The US government is spending 1/2 million dollars to find out why obese teenage girls have a hard time getting dates -

The US government is spending 1/2 million dollars to find out why obese teenage girls have a hard time getting dates - 



The federal government is spending nearly a half a million dollars to find out why obese teenage girls have a hard time getting dates.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded a $466,642 grant last week for the study, which will examine whether social skills have an impact on why obese girls have fewer dating experiences than their less obese counterparts.

“Mounting evidence demonstrates that weight influences intimate (i.e., dating and sexual) relationship formation and sexual negotiations among adolescent girls,” the grant’s abstract states. “Obese girls consistently report having fewer dating and sexual experiences, but more sexual risk behaviors (i.e., condom nonuse) once they are sexually active.”

“The conceptual framework that has guided this research presumes that differences in the social skills for relating to peers and intimate partners along with differences in the relationship experiences of obese and non-obese girls account for these differences,” it said.

“However, no studies have actually examined whether the interpersonal skills and intimate relationships of obese and non-obese girls differ.”

Professors at the Magee-Womens Research Institute and Foundation in Pittsburgh will try to answer this question over the next four years. The end date for the project is listed as May 2018.

The study will specifically look at whether overweight teen girls develop relationship skills later in life, and will compare their “trajectories of romantic and sexual relationship characteristics” with others. The researchers will also contrast “obese and non-obese African American and White adolescent girls.”

The grant called the project “innovative.”

Read more - 

http://freebeacon.com/issues/feds-wonder-why-fat-girls-cant-get-dates/

Radioactive reindeer on rise in Norway... -

Radioactive reindeer on rise in Norway... - 



Much higher levels of radioactivity than normal have been found among Norway's grazing animals, especially its reindeer population, a study revealed on Monday.


Almost 30 years after the nuclear plant explosion in Chernobyl, this autumn, more radioactivity has been measured in Norwegian grazing animals than has been noted in many years.

Lavrans Skuterud, a scientist at the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (Statens strålevern), said: “This year is extreme.”

In September, 8200 becquerel per kilo of the radioactive substance Caesium-137 was measured in reindeer from Våga reinlag AS, in Jotunheimen, central Norway.

In comparison, the highest amount at the same place was 1500 becquerel among the reindeer in September 2012.

The research also measured radioactivity in Norwegian sheep this year.

Both in Valdres in southwest Norway and Gudbrandsdalen in southeast Norway, 4500 becquerel per kilo meat from sheep was measured at most.

600 becquerel per kilo is the safe limit allowed for sheep meat to be sold for human consumption.

The Radiation Protection scientist is quite certain about the cause.

Lavrans Skuterud said: “This year, there has been extreme amounts of mushroom. In addition, the mushroom season has lasted for a long time. And the mushroom has grown very high up on the mountains.”

Especially the gypsy mushroom (Cortinarius Caperatus) has been a problem. This is a good food mushroom, both for people and animals. But it has one bad trait: It can absorb a lot of radioactivity.

Skuterud is still surprised by the high levels this year.

He reminds that: “The Chernobyl accident happened in 1986. It is nearly 30 years ago.”

The nuclear reactor of Chernobyl was made to be cheap and effective in its operation, but was regrettably also basically unstable, and one day in spring of 1986, everything went wrong.

Caesium-137 has a physical half-life of 30 years. This means that in two years, half of the radioactive dust that came in over Norway after the dramatic spring night in 1986, will be gone.

Skuterud explained: “The level of [radioactivity] in the environment still decreases faster than this. Some of it is washed out and most of it is bound to the soil. Only a small part of it is in circulation throughout the food chain. When we watch the values in the grazing animals in autumn, it bounces up and down, and it seems to be everlasting. But the winter values in reindeer luckily show a stable decrease.”

Read more -

http://www.thelocal.no/20141006/radioactive-reindeer-found-in-norway

Now this is how a street fight should go down in Australia - Two Kangaroos face off in an epic street fight video -

Now this is how a street fight should go down in Australia.

Two kangaroos duked it out in a residential area in New South Wales recently and the bout was caught on video, according to News.com.au.

The two animals throw punches, push and use their tails to hold them up while they kick each other.

It is unclear why the two animals were fighting.