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Over a third of China's land is being scoured by erosion that is putting its crops and water supplies at risk, a three-year nationwide survey finds. Soil is being washed and blown away not only in remote rural areas, but near mines, factories and even in cities, according to the country's official Xinhua news agency.
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Slowly rolling across the ocean floor, a humble single-celled creature is poised to revolutionize our understanding of how complex life evolved on Earth. A distant relative of microscopic amoebas, the grape-sized Gromia sphaerica was discovered once before, lying motionless at the bottom of the Arabian Sea.
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It is only a matted ball of hair. But it puts scientists a step closer to bringing the woolly mammoth back from the dead. They have unscrambled the prehistoric giant's DNA using samples of hair frozen in Siberian ice for thousands of years.
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Washington state has agreed to pay $300,000 to an ex-prison inmate whose penis was consumed by a flesh-eating bacteria while he was behind bars.
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The newest wrinkle in anti-aging treatments might make some youth-obsessed oldsters think twice about leaping into the treatment face first. Vavelta is a clear liquid derived from baby foreskins, donated by mothers whose babies have just been circumcised. The liquid is injected into adult skin damaged by acne or burns.
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A common mistake when searching for alien life forms is to look up into the sky for something big. But alien life is right here, at our feet, in our backyards. Millions of tiny but frightening aliens, many just a few millimetres long. We’ve convinced the most cheerful of the lot to give us a tour…
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A 74-year-old blind woman has been told a lien will be put on her South Attleboro home if she doesn't come up with a penny she owes on an outstanding utility bill. Eileen Wilbur, of Glenn Street, said she discovered the notice of the potential lien after her daughter, Rose Brederson, came over to read her mail.
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A six-year-old albino girl in Burundi has been found dead with her head and limbs removed, in the latest killing linked to ritual medicine. Albinos in the region have been targeted because of a belief peddled by witchdoctors that their body parts can be used for magic potions.
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The World Food Programme said it had had no response to its October appeal for $140m (£91m) to feed Zimbabwe. Food could run out entirely by January unless fresh support is provided, the WFP warned, as it takes six weeks for supplies to reach rural areas.
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