Fine atmospheric particles - smaller than one-thirtieth of the diameter of a human hair - were identified more than 20 years ago as the most lethal of the widely dispersed air pollutants in the United States. Linked to both heart and lung disease, they kill an estimated 50,000 Americans each year. But more recently, scientists have been puzzled to learn that a subset of these particles, called secondary organic aerosols, has a greater total mass, and is thus more dangerous, than previously understood.

A batch of new scientific findings is helping sort out the discrepancy, including, most recently, a study led by scientists at the University of California, Irvine, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., that is scheduled to be released on Tuesday. It indicates that the compounds' persistence in the atmosphere was under-represented in older scientific models.

"If the authors' analysis is correct, the public is now facing a false sense of security in knowing whether the air they breathe is indeed safe," said Bill Becker, of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.

A paper published by the American Medical Association's Virtual Mentor is concerned that current enrollment in vaccine trials is extremely low.^[1]

The proposed solution?

Creating a federal law that would force each individual to make a "mandated choice" to participate in vaccine trials.

Such a law would give drug companies a more or less guaranteed supply of human guinea pigs.

According to the featured paper:

"... The lack of animal models that can reliably predict vaccine efficacy means that development still unavoidably relies on testing of novel vaccines in healthy individuals...

In recent decades there has been a distressing decline in the numbers of healthy volunteers who participate in clinical trials, a decline that has the potential to become a key rate-limiting factor in vaccine development.

... The modest financial remuneration commonly provided often means that students and the unemployed make up the bulk of volunteers.

As a result, the risks of developing a health intervention that would benefit the whole population are carried disproportionately by some of society's most poor and vulnerable.

This is a situation few would judge to be fair or ethical. Compulsory involvement in vaccine studies is one alternative solution that is not as outlandish as it might seem on first consideration.

Many societies already mandate that citizens undertake activities for the good of society; in several European countries registration for organ-donation has switched from "opt-in" (the current U.S. system) to "opt-out" systems... and most societies expect citizens to undertake jury service when called upon...

Mandatory involvement in vaccine trials is... perhaps more akin to military conscription... In both conscription and obligatory trial participation, individuals have little or no choice regarding involvement and face inherent risks over which they have no control, all for the greater good of society."

The EPA announced that it has completed the first part of its study on dioxin, after more than 25 years of stonewalling.

Dioxin is the most caustic man-made chemical known. Dioxin is a general term for hundreds of chemicals that are produced in industrial processes that use chlorine and burning. Disturbingly, it has a half-life of 100+ years when it is leached into soil or embedded in water systems. Dioxin was the most harmful component in Agent Orange (the recipe for Agent Orange is 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T herbicides).

The EPA says that air emissions of dioxin have decreased by 90% since the 1980′s, but dioxin is dangerous at any level. The study appears to omit any analysis of dioxin transmission in water and land. The danger is growing because Dow AgroScience has received preliminary USDA approval for its 2,4-D herbicide resistant GMO corn. This means that dioxin contaminated 2,4-D herbicide will drench US farm land and pollute water supplies if the crops are widely planted.

EPA Dioxin Assessment Report

The EPA's press release on dioxin's health effects trumpeted the lie that current exposure rates "don't pose significant health risks". But the EPA does admit that there is a cancer risk, although they are not releasing their study on cancer at this time. Perhaps the delay is due to the fact that 95% of Americans have measurable levels of dioxin in their bodies.

Sinus infections are the fifth most common reason antibiotics are prescribed for adults. Unfortunately, they are of no help for most sinus infections - this according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Not only are we facilitating the growth of drug resistant bacteria by over prescribing these antibiotics - the research shows it doesn't even provide symptom relief. Even more disturbing, the numbers show that fewer than two percent of sinus infections are bacterial. Which means the overwhelming majority of sinus infections are viral - of which antibiotics are no help.

The study used a total of 166 adults diagnosed with acute rhinosinusitis, who were randomized to either amoxicillin or placebo treatment group. Among patients with acute rhinosinusitis, a 10-day course of amoxicillin compared with placebo did not reduce symptoms at day 3 or day 10 of treatment.

Now that we know antibiotics will not help - let's discuss what will. First, it's important to know what actually happens to our body when we have a sinus infection. Acute sinusitis is an inflammation of the mucous membranes in the nose, sinuses and throat, which can lead to blocked sinuses and potential infection. Therefore, keeping your nasal membranes moist is a great way to avoid and reduce sinus symptoms. Using warm water and salt you can create your own saline solution to stream through your nose. This can keep your nasal passages from drying out and clear excess mucus before it has a chance to cause congestion which can lead to infection.

Most of the genetically-modified (GM) corn products forced on American consumers today are hidden in processed foods in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), corn oil, corn starch, and various other corn-based additives. But soon to be available at a Walmart near you is Monsanto's Bt sweet corn, the agri-giant's first ever GM corn product made available to consumers as whole ears right on the cob in the produce section-- and like with all other GMOs, neither Walmart nor Monsanto has any intention of labeling this new "Frankencorn."

Monsanto first unveiled this new variety of GM sweet corn back in August, which rivals Syngenta's GM sweet corn that has already been on the market in limited form for the past ten years, claiming that it would be available to farmers for planting during Fall 2011. Now, the corn appears set to make its debut in Walmart stores across the country as early as Summer 2012, unless massive public outcry is able to convince the multinational retailer to scrap the corn, or at least voluntarily label it.

This disturbing development comes courtesy of both Food & Water Watch and Sum Of Us, which recently drew attention to the issue by creating petitions against Walmart's potential sale of the corn. Though Monsanto's GM sweet corn contains three genetically-engineered (GE) traits that have never been used in food eaten directly by people, and that have never been properly tested, Walmart still intends to quietly stock its produce shelves with this phony corn in the very near future.

Despite enormous strides over the last 20 years in protecting children from the metal, health workers still find unsafe levels in thousands of youngsters every year. At the same time, programs to combat lead poisoning are being slashed.

One-year-old Nelly Gomez refused to eat. Anything she swallowed, she immediately threw up.

Thinking Nelly had indigestion, her parents took her to a nearby clinic in MacArthur Park. A blood test revealed a diagnosis that surprised and worried them: lead poisoning.

"I didn't know what was going to happen," said her father, Nelson Gomez, an unemployed construction worker. "As her dad, I felt desperate."

Despite enormous strides over the last 20 years in protecting children from lead, which can cause irreversible nerve and brain damage, health workers still find unsafe levels in thousands of California youths every year.

Rats infected with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii do crazy things. They find the scent of cat urine sexy and attractive, they don't run from the actual beasts; they are more active in running wheels, which might indicate that the parasite induces increased activity which may more readily attract a cat's attention. When an infected rat is eaten by a cat, the T. gondii is passed on in the cat's feces to infect again. T. gondii can only reproduce inside the cat. Great survival strategy on the part of the parasite, this trick of making the rat no longer fear cats -- now that's really building a better mouse-trap! Did this strategy evolve by adaptive selection, or is it just something that happened?

Czech biologist, Jaroslav Flegr, thinks T. gondii infections do much the same to humans -- his story is told in the March 2012 Atlantic Monthly. Toxoplasmosis, the infection caused by T. gondii, infects a significant segment of the world's population -- perhaps 20% of Americans, but 55% of French people are infected, probably because the French diet includes more rare or raw meat than the American diet. The usual mode of transmission is from a member of the cat family to another warm-blooded animal via ingestion of feces from an infected cat, but raw or rare meat can be another source. It can also be transmitted from mother to fetus, and can result in serious complications in an infected fetus, including stillbirth. This is why pregnant women are told to avoid litter boxes.

"I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind. The mycelium stays in constant molecular communication with its environment, devising diverse enzymatic and chemical responses to complex challenges." ― Paul Stamets, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World

The mycelium is the part of the mushroom you usually do not see. Most of it is found distributed throughout the soil, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like structures (known as hyphae) which absorb nutrients and decompose organic materials. The mycelium can be exceedingly small or may form a colony of massive proportions.

Is this the largest organism in the world? This 2,400-acre (9.7 km2) site in eastern Oregon had a contiguous growth of mycelium before logging roads cut through it. Estimated at 1,665 football fields in size and 2,200 years old, this one fungus has killed the forest above it several times over, and in so doing has built deeper soil layers that allow the growth of ever-larger stands of trees. Mushroom-forming forest fungi are unique in that their mycelial mats can achieve such massive proportions.
- Paul Stamets, Mycelium Running

It's usually exciting when national headlines take notice of the Florida Keys.

Sushi's New Year's Eve shoe drop on CNN, for example - Cool!

Genetically modified mosquitoes coming soon to a backyard near you, as reported in the New York Times? Not so much.

In 2009, genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes were released in the Cayman Islands by the private British firm Oxitec. It was the first time in history that genetically modified insects that can bite humans were released and it happened largely in secret, in a country with no bio-safety laws or regulations. Now Oxitec is planning to initiate the release of the GM mosquitoes in the Florida Keys as early as this spring.

These "suicide" mosquitoes have a gene that causes them to die and this gene is passed on to their offspring who are supposed to die before they reach adulthood. Over time, the mosquito population will decline and with it, the transmission of dengue fever - or so the theory goes. However, there are many concerns with this theory, not the least of which regards the very nature of genetic modification itself in trying to outsmart Mother Nature. We simply do not know what the unintended consequences of messing around with an organism's DNA will be.

Curcumin, the key chemical in turmeric, has been shown to possess very powerful health-promoting properties. Recent research has even found that curcumin can even prolong lives of fruit flies by 75 percent. While the research was done on insects, it highlights the life-promoting aspects of this powerful substance - along with mountains of other scientific research. The findings also shed light on how curcumin can slow the development of Alzheimer's and dementia. This research provides a potential explanation of why rates of dementia are less common among the elderly in India, where turmeric is widely used in the production of spices.

Curcumin Shown to Cause Fruit Flies to Live 75 Percent Longer

A protein known as amyloid plaques has previously been shown to lead to Alzheimer's. While curcumin has not been found to dissolve the damaging plaque, it does accelerate nerve fiber formation by reducing the amount of oligomers, which are thought to be harmful to the nerve cells.

Prof Per Hammarstrom, of Linkoping University in Sweden, said:

"The results confirm our belief that it is the oligomers that are most harmful to the nerve cells...We now see small molecules in an animal model can influence the amyloid form. To our knowledge the encapsulation of oligomers is a new and exciting treatment strategy."