CBC CAFri, 29 Dec 2006 12:00 UTC
Food from cloned cattle, pigs and goats does not pose any health risks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a draft ruling Thursday.
"No unique risks for human food consumption were identified in cattle, swine or goat clones," the FDA said in a statement.
The FDA will accept public comments before it makes a final ruling in the new year on whether food from cloned animals may be made available for sale.
Washington - The size of your gut may be partly shaped by which microbes call it home, according to new research linking obesity to types of digestive bacteria.
Both obese mice - and people - had more of one type of bacteria and less of another kind, according to two studies published Thursday in the journal Nature.
A "microbial component'' appears to contribute to obesity, said study lead author Jeffrey Gordon, director of Washington University's Center for Genome Sciences.
Obese humans and mice had a lower percentage of a family of bacteria called Bacteroidetes and more of a type of bacteria called Firmicutes, Gordon and his colleagues found.
BBC UKTue, 26 Dec 2006 12:00 UTC
Scientists are closer to understanding why a common parasite is harmless to most people, while causing severe illness in others.Toxoplasma is carried by cats and rats in the UK, and a large proportion of humans are also thought to carry the parasite, without any ill effects.
But it can cause toxoplasmosis, which can lead to brain damage or even death.
Kathleen Fackelmann
USA TodayTue, 26 Dec 2006 12:00 UTC
A gene that helps people live to age 90 and beyond might also help ward off Alzheimer's, a study suggests Tuesday.
People with this "supergene" have a much higher chance of living to the century mark without developing dementia, the confused thinking and memory loss that so often plagues the oldest of the old, says Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
CBC CATue, 26 Dec 2006 12:00 UTC
Psychological treatments may help lower the intensity of chronic low back pain, a review suggests.
Researchers evaluated 22 randomized trials published between 1982 and 2003 to evaluate the effects of psychological interventions on pain.
The approaches improve outcomes such as depression and health-related quality of life as well as patients' experience of pain, the team concluded in the January issue of the journal Health Psychology.
A second World War veteran who was blinded in his right eye when he was hit by shrapnel can see again after being head-butted by a pedigree racehorse.
Doctors tried in vain for 64 years to restore Don Karkos's sight, until My Buddy Chimo stepped in.
Hours after the horse smacked the 82-year-old paddock security guard in exactly the same spot as the shrapnel gashed his forehead in combat in 1942, he realised his vision was returning.
"I was putting a collar around his chest, and he whacked me real hard with his head," Mr Karkos told the New York Daily News.
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Science DailyThu, 21 Dec 2006 12:00 UTC
Why do we forget? Do memories decay on their own, or are they harmed by interference from similar memories? Using a technique called "transcranial magnetic stimulation" (TMS), brain researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may have found the answer.
A leading scientist who supposedly spent his career investigating the causes of cancer was regularly taking secret payments from an American chemicals company over a period of 20 years. Sir Richard Doll, a cancer expert, received money from Monsanto, a huge corporation that sells chemicals, including pesticides and fertilizers which are sprayed onto foods that we eat every day. The company also develops and sells genetically modified crops, The reason why the payments were kept secret is obvious: there is a blatant conflict of interests. This is a blatant case of corporate bribery and corruption in a major global industry. It is also a classic example of American-style capitalism in action.
Comment: Comment: Yay for the psychopaths!
Certain mental exercises can offset some of the expected decline in older adults' thinking skills and show promise for maintaining cognitive abilities needed to do everyday tasks such as shopping, making meals and handling finances, according to a new study. The research, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in the Dec. 20, 2006, Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that some of the benefits of short-term cognitive training persisted for as long as five years.
CBC CAWed, 20 Dec 2006 12:00 UTC
Stress, that tense feeling often connected to having too much to do, too many bills to pay and not enough time or money, appears to be a common emotion that knows few borders.
About three-fourths of people in Canada, the United States, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea and the United Kingdom said they experience stress on a daily basis, according to an AP-Ipsos poll.
Comment: Comment: Yay for the psychopaths!