Slashdot Mirror

__roo writes: Did you know chocolate helps you lose weight? You can read all about this great news for chocoholics in the Daily Star, Daily Express, Irish Examiner, and TV shows in Texas and Australia, and even the front page of Bild, Europe's largest daily newspaper. The problem is that it's not true. A researcher who previously worked with Science to do a sting operation on fee-charging open access journals ran a real—but obviously flawed—study rigged to generate false positives, paid €600 to get it published in a fee-charging open access journal, set up a website for a fake institute, and issued press releases to feed the ever-hungry pool of nutrition journalists. The doctor who ran the trial had the idea to use chocolate, because it's a favorite of the "whole food" fanatics. "Bitter chocolate tastes bad, therefore it must be good for you. It's like a religion."

Tasha26 writes "UK's Ministry of Defence admitted that secret information about its nuclear powered submarines was leaked on the internet by mistake. A 'technical error' (i.e. turning the background colour of certain text to black) meant that sensitive blacked-out parts of the online MoD report could be read by anyone who copy-pasted it into another document. This accidental leak reveals, among many other things, how easy it would be to cause a Fukushima-style reactor meltdown in a sub, and details of measures used by the US Navy to protect its own nuclear submarines."

Amanda Flowers always liked her Wii Fit but now she can't get enough of it. Amanda claims a fall from her balance board damaged a nerve and has left her suffering from persistent sexual arousal syndrome. From the article: "The catering worker said: 'It began as a twinge down below before surging through my body. Sometimes it built up into a trembling orgasm.' A doctor diagnosed her with persistent sexual arousal syndrome due to a damaged nerve."