Eideard

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You can find all the examples over here.

Thanks, Jägermeister

For the first time, scientists have used a genetically engineered “friendly” bacterium to deliver a therapy.

The treatment is for bowel disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease, which affects one in 400 people in the UK and for which there is no cure.

The bacterium Bacteroides ovatus activates a protein when exposed to a specific type of sugar, xylan. In research to be published in Gut, the therapy has been proven to work in animals with colitis, one of the major forms of inflammatory bowel disease.

The bacterium is able to deliver the protein, a human growth factor called KGF-2, directly to the damaged cells that line the gut, unlike other treatments which can cause unwanted side effects. Also unlike other treatments, it is envisaged that patients will be able to control the medication themselves by ingesting xylan, perhaps in the form of a drink.

“This is the first time that anyone has been able to control a therapeutic protein in a living system using something that can be eaten,” said Professor Simon Carding…lead author on the research. “The beneficial bugs could be activated when they are needed…”

“Initially I envisage this being an adjunct therapy to patients’ existing medicine, but eventually it could be the sole therapy,” said Professor Carding. “Once our bugs are in the colon they could be activated when needed so we aim to use our bugs to prevent disease or relapse in IBD.”

RTFA for the details.

Worth a “bravo” even if it scares the hell out of the Luddites.

In a first-of-its kind study, scientists reported today at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) that snack foods like popcorn and many popular breakfast cereals contain “surprisingly large” amounts of healthful antioxidant substances called “polyphenols.”

Polyphenols are a major reason why fruits and vegetables — and foods like chocolate, wine, coffee, and tea — have become renowned for their potential role in reducing the risk of heart disease, cancer, and other diseases.

Until now, however, no one knew that commercial hot and cold whole grain cereals — regarded as healthful for their fiber content — and snack foods also were a source of polyphenols.

“Early researchers thought the fiber was the active ingredient for these benefits in whole grains, the reason why they may reduce the risk of cancer and coronary heart disease,” said Joe Vinson, Ph.D., who headed the new study. “But recently, polyphenols emerged as potentially more important. Breakfast cereals, pasta, crackers, and salty snacks constitute over 66 percent of whole grain intake in the U.S. diet.”

Vinson, a chemist at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, said “We found that, in fact, whole grain products have comparable antioxidants per gram to fruits and vegetables. This is the first study to examine total phenol antioxidants in breakfast cereals and snacks, whereas previous studies have measured free antioxidants in the products…”

The whole grain cereal with the most antioxidants are made with wheat, with corn, oats and rice cereals following in descending order, according to Vinson. He also noted that raisin bran has the highest amount of antioxidants per serving, primarily due to the raisins.

Bran cereals made from wheat overall do not have more antioxidants than wheat cereals, though they do have more fiber, he said. In other findings, he said that whole grain flours are very high in antioxidants; whole grain snacks have slightly lower levels of antioxidants than cereals; of snacks, popcorn has the highest level of antioxidants; and there is a wide variation in the amount of antioxidants in each class of cold cereal.

OK, so when you’re preparing your popcorn – turn it into a thoroughly Mediterranean snack. Instead of drizzling melted butter over it, put a couple ounces of a good virgin olive oil in a microwave-capable glass measuring cup – along with a few finely chopped garlic cloves. Microwave it for 5 minutes at about one-third power.

Pour that over your popcorn along with a minimum of salt – and Rock On!

William Calley, the former Army lieutenant convicted on 22 counts of murder in the infamous My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, publicly apologized for the first time this week while speaking in Columbus.

“There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai,” Calley told members of the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus on Wednesday. His voice started to break when he added, “I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.”

In March 1968, U.S. soldiers gunned down hundreds of civilians in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai. The Army at first denied, then downplayed the event, saying most of the dead were Vietcong. But in November 1969, journalist Seymour Hersh revealed what really happened and Calley was court martialed and convicted of murder.

Calley had long refused to grant interviews about what happened, but on Wednesday he spoke at a Columbus Kiwanis meeting. He made only a brief statement, but agreed to take questions from the audience.

He did not deny what had happened that day, but did repeatedly make the point — which he has made before — that he was following orders.

Read the rest of this entry »

Former U.S. Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge said he squashed a plan to raise the terror alert level just before the 2004 general election.

“An election-eve drama was being played out at the highest levels of our government” after Osama bin Laden released a pre-election message critical of (President George W.) Bush, Ridge wrote in his book, “The Test of Our Times.”

Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had pushed to raise the security threat level to orange, even though Ridge believed a threatening message “should not be the sole reason to elevate the threat level,” CNN reported Friday.

The threat level was not raised…

“We certainly didn’t believe the tape alone warranted action, and we weren’t seeing any additional intelligence that justified it. In fact, we were incredulous,” Ridge wrote. “‘Is this about security or politics?’”

Everyone is covering this, today. Wander back through a number of blogs and you’ll see that many skeptics presumed that the Bush-Cheney Reich was playing the same sort of “terror” politics with the 2004 election – as they did with every aspect of their incumbency.

Another sad example of how gullible the American people are – and how cowardly our press is.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Media giant News Corp. is holding talks with other newspaper publishers on forming a consortium that would charge for news online and on portable devices, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The newspaper said News Corp.’s chief digital officer, Jonathan Miller, is believed to have met with representatives of The New York Times Co., Washington Post Co., Hearst Corp. and Tribune Co., publisher of The Los Angeles Times…

News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch said earlier this month he would begin charging readers of online versions of his newspapers in the coming year.

News Corp already charges for its Wall Street Journal website and claims it is the most successful paid news site on the Internet.

Other Murdoch papers include the New York Post, The Times of London, the Sun and The Australian, among others.

Journalism Online, a company launched in April which seeks to help news organizations make money on the Web, announced last week that more than 500 newspapers and magazines have agreed to join the venture as affliliates.

It said a payment platform would go online in the fall which would allow subscribers to access paid content at the websites of the affiliates using a universal Journalism Online account.

Does it matter that this violates anti-trust regulations in most Western democracies? Yes, the Web lives independent of national laws in many cases. But, I doubt if commerce and access to information would be exempt from regulation.

Like anyone who favors a corporate trust – in this instance a newspaper trust online – the Prime Minister wants to be king. Murdoch thinks he should be the Boss of Bosses in this Mafia..

Bookmaker Paddy Power has cut the odds on a “No” vote in a second Irish referendum on the European Union’s Lisbon treaty after a flow of punters gambled on another defeat.

Irish voters, representing less than 1 percent of the 27-nation bloc’s population, will once again decide the fate of the charter on October 2 after their shock rejection last year delayed its reforms, which are designed to streamline the EU’s decision-making and give it a stronger voice in world affairs.

The most recent opinion poll, published in early June, showed 54 percent of respondents backed the treaty but last year surveys also showed a majority in favor until a few weeks before the referendum.

“We have seen a shift toward the ‘No’ side in the last couple of weeks and it appears our punters think things could be just as tight second time around,” Sharon McHugh, a spokeswoman for Paddy Power, said…

Paddy Power cut the odds of a “No” vote from 5/1 against to 5/2 against — a probability of two in seven.

The question of national pride and independence is one the press and politicos always seem to skip right past. They don’t comprehend that individual issues that result in diminishing the democratic voice of a nation are felt as oppression, national oppression.

If there’s a nation in Europe that ain’t about to put up with an increase of anything that smacks of national oppression it’s the people of Ireland.

I happened to catch a couple of folks from L.E.A.P. at the very end of an interview on TV the other day. I don’t even recall what channel it was on.

Watch the video. Read through the information on their website. If your point of view is more worldly than Howdy Doody – take action and support their cause.

Click on photo to watch video – Have bandwidth? Choose Play HD!

Yup. This is the kind of research Republicans like Bobby Jindal whine about.

A New York state cancer survivor says she was held in jail in Buffalo for a weekend and denied access to her medication because of a parking ticket.

A month after she was released, Linda Arthur, 60, of Evans pleaded guilty to the parking violation and paid a $15 fine…

Arthur told the newspaper she decided to go public now because she is angry at the way staff treated all inmates as criminals even if they had not been convicted.

“They are passing judgment on people,” she said. “And that’s not their jobs.”

Her troubles began Dec. 27 when she went to local police to find out if they could help her get support from her estranged husband. Police found an arrest warrant from Buffalo.

She remained there until Monday, Dec. 29.

When she said she needed her tumor-shrinking medication, she was ignored.

The holding center already faces a lawsuit and a state investigation over the death of a 54-year-old woman who suffered a stroke after being denied her blood pressure medication.

Nice folks running Buffalo, eh?