For the first time, researchers at McMaster University have conclusive evidence that bacteria residing in the gut influence brain chemistry and behaviour.

The findings are important because several common types of gastrointestinal disease, including irritable bowel syndrome, are frequently associated with anxiety or depression. In addition there has been speculation that some psychiatric disorders, such as late onset autism, may be associated with an abnormal bacterial content in the gut.

"The exciting results provide stimulus for further investigating a microbial component to the causation of behavioural illnesses," said Stephen Collins, professor of medicine and associate dean research, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. Collins and Premysl Bercik, assistant professor of medicine, undertook the research in the Farncombe Family Digestive Health Research Institute.

The research appears in the online edition of the journal Gastroenterology.

For each person, the gut is home to about 1,000 trillion bacteria with which we live in harmony. These bacteria perform a number of functions vital to health: They harvest energy from the diet, protect against infections and provide nutrition to cells in the gut. Any disruption can result in life-threatening conditions, such as antibiotic-induced colitis from infection with the "superbug" Clostridium difficile.

Are genetically modified foods safe to eat?

The conventional answer is "yes," and it's not hard to see why. Since their introduction in 1996, genetically modified (GM) or genetically engineered (GE) corn and soy seeds quickly conquered U.S. farm fields. Today, upwards of 70 percent of corn and 90 percent of soy are genetically modified, and these two crops form the basis of the conventional U.S. diet. Nor are they GM technology's only pathway onto our plates. Nearly 80 percent of U.S. cotton is now genetically engineered, and cottonseed oil has emerged as a staple fat for the food industry. (USDA has figures on this.) Canola oil - another crop that has largely succumbed to genetic modification - is yet another common ingredient.

Given their swift path to ubiquity, wouldn't we know by now if GMOs posed some threat? Since no obvious problems have come to the fore, some scientists - and certainly the agri-chemical industry, which dominates GM seed production - have seen fit to declare them safe. Pamela Ronald, professor of plant pathology at the University of California, Davis, recently summed up the conventional view: "After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of two billion acres planted, GE crops have not caused a single instance of harm to human health or the environment."

Let's leave aside Ronald's claim about the environment (which is rendered suspect by the rise of herbicide-resistant "superweeds") and dig into the human-health aspect. What we do know is that GMOs are not acutely toxic to eat. That is, we know that if you dine on a burger made from cows gorged on GM corn and soy, French fries cooked in oil from GM cottonseed, and soda laced with high-fructose syrup from GM corn, you're not likely to keel over in agony. Tens of millions of people do it every day.

An environmental advocacy group is urging the government to impose stricter regulations on the cosmetics industry after publishing a report that suggests many makeup products contain a number of toxic heavy metals.

The report titled "Heavy Metal Hazards" by Environmental Defence calls on Health Canada to improve its cosmetics regulation and make companies list all metals on their product labels - moves which are being decried by representatives of the cosmetics industry.

The group tested 49 makeup products and found all of them contained varying amounts of heavy metals, including one lip gloss which contained levels of arsenic and lead exceeding limits recommended by Health Canada.

Beijing - Watermelons have been bursting by the score in eastern China after farmers gave them overdoses of growth chemicals during wet weather, creating what state media called fields of "land mines."

About 20 farmers around Danyang city in Jiangsu province were affected, losing up to 115 acres (45 hectares) of melon, China Central Television said in an investigative report.

The produce lobby is livid that consumers might be concerned about pesticides. They are taking their fury out on the USDA for its annual report on pesticide use (via The Washington Post):

In a recent letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, 18 produce trade associations complained that the data have "been subject to misinterpretation by activists, which publicize their distorted findings through national media outlets in a way that is misleading for consumers and can be highly detrimental to the growers of these commodities."

This report happens also to be the basis for the Environmental Working Group's popular "Dirty Dozen" and "Clean Fifteen" lists of fruit and vegetables with the most and least pesticide residues. The produce lobbyists are pretty steamed about those, too:

"There are some organizations with agendas that do want to scare people away from fresh produce," said Kathy Means, a vice president at the Produce Marketing Association, a major industry group. "We don't want anyone eating unsafe foods, of course. But for those products that are grown legally and the science says [the pesticide] is safe, we don't want people turning away."

Scientists studying the effects of prenatal exposure to pesticides on the cognitive abilities of children have come to a troubling conclusion: Whether pregnant mothers are exposed to organophosphate pesticides in California fields or New York apartments, the chemicals appear to impair their children's mental abilities.

New York City's low-income neighborhoods and California's Salinas Valley, where 80 percent of the United States' lettuce is grown, could hardly be more different. But scientists have discovered that children growing up in these communities - one characterized by the rattle of subway trains, the other by acres of produce and vast sunny skies - share a pre-natal exposure to pesticides that appears to be affecting their ability to learn and succeed in school.

Three studies undertaken independently, but published simultaneously last month, show that prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides - sprayed on crops in the Salinas Valley and used in Harlem and the South Bronx to control cockroaches and other insects - can lower children's IQ by an average of as much as 7 points. While this may not sound like a lot, it is more than enough to affect a child's reading and math skills and cause behavioral problems with potentially long-lasting impacts, according to the studies.

Fresh doubts have arisen about the safety of genetically modified crops, with a new study reporting presence of Bt toxin, used widely in GM crops, in human blood for the first time.

Genetically modified crops include genes extracted from bacteria to make them resistant to pest attacks.

These genes make crops toxic to pests but are claimed to pose no danger to the environment and human health. Genetically modified brinjal (eggplant), whose commercial release was stopped a year ago, has a toxin derived from a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis ( Bt).

Sell a little healthy raw milk to a willing consumer, and you can expect cops to burst through the door with their guns drawn - but you can pass off tainted meat on unsuspecting customers all day long, and the feds won't do a thing about it.

Case in point: The latest study in Clinical Infectious Diseases, which showed that up to HALF of all supermarket meat is contaminated with bacteria - and half of those are resistant to multiple antibiotics.

Researchers bought 136 packages of beef, chicken, pork, and turkey from 26 supermarkets in five cities - and what they found would even make someone with an iron stomach a bit queasy.

Tests revealed that 47 percent of the meat was contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus. Nearly all of the samples were resistant to one antibiotic, and 52 percent were resistant to at least three different drugs.

San Francisco, California - A 45-year-old man now living in the Bay Area may be the first person ever cured of the deadly disease AIDS, the result of the discovery of an apparent HIV immunity gene.

Timothy Ray Brown tested positive for HIV back in 1995, but has now entered scientific journals as the first man in world history to have that HIV virus completely eliminated from his body in what doctors call a "functional cure."

Brown was living in Berlin, Germany back in 2007, dealing with HIV and leukemia, when scientists there gave him a bone marrow stem cell transplant that had astounding results.

"I quit taking my HIV medication the day that I got the transplant and haven't had to take any since," said Brown, who has been dubbed "The Berlin Patient" by the medical community.

Brown's amazing progress continues to be monitored by doctors at San Francisco General Hospital and at the University of California at San Francisco medical center.

Rudeness is epidemic all over today. And I'm not even talking about cyber-rudeness.

People steal each other's cabs. Telephone receptionists are nasty. Sales clerks act like they're doing you a favor when you buy something. Waiters exhibit an attitude. Vicious gossip sells newspapers. Decency is considered boring.

Look outside and you'll see litter everywhere except in trash cans. Sit down in a restaurant and you'll find gum is underneath every table. Go into an office and you'll see bosses who don't treat their teams like human beings - foregoing simple little things like acknowledging their presence with introductions to visitors and clients.

The list could go on forever. I know because I pay a lot of attention to these things. I also know because any number of people call or write to tell me their latest manners travesties.

And all of it begs a question.