the single most important reason snake charming is declining in India.
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POPSDress Rehearsal for Mars Fernando Rull Pérez from the Centro de Astrobiologia in Madrid is an expert in hunting for signs of life using spectroscopic techniques, and he has been conducting studies in the Rio Tinto region.
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POPSWhat Is Kindness? All persons should * protect personal life and liberty and prevent torture and extinction; * practice virtue and resist vice; and * choose and pursue their values. Humans should value love, family, fellowship, and industry.
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POPSThe Eightfold Path of Buddha The Eightfold Path mistakenly assumes that no value can be maximal -- that any value can be desired too much. This is not true for values like extropy, intelligence, and justice.
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POPSMostly African American Children are Assaulted Legally in Schools
Just as slavery, Jim Crow laws and the subjugation of women in the USA are looked upon as primitive and embarrassing practices, I believe that corporal punishment in schools will someday be looked upon as a strange and inexplicably cruel practice. It will also be looked upon as another vehicle of racism as this study indicates. What will the conservative critics say in response? That African American children misbehave more in schools and, therefore, deserve the punishment? But isn't that what they say about higher incarceration rates for African Americans? So what is the picture that emerges from those who rationalize these institutional racist practices? In my view, it tells us that (their denials notwithstanding) conservatives believe that from childhood to adulthood African Americans are naturally more disposed to violate cultural norms, to act out in an anti-social manner. It's a racist orientation masquerading as a pro law and order stance. Corporal punish
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POPSPolygamy is the key to a long life Men, by contrast, can reproduce well into their 60s and even 70s and 80s, and most researchers assumed this explained their longevity. But Lummaa and colleague Andy Russell wondered whether other factors explained the long lifespan of men, such as a grandfather effect. If female survival is the main explanation for male longevity, then monogamous and polygamous men would live for about the same length of time. Instead, it seems that fathering more kids with more wives leads to increased male longevity. Men, then, live long because they're fertile well into their grey years. The explanation could be both social and genetic. Men who continue fathering kids into their 60s and 70s could take better care for their bodies because they have mouths to feed. But evolutionary forces acting over thousands of years could also select for longer-lived men in polygamous cultures.
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POPSSaving Money on Prescription Drugs http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2005/505_save.html An article on ways to save money on prescription drugs. One suggestion is communicating with your physician on what you can afford in terms of prescription drugs. Ask if a generic version of the drug is an option or ask for resources on financial assistance from the government and/or drug companies. Another option the article gives is drug samples.