Quebec's legislation on medical aid in dying has many aspects in common with laws passed in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2002 to regulate euthanasia, but it is more restrictive in nature because it only concerns people at end-of-life.

This was observed by Jocelyne St-Arnaud, a professor of ethics in health at the University of Montréal's Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, during a seminar she gave on December 2 as part of the Séminaires de l'IRSPUM series.

Daejeon, Republic of Korea, Dec. 16, 2015 -- When a fake phone company released its line of products, NoPhones, a thin, rectangular-shaped plastic block that looked just like a smartphone but did not function, many doubted that the simulated smartphones would find any users. Surprisingly, close to 4,000 fake phones were sold to consumers who wanted to curb their phone usage.

As smartphones penetrate every facet of our daily lives, a growing number of people have expressed concern about distractions or even the addictions they suffer from overusing smartphones.

Santa Claus performers struggle with fulfilling the role of jolly old St. Nicholas due to an acute awareness of the sensitivities around interactions with children in modern times, according to 15 formal interviews with Santa performers comprising 14 male Santa performers aged between 52 and 81 and one female grotto assistant who performed in the guise of an elf, aged 32.

Psychologists say they have evidence of tool use by greater vasa parrots (Coracopsis vasa). They determined this by studying ten captive parrots and seeing that the birds adopt a novel tool-using technique to acquire calcium from seashells. They also noted active sharing of tools among themselves. 

A new study challenges the popular idea that sexual cannibalism occurs because a female is unable to alter or 'tone down' her aggressive mindset after foraging and hunting for prey. Instead, females are sexually cannibalistic because they are testing the males, rather than just being inherently aggressive, says University of Melbourne scientist Dr. Mark Elgar.

In the first trial, 11 of 16 female raft spiders (Dolomedes fimbriatus) that copulated then attacked the males during or immediately after copulation. But only four attacks were fatal.

Mariners have long spoken of 'walls of water' appearing from nowhere in the open seas, that is why freak waves are called freak waves.

Oceanographers have disregarded such stories and instead suggested that rogue waves - enormous surface waves that have attained a near-mythical status over the centuries - build up gradually and have relatively narrow crests, but new research says rogue (or freak) waves can emerge suddenly, being preceded by much smaller waves. At least in mathematical models published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A.