Thursday, December 31, 2015
A Judge Dismissed A Woman's DWI Because Her Gut Makes Its Own Booze
Quinn Dombrowski / Via Flickr: quinndombrowski
Here’s a new entry for best way to get out of a drunk driving charge: It’s not my fault — it’s the fungus in my gut.
Earlier this month, a judge in Hamburg, New York, dismissed a driving while intoxicated case against a 35-year-old school teacher after her attorney claimed that she had “auto-brewery syndrome,” a severe yeast infection in her intestines that supposedly pushed her blood alcohol levels to nearly four times the legal limit for driving.
The woman was pulled over in October 2014 and blew a 0.33% blood alcohol level on a Breathalyzer, according to the Buffalo News. The legal limit to drive in New York is 0.08%.
The woman insisted that she’d had only three drinks, and had stopped drinking an hour and a half before driving. Alcohol metabolism varies widely between individuals, but for women, a drink generally increases blood alcohol content by .025% to .045%.
The woman’s lawyer, Joseph Marusak, told the Buffalo News that she tested herself several times using a Breathalyzer in the months after the arrest, and also was tested by nurses over the course of 12 hours while abstaining from booze. Her blood alcohol regularly registered over 0.2%, he said.
The condition has been the subject of several published studies, each following one or two people with the disorder. Independent experts say that it’s probably a real condition, though extremely rare.
So how does it happen? The leading theory is that the syndrome stems from an imbalance of microbes in a person’s intestines, leading to an overgrowth of yeast. When an affected person eats food that’s rich in carbohydrates — such as sugar or alcohol — the yeast has a feast, multiplying and producing lots of ethyl alcohol, which then makes its way into the bloodstream.
Most people don’t have tons of yeast in their gut, so they don’t make excessive amounts of alcohol. But it’s not implausible that a few people do, Eric Martens, an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Michigan, told BuzzFeed News by email. “My guess is it’s pretty rare, but there are always surprises in nature and medicine.”
Wikipedia / Via en.wikipedia.org
Barbara Cordell, head of nursing and health sciences at Panola College in Texas, discovered the condition after her friend started acting drunk without drinking anything. The friend was kept under strict observation at a hospital for 24 hours, and his blood alcohol level rose throughout the day.
Cordell told the BBC that she estimates about 100 people have auto-brewery in the United States. Dozens of cases have been reported in Japan, where about 85% of the population has a gene that slows the natural breakdown of alcohol in their bodies.
In 2014, British man Matthew Hogg made the rounds at media outlets to raise awareness about the condition, which he says often gives him severe hangovers and has forced him to go on disability.
But no one knows for sure about the cause of the condition because so little research has been done. The handful of studies that do exist have found that people with unexpectedly high levels of blood alcohol also tend to have high levels of yeast — particularly Candida albicans and the brewer’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae — in their guts.
The New York woman’s doctor, Anup Kanodia, a general practitioner in Westerville, Ohio, told BuzzFeed News that he has treated about 10 people for auto-brewery syndrome in the last few years. About half of them came in after a DWI, he said, though the youngest was 13 years old. All claimed that they register high levels of blood alcohol without drinking.
“Could someone fool everything? They probably could,” Kanodia said. But a person would have to drink a lot of alcohol to get to such a high blood level — enough that it would be extremely difficult to hide, he added.
Kanodia took stool samples from these people to check for yeast in their intestines. They all had significantly higher yeast levels than typical people do, he said.
Kanodia is a medical doctor and also practices alternative medicine. He associates the symptoms of auto-brewery with “leaky gut,” when the cells lining the intestines become too permeable, allowing large molecules to get into the bloodstream. This condition is not recognized by most mainstream doctors, but has been used by the alternative medicine community to explain everything from irritable bowel syndrome to autism.
But some experts question whether auto-brewery syndrome could lead to such high alcohol levels. Toxicologists Barry Logan of NMS Labs in Pennsylvania and Alan Wayne Jones of Sweden’s Linköping University have proposed that the syndrome stems from a rare combination of a serious yeast infection and an inability to metabolize alcohol.
Because it would take a huge quantity of yeast to make enough alcohol to get you drunk, these researchers concluded that most, if not all, people with DWIs likely got them in the usual way — by drinking and driving.
Kanodia said that he is working with five other defense attorneys who are using auto-brewery as a defense for their clients.
The doctor admitted that people with high blood alcohol shouldn’t drive, no matter how they got there. But he says about 70% of his patients have seen significant improvement with various treatments, including probiotics, dietary changes, prescription antifungals, and supplements with antifungal properties, such as oregano oil.
Martens, the microbiologist from the University of Michigan, told BuzzFeed News that using an oral antifungal medication like fluconazole is likely the best treatment for auto-brewery, though it’s possible that a probiotic could out-compete the yeast for space and resources within the intestines.
“I’m just trying to help people other doctors don’t believe,” Kanodia said. “I would say 90% are undiagnosed, because no one believes them.”
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Oh My God, This Cake Changes Colors When You Turn It
Hello. It’s me. I was wondering if after all this time I could mess with your perception again.
Back in November, YouTuber CharlotteSometimes uploaded a short video of a seemingly magical cake.
According to a Reddit thread, the optical illusion was created by airbrushing different colors on opposing sides of the ridged frosting.
H/T to Geyser of Awesome! and laughterkey.
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Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Trump Co-Author: I Won't Vote For "No Class" Trump
“Who knows where he stands on anything, he’s a thematic sort of person.”
Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images
The co-author of Donald Trump's 2000 campaign book says the Republican front-runner is a "no class" person whose political beliefs are difficult to pin down.
Dave Shiflett appeared on the Alan Colmes Show on Fox News radio Wednesday to discuss Trump, for whom he wrote the 2000 book The America We Deserve.
"I kind of prefer author but I think he has his name on it," Shiflett said. "Well, I put a lot of the words down but it's his book."
Shiflett, who described Trump's politics in 2000 as "progressive" and "very liberal," noted the businessman's shift this election cycle.
"Who knows where he stands on anything, he's a thematic sort of person," Shiflett said. "President Obama was very thematic when he was a candidate, he was also about 'hope and change' and Donald is about strength."
"He's got people thinking that he's the man we need to stare down Vladimir Putin, for some reason," Shiflett continued. "I mean, I don't know who he's actually stared down. He's a real estate guy, I guess he's had to stare down some cement contractors and stuff."
When asked if he would vote for Trump, Shiflett said no.
"I'll tell you what really bugs me about him, where it really ripped it with me and Trump was the stuff he said about McCain," he said. "McCain suffered severely and I had a son who did two tours in Middle East during the last war and we had kids from here who went over there and some of them got hurt. They ain't gonna be the same."
"That's gonna come back to haunt him For a guy who never served to say something like that is just..," he continued.
Asked about Trump calling people losers, Shiflett said, "It's just no class, what it boils down too. What's the point of doing that. He doesn't have to do that."
In 2000, The Donald flirted with a run for president as a member of the Reform Party. Shiflett wrote The America We Deserve under Trump's name. The book served as a manifesto of sorts, but Trump ultimately decided not to run for the presidency that year, citing disfunction in the Reform Party.
Shiflett told Colmes that, during the writing process, the topic of terrorism was Trump's biggest passion, and noted that The Donald was a big fan of Jesse Ventura (the former wrestler and governor). He said Trump was "very careful to be "inclusive and tolerant" in writing about American diversity.
"His politics would be called progressive," he said, citing Trump's support for abortion, his past union support, a massive tax on the rich, and national health care.
The co-author noted Trump's disdain for demagogic former politician Pat Buchanan, who Trump labeled too outrageous to be president his book.
"He really didn't like Buchanan," his former writer said. In the book, Trump said that Buchanan "has been guilty of many egregious examples of intolerance. He has systematically bashed Blacks, Mexicans, and Gays."
On Trump's run this time, Shiflett said, "the fact of the matter is if Trump wasn't in the race it would be really boring" and added that he thought Trump could actually win the nomination. Shiflett said he thought that Trump ultimately might not want to spend his own money to run for president if he had too.
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/1NW6Gpb
Microsoft Wants You To Take Pretty Selfies -- With Your iPhone
Microsoft Selfie promises to tweak your pics for age, gender, skin tone and lighting.
Remember when Microsoft released that age-guessing tool?
Microsoft
Well, the company is once again bringing its machine learning techniques and algorithms to bear on our photos, but this time it's using them to do something that's actually useful: making selfies look better.
"Microsoft Selfie" is an iOS app that promises to subtly optimize selfies, calibrating them for things like "age, gender, skin tone and lighting." It's not exactly a novel concept — Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi offers a similar feature. But it is another example of Microsoft extending its reach beyond Windows as it course corrects for our increasingly mobile world.
This isn't Microsoft's first selfie app. Indeed, Microsoft Selfie appears to be a stripped down version of the Windows Phone app Lumia Selfie rejiggered for iOS. That said, with Microsoft's share of the mobile market at a piddling 1.7%, the company has a far better shot of getting some traction for its new selfie app on the iPhone than it does on devices running its own mobile OS.
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Take A Look At The Future Of Facebook
Jason Stein
While on vacation in Aruba yesterday, Jason Stein, CEO of social media advertising agency Laundry Service, tweeted two screenshots from a new Facebook test that showed up on his wife’s phone. The test inserted a number of different content feeds next to Facebook’s traditional News Feed, with Travel, Style and Headline channels visible in the pictures.
Stein described these specialized content feeds as a “a newspaper made up of all the world's newspapers.” The vision is one previously articulated by Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, who once said he hoped his platform would be a “perfect personalized newspaper for every person in the world.” Text, photos and outside links are still the dominant form of content shared on Facebook. And the importance of links to outside media, for example, drove the company to build Instant Articles, a product that hosts outside publisher content within Facebook in order to get stories to render as fast as possible (BuzzFeed is a partner). Scrolling through specialized content feeds, each replete with Instant Articles could potentially be a great experience.
It’s All About The Movies
But the test gets especially interesting when you consider video. As far back as 2014, Facebook proclaimed that video would be its dominant content format within five years. This shift made sense given that costs of producing and publishing video are falling while the bandwidth availability is increasing.
But Facebook gave little indication of how it could present all this video content in a coherent, enjoyable way. It could, perhaps, turn the News Feed into a big video feed. But jumping from a CNN segment, to a clip of your friend’s baby, to a traditional goofy internet video sounds a bit jarring. Facebook’s recently-rolled-out dedicated video experience, while still new, is subject to this problem.
These specialized feeds, though, might provide an answer. At the very least, they’re an attempt by Facebook to figure out how to make the content people consume on its platform more coherent than the sometimes scattershot News Feed. It paves the way for a better video experience.
If people do want to consume video within these feeds, still an open question, then Facebook can puts its most powerful tool into play: its algorithm. For years now, Facebook has been trying to figure out the exact pieces of content to show us based on what we’ve interacted with in the past, what our networks are interested in, and a handful of other factors. The algorithm powers the News Feed which while far from perfect, is effective at displaying relevant content. Put Facebook’s algorithm to use within a Style or Sports vertical and one day it could display a stream of videos catered to each user’s specific interests.
Stein believes Facebook’s algorithm can help organize web videos in a way that might make sense out of the overabundance of them. “When when you sit down to watch video, especially longer form, you’re in the mood for a specific genre, be it sports, comedy, music, drama, news, documentary, and so on,” he told BuzzFeed News. “Algorithmically organizing videos within genres is critical to the future of video. This new Facebook UI is likely the backbone for its video and TV apps.”
Stein then provided screenshots revealing the existence of far more content feeds available outside the three displayed in his initial screenshots. Among them: Food, Entertainment, Health & Fitness, Animals & Pets, Sports, Games, Science & Tech. Not only that, each vertical is customizable. So someone interested in the Style channel, for instance, can decide whether they want to see women's fashion or men's or whether they're interested in beauty tips, jewelry, accessories, or some combination of the above. This is the foundation of even more personalized channels.
For Facebook, the business implications are clear. It already has the best audience data in the world, since we, its users, have effectively helped it build it the dream catalogue for advertisers by telling it everything about ourselves. But advertisers understand that while a well-targeted ads may be good, a well-targeted ad in context can be great. In other words, when a beer manufacturer knows you’re a beer drinker, they’re better served showing you an ad while you’re watching sports highlights as opposed to a video of your nephew’s first steps. The ad served next to the baby video still hits its target, but it won’t be as effective.
Many questions remain — most notably whether Facebook will see this new format through. But also it remains to be seen if content creators will produce the volume of quality video needed to help Facebook live up to its five year promise. But assuming Zuckerberg and Co’s assumptions play out, what we’re looking at today may very well be the next big step for a company determined to seize even more control over the distribution of information and entertainment as we move deeper into the social age.
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13 Super Tasty Recipes That Will Satisfy Your Life In 2016
From BuzzFeedTasty to your belly.
Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs
RECIPE:
Cut low-moisture mozzarella cheese into 3/4 inch cubes. Store in refrigerator while preparing the meat.
In a large mixing bowl combine:
* 1 pound ground beef
* 1 pound hot Italian sausage
* 1/2 tsp garlic powder
* 2 tsp salt
* 1 tsp black pepper
* 1 cup bread crumbs
* 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
* 2 eggs
* 1/2 cup whole milk
* 1/2 cup chopped parsley
Directions:
Roll golf-ball-sized balls with the meat mixture. Squish mozzarella cube into the center and pull the edges of the meatball around it until it’s a new ball again. Arrange meatballs in slow cooker and cover in tomato sauce. Cook on high for 2 to 2½ hours.
Three-Ingredient Slow Cooker Apple Spice Cake
Here's what you need:
* 1 box spice cake mix
* 2 20 oz cans of apple pie filling
* 8 oz butter
Directions:
Pour apple pie filling into slow cooker. Top with cake mix and butter. Cook on high for 2 to 2½ hours. This dish is great with vanilla ice cream on top!
Cinnamon Roll French Toast Bake
Here's what you need:
* 2 tubes refrigerated cinnamon rolls with icing
* 4 Tbsp. butter, melted
* 6 eggs
* 1/2 cup milk
* 2 tsp cinnamon
* 2 tsp vanilla
* 1 cup maple syrup
Directions:
Pour the allotted butter on the bottom of a 9×13 glass baking dish. Cut each cinnamon roll into eight pieces, and spread evenly over the butter. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, cinnamon, and vanilla, and pour over the cinnamon rolls. Pour one cup of maple syrup over the mixture. Bake at 375°F (190°C) for 25 minutes. Top with the icing from the cinnamon rolls.
Cheesy Bacon Egg Cups
Here's what you need to make six bacon and egg cups:
* 3 slices of bread
* 3 Tbsp. shredded cheese
* 6 slices of bacon, cooked
* 6 eggs
* Salt and pepper
Directions:
With a jar or cookie cutter, cut two circles into each piece of bread. Place in muffin tin cups. Wrap a piece of cooked bacon along the edge of each muffin cup — make sure the bacon is JUST cooked and still warm, so it doesn’t break or crumble. Sprinkle half Tbsp. of cheese into each cup, then top with an egg. Season with salt and pepper, and bake at 400°F (204°C) for 15 minutes (longer for firmer yolk). Top with green onion.
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The 25 Places You Must Explore In 2016
From Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2016 and AFAR Media’s Where to Go in 2016.
Janny Chang / BuzzFeed Life
Ahh, January. A month to attempt to get your sh*t together, not guzzle wine every night, and, perhaps most importantly, plan out your entire year of travel.
NBC
Now about that last one. Of course you should go wherever you want, but there are some places that are in their prime this year, for various reasons — so this could be the best time to go.
Lonely Planet and AFAR Media selected the very best places to travel in 2016. (Lonely Planet released their book, Best In Travel 2016, and AFAR released their "Where To Go In 2016" issue, also available online.)
Some of these places are celebrating big anniversaries, some are in the midst of a resurgence, and some have landmarks that are nearing extinction — but all of them have something special going on right now. Here are the top 25 places you must travel in 2016. Choose one, or choose them all — whatever you do, happy adventuring!
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed Life
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20 Incredible Personal Essays BuzzFeed Life Published In 2015
I Don’t Care What You Think About My Breakfast — Katie Heaney
Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed
After years of copying other people’s snacks and fending off unsolicited diet advice, Katie Heaney wrote about finally figuring out what she wants to be eating.
Hell Yeah, I Wear A Fanny Pack — Rachel Wilkerson Miller
Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
Rachel Wilkerson Miller makes a case for why the fanny pack may not be the purse we want, but it’s the purse we need.
How I Made A Career Out Of Showing People My Cervix — Alexandra Duncan
Alice Monkongllite / BuzzFeed Life
As a gynecological teaching associate, Alexandra Duncan uses her own body to teach medical students how to perform pelvic exams. She wrote about why it’s the best, most empowering work she's ever done.
How I Gave Myself Permission To Be Gluten-Free — Martha Stortz
Alice Monkongllite / BuzzFeed Life
When she was diagnosed with celiac disease, Martha Stortz was more concerned about how her gluten-free diet looked to other people than she was about what it meant for her.
I Fell For The Perfect Guy, But Not For His Open Relationship — Jess Haberman
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed Life
After years of disappointing dating, Jess Haberman finally found someone great. The only problem was his other relationship.
There’s No Shortcut To Making A Mouthwateringly Delicious Curry — Anup Kaphle
Lauren Zaser / BuzzFeed
For years in America, Anup Kaphle tried and failed to replicate the Nepali dishes his parents made. Then he realized he was doing it wrong.
Pinterest Is Actually A Porn Director’s Best Friend — Kitty Stryker
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed Life
Find out why your favorite place to window-shop for succulents is Kitty Stryker's new favorite way to plan on-camera threesomes.
I Have Long Nails Because I’m Proud Of What They Mean — Jacob Tobia
Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed Life
As a genderqueer person, Jacob Tobia's fingernails have made their femininity more visible, both to other people and to them.
How I Learned To Celebrate Eid Al Adha In America — Zainab Shah
Yael Malka / BuzzFeed
Zainab Shah can’t slaughter a goat, but she can roast a leg of lamb.
I Was A Fundamentalist Christian Until I Discovered Feminist Writers — Susan Gray Blue
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed Life
Today it’s finding feminism, not God, that makes Susan Gray Blue want to testify. But getting here took a long time.
I Used To Be Ashamed Of My Fear. Then I Started Training As An Acrobat — Susie Armitage
Christina Chung for BuzzFeed
Susie Armitage is not fearless. But she spends a lot of time doing things that terrify most reasonable people.
I Moved Back To My Parent’s House At 29, And It Wasn’t The End Of The World — Ramona Emerson
Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
When Ramona Emerson moved out of her parents’ house at 18, she didn’t expect to be back a decade later. Now she may never want to leave.
Volunteering At An Abortion Clinic Made Me Lose Patience With The Abortion Debate — Kaye Toal
Haejin Park / BuzzFeed
Kaye Toal explained why anyone who really wants to understand what’s at stake in the debate over abortion should spend some time outside the places where it happens.
I Don’t Need To Choose Between Black And White, And Neither Does My Hair — Lauren Paul
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed Life
For most of her life, Lauren Paul struggled with her hair because it reminded her of her own otherness. After her mom died, she realized she didn’t have to.
I Didn’t Feel Like A “Woman Of Color” Until I Dyed My Hair Blue — Kaela Myers
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed Life
Experimenting with the color of her hair has helped Kaela Myers to claim it as truly hers, and to change the signal it sends about her biracial identity.
Why #DuragHistoryWeek Is More Than A Joke — Vann R. Newkirk II
Painting by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze / Graphic by Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed Life
Or: How the iconic hair accessory of Vann R. Newkirk II's youth became an unexpectedly meaningful way to celebrate blackness in the face of isolation.
I Can’t Live Without Fear, But I Can Learn To Be OK With It — Arianna Rebolini
Alice Monkongllite / BuzzFeed Life
Arianna Rebolini wrote about coming to terms with her OCD and the inescapable fear that the people she loves will die. Read more from Mental Health Week here.
I Have To Push My Own Limits To Let My Kids Find Theirs — Josh Stearns
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed Life
Josh Stearns's greatest challenge as a father is figuring out how to teach his kids independence and keep them safe at the same time.
The Year Of The Snail — Alanna Okun
Sarah Kobos / BuzzFeed Life
Getting an unexpected pet made Alanna Okun feel like an actual adult.
In Defense Of Going Out — Ramona Emerson
Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed Life
The next time you’re inclined to whine about going to another party, remember people like Ramona Emerson, who is hardly able to go to any.
If you have a personal essay you'd like to write for BuzzFeed Life, get more info on how to submit it here.
More recommended reading: The Most Moving Personal Essays You Needed To Read In 2015
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This 7-Day Clean Eating Challenge Will Make You Feel Amazing
Think of this one-week challenge as a healthy eating boot camp that’ll teach you how to cook awesome food all year long.
Lauren Zaser / Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
It's great to want to eat healthier but crash diets don't work — you need a sustainable plan. So, with the help of nutritionist Abby Langer, we put together a weeklong meal plan filled with recipes that will make you feel awesome, give you plenty of energy, and help you have your best, healthiest year yet. BuzzFeed Life's 7-Day Clean Eating Challenge is a healthy meal plan that will teach you to cook and eat real food that's actually delicious.
You'll eat three meals and two snacks every day for a total of 1500–1700 calories. There's lots of produce and lean protein, and no processed food. There are step-by-step photos and instructions for the recipes — plus tips for shopping, storing leftovers, and saving money.
You'll start with a kale and sweet potato-loaded frittata and end with a turkey-stuffed acorn squash, with a healthy dose of pomegranate seeds in between. Winter produce at its finest! Click here for Day 1 recipes and instructions.
Lauren Zaser / Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
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