What Ricin Is
	You might have heard on the television more than once about the assassination of the Bulgarian dissident Gerogi Markov with the help of a device hidden inside an umbrella, which fired a small pellet containing ricin into his leg. But what is ricin and why is it so deadly? It is a potent protein toxin extracted from the castor bean (Ricinus communis), which in quantities equal or higher than 500 micrograms becomes deadly to the human body. ... [read more >>]
	22 July 2008, 08:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Weekend Reading: The Quick Death of GTA IV
	Grand Theft Auto IV is, according to reviews and sales figures, the best game ever released. When GTA IV was launched, if you remember, it was a complete hysteria, with thousands of people queuing to purchase it, with guys going on vacation, quitting their j ... [read more >>]
	04 July 2008, 10:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What Is Mustard Gas?
	Mustard gas is a member of the sulfur mustards, which are a class of chemical warfare agents that in their pure state while at room temperature are colorless, odorless, viscous liquids. When used as a warfare agent, mustard gas has a yellow-brown color resembling that of mustard plants, thus the name. It was first developed and used as a warfare weapon during World War I by the German Empire against enemy troops. Chemical gas ... [read more >>]
	03 June 2008, 09:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Fire Ants Play Possum
	This behavior is better known by most people as "playing possum" and by scientists as thanatosis ("putting to death" in Greek). When threatened or harmed, some animals mimic the appearance and smell of a sick or dead animal. The behavior is mostly known in opossums, but in reality it is practiced by various animals, from some snakes and toads to wasps and crickets. A new research published in the journal " ... [read more >>]
	15 April 2008, 02:40GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Too Many Eggs Can Kill the Men
	It is a vivid controversy: to eat or not to eat eggs. While a recent research has showed that consuming eggs reduces the risk of breast cancer in women by 24%, thanks to choline, a new one published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reveals that middle-aged men who eat seven or more eggs hurry up to their ... [read more >>]
	12 April 2008, 04:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Violent Deaths in US
	You hear every day about the increasing obesity rate in US and its accompanying metabolic syndromes (from heart disease to diabetes), which has turned into the first cause of death in the country. Heart disease is the first cause of death amongst Americans, while diabetes, the fourth (the second cause is smoking and the third non-smoking related cancers). But violent death still takes an important toll. In 2005, 15,962 Ameri ... [read more >>]
	12 April 2008, 03:58GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Four-Day-Dead Soldier's Sperm for Fertilization
	If this intercession succeeds, it would be a world's first. A soldier's widow has achieved success in having sperm taken from his body and frozen four days after he died in Iraq. Sgt. Dayne Darren Dhanoolal, 26, assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 69th Armour Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, in west Georgia, died on March 31 because of an explosion that occurred near his vehicle, in Baghdad. Hi ... [read more >>]
	09 April 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Grief Can Kill You
	We often see this in the movies (or not only), but science proves it to be real. The commemoration of the death of a beloved person can kill you suddenly, especially if you are a man. Sudden death, in most cases triggered by arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), can happen unexpectedly and often in less than one hour following the onset of symptoms, as a new study presented at the American College of Cardiology's annual meet ... [read more >>]
	31 March 2008, 16:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

“Artist” Leaves Dog To Die on Exhibition Display
	A man who calls himself an artist ties a dog to a wall inside an art gallery. No, you heard me correctly – we're not talking about the night janitor who caught the starving animal littering the front steps of the gallery and decided to vent a lifetime of frustration by pulling off a ridiculously cruel stunt. We're talking about a man who calls himself an artist. His name is Guillermo Vargas Habacuc and the year is 2007. ... [read more >>]
	31 March 2008, 08:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Batman Will Die
	If ever there was one things we all hated as kids, it was that dark, seemingly uncaring side in the minds of those people responsible with the production of all things entertaining – be they cartoons, comic books, action series or full-length movies. When these bad, bad people wanted to play with the hearts and nerves of the audience, they pretended to kill off the show's hero in some shocking plot twist. Of course, at the end of the ... [read more >>]
	26 March 2008, 07:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Weak Sex: Newborn Boys Are More Likely to Die Than Newborn Girls
	This is real. Girls learn to read before boys, get better marks in college, and even their brain contains more gray matter. Moreover, boys are medically clearly weaker than girls, as showed by a new research carried out by a team at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Southern California, and published in PNAS: newborn males in developed nations are more likely to die than their female counterparts. The team analyzed the ... [read more >>]
	25 March 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Toraja: The Burial that Can Ruin You
	Indonesia makes the world's largest archipelago, with 17,000 islands. One of its largest islands is Sulawesi (Celebes), which is like a bridge between Australia and Asia. A particular universe in Sulawesi is represented by Tana Toraja ("the Land of the Highlanders"), in the southern part of the island, dominated by the Rante-Kombola peak, 3,455 m (11,516 ft) tall. The Toraja people consider that the soul is the most im ... [read more >>]
	13 March 2008, 17:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

More People Commit Suicide than Get Killed
	Indeed, it is more catchy to watch the deaths committed by a suicidal terrorist or the crime of a psychopath, while ignoring your neighbor who threw himself from the 9th floor. Anyway, he was old/depressed/alcoholic. But an expert has signaled that, annually, more people commit suicide than are killed in wars, terrorist attacks and homicides. "There are more than one million people who die by suicide each year in the wor ... [read more >>]
	11 March 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Is Fidel Castro Dead or Is It a Worm in Your Email?
	Fidel Castro's act of transferring his power to his brother, Raul, just a couple of weeks ago (don’t think about it in the Highlander way of taking the other’s power!) gave cyber criminals a business idea. Seeing as they would take advantage of anything and not shying away from profiting off of disasters and charities, they thought that waiting a little and then spamming with emails about the Cuban leader’s death would reall ... [read more >>]
	10 March 2008, 13:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Year Ago, Anna Nicole Smith Passed Away
	I have no idea if this actually means anything for anyone anymore – but I doubt any of you have completely forgotten about the shocking death of Texan glamor model and Marilyn wannabe Anna Nicole Smith one year ago. And yes, it hurts me to say that her death has pretty much resembled her life: we can't remember the details, we glide over the finer points, significant or not, but we remember the sensationalist part, the trage ... [read more >>]
	09 February 2008, 06:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Afghan Student Sentenced to Death, Sentence to Be Carried
	While I covered the story earlier, at the time that happened, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh still had a chance to escape the faith set before him by his peers. Not anymore, as the Senate passed a motion this week that supports the sharia (oversees solel ... [read more >>]
	04 February 2008, 06:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Dead Men Can Really Have Erection! Sometimes They Ejaculate, too...
	What many people do not know is that the erection is a passive action. In fact, when men do not have erection, the penis makes an effort: the smooth muscles of the arteries at the base of the penis must stay contracted, in order to impede the blood filling the penis. (In fact, most aphrodisiacs, including Viagra, contain a chemical(s) that relax these muscles). No wonder dead people can have erections. A death erection (also n ... [read more >>]
	31 January 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Heath Ledger's Tragic Death - Already Pretext for Controversy and Pointless Cruelty
	It hasn't even been one day since Heath Ledger died and already we seem to be spiraling into a media frenzy fueled by the wildest rumors and speculations regarding his death and the last months of his life. It's been incredibly hard for everyone (whether in the entertainment business or not) to handle the news of the talented actor's untimely death - but I have an ominous feeling that the worst is yet to come and that things ... [read more >>]
	23 January 2008, 09:59GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Chinese Blogger Beaten to Death by Authorities
	Wei Wenhua (魏文华 is the Chinese spelling of his name) happened on a confrontation in Hubei, a central Chinese province, between city inspectors and residents protesting against the dumping of waste near their homes. Being the "citizen journalist" that he was, Wei quickly took out his phone with the intention to film the whole fight, most likely to later upload it and post it on his blog. According[ ... [read more >>]
	14 January 2008, 17:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Google and XKCD Present Dangers
	I’m not certain that many of you have an interest in the way other people die (I find that morbid and my statement redundant), but just in case you ever input such a query in the search box and hit the Enter key, or push the Search button, it will probably amaze you that many things are left out, while others are presented in full detail (no pictures, just the story… not that morbid!) The xkcd comic deals today with exactly this issue, ... [read more >>]
	11 January 2008, 05:58GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

YouTube Taser Death Parody under the Spotlight
	It’s common knowledge by now that YouTube is the place to go if you want to see something that will make your hair stand on end with indignation. There’s always something there that will get your blood to boil, it’s just not always in plain sight, and what you see today might not be there tomorrow, because eventually the censors come and do their job – and that’s a good thing in this case. Robert Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant, was rece ... [read more >>]
	04 January 2008, 14:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Death Speed: Cancer Kills 20,000 People Daily
	It has just entered in the top of human slayers: over 12 million cases of cancer have been diagnosed in the world in 2007, and 7,6 million persons will die because of this: 20.000 daily, according to a recently published report of the American Cancer Society. The most common cancers are that of lung and breast, no matter if the patients come from developing or developed countries. The reports shows that 5,4 million new cases and 2,9 mil ... [read more >>]
	18 December 2007, 03:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Too Much or Less Sleep Can Kill You
	Lazy bone or hyperactive? If you do not sleep on average 7-8 hours per night, in the end both less or more than this could cut short your life, as found by a new research carried on at the University College London Medical School, in London, U.K., and published in the journal "SLEEP", revealing for the first time that a decrease and an increase in sleep duration are connected with higher mortality because of cardiovasc ... [read more >>]
	17 December 2007, 05:05GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

8 Facts About Death and Long Life
	1.Today, there are over 200,000 centennial (aged over 100) persons. 66 are over 110, turning into supercentennial individuals. These have certifying papers, but their number could be up to about 450. 2.A quarter of the deaths around young Americans, aged 15 to 24, are caused by fire guns. In 1990, this translated to 4,200 cases (in homicides, suicides, and accidents). Only car accidents kill more young people. 3.Annually in France ... [read more >>]
	05 December 2007, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Rapper Pimp C Found Dead in Los Angeles Hotel
	If you're into underground music, and especially Southern rap, you'll definitely be familiar with the famous duo UGK (short for Underground Kingz), made up of Chad "Pimp C" Butler and Bernard 'Bun B" Freeman. The group's seventh album, "Underground Kingz", reached No. 1 on the national album chart in August this year, but the group was well-known and respected by its peers long before that, part ... [read more >>]
	05 December 2007, 05:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A New Way to Die
	There are cases when death can be a really good thing. Imagine, for instance, the cancer cells. However, so far, only two ways of cell death have been known: apoptosis (when the cell destroys itself) and phagocytosis (when the cell is digested by another cell). Now a new type of cell death has been found: entosis, when a cell crawls inside other cells to be destroyed. The phenomenon has been spotted 25 years ago, but its signi ... [read more >>]
	03 December 2007, 05:44GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Don't Look There, The Universe Will End!
	A shocking new theory in the world of physics suggests that we might have accidentally brought the universe closer to its death, just by looking at it. The observation of the dark matter back in 1998, which is thought to be responsible for the acceleration of the cosmic expansion, may have caused the universe to shift to a state similar to one in its past, in which the universe had more chances to end. Physicists Lawrence Krauss of Case ... [read more >>]
	22 November 2007, 04:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Watch Out... DST Can Kill You!
	Some odd study made in the United Stated, reveals that pedestrians walking during the evening rush hour, are three time more likely to be killed or hit by cars, than before the time change. This week-end clocks are turned one hour back, switching from Day Light Saving Time(DST) to Standard Time. The Day Light Saving Time was conceived by Benjamin Franklin as a way of saving candles, and is now used in North America, Eu ... [read more >>]
	03 November 2007, 06:58GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Maps of the Death
	We are accustomed to the official maps, which represent each country directly connected to its surface. That is a real map of the planet. But what if we tried to draw a map which would be directly proportional to the population size of each country? The result is an extremely ‘swollen’ China or India, a relatively ‘swollen’ Europe and a significantly shrunk America, as you can see on this ... [read more >>]
	03 November 2007, 05:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Biological View: What Do Dying People Feel?
	Have you ever wondered what a dying person feels? It sounds morbid, but science and accounts from lucky survivors have helped us make an idea about it. Still, only the dead know exactly how it feels and the sensations you experience at that moment. A report released by New Scienti ... [read more >>]
	22 October 2007, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Suicide Site? You Might Go To Prison, Dude!
	This is a pretty interesting piece of news. Let me tell you the short story so far: Kazunari Saito, 33-year-old guy, created an Internet suicide webpage which was debating suicide methods with the visitors of the site. Quite weird, you might say, but there are a lot of similar websites out there with numerous fans. Sayaka Nishizawa, 21-year-old, contacted Kazunari Saito in order to suggest a way to suicide. Obviously, because he ... [read more >>]
	11 October 2007, 06:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Death On the Web
	There are several questions to be answered here and a lot of people are concerned about their security on the Net. Can the Internet kill you? Directly, it cannot, that’s for sure! What about people threatening your life? Bogus! Now, can the Internet be used to kill? Well, not as a tool, but as an environment, yes! And I’ll give you two examples here – there are a lot of serious things handled on the Internet or on computers th ... [read more >>]
	26 September 2007, 06:17GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Marrying Your Cousin Increases More Than Twice the Death Risk for Your Children
	Is your cousin hot? In a Bedouin society, marrying him/her would be just the common thing to do. But we know that inbreeding is a great risk factor for genetic illnesses. The most varied our genes, the healthier we are. A new research checked how inbreeding affects the children’s survival rate. The new research was made on Bedouin communities in Bekaa, Lebanon, which double the country's average marriage percentages amongst first ... [read more >>]
	26 September 2007, 06:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Too Much or Too Little Sleep Kills You Earlier
	Bad sleep is worse than low cognitive abilities, weight gain, bad sex and car crashes. A team from the University of Warwick, and University College London, has discovered that less sleep doubles your chances of dying from cardiovascular disease. But too much sleep also doubles the risk of death. The research was made on 10,308 civil servants in the "Whitehall II study" and employed data on the mortality rates and sleep patte ... [read more >>]
	25 September 2007, 05:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Addicted User Dropped Dead in Internet Cafe
	A 30-year-old Chinese man was found dead in an Internet cafe after he played games for approximately 3 days, the reports sustain. According to Reuters, the 'man from the southern boomtown of Guangzhou' died while he was transported to the hospital because he spent three consecutive days in the Internet cafe playing games. Obviously, this matter raises the same Chinese concerns issued some time ago when the local authori ... [read more >>]
	17 September 2007, 06:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Curse of the Pharaoh
	Ignorant tourists make many dumb acquisitions and they should prevent that. Buying exotic seashells means more reefs destroyed, an ivory piece another dead elephant, a monkey and a parrot a step towards the species' extinction and tiger bones or rhino horns translate to less tigers or rhinos. But if consciousness does not work, an agonizing death could make the bad tourists more cautious about their acquisitions. This is what happ ... [read more >>]
	10 September 2007, 06:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

SOFTPEDIA EXCLUSIVE: Anna Nicole's Ex Files for $100 Million!
	Apparently, the book that was just released, 'Blonde Ambition' by journalist Rita Cosby, is not the only thing that can do some damage to Larry Birkhead and Howard K. Stern's reputation and, why not, financial situation. As you already know, the bo ... [read more >>]
	07 September 2007, 03:28GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

SOFTPEDIA EXCLUSIVE: The Truth Will Prevail
	Yesterday, I was telling you that the whole Anna Nicole Smith drama had just been brought back into the newspapers again, thanks to former MSNBC reporter Rita Cosby's book 'Blonde Ambition: The True Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death'. Eve ... [read more >>]
	06 September 2007, 03:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

SOFTPEDIA EXCLUSIVE: Gay Sex, Death and ANS – The Final Chapter
	A few days ago, word got out that the whole Anna Nicole Smith drama was about to be brought up again, this time not by one of those involved in the whole ordeal (meaning, in the custody battle, the investigation into her lifestyle and death, the paternity case), but by a professional journalist, former MSNBC reporter Rita Cosby, via a book titled 'Blonde Ambition: The True Story Behind Anna Nicole Smith's Death'. While a ... [read more >>]
	05 September 2007, 10:25GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Much Coffee Makes You Drop Dead?
	There are many studies investigating the effects of coffee, and its active ingredient, the alkaloid called caffeine, on the organism. Coffee has been found to enhance memory, reduce post-gym muscle pains, fight skin cancer, blepharospasm and gout, at the same time boosting sex drive. Caffeine blocks adenosine, a chemical that makes you naturally drowsy, increasing concentration and reaction speed, and constricting the brain's bloo ... [read more >>]
	14 August 2007, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Man Got Bitten by Beheaded Rattlesnake!
	We are all familiar with the story of the dragon in the fairy tales: when its head was chopped off, another one would regrow in its place. We also know that snakes with their forked tongues may be linked to the genesis of the dragon myth. But sometimes snakes can behave like dragons. This is what recently happened with a beheaded rattlesnake, a lesson for the 53-year-old Danny Anderson. He was feeding his horses Monday ni ... [read more >>]
	13 August 2007, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Can This Cat Really Predict Death?
	During the European Dark Ages, cats were linked to black witchery and persecuted. They were regarded as harbingers of death. But Oscar is not from the Dark Ages, nor does it live in the hut of a hex, but still is a harbinger of death more precise than a Swiss clock. This cat has the unusual quality of forecasting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours; in that moment the patient ... [read more >>]
	26 July 2007, 15:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Bitter End of Jim Morrison
	According to French journalist Sam Bernett, the death of legendary "Doors" front man, Jim Morrison, was not quite as "natural" as stated at the time. As hinted in the Oliver Stone's biopic movie, Morrison’s death, 36 years ago, was indeed caused by a massive drug and alcohol overdose. It seems that at the time, his demise was covered up by a network of drug dealers that provided the artist with his daily "nutr ... [read more >>]
	13 July 2007, 10:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Dead Man Returns Among The Living at His Own Funeral
	Voodoo stories are just stories; Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is just for entertainment; but this is a real case. You could imagine the shock lived by the relatives of an 87-year-old man from Chiayi County, Taiwan, when "the deceased" woke up at his own funeral. The Taiwanese's relatives and friends were in a Buddhist mourning hall, reciting Buddhist prayers for hours over the "dead" bod ... [read more >>]
	05 July 2007, 07:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Over 43 % of the Deaths in Russian Men Caused by Drinking Cologne and Cleaning Agents
	One could blame the Siberian cold and long winters but, in many countries, Russians – both men and women – are famous for their heavy consumption of vodka. And this is also applied to Russian communities outside Russia, such as the Lipovans. But when a team led by David Leon at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, investigated the phenomenon in western Russia, they got a shocking result: 43% of deaths in working-age ... [read more >>]
	18 June 2007, 06:25GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Giant Star Died Twice
	A massive star, burning brighter than our Star, eventually depletes its helium in the core, and without any source of heat to balance the gravity, the core collapses until it reaches nuclear densities. This produces a supernova explosion. For the first time, astronomers discovered a star that seems to have died twice. They noticed two separate explosions that were part of the fiery death of one of the most massive stars known ... [read more >>]
	14 June 2007, 16:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Death Pose in Dinosaurs: Brain Damage, Not Drowning
	Fossilized dinosaurs can be found in the most bizarre postures, like mouth wide-open, head thrown back and recurved tail, like in the case of the 150 million-year-old Archaeopteryx, a feathered dinosaur supposed to be a link between dinosaurs and birds. The classical explanation was that the dinosaurs died in water and the currents positioned the bones that way, or that rigor mortis or drying muscles, tendons and ligaments contorted the bo ... [read more >>]
	08 June 2007, 10:20GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Aging Process Linked to the Brain
	There are two most commonly accepted theories on aging: either it is the result of damage storing up or a suicide program. But a new theory, called astrocytic, is based on the changes observed in our brain and was formulated by Aleksei Boyko, Ukrainian researcher, specialist of the National Agrarian University of Ukraine. The basis of his theory is represented by the changes observed in brain cells: the transformation of the radial ... [read more >>]
	23 May 2007, 06:18GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

In 2006, 147 Japanese Died of Overwork
	Japanese people are famous for their long office hours and this marks their physical and mental health, and this comes with a heavy toll, as each year registers a new record of people dying from overwork. "Some 355 workers fell severely ill or died from overwork in the year to March, the highest figure on record and 7.6 % up from the previous year," stated the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor. 147 died, most of them of s ... [read more >>]
	17 May 2007, 09:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

MPAA Lobbyist Valenti Is Dead
	Jack Valenti, the politician, the movie mogul and the star, passed away on Thursday, in his home, after a one-week hospitalization following a stroke. He was 85 but he was still younger and more energetic than most of the stars and businessmen he befriended along the years. Valenti began his career as President Johnson's special assistant, immediately after JFK's death. In fact, he was in one of the cars that escorte ... [read more >>]
	27 April 2007, 07:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia