A decade and a half after farmers began planting the first genetically engineered (GE) crops, the future is clear. The scientists who pioneered genetic engineering thought of themselves as environmentalists, creating products that could reduce pesticide use. Instead, they have simply perpetuated the same "pesticide treadmill" as their pesticide-peddling counterparts resulting in the application of a greater volume of ever more toxic pesticides.

The "pesticide treadmill" occurs when insects "become resistant to the effects of pesticides, requiring farms to adopt new and more potent poisons, to which pests eventually become resistant." DDT was greeted as a war hero when it was used to combat malarial mosquitoes in World War II, but only a few years after it was introduced in agriculture, the pests evolved resistance. Farmers needed a new pesticide, perhaps a more toxic pesticide. For decades that followed, chemical companies introduced pesticide after pesticide, so farmers had no shortage of poisons. If one fails, use another. Never mind the myriad of other options available to prevent or combat pest problems, like attracting or releasing beneficial organisms that eat the pests or simply fostering healthy soil so your plants are healthy enough to defend themselves.

GMOs -- genetically modified organisms -- have now gone down the same path. In the early years of genetic engineering, biotech companies tried creating a number of products with different traits, like a tomato that stays ripe or a variety of canola that produced a different kind of oil. But only two types of GMOs really took off commercially -- Roundup Ready crops and Bt crops. Roundup Ready crops are engineered so they can survive being sprayed by glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's herbicide Roundup. A farmer can spray an entire field with Roundup herbicide, killing only the weeds. Bt crops produce an insecticidal protein derived from a naturally occurring soil bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), in every cell of the plant. Biotech giants like Monsanto create, patent, and sell the seeds for these two types of GMOs.

But after less than two decades on the market, these crops have also joined the pesticide treadmill as pests have begun to develop resistance to them.

Just a few decades ago, it was completely common to go to the dentist with a cavity or two and leave with several silver-colored fillings. And while these fillings were frequently referred to as "silver," dental professionals were referring to the color, and certainly not the contents. Those fillings are mercury, and they are highly toxic. Now, about half of American dentists are mercury-free and the general population is starting to take note on the dangers of the dental amalgam mercury fillings in their mouths.

Mercury Fillings to be Banned Due to Health Hazards

The European Commission has paved the way, in recent weeks, for phasing out dental mercury, but it seems the United States is not ready.

According to the Commission:

Mercury and most of its compounds are highly toxic to humans, animals and ecosystems. High doses can be fatal to humans, but even relatively low doses can seriously affect the nervous system and have been linked with possible harmful effects on the cardiovascular, immune and reproductive systems.

Despite these devastating effects, even the E.U. stops short of mentioning the specific dangers of mercury fillings, instead focusing on the dangers of mercury in general.

But, if mercury can cause these problems when ingested, couldn't it also cause problems as it sits in your mouth, potentially giving off vapors when damaged and leeching into your foods and saliva?

Scientists' discovery of an important step in the body's process for healing wounds may lead to a new way of treating inflammation.

A study published today in Current Biology details how an international team of researchers led by Monash University's Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) discovered the mechanism, which shuts down the signal triggering the body's initial inflammatory response to injury.

When the body suffers a wound or abrasion, white blood cells, or leukocytes, travel to the site of the injury to protect the tissue from infection and start repairing the damage. However, this period of inflammation need only be temporary. If the body allows the inflammatory stage to continue for too long, the next phase of healing is compromised.

Previous research identified the initial signal that calls the leukocytes to the site of the injury, but how this early signal was switched off, letting the leukocytes know that they were no longer urgently needed, was unknown. The latest findings show that an enzyme called myeloperoxidase is the key to this process.

Antibiotics given to the animals that provide the key ingredient for certain kinds of pepperoni or salami may have an unforeseen consequence: weakening helpful bacteria and allowing dangerous ones to thrive.

Fermented sausages are made by inoculating meat with bacteria that produce lactic acid, which kills pathogenic bacteria in the meat. But in a new study, scientists from the University of Copenhagen and University College Cork found that antibiotics commonly given to livestock inhibited the fermentation activity in five of six commercial starter cultures of the helpful bacteria used in sausage making.

The scientists also made experimental sausages inoculated with E. coli or Salmonella bacteria. They found that sausages with antibiotic residue had disruptions in their fermentation process and high levels of the pathogenic bugs, the researchers wrote in a paper appearing in the journal mBio on Tuesday.

"At low concentrations and at regulatory levels set by authorities, we could see that the lactic acid bacteria are more susceptible to the antibiotics than the pathogens are," senior author and University of Copenhagen researcher Hanne Ingmer said in a statement Tuesday. "So basically, we can have a situation where residual antibiotics in the meat can prevent or reduce fermentation by the lactic acid bacteria, but these concentrations do not effect survival or even multiplication of pathogens."

About 80 percent of all antibiotics used in the U.S. are given to farm animals. The federal government has recently moved to restrict this practice, which leads to the development of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that are threats to humans. In April, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a new rule requiring farmers and ranchers to get a prescription for their antibiotics from a veterinarian.

It is likely that the protein is also highly significant for other inflammatory diseases.

The research results have been published in the American journal Gastroenterology.

Excessive alcohol intake and gall stones are known risk factors for acute pancreatitis. However, as yet no explanation has been found for what actually happens in the body in cases of acute pancreatitis.

Current research shows that calcium-sensitive proteins found in the body, for example calcineurin, promote inflammation, but it is not known exactly how.

Henrik Thorlacius and Maria Gomez at the University's Department of Clinical Sciences in Malmö have investigated this in more detail. The focus is on a family of proteins linked to calcineurin, called NFAT, the role of which in acute pancreatitis has not previously been studied.

"The protein has an unexpectedly major role in the development of inflammation in the pancreas. Now there is a clear target for the development of drugs and treatments", says Henrik Thorlacius, Professor of Surgery at Lund University and a doctor at Skåne University Hospital.

Six visitors to California's famous Yosemite National Park have now been infected with a rare rodent-born virus, two of whom have died, officials said Thursday, in an update on the outbreak.

Earlier this week Yosemite authorities closed down all tent cabins in part of Curry Village, a popular lodging area in Yosemite Valley, the tourist hub at the center of the scenic park visited by millions of people every year.

The National Park Service (NPS) has written to some 2,900 parties who stayed in the Boystown area tent lodgings between June 10 and August 24, alerting them to keep an eye out for symptoms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS).

The disease can take up to six weeks to incubate after exposure to the virus, usually through contact with the urine, droppings or saliva of infected rodents, primarily deer mice.

A protein known as galectin-3 can identify people at higher risk of heart failure, according to new research supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health. This research is based on work from the NHLBI's Framingham Heart Study, which began in 1948 and has been the leading source of research findings about heart disease risk factors.

Heart failure occurs when the heart cannot fill with enough blood and/or pump enough blood to meet the body's needs. Galactin-3 has recently been associated with cardiac fibrosis, a condition in which scar tissue replaces heart muscle, and cardiac fibrosis plays an important role in the development of heart failure.

Heart failure carries enormous risk for death or a lifetime of disability and often there are few warning signs of impending heart failure. Measuring levels of galectin-3 in the blood may offer a way to identify high-risk individuals who could benefit from treatments to prevent debilitating heart failure and death. Early identification of predisposed individuals would allow treatment to begin long before heart failure develops and could help people at high risk for heart failure to live longer, more active lives.

Chronic stress, prompted by major life stressors and type A personality traits, is linked to a high risk of stroke, finds research published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

Chronic stress, manifested as physical and/or mental symptoms in response to stressors lasting longer than 6 months has been linked to a heightened risk of heart disease. But its impact on the risk of stroke has not been clear.

The research team base their findings on150 adults, with an average age of 54, who had been admitted to one stroke unit, and 300 randomly selected healthy people of a similar age who lived in the same neighbourhood.

Levels of chronic stress were assessed using the combined quantitative scores of four validated scales, looking at major life events; symptoms, such as anxiety and depression; general wellbeing; and behaviour patterns indicative of type A personality (ERCTA scale).

Standard head movements made while exposed to one of the three electromagnetic fields produced by a heavy duty MRI scanner seem to temporarily lower concentration and visuospatial awareness, shows an experimental study published online in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

The effects were particularly noticeable in tasks requiring high levels of working memory, which may have implications for surgeons and other healthcare staff working within the vicinity of an MRI scanner, the research indicates.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses strong magnetic fields and radio waves to take very detailed pictures of the brain and spine. Three types of electromagnetic fields are required to create an image: static; switched gradient; and radiofrequency.

The static magnetic field is always present, even when no imaging is taking place.

Thirty one volunteers made standard head movements within the static magnetic field of a higher field 7 Tesla MRI scanner at exposure levels of zero (sham), 0.5 (medium), and 1 (high)Tesla, in a random order, one week apart.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the most common brain disorders, with an estimated 35 million people affected worldwide. In the last decade, research has advanced our understanding of how AD affects the brain. However, diagnosis continues to rely primarily on neuropsychological tests which can only detect the disease after clinical symptoms begin.

In a supplement to the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, investigators report on the development of imaging-based biomarkers that will have an impact on diagnosis before the disease process is set in motion.

"There is an urgent need for the development of reliable diagnostic biomarkers that can detect AD pathology at an incipient phase," says Guest Editor Dr. Pravat Mandal, Adjunct Associate Professor of the Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD and Additional Professor, National Brain Research Center, India. "This special issue focuses on the latest strides made in identifying diagnostic biomarkers using state-of-the-art imaging modalities."

The issue looks at the application of various magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technologies for diagnosing AD and monitoring the progression of the disease. For example, Brian T. Gold and colleagues report on the use of diffusion tension imaging (DTI) to identify changes in the white matter of patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI), an early symptom of AD. Charles D. Smith and colleagues describe MRI-based detection of key structural alterations in cognitively normal subjects that can serve as a predictor of memory impairment.