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Genetic Testing Finds Rat and Human DNA in Burgers

May 11, 2016 By Jason Leathers Leave a Comment

Wow, that ham-rat-long pig burger looks delicious!

In this day and age we tend to be very sensitive in regards to pretty insignificant matters. Sadly, when it comes to matters that are actually important, we tend to either overlook them or to have a huge chunk of the population utterly misinformed. If we cared more about what actually matters, we’d be far better off.

Food, for instance, should definitely be something we really care about. And some people, in fact, do care about what they are eating. The problem is with how the food industry lies about what ingredients and percentages of ingredients they use. It not even necessarily on purpose, it’s just more convenient this way.

According to a new study from Clear Labs, the company which revealed some pretty disturbing things about hot dogs last year, genetic testing finds rat and human DNA in burgers. And while that might seem like the worst news, far more unpleasant things were discovered during the testing.

The laboratory looked at 258 different samples of frozen patties, ground meat, veggie burger products, and fast food burgers from 79 different brands and 22 different retailers. The food was tested for substituted ingredients, toxic fungi and plants, gluten, contamination, missing ingredients, and allergens.

Products were also tested to see whether the amount of nutrients and the ingredients were the same as on the labels. According to the researchers, as many as 23.6 percent of the tested products showed at least some discrepancies between the label and the actual product.

Some of the worst-sounding problems encounters that were not really as bad they sounded were that in two cases meat was found in vegetarian products, that no black beans were found in one black bean burger, and that three products contained rat DNA and one contained human DNA.

Actually, the worst findings were that Yersinia pseudotuberculosis was found in four of the analyzed products (it causes symptoms similar to tuberculosis), as well as five other very dangerous contaminants – Clostridium perfringens, Aeromonas hydrophila, Yersinia enterocolitica, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Escherichia coli.

In terms of nutritional variation, all the samples fared horribly. Almost fifty percent of all products contained more calories or more carbohydrates than listed on the packaging. Still, according to FDA, things are just par for the course. As Clear Labs said in the report:

The low incidence of hygienic issues surfaced by our study is a testament to the burger industry as a whole and the stringent protocols for safe food handling. As noted by the FDA, certain low levels of contamination are acceptable.

Image source: Wikimedia

One in Three Antibiotic Prescriptions Is Unnecessary

May 4, 2016 By Deborah Nielsen Leave a Comment

We’ve grown too accustomed to antibiotics, and we now see them as the answer to everything

Most of us have heard since we were little that if you don’t take them only when needed, you can develop resistance to antibiotics. At least that’s what was going on in my household. In fact, things are little different. You don’t become resistant to the antibiotics, the germs you’re attempting to fight do.

This can also sometimes happen when the medicine is taken correctly, so if you take antibiotics without needing them you risk giving birth to antibiotic-resistant super bacteria. These types of germs can be fatal, and often are, even though creating them can be very easily prevented.

Unfortunately, even though most doctors know about this, they still recommend plenty of antibiotics to people who don’t really need them. And this only serves to empower more and more bacterial strains. In fact, the situation is so bad that one in three antibiotic prescriptions is unnecessary.

That means that about 47 million unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions are given to United States citizens every year. And according to the study, most of these are given for conditions that don’t even benefit from antibiotics – conditions like colds, the flu, bronchitis, sore throats, and other similarly mostly harmless diseases.

For the study, the team of researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pew Charitable Trust looked over data from previous CDC studies, and analyzed the antibiotic use for the years 2010 and 2011. They revealed some pretty concerning statistics related to negligent antibiotic prescriptions.

Around 154 million visits to the doctor each year (about 13 percent) end with an antibiotic prescription. Half of these are pointless, since they are prescribed for viral illnesses. About four out of ten (44 percent) of these prescriptions are given to patients with acute respiratory conditions like pneumonia, asthma, allergies, and sinus infections.

Medical experts are growing increasingly concerned with this habit, as it has started leading to a concerning number of deaths and untreatable infections. In fact, antibiotic-resistant bacteria already cause some two million illnesses every year and are responsible for some 23,000 death every year in the United States alone.

The White House has announced a plan last year to reduce these terrifying numbers to half by 2020. If they were to succeed, that would mean somewhere around 23 million fewer antibiotics prescribed every year. And that is a genuinely worrying number, particularly for physicians who should know that what they’re doing is dangerous.

According to the researchers, the reason as to why so many antibiotics are inappropriately prescribed is because doctors are concerned about patient satisfaction, so if the patients demand antibiotics, they usually get them. Plus, the study didn’t even consider the number of antibiotics prescribed by nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, or by any other profession other than doctors, so you know the numbers are, in fact, much worse.

Image source: Pixabay

Babies May Get a Learning Boost from Music

April 26, 2016 By Brian Galloway Leave a Comment

Perhaps a different style? Something more… upbeat?

We all know that children are extremely influential and that the youngest they are the more easily to influence they are. But we have no idea exactly how easy to influence these future adults actually are despite whatever we might think we know. It’s all a lot more complicated than previously believed.

Why is that, you ask? For the most part, it’s because babies are apparently influential enough to have their entire development affected by music by the time they are nine months old. At least that’s what a study from the University of Washington in Seattle says, as researchers discovered that babies may get a learning boost from music.

But what does that even mean – a learning boost? And what type of music did the researchers refer to? Let’s dig into the study and find out more about the relationship between infantile cognitive skills and listening to music.

For the experiment, the scientists picked a sample of 39 babies. All of them were nine months old, and the first stage of the study lasted for a month, while the second for a single session with each baby. For better accuracy, the babies were divided into two groups – the control group and the subjects.

While the members of the control group had daily 15-minute-long sessions over the course of a month during which they played with different toys, the actual study participants listened to recordings of children’s music while the experimenter led the parents and babies by tapping to the beats in time with the music.

Interestingly, the team decided that the music should be in triple meter, like in waltz. This was chosen because waltzes are generally more difficult for babies to learn, but still easier than other options that were suggested, like classical music, particularly Mozart.

A week after the play/music sessions were finished, the second part of the experiment began. The babies came in for a series of brain scans, but got a lot more to do than just that. While in the scanner, the infants listened to an array of music and speech sounds, all played out in an occasionally disrupted rhythm.

The idea was to see if the babies’ brains would show any sort of response when or if they identified the disruption in the sounds. As it turns out, the brains of the babies in the music group were far better able to identify the disruptions and to respond to them than the playing group.

While not all that much could be inferred from the study other than the fact that babies may get a learning boost from music, scientists are pretty confident to recommend that children should be taken to music classes as soon as possible. Further studies have to be performed if the team wants to find out anything more on the subject.

Image source: Pixabay

Chantix and Zyban Smoking Cessation Drugs Don’t Urge Suicide

April 25, 2016 By Rebecca McGhee 1 Comment

Smoking is one of the most unhealthy habits in which someone can partake. It is responsible for millions of deaths every year, particularly in the form of lung cancer or many other forms of cancer of the respiratory system. It also led to the rise of cancers as the number one cause of death in twenty-one states.

While some don’t really care about the long-term effects of smoking, others most certainly do. And while they would want to quit, they just don’t have the conviction, motivation, or willpower to do so. But medicine has developed a lot of different treatments to help people finally kick the nasty habit.

So why aren’t more people using these treatments, you might ask? Well, the answer is that except for psychological treatments and some nicotine substitutes, most anti-smoking medicines were unrightfully banned or black-boxed because of the constant efforts of the tobacco industry to have their clients addicted.

But finally, seven years after they were slapped with the strictest warning in the country by FDA regulators, multiple studies prove that Chantix and Zyban smoking cessation drugs don’t urge suicide. The two drugs were said to cause conditions which turned to be the regular effects of giving up smoking.

Given a black box warning, the two drugs are now in totally different states of production. While Chantix is about to re-enter mass production, this time with a totally different box, Zyban has been available as generic bupropion for almost ten years, and so it hasn’t been actively marketed in quite some time.

The conditions with which the anti-smoking medications were associated include, but are not limited to hostility, aggression, depression, changes in behavior, generally low mood, and suicidal thoughts and actions. While these symptoms scared off many doctors and smokers, they are merely symptoms associated with quitting smoking, regardless of which, if any medication you may be on.

Results were finally published online on Friday evening, resonating with at least forty earlier studies claiming the same thing – that the two drugs were not at all dangerous, certainly incomparably so to the habit users are trying to quit in the first place. Finally, FDA has seen the black-boxing as what it was – a move by tobacco companies to keep promoting their poison.

The study concluded that the negative effects felt when quitting smoking with the help of either of the two drugs were no different than for those using a placebo, and that is in the worst case scenario. One of the developers of the two drugs also wanted to share his story, saying how he was a lifelong smoker until he quit cold turkey after his entire family died one member after another as a result of years of smoking.

Image source: Pixabay

Seeds Saved Birds from the Dinosaur Extinction

April 22, 2016 By Deborah Nielsen Leave a Comment

The fossils of several feathered non-avian Maniraptoran dinosaurs

While the reason behind the extinction of the dinosaurs is a generally known fact, it was only in a recent study that we found out that the giant reptiles that ruled out planet in the past had been on the decline for some fifty million years before they went extinct.

This had to do with more than a single factor, as volcanic eruptions, the separation of the continents, and on-going climate change caused by billions of tons of carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere all contributed to the dinosaurs’ slow but certain decline. But that’s not to say that had the asteroid not hit the dinosaurs would have still been extinct.

Oh no, they would likely have still been around today, only in a much different form than the one to which we are used. This is even proven by the fact that there are still members of the theropod class of dinosaurs still alive today. And yes, I am talking about birds.

But seeing as they evolved from dinosaurs that were alive sixty-six million years ago, how exactly did they manage to evolve? Well, according to a recent study from the Universities of Toronto and Alberta, seeds saved birds from the dinosaur extinction. Well, not birds as we know them today, but maniraptoran dinosaurs, a clave of small carnivorous theropods that largely resembled today’s birds.

So if the modern day birds’ ancestors were carnivorous and they were alive when the asteroid hit, how is it that we still have birds, and what did seeds have to do with anything? Well, as the climate was changing, as the dinosaurs were dying off, and as the sunlight was covered by a cloud of ash, food was beginning to be very scarce.

While meat was getting rarer and rarer, and plants couldn’t really photosynthesize with no sunlight, one of the very few sources of food remaining were seeds. Buried in the ground and viable for consumption for up to five decades, the dinosaurs that wanted to survive had to adapt to their new conditions.

Of course, larger dinosaurs couldn’t really survive on just seeds, so the smaller, carnivorous, toothed maniraptorans had to combine their meaty diet with plenty of seeds. Over time, they evolved so that they lost their teeth and started eating mostly seeds and other creatures smaller than them, eventually reaching the form of today’s birds.

One of the biggest problems with identifying that particular class of dinosaurs was that their bones were very fragile. So, it’s a very common occurrence for the only fossils encountered by scientists to be the teeth, as they tended to be stronger than the regular bones. This made it quite hard for the team to actually find out when maniraptorans evolved into birds, even if they tried to reverse engineer the process by following the birds’ ancestors instead of the dinosaurs’ descendants.

Image source: Wikimedia

Magic Mushrooms’ Psilocybin Reduces Social Exclusion Pain

April 20, 2016 By Chen Lai Leave a Comment

We do not promote drug use, unless you really know what you’re getting yourself into

Even in the progressive and mostly open-minded society we live in, drugs are a subject of controversy and arguments. This is mostly caused by people clumping them all together under the moniker “drugs”, but also by continuous insistence of the United States government to keep them as illegal as possible.

And while marijuana might have won some traction in the past few years, with its recreational use becoming legal in a few states and its medicinal use in even more of them, other drugs that are just as useful and have as much potential are still universally banned.

And this is a shame, because if researchers were allowed to study those drugs even half as intensely as some people smoke tobacco or drink alcohol, we would have had the cures to many more mental diseases and issues than we do now. But finally, it seems like some researchers are given a green light to do some light experiments on these “dangerous narcotics”, and they discovered some pretty interesting things.

After last week a team of researchers discovered why LSD makes you feel one with the universe, this week we a have a different team that shows that the magic mushrooms’ psilocybin reduces social exclusion pain. In case you haven’t caught on, psilocybin is the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms, which are also colloquially known as magic mushrooms.

The study, led by postdoctoral researcher Katrin Preller from the University of Zurich, shows that the psilocybin in magic mushrooms greatly reduces the emotional response associated with being socially excluded. This works by attenuating the activity in the associated areas of the brain.

For the research, 21 participants had to play video games and take magic mushrooms. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but it just goes to show that you can still be paid for doing what you love. Anyway, the participants had to play a video game with what they assumed were two people but were actually two separate AIs.

As they were playing, the AIs were also including the participants in their conversation, but they gradually started ignoring them and only talking among themselves. The test was taken twice by each participant, once as they were given a low dose of psilocybin, and once more as they were given a placebo.

Expectedly, even if they remained aware during both circumstances that the two AIs (whom they thought to be people) were ignoring them, the participants reported far fewer feelings of exclusion when they were given the psychoactive substance.

Of course, the volunteers were also looked at in an MRI machine in order to have their brain activity studied. Three major conclusions were drawn from the brain scans, each related to how the substance affected the brain and how its regions communicated with each other.

First and foremost, there was far less activity in the areas of the brain that had to do with anxiety, stress, and depression. Next, instead of focusing on those areas, the brain instead made connections between areas that don’t normally communicate with each other, thus bringing forth some hallucinations and reducing negative feelings.

Last but not least, just like LSD and some other psychoactive substances, psilocybin was shown to increase subjective feelings of connection to the environment and to other people, something that leads to stronger empathetic connections between people and reduction of the egocentric bias. This allows you to better understand your peers, making it nearly impossible to get upset with them, and allowing you to feel a connection with everyone and everything.

Image source: Wikimedia

The First Animal On Earth Might Be The Sea Sponge

February 26, 2016 By Deborah Nielsen Leave a Comment

The first animal to appear on Earth was very likely the simple sea sponge.

New study shows that the first animal on earth might be the sea sponge. As strange and unexpected as it may sound, according to a recent genetic analysis by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the first animal to appear on Earth was very likely the simple sea sponge.

Although they may look plant-like, sponges are the simplest of multi-cellular animals. A sponge is a bottom-dwelling creature which attaches itself to something solid in a place where it can, hopefully, receive enough food to grow. The scientific term for sponges is Porifera which literally means ‘pore-bearing.’

Now, a new study suggests that they may have been the first animals to inhabit the Earth.

The study, led by Dr. David Gold of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), confirms that sea sponges are the source of an unusual molecule found in rocks that are 640 million years old, far before the Cambrian explosion.

We brought together paleontological and genetic evidence to make a pretty strong case that this really is a molecular fossil of sponges. This is some of the oldest evidence for animal life.

Dr. Gold declared.

The scientists have unearthed an extraordinary number of fossils from the time of the Cambrian explosion (circa 521–514 million years ago). Based on the fossil record, some of them have argued that contemporary animal groups ‘exploded’ onto Earth, very quickly morphing from single-celled organisms to complex multicellular animals in a relatively short geological time span.

However, the fossils that are known from before the Cambrian explosion are peculiar in many respects, making it extremely difficult to determine which type of animal was the first to the evolutionary line. Dr. Gold, Prof. Roger Summons, also from MIT, and their colleagues have been looking for the answer in molecular fossils.

The team has focused on 24-isopropylcholestane (24-ipc for short), a lipid molecule, or sterol, that is a modified version of cholesterol.

In 1994, scientists first found this molecule in Cambrian and slightly older rocks, and they speculated that sponges or their ancestors might be the source. In 2009, they confirmed the presence of 24-ipc in 640-million-year-old rock samples from Oman, potentially representing the oldest evidence for animal life.

It is known that some modern sea sponges and certain types of algae produce 24-ipc today, but the question is: which organism was around to make the molecule 640 million years ago?

In order to answer this question, Dr. Gold and co-authors sought to first identify the gene responsible for making 24-ipc, then find the organisms that carry this gene, and finally trace when the gene evolved in those organisms.

They looked through the genomes of about 30 different organisms, including plants, fungi, algae, and sea sponges, to see what kinds of sterols each organism produces and to identify the genes associated with those sterols.

What we found was this really interesting pattern across most of eukaryotic life.

Dr Gold added to his declaration.

By comparing genomes, they identified a single gene responsible for producing certain kinds of sterols depending on the number of copies of the gene an organism carries. They found that sea sponge and algae species that produce 24-ipc have an extra copy of SMT when compared with their close relatives.

Furthermore, the scientists compared the copies to determine how they were all related and when each copy of the gene first appeared. They then mapped the relationships onto an evolutionary tree and used evidence from the fossil record to determine when each SMT gene duplication occurred.

However, no matter how they manipulated the timing of the evolutionary tree, they found that sea sponges evolved the extra copy of SMT much earlier than algae, and they did so around 640 million years ago. This is the same time period in which 24-ipc was found in rocks.

Image Source: cwf-fcf.org.

Excessive Fish Eating During Pregnancy Leads To Child Obesity

February 16, 2016 By Rebecca McGhee Leave a Comment

It turns out that too much of a good thing can turn bad sometimes.

An alarming new study indicates that excessive fish eating during pregnancy leads to child obesity. Pregnant women who eat a lot of fish could be causing health problems to their unborn child and not even realize it.

Although health experts urge pregnant women to eat fish, it turns out that too much of a good thing can turn bad.

The research found that pregnant women who eat more than three servings of fish in a week, have increased odds of having babies who grow fast and become obese when they reach 4 to 6 years old. It gets worse if the child is a girl, according to a Los Angeles Time report.

It’s a surprising finding, but scientists think they may have an idea why this is the case. Fish are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which may may cause fetal stem cells to differentiate into fat cells. Ither that, or pollutants in the fish could disrupt fetal hormones related to metabolism. Still, there’s no solid proof that this is the case.

In July 2014, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency recommended that pregnant women eat two to three servings of fish per week. The agencies’ advisory recommended that pregnant women steer clear of fish known to be contaminated with mercury (tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico, shark, for example). The soon-to-be mothers were advised to choose instead salmon, shrimp, pollock, light canned tuna, tipalia, catfish, and cod.

Women shouldn’t avoid fish altogether, because it’s a rich source of important nutrients like protein, vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids – but they shouldn’t overindulge.

affirmed lead study author Dr. Leda Chatzi of the University of Crete in Greece.

To assess the connection between maternal fish consumption and childhood obesity, Chatzi and colleagues analyzed data from 15 previously published studies that tracked more than 26,000 pregnant women and their children at two-year intervals until the kids reached age six.

The combined study population included babies delivered from 1996 to 2011 in Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Fish intake varied by region.

Firstly, with moderate fish consumption (1 to 3 times a week) researchers didn’t find any association with rapid infant growth or childhood obesity up to age six.

Secondly, women who ate fish more frequently during pregnancy had a 22% increased risk that children would experience unusually rapid growth from birth to age two, the study found.

However, there is no reason for pregnant women who eat fish in moderation to panic. The takeaway message, said study authors, was that pregnant women should follow recommended guidelines for fish intake and not exceed three servings per week.

Image Source: sheknows.com.

Analysis Shows Organic Milk And Meat Have 50% More Omega-3

February 16, 2016 By Deborah Nielsen

Organic meat and milk contain 50% more omega-3, study finds.

A new analysis shows organic milk and meat have 50% more Omega-3 fatty acids than non-organic produce.

While the opinion is divided over whether organic foods are healthier than conventional options, a new study that analysed data on milk and meat has found clear differences between organic and conventional milk and meat.

In the largest study of its kind to date, an international team of experts led by Newcastle University, UK, reviewed 196 papers on milk and 67 papers on meat. The study analysed fatty acid composition and concentrations of certain essential minerals and antioxidants.

Key findings were in their fatty acid composition, and the concentrations of certain essential minerals and antioxidants.

Professor Carlo Leifert, who lead the study.

Firstly, according to Chris Seal, Professor of Food and Human Nutrition at Newcastle University, both organic milk and meat contain around 50% more beneficial omega-3 fatty acids than conventionally produced products. Also, Omega-3s are linked to reductions in cardiovascular disease, improved neurological development and function, and better immune function.

Secondly, according to the analysis, organic meat had lower levels of myristic and palmitic acid. The long chain saturated fatty acids are known to raise LDL cholesterol levels and contribute to cardiovascular diseases.

Another interesting fact about the results of the research is that conventional milk had 74% more iodine. Accordingly, half a liter of milk would supply 53% of and 88% of the daily recommended intake from organic and conventional milk respectively.

The more desirable fat profiles in organic milk can be attributed to outdoor grazing and low concentrate feeding in dairy diets, as prescribed by organic farming standards, says the study. The information about iodine content is important as it can help to avoid excessive or inadequate intake, state the researchers.

The findings are published in the British Journal of Nutrition.

The same team previously worked on a global study of organically produced crops which found they had up to 60% higher levels of antioxidants than conventionally grown fruit and vegetables.

Study leader, Professor Carlo Leifert, declared that the research indicated that people could increase their omega-3 intake by choosing organic, or they could maintain their intake of the important fats but eat less meat if they switched.

Nutritionists do not agree on many things, but they all say we should double our intake of omega-3.

he added.

However, taken together, the studies underline that meat and milk suggest a switch to organic fruit and vegetables. It is now scientifically proven that meat and dairy products would provide significantly higher amounts of dietary antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids.

Image Source: weebly.com; pressassociation.io.

Things You Certainly Did Not Know About Sneezing

February 12, 2016 By Brian Galloway Leave a Comment

What actually goes on during during a big ‘achoo!’ is a lot more complex than what meets the eye.

New research reveals things you certainly did not know about sneezing and you have to be aware of, starting now.

While popular notion holds that sneezing disperses a uniform spray of fluid, the new research – published in the journal Experiments in Fluids – suggests this is not the case. MIT researchers used high-speed video to stop more than 100 sneezes in action, capturing those fractions of a second where saliva flies from the mouth and into the air. What they found was that sneezes don’t project a uniform spray, but instead produce fragments of fluid that resemble paint being hurled toward a canvas.

To reach their findings, the team used two high-speed monochrome cameras to record more than 100 sneezes – induced by nose tickling – of three healthy participants who were placed against a black backdrop.The high-speed imaging allowed researchers to capture around 200 milliseconds of each participant’s sneezes and analyze them frame by frame.

From their analysis, the researchers found that as soon as fluid leaves a person’s mouth through sneezing, it combines with the simultaneously exhaled air to form a balloon. As this balloon moves through the air, it breaks into thin threads that divide into sprays of different-sized droplets. These droplets either stay in the air or fall to the ground.

Moreover, the team found that for subjects whose sneezes contained more elastic saliva, their exhaled fluid stayed in thin threads for longer, meaning it traveled farther before breaking into droplets. The team declared that the findings came entirely as a surprise.

These stills were captured with a camera operating at 6,000 to 8,000 frames per second. The stills show how the fluid from sneezes travels very quickly.

Lydia Bourouiba, an assistant professor at MIT who led the study, said the goal of the research was to determine the size of the droplets emitted by a sneeze. Bourouiba also states that understanding how sneezing disperses droplets can help researchers map the spread of infections through the environment, as well as identify individuals who may be ‘super spreaders.’

The findings of this research are built on those of another study from the MIT team, which was reported by Medical News Today in 2014. In that study, the researchers found that droplets from coughs and sneezes travel around 200 times farther than previously thought. The team hopes that their previous research combined with their new study will help identify individuals who are most likely to spread illness, as well as aid the development of disease prevention models.

Currently, the researchers are setting up a new lab space at MIT specifically designed to accommodate parallel experiments to understand various modes of disease transmission. This space will also include a smaller, climate-controlled chamber in which they will be able to visualize sneezes, coughs and other modes of disease transmission, in collaboration with medical partners.

All in all, it is very interesting how a simple sneeze can mean so much more than we initially thought. It seems like what actually goes on during during a big ‘achoo!’ is a lot more complex than what meets the eye.

Image Sources: globe-views.com; p.o0bc.com.

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