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How To Remove Radioactive Iodine-131 From Drinking Water

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© spettacolopuro via flickr
The Environmental Protection Agency recommends reverse osmosis water treatment to remove radioactive isotopes that emit beta-particle radiation. But iodine-131, a beta emitter, is typically present in water as a dissolved gas, and reverse osmosis is known to be ineffective at capturing gases.

A combination of technologies, however, may remove most or all of the iodine-131 that finds its way into tap water, all available in consumer products for home water treatment.

Syringe

Dispite the evidence - Pediatric Society against any exemptions in vaccination

The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society recently issued a position statement that "opposes any legislation or regulation that would allow children to be exempted from mandatory immunizations based simply on their parents', or in the case of adolescents, their own, secular personal beliefs."

In the statement, Christopher J. Harrison, MD, of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS), and others, including Infectious Diseases in Children Editorial Board member Paul A. Offit, MD, said any legislation being considered should contain certain provisions; notably, that parents who are claiming exemptions be given counseling about the importance of immunization to their own child, as well as the community overall, and that parents would have to sign a statement that they understand the risks of not immunizing their child.

Bacon

SOTT Focus: Connecting the Dots Video Series: Nutrition

Connecting the Dots is a new series of short videos about...well, about everything.

In this first installment, we talk about nutrition. You might almost call it the key to everything. Eat the wrong foods and your brain won't work correctly. If your brain doesn't work correctly...well, you get the picture.


Target

Avoiding MSG is Trickier Than You Think

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© Activist Post
Editor's Note: Even if you are not 'allergic' to MSG, removing this excito-toxin from your diet has profound impacts on health.

Names and addresses of ingredients that contain processed free glutamic acid (MSG)

The first essential to coping with MSG is understanding where MSG is hidden - just in case you would like to avoid it, or would like to begin to understand how much MSG you are able to tolerate without having an obvious adverse reaction.

Everyone knows that some people have reactions after eating the food ingredient monosodium glutamate - reactions that include migraine headaches, upset stomach, fuzzy thinking, diarrhea, heart irregularities, asthma, and/or mood swings. What many don't know, is that more than 40 different ingredients contain the chemical in monosodium glutamate - the processed (manufactured) free glutamic acid - that causes these reactions. These ingredients have names like maltodextrin, gelatin, citric acid, and sodium caseinate, that don't give the consumer a clue to the presence of MSG.

Comment: For more information about MSG and other 'excitotoxins' in food read the following articles:

Monosodium Glutamate: What We All Should Know
MSG is Where You Least Expect It
MSG Lurks As A Slow Poison In Common Food Items Without Your Knowledge
MSG: Is This Silent Killer Lurking in Your Kitchen Cabinets
MSG is being sprayed right on fruits, nuts, seeds, grains, and vegetables as they grow - even those used in baby food
How to Find Hidden MSG on Food Labels
The Shocking Dangers of MSG You Don't Know
Protect Yourself from MSG and Aspartame Excitotoxicity
Aspartame: Toxicology
Aspartame Can Mess Up Your Body and Brain
Aspartame has been Renamed and is Now Being Marketed as a Natural Sweetener
Aspartame: The Politics of Food


Beaker

Scientists target drugs that improve behaviour

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© The HinduResearchers say morality treatments could be used instead of prison and might even help humanity tackle global issues.
A pill to enhance moral behaviour, a treatment for racist thoughts, a therapy to increase your empathy for people in other countries - these may sound like the stuff of science fiction but with medicine getting closer to altering our moral state, society should be preparing for the consequences, according to a book that reviews scientific developments in the field.

Drugs such as Prozac that alter a patient's mental state already have an impact on moral behaviour, but scientists predict that future medical advances may allow much more sophisticated manipulations.

The field is in its infancy, but "it's very far from being science fiction", said Dr Guy Kahane, deputy director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and a Wellcome Trust biomedical ethics award winner.

"Science has ignored the question of moral improvement so far, but it is now becoming a big debate," he said. "There is already a growing body of research you can describe in these terms. Studies show that certain drugs affect the ways people respond to moral dilemmas by increasing their sense of empathy, group affiliation and by reducing aggression." Researchers have become very interested in developing biomedical technologies capable of intervening in the biological processes that affect moral behaviour and moral thinking, according to Dr Tom Douglas, a Wellcome Trust research fellow at Oxford University's Uehiro Centre. "It is a very hot area of scientific study right now." He is co-author of Enhancing Human Capacities, published today (4APR), which includes a chapter on moral enhancement.

Comment: Where to start...?

Science has done nothing to improve the morality of human beings; a weighty argument could be made for the idea that with advancement of technology, morality has degenerated.

With each new 'pharmaceutical development', man interferes with natural laws of which he has only the illusion of an understanding of. Scientists genetically modify crops as though they're performing an oil change on a car, but their simplistic, materialistic, mechanical thinking has cost the lives of farmers in India who've committed suicide when their Monsanto 'terminator crops' haven't produced seed and left the farmers livelihood in ruins. Experiments have shown that farm animals will always choose non-GM grains over GM. The side effects of consuming GM crops have left rats with impaired kidney and liver function (the detoxifying organs), reduced size of sex organs, negative effects on the heart, spleen and blood cells etc.

To claim that a chemical could make a person "more moral" is an absurdity. Morality in modern humanity is subjective. What's right in China can be wrong in America and vice versa. True morality is objective, and must be developed by using the mind to analyse the self and the world, and then using the emotions as a mirror to reflect whether or not what one sees or does is right or wrong. This internal feedback loop is slow and faulty in the beginning, but with constant practice, our critical faculties can be honed, and our emotional capacities can be woken up and made sensitive to life.

This is a long, on-going developmental process which must be undertaken with a group of other people with the same aim in order to develop a morality which is as objective as possible.

Drugs like Prozac, on the other hand, work to make one insensitive to reality, to suffering, to what life experience can teach, by altering brain chemistry so that there is a false amount of "feel good chemical" in the body. Ask yourself, can one be more moral - such as when a crime against humanity is being committed - if one is always feeling "fine"?

The dangers of mood altering prescription drugs are well documented. They can cause suicidal thoughts and actions, anxiety, panic attacks, hallucinations. But, here again, we have scientists using the old mechanical thinking, with complete disregard for how nature has designed us to function.

Empathy is the capacity for experiencing the suffering of others. One cannot achieve or enhance this if one refuses to face and deal with ones own suffering - drug free.


Cell Phone

The Young Generation Are 'Addicted' to Mobile Phones

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© Rex FeaturesThe change comes as a result of the strong demand from consumers to watch video and access the internet using mobiles.
Young people are now so addicted to their mobile phones it feels like they have lost a limb when they are without them, a study finds.

Some said they feel so bereft without their iPhone or Blackberry that it evokes similar feelings to the "phantom limb" syndrome suffered by amputees.

The findings, by the University of Maryland, show the growing reliance that the younger generation has on technology and how it has become central to their lives.

While phones were the most essential device, other technology such as computers, MP3 players and televisions were also considered essential to get people through their day.

Many young people reported mental and physical symptoms of distress and "employed the rhetoric of addiction, dependency and depression," when reporting their experiences of trying to go unplugged for a full day.

Health

Antibiotics Disrupt Gut Ecology, Metabolism

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© n/a
Humans carry several pounds of microbes in our gastro-intestinal tracts. Recent research suggests that this microbial ecosystem plays a variety of critical roles in our health. Now, working in a mouse model, researchers from Canada describe many of the interactions between the intestinal microbiota and host, and show that antibiotics profoundly disrupt intestinal homeostasis. The research is published in the April 2011 issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

"Intestinal microbes help us digest our food, provide us with vitamins that we cannot make on our own, and protect us from microbes that make us sick, amongst other things," says L Caetano M. Antunes of the University of British Columbia, a researcher on the study. In this study, the investigators used powerful mass spectrometry techniques to detect, identify, and quantify more than two thousand molecules which they extracted from mouse feces. They then administered antibiotics to the mice, to kill off most of their gut microbiota, and analyzed the feces anew.

Pills

Big Pharma set to take over medical marijuana market

Just as the federal government is clamping down on medical marijuana dispensaries, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) may be set to give Big Pharma the clearance to take over the market.

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In 2007, GW Pharmaceuticals announced that it partnered with Otsuka to bring "Sativex" -- or liquefied marijuana -- to the U.S. The companies recently completed Phase II efficacy and safety trials testing and began discussion with the FDA for Phase III testing. Phase III is generally thought to be the final step before the drug can be marketed in the U.S.

"GW Pharmaceuticals plc (AIM: GWP) today announces the initiation of the Phase III clinical trials programme of Sativex in the treatment of pain in patients with advanced cancer, who experience inadequate analgesia during optimized chronic opioid therapy," GW said in a statement. "This indication represents the initial target indication for Sativex in the United States."

Target

Holidaymakers warned over measles outbreak in Europe as the great Easter getaway begins

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© Corbis'Potentially deadly': Measles is highly infectious
British holidaymakers heading off to Europe this week have been warned about a major outbreak of measles on the continent.

The World Health Organisation says there have been more than 6,500 cases reported across Europe, with France the hardest hit country.

Three-quarters of all cases reported have been across the Channel.

The U.N. health agency in Geneva revealed there have been 4,937 reported cases in France between January and March - compared with 5,090 during all of 2010.

Mary Kedward, from The Travel Clinic, said: 'I would not discourage anyone from travelling abroad - but I would make sure people are aware of the risks.

'Those over the age of 20 and babies under one are most at risk, and should go to their GPs and get vaccinated. I would encourage people to get the MMR vaccine before they travel.'

Comment: The dangers of vaccination are well documented by researchers and alternative doctors. For more articles that discuss the problems with vaccines, see the following links as just a small sample of what's been published on this topic : here, here, here, and here.


A Department of Health spokesman said: 'Measles is highly infectious. It is never too late to get your child immunised with two doses of the MMR vaccine.

'It is the most effective way to protect children against measles, mumps and rubella.'

Attention

Prenatal pesticide exposure tied to lower IQ in children

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© Unknown
In a new study suggesting pesticides may be associated with the health and development of children, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's School of Public Health have found that prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides - widely used on food crops - is related to lower intelligence scores at age 7.

The researchers found that every tenfold increase in measures of organophosphates detected during a mother's pregnancy corresponded to a 5.5 point drop in overall IQ scores in the 7-year-olds. Children in the study with the highest levels of prenatal pesticide exposure scored seven points lower on a standardized measure of intelligence compared with children who had the lowest levels of exposure.

"These associations are substantial, especially when viewing this at a population-wide level," said study principal investigator Brenda Eskenazi, UC Berkeley professor of epidemiology and of maternal and child health. "That difference could mean, on average, more kids being shifted into the lower end of the spectrum of learning, and more kids needing special services in school."

The UC Berkeley study is among a trio of papers showing an association between pesticide exposure and childhood IQ to be published online April 21 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Notably, the other two studies - one at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, the other at Columbia University - examined urban populations in New York City, while the UC Berkeley study focused on children living in Salinas, an agricultural center in Monterey County, California.

Comment: Actually, people, especially those who are pregnant, would greatly benefit from excluding harmful gluten and dairy from their diet, and maintaining a low-carb and high-fat meat diet instead. This itself would diminish the risk of being exposed to pesticides.