Watercooler Sensation

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Good-bye Lipo and Boob Jobs, Hello Magic Fat Pill

• In a massive scientific breakthrough, scientists this week announced they’d found the magical biological switch to turn on and off stress-induced weight gain. [Washington Post] [LA Times]
• Meet Neuropeptide Y, or NPY. This chemical, produced by your body, is the biological trigger to fat production. Block it, and scientists believe you can melt fat away, even if you live a stressful life fueled by Fritos and Twinkies. Turn it on, and you can build fat deposits in specific areas of the body, erasing wrinkles or increasing your breast size.
• The research was conducted by Georgetown University’s Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and published by the Nature Medicine journal.
• The Experiment: Scientists took two groups of mice. Both groups were fed a steady diet of junk food. One group was exposed to stress, either standing in cold water for an hour a day (think rainy days waiting for a bus in Seattle) or 10 minutes a day with an aggressive alpha mouse (think nasty boss). After 2 weeks, the stressed-out mice gained twice as much fat – from the same diet – as the mice who didn’t have stress.
• Scientists found the fat mice had elevated levels of NPY. And the whole ballgame changed.
• When scientists blocked the formation of NPY in the fat mice, they were amazed to see the fat just melt away. Fat deposits shrank by 50% in 2 weeks, even without changing diet or stress.
• And not just any fat – the really bad, hormone-laced fat that brings on high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, etc.
• Also, when scientists placed NPY pellets under the skin of mice, controlled fat deposits formed around the pellets. Good-bye Botox and boob jobs, hello NPY?
• Oh, it gets even better. So far, the scientists weren’t able to find a single negative side-effect.
• Scientists say they will start testing NPY blockers and pellets on humans in 2 years.

So in 10 years, we can all eat like Michael Moore but look like Angelina!

Roswell Cover-Story Guy: I Was Lying, Aliens Are Real

• On July 7, 1947, the Air Force got reports of a flying disc over the New Mexico Desert, and recovered mysterious wreckage found by a rancher. According to deathbed cofession of the guy who wrote the subsequent army press releases, it was an alien spacecraft. [FOX]
• Immediately after the wreckage was recovered, the Air Force wrote a press release confirming the sighting and exclaiming that the Air Force “was fortunate enough to gain possession of a disc.”
• The next day, they backed off, claiming the mysterious disc was a weather balloon.
• But according to a sworn affidavit on the death of Public Relations Officer Lt. Walter Haut, “the weather-balloon claim was a cover story and...the real object had been recovered by the military and stored in a hangar.” Also in the hanger: alien bodies. Seriously.
• This is thrilling news for the 50,000 people expected to descend on Roswell, New Mexico this week to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the sightings and demand answers from the U.S. Attendees admit, though, that it’s really more about socializing than truth-finding. Says one likely attendee: “I just came back from a conference a few months ago in Nevada, the International UFO Congress, which is more of a scientific conference. The Roswell one is really more of a party...But I hope this truth will finally come out, as far as Roswell goes.” [The Journal News]

The truth is out there.

Want To Have A Baby? Just Relaaax

• The mystery of infertility, a problem for millions of would-be parents around the world, may be on its way to being solved thanks to some help from the African Naked Mole-Rat. [BBC]
• These sub-Saharan African creatures live in social colonies of about 200 in which only the “Queen” female reproduces. Scientists studied how she uses bullying to intimidate males and other females into infertility so that they’ll stay focused on keeping the colony thriving, instead of getting frisky.
• Dr. Chris Faukes, of the University of London, says this method isn’t all that different from the way stress in our everyday lives as humans can take a serious toll on reproduction.
• Stress can cause blocked ovulation and fallopian tube spasm in females, and decreased sperm count in males, decreasing chances for conception.
• When couples have trouble conceiving, the process itself becomes stressful, leading to a vicious cycle in which everyone involved is exasperated, upset, and in no mood to get it on.
• But there’s hope! For women at least, stress-reducing cognitive behavioral therapy helped re-regulate ovulation and decrease infertility.

A society of creatures so focused on work that they don’t have time for some sexual healin’? Good thing that could never happen to humans! Oh, wait…

You’re Flip-Flopping Your Way To Some Damaged Feet

• We’ll admit it: we haven’t worn closed-toe shoes since April. Once the sun comes out and the weather warms up, our loafers and heels get pushed to the back of the closet, and it’s nothing but flip-flops and sandals till autumn. [USA Today]
• Trouble is, even though our flip-flops are comfortable and stylish, it turns out they’re not the best for our feet."Flip-flops were never meant to be everyday shoes,” says Crane, a spokeswoman for the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons. “They were meant to wear from the locker room to the pool and back.”
• Doctors say that sandals offer little cushioning and “no arch support, and they force their wearers into an unnatural, toe-gripping, foot-slapping gait.”
• So when we say that flip-flops can cause some serious problems, what exactly are we talking about? For starters, try “sore arches and heels, which can progress to chronic conditions, including inflamed Achilles tendons and plantar fasciitis, inflammation of the connective tissue between the heel bone and the toes.”
• And then, of course, there are heel calluses (from the pounding), and Hammer toes (from the gripping).

What. Like stilettos are any better?

Your Very Own Terrorism Glossary

Who could forget Jose Padilla? The accused American “dirty bomber” has been on trial since May, and has peppered the news circuit with stories about the possibility of terrorist threats at home. And all that jazz. [Reuters]

But now, allow us to show you a different side of the Padilla trial; a side in which prosecutors riffle through endless pages of transcripts trying to decipher hidden meaning behind words like “eggplant,” “picnic,” and “cheese.” That’s right, folks: we’re talking about secret messages. Take a look at what means what in the world of international terrorism.

• Cheese: money.
• Iron: weapons
• Eggplant: RPG, or rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
• Soccer, football, or other sports: fighting.
• Get married: be killed (seriously).
• Tourism: jihad.
• The warehouse will open up very soon and they will request workers: an opportunity to participate in some upcoming jihad.
• Get me a sandwich: get me a sandwich.

“Iron” meaning “weapons?” These guys are *seriously* lacking in the creativity department.

By the Numbers

iPHONE

So...how did the spiffy new “jesus phone” from Apple sell over the weekend? Quite well, quite well indeed. Here are the numbers:

525,000

iPhones sold from Friday to Sunday last weekend at Apple Stores and AT&T outlets [Bloomberg]

$499 and $599

Price of the two available models of iPhone [Apple]

$775.03

Average price of the 2,600 iPhones sold on eBay [USA Today]

$12,500

Amount paid by one buyer on eBay [USA Today]

Celebrities: Unfiltered

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t taken pleasure in dreaming up ways to kill them. Disemboweling them. Beheading them. Burning them, shooting them and crushing them in garage doors. I’ve tortured young girls...the buxom babysitters. . . the well-intentioned boyfriends. All sent to an early grave in the name of box-office gold.”

—Horror flick director Wes Craven [Page Six]

Speed Round

MIND FREAKED

Dear Cameron Diaz: Before dating a famous magician, make sure he can make his wife disappear. Magician Criss Angel’s secret wife wants her husband’s very public girlfriend, Ms. Diaz, as a witness in divorce court. [US Magazine]

HARRY HYPE

1.6 million: Number of copies of the 7th Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which have been pre-ordered on Amazon, making it the most pre-ordered book in Amazon history. The book drops in stores July 21. [E! Online]

DIRTY GIRL

Infamous Hollywood madame Heidi Fleiss opens a coin-op laundromat in Nevada. That’s one way to air your dirty laundry. [Washington Post]

SMOOTH CRIMINAL

Michael Jackson thinking about building a Neverland of the East: After hiding out in Bahrain since his child-molestation trial, the King of Pop is house hunting in Maryland. [Baltimore Sun]

SEX

Forget condoms: the state of Utah wants you to use the “rhythm method” of birth control. (Don’t worry about that whole 25% failure rate, thing.) [St. Louis Tribune] [Answers.com]

$1.3 million

The going price for Bridgeville, CA (population: 30) — a town that’s currently being auctioned off on eBay for the third time. [ABC]

AMERICA, I AM YOUR FATHER

“The voice of Darth Vader will be the voice of the Declaration of Independence” at a new Magna Carta exhibition in Philadelphia. It’s just all too fitting. [AP]

GOOD TO KNOW

“‘Vicious’ piranhas are really wimps” [Reuters]

FOREIGN AFFAIRS

Kenyan government ministers complain of boredom, want to know if Bono fixes this sort of thing. [BBC]

WIMBLEDON

Serena and Venus Williams both advance to the next round after two Wimbledon nail-biters. [NY Times]

SILVER LINING

Coral that is stressed by global warming can actually benefit from nearby hurricanes—another symptom of global warming. Uh...yay? [AP]

FAT BIRDS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

Argentavis magnificens, a big ol’ 150 pound bird that lived in the Andes 6 million years ago, was too fat to fly, according to computer models created by scientists at Texas Tech University. [AP]

WHO FLIES THE FLAG?

Interestingly, “more Northeasterners and Midwesterners fly the flag than do residents of the South or the West.” [Pew]

BRUCE WILLIS

Listen to all the grunts from every Die Hard movie. In sequence. Sounds like an evening in the can after some bad tacos. [Grunt Hard]