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April 19th, 2024

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Weird Science

News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

By News of the Weird by Chuck Shepherd

Published July 28, 2017

Weird Science

Human populations in Chile's Atacama desert have apparently developed a tolerance for arsenic 100 times as powerful as the World Health Organization's maximum safe level (according to recent research by University of Chile scientists).

While 80 percent of Americans age 45 or older have calcium-cluttered blood veins (atherosclerosis), about 80 percent of Bolivian Tsimane hunter-gatherers in the Amazon have clean veins, according to an April report in The Lancet. (Keys for having "the healthiest hearts in the world": walk a lot and eat monkey, wild pig and piranha.) [New Scientist, 2-22-2017] [NPR, 3-21-2017; The Lancet, 3-17-2017]

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