Afghanistan has begun its latest drive to vaccinate millions of children under five against the crippling polio virus, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) officials have said.
The three-day campaign is the fifth in Afghanistan this year and was launched Sunday by the Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), with the support of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International and other partners.
There is a biological reason why events that occur in tandem with emotions such as fear, anger and joy are far more memorable, a U.S. study found.
Researchers at The John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and New York University have identified a hormone that is released during emotional arousal; they believe the hormone "primes" nerve cells to remember events.
Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut. That's the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week.
For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors figured it had no function, surgeons removed them routinely, and people live fine without them.
Research in Germany linked higher infection risks, especially for diarrhea, to babies who swam in pools during their first year of life.
However, the study, published in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, found no increased risks for atopic diseases -- which is when the immune system is dysregulated, resulting in allergic inflammation.
British researchers are investigating whether an extract from bilberries -- already known to help with night vision -- can prevent or delay some cancers.
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Andy Gescher and colleagues at the University of Leicester, is leading an investigation to carry out clinical trials with the commercially produced substance Mirtoselect -- extracted from bilberries -- with the cooperation of patients about to undergo surgery for colorectal and liver cancer.
The courtship is always a whirlwind. He is handsome, charming, confident. His love letters are filled with longing. The flattery flows. You are smart. You are beautiful. You are his ideal love.
Master of the grand gesture, he whisks you off on romantic weekends. Mid-Atlantic, he pulls out a little present for you, just as the stewardess fills your glasses with wine.
You have no idea that he is a psychopath: deeply narcissistic, devoid of real feeling, a romantic predator. Why would you? He is your dream man.
Consumers often don't get nutritional information they need.
Current food labeling leads to under-consumption of calcium, according to this study. Those who were taught how to translate the information consumed more. Researchers believe the same is true for other beneficial nutrients.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Considerable attention, both in blogs and in popular media, has been given to abusive bosses over the past few years. (See the Web sites
HateBoss.com and
WorkRant.com, for example.) Less discussed are employees' responses to such behavior. How do employees react to abusive supervisors" Do they simply take what is dished out, or do they actively seek to change the situation"
Comment: The study the way it is described appears to blame the victim of workplace abuse. The researchers would do well to read the book Snakes in Suit by Hare and Babiak.
In a time when we endlessly scrutinize the ingredients of our food and insist on pesticide-free peaches, why are we still mixing carcinogens into our children's lemonade? From herbicides to arsenic, the Environmental Protection Agency has set standards for 80 different chemicals, specifying how much of each should be allowed in our drinking water. Yet no regulations exist for thousands of other contaminants that make their way into our drinking water.
These unregulated contaminants include industrial byproducts, agricultural chemicals, drugs and even most of the toxic compounds that are formed when we add chlorine for disinfection. The combined effect of these contaminants has never been evaluated.
Comment: The author tries to sell the notion that the EPA has our best interest at heart and high cost is the only thing that is preventing water from being properly purified. However, there is plenty of evidence that suggests otherwise. The most notable example is fluoride, which is deliberately added to drinking water despite a huge amount of research pointing to its toxicity.
So if you care enough about what you and your family drink, take the matter into your own hands and buy a reverse osmosis filter. Better yet, buy a water distiller and drink only
distilled water.
Maggie Fox
ReutersFri, 05 Oct 2007 00:25 UTC
The H5N1 bird flu virus has mutated to infect people more easily, although it still has not transformed into a pandemic strain, researchers said on Thursday.
The changes are worrying, said Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Comment: But you can bet that they are working on it. And soon they will have achieved their goal. A pandemic.
Comment: Apart from the excellent books sited in the article, we recommend this reading list on the subject of psychopathy as well, "that can help the layperson understand psychopaths, narcissists, and their own vulnerability."