Eat candy and fight tooth decay. What a sweet concept, right?
Well, microbiologists in Berlin are trying to make that dream a reality.
They've created a sugarless mint that's aimed at washing out cavity-causing bacteria from your mouth. And the candy works in a curious way: It's spiked with dead bacteria. It's like probiotics for your teeth.
The experimental mint is still in the early days of development — and far from reaching the shelves at Walgreens.
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Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians have agreed to a water-sharing pact that would see the construction of a desalination plant on the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea and bring "a long-awaited Red Sea-Dead Sea pipeline one step closer to completion," according to Reuters.
The plant would be built on the Jordanian side of the Gulf and the resulting potable water would be shared between Jordan and Israel.
Alexander McPhail, the lead water and sanitation specialist in the World Bank's Water Practice division, tells The Jerusalem Post Monday that in return, "Israel will increase the annual releases of water from Lake Kinneret to Jordan and will also increase its sales of water to the Palestinian Authority."
"'It's like a swap,' McPhail told the Post, regarding the Israeli and Jordan portions of the agreement. 'Israel needs water in the south because they want to settle that part of their country. Jordan needs more water in the North.'"
If revenge is a dish best served cold, in Washington it can also be served with a heaping side of irony.
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to Sen. Mitch McConnell's request to let Senate Republicans participate in the high-profile case Noel Canning v. National Labor Relations Board.
The question in that case is whether President Obama abused his recess appointment power in naming NLRB members. The president claims the Senate was in recess, which would make his appointments constitutional; Senate Republicans dispute Obama, saying the chamber wasn't in recess.
The court had initially given the lawyers for the administration and Noel Canning 60 minutes to make their case.
But McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, asked for time to present the Senate minority's position. The court granted that, adding 30 minutes for arguments. The administration will now get 45 minutes; Canning and Senate Republicans will split the same amount of time.
And the lawyer poised to make the Senate GOP's argument before the Supreme Court? Miguel Estrada, who argued the case for Senate Republicans in the lower court.
At the start of George W. Bush's administration, it was Democrats who filibustered Bush's nomination of Estrada to the D.C. Circuit. That filibuster contributed to the toxic spiral of filibusters that first caused Senate Republicans, then Democrats, to threaten using the "nuclear option" to weaken senators' ability to filibuster nominations until Democrats actually did it last month.
If the Obama administration and Senate Democrats wind up losing in the Supreme Court, the Estrada and nuclear-option back story could make the win for Republicans especially sweet.