The Check-Up: Thank Your Momma for Skinny Genes

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• Are you thin? Do you have thin parents? Thank your lucky stars—they may have passed on their skinny genes.

• British pop singer Adele canceled the US leg of her tour, citing vocal hemorrhaging as the culprit. Uh, come again? Vocal hemorrhaging? Does that sound ridiculously painful to anyone else? The condition’s apparently common among singers, as you might have guessed, and it occurs when the vocal chords vibrate too much, causing blood vessels to burst and the area to bruise. The LA Times has more details.

• I’ve never seen it, but from what people tell me, this sure sounds an awful lot like Avatar. Researchers at Duke have somehow managed to devise a way for monkeys to move a virtual arm using only their minds. And not only that, the monkeys could make out—and tell the difference between—different textures, too. The idea is develop a technology that could give quadriplegics the ability to move, touch and feel with robotic limbs. Read more on CNN.com.