What happens to you take a drink? Alcohol, unlike other things you eat or drink, passes quickly into your bloodstream. Once there is one drop of alcohol to every 1500 drops of your blood, you're drunk. Continued drinking after that can soon make you pass out. In other words, it takes only a few drinks to get drunk.

    Many people think alcohol peps you up. That's not true. Alcohol really slows you down. The more you drink, the more you slow down. But alcohol often does make you act jovial and happy. That's because alcohol loosens your self-control. Sometimes you do things you would never do when sober. You take chances. That can be dangerous, especially when you're driving.

    Alcohol can be bad for your health. That's because it make you delay eating, or forget to eat all together. The more you drink, the less likely you are to eat the food your body really needs. Thus, many people who die from drinking really starve to death!

Sometimes the normal processes of cell growth, death, and regulation get completely deranged. Cells are transformed and begin robbing their neighbors’ blood supply, like vampires. They defy normal limitations on growth, multiply unceasingly, and then invade space reserved for others. They refuse to die on schedule. These are cancer cells, and they are responsible for about two million new cases of various cancers that occur every year in the United States, and over half a million deaths. One out of five people in industrialized countries will die of cancer, most of them from tumors that originated in a lung, breast, prostate gland, colon, or rectum. And except for a few very clear instances such as lung cancer caused by smoking or exposure to certain chemicals and radiation, no one knows exactly why. Unlike smallpox or malaria, cancer is not a distinctive disease with a single cause. It arises from various kinds of mutations in a cell’s DNA. Some mutations occur naturally. In the course of an average human lifetime, billions of trillions of cell divisions take place. Given this huge number of replications, mistakes are bound to happen. They may result in a disadvantageous change for the organism; some may even spawn cancers. More often, mutations and cancers are prompted by external causes.

Britain’s second-largest city, Birmingham, has a new skyline－only it belongs to its Alabama namesake. Birmingham City Council distributed 720,000 leaflets that praised residents for exceeding recycling targets, carrying a message that read: “Thank You Birmingham.” The message appeared stamped across a photograph of the city’s skyline. But the photo was not of Birmingham, England, but of Birmingham, Alabama. It’s the second time British officials have mistakenly used images of Birmingham, Alabama. Three lawmakers who represent Birmingham at the European Parliament accidentally used a picture of the U.S. city on their Internet site in January. “I would have thought the council would take more care,” said Birmingham resident Jon Cooper. “I can’t believe no one at the town hall noticed.” Britain’s Birmingham is famed for its modernist Bullring shopping mall, with its distinctive metallic curved exterior, and an extensive network of canals, churches, and historical buildings. The Alabama city’s skyline includes the Wachovia Tower, University of Alabama buildings, and skyscrapers. Officials said the wrong image was selected from an Internet photo archive. “It’s human error,” said Birmingham City Council spokesman, Kris Kowalewski. “We accept that the wrong photo was used, but the text and detail contained in the leaflet is wholly correct.” In Alabama, the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce didn’t immediately respond to calls for comment.

      In the first century A.D. Pompeii was a pretty and prosperous resort town. There were some 12,000year-round inhabitants and hundreds more who came down from Rome each summer to their villas by the sea. Ona hot summer day, around noon—it was August 24, A.D. 79—the people of Pompeii saw a huge cloud formingover the mountain north of the city. This was the last noontime Pompeii would ever know, because that cloud ofvolcanic debris was the beginning of a massive eruption that blew the top off Vesuvius, burying the city beneath 12 feet of rock and ash and unleashing a blast of toxic gases. Thousands were killed—in their homes, in thestreets, in businesses and brothels. Thousands more fled madly toward the sea. Those who were running for theirlives must have been surprised to see a curious figure racing not from but toward the volcano. This was the greatRoman naturalist Pliny the Elder. Seeing the initial eruption from a safe distance at his home near Naples, therenowned scientific observer just could not stay away. He grabbed his notebook and stylus and hightailed it forPompeii to gather firsthand information on this prodigious phenomenon. Pliny’s curiosity cost him his life.