New Hampshire Health News Digest

Brain scans pinpoint cannabis mental health risk|Top News|Reuters.com By Ben Hirschler LONDON (Reuters) - Brain scans showing how cannabis affects brain function may help explain why heavy consumption of the drug triggers psychosis and schizophrenia in a small number of people, scientists said on Monday. Psychiatrists are increasingly concerned about the mental health impact of smoking large amounts of modern super-strength marijuana, or skunk, particularly among young people. Until now, the mechanism by which cannabis works on the brain has been a mystery but modern scanning techniques mean experts can now detect its impact on brain activity. Reuters Pictures Photo Editors Choice: Best pictures from the last 24 hours. View Slideshow Professor Philip McGuire and Zerrin Atakan of London's Institute of Psychiatry said their work using magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, showed patients given the active cannabis compound tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) had reduced function in the inferior ...

Brain health dramatically improved by intake of omega-3 fatty acids and fish oils It's no secret that long-term diet and nutrition choices have an effect on the way we look and feel; but new studies show that nutrition can also affect the way we think. As it turns out, there really is such a thing as “food for thought.” It may seem strange that what we put in our stomachs can have such a powerful effect on what goes on in our minds, but research is increasingly showing that emotional, mental and psychiatric disorders like depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia may more likely be the result of dietary deficiencies than genetic predispositions. The same is true of people who struggle with memory loss, have trouble learning new tasks, have Alzheimer’s disease or simply suffer from a lot of blue moods. The dietary deficiency that tends to frequently show up in these patients is a lack of omega-3 oils -- abundant fatty acids found in cold-water fish like salmon, herring and cod....

1926-a.pdf (application/pdf Object) Schizophrenia, Syndrome X, and Omega-3 Fatty Acids TO THE EDITOR: In an interesting study, Martina C.M. Ryan, M.B., M.R.C.Psych., et al. (1) found an increased prevalence of impaired glucose tolerance and insulin resistance in patients with drug-naive, first-episode schizophrenia in relation to healthy comparison subjects. This finding is in line with the results of a recent review showing that features of the metabolic syndrome X are more common in subjects with schizophrenia than in the general population (2). Dr. Ryan and colleagues discussed the influence of diet (1), but we believe that they omitted the possible role of polyunsaturated fatty acids of the omega-3 and omega-6 series, in particular, eicosapentaenoic acid and arachidonic acid. Substantial evidence suggests that impaired polyunsaturated fatty acid metabolism is related to both schizophrenia and the metabolic syndrome X. In recent reviews, low consumption of omega-3 polyunsaturated fa...

Fatty Acid Deficiencies and ADD A Purdue University study showed that kids low in Omega-3 essential fatty acids are significantly more likely to be hyperactive, have learning disorders, and to display behavioral problems. Omega-3 deficiencies have also been tied to dyslexia, violence, depression, memory problems, weight gain, cancer, heart disease, eczema, allergies, inflammatory diseases, arthritis, diabetes, and many other conditions. Over 2,000 scientific studies have demonstrated the wide range of problems associated with Omega-3 deficiencies. The American diet is almost devoid of Omega 3's except for certain types of fish. In fact, researchers believe that about 60% of Americans are deficient in Omega-3 fatty acids, and about 20% have so little that test methods cannot even detect any in their blood. Your brain is more than 60% structural fat, just as your muscles are made of protein and your bones are made of calcium. But it's not just any fat that our brains are ma...

Neurobehavioral aspects of omega-3 fatty acids: possible mechanisms and therapeutic value in major depression Alternative Medicine Review - Find Articles Omega-3 fatty acids are an essential component of CNS membrane phospholipid-acyl chains and, as such, are critical to the dynamic structure of neuronal membranes. (3) DHA is continuously secreted by astrocytes, bathing the neuron in omega-3 fatty acid. (58) The binding of serotonin to the astroglial 5HT2A receptor can mobilize DHA to supply the neuron. (59) Alterations in membrane lipids can alter function by changing fluidity. Proteins are embedded in the lipid bi-layer and the conformation or quaternary structure of these proteins appears to be sensitive to the lipid microenvironment. The proteins in the bi-layer have critical cellular functions, acting as receptors, enzymes, and transporters. (60-64) In addition, EFAs can act as sources for second messengers within and between neurons. (65) An optimal fluidity is required for neur...

Omega-3 is Essential to the Human Body A Purdue University study has showed that kids low in Omega-3 essential fatty acids are significantly more likely to be hyperactive, have learning disorders, and to display behavioral problems. Omega-3 deficiencies have also been tied to many conditions, including the following: dyslexia violence depression memory problems weight gain cancer heart disease eczema allergies inflammatory diseases arthritis diabetes Over 2,000 scientific studies have demonstrated the wide range of problems associated with Omega-3 deficiencies. The American diet is almost devoid of Omega 3's, except for certain types of fish. In fact, researchers believe that about 60% of Americans are deficient in Omega-3 fatty acids, and about 20% have so little that test methods cannot even detect any in their blood. The human brain is more than 60% structural fat, just as your muscles are made of protein and your bones are made of calcium. But it's not just any fat t...

Omega 3 Resource Center Benefits of Omega-3's -Brain development and growth -Learning -Behavior regulation -Delays age-associated deterioration in serotonin and dopamine systems (memory, attention, cognition, behavior) -Increased density of serotonin and dopamine receptors in the brain and nervous system. -May increase endogenous dopamine levels by 40-75% -Reduces anxiety -Delays the progression of degenerative eye conditions such as retinal detachment and macular degeneration. bullet May have therapeutic benefit for: --Alzheimer's disease --asthma --attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder --bipolar disorder --chronic fatigue syndrome --chronic pain --depression --diabetic neuropathy --hypertriglyceridemia --insulin resistance --irritable bowel syndrome --memory problems --migraine headaches --reproductive problems --schizophrenia --thyroid hormone function

omega-3 omega-6 | essential fats Nature or nurture? There is an age-old debate about whether performance is primarily ‘in your genes’ or develops in response to training. The common consensus is somewhere in between: that we inherit a set of genes which determine our potential, but it’s our training and nutrition that allow us to reach that potential. However, new evidence suggests this fatalistic approach to our genetic make-up is misplaced; fascinating research is emerging from the world of nutrition to suggest that essential fats in our diet can exert significant control over key metabolic genes in our cells, particularly those involved with fat storage, fat burning and glycogen synthesis. In plain English this means that, while you might not be born with the ideal genetic make-up for your chosen sport or event, correct fatty acid nutrition could help to ‘reprogramme’ your genetic code! There are two principal essential fats: alpha-linolenic acid (sometimes called omega-3) and lino...

Johann Hari: How multiculturalism is betraying women - Independent Online Edition > Johann Hari Johann Hari: How multiculturalism is betraying women It would be easy to congratulate ourselves on our tolerance of the fanatically intolerant Published: 30 April 2007 Do you believe in the rights of women, or do you believe in multiculturalism? A series of verdicts in the German courts in the past month, have shown with hot, hard logic that you can't back both. You have to choose. The crux case centres on a woman called Nishal, a 26-year-old Moroccan immigrant to Germany with two kids and a psychotic husband. Since their wedding night, this husband beat the hell out of her. She crawled to the police covered in wounds, and they ordered the husband to stay away from her. He refused. He terrorised her with death threats. So Nishal went to the courts to request an early divorce, hoping that once they were no longer married he would leave her alone. A judge who believed in the rights of ...

In our genes -- Harpending and Cochran 99 (1): 10 -- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences The D4 dopamine receptor (DRD4) locus may be a model system for understanding the relationship between genetic variation and human cultural diversity. It has been the subject of intense interest in psychiatry, because bearers of one variant are at increased risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (1). A survey of world frequencies of DRD4 alleles has shown striking differences among populations (2), with population differences greater than those of most neutral markers. In this issue of PNAS Ding et al. (3) provide a detailed molecular portrait of world diversity at the DRD4 locus. They show that the allele associated with ADHD has increased a lot in frequency within the last few thousands to tens of thousands of years, although it has probably been present in our ancestors for hundreds of thousands or even millions of years. [...] There are at least two hypotheses to ...

Hacking Your Body's Bacteria for Better Health - Modern humans are bacteria-killing machines. We assassinate microbes with hand soap, mouthwash and bathroom cleaners. It feels clean and right. But some scientists say we're overdoing it. All this killing may actually cause diseases like eczema, irritable bowel syndrome and even diabetes. The answer, they say, is counterintuitive: Feed patients bacteria. "Probiotics (pills containing bacteria) have resulted in complete elimination of eczema in 80 percent of the people we've treated," says Dr. Joseph E. Pizzorno Jr., a practicing physician and former member of the White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy. Pizzorno says he's used probiotics to treat irritable bowel disease, acne and even premenstrual syndrome. "It's unusual for me to see a patient with a chronic disease that doesn't respond to probiotics." Clinical trial data on probiotics is incomplete, but there a...

Entrez PubMed An obesity-associated gut microbiome with increased capacity for energy harvest. Center for Genome Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63108, USA. The worldwide obesity epidemic is stimulating efforts to identify host and environmental factors that affect energy balance. Comparisons of the distal gut microbiota of genetically obese mice and their lean littermates, as well as those of obese and lean human volunteers have revealed that obesity is associated with changes in the relative abundance of the two dominant bacterial divisions, the Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes. Here we demonstrate through metagenomic and biochemical analyses that these changes affect the metabolic potential of the mouse gut microbiota. Our results indicate that the obese microbiome has an increased capacity to harvest energy from the diet. Furthermore, this trait is transmissible: colonization of germ-free mice with an 'obese microbiota' results in a significantly greate...

Sci-Tech Today | Genetic Risk Factors for Diabetes Found Scientists have found clusters of new gene variants that raise the risk of Type 2 diabetes -- and how the researchers did it is as important as what they found. In one of the largest studies yet of human genetic variability, the scientists tested the DNA of more than 32,000 people in five countries to pin down spots that harbor genetic risk factors for this complicated killer. This type of research -- called a "genome-wide association" study -- promises to usher in a new era of genetics. Most breakthroughs so far have come from finding a mutation in a single gene that causes illness. But some of the world's most common killers, such as heart disease and diabetes, are caused by complex interactions among numerous genes and modern lifestyles -- and teasing out the genetic culprits until now has been almost impossible. "We have been for all of the last decade or more looking under the lamppost to try to find those...

Gene explains why people are night owls :: Telegraph UK A genetic mutation called the "after-hours gene" may explain why some people are night owls, it is revealed in Science journal today. It could also hold clues for pharmacologists working to develop drugs to help people adjust to shift work or jet lag. There are further implications for the study of causes of some psychiatric disorders. The altered gene, named "after hours" or Afh, is a variant of a gene called Fbxl3, which had not been linked to the body clock that keeps our metabolism, digestion and sleep patterns in tune with the rising and setting of the sun. [...] Pharmaceutical companies are already beginning to study this class of proteins as potential drug targets. By monitoring when and how often the mice chose to run on an exercise wheel the team spotted a change in some of the animals’ normal rhythms. Instead of following the typical 24 hour pattern, some of the mice had body clocks that stretched to ...

Intelligence not linked to wealth, according to US study - Yahoo! News "Your IQ has really no relationship to your wealth. And being very smart does not protect you from getting into financial difficulty," Zagorsky said. The study confirmed previous research which has shown that smarter people tend to earn more money, but pointed out there is a difference between high pay and overall wealth. "The average income difference between a person with an IQ score in the normal range (100) and someone in the top two percent of society (130) is currently between 6,000 and 18,500 dollars per year," it said. "But when it came to total wealth and the likelihood of financial difficulties, people of below average and average intelligence did just fine when compared to the super-intelligent." An irregular pattern of total wealth as well as financial distress levels -- such as maxed out credit cards, bankruptcy and missing bill payments -- emerged among the various degrees...

Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan - New York Times From Leaves to Seeds. It’s no coincidence that most of the plants we have come to rely on are grains; these crops are exceptionally efficient at transforming sunlight into macronutrients — carbs, fats and proteins. These macronutrients in turn can be profitably transformed into animal protein (by feeding them to animals) and processed foods of every description. Also, the fact that grains are durable seeds that can be stored for long periods means they can function as commodities as well as food, making these plants particularly well suited to the needs of industrial capitalism. Put in the simplest terms, we’re eating a lot more seeds and a lot fewer leaves, a tectonic dietary shift the full implications of which we are just beginning to glimpse. If I may borrow the nutritionist’s reductionist vocabulary for a moment, there are a host of critical micronutrients that are harder to get from a diet of refined seeds than from a diet of leaves...

A High-Fat, Low-Carbohydrate Diet Improves Alzheimer's Disease in Mice. The authors believe that insulin and the related hormone, insulin-related growth factor-1 (IGF-1), are the key players. "Insulin is often considered a storage hormone, since it promotes deposition of fat but insulin may also work to encourage amyloid-beta production." Richard Feinman, editor of the journal, explains the relation between nutrients: "You might say that fat is the bomb, and insulin (from carbohydrate) is the fuse. Most studies of the deleterious effects of fat have been done in the presence of high carbohydrate. If carbs are high, dietary fat is not oxidized and is instead stored as body fat." When carbohydrates are very low and fat is high, compounds called ketone bodies are generated (ketosis) and these compounds may play a role in the observed reduction in amyloid-beta. In association with a group from University of Washington led by Dr. Suzanne Craft, Henderson has previous...

Weight training makes the ailing heart grow stronger - National - theage.com.au "As the muscles become stronger and as the blood flow to them becomes better, the heart actually has to do less work for every degree of exercise," said Associate Professor David Hare, a senior cardiologist at the Austin. Over two to three months, patients start to feel stronger. Rather than helping a damaged heart recover its normal beating function, Professor Hare said, weight training could teach the muscles how to use the heart's output more efficiently. Of the 39 participants in the study, those who underwent weight training showed a significant increase in the number of blood vessels that connected to their muscle cells. Those cells also showed greater efficiency in producing energy from food and oxygen. "If you've got better extraction of oxygen by the muscle, then the muscle is going to carry out a lot more exercise without putting as much stress on the heart," Professor ...

Weight of the Evidence: Weight Loss, Cholesterol and Blood Sugar Improvements - What's the Wonder Drug Now? Weight Loss, Cholesterol and Blood Sugar Improvements - What's the Wonder Drug Now? While the media is hot and heavy to lead their headlines with junk science complete with amateurish conclusions, a study was quietly published Friday in the journal, Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry - Beneficial effects of ketogenic diet in obese diabetic subjects (abstract) - that's remains ignored. No fanfare, no ballyhoo, in fact, not one headline to call attention to the significant findings, over the course of a year, of a dietary trial in obese subjects with and without type II diabetes. Findings that included: For both groups, diabetic and normal glucose: * Weight loss of 24.55kg in 56-weeks (that's 54-pounds) * Total Cholesterol down 19.3% * LDL down 28.2% * HDL up 52.3% * Triglycerides down 59% * Fasting Blood Glucose down 31% For those with typ...

How to Give Yourself Diabetes Healthbolt : "Here’s few things that can put you on the fast track to diabetes. * Watch two or more hours of TV daily. Increased risk: 14% * Have one bout of major depression. Increased risk: 23% * Eat lots of processed meat. Increased risk: 43% * Skip breakfast every morning. Increased risk: up to 50% * Drinking one soda every day. Increased risk: 83% * Wake up at night and don’t return to sleep. Increased risk: 98% * Eat fast food more than twice a week. Increased risk: 100% * Have the majority of your extra body mass (fat) around your waist instead of evenly distributed. Increased risk: a whopping 330% We say it a lot around here, but it bears repeating: Eat healthy and exercise to help avoid all of the above."

Low Carb, High Protein Diet Has a Great Defensive Team - Diabetes Health Low Carb, High Protein Diet Has a Great Defensive Team Part 4 of a 5 part feature Richard Bernstein, MD, FACE, FACN, FCCWS 24 April 2007 Recommend this Article: Not at all Somewhat Moderately Highly Very Highly Average Rating: Dr. Bernstein's latest book, Diabetes Solution, 3rd Edition, was published in March 2007 by Hachette Book Group, USA. His prior book, Diabetes Diet, was published in 2005 by Little Brown and Co. When I developed diabetes in 1946, physicians thought that the high illness and death rate of diabetics was due to dietary fat and the supposedly resultant elevation of serum cholesterol. Since the DCCT trial, the scientific literature overwhelmingly supports the role of elevated blood sugar in all long-term diabetic complications. Yet even today, many physicians ignore the need for normal blood sugars and focus on dietary fat. The 2006 Clinical Practice Recommendations (1) of the ADA advocate la...

The Ball In Play: Carbs Make Fat, Fat Makes Thin? - Diabetes Health Carbs and carbs alone, not fat, increase body weight. It doesn't matter whether the carbs are from sugar, bread, fruit, or vegetables: They’re all rapidly digested and quickly converted to blood glucose. A short time after a carb-rich meal, the glucose in your bloodstream rises rapidly, and your pancreas produces a large amount of insulin to take the excess glucose out. Just as eating fat doesn’t raise blood glucose, it doesn't raise insulin levels either. This is important because insulin is the hormone responsible for body fat storage. Because fats do not elicit an insulin response, they cannot be stored as body fat. Insulin takes glucose out of the bloodstream. It is converted first into a starch called glycogen, which is stored in the liver and in muscles. But the body can store only a limited amount of glycogen, so the excess glucose is stored as body fat. This is the process of putting on weight. When yo...

Baby Foods That Prevent Obesity and Diabetes in Adulthood to Hit the Market Soon Infant formula and other baby foods that provides permanent protection from obesity and diabetes into adulthood could be on shop shelves soon, reports Lisa Melton in Chemistry & Industry. The foods, under development at the Clore Laboratory at the University of Buckingham, will be supplemented with leptin, the hunger hormone. Those who take the foods early in life should remain permanently slim. 'Like those people who are lean by nature even though they overeat? like we all do – they will tend to be inefficient in terms of using energy,' says Mike Cawthorne, who heads the Metabolic Research group at Clore. Cawthorne's group has already demonstrated that supplementing infant rats' diets with leptin means that they never get fat or develop diabetes. Even animals fed a high-fat diet remained slim. Leptin, the fat hormone that turns off hunger in the brain, is produced in the body througho...

Lifestyle changes can help tame the diabetes epidemic The following are the “fairly simple” lifestyle changes you can make to prevent/reverse T2D, pre-diabetes or insulin resistance: 1. Nurture a consciousness of health (physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual) in your family. 2. Strive for a balanced lifestyle that includes: enough sleep, building solid relationships, eating meals in peace. 3. If your heart is healthy, get a pedometer and walk everywhere you can, working up to 10,000 steps per day (about 5 miles) or do other aerobic activity, such as swimming or bicycling 45-60 minutes per day. 4. For optimal hormone balance, build muscle mass to slow the aging process. 5. Especially if you are overweight at the waist, get your fasting insulin taken; if it is higher than 10, cut out obvious carbohydrates (potatoes, bread, pasta, breakfast cereals, etc) from your diet. 6. Ideal meals consist of: healthy protein (i.e. wild salmon,...

Chronic depression or depression that worsens over time may cause diabetes in older adults The study differed from prior research in several ways. It is the first to examine the connection between increasing symptoms of depression over time and the incidence of diabetes. Previous studies linking diabetes to depression have been based on a one-time measure of depressive symptoms. A single measure could be based on an episode or event that has caused a person to feel blue for a limited amount of time. Carnethon's study measured depressive symptoms at a single point in time as well as depressive symptoms over time. This approach paints a more accurate depiction of depressive symptoms. By measuring depressive symptoms before diabetes developed, she and colleagues were better able to investigate the causal effect between mood and diabetes. The Northwestern study also factored out other known lifestyle causes of diabetes such as being overweight or getting little physical exercise. ...

SPACE.com -- Major Discovery: New Planet Could Harbor Water and Life An Earth-like planet spotted outside our solar system is the first found that could support liquid water and harbor life, scientists announced today. Liquid water is a key ingredient for life as we know it. The newfound planet is located at the "Goldilocks" distance—not too close and not too far from its star to keep water on its surface from freezing or vaporizing away. And while astronomers are not yet able to look for signs of biology on the planet, the discovery is a milestone in planet detection and the search for extraterrestrial life, one with the potential to profoundly change our outlook on the universe. ”The goal is to find life on a planet like the Earth around a star like the Sun. This is a step in that direction,” said study leader Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland. “Each time you go one step forward you are very happy.”

Fatty Acid Trip: Adventures in High-EPA Fish Oil Blog Archive Clinical trial boosts omega-3’s ADHD benefit claims The new study from the University of South Australia recruited 132 kids with ADHD aged 7 to 12 for the randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind intervention study. One hundred and four children completed the trial. For the first 15 weeks of study, the kids were given daily supplements of either polyunsaturated fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6, 3000 milligrams per day), PUFAs plus multivitamins and minerals, or placebo capsules (palm oil). After 15 weeks all the groups crossed-over to the PUFA plus multivitamins and minerals supplement. The supplement was derived from high-EPA marine fish oil and virgin evening primrose oil (GLA). The formulation contained Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), Docosahexaenioc acid (DHA), GLA, and vitamin E. Parents were asked to rate their child’s condition after 15 and 30 weeks with the 14 ADHD scales of the Conner’s Parent Rating Scales. Afte...

Who's Spinning Intel? Although there were certainly disagreements between the CIA and Feith's shop, both argued in 2002 that there was a relationship between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda. George Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, stated the CIA's position quite clearly in an October 7, 2002 letter to then head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Bob Graham (D-FL). Tenet explained, "We have solid reporting of senior level contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda going back a decade." Iraq and al Qaeda "have discussed safe haven and reciprocal non-aggression." Tenet warned, "We have credible reporting that al-Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities. The reporting also stated that Iraq has provided training to al-Qaeda members in the areas of poisons and gases and making conventional bombs." And, "Iraq's increasing support to extremist Palestinians, coupled with growing indic...

John Kerry: Building 7 Was Deliberately Demolished | Alternative News Sources At a recent speaking engagement in Austin Texas, Senator John Kerry responded to a question about WTC Building 7 by concluding that according to his information, the building was brought down as a result of a controlled demolition, directly contradicting the official line that the structure fell as a result of fire and debris damage. WTC Building 7 was a 47-story building in the WTC complex that collapsed at 5:20pm on September 11. The building had been structurally reinforced and was not hit by a plane yet collapsed in a uniform implosion within its own footprint in a matter of seconds after sustaining relatively light debris and fire damage following the collapse of the twin towers. News networks like BBC and CNN were reporting that the building had collapsed before it fell , indicating that the media were being handed a script of events that had yet to even unfold. Ground zero EMT’s, firefighters and polic...

People with two copies of a particular gene have a 70% higher risk of being obese Scientists have identified the most clear genetic link yet to obesity in the general population as part of a major study of diseases funded by the Wellcome Trust, the UK's largest medical research charity. People with two copies of a particular gene variant have a 70% higher risk of being obese than those with no copies. Obesity is a major cause of disease, associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. It is typically measured using body mass index (BMI). As a result of reduced physical activity and increased food consumption, the prevalence of obesity is increasing worldwide. According to the 2001 Health Survey for England, over a fifth of males and a similar proportion of females aged 16 and over in England were classified as obese. Half of men and a third of women were classified as overweight. Scientists from the Peninsula Medical School, Exeter, and the Universit...

Can Oily Fish Really Cause Diabetes? - UK News Headlines ating oily fish that has been exposed to high levels of environmental pollutants can cause diabetes - particularly if you are overweight, a study shows. Scientists say chemicals known as POPS (persistent organic pollutants) stored in body fat - not obesity itself - could be contributing to the rising number of cases of Type 2 diabetes which affects more than 1.9 million Brits. If true it could turn the conventional wisdom of how obesity causes diabetes on its head, reports New Scientist. POPs are toxic and include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and the pesticide DDT. They have been banned in developed countries but can accumulate in the fatty tissue of animals. They are most likely to end up in people by the consumption of fatty fish such as salmon. Last year Dr Duk-Hee Lee at Kyungpook National University in Daegu, South Korea, and her colleagues reported people with higher levels of six different POPs were more likely to have...

ScienceDaily: Recurrent Middle Ear Infections Can Have A Major Impact On Children's Development Science Daily — A study by the University of Western Sydney has revealed that recurring middle ear infections in early childhood can have a detrimental impact on language and literacy skill development in later life. Study author, Dr Heather Winskel, from the University's School of Psychology, says middle ear infection or otitis media (OM) is the most common childhood illness. "At least 70% of children are likely to experience at least one episode of otitis media before they are three-years-old and for many children it is a recurrent problem," says Dr Winskel. "The peak incidence of OM occurs when children are between 6 and 18 months, which is the most critical period of language development, when the infant is tuning in to the speech sounds that characterise their native language. This process allows young children to break into the stream of speech and eventually map...

E-motional Design - Art is the WebLimit Nazi Robot Attack Cool video. What if the Nazi's had mech robots?

Pot's Active Ingredient Halts Lung Cancer Growth, Study Says - NORML Pot's Active Ingredient Halts Lung Cancer Growth, Study Says April 19, 2007 - Los Angeles, CA, USA Los Angeles, CA: The administration of THC significantly reduces lung tumor size and lesions, according to preclinical data presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Los Angeles. Investigators at Harvard University's Division of Experimental Medicine reported that THC inhibited the growth and spread of cells in vitro from two different lung cancer cell lines and from patient lung tumors. They also reported that THC administration reduced the growth of lung tumors in mice by more than 50 percent compared to untreated controls over a three-week period. Researchers noted that THC appeared to block a specific cancer-causing protein in a manner similar to the pharmaceutical anti-cancer drugs Erbitux (Cetuximab) and Vectibix (Panitumum...

AJScreensaver - Free Software Downloads and Software Reviews - Download.com Cool clock download for your computer. Check out the one that shows year/month/date/day/hour/minute/second on one continous moving screen. Cool!

FT.com / In depth - Iraq may hold twice as much oil Iraq could hold almost twice as much oil in its reserves as had been thought, according to the most comprehensive independent study of its resources since the US-led invasion in 2003. The potential presence of a further 100bn barrels in the western desert highlights the opportunity for Iraq to be one of the world’s biggest oil suppliers, and its attractions for international oil companies – if the conflict in the country can be resolved. If confirmed, it would raise Iraq from the world’s third largest source of oil reserves with 116bn barrels to second place, behind Saudi Arabia and overtaking Iran. The study from IHS, a consultancy, also estimates that Iraq’s production could be increased from its current rate of less than 2m barrels a day to 4m b/d within five years, if international investment begins to flow. [...] Production costs in Iraq are low, particularly compared to the more complex offshore developments. IHS estimates that ...