In a recent piece, I fretted about one problem with our reliance on industrially produced fertilizers: They come from scarce and nonrenewable sources, meaning we'll eventually run out of them. But there's another, much more immediate downside to the synthetic nitrogen and mined phosphorus that drives industrial agriculture: They tend to leach out of soil and foul up water, both for drinking and recreation.

Environmental Working Group has just released an excellent report (available here) on the impact of that pollution on water quality in Iowa, ground zero of US industrial agriculture. The condition of that state's water is, in short, dismal. EWG looked at data kept by Iowa's Department of Natural Resources on 72 free-flowing streams across the state, comparing the 1999-2002 period and the 2008-11 period. In the chart, below, note that the majority of streams are rated either "poor" or "very poor" - and that the situation has improved little if at all over time. The main culprits are nitrogen and phosphorus. Here's EWG:

The two pollutants most responsible for poor water quality ratings in the Index are nitrogen and phosphorus. In 55 percent of the monthly samples across all sites, nitrogen was the single worst pollutant, followed by phosphorus in 30 percent. Together, high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus set off a cascade of pollution problems that contaminate drinking water and damage the health of Iowa's streams and rivers.

Miracles are pretty rare events - except on television's Dr. Oz Show, where they appear with astonishing frequency. Oz doesn't claim to raise the dead or part the Red Sea, but he does raise people's hopes of parting with their flab. And he's certainly not shy about flinging the word "miracle" about. But it seems miracles fade as quickly as they appear when it comes to weight loss. Raspberry ketones, acai berries and African mango, once hyped as amazing "fat busters," have already given way to newer wonders.

Granted, Dr. Oz, or more likely his TV producers, do not pull miracles out of an empty hat. They generally manage to toss in a smattering of stunted facts that they then nurture into some pretty tall tales. Like the ones about chlorogenic acid or Garcinia cambogia causing effortless weight loss. The former piqued the public's interest when the great Oz introduced green coffee bean extract as the next diet sensation. Actually, "chlorogenic acid" is not a single compound, but rather a family of closely related compounds found in green plants, which perhaps surprisingly contain no chlorine atoms. The name derives from the Greek "chloro," for pale green, while "genic" means "give rise to." (The element chlorine is a pale green gas, hence its name.)

An "unprecedented" breakthrough, Dr. Oz said of the green coffee bean extract, apparently having forgotten all about his previous weight-control miracles. This time, the "staggering" results originate from a study of green coffee bean extract by Dr. Joe Vinson, a respected chemist at the University of Scranton who has a long-standing interest in antioxidants like chlorogenic acid. Aware of the fact that chloro-genic acid had been shown to influence glucose and fat metabolism in mice, Vinson speculated that it might have some effect on humans as well. Since chlorogenic-acid content is reduced by roasting, green coffee bean extract was chosen for the study.

This week and last week saw the violent deaths of many people including young children, at the hands of young men on the rampage in the USA. Understandably, there are calls for changes in the gun laws. But the fact that American can carry guns is not the cause of the problem.

It isn't guns that kill people; it is people who kill people.

The US has a long history of such outrages. And is pretty much alone as a country to suffer in this way, despite the fact that guns are carried, legally, in other countries - whose citizens don't go around on killing sprees.

So, instead of blaming the weapons, wouldn't it be more profitable to research the cause? To ask why some people feel the need to go kill a bunch of others and then (usually) themselves?

In the 1990s I was researching fluoridation of water supplies. But as I did my research, I came across examples of the harm that fluoridated drugs could do. Just like the killings in last two weeks, there have been examples of children going on a killing sprees and shooting their parents, school friends, teachers, other people and then themselves for decades.

I don't know whether the recent perpetrators of these outrages were on drugs but back in the last century, I found that many, if not all, of them appeared to be taking the SSRI drug, Prozac.

Below is an extract from my book, Fluoride: Drinking ourselves to death? I wrote this in 1999; it is still relevant today. Searching PubMed today, I could find no medical research that addresses the problem. Perhaps it is about time there was some!

I came across this surprising news story on 20/20 on a special story called the "The Real Dish". It was a documentary with insight into the food industry. Although this was a story about safety issues, 'meat glue' caught my attention. Yes, 'meat glue', also known as 'transglutaminase'. Fibimex is a commercial name of this glue, coagulant. A coagulant, made from cow or pig blood (same thing as in our body) allows things to stick together.

After doing a little research I was surprised to find that you too can buy 'meat glue' on Ebay, for about $14.00. Although the experts claim that glued meat is safe, (labeled as 'reformed') one has to think twice when chewing on that juicy steak.

Meat glue is actually a tasteless powder added to meat and rolled up in plastic wrap. The meat is refrigerated for 6 hours and the result is a solid piece of meat that looks real, intact.

The meat industry admits that companies use 'meat glue' to bind pieces of meat that would normally be thrown away, so the steak 'looks' better. Put a little sauce (who knows what's in that) and show a pretty pictures on the menu, and voila, an expensive steak of combined different meat parts from different animals.

A University of Oklahoma-led study has demonstrated that ancient DNA can be used to understand ancient human microbiomes. The microbiomes from ancient people have broad reaching implications for understanding recent changes to human health, such as what good bacteria might have been lost as a result of our current abundant use of antibiotics and aseptic practices.

Cecil M. Lewis Jr., professor of anthropology in the OU College of Arts and Sciences and director of the OU Molecular Anthropology Laboratory, and Raul Tito, OU Research Associate, led the research study that analyzed microbiome data from ancient human fecal samples collected from three different archaeological sites in the Americas, each dating to over 1000 years ago. In addition, the team provided a new analysis of published data from two samples that reflect rare and extraordinary preservation: Otzi the Iceman and a soldier frozen for 93 years on a glacier.

"The results support the hypothesis that ancient human gut microbiomes are more similar to those of non-human primates and rural non-western communities than to those of people living a modern lifestyle in the United States," says Lewis. "From these data, the team concluded that the last 100 years has been a time of major change to the human gut microbiome in cosmopolitan areas."

Discovery suggests way to protect cells from damage caused by oxidative stress

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have identified a novel mechanism by which a type of low-carb, low-calorie diet - called a "ketogenic diet" - could delay the effects of aging: the compound β-hydroxybutyrate (βOHB), a "ketone body" that is generated during a prolonged low-calorie or ketogenic diet.

Blocking oxidative stress

While ketone bodies such as βOHB can be toxic when present at very high concentrations in people with diseases such as Type I diabetes, researchers in the laboratory of Gladstone Senior Investigator Eric Verdin, MD found that at lower concentrations, βOHB actually helps protect cells from "oxidative stress" - which occurs as certain molecules build to toxic levels in the body and contributes to the aging process.

This fundamental discovery reveals how such a diet could slow the aging process and may one day allow scientists to better treat or prevent age-related diseases, including heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, and many forms of cancer.

"Over the years, studies have found that restricting calories slows aging and increases longevity - however the mechanism of this effect has remained elusive," Dr. Verdin said. He directs the Center for HIV & Aging at Gladstone and is also a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, with which Gladstone is affiliated. "Here, we find that βOHB - the body's major source of energy during exercise or fasting - blocks a class of enzymes that would otherwise promote oxidative stress, thus protecting cells from aging," he said.

Sizzling Bits about Nitrites, Dirty Little Secrets about Celery Salt and Other Aporkalyptic News

"When you're in my house you shall do as I do and believe who I believe in. So Bart, butter your bacon." Homer Simpson

Neal Barnard, MD, head of the Physicians Committee for (Ir)Responsible Medicine, tried to round up an army of vegans to protest a Bacon Festival in Iowa last spring, but succeeded in recruiting only six volunteers.¹ Why so few? Probably fear of bacon! Not fear of death by bacon, which is what Dr. Barnard hoped to fuel with anti-meat rhetoric and billboards of skulls and crossbones, but vegan fears of succumbing to the lure of bacon itself! Bacon's smell and taste are so seductive that many vegetarians fear it as "the gateway meat."

But what of those health risks? What about all that fat, cholesterol and sodium? And what about nitrites? It's not just vegans after all who warn us against bacon. Recently, the Harvard School of Public Health announced with great fanfare that just a small daily serving of red meat would increase our likelihood of death by 13 percent, while a little bacon, hot dog, sausage or other processed red meat every day would kill us off 20 percent faster.^2,3

In hospitals, a nasty little bacterium called Clostridium difficile causes problems for patients--it's highly infectious and can cause diarrhea among people who are already sick. Diagnosing whether a patient has C. diff, as it's called, requires a stool sample, which can take days to analyze.

So scientists at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam trained a beagle named Cliff to sniff out the nasty bacterium. The craziest part? Cliff doesn't need to sniff stool samples--he can tell just by walking up to a patient as the patient lies in bed.


You can read the full study over at BMJ.

A controversial anti-vaccination lobby group has been slapped with an order to change its misleading name or be shut down.

The NSW Office of Fair Trading doorstopped the home of Australian Vaccination Network president Meryl Dorey yesterday with a letter of action, labelling the network's name misleading and a detriment to the community.

NSW Fair Trading Minister Anthony Roberts fired a broadside at the AVN, saying the information it provided was a public safety issue of "life and death".

"This is not a victimless issue, it's about the ability to stop pain and suffering," he said.

Mr Roberts likened the AVN's message to sanctioning speeding.

"People do not have the freedom of choice when it comes to endangering others ... it's the equivalent of saying a bloke can speed down the road and endanger others," he said.

No one knew what was bothering 7-month-old Mya Whittington. Her discomfort stumped her parents and doctors. She was finally hospitalized - and a 2-inch feather eventually poked its way out of her neck, shocking everyone.

"We were just pretty much in disbelief," Mya's dad, Aaron Whittington, 26, told ABCNews.com.

The mystery of Mya's pain started on Saturday.

"I was at work and my wife noticed that the left side of her neck had started to swell, and she called me at work and asked if we should take her to the emergency room," Whittington said.

The couple decided to wait, thinking that Mya just had a swollen gland. They changed their minds the next morning.

"Sunday morning, when we woke up, it had doubled in size and there was a pimple-looking thing on the end of it," he said. "We're looking at it and going, 'There's no way this is a swollen gland.'"