Duke University scientists have discovered how breast milk, but not infant formula, fosters colonies of microbiotic flora in a newborn's intestinal tract that aid nutrient absorption and immune system development. The new findings add to existing evidence showing how mother's milk protects infants from infections and illnesses.

In the new study, appearing in Current Nutrition & Food Science, the researchers grew bacteria in samples of infant formula, cow's milk and breast milk. For the infant formula, the researchers used three brands each of popular milk- and soy-based products. Breast milk was donated and processed to separate different components, including proteins, fats and carbohydrates.

The team also tested a purified form of an antibody called secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA), which is abundant in breast milk and plays a role in establishing an infant's immune system.

The infant formulas, the milk products and the SIgA were incubated with two strains of E. coli bacteria - necessary early inhabitants of the gut that are helpful cousins to their more dangerous variety associated with food poisoning.

The connections between the rising rates of chronic disease and the production and consumption of modern foods can no longer be ignored. Our food supply is not healthy, nor is it sustainable. It has changed so dramatically that we have yet to adapt to the changes. Our food supply has been completely adulterated over the past few decades alone, more drastically than during any other time in history.

In an article by Eaton et al., it states that "although our genes have hardly changed, our culture has been transformed almost beyond recognition during the past 10,000 years, especially since the Industrial Revolution."¹

We have strayed so far from our ancestral diets and lifestyles. Ancient peoples and even isolated hunter-gatherer cultures that still exist today ate wild, fresh foods in their natural state with minimal processing and certainly without synthetic chemicals. Their lifestyles were also very different from ours. According to another article by Eaton et al., "groups whose way of life tends to continue the Stone Age pattern have low rates of complex degenerative diseases."² They did not suffer the same rates of degenerative diseases that plague modern society.

The majority of food Americans spend their money on is processed food. It may resemble food, but it certainly is not real food. Food that has been overly processed and packaged into a container is not food for it is virtually devoid of nutrients. Food manufacturers oftentimes must add vitamins and minerals that have been lost during the processing back into the food.

These synthetic vitamins and minerals, usually isolated from their natural forms, act more like anti-nutrients than nutrients in these foods, adding to the body's chemical burden. Modern methods of food preparation and processing have effectively depleted many nutrients and co-factors necessary for the absorption and utilization of foods that in order for the body to process these modern foods, it must use its own store of nutrients. Consider the stress that your body undergoes, the vast amounts of energy that is required for digestion, only to be left short-changed and worse off than before you had that food in the first place.

Scientists at the Beijing University of Agriculture have genetically modified a pair of calves in an attempt to make their meat more tender, tastier, and more appealing to discerning palates.

Professor Ni Minhong and colleagues at the school's department of advanced science and technology produced a pair of cloned cows, named Jing Qin 1 and Jing Qin 2, that had been implanted with an extra gene, Telegraph Science Correspondent Richard Gray reported on Sunday.

That gene is designed to increase the amount of fat contained in their muscles, and the scientists hope that it will lead to the development of a high-quality cut of beef that can rival gourmet wagyu or Kobe beef, Gray said. To date, Ni's team has spent three years on their research, though they will have to wait until the calves mature and are slaughtered before they can truly discover whether or not they have succeeded or failed.

"Through this project we will be the first in the world to successfully create transgenic cows with fatty acid binding protein," the professor told The Telegraph. "Unlike pork where leaner is better, a good amount of muscle fat content is one of the key elements when it comes to characterizing beef quality... After more research it may be possible to achieve ideal marbling of meat in domestic cattle and provide an alternative to imported high-grade meat."

The cows at the center of the study are a Chinese-exclusive breed known as Qinchuan, and they were born at the Comprehensive Experimental Base of Beijing University of Agriculture in Daxing district, according to Yin Yeping of the Global Times. Two hundred female cows had been implanted with genetically modified embryos, and seven became pregnant, but only two were born alive - the first on July 19 and the second on August 1 - Yeping added.

Canadian health officials say eight people have died in a rare outbreak of Legionnaires' disease in the province of Quebec, having identified more than 100 cases of the dangerous strain of pneumonia since July.

Aiming to stop the outbreak, public health workers have inspected and disinfected about 89 cooling towers in Quebec City, the provincial government said in a release on Sunday. All told, 104 cases have been identified so far.

Legionnaires' disease is caused by bacteria that can grow in cooling towers, showers and other water sources. It mostly affects people already in poor health, spreading as they inhale small droplets of contaminated water suspended in the air .

The illness, named for a 1976 outbreak at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia, is rare in Canada, with only about 75 cases reported each year, according to a fact sheet from the federal public health agency.

Did you know that genetic engineering (GE) "is helping to improve the health of the Earth and the people who call it home"? A trade group funded by Monsanto wants your kids to believe it.

The Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI) has published a kids' book on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) that purports to give kids "a closer look at biotechnology. You will see that biotechnology is being used to figure out how to: 1) grow more food; 2) help the environment; and 3) grow more nutritious food that improves our health."

If that book doesn't appeal to you, you could try a nanotechnology coloring book made by a company that produces such things as "colloidal silver nanoparticles" used in antibacterial products that find their way into the water supply and can be poisonous to the human system. It compares nanotechnologies like these silvers to "the smell of baking cookies."

Or perhaps a "biosolids" workbook made by wastewater treatment facilities? It directs kids to grow sunflowers in toxic sewage sludge to see how they grow.

Your child goes to bed in perfect health. The next morning she wakes up with high fever, malaise and bright red blisters erupting all over her body. Johns Hopkins Children's Center dermatologists say the disturbing scenario has become quite common in the last few months, sending scared parents to their pediatrician's office or straight to the emergency room.

Bernard Cohen, M.D., director of pediatric dermatology at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, and colleague Kate Puttgen, M.D., have seen or consulted on close to 50 such cases in the last few months and have received countless phone calls from scared parents and concerned physicians. Cohen believes this number may be just the tip of the iceberg with primary care pediatricians seeing the bulk of new cases.

Cohen and Puttgen want to reassure parents that most cases of the disease are benign and that nearly all patients recover in seven to 10 days without treatment and without serious complications.

"What we are seeing is relatively common viral illness called hand-foot-and-mouth disease but with a new twist," Cohen says.

The culprit is an unusual strain of the common coxsackie virus that usually causes the disease. The new strain, coxsackie A6, previously found only in Africa and Asia, is now cropping up all over the United States.

According to researchers echoing the sentiments of conventional medical wisdom, there is no need to worry about chemotherapy drugs endangering your unborn child if you develop cancer while pregnant, it's perfectly safe.

The sales people at Cancer Inc partnering with Big Pharma, Big Medicine and everybody else who generates a profit from the cancer industry, are at it again with their latest sales pitch, this time for pregnant women.

It was only a few weeks ago when researchers in the United States made a "completely unexpected" finding showing that while damaging healthy cells, chemotherapy also triggers them to secrete a protein that sustains tumour growth and resistance to further treatment.

Hundreds of pregnant women diagnosed with cancer each year face the agonising decision of what to do next. Some even opt for an abortion, especially if they are in the early stages of pregnancy and the cancer is very aggressive, while others refuse treatment until after the baby is born.

But researchers in Germany say there is no need to interrupt the pregnancy in any way, delay treatment or use less powerful drugs because your baby will be just fine. Really? So toxic chemicals surging through a woman's body which cause infections, anemia, bleeding, nausea, vomiting, nerve changes, and problems with fertility will cause no problems for a newborn?

Children drinking from around half the UK's private water supplies are almost five times more likely to pick up stomach infections -- according to research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Research published August 24 in the journal PLoS ONE shows children under 10 who drink from contaminated supplies are suffering around five bouts of sickness or diarrhea a year.

This figure is similar to the rates of infection among children in the developing world.

Around 1 per cent of the UK population are served by private supplies -- such as wells and boreholes. In Europe the number is as much as one in 10. And many more drink from such water supplies as visitors and while on holiday.

But half of all private water supplies in the UK do not meet water safety regulations.

And while water-borne bacteria does not appear to affect adults and older children, the under 10s are particularly at risk of picking up stomach infections.

A team of scientists, including faculty at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), have discovered a gene that influences survival time in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). The study, published August 26 in Nature Medicine, describes how the loss of activity of a receptor called EphA4 substantially extends the lifespan of people with the disease. When coupled with a UMMS study published last month in Nature identifying a new ALS gene (profilin-1) that also works in conjunction with EphA4, these findings point to a new molecular pathway in neurons that is directly related to ALS susceptibility and severity.

"Taken together, these findings are particularly exciting because they suggest that suppression of EphA4 may be a new way to treat ALS," said Robert Brown, MD, DPhil, a co-author on the study and chair of neurology at UMass Medical School.

ALS is a progressive, neurodegenerative disorder affecting the motor neurons in the central nervous system. As motor neurons die, the brain's ability to send signals to the body's muscles is compromised. This leads to loss of voluntary muscle movement, paralysis and eventually respiratory failure. The cause of most cases of ALS is not known. Approximately 10 percent of cases are inherited. Though investigators at UMMS and elsewhere have identified several genes shown to cause inherited or familial ALS, almost 50 percent of these cases have an unknown genetic cause. There are no significant treatments for the disease.

I have no way of knowing what it's like to suffering through a miscarriage, but my heart goes out to anyone that has to go through the devastation and trauma that it can cause.

A team of doctors from Princess Anne Hospital in Southampton, UK and the University Medical Center Utrecht, in the Netherlands are hopeful that they can develop a test to determine who may be at risk for recurring miscarriages - which they define as losing three or more pregnancies in a row.

'Super-fertility' is the name they're giving to the condition, which causes a woman's uterus to accept embryos too easily. This includes embryos that the body would have normally rejected automatically, due to abnormalities or other problems.

According to Babycenter.ca, early miscarriages are very common and most occur without the woman even knowing that she's pregnant. After a pregnancy test has registered as positive, there is still a 1 in 5 chance that a miscarriage will occur. Miscarriages most often occur because the embryo is not developing as it should, likely due to chromosome problems.