Health & WellnessS


Evil Rays

You don't say? Scientists study the ABCs of fear


Associated Press
Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:20 UTC
Science is getting a grip on people's fears. As Americans revel in all things scary on Halloween, scientists say they now know better what's going on inside our brains when a spook jumps out and scares us. Knowing how fear rules the brain should lead to treatments for a major medical problem: When irrational fears go haywire.

"We're making a lot of progress," said University of Michigan psychology professor Stephen Maren. "We're taking all of what we learned from the basic studies of animals and bringing that into the clinical practices that help people. Things are starting to come together in a very important way."

©AFP/Getty Images
'Halloween Extravaganza & Procession of the Ghouls' in The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York.

Comment: Read the Signs editorial for understanding how the government is exploiting peoples fear in order to usher in a fascist regime and a never ending "war on terror":
Limbic Warfare and Martha Stout's "Paranoia Switch

A good book on fear is called The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

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People

How Racism Affects IQ

Sean Gonsalves
AlterNet
Mon, 29 Oct 2007 00:00 UTC
Closing the education gap between races requires a critical look at early education and health care disparities -- not unfounded statements that black people are less intelligent.
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Ambulance

Legal Toxins in Toys May Disrupt Male Sexual Development

Mark Schapiro
The Nation
Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:19 UTC
This article is adapted from Mark Schapiro's new book Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power (Chelsea Green).

Toxic chemicals in toys can interrupt the production of testosterone, the hormone that helps determine everything from gender-based behavior to sex drive to sperm count.

Comment: This article is a good example of how the corporations are run by psychopaths. How could anyone, in good conscience, fight to keep something in toys, and other products, that is seriously detrimental to our children? Only those without a conscience could do so.

Remember, psychopaths look for opportunities that will give them power, wealth and thrills. They care only for themselves. Others don't figure into their plans, unless they can be used to accomplish getting what is wanted by the psychopath.

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Stop

Wait, don't eat that: Candy scandal stuns Japan

Norimitsu Onishi
International Herald Tribune
Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:49 UTC
It was supposed to be a celebratory year for Akafuku, a confectioner that had been selling bean-jam sweets here since 1707. On its 300th anniversary, its top-selling sweets were still indispensable gifts to bring back home or to the office after a trip to Ise Shrine here, Japan's holiest religious site.

Instead, Akafuku has become the latest Japanese food company to be exposed for lying about the contents of its products, tampering with expiration-date labels and recycling ingredients. For only the second time in its history, Akafuku, which was forced to halt production during World War II because of a sugar scarcity, has suspended operations, this time indefinitely.
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Attention

Baby born with birth defects every 30 seconds in China


Window of China
Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:50 UTC
Birth defects in China have increased by nearly 40 percent since 2001, according to statistics from the country's birth deformity monitoring center.

The figure was cited in a recent report by Jiang Fan, deputy head of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, at a conference in Chengdu, capital city of Southwest China's Sichuan Province.
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Health

UV light may offer "double whammy" for cancer

Michael Kahn
Reuters
Tue, 30 Oct 2007 02:26 UTC
Using ultraviolet light may one day offer a "double whammy" to kill cancer cells by better focusing antibody-based drugs and triggering the body's own defenses to eliminate tumors, researchers said on Tuesday.

In two studies with mice, a British team cloaked antibodies -- the immune system proteins that tag germs and cancer cells for elimination -- with an organic oil that blocked them from reacting until illuminated with ultraviolet light.
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Question

AIDS virus invaded U.S. from Haiti: study alleges

Will Dunham
Reuters
Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:24 UTC
The AIDS virus invaded the United States in about 1969 from Haiti, carried most likely by a single infected immigrant who set the stage for it to sweep the world in a tragic epidemic, scientists said on Monday.

Michael Worobey, a University of Arizona evolutionary biologist, said the 1969 U.S. entry date is earlier than some experts had believed.

The timeline laid out in the study led by Worobey indicates that HIV infections were occurring in the United States for roughly 12 years before AIDS was first recognized by scientists as a disease in 1981. Many people had died by that point.
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Ambulance

TV raises blood pressure in obese kids: study


Reuters
Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:05 UTC
Watching too much television may not only help make children fat, it may also raise their blood pressure, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

They found obese children who watched four or more hours of TV a day were three times more likely to have high blood pressure than children who watched less than two hours a day.

"There is a significant association between hours of television watched and both the severity of obesity and the presence of hypertension in obese children," Dr. Jeffrey Schwimmer of the University of California, San Diego and colleagues wrote in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
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Better Earth

Green Schools Offer Healthier Classrooms -- and Might Boost Test Scores

Samantha Cleaver
AlterNet
Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:52 UTC
Green classrooms not only produce happier and better students, but they can save school districts thousands in energy costs.

Every day, 20 percent of Americans wake up, eat breakfast, and walk, bike, or drive to school. Once there, many students and teachers spend their days in classrooms with walls covered in toxic paint, breathing congested air, and squinting from inadequate lighting.
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Evil Rays

Study reveals 'huffing' household chemicals connected to teen suicide

Dave Brendsel
University of Denver
Mon, 29 Oct 2007 23:12 UTC
With suicide as the third leading cause of death among adolescents in the United States, a new University of Denver (DU) study reveals inhaling or "huffing" vapors of common household goods, such as glue or nail polish, are associated with increased suicidal thoughts and attempts.
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