COUNCIL CHRONICLE – Abby Beckley, a 28-years-old from Grants Pass, Oregon, lived the shock of her life when, one day, she pulled a translucent worm out of her eye. Looking at what she first thought was an eyelash, she quickly realized that it was moving.

The worst part was that she pulled worms out of her eye 14 times over a three weeks span, back in 2016. Her story is so unusual that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently published a report about it. It is also being treated as a medical mystery.

According to Richard Bradbury, the lead author, this was the 11^th time someone was infected with eye worms in the United States. However, what was even more interesting in this case is the fact that the worm in the woman’s eye doesn’t usually infect humans.

It’s a cattle worm and somehow, Beckley ended up with it inside her eye. This could be explainable, as the woman grew up surrounded by cattle and horses. In 2016, driven by her desire to travel, she landed a job on a commercial salmon fishing boat in Alaska. Two weeks later, she reportedly started feeling a strange sensation in her eye.

The Medical Mystery Unraveled?

When Beckley was that her left eye became red and her eyelid droopy, she knew that something was not right. Initially, the woman thought it was all because of an eyelash, but when she looked in a mirror, she had the shock of her life.

She ended up pulling 14 worms out of her eye. Even the doctors were amazed. Beckley was also afraid that the worms might affect her brain or eyesight in some way.

It’s worth noting that parasitic eye worms are widespread in animals. Female “face flies” usually feed on the secretions of the eyes. Their larvae then grow and reproduce inside the animal’s eye.

Beckley’s situation was the first case of this kind and it surprised even experienced and important experts. According to researchers, they now want to find out more about these new species that can apparently also infect people.

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As you might very well have figured out, the flu season is in full swing. While this is not a major reason for concern, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention warned that if unmedicated, this condition can have dire consequences, a fact confirmed by the strange case of a UK man who managed to rupture his throat after holding in a sneeze.

Can Holding in a Sneeze Be Dangerous?

Perhaps there’s nothing more annoying than that tickling sensation you get behind your nostrils before letting out a sneeze. We do our best to hold it in, cover out noses, use a piece of tissue, literally anything to let those little germs loose. But what happens when you try so hard to keep yourself from sneezing that you resort to covering both nostrils and mouth?

A UK man had the misfortune of landing in the emergency room of the Leicester Royal Infirmary, shortly after he tried to put the lid on a sneeze. The man, who did not wish to disclose his identity, told the doctors, that a couple of days ago, he felt the urge to sneeze and prevent it by covering both nostrils and his mouth.

However, shortly after, the man experienced some unusual symptoms: difficulty swallowing, throat pain, audible voice change, and a little crackling sound every time he tried to swallow something.

The 34-year-old UK man went straight to the emergency room, where the doctors X-Rayed his throat to see what’s room. When the film came in, the doctors discovered that the man suffered from a condition called subcutaneous emphysema and pneumomediastinum.

According to the doctors, by covering his nostrils and mouth, the little bubbles of air that would normally be released through the nasal passages, got stuck in the soft tissue of his throat. Basically, the man ruptured his throat while trying to suppress a sneeze.

After a week spent in the hospital, the man was released and received a clean bill of health.

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Israeli authorities are currently on the lookout for Oliver McAfee, a devout Irish Christian, who went missing in the desert. Doctors believed that the man might have a mental condition called Jerusalem Syndrome. While searching, the authorities found a trail of torn Bible pages.

McAfee Went on a Bike Tour After a Bout of Depression

According to the investigators, 29-year-old Oliver McAfee from Northern Ireland had left the country in in a hurry, heading towards the Negev region. McAfee, who was a devout Christian has been battling severe depression for some time now, and his trip to Israel should have been a journey of enlightenment.

McAfee picked up his bike and the little he had to his name and went straight to the Negev region in Israel. According to the authorities, the last time someone saw McAfee alive was on the first of November when he crossed paths with an American tourist in Israel.

Shortly after his disappearance, the Israeli authorities began combing the Negev area,  hoping to see a sign that the man was alive. During their investigations, the authorities discovered that someone, presumably McAfee, tore out pages from the Bible and placed them under rocks.

In fact, the authorities discovered a trail of Bible pages going all the way to the heart of the desert. Apart from the Bible pages trail, the Israeli search and rescue team also discovered an improvised shrine on top of a rocky ridge.

According to an eyewitness, the man used bike utensils in order to clear out a stone circle and to flatten the ground.

Jerusalem Syndrome Explained

Moshe Kalian, a psychiatrist, declared that the might be suffering from something called the Jerusalem Syndrome, upon which individuals experience religious delusions while on the Holy Land. Raz Arbel, a researcher, declared that the man is looking for Jerusalem and that the shrine and tore Bible pages are part of some ritual whose meanings remains unknown.

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COUNCIL CHRONICLE – The human brain is an amazing thing as it helps us store information, memorize events, read, learn, and make connections. Also, people sometimes have gut feelings about certain things. This is among the things that scientists had yet to find a rational explanation for.

What are Gut Feelings Anyway?

A top professor is now offering an explanation that might explain gut feelings. He mentioned that our brains rely on a connection similar to a Wi-Fi one. With the help of it, humans pick up signals about other people. Apparently, our brains are connected with the help of this Wi-Fi-like signal. This helps people catch different micro-signals from other people.

Professor Digby Tatum from the University of Sheffield mentioned that language is just a part of human communication. He also states that the micro-signals we receive are the ones that gave us a certain intuition or a gut feeling about a situation or a person. Although we get this feeling, we don’t have an explanation for it.

Professor Tantum mentioned that this phenomenon is known as the interbrain. He says that we are capable of understanding how a person is feeling with the help of this connection. He stated that this is at the back of our mind. This might be why we just feel some things without having a rational explanation for them.

“It is based on the direct connection between our brains and other people’s and between their brain and ours. I call this the interbrain.”

The professor also believes that the phenomenon gives us certain feelings and alerts. For instance, most people avoid eye contact during commutes. This is because there are too many people and this might overload the brain with information.

Tantum also states that the interbrain is responsible for our feeling joy when in a room with many people. For example, when we go to a concert or a sports event.

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COUNCIL CHRONICLE – People who suffer from tinnitus also have a persistent ringing in their ears. This can go from mild to disabling. Because of this, people might not be able to perform their daily tasks. Now, a new experimental device might help them lower this bothersome ringing.

Ringing in Ears to Soon be Gone or At Least Lowered Thanks to Experimental Device?

This experimental device uses timed sound and stimulation in order to target the activity of the brain nerve. Reportedly, it has already helped more than 20 people get rid of the ringing in their ears caused by tinnitus.

People who suffer from tinnitus hear sounds in their ears even when there isn’t any. This is because the fusiform cells increase their activity when they don’t need to.

With the help of this experimental device, the cells won’t activate unless there is a sound stimulus. More than 15% of American suffer from this condition.

About two million of them are not able to work or carry on with their activities due to the fact that they hear a constant ringing in their ears. In some cases, this leads to stress and the incapability to work normally.

This condition is often caused by neck or head trauma or exposure to loud sounds. The recently conducted study showed that the fusiform cell activity can actually be tamed through the electrical stimulation of the skin.

As part of the research, participants used the experimental device for 30 minutes every day for four weeks. After stopping, their problems returned in a week.

Despite this, the improvement in the quality of life lasted for a few weeks after that. The patients who used a placebo device did not present any improvements or changes.

NEW: Our scientists have studied #tinnitus for years – find out what happened in the first test of a device they developed: https://t.co/6U6JxsiqUY pic.twitter.com/kFjZb1hmZy

— Michigan Medicine (@umichmedicine) January 3, 2018

Researchers mentioned that a longer trial needs to be conducted in order to see the long-term effects of this experimental device.

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The dangers of drinking alcohol are well-known to most of us, but you might not be aware that alcoholic beverages actually increase your risk of developing cancer. It turns out it can permanently damage the DNA of stem cells, making the body more vulnerable to the disease and more likely for it to developing tumors.

Alcohol scrambles the DNA in stem cells

Many cancer cases appear as the DNA of stem cells suffers irreversible damage. Most of them happen by pure chance, but it turns out that drinking alcohol might make stem cells feebler. To prove this hypothesis, a team of researchers decided to perform a study on genetically altered mice. They administered ethanol to these mice, and then observed how it disturbed the DNA of stem cells.

If the body receives alcohol, it has to process it and, whenever this happens, it results a byproduct. This byproduct is acetaldehyde, which is toxic. Once this acetaldehyde gets into contact with stem cells, it has a permanent effect on its DNA. More precisely, it gets destroyed, causing a huge imbalance in its sequences.

DNA damage in stem cells often leads to cancer

This is important to know, and it highlights the links between alcohol consumption and cancer. However, acetaldehyde doesn’t always have such a destructive effect on the body thanks to two saving mechanisms. One of them fights against this toxic compound, while the second one fixes the damage done on the DNA.

It’s worth mentioning that alcohol had a terrible effect on the mice since they had undergone genetic engineering. The damage was bigger on those that lacked the defense mechanism against acetaldehyde. This is an enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase 2, or ALDH2. The damage done on these mice by alcohol was four times bigger than on those with the protective enzyme.

The study was published in the journal Nature.
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Sometimes, doctors are able to tell a person is sick just by looking at their face. Now, researchers have revealed this is not a skill acquired in medical school, but a general human ability. Most humans can identify a sick person judging from certain hints present on their face. Researchers say they have evolved this as a way to avoid getting ill by avoiding contact with ill people.

They took photos of people after causing an immune response in their organisms

Researchers knew that not only doctors could detect an illness on a person’s face, so they decided to see if this is a general human skill. For this, they developed a study where they used 16 healthy people aged between 19 and 34 whose photo was taken. Then, they were given a shot of a compound called lipopolysaccharide, which induces flu-like symptoms over a short period of time.

These people exhibited different immune responses to the compound. Some of them felt extremely sick, while others felt like nothing much had changed at the moment they had to pose for the photo. However, soon afterwards, everyone was ok. This compound is not dangerous, and is often used for the study of the immune response it causes.

The success rate was high, showing humans can judge sick people by their face

The researchers took a photo of the people before the shot, when they were healthy, and then two hours after they had been injected. Then, they were about to show the photos to other people and see if they could notice any difference. The next day, they received a placebo treatment, which wasn’t meant to exhibit a real immune response, and had their photo taken again.

They collected 32 different photos they showed to other participants, and gathered a total of 2,945 ratings. The task was to rate the people in the photo as sick or healthy. They got it right 775 times and wrong 440 times, reaching a high accuracy rate. This way, researchers established human can accurately spot a disease just by looking at a person’s face.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
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The holidays brought a lot of fun, but also plenty of excesses. This is why January is the perfect moment to take a break and try to lose some weight, cleanse your body from toxins, or maybe just refresh a little and start the new year with more energy. Therefore, many people engage in Dry January, where they give up drinking for one month.

Dry January became a widespread movement

The Dry January movement came into being in 2011, when a woman was getting ready for a half marathon. To stay in shape, she decided to give up drinking for the entire month of January. She noticed how many benefits this brought to her, so she decided to do the same thing next year, and convinced more people to join her.

This attempt gathered so many participants over the years that it became a full-fledged movement with millions of participants. It is supported by the Alcohol Concern organization, which seeks to help people abstain from drinking through a special app. After signing in to this organization, people receive this app which gives them advice on how to stay alcohol-free. However, people can join Dry January even without the app, if they can do it on their own.

It’s definitely worth taking a break from alcohol

The organization promotes the Dry January initiative for the many benefits the body undergoes while quitting alcohol. It can help people sheds some extra pounds, improve the quality of their sleep, and cleanse their skin. Also, it is a great method to save some money. If you decide to prolong alcohol abstinence, you might find your cognitive performance greatly improved.

Apart from all these benefits, a stronger immune system is one more advantage. Alcohol made the body a lot more vulnerable, so giving it up should help it regain its strength. Dry January might sound a bit extreme for some people, but engaging in such an activity is definitely worth it for your health.
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There’s only one day until New Year’s Eve, and you should get ready to party. Of course, there will probably be plenty of alcohol, which might turn from a delight to a nuisance if you consume too much of it. Fortunately, you can have all the fun you want without worrying about a hangover if you take care and consume a few foods and drinks which will keep you fresh and hydrated.

Stay hydrated as much as possible

Anyone wants to have fun on the New Year’s Eve party, and maybe drink more than one glass of alcohol. If you drink moderately, you should be able to avoid the unpleasant hangover. However, if you want to take advantage and go crazy, there are a few tricks you can use to avoid feeling miserable the next day.

First of all, hangover is caused by the body getting dehydrated. If you keep it hydrated during drinking, then you should be able to enjoy the party until dawn. Once every two or three drinks, gulp down a small bottle of water. If you want everything to be fancy, you can opt for a Pina Colada or for coconut water, which has the same effect as regular water.

Fatty and acidic foods keep the hangover away

In terms of food, the best to keep hangover away are the creamy and fatty products. Whatever contains plenty of milk, cream, cheese, or anything high in fat is the best to fight the bad effects of alcohol. Also, these foods keep the substance from getting rapidly absorbed in your blood. The opposite effect is offered by bread or pasta, so try to avoid carbohydrates as much as possible.

In the end, don’t forget about the fruits. Drink as many natural juices as possible, and don’t refrain from sucking on lemon slices. They are acidic in nature, so they ease the digestion of alcohol. If you want to eat fresh fruits, the best choice is bananas, as they should keep your body hydrated.
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Most of the time, humans cannot resist their impulses and end up doing something they know it’s wrong or unsuitable for them at the time. They find it hard to control themselves, but a team of researchers from Stanford University discovered a mechanism to keep this urge under control.

We give in to impulses way too often

We often feel we cannot resist temptation, and it’s usually bad for us if we do. These impulses can be anything, from an urge to open the cookie jar when you’ve sworn to go on a diet, to the burning desire to light a cigarette even after quitting.

While performing a study on mice, researchers said they’d discovered the area in their brain which makes them be impulsive. Also, they identified the process which occurred shortly before the animals gave in to their impulses. As a result, they decided to apply a short zap on the region, which helped them control this behavior.

The mechanism controls the center of the brain responsible with impulsive behavior

This is a great finding, but researchers aren’t sure it would work on human impulses as well. For the testing, they looked at a brain simulation which is generally used to study epilepsy symptoms. They are working on the zapping mechanism, but the prospect is great. If their attempts are successful, they might be able to stop binge eating, suicide attempts, sparks of rage, or other destructive behaviors.

However, not all impulses are bad. In fact, most of them are mandatory for survival, as they encourage the conservation of the species. However, some might turn pathological, which can quickly develop into bad habits and put people in danger. Researchers now want to manufacture a brain implant which they can add to this impulse-controlling center. Whenever the person is about to act impulsively, the device will deliver an electrical zap to stop them from doing it.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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