Changing Weather, Changing Bugs La Nina oscillates year by year with El Nino throughout the Pacific, changing wind, humidity, and hurricane conditions around the world. Yet the results may affect more than weather – it may also be part of major flu pandemics. The last 4 major flu outbreaks took place during La Nina. Why […]
Can kids get addicted to the internet? (1/16/12)
Compulsion or Addiction? Can you get addicted to internet use? A new Chinese study in PLoS 1 argues that it certainly happens; that it clearly changes brain and behavior; and that the brain changes seen are in many ways similar to what happens with drug addiction and gambling. Kids Who Can’t Stop The adolescents – aged 14 […]
Supercharged breast implants (1/9/12)
Fuel Additives and Industrial Silicone What are fuel additives doing in breast implants? That’s the question asked by French national radio station RTL after a prominent toxicologist declared he discovered baysilone – sometimes used as fuel additive and lubricating grease – silopren and rhodorsil in the frequently rupturing 300,000 silicone implants made by Poly Implant […]
Is there an epidemic of sleep apnea in our police? (1/6/12)
Sleepy Police Especially when you’re young, sleep apnea can kill you. When old, it can really muck up your life. And American and Canadian police appear to suffer sleep apnea in epidemic numbers. That’s not the public conclusion reached on an important Harvard study on 5000 American and Canadian police. Media reports declared a third […]
The War on Cancer and the War on Terror – what they have in common (1/3/12)
Who Wins? Historians often view wars as ending with winners and losers. We “won” World War II – and the Germans and Japanese lost. In most human conflicts results are less clear-cut. People don’t tend to think of the “War on Cancer” – started by President Nixon – and the “War on Terror” – begun […]