New research reveals that some common food additives behave like estrogen in the body. A discovery that two commonly used food additives are estrogenic has led scientists to suspect that many ingredients added to the food supply may be capable of altering hormones. More than 3,000 preservatives, flavorings, colors and other ingredients are added to [...]
Archive for March, 2009
Some Food Additives Mimic Human Hormones
Posted in Health on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Comforter and Comforted in an Unfolding Mystery
Posted in Health on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
__________ I never really got to know the young woman. I met her during my third-year psychiatry rotation, when our team was consulted for concerns about depression. Privacy rules won’t allow me to use her name (where possible, I’ve gotten consent from the others involved in this story). She was terminally ill, sick not just [...]
Dick Cheney’s Torture Works! tour continues to run into reporting suggesting otherwise. On Sunday, the Washington Post published an article entitled “Detainee’s Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots.” The headline effectively summarized the story of the interrogation of Abu Zubaida, the C.I.A.’s “first high-value captive,” taken in March 2002 and subjected to “waterboarding and other harsh [...]
Yosemite in winter
Posted in Photo galleries on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Yosemite National Park may be known for its towering granite cliffs and booming waterfalls, but when temperatures drop and snow falls, the park changes personality. __________ Morning: Upper Yosemite Falls __________ Morning: Rising sun casts shadow on Yosemite Valley __________ Evening: Pohono Bridge over the Merced River __________ Evening: Yosemite Valley, from the Wawona Tunnel [...]
Nudist Hotel Planned in Germany
Posted in Popular culture, tagged FKK, Nudism on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Clothes will be strictly forbidden on the premises of Germany’s first hotel for nudists, which will open shortly in the southwestern Black Forest region. Nudism has always been popular in Germany. __________ Investors plan to set up a hotel catering exclusively to nudists in the picturesque Black Forest town of Freudenstadt, which incidentally translates as [...]
Audio “Aphrodisiac” Spurs Rare Cheetah Birth–A First
Posted in Animals, Natural sciences, Photo galleries on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
__________ In a world first, a rare baby cheetah owes its life to a doctored recording of a recently discovered male call that triggers ovulation. Kenya, a first-time cheetah mom, gave birth to the healthy female cub on February 18 at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, park officials announced earlier this month. The [...]
Coin-Size Frog Found — One of World’s Smallest
Posted in Natural sciences on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
__________ As the smallest known frog species in the world’s second largest mountain range, this new amphibian is easy to miss. But scientists searching the Andes mountains’ upper Cosnipata Valley in southern Peru, near Cusco, spotted the coin-size creature–a member of the Noblella genus–in the leaf litter of a cloud forest between 9,925 and 10,466 [...]
Just Another Bush
Posted in Economy and business, Politics on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
The financial crisis is ending the new president’s German honeymoon. Is the financial crisis for Angela Merkel what the Iraq war was for Gerhard Schröder — namely, a reason to seriously strain Germany’s relationship with the U.S.? One need not answer with an unconditional “yes” to be very concerned. Naturally, at the G-20 meeting in [...]
Exquisitely Tipped Teeth Let Sea Urchin Carve a Home From Stone
Posted in Natural sciences on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
__________ It may be prickly on the outside, but the sea urchin’s spines hide — well, if not a heart of gold, at least teeth of calcite. The urchin’s five teeth are very strong and capable of grinding limestone, creating depressions in the rock that the sea urchin can settle in. Since limestone also consists [...]
Depending on Context, Bird Couples Sing in Harmony or Discord
Posted in Natural sciences on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
__________ It takes two to duet, and one question for scientists is how these coordinated performances arise — in birds. Are they the result of cooperation, a way in which one pair signals to others that they’ve got it together? Or are they the result of conflict, evolving to avoid one partner’s song interfering with [...]
Near-Complete Fossil Offers Insight on Early Fish
Posted in Physical sciences on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
An illustration of a bony fish, a fossil of which was found in southern China. The finding suggests a date for the split between lobe- and ray-finned fish. __________ In trying to make evolutionary sense of the bony fish (and, by extension, land vertebrates) scientists have been hampered by a lack of completeness. Most of [...]
Single Gene Shapes the Toil of Ants’ Fighter and Forager Castes
Posted in Natural sciences on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Researchers studying the social behavior of ants have found that a single gene underlies both the aggressive behavior of the ant colony’s soldiers and the food gathering behavior of its foraging caste. The gene is active in soldier ants, particularly in five neurons in the front of their brain, where it generates large amounts of [...]
The Biggest of Puzzles Brought Down to Size
Posted in Physical sciences on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Ah, yes, $500 billion in bailout money here, a trillion in troubled asset purchases there. We taxpayers are getting so insouciant about the extraordinary figures being bandied about by the captains of finance these days, you’d think we were still the designated banker in one of those endless games of Monopoly we’re sorry we suggested [...]
Microsoft Encarta Dies After Long Battle With Wikipedia
Posted in Computers on March 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Microsoft delivered the coup de grâce Monday to its dying Encarta encyclopedia, acknowledging what everyone else realized long ago: it just couldn’t compete with Wikipedia, a free, collaborative project that has become the leading encyclopedia on the Web. In January, Wikipedia got 97 percent of the visits that Web surfers in the United States made [...]
Composing Concertos in the Key of Rx
Posted in Physical sciences on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
REMEMBER the Mozart Effect? As propounded by the news media, the message was that listening to Mozart made children smarter. The science was full of holes, but the notion appealed, and a growing body of research has since suggested that music, classical music in particular, is somehow good for us. The field is still short [...]
Clocks square off in China’s far west
Posted in Physical sciences on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
In Xinjiang province, the Muslim Uighur minority makes a point of observing its own time, not that of local Han Chinese, who adhere to Beijing’s imposition of a single time for all of China. The clock in the lobby of the International Hotel shows it is almost 11 p.m., too late for dinner and bad [...]
Two toxic ideas: first the border fence, now border poison
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Law on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
Isn’t it enough that this country built about 700 miles of fencing along a 2,000-mile border with Mexico — the previous administration’s stunt gesture toward “border control” that ranks up there with the TSA yanking grannies out of line at the airport to show that it’s protecting us from hijackers, and discrimination suits? That infuriating [...]
US reporters face N Korea trial
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Law, Politics on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
It is thought that the women were researching North Korean refugees Two US reporters held in North Korea earlier this month will be tried for illegal entry and “hostile acts”, the country’s state-run news agency says. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said preparations were under way for indictments and a trial. Euna Lee and [...]
Hunt for the Monster of Florence
Posted in Law on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
The body of Nadine Mauriot in 1985, one of the ‘Monster’s’ victims. Right, Francesco Narducci. __________ When two writers tried to look beyond a bizarre murder investigation focused on Masonic rites and a psychic, the police turned on them. Their account is now coming to Hollywood, thanks to Tom Cruise. The best-selling true story of [...]
An Englishwoman in Paris takes the International Herald Tribune into its digital future
Posted in Media on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
Global influence: Alison Smale, executive editor of the ‘International Herald Tribune’ at its London offices. ___________ Alison Smale, the most powerful British female editor overseas, tells Ian Burrell how her global paper has been made over in print and online. Visitors to the French Open tennis championships, which starts in May at the Stade [...]
Forget carrots, video games boost night vision
Posted in Physical sciences on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
The popular ‘Call of Duty’ video game is said to be one that can improve vision because it involves players targeting objects. __________ Targeting virtual objects on screen helps train eyes to work in low-light, study finds. Computer and video games that involve guns and shooting may not do much for a child’s education but [...]
Reading ‘can help reduce stress’
Posted in Living on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
Reading can reduce stress levels by 68 per cent, according to the University of Sussex research. Reading is the best way to relax and even six minutes can be enough to reduce the stress levels by more than two thirds, according to new research. And it works better and faster than other methods to calm [...]
Rat could be latest weapon against landmines
Posted in Natural sciences on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
Staff at Porfell Wildlife Park and Sanctuary have been teaching Gambian poached rat Kofi to sniff out landmines. __________ Highly trained sniffer-rats could become the latest weapon against landmines after one was taught to smell out explosive devices. Staff at Porfell Wildlife Park and Sanctuary near Liskeard, Cornwall, have been teaching Gambian poached rat [...]
Man foils bank robbery after assuming it was an April Fool
Posted in Law on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
A man inadvertently foiled an attempted bank robbery after assuming it was an April Fool prank, a court has heard. Customer Andrew Stewart was sitting down reading a newspaper in an Exeter branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland on March 31 last year when a raider burst in and demanded money. Brian Davison, 32, [...]
Miss Universe Visits Guantánamo Bay
Posted in Popular culture on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
The pageant winner writes on her blog that she had a lovely time visiting Guantanámo Bay last week. Don’t ask us how or why we came across this — and the British home secretary’s husband did not bring it to our attention — but the latest entry on the blog of the reigning Miss Universe, [...]
Anything, Anywhere, Any Time
Posted in Practical advice on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
The unemployed can’t be picky anymore. Why taking a survival job could just be the best thing to happen to you. In December 2007, the month that the Bureau of Labor Statistics cites as the start of the recession, Andrea Auger of Groton got laid off from her job as an online facilitator and administrator [...]
Harvard encourages dusting off the classics
Posted in Arts on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
Says esoteric courses enrich learning. When Harvard was founded nearly four centuries ago, all students read and spoke Latin. They had to: Lectures were delivered primarily in the ancient tongue, and the classics was pretty much all they could study. Today, the number of students conversant in Cicero and Plato has dwindled, with only 42 [...]
The White House was rocked yesterday by claims that the daughter of Joe Biden, the Vice-President, was shown on video snorting cocaine. The video purports to show Ashley Biden, 27, snorting lines of white powder at a house party in her home state of Delaware. It surfaced days after Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of [...]
Surprising marriage ends in bizarre Ohio killing
Posted in Law on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
40 years apart in age, James and Christine were an odd couple. Now she’s accused of murdering her husband — by exercise. __________ James M. Mason knew his wife since she was born a boy. The janitor and former military man was a boarder in the child’s home and was treated like family. Many were [...]
Banks Starting to Walk Away on Foreclosures
Posted in Law on March 30, 2009 | Comments Off
Mercy James’s rental property in South Bend, Ind., was in foreclosure, but a sheriff’s sale was canceled at the last minute. __________ Mercy James thought she had lost her rental property here to foreclosure. A date for a sheriff’s sale had been set, and notices about the foreclosure process were piling up in her [...]
