THE WAY YOUR BELLY BUTTON SMELLS COULD BE AN EARLY SIGN OF PARKINSON'S

New York Post

 

The way your belly button smells could be an early warning sign of Parkinson’s

By Allie Yang

Published Sep. 26, 2026, 11:05 a.m. ET

 

Your funky belly button could hold vital clues about your health — including signs of Parkinson’s, which is notoriously hard to diagnose.

 

No single lab or test can confirm a Parkinson’s diagnosis, and doctors are left to rely on symptoms, medical history, and tests like MRIs to rule out other conditions. Sometimes it can take years to get answers.

 

In fact, people send their T-shirts to a woman in Scotland named Joy Milne, who claims she can sniff out the condition long before symptoms appear.

 

She smelled it first on her husband about a decade before he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Milne was even put to the test at The University of Edinburgh — and nosed out who had the disease with “incredible” accuracy.

 

New research is uncovering how Parkinson’s may leave a detectable chemical signature in body odor, and opening the door to earlier and more accessible diagnoses — without shipping to Scotland.

 

What the research showed

 

All day, every day, your body is producing oil, sweat, and dead skin. Everything from what you eat to the medications you take are processed by the body and come out in these secretions, plus your breath, urine, and saliva.

 

Most of this stuff gets removed by cleaning every day. What researchers deliberately tested here were places that escape regular cleaning: the belly button, inside the nose, and bowl-shaped area outside the ear canal.

 

So even with exceptional cleaning, smells usually accumulate in these areas. They are “less exposed to perfume, soap, and other factors,” they explain, which makes them “an easily accessible source of human body odor volatilome,” aka bodily smells.

 

Researchers in Germany looked at volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, chemicals that evaporate into the air at room temperature. Many have strong smells — like perfumes, fresh paint and some glues — but others can’t be detected by smell.

 

They swabbed 24 participants — six with Parkinson’s, six with mild cognitive impairment, six with COVID-19 and six healthy control participants.

 

Researchers blasted the swabs with highly purified air, making the VOCs come out to be analyzed by lasers. They were able to get a kind of fingerprint of the mix of VOCs in each swab, and compare swabs to each other to see if there were any in common.

 

They found each group patterns across each participant’s fingerprints. They even tested several more Parkinson’s participants a few weeks later to see if the results would be consistent, and they were.

 

Why it matters

 

This was a very small study with only two dozen participants, so we can’t say yet that this will be the new way to diagnose Parkinson’s — or COVID-19, or cognitive impairment.

 

However, it did its job as a proof of concept: showing that non-invasive sampling combined with laser spectroscopy might form the basis of a screening tool in the future.

 

Scientists say future research will need to test larger populations, especially to determine whether the patterns seen here were a result of Parkinson’s, aging, or a combination of both. That means comparing people of similar ages with and without Parkinson’s.

 

Further research also will need “real world” testing that deals with the reality of variable soap, perfumes, hygiene, and other contaminants that might affect this kind of test.

A FEMALE BODY PART DISAPPEARED FROM TEXTBOOKS BECAUSE DOCTORS THOUGHT IT WAS USELESS: IT'S NOT

New York Post

 

A female body part disappeared from textbooks because doctors thought it was useless — it’s not

By Patrice Peck

Published Sep. 24, 2026, 9:28 a.m. ET

 

Don’t call it a comeback.

 

For more than a century, an organ in the female reproductive system was written off as useless.

 

However, a recent study indicates that what researchers have called a “mysterious orphan structure” may play an essential role in fertility and keeping the ovaries healthy.

 

The rete ovarii (in red) extending from and curving around the ovary (green and yellow).

 

First discovered in 1870, the rete ovarii is a small structure on the ovary that was historically received little attention.

 

Early editions of Gray’s Anatomy — the classic human anatomy reference book first published in London in 1858 — included drawings of the appendage. But it eventually disappeared from medical textbooks and came to be regarded as a functionless part of the adult ovary.

 

Then in 2024, a research team published “Rediscovering the rete ovarii, a secreting auxiliary structure to the ovary,” a scientific paper describing their examination of the development and function of the rete ovarii in mice.

 

An extended horseshoe-shaped tissue at the bottom of the ovary, the organ consists of three distinct regions that persist from birth through adulthood: the intraovarian rete (IOR), the extraovarian rete (EOR) and the connecting rete (CR).

 

Researchers injected fluid into the EOR and found that it flowed toward the ovary, suggesting the structure may play a role in ovarian function.

 

They also found evidence that the EOR may communicate with the nervous and circulatory systems: Its cells are closely associated with blood vessels that supply the ovaries and receive direct connections from nerves. The cells are also found near macrophages, immune cells that help protect the body.

 

The researchers also found receptors for hormones including estrogen and progesterone, which play important roles in reproduction and other aspects of women’s health.

 

Some of the proteins released by the rete ovarii are involved in egg maturation and maintaining ovarian follicles. Their activity increased as estrogen levels rose, suggesting the structure may respond to hormonal changes during the reproductive cycle.

 

The findings could offer clues about how the structure contributes to fertility and ovarian health, co-author Dilara Anbarci, a developmental biologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, told ScienceNews.

 

“There’s still so much we can’t even begin to comprehend about female anatomy,” said Anbarci. “I hope this encourages more investigation in reevaluating what we don’t already know about the ovary.”

 

Researchers have studied the rete ovarii since it was first described more than 100 years ago, but they never agreed about its function, according to the authors.

 

The rete ovarii rediscovery is also making waves on social media, where women are criticizing the medical research establishment — historically male-dominated in both its workforce and leadership — for rejecting and “erasing” a structure in the female body.

 

Comedian Michelle Wolf called called the news “infuriating” in a TikTok that has garnered more than 130,000 likes.

 

“The fun thing is that obviously our bodies didn’t erase it because if our bodies just erase things men wanted them to, we wouldn’t have brains,” she said.

 

Wolf also pointed out that the rete testis, considered the male equivalent of rete ovarii — though the 2024 study’s authors deemed the rete ovarii “more complex” — has remained in anatomy textbooks.

 

“We research women’s health just about as thoroughly as a man looks for ketchup in the fridge,” she quipped.

 

“Being overlooked by a man because they didn’t think you were important, rete ovarii, we’ve all been there. Welcome back, baby.”

ABDUL EL-SAYED CALLED FOR REPEALING LAW THAT MADE SEX WITHOUT DISCLOSING HIV STATUS A FELLONY

New York Post

 

Abdul El-Sayed called for repealing law that made sex without disclosing HIV status a felony

By Paul Steinhauser, Fox News

Published Sep. 26, 2026, 6:12 a.m. ET

 

Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed once called for repealing a Michigan law that made it a felony for people who knew they had HIV to have sex without first informing their partner — a position he is standing by eight years later as he campaigns in one of the nation’s most competitive Senate races.

 

As he unsuccessfully ran for Michigan governor in 2018, El-Sayed repeatedly took aim at the law.

 

The law carried a prison sentence of up to four years for people who knew they were HIV-positive and engaged in sexual penetration without first informing their partner of their HIV status.

 

“You should not be criminalized for a disease. That is absolutely wrong. It’s hateful. It’s discriminatory, and we can, as a state, do better. You can count on me for that,” El-Sayed said as he ran for governor.

 

Fast-forward eight years and El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and a former health director for Detroit-anchored Wayne County, is battling former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in the midterm race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.

 

The showdown in Michigan is a must hold for the Democrats as they try to win back control of the Senate from the GOP.

 

As he ran for the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial nomination — a contest he lost to now-two-term Gov. Gretchen Whitmer — El-Sayed’s campaign website stated, “Repeal HIV/AIDS criminalization laws and the exclusion of transgender Michiganders from state Medicaid.”

 

When asked in 2018 if he supported the decriminalization of HIV through legislation that would create two levels of misdemeanors, El-Sayed said at the time, “One of the big things that we have to recognize about HIV is that no disease can be illegal.

 

“The continuing forward of these laws on the books stigmatize people with the disease.”

 

Whitmer also supported changing the law, which dated to 1988, saying as she ran for governor, “It’s wrong to criminalize sickness, which is what this law has effectively done. It absolutely should be revisited.”

 

The law was reformed in early 2019, after passing a GOP-controlled legislature with broad bipartisan support.

 

The revised statute limited the felony provisions to vaginal and anal intercourse involving an intent to transmit HIV or cases in which HIV was actually transmitted, reduced certain non-transmission offenses to misdemeanors and protected medically suppressed people from prosecution under the law’s reckless-disregard provision.

 

“Abdul supports the bipartisan reform bill that passed in 2019 through a Republican legislature that eliminated the discriminatory laws on the books,” campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner told Fox News Digital.

 

“As a public health professional, Abdul has fought to support programs that stem the spread of diseases, including HIV.”

 

Richner added that “the Trump administration has completely exacerbated this crisis by defunding the organizations and programs that do frontline care to prevent transmission and exposure in the first place.

 

“In the US Senate, Abdul will fight back against Donald Trump and RFK Jr’s attempts to dismantle our public health infrastructure and ensure all Americans have access to the care they need.”

 

El-Sayed also stands by his past comments on fighting discrimination aimed at those with HIV.

 

Last week, as he landed an endorsement from the Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBTQ advocacy group, El-Sayed highlighted that if elected to the Senate, “I’ll fight to ensure every Michigander can live without discrimination and never have to wonder whether their rights will still be there tomorrow.”

 

El-Sayed, who narrowly edged more moderate Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens in August in a contentious primary that further exposed the rift between the party’s left-wing and establishment factions, would become the nation’s first Muslim senator if elected.

 

He has made support for “Medicare for all” a major component of his campaign.

 

El-Sayed has also called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and has been a vocal critic of Israel during its war against Hamas, characterizing Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” against Palestinians.

MAN WHOSE WIFE AND DAUGHTER EACH DIED OF CANCER TEN HOURS APART FINDS IT DIFFICULT TO COME HOME AND FIND NO ONE THERE, FAMILY SAYS

PEOPLE

 

Man Whose Wife, Daughter Died of Cancer 10 Hours Apart Finds It ‘Difficult’ to ‘Come Home and Find No One There,’ Family Says

By Toria Sheffield  Published on September 27, 2026 04:07PM EDT

 

The family of a man who lost both his wife and only child to cancer in the span of 10 hours said he is now facing a heartbreaking new reality.

 

Cibele Marchis, 28, died in a hospital in Mogi Guaçu, Brazil, at around 4 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 24, according to Metro.co.uk, Metrópoles and G1. Her mother, Maria Elisabete Nogueira, 56, died at a different hospital in the same city just hours later on Friday, Sept. 25.

 

According to their family, Cibele’s father and Maria Elisabete’s husband — whose name has been withheld to respect his privacy as he grieves — was left a childless widower overnight.

 

“He lost his family. To come home and find no one there anymore — it’s sad, difficult,” Cibele’s cousin, Rowilson Leandro da Costa, said while speaking to G1.

 

Cibele, a digital marketer and entrepreneur, was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that originated in her adrenal gland in 2024. Maria Elisabete, meanwhile, learned she had pancreatic cancer about a year later, per G1.

 

Cibele occasionally shared updates about her condition on social media.

 

“A year ago, I discovered that I had a rare adrenal cancer — a 10 cm tumor that had already taken over my kidney,” she wrote in a translated Instagram post shared in October 2025.

 

“Getting to the diagnosis was a long road. I could feel that something was wrong, but none of the tests showed why. Even so, I never ignored what I was feeling … Not long afterward, kidney pain led me to get a CT scan, and there was the tumor,” she continued.

 

Cibele said she ultimately underwent three surgeries — the last of which led to an infection that resulted in a 20-day ICU stay.

 

“Today, I’m on my eighth cycle of chemotherapy,” she added in the post, which featured a carousel of photos from her hospital stays.

 

A video shared by Cibele in March showed her receiving treatment through an IV. Over the video, she wrote the words, “As long as your only problem is money, be grateful. It’s worse to face something that not all the money in the world can solve.”

 

Cibele’s business partner, Eloá Righi, said that Cibele “didn’t let cancer define her,” while speaking to G1.

 

“She didn’t want to be known as Cibele who has cancer, but rather as Cibele who works, has fun, lives and has cancer,” Eloá added.

 

Cibele and Maria Elisabete were buried together in a joint ceremony at a local cemetery, per the outlet.

 

Their family said that neither Cibele nor Maria Elisabete wanted to know if the other died while they were still alive — a request that the family honored.

 

“Neither of them wanted to see the other die,” Cibele’s cousin told G1.

 

“They even talked about it, sometimes jokingly, sometimes seriously — and it happened. Neither of them knew about the other’s death. It’s truly astonishing,” he said.

THE FIVE WORST THINGS ABOUT MOVING

National Review

 

The Five Worst Things About Moving

 

By Abigail Anthony

September 28, 2026 2:49 PM

 

I moved this past weekend. Thankfully, it wasn’t too dramatic: I went from one unit to another within the same building, so I didn’t have to pack everything into a van. Instead, I just loaded things onto a cart and made plenty of trips in the elevator. But there is no such thing as an enjoyable moving experience, and I’m writing to vent about the worst parts, for the sake of healing my wounded soul.

 

My lower back, calves, and feet hurt — a lot. After bending over so many times and lifting dozens of heavy boxes, I desperately need a chiropractor. On Saturday and Sunday, I basically woke up, started moving things, and didn’t stop until it was time to pass out in bed; only once I was lying down did I realize how intensely my feet and calves were aching. I don’t have one of those nifty step-counting bracelets or rings, but I’m fairly confident in estimating that I walked an entire marathon each day while making trips between the two apartments. I am currently wearing long, unsexy compression socks because it feels as though my calves are detaching from the shins like fall-off-the-bone barbecue. I’m tempted to find one of those cheap and slightly dodgy Asian foot massage places, but I’m discouraged because I would have to walk there.

 

I’m a tidy person. But, the day I moved, a dust storm must have swept through my apartment and only my apartment. I’m absolutely sure of it because I have not stopped sneezing for the past 48 hours. I had to take out my contacts and resort to my ill-fitting glasses because my eyes were watering ceaselessly. The visible stream of dust-induced tears would have prompted someone who saw me to believe that I was suffering through a recent romantic break up. No amount of showering has improved my condition, and I may soon become the first person to overdose on over-the-counter allergy pills; please send an ambulance with a skilled medical team to my new unit immediately.

 

I kept coming across gifts, hand-me-downs, and family antiques that I don’t particularly like and don’t have any good use for — but I would feel really bad getting rid of these things, largely because of who gave me the objects. The best example I can provide is these ragged dolls that were given to me ages ago by an extended family member. (I don’t have any female cousins on either side of the family, which means any and all family jewelry — along with girly things like dolls and purses — are necessarily given to me without deliberation.) Although I must have some hereditary obligation to keep these dolls, I am tempted to throw them down the trash chute because they are extremely unsettling and would be suitable props for a horror movie. One doll in particular is a massive plastic baby, manufactured decades ago, that has counterweighted eyelids which are supposed to open and close as you tilt the doll so that it seems like it is sleeping. But because the doll is so old, the eyelids don’t function properly, so the plastic demon is constantly glaring at its victim with one eye half open. I want to shove it under the bed for an out-of-sight-out-of-mind resolution, yet that would be the perfect place for it to spawn and kill me. I believe that Western civilization depends on me ceremoniously sacrificing these dolls into a volcano . . . but what would I say if that familial benefactor ever asks what I’ve done with them?

 

Standing in the new unit, where there are boxes everywhere and nothing is organized, is overwhelming. It requires deep contemplation to mentally conceptualize where everything should go now. I have to run through scenarios in my head, wondering where I would really want the dishtowels to be located when I’m cooking pasta. Should the drinking glasses go on the left or the right side of the cabinet? Which books should go on which shelves? How high on the wall should a particular painting go? Should the painting actually go in another room? Although no decisions must be final, there is this crushing feeling that every choice is extremely consequential. And boxes are like Hydra heads: The moment you finish unpacking one, two more appear.

 

When everything has been relocated to the new space, there’s a pleasant sense of relief and accomplishment. But staring at the empty version of your former home is. . . devastating. I took a moment to appreciate all the things I loved about my “old” unit: I spent many afternoons on the balcony attempting to achieve a tan (accompanied by a homemade margarita), and I always loved the stunning view from my desk. As I stood in the empty rooms, I reflected on the many wonderful memories I have from that place. I can easily reimagine the dinner parties hosted around the table and the long, rich conversations I had with a boyfriend on the couch. It is hard to close a book that you enjoyed reading.

 

Honestly, the list of burdens from moving is endless, so this article could be, too. You sometimes need someone with an engineering degree to figure out how to fit a big thing through a small door, and movers never seem to have working clocks. When I woke up at 3 a.m. during my first night sleeping in the new place, I panicked and assumed I had been abducted.

 

There were, to be fair, a few positive parts of the moving experience. I’m dreadfully tiny, so I couldn’t actually lift any of my own furniture, which means I had to recruit male friends for help. (I bribed them with dinner for their services.) It was nice to see these guys again. Even better, we pigged out on wings, deep dish pizza, and greasy onion rings. (I love cooking, but with the chaos of moving, I wasn’t organized enough to make anyone a decent dinner, so I resorted to an overpriced delivery service.) There’s just something inordinately satisfying about unhealthy take out after a long day of physical labor; no crippling guilt emerged when I stared down at oily fingers because I felt as though I had earned the indulgence. And, as scientists have repeatedly proven in sophisticated studies, pizza tastes better in the company of friends. It also tastes good cold, a day later.

TODDLER PULLS OUT LOADED HANDGUN AT MICHIGAN DAYCARE AS QUICK-THINKING STAFF SPRINGS INTO ACTION

Daily Mail

 

Toddler pulls out loaded handgun at Michigan daycare as quick-thinking staff springs into action

By MELISSA KOENIG, US REPORTER

Published: 19:06 EDT, 29 September 2026 | Updated: 07:54 EDT, 30 September 2026Daily Mail

 

A Michigan daycare teacher sprang into action after a toddler pulled out a loaded handgun.

 

The unidentified child initially had the firearm holstered at Children's World Early Learning Center in Canton Township on Monday morning, school officials explained in a message to parents, according to Click on Detroit.

 

When the child then removed the weapon, a teacher intervened and secured it before calling police to the scene.

 

It remains unclear how the child got a hold of the weapon.

 

But one of the child's parents has since been arrested, and officers are now working with the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office to determine charges.

 

Authorities have not yet released the name of the parent who was arrested, but said another parent who serves as a police officer in a neighboring community was not arrested.

 

Canton Police Chief Joseph Bialy called the incident an 'extremely serious matter' and commended the daycare staff for responding so quickly.

 

'I've watched the video, and I've seen what their staff did, and they were prepared and ready to be able to remove the firearm and keep all the kids safe there,' he told CBS News.

 

'The protocols that they had in place, the fact that they had an instructor in the room that was able to safely remove the firearm from this toddler, I do believe kept everybody safe and avoided a tragedy,' Bialy added.

 

In a separate statement, officials at Children's World Early Learning Center said they 'pride ourselves on being one of the safest centers in the Canton area,' calling it their 'priority.'

 

'Although this incident was out of our control, we are very proud of our staff and especially the teacher who responded so quickly,' school officials said.

 

'It was an unfortunate incident. No one was hurt and all safety measures were followed,' they noted.

 

'Because of our attention to safety and our strict adherence to protocols, we avoided what could have been a tragedy.'

 

As authorities now continue to investigate the terrifying incident, Bialy urged gun owners to keep their firearms safe.

 

'We have to understand where our firearms are and we have a duty to make sure that we keep them secure,' he said.

 

'The law is very clear: If a child is present or you anticipate a child being present, you have to take those precautions.'