Living in US raises risk of allergies -

Living in US raises risk of allergies - 


Children born outside the United States have a lower risk of asthma, skin and food allergies, and living in the United States for a decade or more may raise the risk of some allergies, said a study Monday.

The research in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that certain environmental exposures could trigger allergies later in life, overcoming the protective effects of microbial exposure in childhood.

The study examined records from 2007-2008 phone surveys of nearly 92,000 people in the United States, where food and skin allergies have been on the rise in recent years.

Allergies reported in the survey included asthma, eczema, hay fever, and food allergies.

"Children born outside the United States had significantly lower prevalence of any allergic diseases (20.3 percent) than those born in the United States (34.5 percent)," said the study led by Jonathan Silverberg of St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York.

"However, foreign-born Americans develop increased risk for allergic disease with prolonged residence in the United States," it said.

Children who were born outside the United States but came to live in the United States for longer than 10 years showed "significantly" higher odds of developing eczema or hay fever but not asthma or food allergies, said the research.

"These data indicate that duration of residence in the United States is a previously unrecognized factor in the epidemiology of atopic disease," it said.

"Further, this suggests that foreign-born US residents might be at increased risk for later onset of allergic disease."

Previous research has shown that children who grow up in developing nations tend to have lower rates of allergies, and experts believe this is because they are exposed to more infections and microbes that build up their immune systems.

Allergies are essentially a symptom of a hypersensitive immune system, reacting to substances that should normally be considered harmless.

The JAMA study noted that the United States may not be alone in this phenomenon, since previous studies have found that immigrants in Italy, Israel, and Australia had lower allergy rates than natives.

More research is needed to find out if allergies increase in those countries among immigrants who live there for long periods, said the study.

Read more - 

http://www.france24.com/en/20130429-living-us-raises-risk-allergies

New Website Lets Users Rate Prostitutes... -

New Website Lets Users Rate Prostitutes... - 


People like to read reviews online before buying a car or reserving a hotel room. But one website, www.eccie.net, once based in North Texas, allows users to review the services of local prostitutes.

CBS 11′s I-Team Investigator Mireya Villarreal confirmed with the Texas Attorney General’s office that the website is a factor in a few of their investigations. They wouldn’t expand on what they’re looking for or share if anything on the site is illegal; but just the idea that you can review prostitutes has a lot of people concerned.

Google the words “escort review” and not far from the top is www.eccie.net, a website that’s been around for years, but flourished, while it was based right here in Fort Worth.

Women actually create profiles on this site and customers can post reviews about their services.

“I’m not amazed because I’ve seen worse ads and websites than this,” Jenny Ford, Human Trafficking Expert with ACH Child and Family Services, told us.

Ford’s sole responsibility is to help women and children who’ve been victimized. She says people posting on sites like this often use kinky sex and prostitution as a cover up for sex trafficking.

“It’s happening everywhere. I mean, you can call and get somebody delivered to your house, to your apartment, or to a hotel,” Ford explained.

Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) has Homeland Security Investigators that scour sites like this for potential trafficking cases. And while ICE works closely with police vice units, shutting down the site completely is nearly impossible.

“A lot of these internet websites are reflective of pure prostitution,” David Marwell, ICE Special Agent In Charge, told us. “Some of these websites have actual legitimate ways of means and services that they produce. So having these websites, looking into this aspect of the websites, doesn’t necessarily make the entire website seizable or being able to close it down.”

The website was once operated by KCN Infosys, LLC, a company created by three people living in North Texas. According to the Secretary of State’s website, the company dissolved last September. But information the CBS 11 I-Team uncovered shows KCN Infosys, LLC has ownership of the domain name till March 2014.

State Senator Leticia Van De Putte has been pushing for years for stricter trafficking laws in Texas. She believes sites like this can lead to human or sex trafficking. That’s why she’s filed SB94, a bill that go after the people using them.

“We know the internet is a problem,” Van De Putte said. “But what’s happened with these internet sites is that they’ve become advertising, money making ventures. This is not your prostitute standing on your street corner. This is online solicitation.”

Van De Putte says if law enforcement can connect individual postings with reports of human trafficking or prostitution complaint, then they’ll go after the poster. The overall goal is to decrease the demand for these kinds of sites and, consequently, decrease human and sex trafficking.

Right now, Van De Putte’s bill (SB94) has been voted through the senate and will be discussed in the house over the next few weeks.

For weeks, we’ve tried to get a hold of the current owners of eccie.net. We even talked to a previous owner, but no one ever took ownership of the site.

Read more - 

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/04/29/i-team-website-allows-users-to-rate-prostitutes/

Budweiser unveils beer glass that connects to Facebook -

Budweiser unveils beer glass that connects to Facebook - 



Toasting with new friends just got a futuristic, and slightly creepy, upgrade.  
Budweiser recently unveiled the “Buddy Cup,” a pint glass with a built-in chip that connects to Facebook. The cup automatically connects people on Facebook when they clink glasses with another “Buddy Cup” user, creating a virtual friendship instantly.
The cup’s promotional video shows the glass being tested in Brazil as images of drinkers enjoyably clinking pints flash across the screen.
"So, they just did the same as always: Went out drinking Bud, and making new friends," a male narrator announces in the company's commercial. “Buddy Cup: the more Buds, the more friends.”
Feedback toward the Facebook-integrated glass has been mixed.
Tech blog BetaBeat writes, "In the olden times, clinking your beers together with a stranger was a sign of celebration—a mutual agreement that things were about to get weird. The fact that you’d never have to see them again or explain why you puked down the front of your shirt was a significant part of the appeal. Now, Budweiser is about to destroy that sacred experience with the introduction of the Buddy Cup."

Responses on Twitter highlight the creepy factor in sharing contact details with the clink of a glass.
“This is a bad idea, @Budweiser,” writes ecarlson23. “I don't want my drunk life posted all over facebook.”
Another user writes, “This is so wrong, in so many ways – Budweiser.”
The cup was developed by advertising agency Agencia Africa in partnership with Bolha, a digital innovation studio in Sao Paulo. The idea was to create an interactive relationship between consumers and the product.
“Innovation is in Budweiser's DNA,” Sergio Gordilho, chief creative officer at Agencia Africa, told The Drum. “Its platforms are constantly surprising consumers with the best there is in terms of premium experiences. The ‘Buddy Cup’ is another idea bringing the brand even closer to its consumers and opening new levels of interaction for them.”


Read more: -

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/04/29/budweiser-unveils-beer-glass-that-connects-to-facebook/

Drinking just one 12-ounce soda a day may increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes, a new study suggests -

Drinking just one 12-ounce soda a day may increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes, a new study suggests - 



Drinking just one 12-ounce soda a day may increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes, a new study from Europe suggests.

In the study, people who drank a 12-ounce sugar-sweetened soda daily were 18 percent more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes over a 16-year period compared with those who did not consume soda. And people who drank two sodas daily were 18 percent more likely to have a stroke than those who drank one; those who drank three sodas daily saw the same risk increase compared with those who drank two, and so on.

The results held even after the researchers took into account risk factors for Type 2 diabetes such as age and physical activity levels, body mass index (BMI) and the total daily calorie intake.

The findings agree with earlier studies in the United States, which found daily soda consumption increased the risk of Type 2 diabetes by 25 percent.

However, the study found only an association, and cannot prove soda consumption causes Type 2 diabetes. It's possible other factors not accounted for by the study influenced the disease risk. In addition, participants answered questions about their diet just once at the study's start, and it's possible they changed their diets over time, the researchers said.

The researchers analyzed information from about 12,000 people who developed Type 2 diabetes between 1991 and 2007, and a randomly selected group of about 15,000 people, most of whom did not develop diabetes. All participants were taking part in a larger study looking into the interaction between diet, environmental factors and the risk of cancer and chronic diseases conducted in eight European countries.

People who drank one or more glasses of sugar-sweetened soda a day were about 30 percent more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than those who drank less than one glass a month.

Because the link between sugar-sweetened soda and Type 2 diabetes was independent of BMI (an indicator of obesity level) and calorie intake, this finding suggests that other factors, such as the spike in blood sugar people experience when they drink soda, may play a role in the risk, the researchers said.

People who drank diet soda were also at increased risk for developing Type 2 diabetes during the study compared with those who drank no soda. However, when the researchers took into account participants' BMI and total energy intake, the increased risk disappeared. This finding suggests that the link between diet soda and diabetes risk was driven by participants' weight: People who are obese, and thus already at risk for Type 2 diabetes, tend to report higher consumption of diet drinks.

Healthy food choices (such as eating plenty of fruits and vegetables), daily exercise and weight loss can help prevent Type 2 diabetes, or slow the progress of the disease in those with prediabetes, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The new study is published today (April 24) in the journal Diabetologia.

Pass it on: Consumption of sugar-sweetened soda is linked to an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes.

Read more - 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/can-of-soda-diabetes-a-day-risk_n_3154464.html

Koala chlamydia: The STD threatening an Australian icon -

Koala chlamydia: The STD threatening an Australian icon - 


The koala is unique to Australia and is an important symbol of the country. But numbers are plummeting and the survival of koalas is under threat. One of the reasons is the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia.

One of the most common places to find koalas in Australia these days is in the hospital.

About 50 miles (80km) north of Brisbane, at the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital, a female koala is under a mild anaesthetic.

"She's quite an old girl - I think she's over 10 years," says veterinary surgeon Amber Gillett.

The koala is called Penny. Gillett puts some ultrasound gel in Penny's pouch and looks at the ultrasound machine.

She's checking her bladder for symptoms of chlamydia.

Outside the clinic are a series of open-air enclosures. These are the "koala wards" - and they are pretty much full all-year round.

Last year, Gillett and her team treated about 300 koalas for chlamydia - and so far, 2013 has been a busy year too.

Read more - 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22207442

Syrian "Incursion" Imminent? Hints From Current US Naval Positions -

Syrian "Incursion" Imminent? Hints From Current US Naval Positions - 


Following the dramatic change in rhetoric from Washington over the past 24 hours regarding Syrian "Weapons of Chemical Destruction", the phrases "Middle East" and "geopolitical risk" are suddenly back in the same sentence on the lips of those sitting around trading desks, leading to a powerful jump in the oil complex where Brent is having its best day in four months, and WTI in give.

Yet the feasibility of an armed conflict with Syria, which Russia has made very clear in the past is a strategic ally in the region aside, is the probability of an incursion truly imminent? For that we go to Stratfor's latest weekly update of US naval assets, which shows that if indeed Obama is planning to do a flyover showing off his Nobel Peace prize above Damascus, there will be a waiting time of at least several weeks as there is nothing in the immediate Syrian offshore vicinity to provide the necessary naval support.

It appears that the 5th Fleet only has CVN-69 Eisenhower in the vicinity of Bahrain, as well as one big deck amphibious ship, the Kearsarge keeping an eye on the Straits of Hormuz. Assuming both ships are tasked to supervise any missions involving Syria that would leave Iran and the Straits of Hormuz unguarded, which is why we doubt this would happen. In fact, it is more likely that CVN 75 and 77, which are currently under way in the Atlantic, will be redirected to the east Mediterranean to provide the necessary air cover should operation "Liberating the Syrian Al-Qaeda funded Rebellion" be a go.

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-25/syrian-incursion-imminent-hints-current-us-naval-positions

Gang leader impregnated 4 and "corrupted" 13 female prison guards while running contraband scheme in jail -

Gang leader impregnated 4 and "corrupted" 13 female prison guards while running contraband scheme in jail - 

A Maryland gang member is accused of running a scheme to smuggle contraband into prison by "corrupting" 13 female prison guards from behind bars, four of whom he impregnated.
A federal indictment says Tavon White has been charged in the plot to smuggle drugs, cell phones and other contraband into the Baltimore jail and other corrections facilities, along with the prison guards, six of his fellow inmates and five others with gang ties who allegedly operated outside the jails.
The indictment also says the ring involved sex between the inmates and guards, which led to four of the officers becoming pregnant by White, the leader of a jailhouse gang called the Black Guerrilla Family. 
White is accused of "corrupting" the female officers through personal and sexual relationships and other bribes and convincing them to join his ring, Fox Baltimore reports. 
MyFoxDC.com reports the ring became increasingly brazen and confident over time, with White quoted as saying: "You understand me? This is my jail. I am dead serious, I make every final call in this jail." 
White was being held at the Baltimore City Detention Center awaiting trial on a charge of attempted murder at the time.
The gang members and the corrections officers have been charged with conspiracy, drug possession and distribution and money laundering.


Read more: - 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/04/25/gang-leader-impregnates-4-maryland-prison-guards-authorities-say/?test=latestnews

Nose picking: Go ahead and eat it — it could be good for you -

Nose picking: Go ahead and eat it — it could be good for you - 


If you don’t like gross things, this story is snot for you.
An associate professor of biochemistry at the University of Saskatchewan is trying to get more students interested in science by looking at the health benefits of picking your nose and eating it.
Scott Napper says nature pushes us to do different things because it is to our advantage to have certain behaviours, to consume different types of foods.
Napper says mucous traps germs and stops them from getting into our body, but if we consume that mucous, it could help train our immune system by exposing it to the germs.
So he says when children have the urge to pick their nose and eat it, parents shouldn’t get upset.
Napper says he hopes to conduct a study where some type of molecule is inserted in people’s noses and then half the participants pick their nose and eat it and the other half don’t.
“I think the challenge would be getting volunteers to participate in this experiment,” he says with a laugh. “Especially if you didn’t know which group you were going to fall into.”
Napper also says making science more humorous and fun keeps students interested and engaged.
“I don’t try to convert them all to biochemistry. My goal is always if I can teach you one thing that you’re going to tell somebody else about outside the scope of this class, then I’ve prompted you to think a little bit, to question these things and I think with this example, it probably succeeded in that.”
Napper has two young daughters and says the idea of letting them pick their noses, even if in the name of science, didn’t go over well with his wife.
“Yeah, she’s of a different opinion,” he says. “She’s more toward training them to be little ladies.”

Read more - 

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/04/25/nose_picking_go_ahead_and_eat_it_it_could_be_good_for_you.html

America The Fallen: 24 Signs That Our Once Proud Cities Are Turning Into Poverty-Stricken Hellholes -

America The Fallen: 24 Signs That Our Once Proud Cities Are Turning Into Poverty-Stricken Hellholes - 


What is happening to you America?  Once upon a time, the United States was a place where free enterprise thrived and the greatest cities that the world had ever seen sprouted up from coast to coast.  Good jobs were plentiful and a manufacturing boom helped fuel the rise of the largest and most vibrant middle class in the history of the planet.  Cities such as Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Baltimore were all teeming with economic activity and the rest of the globe looked on our economic miracle with a mixture of wonder and envy.  But now look at us.  Our once proud cities are being transformed into poverty-stricken hellholes.  Did you know that the city of Detroit once actually had the highest per-capita income in the United States?  Looking at Detroit today, it is hard to imagine that it was once one of the most prosperous cities in the world.  In fact, as you will read about later in this article, tourists now travel to Detroit from all over the globe just to see the ruins of Detroit.  Sadly, the exact same thing that is happening to Detroit is happening to cities all over America.  Detroit is just ahead of the curve.  We are in the midst of a long-term economic collapse that is eating away at us like cancer, and things are going to get a lot worse than this.  So if you still live in a prosperous area of the country, don't laugh at what is happening to others.  What is happening to them will be coming to your area soon enough.

The following are 24 signs that our once proud cities are turning into poverty-stricken hellholes...

#1 According to the New York Times, there are now approximately 70,000 abandoned buildings in Detroit.

#2 At this point, approximately one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles is either vacant or derelict.

#3 Back during the housing bubble, an acre of land in downtown Phoenix, Arizona sold for about $90 a square foot.  Today, an acre in downtown Phoenix sells for about $9 a square foot.

#4 The city of Chicago is so strapped for cash that it is planning to close 54 public schools.  It is being estimated that Chicago schools will run a budget deficit of about a billion dollars in 2013.

#5 The city of Baltimore is already facing unfunded liabilities of more than 3.2 billion dollars, but the city government continues to pile up more debt as if it was going out of style.

#6 Today, the murder rate in East St. Louis is 17 times higher than the national average.

#7 According to USA Today, the "share of jobs located in or near a downtown declined in 91 of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas" between 2000 and 2010.

#8 Between December 2000 and December 2010, 48 percent of the manufacturing jobs in the state of Michigan were lost.

#9 There are more than 85,000 streetlights in Detroit, but thieves have stripped so much copper wiring out of the lights that more than half of them are not working.

#10 The unemployment rate in El Centro, California is 24.2 percent, and the unemployment rate in Yuma, Arizona is an astounding 25.6 percent.

#11 It has been estimated that there are more than 1,000 homeless people living in the massive network of flood tunnels under the city of Las Vegas.

#12 Violent crime in the city of Oakland increased by 23 percent during 2012.

#13 If you can believe it, more than 11,000 homes, cars and businesses were burglarized in Oakland during 2012.  That breaks down to approximately 33 burglaries a day.

#14 As I have written about previously, there are only about 200 police officers assigned to Chicago's Gang Enforcement Unit to handle the estimated 100,000 gang members living in the city.

#15 The number of murders in Chicago last year was roughly equivalent to the number of murders in the entire country of Japan during 2012.

#16 The murder rate in Flint, Michigan is higher than the murder rate in Baghdad.

#17 If New Orleans was considered to be a separate nation, it would have the 2nd highest murder rate on the entire planet.

#18 According to the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center,  Mexican drug cartels were actively operating in 50 different U.S. cities in 2006.  By 2010, that number had skyrocketed to 1,286.

#19 Back in 2007, the number of New York City residents on food stamps was about 1 million.  It is now being projected that the number of New York City residents on food stamps will pass the 2 million mark this summer.

#20 The number of homeless people sleeping in the homeless shelters of New York City has increased by a whopping 19 percent over the past year.

#21 As I noted yesterday, approximately one out of every three children in the United States currently lives in a home without a father.

#22 In Miami, 45 percent of the children are living in poverty.

#23 In Cleveland, more than 50 percent of the children are living in poverty.

#24 According to a recently released report, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

As I mentioned at the top of this article, the decline of the city of Detroit has become so famous that it has actually become a tourist attraction.  The following is a short excerpt from an article in the New York Times...

But in Detroit, the tours go on, in an unofficial capacity. One afternoon at the ruins of the 3.5-million-square-foot Packard Plant, I ran into a family from Paris. The daughter said she read about the building in Lonely Planet; her father had a camcorder hanging around his neck. Another time, while conducting my own tour for a guest, a group of German college students drove up. When queried as to the appeal of Detroit, one of them gleefully exclaimed, “I came to see the end of the world!”

For much more on the shocking decline of one of America's greatest cities, please see my previous article entitled "Bankrupt, Decaying And Nearly Dead: 24 Facts About The City Of Detroit That Will Shock You".

So are there any areas of the country that are still thriving?

Well, yes, there are a few.  In particular, those areas that are sitting on top of energy resources tend to be doing quite well for now.

One example is Texas.  In recent years people have been absolutely flocking to the state.  There are lots of energy jobs, the cost of living is low and there is no state income tax.

But overall, things are really tough out there.  Over the past decade America has lost millions of good jobs to offshoring, advancements in technology and a declining economy.

Last year, the United States had a trade deficit with the rest of the world of more than half a trillion dollars.  Overall, the U.S. has run a trade deficit with the rest of the world of more than 8 trillion dollars since 1975.

All of that money could have gone to U.S. businesses and U.S. workers.  In turn, taxes would have been paid on all of that income which could have helped keep our cities great.

But instead, our politicians have stood idly by as we have lost tens of thousands of businesses and millions of jobs.  If you can believe it, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities have closed down permanently in the United States since 2001.

We have allowed our economic infrastructure to be absolutely gutted, and so we should not be surprised that our once proud cities are turning into poverty-stricken hellholes.

And this is just the beginning.  The next wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching, and when it strikes unemployment in this country will eventually rise to a level that is more than double what it is now.

When that happens, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near our rotting, decaying cities.

Read more -

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/america-the-fallen-24-signs-that-our-once-proud-cities-are-turning-into-poverty-stricken-hellholes

CNBC Viewership Plunges To Eight Year Lows -

CNBC Viewership Plunges To Eight Year Lows - 



By now it is well known that the ubiquity of central planning (not to mention the persistent threat of HFT flash crashes as exhibited by yesterday's twitter-driven #Hash crash) in capital "markets", has made trading stocks in a rigged casino a sucker's game - one that retail investors have decided to shun, and nearly 5 years after Lehman have still to come back in any size to the stock market.

One of the main, unintended consequences of this development to prop up markets at all costs, even if it means removing all logic and reliance on fundamental data, has been the complete evaporation of interest in any finance-related media, forcing the bulk of financial outlets to rely on such cheap gimmicks as slideshows, pictures of kittens, trolling and generally hiring liberal arts majors straight out of school to copy and paste articles while paying them minimum wage, and providing absolutely no insight (and then wondering why the Series ZZ preferred investors will never get their money back, let alone the A round).

However, nowhere is this more obvious than in the relentless imploding viewership of once financial media titan, CNBC, which lately has become a sad, one-sided caricature of its once informative self, whose only agenda is to get the most marginal Joe Sixpack to dump his hard-earned cash into 100x P/E stocks, and where according to data from Nielsen Media Research, the total and demographic (25-54) viewership during the prime time segment (9:30am - 5:00 pm) just tumbled to 216K and 40K - the lowest recorded viewership since mid 2005 and sliding.



So why the relentless collapse in CNBC viewers, which in turns leads to plunging ad revenues (aside from our observations from last summer on just this topic) and which has forced the station to even resort to muppets as a cheap ratings-boosting gimmick? Perhaps it has something to do with outbursts like this, where 13 minutes into the clip, one Jim Cramer tells the camera point blank when discussing daily market gyrations, and with absolutely no remorse, that "i want everyone to play that game at home by recognizing that fraud is part of the equation and the government cannot stop it."

That's right: on one hand CNBC's most overcaffeinated anchor admits that the market is nothing but uncontrollable fraud, and on the other he beckons viewers and listeners, usually with the assistance of assorted bovine sounds, to "buy, buy, buy."

Perhaps the greater fool is truly dead, or simply the embedded hypocrisy of the CNBC stock "infomercial" is so transparent that nobody really cares what the Comcast subsidiary's paid entertainers have to say any more.





Read more -

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-24/cnbc-viewership-plunges-eight-year-lows

Virgin America flights allow mile-high flirting - Passengers can send drinks, texts to others -

Virgin America flights allow mile-high flirting - Passengers can send drinks, texts to others - 


Tired of striking out at the singles bars? Then you might want to try a Virgin America flight.

The airline has launched a new service that allows passengers to send a drink to someone on the plane who's caught their eye.

It's done through the airline's in-flight entertainment system. Passengers pinpoint their designated hottie with Virgin's digital seat map, browse the menu and have a drink, snack or meal sent over.

Passengers can also follow up with a text through the seat-to-seat messaging system.

Virgin launched the service this week to mark the start of its Los Angeles to Las Vegas service, but it's available on all of its U.S. flights.

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson introduced the new feature in a video. He said the chances of deplaning with a plus-one are at least 50 percent.

Read more - 

http://www.clickorlando.com/news/virgin-america-flights-allow-milehigh-flirting/-/1637132/19871644/-/85i0f3/-/index.html

Scientists Find Way to Turn Stem Cells Into Brain Cells -

Scientists Find Way to Turn Stem Cells Into Brain Cells - 


Scientists have discovered an antibody that can turn stem cells from a patient's bone marrow directly into brain cells, a potential breakthrough in the treatment of neurological diseases and injuries.

Richard Lerner, of the Scripps Research Institute in California, says that when a specific antibody is injected into stem cells from bone marrow—which normally turn into white blood cells—the cells can be triggered to turn into brain cells.

"There's been a lot of research activity where people would like to repair brain and spinal cord injuries," Lerner says. "With this method, you can go to a person's own stem cells and turn them into brain cells that can repair nerve injuries."

Antibodies are Y-shaped proteins that the immune system uses to help identify foreign threats to the body. They bind to foreign invaders in the body in order to alert white blood cells to attack harmful bacteria and viruses. There are millions of known antibodies.

Lerner and his team were working to find an antibody that would activate what is known as the GCSF receptor in bone marrow stem cells, in order to stimulate their growth. When they found one that worked, the researchers were surprised: Instead of inducing the stem cells to grow, they began to form into neural cells.

"The cells proliferated, but also started becoming long and thin and attaching to the bottom of the dish," which is reminiscent of behavior of neural cells, Jia Xie, a research associate on Lerner's team, said in a released statement. Further tests confirmed that they were neural progenitor cells, which are very similar to mature brain cells.

Lerner says that scientists have "an awful lot of experience injecting antibodies" into stem cells and that the process is not "inherently dangerous." The team plans to start animal tests of the technology soon.

"We're going to collaborate with people who are trying to regenerate nerves in the eye," Lerner says. "We will team up with a couple people strong in that area of research."

Read more - 

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/04/23/scientists-find-way-to-turn-stem-cells-into-brain-cells

72,000 Ladybugs Released Inside Mall of America On Earth Day In Place Of Pesticides -

72,000 Ladybugs Released Inside Mall of America On Earth Day In Place Of Pesticides - 


What sounds like an April Fools’ Day prank was actually intentional -- The Mall of America celebrated Earth Day on Monday by voluntarily releasing 72,000 ladybugs into its indoor shopping facility.

The ladybugs were released in the Minneapolis mall in an effort to protect the large amounts of the mall's greenery, which are usually plagued by aphids.

Mall of America (MOA) Senior Manager of Environmental Services Lydell Newby told Kare 11 that the bugs take the place of commonly used pesticides to control pests that would otherwise eat away at the mall's tropical plants.

“Ladybugs are what I like to call, sort of a biological defense system,” said Newby, who added that ladybugs are a great and natural alternative to pesticides.

“You can release some ladybugs in your own garden," he said. "And in an outside climate, once the conditions are right, they can live in your garden forever.” 

A third-grade class was on hand to release the bugs, and many appeared to enjoy the experience.

“Before I got to hold these ladybugs, I was pretty scared of them,” said student Sheriya Wentzlaff. “I overcame my fear and helped the ladybugs.” 

Some shoppers took to the mall’s official Facebook page this week to complain about the possibility of the bugs infecting the mall's food court, but according to an MAO spokesperson, the bugs only live on the plants for their two-week life span and are maintained by staff.

“We’ve been doing this for years," the spokesperson said. "No ladybug takeover yet. Chances are, you’ve visited the mall during this short period and have never noticed them. They are completely harmless.” 

According to the Mall of America’s blog, the shopping mall currently houses 30,000 live plants that act as natural air purifiers for shoppers. Since its opening in 1992, the facility has been using environmentally friendly procedures such as passive solar heating and an extensive recycling program.

Read more - 

http://www.ibtimes.com/72000-ladybugs-released-inside-mall-america-earth-day-place-pesticides-photo-1212811

Canadian doctors say they have found an inventive way to treat lazy eye - playing the Tetris video game -

Canadian doctors say they have found an inventive way to treat lazy eye - playing the Tetris video game - 



Canadian doctors say they have found an inventive way to treat lazy eye - playing the Tetris video game.

The McGill University team discovered the popular tile-matching puzzle could train both eyes to work together.

In a small study, in Current Biology with 18 adults, it worked better than conventional patching of the good eye to make the weak one work harder.

The researchers now want to test if it would be a good way to treat children with the same condition.

UK studies are already under way.

An estimated one in 50 children has lazy eye, known medically as amblyopia.

It happens when the vision in one eye does not develop properly, and is often accompanied by a squint - where the eyes do not look in the same direction.

Without treatment it can lead to a permanent loss of vision in the weak eye, which is why doctors try to intervene early.

Normally, the treatment is to cover the strong eye with a patch so that the child is forced to use their lazy eye.

The child must wear the patch for much of the day over many months, which can be frustrating and unpleasant.

Learning through play
Dr Robert Hess and colleagues in Montreal set out to investigate whether a different approach might work.

Armed with a special pair of video goggles they set up an experiment that would make both eyes work as a team.

Nine volunteers with amblyopia were asked to wear the goggles for an hour a day over the next two weeks while playing Tetris, the falling building block video game.

The goggles allowed one eye to see only the falling objects, while the other eye could see only the blocks that accumulate on the ground in the game.

For comparison, another group of nine volunteers with amblyopia wore similar goggles but had their good eye covered, and watched the whole game through only their lazy eye.

At the end of the two weeks, the group who used both eyes had more improvement in their vision than the patched group.

The researchers then let the patched group have a go at using the goggles with both eyes uncovered. Their vision then improved significantly.

Read  more - 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22245620

US Mint Halts Sales, Depletes Inventory Of One-Tenth Ounce Gold Coins -

US Mint Halts Sales, Depletes Inventory Of One-Tenth Ounce Gold Coins - 


We have been reporting extensively on the terminal disconnect between the paper gold market, which tumbled ten days ago for a variety of reasons, and the physical gold market which one can safely say, has seen a record surge in demand by those who wish to take advantage of the tumbling prices, depleting inventories of gold and silver in virtually all jurisdictions, and leading to the a record purchase of gold in the US mint a week ago as also reported here.

Today, we learn that, as expected, none other than the US Mint has officially run out of small denomination gold coins, in this case One-Tenth ounce American Eagle gold bullion coins. We are confident this incontrovertible proof of soaring retail demand for physical will somehow result in JPM or another bullion bank dumping a few extra thousands ounces of paper/electronic gold or silver to further disconnect the paper price from what is actually going on with physical demand. As for the US Mint, first it's fractions of an ounce: look forward to the mint running out of all bullion denominations in the coming days and week, first in gold, then in silver as well.

From Reuters:

The U.S. Mint has temporarily suspended sales of its one-tenth ounce American Eagle gold bullion coins because of inventory depletion due to strong demand, but continues to offer the one-ounce, one-half ounce and one-quarter ounce coins.

In a memo to its authorized purchases late Monday, the Mint said that gold coins sales in total ounces has been up more than 100 percent year to date over the same period last year.
We, for one, can only hope that the idiotic smashdown of spot paper gold continue and the price is sent to $0 or negative, while the last remaining physical ounce in inventory disappears at any price.

At that point the exchanges will have quite a few anxious people to answer to, the second someone demands even one bar in delivery.

Also, learn the words: "forced cash settlement."

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-23/us-mint-halts-sales-runs-out-inventory-one-tenth-ounce-gold-coins-due-strong-demand

Rare sleep disorder has Woman eating 2,500 calories a night -

Rare sleep disorder has Woman eating 2,500 calories a night - 


A woman has to go on a diet during the day because she eats up to 2,500 calories a night in her sleep, The Sun reported.
Lesley Cusack, 55, loves foods like bacon and butter pudding in the middle of the night. The mother of three has to keep herself on a strict diet during the day because at night, she has no control over what she eats. 
Cusack, from Warrington, Chesire in the United Kingdom, has a rare sleep disorder called nocturnal sleep-related eating disorder, which finds her eating while sleeping -- and not remembering it the next day. 
“I can only tell by the remains in the morning," Cusack said. “Sometimes I’ve found soup in pans, but also in bowls -- it all can get rather messy."
Cusack said she's tried putting alarms on doors in the hopes it will wake her up -- but it didn't work.


Read more: - 
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4900173/woman-with-rare-disorder-eats-in-her-sleep.html

America: Number 1 In Fear, Stress, Anger, Divorce, Obesity, Anti-Depressants, Etc. -

America: Number 1 In Fear, Stress, Anger, Divorce, Obesity, Anti-Depressants, Etc. - 


The United States is a deeply unhappy place.  We are a nation that is absolutely consumed by fear, stress, anger and depression.  It isn't just our economy that is falling apart - the very fabric of society is starting to come apart at the seams and it is because of what is happening to us on the inside.  The facts and statistics that I am going to share with you in this article are quite startling.  They are clear evidence that America is a nation that is an advanced state of decline.  We are overwhelmed by fear, stress and anxiety, and much of the time the ways that we choose to deal with those emotions lead to some very self-destructive behaviors.  Americans have experienced a standard of living far beyond the wildest dreams of most societies throughout human history, and yet we are an absolutely miserable people.  Why is this?  Why is America #1 in so many negative categories?  Why are we constantly looking for ways to escape the pain of our own lives?  Why are our families falling apart?  There is vast material wealth all around us.  So why can't we be happy?

Just look around you.  Are most of the people around you teeming with happiness and joy?  Sadly, the truth is that most Americans are terribly stressed out.  Yeah, many of them may be able to manage to come up with a smile when they greet you, but most of the time they are consumed by internal struggles that are eating away at them like cancer.

So why is this happening?  Is modern life structured in a way that is fundamentally unhealthy?

Below I have posted a short excerpt from a message that one of Charles Hugh Smith's readers named Kenneth Daigle recently sent to him.  I think that it does a good job of describing the incredible stress that many people contend with on a daily basis...

Think about how our culture is now structured for the average adult: STRESS, everywhere you look--commuting in horrible traffic, as you want to scream in frustration--money stress, to pay rent/house note, tuition, utilities, gas, insurances, vacations, cable bill, rising food costs, and on and on and on--stress from family problems, divorce, delinquency, drugs, crime, infidelity, keeping up with the Jones, etc.

People have too high an expectation of what they should have out of life, and get overly stressed over it all. How does all of this manifest itself? A prescription drug culture (Zoloft, Xanax, etc.) that tricks people into thinking a pill will knock back the stress, when these drugs, in my opinion, only make things worse.

I am hearing more and more that people just want to drop out from it all, as they are reaching a breaking point, and have decided less income and dependency on entitlements will reduce their stress, and is not so humiliating, so giving up working becomes more acceptable, to KEEP ONE’S SANITY.

I know I am correct, from the feedback I hear every day, and the financial media does not see this like I hear it every day. People don't want to admit that they are too weak to deal with stress, so the financial pundits are not aware of this critical factor because they don't talk to Joe Sixpack.

Most Americans live lives of "quiet desperation" that are punctuated by moments of great crisis.  We spend our prime years working for others (making them rich) in order to pay off debts that we have foolishly accumulated (thus making the banks even wealthier).  When most Americans reach the end of their lives, they look back and wonder what they actually accomplished.

James Altucher published an incredible article the other day entitled "Why Do People Hate Their Jobs?"  It did a great job of describing what life is like for the modern worker in America.  The following are a few of the reasons that he says people tend to hate their jobs...

-Jobs are modern-day slavery. We are paid just enough to live and not more. You are punished if you ask for more.

-We are often verbally abused on the job and we take it because we think it’s normal that people would yell at us.

-The government gets up to 50% of your paycheck and then 10-20% of that goes to kill people on other parts of the planet, including our own children.

-From 7am to 7pm you are either A) going to work, B) at work, or C) coming back from work. Hence, the times when you can be most creative are garbage-compacted into your cubicle.

-When you are paranoid at a job, you are probably correct. THEY are, in fact, talking about you and backstabbing you right now.

-You realize that all the dollars you spent on degrees to get you a job that will make you happy were completely wasted. You were scammed but you can’t let the next generation know how stupid you were so now you become part of perpetuating the scam.

-Your spouse is tired of hearing about your job after six months. And you couldn’t care less about hers. Ten years later you wake up next to a total stranger. 40 years later you die next to one.

-When you were a kid you liked to draw, and read, and run, and laugh, and play, and imagine a magical world. You’re never going to do any of that again.

-Over time everyone is getting fired and being replaced by younger, cheaper, more temporary, more robotic, versions of you. You see this but are afraid to do anything about it.

And of course when we get home from work there is even more stress.  In America today, we are witnessing a breakdown of the family unlike anything we have ever seen before.  The United States leads the world in divorce and in single person households.  We are having an increasingly difficult time relating to one another, and many of us drown our sorrows in our addictions.  We are addicted to pills, to alcohol, to food, to entertainment, to sex, to gambling, to shopping and to anything else that will make us feel good and forget about our problems for a while.

The following is a collection of facts and statistics that prove that America is being absolutely consumed by fear, stress, anger and depression...

-Suicide has now actually surpassed car accidents as the number one cause of "injury death" in the United States.

-More U.S. soldiers killed themselves than were killed in combat last year.

-As I mentioned in another article, Americans will spend more than 280 billion dollars on prescription drugs during 2013.

-Nearly one out of every four women in the United States are taking antidepressants.

-The percentage of women taking antidepressants in the U.S. is higher than in any other country in the world.

-In 2010, the average teen in the U.S. was taking 1.2 central nervous system drugs.  Those are the kinds of drugs which treat conditions such as ADHD and depression.

-Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants as children in Europe are.

-According to a recent article by David Kupelian, "one-third of the nation’s employees suffer chronic debilitating stress, and more than half of all 'millennials' (18 to 33 year olds) experience a level of stress that keeps them awake at night, including large numbers diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorder."

-Tens of millions of Americans use alcohol and drugs to numb the pain that they are experiencing.  In the United States today, there are about 28 million Americans with a drinking problem and about 22 million Americans use illegal drugs.

-More people have been diagnosed with mental disorders in America than anywhere else on earth.

-There are also tens of millions of Americans that try to deal with anxiety and stress by eating.  Of all the major industrialized nations, America is the most obese.  Mexico is #2.

-Back in 1962, only 13 percent of all Americans were obese.  Today, approximately 36 percent of all Americans are obese.

-Many people try to escape from the pain of reality by getting lost in entertainment.  Incredibly, the United States is tied with the UK for the highest average number of hours spent watching television each week.

-The United States has the highest divorce rate in the world by a good margin.

-The United States has the highest percentage of one person households on the entire planet.

-According to the Pew Research Center, only 51 percent of all American adults are currently married.  Back in 1960, 72 percent of all adults in the United States were married.

-At this point, approximately one out of every three children in America lives in a home without a father.

-For women under the age of 30 living in the United States today, more than half of all babies are being born out of wedlock.

-The United States has the highest child abuse death rate in the developed world.

-In the United States today, it is estimated that one out of every four girls is sexually abused before they become adults.

-The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world by a very wide margin.

-The United States produces more pornography than any other nation in the world.

-If you can believe it, there are 20 million new STD infections in the United States every single year.

-The U.S. has the highest STD infection rate in the entire industrialized world.

-It is estimated that about one out of every six Americans between the ages of 14 and 49 have genital herpes.

-Sadly, one out of every four teen girls in the U.S. has at least one sexually transmitted disease.

-The United States leads the world in eating disorder deaths.

-Nobody in the world gets more plastic surgery done than Americans do.

-Americans spend more time sitting in traffic than anyone else in the world.

-America has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the entire world by a very wide margin.

Fear is one of the primary things that motivates the American people, and that is a very powerful weapon that can be used against us.

As I wrote about yesterday, those that commit acts of terror want to get attention and they want to create fear.

And that is exactly what the Boston Marathon bombing accomplished.  It captured the attention of the nation for days on end, and it absolutely paralyzed the entire Boston area with fear.

Read more - 

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/america-1-in-fear-stress-anger-divorce-obesity-anti-depressants-etc

Analysis Finds 55% Ground Beef, 39% Chicken Contaminated with Superbugs -

Analysis Finds 55% Ground Beef, 39% Chicken Contaminated with Superbugs - 


Would you still eat that turkey burger if you knew it contained antibiotic resistant bacteria? Maybe not. But if you eat turkey, there’s a good chance you are ingesting some of these potentially lethal “super bugs”. The same holds true for beef, chicken, and pork, according to a recent analysis from the Environmental Working Group.

The EWG analyzed tests recently released from the federal government, and what they found was that a great deal of American meat is contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. More specifically, the EWG found the following contamination levels:

81% of raw ground turkey
69% of pork chops
55% of raw ground beef
39% of raw chicken
With the vast majority of U.S.-made pharmaceuticals going into livestock production, how could this possibly be? It’s because the superbugs are created in part by an overabundance of antibiotics. Sounds a little backwards, right? Well, bacteria are living things; they evolve and change to survive just like humans or animals do. And to this end, when something threatens them, they adjust to build defenses. This is how powerful bacteria become impervious to potent antibiotics.

MedicalNewsToday reports that 30 million pounds of antibiotics were sold in 2011. This marks an increase of 22% since 2005. And somewhere around 80% of those drugs went to meat production. As we pump more and more antibiotics into the food system, we will likely see a greater concentration, variety, and fallout of these superbugs.

The EWG says the source of the problem isn’t being addressed. The cause of proliferation of illness and bacteria among livestock is largely the conditions in which we raise them. In other words, large scale feeding operations where cattle, chicken, and other livestock are forced to live on top of each other in their own filth certainly does nothing to encourage healthy animals.

“Congress should also fully fund the Conservation Stewardship Program, which encourages conservation activities on grassland, pastureland and rangeland. This program, run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, could be used to support ranchers who raise animals on pasture and employ practices that fortify health.

For example, unlike operations that confine a large number of animals to a small area, rotational grazing allows animals access to open space. This practice improves herd health and reduces the risk of infection or sickness that would otherwise spread easily,” the Environmental Working Group reports.

Antibiotic resistant superbugs found in livestock can and will make their way into humans. One already has. Known as Pig MRSA, Methcillin-resistant Staphoylococcus aureus CC398 is no longer just for pigs. That having been said, if you knew your turkey burger was infected with a “superbug”, would you still eat it?

Until the issue is addressed, it’s important to consider limiting meat consumption. Some farmers are doing their part by not only being independent from large-scale CAFO’s, but also by replacing antibiotics with natural substances like cinnamon and oregano oil.

Read more - 

http://www.blacklistednews.com/Analysis_Finds_55%25_Ground_Beef%2C_39%25_Chicken_Contaminated_with_Superbugs_/25505/0/0/0/Y/M.html

Hospital bedbug infestations double... - Why more patients share rooms with the blood-sucking pests -

Hospital bedbug infestations double... - Why more patients share rooms with the blood-sucking pests - 




As if adapting to health-care reform and curbing the “nightmare bacteria” weren’t challenge enough, hospitals are increasingly plagued by another problem: bedbugs.

More than a third of pest-management companies treated bedbug infestations in hospitals in 2012, 6% more than the year before and more than twice as many as in 2010, according to a survey released today by the National Pest Management Association. The percentage of exterminators dealing with bedbugs in nursing homes has also almost doubled since 2010, to 46%. Bedbug experts also report seeing them in ambulances.

Hospitals are already cracking down on anything that could increase the risk of patient infections, which not only can be deadly but may also lead to more readmissions and reduced federal funding under the Affordable Care Act. While bedbugs have not been found to transmit infections to humans, they leave itchy bites after feeding on people’s blood, which can lead to secondary infections when victims scratch, opening themselves up to bacteria. This is especially problematic in hospitals, where there is a greater likelihood of catching the highly potent and contagious staph infection known as MRSA, says Dr. Jorge Parada, medical director of the infection prevention and control program of Loyola University Health System in Chicago. “You don’t need one more ingredient to increase your risk of infections in the hospital,” he says.

Although hospitals are putting a growing emphasis on strict cleanliness and sterilization protocols, bedbugs still arrive via the many patients and visitors going in and out of their emergency rooms and waiting areas. “We never know when somebody might show up with bedbugs,” Parada says.

The high instance of bedbugs in nursing homes is also concerning, he adds, because hospitals receive many transfers from such facilities, and elderly people often don’t exhibit the same telltale signs of bedbugs—red, raised, itchy lesions—that other patients do: “It’s one less tipoff that it’s a problem.”

To be sure, say experts, you’re still more likely to catch other kinds of bugs in hospitals than you are to get bedbugs—and they aren’t a medical emergency the way other complications would be, says Missy Henriksen of the National Pest Management Association. That said, if bedbugs become a problem in a hospital, they can be a persistent nuisance. “The bedbugs, and particularly the eggs of bedbugs, are even harder to kill than the spores of the bacteria,” says Dr. Dick Zoutman, a professor and infectious disease specialist at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. “I wouldn’t have thought that to be the case.”

Zoutman helped develop a new hospital sterilization system that can kill highly drug-resistant bacteria as well as bedbugs. The sterilization technology, marketed as AsepticSure by San Francisco-based Medizone International—a firm that is traded over-the-counter as MZEI.OB and MZEI.QB—uses gas to effectively eradicate 100% of bacteria in less than an hour, according to the company. Medizone just began distributing its new disinfecting technology to Canadian hospitals earlier this month, and is seeking approval to market it in the U.S., too.

But Zoutman, who now serves as Medizone’s chief medical officer, says that in tests, the system took up to 24 hours to kill bedbugs, and up to 36 hours to kill their eggs. He says Medizone is now working to adapt the system to kill bedbugs in a faster and more effective manner, both for hospitals and other settings as well.

Advances like that would be eagerly welcomed in hospitals, but for now, exterminators are their only realistic option for addressing a pest invasion. “No patient,” Parada says, “is going to look favorably on a hospital that’s had a bedbug infestation.” 

Read more - 

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bedbugs-rack-up-hospital-bills-2013-04-22?link=MW_home_latest_news