#Can Biohackers Succeed At Making'Real Vegan Cheese'?'A group of Oakland California-based biohackers believe they can create real vegan cheese.
#MERS Virus May be Able To Spread Through The Air Research strongly suggests that camels carry Middle east Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) a viral illness that has sickened nearly 700
Scientists are working on varieties that survive disease drought and flood. So what exactly do consumers have to fear?
One frequently cited study published in 2012 by researchers from the University of Caen in France claimed that one of Monsanto's corn GMOS caused tumors in lab rats.
which prevents the production of histamines that can trigger headaches. It also improves flavor and color.*
There are many labs around the world working on making animals that are engineered to grow faster resist disease
whose milk is designed to prevent deadly diarrhea in children and chickens in which bird flu viruses don't reproduce.
In spite of public opposition and a lack of funding GM meat research has continued to advance. One major trend:
and heart diseases would also decrease under the plan although it doesn't regulate them directly.
Rising temperatures bring more smog more asthma and longer allergy seasons. If your kid doesn t use an inhaler consider yourself a lucky parent said Mccarthy
because 1 in 10 children in the U s. suffers from asthma. Carbon pollution from power plants comes packaged with other dangerous pollutants like particulate matter nitrogen oxides
The Stanford team avoided rejection by permanently suppressing their subjects immune systems a solution that would leave humans vulnerable to catastrophic disease and infection.
Although bioweapon stockpiles are in short supply (with very good reason) Mathaudhu is confident that geneticists could synthesize whatever new plagues seem useful.
The technology that has revolutionized genetic analysis allowing for whole-genome sequencing of human DNA could also enable a precision pathogen of last resort.
By the time you've settled the quarrel with the neighbors your kids are making a sound like whooping cough.
Without the pressure of cold hunger disease danger from outside and even greater danger from the quarrelsome combativeness in his own heart it is probable that he would still be living in trees
#The Disquieting Delights Of Salt-Rising Breadas befits a nasty pathogen Clostridium perfringens grows aggressively. Its cells can divide every ten minutes a handful turning into trillions of hydrogen makers overnight.
A century ago a scientist went so far as to bake bread leavened with Clostridium perfringens drawn from an infected wound in
The realization that the salt-rising bacterium was a form of pathogen came in 1923 when a USDA microbiologist named Stuart A. Koser analyzed commercial salt-rising starters.
but it was implicated in gangrenous flesh wounds. So Koser checked to see whether bakery loaves of salt-rising bread contained any of the bacillus. Indeed they did but in the form of spores rather than live cells.
and found that they didn't cause gangrene. Koser then wondered if a known disease strain could grow well enough in dough to leaven it
and so pose a hidden hazard to the consumer. So he obtained a bacillus culture from the army that had originally been taken from a soldier's infected wound.
Less understandably he didn't test the wound-risen bread for toxicity. But his creepy experiment made clear that there were different strains of the bacillus with different toxicities
and'50s that scientists recognized Clostridium perfringens as a leading cause of foodborne illness as well as wound infections Since then they've found that there are at least five major types of the bacterium that produce different toxins and cause different kinds of disease.
and found that all of them contained strains of Clostridium perfringens type A the group associated with food poisoning rather than wound infection.
and the lack of any known cases of the bread causing illness Juckett and Mcclane concluded that it seems reasonable to continue the consumption of this delicious old-fashioned bread.
and other vegetables to follow in part to be eaten by people with kidney disease or on dialysis who cannot handle vegetables with high levels of potassium.
and even if they managed to stave off crop disease (which can spread very rapidly in a hydroponic culture) they would still need backup food from home.
Two weeks ago at a conference in South africa scientists met to discuss how to contain a deadly banana disease outbreak in nearby Mozambique Africa.
The international delegation of researchers shared their own approaches to the malady hoping to arrive at some strategy to insulate Mozambique and the rest of Africa:
Worse he says the disease's rapid spread endangers banana crops beyond Mozambique s borders.
I originally reported on the malady that s now infecting the Mozambique plantation in the August 2005 print edition of Popular Science.
I described a fungus commonly known as Panama Disease but scientifically termed Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubensis Tropical Race 4 (or Foc-TR4).
When I reported on the disease which was and remains incurable it had spread only to a few Asian nations including Taiwan and Indonesia.
One big question is how the disease actually arrived in Mozambique. At the conference I attended participants offered two theories.
the malady is so virulent that a single clump of dirt on a shoe or a tool can lead to continent-wide infection.
Philippine banana growers have been struggling with Foc-TR4 since the 1990s and the workers in Mozambique were employed by Chiquita management and then by a company called Matanuska
Another idea is that the disease was waiting in the soil all along prior to the arrival of bananas in Mozambique.
Viljoen strongly believes those tests will show that the disease came from the Philippines. Whatever the origin it is certain that the new plantation was equipped poorly to handle the fungus.
Likewise infection from common irrigation sources was one of the primary ways the Gros Michel version of Panama Disease spread in the mid-20th century.
Another likely vector for the spread of the disease was local people walking across the farmland on their way home says Viljoen.
Just five years ago Chiquita s Aguirre told the Cincinnati Enquirer We believe that Panama Disease is limited a very threat
and that Panama Disease represents a long-term danger to the industry. The disease has also recently been identified in the middle East with crops stricken in both Jordan and Oman.
Loyd also confirmed that Chiquita is now researching a replacement banana for the Cavendish. One possibility is modified a version of the fruit developed in Taiwan;
but is highly resistant to Panama Disease. The variety is currently being tested in the Philippines
which every Cavendish plant is essentially a clone) to one with multiple resistant breeds would help insulate plantations against disease
when the disease will hit Latin america which grows the bananas we consume. Mozambique brings disturbing news on that front:
There was also a Centers for Disease Control report that concluded the number of calls to poison centers involving e-cigarette liquids containing nicotine rose from one per month in September 2010 to 215 per month in February 2014.
and when you burn them you get a whole cocktail of cancer-causing stuff. Puckett estimated that just more than half of the material processed in Guiyu actually got recycled judging from the tons of plastic leaded glass and burned circuit boards discarded near waterways and in open fields.
In 2002 BAN produced a film about his trip called Exporting Harm: The High-tech Trashing of Asia.
In 2010 The Economist honored him with one of its awards for energy and the environment (along with Steve jobs and Harald zur Housen a Nobel-winning cancer researcher).
The upshot is that shipments of recyclables into the country must truly be recyclables not contaminants or waste.
Our poor boy had the rare case of second rash and sore throat...and as if this was not enough a most serious attack of erysipelas with typhoid symptoms.
I despaired of his life; but this evening he has eaten one mouthful and I think has passed the crisis. He has lived on port wine every three-quarters of an hour day and night.
They also check the modules and the plants'leaves for contaminants which may come from the space station's environment.
New research you see has found that chemicals excreted by microbes in sloth fur had potent activity against a host of human pathogens
and even breast cancer cells and possess anti-malaria and antibacterial properties. The study found that chemicals isolated from fungi in three-toed sloths were deadly for parasites that cause malaria and Chagas disease (Plasmodium falciparum and Trypanosoma cruzi respectively.
The research was only a partial cataloguing of microbes that live in sloth fur which the scientists describe as a potential goldmine for drug discovery.
Very few chemicals have been found to have activity against Chagas disease for example and the drugs currently used to treat it are discontinued often due to their negative side effects.
Several of the chemicals isolated from the fungi also showed strong activity against human breast cancer cells. a
#100 Years Of Smoking Studies In Popular Sciencefifty years ago tomorrow then-U s. Surgeon general Luther Terry held a press conference announcing that among other ills smoking caused lung cancer.
the number of scientific studies the U s. surgeon general's advisory committee examined before declaring that smoking caused lung cancer laryngeal cancer and chronic bronchitis17. 7 million:
A chain-smoking doctor among Terry's expert report authors was diagnosed with lung cancer within a year of the surgeon general's announcement NPR reports.
He later died of the disease. 8 million: the estimated number of tobacco-related deaths in the U s. that anti-smoking initiatives have prevented since 196419.6:
At the same time there are hints throughout Popular Science's archives suggesting people knew that they should try to quit that evidence was accumulating for smoking's long-term harms
Fast-forwarding to the years preceding the 1964 surgeon general's report scientists were gathering more rigorous evidence that smoking causes various illnesses including lung cancer.
The U s. Public health Service for example has reported that among veterans who died from lung cancer over a certain period about 10 times as many had been smokers igarette smokers s nonsmokers.
USPHS has reported also that the death rate from coronary heart disease among cigarette smokers was almost two-thirds higher than the rate for nonsmokers.
After a 20 percent plunge immediately following the lung cancer warning tobacco sales were back to normal it reported.
All the needles and the thread they themselves cause injury to the healthy tissue he says.
Ilagan learned that widely publicized studies purporting to show ill health effects from eating genetically modified foods have been discounted.
Evidences given by the authors suggest that M. mali was introduced probably during the breeding program on Elms against the Dutch elm disease (DED) during
Mounting evidence cited in the journal shows resistant pathogens are emerging in the wake of this veritable flood of antibiotics--resulting in an increase in bacteria that is immune to available treatments.
Modern medicine relies on antibiotics to kill off bacterial infections explains Hollis. This is incredibly important. Without effective antibiotics any surgery--even minor ones--will become extremely risky.
Cancer therapies similarly are dependent on the availability of effective antimicrobials. Ordinary infections will kill otherwise healthy people.
Bacteria that can effectively resist antibiotics will thrive Hollis adds reproducing rapidly and spreading in various ways.
The current mountain pine beetle epidemic has spread across 3. 4 million acres in Colorado since the outbreak was detected first in 1996.
#Greater dietary fiber intake associated with lower risk of heart diseasein recent years a decline in both cardiovascular disease (CVD)
and coronary heart disease (CHD) has been seen in some European countries and the United states. However it still remains a significant issue accounting for almost half (48)
In an accompanying editorial Dr Robert Baron Professor of Medicine at the University of California says this study increases our confidence that benefit as reflected by reduced cardiovascular disease
and coronary heart disease events will in fact accrue with higher dietary fiber intakes. He says that teaching patients to eat whole grains is still challenging
#Biologists find clues to a parasites inconsistencytoxoplasma gondii a parasite related to the one that causes malaria infects about 30 percent of the world's population.
but a small percentage develop encephalitis or ocular toxoplasmosis which can lead to blindness. MIT biologist Jeroen Saeij and his colleagues are trying to figure out why some forms of the disease are so innocuous
while others ravage their victims. In their latest paper they analyzed 29 strains of the parasite
and found that some of those endemic to South america or atypical in North america provoke very strong inflammation in the cells they infect
and then you have these exotic strains that can cause very severe disease says Saeij the Robert A. Swanson Career Development Associate professor of Life sciences.
Infection rates vary around the world: In the United states it's about 10 to 15 percent
and Europe usually cause problems only in people with suppressed immune systems such as AIDS patients or transplant recipients although some atypical North american and European strains have been associated with severe ocular toxoplasmosis.
It can also be dangerous for a woman to become infected while pregnant as the parasite can cause birth defects.
In South america there is a much higher incidence of severe symptoms in otherwise healthy people. Scientists are still unsure
Hyperinflammatory responsein the new study which appears this week in the journal PLOS Pathogens Saeij
and host--are most active during infection. Most strikingly some South american and some atypical North american strains induced a type of immune reaction usually only seen during viral infection known as the type 1 interferon response.
This generates very strong inflammation in the host cells which the researchers suspect may be causing the severe effects produced by those strains.
She notes that a strain adapted to long-term survival in rats may cause a fatal infection in mice
A new article published today in the Canadian Journal of Animal Science reviews current research into a promising alternative to control the disease.
and a breeding program that aims to pass on this resistance trait could help to control the disease
and ultimately limit production losses attributed to helminth infection. A key advantage to applying genetic selection rather than chemicals to get rid of the worms is that it is permanent
when epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) the major extractable polyphenol in green tea and the most biologically active when diluted in skim milk or other milk complexes remains bioactive and continues to reduce colon cancer cell proliferation in culture
Tea polyphenols have been shown to inhibit tumor formation reduce cancer cell proliferation increase normal cell death (apoptosis)
and/or suppress the formation of new blood vessels feeding tumors (angiogenesis). For several reasons tea catechins have poor bioavailability
and reduce the devastating impacts of conditions such as diabetes and obesity. The study SNAP Education and Evaluation Study (Wave II) evaluated the impact of several nutrition education programs on fruit and vegetable consumption among low-income elementary school children and seniors.
and gene interaction networks may have evolved differently in sugar beet compared to other species. The researchers also studied disease resistance genes (the equivalent to the immune system in animals)
or with disease resistance added Toni Gabaldon group leader in the CRG Bioinformatics and Genomics programme and ICREA research professor.
#Diet rich in tomatoes may lower breast cancer riska tomato-rich diet may help protect at-risk postmenopausal women from breast cancer according to new research accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal
Breast cancer risk rises in postmenopausal women as their body mass index climbs. The study found eating a diet high in tomatoes had a positive effect on the level of hormones that play a role in regulating fat and sugar metabolism.
while she was a postdoctoral fellow with Electra Paskett Phd at The Ohio State university Comprehensive Cancer Center--Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.
and vegetables would promote breast cancer prevention in an at-risk population. The longitudinal cross-over study examined the effects of both tomato-rich and soy-rich diets in a group of 70 postmenopausal women.
Researchers originally theorized that a diet containing large amounts of soy could be part of the reason that Asian women have lower rates of breast cancer than women in the United states
or delay around 8500 vascular deaths such as heart attacks and strokes every year in the UK--similar to giving statins to everyone over 50 years who is not already taking them--according to a study in the Christmas edition of The BMJ.
The research takes into account people who are already appropriately taking statins to reduce their risk of vascular disease
In the United kingdom lifestyle changes are recommended the first step to prevent heart disease. However trial data suggest that statins can reduce the risk of vascular events irrespective of a person's underlying risk of cardiovascular disease.
As such calls are being made for greater use of statins at a population level particularly for people aged 50 years and over.
However side-effects from statins mean that prescribing statins to everyone over the age of 50 is predicted to lead to over a thousand extra cases of muscle disease (myopathy) and over ten thousand extra diagnoses of diabetes.
This research adds weight to calls for the increased use of drugs for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease as well as for persevering with policies aimed at improving the nutritional quality of UK diets they conclude.
and that both drugs and healthier living can make a real difference in preventing heart disease and stroke.
and reduce their risk of chronic disease according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Two newly published studies in Annals of Internal medicine and an accompanying editorial indicate there is no clear benefit for most healthy people to consume vitamin supplements.
and reducing the risk of chronic disease is to wisely choose a wide variety of foods said registered dietitian nutritionist and Academy spokesperson Heather Mangieri.
Insect attack not only can kill a tree it can make the trees more vulnerable to other health problems said Amy Klocko an OSU faculty research associate.
Hybrid poplar trees which are grown usually in dense rows on flat land almost like a food crop are especially vulnerable to insect epidemics the researchers said.
When an animal stopped moving scientists saw a flat line much like the electrocardiogram of a heart-attack victim on their screens.
But these systems also pose significant public health risks (with the transmission of zoonotic diseases from these animals to people)
and malaria can combine to create global'hotspots'of climate change impacts4. The study is the first to identify hotspots across these sectors
#EU membership may have led to allergy increase in rural Polandpoland's entry into the EU may have had the surprising consequence of increasing allergies in rural villages according to a new study.
Surveys show that the prevalence of atopy a predisposition towards allergic reactions jumped from seven per cent to 20 per cent in villages in southwest Poland between 2003 and 2012.
Exposure to farm animals especially at a young age is thought to protect against developing allergies. The findings add to evidence that westernized lifestyles increase the risk of allergic diseases.
Previous research has suggested that farm dwellers especially children who grow up on farms have lower rates of hay fever
and atopy than people living in towns. Study author Professor Paul Cullinan from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London said:
Asthma hay fever and other allergic diseases are becoming more common in many countries and there's growing evidence that they're linked to modern clean lifestyles.
We found that rapid changes in farming practices after Poland joined the EU were accompanied by a sharp increase in allergies over a very short period of time.
It's likely that similar changes are occurring in other places in Europe and we can expect that elsewhere in the world we may see major increases in allergies asthma
and hay fever over the coming decades as countries become more westernized and less rural. Researchers from Wroclaw Medical University and Imperial College London conducted surveys in villages and a small town in southwest Poland in 2003 one year before Poland joined the EU
and 2012 to study the prevalence of asthma hay fever and atopy which is diagnosed with a skin prick test.
In 2003 7. 3 per cent of villagers tested positive for atopy compared with 20 per cent of townspeople.
In 2012 the prevalence of atopy in villages had risen to 19.6 per cent. hay fever also rose from 3. 0 per cent to 7. 7 per cent
but the prevalence of asthma did not change significantly. In towns there were no changes in the prevalence of allergies.
Twenty-four per cent of village dwellers had regular or occasional contact with cows in 2003 but this fell to four per cent in 2012.
Thirty-three per cent had contact with pigs in 2003 but only 14 per cent in 2012.
The study appears in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Imperial College London.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#European springtime temperature benefits Alpine ibex vitalitya study published December 16th 2013 in the journal Ecology Letters provides new evidence for the dependency of local trophic interactions
#Legislation to provide allergy medication in schools crucial to save livesan act recently signed by President Obama will make it easier to provide epinephrine to children with severe food allergies in schools even without a prescription.
since up to 6 percent of children in the United states are diagnosed now with a food allergy.
Allergic reactions to food and other potential life threatening allergic reactions can be fatal unless epinephrine is injected into the child immediately.
if your child has a severe allergy. The number of children treated for anaphylactic shock at Nationwide Children's Emergency Department has been on the rise
Previous testing confirmed he was allergic to dairy egg peanuts and tree nuts but Liam drank soy milk for months before his anaphylactic reaction.
or more students with a food allergy and about 25 percent of life-threatening food allergy reactions reported at schools occurred in children with no prior history of food allergies.
Epinephrine in schools should not replace your family's own individualized allergy treatment plan that you make with your allergist
or for those with known food allergies who for whatever reason do not have self-injectable epinephrine immediately available.
When a child has a severe allergic reaction seconds are crucial because timely administration of epinephrine is the single most important way to save lives
At a time when some EU member states (including Ireland) are reporting a 12-fold increase in the prevalence of liver fluke infection over recent years it is crucial to find innovative new ways to maintain animal health
of which will be uploaded to geographical information system for disease mapping and also feed into breeding programmes. This approach has broad application
Whether from cows goats or sheep raw milk and milk products are a continuing source of bacterial infections that are especially dangerous to pregnant women fetuses the elderly young children
and milk products said Maldonado an infectious disease expert who also is a pediatrician at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
But relative to the amount of raw-milk products on the market we do see a disproportionately large number of diseases and illnesses from raw milk.
From 1998 through 2009 there were 93 recorded outbreaks of disease resulting from consumption of raw milk or raw-milk products causing 1837 illnesses 195 hospitalizations and two deaths.
Most of those illnesses were caused by contamination of the product with E coli or with species of Salmonella or Campylobacter.
Infections by such bacteria can cause diarrhea fever cramps nausea and vomiting. Some infections can become systemic.
A 2011 survey by the National Association of State departments of Agriculture determined that raw milk and raw-milk products were legal to sell in 30 states
Before pasteurization was developed one of the major causes of childhood disease and death was drinking milk
It was not uncommon for children to contract tuberculosis from milk. Some advocates of raw-milk consumption argue that cows are healthier now than in the pre-pasteurization era
but Maldonado said that even in healthy herds there are other organisms that can cause serious bacterial infections in children and pregnant women.
or pregnant women they can cause severe illness. The academy's policy statement endorses a nationwide ban on the sale of raw
In addition to many species of bacteria the list includes giardia rabies and norovirus. According to the U S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention norovirus is the most common cause of acute gastroenteritis in the United states causing 19-21 million illnesses
and contributing to 56000-71000 hospitalizations and 570-800 deaths annually. We invented pasteurization to prevent these horrible diseases Maldonado said.
There is really no good reason to drink unpasteurized milk. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Stanford university Medical center.
According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention long-term exposure can harm bone marrow and cause a decrease in red blood cells leading to anemia.
It can also cause excessive bleeding and affect the immune system. Alvarez said studies have assessed the amount of methane generated by spills
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