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Tue, 26 Oct 2021
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School Shootings and Massacres - Interview with Joseph Lieberman

Scott Vogel, Communications Director of the Freedom States Alliance, recently conducted an in-depth interview with Joseph Lieberman, author of the new book School Shootings: What Every Parent and Educator Needs To Know To Protect Our Children.

They discussed the four categories of school shootings, the psychology of those who carry out these acts, and how we can begin to ensure such tragedies never happen again.

Attention

Illegal levels of dioxin found in milk on farms in Northern Ireland

Milk contaminated with illegally high levels of the chemical dioxin has been found on farms in Northern Ireland, it was announced today.

The contamination is thought to come from animal feed imported from the Irish Republic that was responsible for contaminated pork and beef being removed from the shelves just before Christmas.

Ambulance

Suspect Peanuts Sent to Schools

Despite Salmonella, Firm Sold to USDA.

peanut scare
© J. Scott Applewhite
Gabrielle Meunier of South Burlington, Vt., tells the Senate agriculture committee how her son Chris became ill after eating peanut-butter crackers. (By J. Scott Applewhite -- Associated Press)

Peanut Corporation of America sold 32 truckloads of roasted peanuts and peanut butter to the federal government for a free-lunch program for poor children even as the company's internal tests showed that its products were contaminated with salmonella bacteria.

Cow Skull

Scary Era of Playing God with Medicine Unleashed: FDA Approves Blood Thinner Drug from Genetically Engineered Goats

FDA OKs blood thinner made with milk from bioengineered goats, approval is a first for US

Washington -- The Food and Drug Administration made history Friday as it approved the first drug made with materials from genetically engineered animals, clearing the way for a new class of medical therapies.

GTC Biotherapeutics said regulators cleared its drug ATryn, which is manufactured using milk from goats that have been scientifically altered to produce extra antithrombin, a protein that acts as a natural blood thinner.

The drug's approval may be the first step toward new kinds of medications made not from chemicals, but from animals altered by scientists. Similar drugs could be available in the next few years for a range of human ailments, including hemophilia.

Attention

Nigeria: 84 children dead from teething formula

The number of deaths from a tainted Nigerian teething formula has more than doubled, with 84 children killed by the syrup that contained a thickening agent normally used in brake fluid and antifreeze, the Health Ministry said.

The victims have ranged in age from 2 months to 7 years old, the ministry said in a statement late Thursday. It indicated that about 75 percent of the 111 children who had been sickened since the poisonous batch of My Pikin Baby Teething Mixture hit shelves in November have died.

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The Muddled Tracks of All Those Tears

Cry
© Jonathon Rosen
They're considered a release, a psychological tonic, and to many a glimpse of something deeper: the heart's own sign language, emotional perspiration from the well of common humanity.

Tears lubricate love songs and love, weddings and funerals, public rituals and private pain, and perhaps no scientific study can capture their many meanings.

"I cry when I'm happy, I cry when I'm sad, I may cry when I'm sharing something that's of great significance to me," said Nancy Reiley, 62, who works at a women's shelter in Tampa, Fla., "and for some reason I sometimes will cry when I'm in a public speaking situation.

"It has nothing to do with feeling sad or vulnerable. There's no reason I can think of why it happens, but it does."

Hourglass

When Dreams Come True

People interpret dreams in ways that affect their waking lives, especially when those dreams support pre-existing beliefs.

Dreams don't just bubble up at night and then evaporate like morning dew once the sun rises. What you dream shapes what you think about your upcoming plans and your closest confidants, especially if nighttime reveries fit with what's already convenient to believe, a new report finds.

In an effort to understand whether people take their dreams seriously, Carey Morewedge of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Michael Norton of Harvard University surveyed 149 college students attending universities in India, South Korea or the United States about theories of dream function.

People across cultures often assume that dreams contain hidden truths, much as Sigmund Freud posited more than a century ago, Morewedge and Norton report in the February Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In fact, many individuals consider dreams to provide more meaningful information regarding daily affairs than comparable waking thoughts do, the two psychologists conclude.

Info

Recognizing Toxic Chemicals in Body Care Products

A common belief among consumers is that products labeled "natural" must be safe and beneficial to consume or use. Often the ingredient lists on these "natural" products contain chemicals that are unrecognizable and unfamiliar to most people. The bad news is that the products that are labeled as "natural" by manufacturers are usually far from natural and safe. The good news is that it is possible to be an informed consumer with the information necessary to avoid these products. Learning about these toxic chemicals is the first step toward avoiding them and this is quite simple to do, using the Internet as a tool.

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Cognitive Training Can Alter the Biochemistry of the Brain

Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have shown for the first time that the active training of the working memory brings about visible changes in the number of dopamine receptors in the human brain.

The study, which is published in the prestigious scientific journal Science, was conducted with the help of PET scanning and provides deeper insight into the complex interplay between cognition and the brain's biological structure.

"Brain biochemistry doesn't just underpin our mental activity; our mental activity and thinking process can also affect the biochemistry," says Professor Torkel Klingberg, who led the study. "This hasn't been demonstrated in humans before, and opens up a floodgate of fascinating questions."

The neurotransmitter dopamine plays a key part in many of the brain's functions. Disruptions to the dopamine system can impair working memory, making it more difficult to remember information over a short period of time, such as when problem solving. Impaired working memory has, in its turn, proved to be a contributory factory to cognitive impairments in such disorders as ADHD and schizophrenia.

Health

US: Crews to clean up mystery mercury

A mercury mystery has prompted Richland, Washington fire crews and state and federal officials to block off a four-foot area in a yard on Gage Boulevard.

The state Department of Health, state Department of Ecology and the federal Environmental Protection Agency will meet today to determine how to clean up the mercury spill, said Richland fire Battalion Chief Todd Ricci.

The mercury, which looks like thick water or aluminum foil in a liquid state, was found around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in a yard behind 631 Gage Blvd. The yard is between two businesses and an apartment complex.

About an ounce of mercury, equal to about one or two tablespoons, was found on the ground.