US Alcoholics might increase by 60% next year!

It's not because of a particular increase in alcohol consumption, or any type of actual increase in people who become alcoholics. It's because the American Psychiatric Association is coming up with a new definition of addiction that will see the number of people classified as alcoholics increase by that much.

The American Psychiatric Association writes and maintains the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM for sure. It's the go-to book that every mental health professional refers to when diagnosing a mental illness. 

They're planning on releasing the 5th edition of the DSM next year, and one of the changes they're proposing is to expand the list of recognized symptoms for drug and alcohol addiction. 

For example, if you often drink more than you intend and crave alcohol, you will be considered a mild addict. Under DSM-4, you needed to have more serious symptoms like missing your duties, being arrested or driving while drunk before you were diagnosed as an addict.

The result will be that an estimated 20 million people will be considered addicts, who now are just unhealthy users rather than abusers. They estimate that up to 40% of college students would fall under this definition!

This decision is drawing fire because it has huge implications beyond the simple diagnosis. For one, the DSM is what insurance companies use to decide what treatments they pay. If so many people are considered addicts, then health care costs could rise dramatically. 

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If you see Bigfoot in Texas, it's legal for you to kill it

A man wrote to the state of Texas asking about the legality of killing Bigfoot, should he ever run into it while hunting. He was referring to a specific statute that defined which animals were legal to hunt and kill in Texas.

The official from Texas explained that the statute refers to which animals are considered game animals, a specific list of animals that are legal to hunt. The man's fear is that because Bigfoot wasn't included on the list, he couldn't kill it.

Texas responded by saying that the state only defines non-game animals, as animals that are native to Texas and that are not protected. If there's an animal that is not native to Texas and it's not an endangered species, then it's fair game.

This means that because Bigfoot is not officially recognized as an endangered species, you could theoretically kill it while in Texas with no repercussions. Let us know in the comments if you've ever hunted and killed Bigfoot!

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Soft Drinks are the #1 source of calories for Americans.

Although consumption of sodas has dropped about 16% per capita since 1998, the average American still drank slightly less than 2 sodas per day. This has left brands like Coke and Pepsi scrambling to solve their drop in sales. Market observers think we're entering a slow decline of soda consumption. 

Still, sugary soft drink is the #1 source of calories in the average American diet. Think about it. It means that if you're the average person, you get more calories from drinking Coke or Kool-Aid than you do from pizza, hamburgers, French fries and everything else. 

The holy grail is, of course, finding an all-natural sweetener that has no calories. Many people are still apprehensive of the stuff used to give diet sodas their flavor. Until then, soda companies fight the downward trend by adding new brands, flavors and other products like bottled water.

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There are more slaves now than in any other period in history.

Slavery is illegal in every country, yet as of 2006 there are as many as 28.4 million slaves in the world. In 2007, the slave trade made 32 billion dollars. That's more than Nike, Google, and Starbucks made in the same year combined. 

Most of these slaves are in bonded labor (or debt bondage), a whopping 18.1 million. Another 7.6 million slaves are in forced labor, like the kind we hear about in Congo with diamond mining. At least 2.7 million slaves are also trafficked. 

Sex trafficking is among the most common forms of slavery. Victims are usually either sold by their family members living in poverty, or deceived with a job or other offer. Typical schemes are ones like being offered the opportunity to go to America and work at a fast food chain like In-N-Out. 

There is a handful of other tactics used to deceive these people, such as fraud, threats, marriage offers, or even outright abduction. When the scheme is revealed, these women are repeatedly gang raped and drugged into submission. Some children as young as three are forced into the trade. 

Unlike many global issues, however, this isn't one that can be written off as a problem of underdeveloped countries. Every year, anywhere between 800,000 and 1.8 million people are trafficked into the United States. It's something that happens inside the US borders in plain sight, in our own backyards. 80% of these are women, and 50% are children. 

Furthermore, because slavery is so prevalent in manual labor, nearly every product purchased here in America is produced in some way due to slaves. Many products that we use everyday are made in part thanks to slavery. There's a very well put together survey that can tell you about how many slaves are supporting your life. It can be found at http://slaveryfootprint.org. 

If you want to know more specifically about human trafficking, you can check out this website: http://www.callandresponse.com/ 

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Left-handed people seemingly die 6 to 9 years sooner than right-handed people. No one has a good explanation for why

According to psychologist Stanley Coren, lefties live less long for a variety of reasons. Lefties tend to have a lower immunity to disease, as well as a higher accident rate, Coren says. 

A survey taken of a thousand recently deceased claimed that the average left handed person died nine years sooner than the right handed counterpart. While the average age of death for righties was 75, the average age of death for lefties was apparently 66. 

Many were quick to question this, because in other similar experiments there was either a much smaller difference in the age of death or no notable difference at all. In addition, nine years is a larger age gap than even the gap between smokers' and non-smokers' projected lifespans. 

A study of right and left handed cricket players showed only a two year gap, while a study of right and left handed baseball players showed only an eight month gap. Those who dispute the nine-year gap argue that if it were so, life insurance companies would have caught on much sooner and would be slower to insure lefties. 

A 1992 article in the Atlantic notes that lefties have higher frequencies of depression, substance abuse, bed wetting, suicide and attempted suicide, low birth weight, sleeping disorders, and autoimmune diseases. This is argued as an explanation for why they live shorter lifespans. 

Yet another explanation is that there's simply a generational gap between lefties and righties. That is, that some of the older generation of lefties was forced to become right-handed. It wasn't until later generations that people were free to be left- or right-handed.

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