11 reasons as to why water helps your body

1) Water is the only liquid on Earth that safely reduces weight. It removes the by-products of fat and keeps you fresh and healthy. Drinking water regularly, suppresses your appetite to a great extent and limits your food  intake. Another distinct feature of water is that it literally contains no calories, hence, contributing significantly to weight loss

2) Do you want to look younger? Problem solved! Just drink lots of water every day! Water is a perfect replacement for your expensive ageing treatments. It moisturises your skin and keeps it fresh and glistening thereby enhancing its overall appeal. In addition, it helps maintain the elasticity and suppleness of the skin and prevents dryness by detoxifying the skin. Hence, one should strictly avoid dehydrating foods and beverages such as caffeine (cola, chocolate, coffee, tea) and alcohol

3) Drinking enough water can also combat skin disorders such as eczema, psoriasis, dry skin, wrinkles and spots

4) Water is an essential component required for the effective working of our body since body parts including our brain and the various tissues are mostly composed of water. Considering this, water can significantly improve our ability to think and make us energetic too.

5) Water removes toxins and most of the waste products from our body contributing to a healthy quality of life. If our body lacks water then our heart has to make an extra effort to pump fresh oxygenated blood to our organs causing severe health issues

6) A study conducted in the Loma Linda university in California, involving 20 men and woman in the age range of 38 to 100 years, concluded that those who drank enough water throughout the day were less likely to have a heart attack (41% in women and 54% in men). Hence, it can be suggested that if you substitute water with milk, tea, coffee or other beverages then you will have increased chances of incurring a heart attack, with a precise rate of 50% in women and 46% in men.

7)  Water helps to relieve headaches and back pain. Although there are many reasons that contribute to headaches, dehydration is one of the most common ones

8) Regular intake of water increases your metabolic rate and improves your digestive system. If you are constipated, try drinking more water - it can work wonders!

9) Drinking plenty of water helps fight against the flu and other ailments like kidney stones. Water, along with lemon or lemon juice is often used to overcome respiratory diseases, intestinal problems, rheumatism and arthritis. On the whole, water plays a fundamental role in strengthening your immune system

10) Research suggests that drinking substantial amounts of water is likely to reduce the risks of bladder and colon cancer. This is because water has the ability to dilute the concentration of cancer-causing agents in the urine and reduce the time they take to come in contact with the bladder lining

11) The human body needs a neutral Ph 7 range in order to function properly. Drinking enough water throughout the day helps maintain this balance.

The Panda ant

First described in 1938, this fascinating species was quickly nicknamed the Panda Ant (Euspinolia militaris) after its markings which resembled those of a Giant Panda. While it looks just like a fluffy ant, it’s actually not an ant at all! It’s really a species of wingless wasp related to the Red Velvet Ant, or “cow killer” as it is eerily dubbed. The killer nickname comes from the ants’ painful sting which is said to be strong enough to subdue a cow.

Like the Red Velvet Ant, the Panda Ant also packs a powerful sting that can temper just about anything – or anyone – that crosses its path. That’s really all anyone knows about this unique creature as it has been spotted only a handful of times and barely even studied. I can tell you that it would be all I could do not to give this guy a little tickle, though. That fuzzy black and white panda coloration is just too cute! Too bad it would probably destroy me in a single bite. Sigh.

The Woman Who Scratched Through Her Skull

The woman known only as “M” has had a rough life. After her marriage fell apart, she lost her kids, became a junkie, contracted HIV, and developed a terrible case of shingles. But nothing compared to the “itch.” Two years after kicking her heroin habit and getting a handle on her disease, the right side of her head started inexplicably itching like crazy.

It began after a nasty shingles attack, and when she sought help, the doctors were baffled. She had no parasites, rashes, or red marks. No creams helped, and M couldn’t stop scratching. The itchiness was constant and especially unbearable at night. She sometimes scratched so hard that she woke up to find her pillow caked with blood. She tried wearing caps to bed, but nothing could stop her from scratching her head.

One night, M woke up to find green liquid dripping down her face. Alarmed, she visited her doctor, and after a quick glance, her physician called for an ambulance. M was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was told she needed surgery immediately. It turned out that, during the night, M had scratched straight through her skull, digging down to the brain. It seems impossible for fingernails to claw through bone on their own, but because of an infection called osteomyelitis, M’s skull was soft enough that she was able to dig a hole in her head.

Still, the itching remained. M tore off two skin grafts in her desperate attempt to kill the itch and had to be restrained. Doctors put a foam helmet on her head, tied her hands to the bed at night, and kept her locked up in a medical ward for two years. All this time, experts were still unsure what was causing M’s condition. Some surmised that since her shingles had destroyed 96 percent of M’s nerve fibers in the right side of her scalp, perhaps the remaining 4 percent of nerves were active itch fibers. However, when they snipped the main sensory nerve leading to the front of her head, nothing changed. The itch kept on itching.

If nerve fibers aren’t to blame, what’s going on? Science writer and surgeon Atul Gawande believes M’s brain is very confused. Since most of the nerve fibers are gone from the front of M’s head, the brain isn’t sure what’s really going on in that region, and for some reason, it’s decided she must be itchy. Since there aren’t any nerves to contradict the official story, the itching goes on and on. It’s a horrible scenario similar to the suffering of amputees with phantom limbs whose invisible appendages sometimes contort into uncomfortable positions.

Sadly, M has never been cured of her hellish itch. Today, she’s wheelchair-bound because the left side of her body is partially paralyzed. The itch is still there, and while she has overcome her nighttime compulsion to scrape her scalp, she keeps her nails very short, just in case.

Who knew how useful a lemon could be?

In World War I, several so-called “lemon juice spies”—German agents operating in England—used citrus as their means of communication. The British government had stepped up its censorship of letters in wartime. One agent, Mabel Beatrice Elliot, flagged letters written by three of these men, heated them up, and unmasked them as spies. The lemon-juice operation was a clumsy one: several spies, once caught, had lemons on their persons, or pens with pulp still stuck on the nibs. In the end, the British executed 11 German spies in the Tower of London in 1915; four of them had used lemon juice. “After the painful and visible loss of … the lemon juice spies,” Macrakis writes, “the Germans began to develop more sophisticated invisible ink methods.”

Orange You Glad

A Catholic prisoner in England used invisible ink with far happier results in 1597. The Jesuit priest John Gerard came to England in 1588 to carry out a secret mission for the Catholic underground. Caught and detained in the Tower of London, Gerard was tortured for information. The priest befriended his prison guard and began to ask for oranges, whose juice he saved to write to confederates to on the outside. With the help of this guard, Gerard even communicated with a fellow Catholic prisoner whose cell he could see from his own, miming directions for developing the orange-juice letters over flame. The two eventually conspired to escape the Tower, with the help of outside accomplices who brought a rope—a feat made more impressive by the fact that Gerard’s fingers had been wrecked during his torture sessions.

Top 10 places you aren't allowed to visit

10. RAF Menwith Hill (U.K) – Worlds largest electronic monitoring site. This place is able to detect any type of missile attack around the globe, reportedly.

9. Club 33 (Disneyland California, USA) – This may be one of the few places on Earth that are not government controlled, yet is almost just as hard to gain access to. This address is located in the New Orleans Square part of the theme park and is a club exclusively for VIPs with a membership. Some people wait half their lives just to get access to this club.

8. Bohemian Grove (California, USA) – A secret place in the woods reserved only for the worlds most powerful people.

7. Vatican Secret Archive (Vatican City) – While you are able to request texts to be delivered to you from the archive for browsing, the archives themselves are off limits to everyone except a few people.

6. Lascaux Caves (France) – This delicate site is home to part of our human heritage. Only a few very important scientists are allowed in the caves due to the ancient age and nature of the artwork contained within.

5. Pine Gap (Australia) – Only place in Australia Designated as a No Fly Zone.

4. Metro 2 (Moscow, Russia) – Underground train system in Moscow supposedly reserved for use by Russian secret services and top government officials.

3. Room 39 (Pyongyang, North Korea) – Supposedly a government controlled operation that deals in illegla drug trafficking and smuggling.

2. Mezghhorye (Russia) – The supposed location of Russia’s nuclear missile site. This is heavily guarded by Russian troops at all times.

1. Area 51 (Nevada, USA) – This list probably wouldn’t be complete without including Area 51. This is the rumored location of alien corpses, the Roswell crash remains, and test site for various strange aircraft.

The man who stuck his head in a particle accelerator

Anatoli Bugorski might be the luckiest scientist of all time. On July 13, 1978, the Soviet researcher was repairing a particle accelerator intimidatingly named the Synchrotron U-70. As he was repairing a faulty piece of equipment, he made a slip-up worthy of Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor. While poking around the machine, Bugorski stuck his head inside the accelerator and straight into the path of a proton beam.

Made out of hydrogen atoms without electrons, proton beams are often used to obliterate cancer cells, but only in carefully controlled doses—just over five grays (“grays” measure absorbed doses of ionizing radiation) will normally turn humans into irradiated toast. When the beam zapped Bugorski, it measured about 2,000 grays. When it exited near the left side of his nose, it blasted out at 3,000.

As it coursed through his skull, the proton beam burned a hole through Bugorski’s brain. While it was painless, he said he was blinded by a flash “brighter than a thousand suns.” After staggering away from the machine, the left side of his face swelled to enormous proportions. Later, the skin near the entry and exit wounds peeled away, and Bugorski lost hearing in his left ear. However, this Soviet survived his mind-blowing experience, perhaps because the proton beam was moving at nearly the speed of light.

Despite his good luck, Bugorski eventually lost every nerve in the left side of his face, becoming partially paralyzed. The proton beam also damaged Bugorski’s mental capabilities, though not as badly as you might expect. Despite his handicap, Bugorski earned a PhD and is still alive today, proving that it takes a lot more than a proton beam to kill a Russian.