I Was Bigfoot’s Love Slave!
Jul 30 at 10:10pm by Aileen
Or, how about “Angelina’s Alien Clone Babies!” (subtitle, “Brad stands by his woman even after UFO abduction…”. Or some such rot. We’ve all seen ‘em at the grocery store checkout line, and we’ve all been terribly tempted to read the funnies even if we absolutely don’t want to be seen buying one. I once saw a stand-up comedy act in which the comedian did nothing more than hold up a copy of the National Enquirer and read off the headlines and sidebar - with feeling. Then he’d say…
“But that’s NOT the real story! The REAL story is on page [whatever]…” whereupon he’d flip to some inside page with an even more bizarre headline and story. All with a perfectly deadpan face, fully animated only while reading the lurid details with Shakespearian delivery. He was so funny I saw the show three times.
Now, most of us actually do know better than to believe the sensationalized storytelling and photoshop creativity in tabloid rags like that. That’s what makes them such good comedy fodder. Nor do most of us purchase the magical anti-hex pendants or crystal healing rings or genuine eye of newt sure-love powder advertised in the pages of such rags. But somebody must be buying all that junk - as well as the tabloids they finance - and even if we do occasionally get a guilty pleasure out of light reading in the checkout line, most regular people would claim they don’t know anybody who’s really that dumb. Save perhaps an odd relative or friend of a friend.
Land of the Sick, Home of the Obese
Jul 29 at 6:06pm by Aileen
In the year 2030, what’s left of us ‘Baby-Boomers’ will be in our late 70s and early 80s. We will not likely be the largest demographic bump in the general population at that time, as more than half of us will have died off by then. 2030 is also the year that researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, along with researchers at other institutions, project that 86% of Americans could be obese if current trends continue.
Worse, projections show that 96% of non-Hispanic black women and 91% of Mexican-American men will be in those numbers. The costs of this situation amount to nearly a trillion dollars’ worth of obesity-related health care spending, or 1 in every 6 health care dollars.
The projection is based on three decades’ worth of collected data from national surveys. As the obese population ages the health care costs related to being fat will more than double every decade. In addition to hypertension, heart disease and stroke, there is also the link between being overweight and type-2 diabetes. Not to mention the fact that obese children - an increasing problem - have a shorter life expectancy than healthy children.
Cancer Researcher Warns Cell Phone Users
Jul 24 at 9:09pm by Aileen
In an unprecedented move, the head of a prominent cancer research institute issued a warning to his faculty and staff on July 23, that cell phone use may pose a cancer risk to users.
There is no consensus in science that electromagnetic radiation in radio frequencies - such as is emitted by cellular phones and is absorbed by the user’s head - causes or increases the risks of brain tumors. Yet Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, said he issued the warning because the question is still being researched, and it is better to err on the safe side than to be sorry later on.
Of particular concern to Herberman is the increasing use of cell phones by children, whose brains are still developing. The body of research on the question is ongoing, but so far has demonstrated no firm link between cell phones and cancer. The fact that it takes a relatively long time for cancers from environmental sources to show up in a population leaves risks of cancer from long term exposure to the radiation an unanswered question.
One bit of interesting research on cell phone radiation recently came from Clermont-Ferrand University in France, where it was found that…
…tomatoes, when exposed to the magnetic waves of mobile phones, get stressed within ten minutes. They start secreting a molecule which usually only occurs when they get damaged.
If tomatoes can physiologically go into stress mode when cell phones are present in their vicinity, it’s certainly possible that physiological effects may occur in animals - including humans. I’d like to see some mouse studies. But in the meantime, remote use of the device (so it’s not sitting on your ear) isn’t that bad an idea.
A pretty strong warning can also be made that if you grow tomatoes, don’t take your cell phone when tending them. The world won’t stop turning if you’re out of communications availability for a little while. Honest.
New Hope for Alzheimer’s Patients?
Jul 21 at 6:06pm by Aileen
USPS Alzheimer’s Stamp
Rapid Alzheimer’s Improvement After New Immune-based Treatment
The open access journal BMC Neurology published research this week detailing some amazing results from the use of the anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha [TNF-alpha] drug to treat symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease from a novel immune system approach. Researchers documented improvement in language function within minutes of administering the drug, tending to confirm preliminary evidence that disrupted neural communication in Alzheimer’s patients may be reversible.
This is a very hopeful development, as are results from clinical drug trials in recent years slowing the progression of the disease in elderly patients as well as ongoing research into substances that may help clear the beta amyloid placques in the brain tissue, characteristic of the disease. As the Baby Boomer generation ages, it is estimated that up to 10 million of them will get this awful disease.
Some doctors are expressing concern about unduly raising hopes in patients and their families on these very early findings. Dr. Sam Gandy, chairman of the Alzheimer’s Association’s medical and science council, has expressed suspicion due to the private nature of the research because the lead researcher has a financial interest in the drug. It is hoped that other laboratories and scientists will be able to duplicate the results, but that more rigorous clinical work remains to be done.
UCLA associate professor of neurology John Ringman and colleagues have reported in the journal Neurology that there may be a way to detect Alzheimer’s even before symptoms appear by measuring the level of certain proteins in the blood and spinal fluid. These proteins are potentially useful biomarkers to identify and track progression of the disease before the patient shows any signs of deteriorating mental acuity.
The amount of suffering for the families of those 10 million people could be reduced drastically if there were effective treatments, so there is a good deal of public and private research ongoing. Hopefully when the Boomers reach an age where they have ready access to medical care via Medicare, diagnosis and treatment will be available to them.
The Non-Evolution of Ethnic Cuisine
Jul 14 at 9:09pm by Aileen
It was bound to happen. Science Daily reports that research from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil entitled The non-equilibrium nature of culinary evolution has established that regional cuisines don’t evolve much. Even in a small world.
The researchers examined historical food preferences for ‘national’ diets in Britain, France and Brazil, and found that certain staples as well as unique ingredients remain in the cuisines despite modern access to restaurants specializing in regional or ‘national’ foods. And despite the modern availability of regional foods in grocery stores.
In other words, the Irish still love potatoes, the French still eat snails and frogs’ legs, the Germans still love sausages and sauerkraut, the Japanese still rely on fish stock and Central and South Americans still choose tortillas over Wonder Bread. Mediterranean peoples still consume lots of olive oil, and still have longer lives, less heart disease and lower cholesterol than the average American.
Addicted To Your Baby’s Smile
Jul 8 at 3:03pm by Aileen
Most parents know very well how heart-warming their baby’s smile can be, to the point where just doing something silly to get that smile-fix becomes a regular way of life. I’ve heard all sorts of weird philosophies about baby smiles - “it’s just gas,” “they’ve got the intelligence of rats,” etc., etc., things that only non-parents would ever think of.
So it’s cool that researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine have finally demonstrated the addictive quality of baby smiles, as reported recently in the journal Pediatrics. Turns out that baby smiles actually ‘light up’ the reward centers of the human brain, particularly in Moms - it’s what they call a “Natural High.”
Baby’s Smile Is A Natural High
The researchers hope their work will help scientists understand the unique mother-infant bonding so critical for proper child development (and mothers’ mental health).
No doubt this is fine research, and it’s gratifying to know that science is actually looking at phenomena they could have known all along if they’d just asked a Mom. Oh, well. That famous scientific skepticism needs physical ‘proof’ of physical phenomena before it will believe anything most regular people know from direct empirical experience. Maybe they’ll now come up with a pill that mimics this high, which will no doubt be a big item on the black market for pharmaceuticals…
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