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For about 100 years, scientists thought that peptic ulcers were caused by stress, spicy food, and alcohol. Later, researchers added stomach acid to the list of causes and began treating ulcers with antacids. Now it is known that peptic ulcers are predominantly caused by Helicobacter pylori, a spiral-shaped bacterium that normally exist in the stomach.
Bacteria have flourished on the earth for over three billion years. They were the first life forms on the planet.
The calories found in one piece of cherry cheesecake could light a 60-watt light bulb for 1.5 hours.
Your skin wrinkles if you stay in the bathtub a long time because the outermost layer of skin (which consists of dead keratin) swells when it absorbs water. It is tightly attached to the skin below it, so it compensates for the increased area by wrinkling. This happens to the hands and feet because they have the thickest layer of dead keratin cells.
Cancer has been around as long as humankind, but only in the second half of the twentieth century did the number of cancer cases explode.