One-third of Boulder’s deer infected with chronic wasting disease

A new study shows one out of three mule deer in south Boulder suffers from chronic wasting disease – and those results mean the traditional approach of killing infected animals to fight the disease probably won’t work, researchers say.

Chronic Wasting Disease Study Results (PDF)

“Everything that’s been tried to control chronic wasting disease really fails in the face of that kind of infection rate,” said Heather Swanson, a wildlife ecologist for Boulder’s Open Space and Mountain Parks Department.

Read moreOne-third of Boulder’s deer infected with chronic wasting disease

NASA: A Giant Breach in Earth’s Magnetic Field

Dec. 16, 2008: NASA’s five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth’s magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to “load up” the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms. But the breach itself is not the biggest surprise. Researchers are even more amazed at the strange and unexpected way it forms, overturning long-held ideas of space physics.

“At first I didn’t believe it,” says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “This finding fundamentally alters our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction.”

The magnetosphere is a bubble of magnetism that surrounds Earth and protects us from solar wind. Exploring the bubble is a key goal of the THEMIS mission, launched in February 2007.

The big discovery came on June 3, 2007, when the five probes serendipitously flew through the breach just as it was opening. Onboard sensors recorded a torrent of solar wind particles streaming into the magnetosphere, signaling an event of unexpected size and importance.

Right: One of the THEMIS probes exploring the space around Earth, an artist’s concept. [more]

“The opening was huge-four times wider than Earth itself,” says Wenhui Li, a space physicist at the University of New Hampshire who has been analyzing the data. Li’s colleague Jimmy Raeder, also of New Hampshire, says “1027 particles per second were flowing into the magnetosphere-that’s a 1 followed by 27 zeros. This kind of influx is an order of magnitude greater than what we thought was possible.”

Read moreNASA: A Giant Breach in Earth’s Magnetic Field

Derinkuyu, the mysterious underground city of Turkey

In 1963, an inhabitant of Derinkuyu (in the region of Cappadocia, central Anatolia, Turkey), knocking down a wall of his house cave, discovered amazed that behind it was a mysterious room that he had never seen, and this led him room to another and another and another to it … By chance he had discovered the underground city of Derinkuyu, whose first level could be excavated by the Hittites around 1400 BC

Archaeologists began to explore this fascinating underground city abandoned. Consiguieron llegar a los cuarenta metros de profundidad, aunque se cree que tiene un fondo de hasta 85 metros. It managed to forty meters deep, but is believed to have a fund of up to 85 meters.

At present 20 levels have been discovered underground. Sólo pueden visitarse los ocho niveles superiores; los demás están parcialmente obstruidos o reservados a los arqueólogos y antropólogos que estudian Derinkuyu. Only eight can be visited at the highest levels; others are partially blocked or restricted to archaeologists and anthropologists who study Derinkuyu.

The city was used as a refuge for thousands of people living in the basement for protection from the frequent invasions suffered Cappadocia, at various times of their occupation, and by the early Christians.

The enemies, aware of the danger that enclosed inside the city, usually the people who were trying to leave the area by poisoning wells.

The interior is striking: the underground galleries of Derinkuyu (where there is room for at least 10,000 people) could hang on three strategic points moving circular stone door. Were between 1 to 1.5 meters in height, about 50 centimeters wide and weighing up to 500 Kilos.

Read moreDerinkuyu, the mysterious underground city of Turkey

New study firmly ties hormone use to breast cancer

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – Taking menopause hormones for five years doubles the risk for breast cancer, according to a new analysis of a big federal study that reveals the most dramatic evidence yet of the dangers of these still-popular pills.

Even women who took estrogen and progestin pills for as little as a couple of years had a greater chance of getting cancer. And when they stopped taking them, their odds quickly improved, returning to a normal risk level roughly two years after quitting.

Collectively, these new findings are likely to end any doubt that the risks outweigh the benefits for most women.

It is clear that breast cancer rates plunged in recent years mainly because millions of women quit hormone therapy and fewer newly menopausal women started on it, said the study’s leader, Dr. Rowan Chlebowski of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Read moreNew study firmly ties hormone use to breast cancer

Video: Air Force’s Killer Bugbots Attack

The U.S. military has been working for a while on tiny, buglike drones – to serve as miniature flying spies, Defense Department robot-makers say.

But this video, from the Air Force Research Laboratory, shows that the military is also interested in turning these “Micro Air Vehicles,” or MAVs, into biomorphic weapons that can lie in secret for weeks at a time – and then strike an adversary with lethal accuracy.

“Individual MAVs may perform direct-attack missions,” says the video’s gravelly voiced narrator. “They can be equipped with incapacitation chemicals, combustible payloads or even explosives for precision-targeting capability.”

“Individual MAVs may perform direct-attack missions,” says the video’s gravelly voiced narrator. “They can be equipped with incapacitation chemicals, combustible payloads or even explosives for precision-targeting capability.”

Read moreVideo: Air Force’s Killer Bugbots Attack

Brain scans show hints of MS years before symptoms


An MRI shows white plaques in the center of the brain that could indicate MS. UCSF Multiple Sclerosis Center

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Brain scans using magnetic resonance imaging may be able to detect signs of multiple sclerosis long before symptoms of the disease appear, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

They said nearly a third of people who showed signs of the disease on brain MRIs developed the disease within five years.

Read moreBrain scans show hints of MS years before symptoms

High Doses of Vitamins Fight Alzheimer’s Disease

Why Don’t Doctors Recommend Them Now?

1. Vitamin B3 cannot be patented.

2. Vitamin B3 is incredibly cheap.

3. If taken correctly there are no side effects.

3. Vitamin B3 might cure the disease.

That is the ultimate worst case scenario for ‘Big Pharma’ and it’s salesman (= doctors).
(There are still great doctors out there but for many reasons their numbers are decreasing dramatically.)

There are a lot of junk science studies circulating out there that now want to tell us that vitamins have no effect.
Look who conducted the study and on whose payroll they are. There are only around 5% independent scientists out there. The other 95% are ‘bought’ by corporations. Any disease ‘can’ be cured with Alternative Medicine.
___________________________________________________________________________

(OMNS, December 9, 2008) The news media recently reported that “huge doses of an ordinary vitamin appeared to eliminate memory problems in mice with the rodent equivalent of Alzheimer’s disease.” They then quickly added that “scientists aren’t ready to recommend that people try the vitamin on their own outside of normal doses.” (1)

In other words, extra-large amounts of a vitamin are helpful, so don’t you take them!

That does not even pass the straight-faced test. So what’s the story?

Researchers at the University of California at Irvine gave the human dose equivalent of 2,000 to 3,000 mg of vitamin B3 to mice with Alzheimer’s. (2) It worked. Kim Green, one of the researchers, is quoted as saying, “Cognitively, they were cured. They performed as if they’d never developed the disease.”

Specifically, the study employed large amounts of nicotinamide, the vitamin B3 widely found in foods such as meat, poultry, fish, nuts and seeds. Nicotinamide is also the form of niacin found, in far greater quantity, in dietary supplements. It is more commonly known as niacinamide. It is inexpensive and its safety is long established. The most common side effect of niacinamide in very high doses is nausea. This can be eliminated by taking less, by using regular niacin instead, which may cause a warm flush, or choosing inositol hexaniacinate, which does not. They are all vitamin B3.

HealthDay Reporter mentioned how cheap the vitamin is; the study authors “bought a year’s supply for $30” and noted that it “appears to be safe.” Even so, one author said that “I wouldn’t advocate people rush out and eat grams of this stuff each day.” (1)

Read moreHigh Doses of Vitamins Fight Alzheimer’s Disease

It’s official: Men really are the weaker sex

Evolution is being distorted by pollution, which damages genitals and the ability to father offspring, says new study. Geoffrey Lean reports

The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.

The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

Backed by some of the world’s leading scientists, who say that it “waves a red flag” for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have “gender-bending” effects.

It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminised genitals.

“This research shows that the basic male tool kit is under threat,” says Gwynne Lyons, a former government adviser on the health effects of chemicals, who wrote the report.

Wildlife and people have been exposed to more than 100,000 new chemicals in recent years, and the European Commission has admitted that 99 per cent of them are not adequately regulated. There is not even proper safety information on 85 per cent of them.

Read moreIt’s official: Men really are the weaker sex

Dr. Bruce Lipton Ph.D. – Changing Our Cells by Thought


Source: YouTube

The Biology of Belief is a groundbreaking work in the field of New Biology.

Author Dr. Bruce Lipton is a former medical school professor and research scientist.

His experiments, and that of other leading edge scientists, have examined in great detail the processes by which cells receive information. The implications of this research radically change our understanding of life.

It shows that genes and DNA do not control our biology; that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our positive and negative thoughts.

Dr. Lipton’s profoundly hopeful synthesis of the latest and best research in cell biology and quantum physics is being hailed as a major breakthrough showing that our bodies can be changed as we retrain our thinking.


The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles
by Bruce H. Lipton (Hardcover – Sep 15, 2008)

The Perception Of Consciousness

Peter Russell studied mathematics and theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge (UK), supervised for a while by Stephen Hawking. Then, as he became increasingly fascinated by the nature of consciousness, he changed to experimental psychology. He won several scholarships for his work at Cambridge and graduated with a first class honors degree. He then went India, where he studied meditation and Eastern philosophy, and on his return took up research into the psychophysiology of meditation at the University of Bristol. He also has a post-graduate degree from Cambridge in computer science, and conducted some of the early work on 3-D displays and what is now known as “virtual reality”.

Peter Russell was one of the first people to introduce human potential seminars into the corporate field, and for twenty years ran programs for senior management on creativity, learning methods, stress management, personal development, and sustainability. Clients have included IBM, Apple, Digital, American Express, Barclays Bank, Swedish Telecom, ICI, Shell Oil and British Petroleum.

His principal interest is the inner challenges presented by the times we are passing through. He has written several books in this area, including Meditation, The Brian Book, The Global Brain Awakens The Creative Manager, and Waking Up in Time. Peter’s latest book, From Science to God: A Physicist’s Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness, explores how a deeper understanding of the nature of consciousness leads to a new synthesis of scientific and spiritual worldviews.

Read moreThe Perception Of Consciousness

Ancient city discovered deep in Amazonian rainforest linked to the legendary white-skinned Cloud People of Peru

A lost city discovered deep in the Amazon rainforest could unlock the secrets of a legendary tribe.

Little is known about the Cloud People of Peru, an ancient, white-skinned civilisation wiped out by disease and war in the 16th century.

But now archaeologists have uncovered a fortified citadel in a remote mountainous area of Peru known for its isolated natural beauty.


An ancient Chachapoyas village located close to the area where the lost city was found

It is thought this settlement may finally help historians unlock the secrets of the ‘white warriors of the clouds’.

The tribe had white skin and blonde hair – features which intrigue historians, as there is no known European ancestry in the region, where most inhabitants are darker skinned.

The citadel is tucked away in one of the most far-flung areas of the Amazon. It sits at the edge of a chasm which the tribe may have used as a lookout to spy on enemies.


The area where the lost city was discovered by a team of archaeologists


The Chachapoyas, also called the Warriors of the Clouds, were an Andean people living in the cloud forests of the Amazonian region of present-day Peru

The main encampment is made up of circular stone houses overgrown by jungle over 12 acres, according to archaeologist Benedict Goicochea Perez.

Read moreAncient city discovered deep in Amazonian rainforest linked to the legendary white-skinned Cloud People of Peru

Miracle teabag – containing stem cells – helps stroke victim to speak again

A stroke victim has regained the power of speech after doctors placed a device resembling a teabag filled with stem cells in his brain.


Genetically modified stem cells fitted into a kind of ‘tea bag’ are implanted to the patient’s brain where they are supposed to have an anti-inflammatory effect Photo: EPA

Walter Bast, 49, also regained the use of his right arm after the revolutionary treatment, which prevents brain cells from dying.

If further trials of the treatment are successful, it could be on the market in as little as five years, providing fresh hope for the 45,000 Britons each year who suffer a haemorrhagic stroke, where a blood vessel in the brain bursts.

Currently, the only option is surgery, which has a variable success rate. Half of surgery patients will die within a month and just one in 20 patients will recover to the extent of Mr Bast.

The pioneering treatment, called CellBeads, involves cutting away part of the skull to tie off leaking blood vessels and remove blood from the brain.

Surgeons then insert the 2cm by 2cm ‘teabag’ filled with capsules stuffed with around a million stem cells.

The stem cells, taken from bone marrow, have been genetically engineered to make a drug known as CM1 that protects brain cells from dying. This lets the cells rejuvenate and repair the damage done by the stroke.

After around two weeks, doctors at the International Neuroscience-Institute in Hanover, Germany, removed the ‘teabag’, resulting in Mr Bast regaining his speech and the use of his right arm.

Speaking a week after the operation, the first of its kind in the world, Mr Bast, a mechanic, said: “I feel a lucky guy.”

Read moreMiracle teabag – containing stem cells – helps stroke victim to speak again

The 10 big energy myths

There has never been a more important time to invest in green technologies, yet many of us believe these efforts are doomed to failure. What nonsense, writes Chris Goodall

Myth 1: solar power is too expensive to be of much use

In reality, today’s bulky and expensive solar panels capture only 10% or so of the sun’s energy, but rapid innovation in the US means that the next generation of panels will be much thinner, capture far more of the energy in the sun’s light and cost a fraction of what they do today. They may not even be made of silicon. First Solar, the largest manufacturer of thin panels, claims that its products will generate electricity in sunny countries as cheaply as large power stations by 2012.

Read moreThe 10 big energy myths

Meditation beats antidepressants

GROUP psychology involving Buddhist meditation can be as effective at combating depression as medication, a study published today in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology has found.

Fifteen months after an eight-week trial, 47 per cent of people with depression who under-went therapy suffered a relapse, compared with 60 per cent of those taking antidepressants.

Published Date: 01 December 2008

Source: Scotsman

Pentagon hires British scientist to help build robot soldiers that ‘won’t commit war crimes’

“It sends a cold shiver down my spine. I have worked in artificial intelligence for decades, and the idea of a robot making decisions about human termination is terrifying.”
___________________________________________________________________________

The American military is planning to build robot soldiers that will not be able to commit war crimes like their human comrades in arms.


The Pentagon aims to develop ‘ethical’ robot soldiers, unlike the indiscriminate T-800 killers from the Terminator films

The US Army and Navy have both hired experts in the ethics of building machines to prevent the creation of an amoral Terminator-style killing machine that murders indiscriminately.

By 2010 the US will have invested $4 billion in a research programme into “autonomous systems”, the military jargon for robots, on the basis that they would not succumb to fear or the desire for vengeance that afflicts frontline soldiers.

A British robotics expert has been recruited by the US Navy to advise them on building robots that do not violate the Geneva Conventions.

Colin Allen, a scientific philosopher at Indiana University’s has just published a book summarising his views entitled Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong.

He told The Daily Telegraph: “The question they want answered is whether we can build automated weapons that would conform to the laws of war. Can we use ethical theory to help design these machines?”

Pentagon chiefs are concerned by studies of combat stress in Iraq that show high proportions of frontline troops supporting torture and retribution against enemy combatants.

Read morePentagon hires British scientist to help build robot soldiers that ‘won’t commit war crimes’

Ocean currents can power the world, say scientists

A revolutionary device that can harness energy from slow-moving rivers and ocean currents could provide enough power for the entire world, scientists claim.


Existing technologies require an average current of five or six knots to operate efficiently, while most of the earth’s currents are slower than three knots Photo: AP

The technology can generate electricity in water flowing at a rate of less than one knot – about one mile an hour – meaning it could operate on most waterways and sea beds around the globe.

Read moreOcean currents can power the world, say scientists

Water vapour discovered on Saturn’s moon

Huge plumes of water vapour and ice particles are bursting out from Saturn’s moon Enceladus at supersonic speeds in a way that strongly suggests they come from liquid water down below the icy surface, scientists have said.


Artist’s impression of the Cassini spacecraft passing through plumes from geysers that erupt from giant fissures in the moon’s southern polar region Photo: REUTERS

The research, published in the journal Nature, offers new evidence that the moon may harbor an underground ocean of water, meaning conditions might exist that could support life, even if only microbial organisms.

‘We think liquid water is necessary for life and there is more evidence that there is liquid water there,’ said lead researcher Candice Hansen of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

‘You also need energy, you need nutrients, you need organics. It looks like the pieces are there. Whether or not there’s actually life, of course, we can’t say.’

Scientists are aware of only three places where liquid water exists near the surface of a planet or other body – Earth, Jupiter’s moon Europa and now Enceladus.

In July Nasa’s Phoenix Mars Lander confirmed the presence of ice on Mars.

Read moreWater vapour discovered on Saturn’s moon

‘Heavy water’ could help us live longer

Drinking “heavy water” enriched with a rare form of hydrogen could prolong our lives by up to ten years, it has been claimed.

Mikhail Shchepinov, a former Oxford University scientist, says that the modified drink protects against dangerous chemicals known as free radicals that are known to contribute to conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

He also claims that foods such as steak and eggs could be enriched with the special hydrogen isotope, known as deuterium, raising the possibility of people being able to “eat themselves healthy”.

His research has shown that worms live 10 per cent longer and fruitflies up to 30 per cent longer when fed on heavy water, which is slightly sweeter than normal water.

Read more‘Heavy water’ could help us live longer

Stubborn glaciers fail to retreat, awkward polar bears continue to multiply

Second only to the melting of the Arctic ice and those “drowning” polar bears, there is no scare with which the global warmists, led by Al Gore, more like to chill our blood than the fast-vanishing glaciers of the Himalayas, which help to provide water for a sixth of mankind.

Read moreStubborn glaciers fail to retreat, awkward polar bears continue to multiply

Oceans Passing Critical CO2 Threshold

UXBRIDGE, Canada – An apparent rapid upswing in ocean acidity in recent years is wiping out coastal species like mussels, a new study has found.


Coral at the Great Barrier Reef. Rising carbon dioxide levels in the world’s oceans due to climate change, combined with rising sea temperatures, could accelerate coral bleaching, destroying some reefs before 2050, said an Australian study in January 2002. (Reuters)

“We’re seeing dramatic changes,” said Timothy Wootton of the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, lead author of the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study shows increases in ocean acidity that are more than 10 times faster than any prediction.

“It appears that we’ve crossed a threshold where the ocean can no longer buffer the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere,” Wootton told IPS.

Read moreOceans Passing Critical CO2 Threshold

Mass testing plan to tackle Aids

  • Radical WHO strategy aimed at halting epidemic
  • Preventive use of drugs raises human rights issues
  • A nurse prepares a dose of anti-HIV drugs
    Intervention with anti-Aids drugs before symptoms appear could reduce HIV rates to under 1% in 50 years, a study claims. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters

    A radical new strategy to stop the Aids epidemic in its tracks was proposed yesterday by World Health Organisation scientists but ran into immediate controversy over its implications for human rights.

    The plan involves testing everybody for HIV every year in hard-hit areas like sub-Saharan Africa and immediately putting those who are positive on Aids drugs. It could slash dramatically the number of new infections, because Aids drugs lower the levels of virus in the body, making HIV transmission through unprotected sex much less likely.

    But the strategy, expounded in a paper published online today by the Lancet medical journal, raises major issues both over implementation and over ethics.

    Currently people who are HIV positive are not put on treatment until they need it, because of the toxicity and side-effects of antiretroviral drugs. It raises the prospect of subjecting people to potential medical harm for the public good, rather than their individual benefit. “We wouldn’t do that in the UK,” said John Howson of the International HIV/Aids Alliance. “These are huge issues.”

    Read moreMass testing plan to tackle Aids

    Pine Bark Cuts Jet Lag in Half

    (NaturalNews) If you’ve ever taken a super long flight that lasts seven to nine hours and crossed a time zone or two, you probably know that jet lag can make you feel just plain awful — and it can keep you from enjoying your trip for at least a day or two. That can be especially aggravating when you travel over the holidays. But now comes news that a natural plant substance, an extract from the French maritime pine tree, can cut jet lag symptoms by about fifty percent.

    The new research, conducted at the G. D’Annunzio University in Pescara, Italy, and just published in the journal Minerva Cardioangiologica, reveals pine bark extract, or pycnogenol, reduced symptoms of jet lag including feeling exhausted, headaches, insomnia and brain edema (swelling). It was effective in both healthy individuals and those with high blood pressure. In addition,airline passengers experienced far less lower leg edema, a common condition associated with long flights, when they took pine bark extract.

    Read morePine Bark Cuts Jet Lag in Half