"I got a live one today"
Funny Animal Photos by Ty Buchanan
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Protecting Children From the Environment Causes Disease in Old Age
When is human advancement and achievement not necessarily so? When improvement leads to deleterious side effects. There are theories that protection of children from the environment by medication and physical intervention causes such things as hay fever and autism. These are only theories and not proven.
Another issue is the massive intake of carbohydrates humans have taken into their bodies over the last ten thousand years. We have not evolved to digest the diet. For most of our evolution we lived on meat and fruit with tubers in small amounts. Societies have changed a great deal.
There are now strong indications that Alzheimer's disease (AD) is caused by people keeping the environment too clean when children are toddling around. "Good" bacteria and viruses do not get into our bodies. It should be noted that the rate of Alzheimer's is rising only in wealthy nations. Lack of microbes could also be increasing strokes.
This seems to be an insurmountable problem. Do we let children catch diseases some of which can be deadly and crippling, or do we continue along our present path? Even providing clean drinking water reduces exposure to microorganisms. Perhaps science can develop ways of injecting the required T-cells into people. It is becoming an epidemic. The number of AD sufferers will treble by the year 2050. Some estimates put the rate higher.
Health by Ty Buchanan
Bad Weather From Climate Change Becoming Accepted
It seems the first signs of general acceptance of extreme weather from climate change are forming. Some scientists are openly declaring that change in weather patterns will be permanent or worsen as climate change takes hold. This past year has been one of the wettest on record in eastern Australia. This is blamed on damage to the environment by human activity.
Change is regional with heavy rains in Europe, east Asia and Oceania. The US and Africa were very dry. Greenhouse gasses caused a warming of oceans. This put more moisture into the atmosphere to fall as rain in the large land masses of Europe, Asia and Oceania. A downpour occurred in New Zealand that was a once in 500 years event.
Just why the US remains dry is a problem. It should have received more rain, but weather patterns tends to vary around the world due a balancing effect in humidity. Hurricane Sandy indicates the probable future damage from extreme weather due to climate change. Rising sea levels increases destruction. Such events affects people for the rest of their lives.
Climate by Ty Buchanan
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Is Cloning of Extinct Animals Possible?
It seems researchers are close to cloning the woolly mammoth and perhaps a species of frog that gives birth to offspring with its mouth - swallowing fertile eggs then incubating them in its mouth. The frog died out in 1983. We have heard claims like this before. Personally, I believe we are a long way from being able to do this.
Repairing the damage that pushed them to extinction is not sufficient to bring them back. Finding specimens with suitable preserved material is near impossible. Even the few frozen southern gastric-brooding frogs were not initially preserved with the intention of "cloning". Special techniques were not applied.
It is thought improved systems like somatic cell nuclear transfer will enable creation of a living frog. Some presume this can be used on viable mammoth cells. The issue will be producing a healthy living creature. Previous research has resulted in incomplete clones: many do not live long. Most scientists are pessimistic about the possibility of "perfect" cloning.
Conservation
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Australian Government Accesses Data From Internet Companies
The NSA has said that it targeted non-US citizens in its information grab from large Internet companies. Australian and American government agencies have secured detailed data about Australian citizens. This fact came out in a new report.
In the first half of 2013 546 requests were made on Australians. Facebook provided details on 349 of these. The US demanded information on 20,000 users assumed to be Americans. Access was granted on nearly 16,000 US accounts.
Which government agencies made the demands was not announced by Facebook. Internet companies seem to have been given some sort of filtering power to decide what is released. This is strange considering such companies are not elected non-government agencies. Are they entitled to be above the law?
Requests to Twitter by Australia have risen 600 percent since the second half of 2012. All members of the international data oligopoly were approached. About two thirds of all requests were successful. There is a fine balance here. What happens if police want information that Internet companies will not grant? Are in-camera court cases about to become the norm, where information is deemed to be too sensitive for the public?
Conservation
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Lose Weight by Drinking Milk from Grass-Fed Cows?
Drink milk from grass-fed cows and have a healthier heart. This is because this milk has five times more unsaturated fat than that from grain-fed cows. You can even lose weight by drinking the milk. This is a call back to the past. Today most cows in the West are grain fed.
People having high levels of unsaturated fat had a third less risk of getting a heart attack. Studies have found that a diet consisting of unsaturated fats reduced cancer cells and tumours. Though meat from grain fed cows seems to have less fat, looks can be deceiving.
There is a problem with the proposition from this research. In Australia and New Zealand milking cows are fed mainly on pasture. However, people in these countries are almost as fat as US citizens and high blood pressure is just as bad. As a person ages milk consumption decreases. Australians do eat a lot of take away food. And these food establishments foister coke on you. When you order tea or coffee you can almost hear a sigh from those serving you. You see pained expressions on their faces as they search around for milk and cups hidden away under the counter. Some even opt out of the "chore" by asking older staff members to make it.
A campaign to make consumers buy grass-fed milk would be a waste of money. This type of milk would be more expensive anyway with separate processing and packaging requirements. It would be like the call for free-range eggs. Producers and sellers can be dishonest. Battery eggs are sold as free-range and buyers don't know the difference. The same thing would happen with "healthier" milk.
People having high levels of unsaturated fat had a third less risk of getting a heart attack. Studies have found that a diet consisting of unsaturated fats reduced cancer cells and tumours. Though meat from grain fed cows seems to have less fat, looks can be deceiving.
There is a problem with the proposition from this research. In Australia and New Zealand milking cows are fed mainly on pasture. However, people in these countries are almost as fat as US citizens and high blood pressure is just as bad. As a person ages milk consumption decreases. Australians do eat a lot of take away food. And these food establishments foister coke on you. When you order tea or coffee you can almost hear a sigh from those serving you. You see pained expressions on their faces as they search around for milk and cups hidden away under the counter. Some even opt out of the "chore" by asking older staff members to make it.
A campaign to make consumers buy grass-fed milk would be a waste of money. This type of milk would be more expensive anyway with separate processing and packaging requirements. It would be like the call for free-range eggs. Producers and sellers can be dishonest. Battery eggs are sold as free-range and buyers don't know the difference. The same thing would happen with "healthier" milk.
Conservation
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