Mercyvill

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria—With a malevolent laugh, the leader of Nigeria’s Islamic extremists tells the world that more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls have all been converted to Islam and married off, dashing hopes for their freedom. “If you knew the state your daughters are in today, it might lead some of you … to die from grief,” Abubakar Shekau sneers, addressing the parents of the girls and young women kidnapped from a remote boarding school more than six months ago. In a new video released late Friday night, the Boko Haram leader also denies there is a cease-fire with the Nigerian government and threatens to kill an unidentified German hostage.

Not everyone can get to the gym - but is it really possible to get fit by just doing one's chores, asks Michael Mosley. You might want to read this article while standing up. Or perhaps while strolling around the room. Because the sad fact is that most of us spend far too much time sitting on our bottoms staring at screens. We drive everywhere, avoid the stairs, pack our houses with labour-saving devices and email colleagues rather than walk down the corridor to talk to them. We are a slothful lot and the most common reason given for not doing enough exercise is lack of time.

(Edward Quinn Archive) When Sylvette David was just 19, she met the ageing Picasso, who was immediately entranced and immortalised her in a series of works. Alastair Sooke looks back at the moment the artist met his muse. According to Françoise Gilot, who lived with Picasso in the the 1940s and ’50s, the artist was like Bluebeard, the aristocratic folktale serial killer who murdered his many wives. In her memoir Life with Picasso (1964), Gilot recalled visiting the artist’s chateau at Boisgeloup, north-west of Paris. “I began to have the feeling that if I looked into a closet, I would find half a dozen ex-wives hanging by their necks,” she wrote. “He had a kind of Bluebeard complex that made him want to cut off the heads of all the women he had collected in his little private museum.”

With this ring: Wedded bliss doesn't necessarily mean it's all plain sailing - and a row can quickly escalate into a ring pitched into the ether, only to be bitterly regretted later It's 09:00 on a cold, wintry Sunday morning and a strong wind is blasting across a recently ploughed farmer's field. We are somewhere down a beaten track on the Purbeck clifftops along the UK's south coast. The landscape is deserted, with the exception of one determined man with his metal detector… and me. Flying instructor Richard Higham is a treasure-hunter in his spare time, and he is convinced this particular field is a "hotspot" for relics from the past. He points out the visual clues which suggest somebody once called this deserted, exposed spot their home. Burial mounds, pottery shards, flint and overgrown but still distinctive stripes along the slopes of the landscape - the remainder of an ancient farmin...

(Photo: Darren Russell) Writer Ann Morgan set herself a challenge – to read a book from every country in the world in one year. She describes the experience and what she learned. I used to think of myself as a fairly cosmopolitan sort of person, but my bookshelves told a different story. Apart from a few Indian novels and the odd Australian and South African book, my literature collection consisted of British and American titles. Worse still, I hardly ever tackled anything in translation. My reading was confined to stories by English-speaking authors.

(Open Road Films) Several new movies wallow in the sleazy underbelly of the movie industry – and these are continuing a long tradition, writes Nicholas Barber. In one corner of Los Angeles, a hallucinating child star strangles an even younger boy on a film set, leaving it to his incestuous parents to clean up the mess. In another corner, a virtuous private eye is harassed by a depraved policeman who is also an actor in a television cop show. And in another, a psychotic news cameraman is desperate to capture the city’s goriest crimes on video, even if his own colleagues are the victims.

By Alec Perkins via Wikimedia Commons With the NYC Marathon less than a three days away, now is the time for runners to start focusing on race-day safety. Nurse practitioner Jasmine Travers, who is pursuing an advanced degree at Columbia University School of Nursing, advises runners to avoid cramming in too many training miles this week and concentrate instead on drinking enough fluids to improve overall hydration on race day. Travers, who will volunteer at the medical aid station at the finish line in Central Park on race day, offers runners some simple tips for running injury-free

(Shutterstock*) 1. Include Greens at Every Meal You will reap tons of health benefits from eating a variety of green foods. They happen to be the most nutrient-rich form of carbohydrate available to us in a natural form. They’re anti-inflammatory, cancer fighting and bone boosting, to name a few benefits. While incorporating greens at every meal might sound difficult, it’s quite easy with a little direction. Try adding leafy greens (such as spinach) to a breakfast smoothie, have a green juice at lunch and saute your favorite leafy green for dinner.

One of the world's most famous self-portraits is going on rare public display in the northern Italian city of Turin. Very little is known about the 500-year-old, fragile, fading red chalk drawing of Leonardo da Vinci but some believe it has mystical powers. There is a myth in Turin that the gaze of Leonardo da Vinci in this self-portrait is so intense that those who observe it are imbued with great strength. Some say it was this magical power, not the cultural and economic value of the drawing, that led to it being secretly moved from Turin and taken to Rome during World War Two - heaven forbid it should ever fall into Hitler's hands and give him more power.

Magazine Monitor A collection of cultural artefacts Debrett's, an authority on British manners, has published for the first time the questions they are most frequently asked by the public. But are manners something people still take seriously and how have they changed, asks Luke Jones. Far from which fork to use for asparagus or how to address an Earl, the most popular questions asked of Debrett's have a modern flavour. E-cigarettes, mobile phones and aeroplane seats are troubling the polite most of all.

Indian women discuss the impact of a lack of cheap and safe sanitary products "I will never let my daughter suffer the way I do when I have my period. My family treats me like an untouchable. "I'm not allowed into the kitchen, I can't enter the temple, I can't sit with others." There's a sense of determination in 32-year-old Manju Baluni's voice. I met her in a remote village in Uttarakhand, a hilly state in the north of India. In India, there is generally a silence around the issue of women's health - especially around menstruation. A deep-rooted taboo feeds into the risible myth-making around menstruation: women are impure, filthy, sick and even cursed during their period.

Digital hearing aids use sound compression to isolate speech but this can distort music. Wearers of digital hearing aids struggle to listen to recorded music because of the way the devices process sound, research from the US suggests. The researchers from the University of Colorado, Boulder found that the more sophisticated hearing aids boost softer sounds to aid speech recognition. This process is called wide dynamic range compression. However, it distorts recorded music, which tends to be compressed already during production. The effect of both the recording compression and further compression by the hearing aid causes distortion. Additionally, music - both recorded and live - is made up of many sounds at different volumes and changing these volumes changes the way the music sounds.

The association between genes and violence was strongest for repeat violent offenders A genetic analysis of almost 900 offenders in Finland has revealed two genes associated with violent crime. Those with the genes were 13 times more likely to have a history of repeated violent behaviour. The authors of the study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry , said at least 5-10% of all violent crime in Finland could be attributed to individuals with these genotypes. But they stressed the genes could not be used to screen criminals. Many more genes may be involved in violent behaviour and environmental factors are also known to have a fundamental role.

By Dr Mercola , www.mercola.com According to an old South American proverb, “good broth will resurrect the dead.” While that’s undoubtedly an exaggeration, it speaks to the value placed on this wholesome food, going back through the annals of time. The featured article by Dr. Amy Myers lists 10 health benefits of bone broth. Sally Fallon with the Weston A. Price Foundation has previously published information about this healing food as well. First and foremost, homemade bone broth is excellent for speeding healing and recuperation from illness. You’ve undoubtedly heard the old adage that chicken soup will help cure a cold, and there’s scientific support for such a statement.

For people with very rare types, obtaining lifesaving blood can involve a complex network of donors and doctors that stretches across the globe. His doctor drove him over the border. It was quicker that way: If the man donated in Switzerland, his blood would be delayed while paperwork was filled out and authorizations sought. The nurse in Annemasse, France, could tell from the label on the blood bag destined for Paris that this blood was pretty unusual. But when she read the details closely, her eyes widened. Surely it was impossible for this man seated beside her to be alive, let alone apparently healthy? Thomas smiled to himself. Very few people in the world knew his blood type did—could—exist. And even fewer shared it. In 50 years, research...

In June the leader of Islamic State declared the creation of a caliphate stretching across parts of Syria and Iraq - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi named himself the caliph or leader. Edward Stourton examines the historical parallels and asks what is a caliphate, and what is its appeal? When Islamic State (IS) declared itself a caliphate in June this year, and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claimed the title of caliph, it seemed confirmation of the group's reputation for megalomania and atavistic fantasy. Al-Baghdadi insisted that pledging allegiance to this caliphate was a religious obligation on all Muslims - an appeal which was immediately greeted by a chorus of condemnation across the Middle East . But is it dangerous to underestimate the appeal of IS? Al-Baghdadi's brutal regime does not, of course, remotely conform to the classical Muslim understanding of what a caliphate should be, but it does evoke an aspiration with a powerful and incr...

A health worker shows the proper way to wear an "Ebola suit" during a media tour of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine facility to show the Philippine government's readiness in the still Ebola-free country at Alabang, Muntinlupa city, south of Manila, Philippines, on Oct. 21, 2014. The longer the Ebola outbreak rages in Africa, the greater chance a traveler infected with the virus touches down in an Asian city. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) SINGAPORE—The longer the Ebola outbreak rages in West Africa, the greater chance a traveler infected with the virus touches down in an Asian city. How quickly any case is detected — and the measures taken once it is — will determine whether the virus takes hold in a region where billions live in poverty and public health systems are often very weak. Governments are ramping up response plans, stepping up surveillance at airports and considering quarantine mea...

Paul Merton says he was inspired by his good-humoured father Paul Merton is a Bafta award-winning presenter, writer, actor and comedian, known for his improvisation skills and deadpan humour. In a 2007 public poll, he was voted as one of the 10 greatest wits of all time. He is well known for his regular appearances as a team captain on the BBC's Have I Got News For You and has also appeared as a regular panellist on Radio 4's Just a Minute. He has won Top TV Comedy Personality at the British Comedy Awards and after several nominations, he won a Bafta in 2003. Here are his top 10 tips for being a comedian.

(Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times) U.S. retail sales were disappointing in September , worrying analysts that consumers may be feeling stretched or cautious as the biggest shopping season of the year rolls around. Some retailers make up as much as 30 percent of their yearly sales numbers from October to December . Kicking off the end of year spending season is Halloween. Just how much do Americans spend on t rick-or-treating and other Halloween festivities? The National Retail Federation (NRF) forecasts total Halloween spending—including candy, costumes, and decorations— to come in at $7.4 billion this year.

From brewing whiskey to mixing perfume, turns out there’s a whole lot more to space travel than you thought. Discover the incredible experiments going on in outer space.

(Tijana87/iStock/Thinkstock) Unless you’re a dedicated dieter, you probably pay little mind to your calorie consumption. But what if instead of calories your favorite foods were labeled in terms of physical activity? Would this have more of an influence on your eating habits? That’s the question behind a $2.3 million study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. The idea stems from an Affordable Care Act strategy targeting America’s obesity epidemic. The provision requires restaurant chains with more than 20 locations to clearly identify the calorie count for each food item on the menu. Regulators hope that if consumers can easily spot high caloric foods they’ll be more likely to make appropriate choices, and lose weight as a result.

(Alan Cleaver, CC BY 2.0) One of my favorite quotes is by famous nutritionist Adele Davis, who so eloquently said, “We are indeed much more than we eat …but what we eat can help us to become much more than who we are.” I am continually amazed at the results I witness in my private practice. After people have abused their bodies for years – whether it is smoking, stress, poor food choices, eating too much, or lack of exercise – with the proper changes, they still bounce back to healthhy and energetic living in 1-2 months time!