Late-night snacks ‘could wreak havoc on your memory’ -

Late-night snacks ‘could wreak havoc on your memory’ - 

Late-night snacks could have a negative impact on your learning and memory abilities, according to a new study.
The research from the University of California found that eating regular meals at times that are normally for sleeping reduced the cognitive performance of mice, and similar effects could exist in humans.
Dawn Loh, first author of the study said: “We have provided the first evidence that taking regular meals at the wrong time of day has far-reaching effects for learning and memory.”
The team of researchers tested whether mice were able to recognise an object. Mice who were regularly fed during their sleep-time were significantly less able to remember the object, and their long-term memory was also greatly reduced.
Both these functions are controlled by a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is involved in activating nerve impulses along certain pathways.

When an experience is repeated, those same pathways are supposed to increase in strength — but this effect was reduced when the sleep cycle was affected by meal time disruption.
In the mice fed late at night, the activity of a protein called CREB was lessened. This protein may be involved in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, and it being less active decreases memory.
It’s suspected that different brain areas not being in synch may be the cause of the memory issues.
The team also found disruptions to sleep patterns, leading to broken up sleep and short naps to catch up on the sleep lost during the night.
Professor Christopher Colwell, one of the researchers on the study, said: “Modern schedules can lead us to eat around the clock so it is important to understand how the timing of food can impact cogitation.
“For the first time, we have shown that simply adjusting the time when food is made available alters the molecular clock in the hippocampus and can alter the cognitive performance of mice.”

Read more - 
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/diet/latenight-snacks-could-wreak-havoc-on-your-memory/news-story/e28b72d600660d3ca4ee0ffc08b4c351

Male bass are experiencing unwanted sex changes, apparently thanks to the “chemical soups” that pass for waterways -

Male bass are experiencing unwanted sex changes, apparently thanks to the “chemical soups” that pass for waterways - 

Male bass are experiencing unwanted sex changes, apparently thanks to the "chemical soups" that pass for waterways in the Northeast. The Washington Post reports 85% of male smallmouth bass surveyed in the region have "characteristics of the opposite sex"—specifically eggs where their testes should be.

The same is true of 27 percent of area largemouth bass, Vice adds. For a recently published study, researchers tested bass near 19 wildlife refuges in the Northeast, according to a US Geological Survey press release.

Researchers didn't do a chemical analysis of the water where the intersex fish were found, so they can't be sure specifically what is causing the sex changes.

But they suspect the problem is things that get dumped down drains and into US waters. Researchers believe the likely culprits are birth control pills, pesticides, hormones in livestock manure, and other chemical-heavy products, according to the press release.

Vice reports those products contain estrogen, which can produce dramatic effects even at very low levels. But this isn't just a problem in the Northeast. Up to 90 percent of male smallmouth bass in parts of West Virginia are intersex, and increasing sex changes have been noted in nearly 40 fish species around the world going back 20 years, according to the Post.

Study author Luke Iwanowicz calls these fish "the canary in the coal mine." "We are looking at fish but, of course, there is that concern that, if this stuff is in the water, it can be affecting other wildlife," he tells Vice.

Read more - 

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2016/01/04/male-bass-are-experiencing-unwanted-sex-changes.html

Hillary to open the X-Files: promises to 'get to the bottom' of Area 51 - 'I think we may have been visited already' -

Hillary to open the X-Files: promises to 'get to the bottom' of Area 51 - 'I think we may have been visited already' - 

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has said that if she is elected, she will 'get to the bottom' of questions over what the government knows about UFOs and aliens.
She made the promise when speaking with Daymond Steer of The Conway Daily Sun in New Hampshire. She had previously interviewed with the same reporter in 2007.
When asked if she would support UFO disclosure group efforts, she enthusiastically said 'yes'.
In 2007, Clinton said the most common freedom-of-information requests her husband Bill Clinton received at his library were about UFOs.

'Yes, I'm going to get to the bottom of it,' Hillary Clinton told The Sun reporter last week. 
In 2014, Bill Clinton told late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel that he wouldn't be surprised if aliens visited Earth, and last week 
'No, I am trying to tell you I don't know, but if we were visited some day I wouldn't be surprised, I just hope it's not like Independence Day,' he said, referring to the 1996 film in which aliens attack the Earth.

Hillary Clinton appeared to agree with her husband's comments when she spoke about aliens on last week.
'I think we may have been (visited already). We don't know for sure,' she said.
She added that she would like to look into Area 51, which she first called Area 54 but quickly corrected herself. 
The Air Force facility based in Nevada has long been rumored to house aliens.
Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta is fan of UFO lore, the presidential candidate told the Sun. She said he watches an FX sci-fi show.

Read more - 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3383221/Hillary-Clinton-vows-reveal-truth-UFOs-Area-51-president-Bill-admits-aliens-visited-Earth.html

Sugar may increase breast, lung cancer risk, study finds -

Sugar may increase breast, lung cancer risk, study finds - 

Table sugar may increase the risk of breast cancer, according to a new animal study from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Previous research has drawn a link between higher sugar intake and breast cancer development, suggesting inflammation as a source, but the current study instead looked at the role of sugar in mammary gland tumor development.

The study, published Friday in Cancer Research, found that mice with sucrose intake comparable to levels of Western diets had a greater risk for tumor growth and metastasis, compared to mice on a non-starch sugar diet.

“This was due, in part, to increased expression of 12-LOX and a related fatty acid called 12-HETE,” Peiying Yang, Ph.D., an assistant professor of palliative, rehabilitation, and integrative medicine at MD Anderson, said in a press release.

The study found that at six months of age, 30 percent of mice on a starch-control diet had measurable tumors, while 60 to 58 percent of mice on sucrose-enriched diets developed mammary tumors.

In addition, the mice on a sucrose- or a fructose-enriched diet were at an increased risk of cancer spreading to their lungs, compared to those on a starch-control diet.

Study authors said moderate sugar consumption is critical, as the per capita consumption of sugar in the United States is more than 100 pounds per year, and increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is a significant contributor to the worldwide epidemics of obesity, heart disease and cancer.

Read more - 

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/01/04/sugar-may-increase-breast-lung-cancer-risk-study-finds.html?intcmp=hplnws

Children aged five eating own weight in sugar each year

Children aged five eating own weight in sugar each year

The average five-year-old consumes the equivalent of their body weight in sugar in the course of a year, health officials have warned.
Parents are being urged to take control of their children’s habits, as the Government prepares to publish its strategy on child obesity, amid calls to introduce a tax on sugary drinks and foods.
The new campaign by Public Health England (PHE) warns that five-year-olds should only be consuming the equivalent of five sugar cubes a day.
On average, child are having three times their recommended maximum daily intake, which rises to six cubes for six to ten-year-olds, and seven cubes for anyone of the age of 11.

Over the course of a year, a child aged between four and 10 will consume around 5,500 sugar cubes – or three and half stone - the average weight of five year old, PHE said.
Officials have launched a new free app, which reveals how much sugar is in everyday food and drink in a bid to encourage parents to take control of their families’ sugar consumption.
It works by scanning the barcode of products and showing the total sugar in each product in cubes and grams.
Tooth decay has become the most common reason that five-to-nine year olds are admitted to hospital, with a 14 per cent increase in admissions in three years.

Read more -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/12069267/Children-aged-five-eating-own-weight-in-sugar-every-year.html

Leaked Audio Proves Mainstream Media Cheers On Trump's Bigotry For Profit

Leaked Audio Proves Mainstream Media Cheers On Trump's Bigotry For Profit

Even as large swaths of the population call for media outlets to do their part in stemming the “dangerous tide of hatred, violence, and suspicion” taking hold in the United States, corporate media - which stands to benefit nicely from the $5 billion 2016 presidential election - is egging on that same divisive rhetoric.

“Go Donald! Keep getting out there!” CBS Corporation chief executive Les Moonves reportedly said during an investor presentation Monday.

Trumpeting the advertising dollars already flowing CBS’s way as a result of the crowded 2016 GOP presidential primary, Moonves said:

“We love having all 16 Republicans candidates throwing crap at each other — it’s great. The more they spend, the better it is for us.”

“And, you know, this is fun, watching this, let them spend money on us, and we love having them in there,” he declared. “We’re looking forward to a very exciting political year in ’16.”
Writing for The Intercept, Lee Fang notes that “[t]he call took place right around the same time Trump announced his intention to bar Muslim immigrants from entering the United States, suggesting the CBS chief didn’t know about that yet.”

However, Fang continues, “Moonves’ remarks came after months of similar rhetoric from Trump, including claims that the Mexican government is sending rapists into the U.S. and statements supporting a registration system for Muslim Americans.”

As Common Dreams and others have reported, media companies are positioned to benefit from the unlimited campaign spending corrupting the U.S. political system. As Moonves said in 2012, “Super PACs may be bad for America, but they’re very good for CBS.”

Listen to the leaked audio below:

Drug trafficking carrier pigeon "Narcopigeon" detained carrying 14g of cocaine and 14g of marijuana -

Drug trafficking carrier pigeon "Narcopigeon" detained carrying 14g of cocaine and 14g of marijuana - 

A homing pigeon was intercepted by police at a prison near San Jose, Costa Rica, after it was seen by a guard landing in the jail’s courtyard with a bag tied to its body.
On inspection, the black zipper bag was found to contain 14g of cocaine and the same amount of marijuana. Authorities suspect the bird was looked after and fed by an inmate in the medium-security wing of La Reforma prison, Costa Rica’s biggest penitentiary, before someone smuggled it out of the prison only to load it with illicit cargo ahead of its return route.
The director of Costa Rica’s prison police force told the media after the ruse had been exposed last Tuesday that the pigeon was able to fly perfectly well despite the drug-stuffed pouch strapped against its breast.
Pablo Bertozzi, who said he had seen cases of cats being used to transport drugs strapped to their tails, added that the homing pigeon incident would lead to a redoubling of efforts to clean the jail of controlled substances.
“The real problem is that there is a lot of consumption. If there weren’t consumers, the drugs wouldn’t be arriving”, Mr Bertozzi said.
The bird, which has affectionately been nicknamed “narcopigeon” (narcopaloma) by Costa Ricans, has been handed over by the authorities to a zoo, where it is being kept under observation before being housed in a larger enclosure.
“Because of the way it came to us, it can never be freed,” a zoo worker told local media, adding that the bird was reluctant to eat, probably because it had become used to being hand-fed by one person.
In 2011, prison guards in Bucaramanga, Colombia, found a pigeon attempting without success to fly over the wall into the jail laden with 45g of marijuana. Two years ago, police in Buenos Aires smashed a marijuana-trafficking ring which used pigeons as a risk-free manner to transport the drug to their home base.

Read more - 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/costarica/11801361/Drug-trafficking-carrier-pigeon-detained-in-Costa-Rica.html

Did The EPA Intentionally Poison the Animas River To Secure SuperFund Money? -

Did The EPA Intentionally Poison the Animas River To Secure SuperFund Money? - 

A week before The EPA disastrously leaked millions of gallons of toxic waste into The Animas River in Colorado, this letter to the editor was published in The Silverton Standard & The Miner local newspaper, authored by a retired geologist detailing verbatim, how EPA would foul the Animas River on purpose in order to secure superfund money...

"But make no mistake, within seven days, all of the 500gpm flow will return to Cememnt Creek. Contamination may actually increase... The "grand experiment" in my opinion will fail.

And guess what [EPA's] Mr. Hestmark will say then?

Gee, "Plan A" didn't work so I guess we will have to build a treat¬ment plant at a cost to taxpayers of $100 million to $500 million (who knows).

Reading between the lines, I believe that has been the EPA's plan all along"

Sound like something a government entity would do? Just ask Lois Lerner...

As we concluded previously,

The EPA actually has no concern for the environment, they just happen to use the environment as a cover story to create laws and gain an advantage for the companies that lobbied for exemptions to the agency’s regulations, and to collect money in fines. There are solutions outside the common government paradigm, and that is mainly the ability for individuals, not governments, to hold polluters personally and financially accountable.

Read more - 

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-12/did-epa-intentionally-poison-animas-river-secure-superfund-money

American Oligarchy: 400 Families Represent 50% Of Money Raised by 2016 Presidential Candidates So Far -

American Oligarchy: 400 Families Represent 50% Of Money Raised by 2016 Presidential Candidates So Far - 

Ever since I started this website in 2012, one of my primary objectives was to convince readers that the American system of government is nothing like what we are told in school and via the oligarch-owned mainstream media. That the country has become so captured and corrupted by sociopathic oligarchs, that a neo-feudal modern serfdom was emerging where the opportunities to enjoy rising standards of living for the vast majority of people was rapidly becoming a pipe dream.

I think many readers appreciated my warnings, but it wasn’t until an academic study from Princeton and Northwestern came out and factually proved it, that it become undeniable to many people. Here’s a brief excerpt from that post titled, New Report from Princeton and Northwestern Proves It: The U.S. is an Oligarchy:

Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.
Ever since that study came out, I’ve noticed more and more people publicly admitting that the U.S. in nothing more than an oligarchy. Even former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said it last week.

Meanwhile, just today, I came across the latest shocking proof of how bought and paid for “our” political system really is. We find out from the New York Times, that only 400 families account for nearly half of all spending on the 2016 Presidential election so far. The Dark Ages almost look democratic by comparison.

From the NY Times:

Fewer than four hundred families are responsible for almost half the money raised in the 2016 presidential campaign, a concentration of political donors that is unprecedented in the modern era.

The vast majority of the $388 million backing presidential candidates this year is being channeled to groups that can accept unlimited contributions in support of candidates from almost any source. The speed with which such “super PACs” can raise money — sometimes bringing in tens of millions of dollars from a few businesses or individuals in a matter of days — has allowed them to build enormous campaign war chests in a fraction of the time that it would take the candidates, who are restricted in how much they can accept from a single donor.

A New York Times analysis of Federal Election Commission reports and Internal Revenue Service records shows that the fund-raising arms race has made most of the presidential hopefuls deeply dependent on a small pool of the richest Americans.
And that’s exactly how the oligarchs like it.

To peruse the top donors in presidential politics is to take a cross section of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. At least 67 are billionaires or married to one, according to Forbes.

“In the donor world, it is primarily a love of economic freedom,” said Chart Westcott, a Dallas private equity investor who has contributed $200,000 to Unintimidated PAC, a group backing Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin. “That’s the biggest drive for most donors — more prosperity for the country as a whole, as well as for themselves.”
“More prosperity for the country as a whole…”

Really? Where is this widespread prosperity, at the end of the rainbow in a leprechaun’s hat?

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a favorite of the Tea Party movement, has raised the most cash from the fewest donors. A collection of super PACs supporting Mr. Cruz raised $37 million, nearly all of it from three families. Robert Mercer, a deeply private hedge fund investor from New York, contributed $11 million, making him the top known political donor in the country so far this election cycle.
Ted Cruz knows how to say the right things, but he knows where his bread is buttered.

But millions of dollars also came from corporate entities with no clear link to a known individual or business: One million-dollar donor to the pro-Bush super PAC is Jasper Reserves, a limited liability corporation established two years ago in West Virginia, where records provided few clues about its owners.

Big donors are not only patrons of the candidates but also confidantes, with great access to the candidates — and, sometimes, business before them.

Mr. Braman has previously subsidized Mr. Rubio’s salary, and employed his wife. Mr. Fernandez, who became a billionaire after building several health care companies, emailed with Mr. Bush often when he was governor of Florida to ask about doing business with the state, Mr. Bush’s emails show.

The largest single donation to America Leads, a group supporting Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, came from a Boston investor seeking to build a $4 billion casino resort there. At least five donors to Mr. Walker’s super PAC are companies that received hundreds of thousands of dollars in aid from Wisconsin’s economic development agency, according to state records.

“Are they going to return people’s phone calls? Yeah, I’m sure they’re going to return people’s phone calls,” Mr. Keating said. “But I don’t think it’s going to drive policy.”
Apparently Mr. Keating never heard of a little family called “The Clintons.”

Read more - 

http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/08/03/american-oligarchy-400-families-represent-50-of-money-raised-by-2016-presidential-candidates/

The “Tree of 40 Fruit” - professor created a tree capable of bearing 40 different kinds of fruit! -

The “Tree of 40 Fruit” - professor created a tree capable of bearing 40 different kinds of fruit! - 


Technology is only as limited as the human mind, and when one can conceive a grand vision, it will no doubt be made manifest at some point or another.

Such statement applies to the enchanting-looking tree (pictured below) which is capable of bearing  40 different types of stone fruit, including peaches, nectarines, apricots, and almonds. Artist and Syracuse University professor Sam Van Aken is responsible for this magnificent wonder and achieved it by harnessing an ancient technique called “chip grafting.”

As NationalGeographic shares, the process is one of patience. Over a period of several years, Van Aken tediously spliced branches with buds of various varieties into a base branch called the “working tree.”

But his work is worth it, as once springtime comes, the “Tree of 40 Fruit” beautifully bears pink and purple blossoms. By summer, the tree begins to bear all kinds of fruit for harvest.

“Part of the idea behind the Tree of 40 Fruit was to plant them in locations that people would stumble upon them,” said Van Aken speaking to National Geographic in the video above. “And once they happened upon one of these trees, they would start to question ‘Why are the leaves shaped differently?’ ‘Why are they different colors?’”
Dozens of these trees have been planted around the U.S. You can find out here if a Tree of 40 Fruit is near you. - http://www.treeof40fruit.com/

Read more -
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/150720-40-fruit-tree-vin?source=relatedvideo