A plea to reverse the ecological destruction of the Prairies
Al Gore's Ethanol Epiphany
He concedes the industry he promoted serves no useful purpose.
Bacteria Help Infants Digest Milk More Effectively Than Adults
Infants are more efficient at digesting and utilizing nutritional components of milk than adults due to a difference in the strains of bacteria that dominate their digestive tracts."Human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) are the third-largest solid component of milk. Their structural complexity renders them non-digestible to the host.""Bifidobacterium longum strains often predominate the colonic microbiota of exlusively breast-fed infants. Among the three recognized subspecies, B. longumsubsp. infantis achieves high levels of cell growth on HMOs and is associated with early colonization of the infant gut."
Related Transgenic Goat's Milk Offers Hope For Tackling Children's Intestinal Disease
Milk produced by transgenic goats, which carry the gene for an antibacterial enzyme found in human breast milk, altered the intestinal bacteria in young goats and pigs that were fed the milk.Researchers hope these findings will one day lead to milk that protects infants and children against diarrheal illnesses, which each year kill more than 2 million children worldwide.
Protein-Enriched Milk May Reduce Need For Antibiotics In Animal Feed
The search for ways to promote growth of farm animals without adding antibiotics to feed has led scientists in Taiwan to an advance toward genetically engineering animals that produce higher levels of a natural growth-promoting protein in their milk. Winston T. K. Cheng and colleagues point out that the protein, lactoferrin (LF), has anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory actions and may serve as an alternative to antibiotics in agriculture. The researchers genetically engineered laboratory mice to produce milk enriched in pig LF, and studied the growth of 10 generations of mice pups fed on the milk. Mice fed LF-enriched milk grew 10-15 per cent faster than those fed on ordinary milk.In animal husbandry, it is thought that supplementing the diet of neonatal pigs with porcine LF may decrease mortality rates of piglets due to diarrhea and anemia by rendering them more resistant to common infectious agents
Why Are We Getting Fatter? Seeking a Mysterious Culprit
Why do we eat too much and expend too little energy?
The root cause of obesity may be much more complicated than the conventional wisdom -- too much food availability, too little opportunity to exercise.
Allison's current sleuthing began when he was looking over data on small primates called marmosets from the Wisconsin Non-Human Primate Center. He noted that the population as a whole showed pronounced weight gain over time. scientists, including many at UAB, are beginning to look at alternative reasons for obesity beyond the usual suspects of increases in food intake, provoked mainly by availability, and decreases in activity level, provoked mainly by labor-saving devices. Here are several candidates for the lineup:- Light. Studies have shown that subtle changes in the amount of time spent in light or dark environments changes eating habits. Allison wonders if increased light pollution in our industrial society may play a role.
- Viruses. Infection with adenovirus-36 is associated with obesity, and the presence of antibodies to AD36 correlates to obesity in humans. Could AD36 or other infectious agents be contributing to obesity in populations?
- Epigenetics. Genetic modifications brought about by any number of environmental cues such as stress, resource availability, release from predation or climate change.
The bottom line, say the authors, is that obesity is a problem that most likely has many causes and will need many solutions.
Protein-Enriched Milk May Reduce Need For Antibiotics In Animal Feed
The search for ways to promote growth of farm animals without adding antibiotics to feed has led scientists in Taiwan to an advance toward genetically engineering animals that produce higher levels of a natural growth-promoting protein in their milk. Winston T. K. Cheng and colleagues point out that the protein, lactoferrin (LF), has anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory actions and may serve as an alternative to antibiotics in agriculture. The researchers genetically engineered laboratory mice to produce milk enriched in pig LF, and studied the growth of 10 generations of mice pups fed on the milk. Mice fed LF-enriched milk grew 10-15 per cent faster than those fed on ordinary milk.
In animal husbandry, it is thought that supplementing the diet of neonatal pigs with porcine LF may decrease mortality rates of piglets due to diarrhea and anemia by rendering them more resistant to common infectious agents
Why Are We Getting Fatter? Seeking a Mysterious Culprit
Why do we eat too much and expend too little energy?
The root cause of obesity may be much more complicated than the conventional wisdom -- too much food availability, too little opportunity to exercise.
Allison's current sleuthing began when he was looking over data on small primates called marmosets from the Wisconsin Non-Human Primate Center. He noted that the population as a whole showed pronounced weight gain over time.
scientists, including many at UAB, are beginning to look at alternative reasons for obesity beyond the usual suspects of increases in food intake, provoked mainly by availability, and decreases in activity level, provoked mainly by labor-saving devices. Here are several candidates for the lineup:
- Light. Studies have shown that subtle changes in the amount of time spent in light or dark environments changes eating habits. Allison wonders if increased light pollution in our industrial society may play a role.
- Viruses. Infection with adenovirus-36 is associated with obesity, and the presence of antibodies to AD36 correlates to obesity in humans. Could AD36 or other infectious agents be contributing to obesity in populations?
- Epigenetics. Genetic modifications brought about by any number of environmental cues such as stress, resource availability, release from predation or climate change.
The bottom line, say the authors, is that obesity is a problem that most likely has many causes and will need many solutions.
Dinosaur demise allowed mammals to 'go nuts
Dogs Have Bigger Brains Than Cats Because They Are More Sociable
groups of mammals with relatively bigger brains tend to live in stable social groups
North Korea "readies missiles" as China seeks talks
Beijing has long-standing bonds with Pyongyang, and has sought to shield its small, poor neighbor from a backlash that China fears could draw an even more ferocious reaction from North Korea and dangerously destabilize the region.
Critics in Washington and other capitals say China's approach amounts to coddling a dangerous nuclear-armed state.
Yonhap said North Korea, whose ailing leader, Kim Jong-il, is preparing to hand over the reins of power to his youngest son, had moved surface-to-air missiles to frontline areas, days after it shelled Yeonpyeong killing four people. The North's official KCNA news agency warned of retaliatory action if its territory is violated.
South Korea's Defense Ministry told journalists to leave the island on Sunday because the situation was "bad." Many residents evacuated earlier said they did not want to return.
( This reminds me of the Pope's opportunism suggesting Rome absorb the Church of England as a new head took the reins - the Archbishop of Canterbury. Changeover in NK signals what's going on as attempts at disrupting government - as was done at the time of the Iranian elections with subsidised 'Green Revolution'. Colour coding 'resistance' movements is a psychological ploy to establish identity and cohesion. )
The exercises, in waters far south of the disputed maritime boundary, are being held in the face of misgivings by China and threats of all-out war from North Korea.
South Korea's marine commander on Saturday vowed "thousand-fold" revenge for the North Korean attack. North Korea said that if there had been civilian deaths, they were "very regrettable," but that South Korea should be blamed for using a human shield.
It also said the United States should be blamed for "orchestrating" the whole sequence of events to justify sending an aircraft carrier to join the maritime maneuvers.
Iowa agrees: Marijuana is medicine & should be rescheduled
US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis
At the start of a series of daily extracts from the US embassy cables – many designated "secret" – the Guardian can disclose that Arab leaders are privately urging an air strike on Iran and that US officials have been instructed to spy on the UN leadership.
The whistleblowers' website, also reveal Washington's evaluation of many other highly sensitive international issues.
These include a shift in relations between China and North Korea, high level concerns over Pakistan's growing instability and details of clandestine US efforts to combat al-Qaida in Yemen.
Grave fears in Washington and London over the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, with officials warning that as the country faces economic collapse, government employees could smuggle out enough nuclear material for terrorists to build a bomb.
• Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government, with one cable alleging that vice president Zia Massoud was carrying $52m in cash when he was stopped during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. Massoud denies taking money out of Afghanistan.
• How the hacker attacks which forced Google to quit China in January were orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticising him personally.
• The extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, which is causing intense US suspicion. Cables detail allegations of "lavish gifts", lucrative energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italian go-between.
• Allegations that Russia and its intelligence agencies are using mafia bosses to carry out criminal operations, with one cable reporting that the relationship is so close that the country has become a "virtual mafia state".
• Devastating criticism of the UK's military operations in Afghanistan by US commanders, the Afghan president and local officials in Helmand. The dispatches reveal particular contempt for the failure to impose security around Sangin – the town which has claimed more British lives than any other in the country.
• Inappropriate remarks by a member of the British royal family about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country.
Why an alleged major Serbian war criminal has never been caught; why North Korea is soon likely to collapse and how an "environmental disaster" was only narrowly averted last year over secret shipments of highly enriched uranium.
A former hacker, Adrian Lamo, who reported Manning to the US authorities, said the soldier had told him in chat messages that the cables revealed "how the first world exploits the third, in detail".
He also said, according to Lamo, that Clinton "and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available in searchable format to the public … everywhere there's a US post … there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed".
A Superpower's View of the World
In the eyes of the American diplomatic corps, every actor is quickly categorized as a friend or foe. An enraged Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff Mohammed Ali Jafari allegedly got into a heated argument with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and slapped him in the face because the generally conservative president had, surprisingly, advocated freedom of the press.
( Frankly, the information may be embarrassing to politicians...but seem to do little to reveal any profound analysis of tactics. )
During the Cuban Missile Crisis, it wasn’t the Joint Chiefs alone who were trying to push for war, as the “CIA also played a dangerous game during the crisis,” as Kennedy had ordered the CIA to halt all raids against Cuba during the crisis, “to make sure that no flying sparks from the agency’s secret operations set off a nuclear conflagration.” However, Bill Harvey, the CIA agent in charge of “Operation Mongoose,” the CIA plan which employed the Mafia to attempt to kill Castro, in brazen defiance of Kennedy’s orders, mobilized “every single team and asset that we could scrape together” and then dropped them into Cuba, “in anticipation of the U.S. invasion that the CIA hoped was soon to follow.”
A commenter on another post added this link
Johnson, Bush and Nixon kill John F. KennedyRethinking Money: Breaking Up Currencies
An Estonian economist is recommending that the country go completely electronic as it adopts the Euro. Umair Haque wrote up an interesting post, positing that money could besplit into three types of currencies which serve three separate functions. The idea is not to break them up by region but by function.A few weeks back the always excellent Planet Money team at NPR did a wonderful episode on how "fake money" saved Brazil from rampant inflation. The story is fascinating, and I highly recommend listening to it. But, it was basically a simplified version of what Haque is suggesting. Brazil had crazy inflation, so crazy that every day, stores had to remark their entire stock to raise prices, and people would rush ahead of the clerk with the price stickers to get "yesterday's" prices.
The way Brazil "solved" the issue was to effectively issue a made up new currency to handle some functions of money: mainly the unit of account. You couldn't actually get paid in it, or pay with it, but all the goods in all the stores were suddenly priced with it. Then, rather than having to change the prices every day, each day, the government would put out a rate card with the exchange rate, and people would work off of that. Studs Terkel's "The Sound Of A Human Voice"
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