In the game of adulting, a herd accompanies you past the milestones. When you're young, everyone you know is graduating university, landing a first job, getting married, having kids. As you approach middle age, the milestones become less celebratory. Everyone you know is loosening their belt, losing their hair. And then comes the most disorienting loss of all: Their parents.

We only get so much time in this life, and yours is running out, friend. That might seem scary, but it doesn't have to be - it can be motivating. Sometimes you just need a reminder that you need to make it count. This tool sets your Google Chrome homepage and any new blank tabs you open to a clock slowly ticking toward your demise.

Australian-born Justine Damond was infamously shot and killed in Minneapolis by US police in July last year after innocently approaching their car. In Australia, far fewer people are killed by police firearms than in the US - even after taking population size into account. We look at what's causing this huge disparity.

Recent news reports that a man had both his legs amputated after being bitten by a white-tailed spider have again cast this spider in a negative light. Experts have since said amputations may have been wrongly blamed on a spider bite, and authorities now consider a bacterial infection to be responsible for the man’s injuries. Despite this, the damage to the largely harmless white-tail may have been done.

The former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are in a critical condition in a hospital in Salisbury, UK, following exposure to an unknown nerve agent. Several locations in the city have been cordoned off and decontaminated since the pair were found unconscious on a park bench on March 5. But what are nerve agents exactly and how do they affect the body?

When I was 11, I wanted to be a veterinarian. Playing with animals all day seemed like a fun gig. Around this time, Billy Joel released the pop-rap song "We Didn't Start The Fire". In it, Mr Joel barks through a litany of horrible events that occurred in the 20th Century, at one point rhyming "foreign debts" and "Bernie Goetz" with "homeless vets". When I heard that, I thought, Oh no! I don't want to be a homeless veterinarian!

Dear Lifehacker, I'm getting on in life and at this point it seems unlikely that my credit card debts will ever be paid off in full. (I can barely afford the monthly interest repayments, let alone the outstanding debt.) I also don't own much in the way of assets. So my question is: What happens to my credit debt when I die? Do I need to worry about my adult son getting saddled with my debt?

Holly Butcher was a 27-year old Australian who suffered from Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that affects the bone and surrounding soft tissue. Before she passed away on January 4, Holly asked her family to share a post on her Facebook page. Her final status has since gone viral with over 91,000 reactions and 61,000 shares.

In the moving Facebook post, Holly offers some compelling advice on personal finance, especially when it comes to disposable income. It's something a lot of us could learn from.

When you visit somebody you care about on their deathbed, don't be fooled by what you see. The person lying there may look totally incoherent, but they can probably hear everything going on in that room.

America has experienced yet another mass shooting, this time at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is reportedly the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

As a criminologist, I have reviewed recent research in hopes of debunking some of the common misconceptions I hear creeping into discussions that spring up whenever a mass shooting occurs. Here’s some recent scholarship about mass shootings that should help you identify misinformation when you hear it.

Have you ever wondered why the influenza virus is more potent and dangerous than the common cold virus? They’re both viruses, but what makes the influenza worse that it causes more deaths? Let's take a look at the science...

Here is a quote from Roman philosopher Seneca's On the Shortness of Life, a 2000-year-old treatise on how we spend our time that still rings true today.

These days, it seems like everything can cause cancer. Peanut butter, bacon, alcohol, weed killer, air pollution, baby food, vitamins, birth control pills, pet cats, bottled water, toothpaste, vegetables - the list goes on and on.

Obviously, not all of these things are guaranteed to cause cancer, but there are definitely some foods, liquids and objects that you should try to avoid or cut down on. Naturally, your lifestyle and level of exercise also plays a huge part. This interactive "body map" brings together the evidence on proven cancer causes - from salty foods to sun exposure.

There’s been a lot of interest in the harmful effects of prolonged sitting at work, from academics and the public alike. The attention being paid to sitting — or rather, not sitting — while on the job stems from the scientifically validated message that being sedentary in general, both indoors and outdoors, is bad for your health.

However, comparatively little attention has been devoted to the harmful effects of prolonged standing at work, despite past studies linking it to chronic back pain and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in the lower limbs. What’s more, research has shown that prolonged standing might increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Death comes for us all here on Earth at a rate of nearly 7,000 people every hour. Yet, despite its inevitability, most of us know very little about the experience. This is what happens to your body and mind as you slip away -- and it's not as frightening as you might think.

Of course, there's a level of subjectivity to pain. One person might find listening to Kid Rock to be more painful than stubbing their toe. Another person might enjoy a little bit of pain. And who can say how painful heartbreak feels? But we can still generally identify most of the worst sensations that people don't ever want to experience.

Call it the new game of Truth. Players go around the table answering questions in their little blue booklets, but these questions aren't geared to get them talking about that one time they went skinny dipping in Bali. Instead, the questions aim to launch difficult conversations, ones that may be painful, ones they may have been avoiding for far too long.

Around this time last year, my mum passed away. I was in charge of planning her funeral and burial arrangements, dealing with her stuff and pretty much all the other horrible things that you have to do when someone dies. Oh, and I live in San Francisco and my mum was in North Carolina. Literally hundreds of people offered to help me on Facebook and via text, but only two people did. The reason? Only two people made actual suggestions on what they could do to help.

Every few months, there's another tragic news story about a fatal house fire, car accident or freak electrocution caused by an everyday gadget. Usually the victim was doing something stupid - but that doesn't mean it can't happen to you too. Thankfully, you can dramatically decrease the odds of death and injury by following these eight simple rules.