Selenium
Deficiency Increases Severity of Flu Virus in Mice
ARS News Service, Agricultural Research Service, USDA
April 27, 2001
"If young mice are given a diet deficient in selenium and subsequently
exposed to a human influenza virus, they get a more severe case of flu
than animals fed adequate amounts of this essential trace element.
That's the finding of a collaborative study by researchers at the University
of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill; Nestle Research Center in Lausanne,
Switzerland; and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Beltsville,
Md. And it follows the pattern seen in earlier studies with a lesser known
virus. This indicates that a selenium deficiency can increase the virulence
of a variety of viruses.
The researchers reported today in the FASEB Journal on the web (http://www.fasebj.org) that the mice getting selenium-deficient diets developed significantly more lung pathology than the animals getting ample selenium. The deficient mice had significantly more inflammation in their lungs, and the inflammation lasted much longer.
Selenium is a critical part of a major antioxidant enzyme that humans and animals produce to protect delicate cellular components against damage from oxygen free radicals. Americans get ample selenium in their diets, according to ARS nutritionist Orville A. Levander. Good sources include Brazil nuts, whole grain products and meat. But deficiencies can occur in parts of China, New Zealand and other nations where agricultural soils lack this element.
Levander collaborated with study leader Melinda A. Beck, a viral immunologist at UNC's departments of Pediatrics and Nutrition, on this and the earlier studies. The researchers suspect that the influenza virus mutated to a more virulent form in the selenium-deficient animals because these animals lack antioxidant protection from the selenium-containing enzyme--glutathione peroxidase.
In 1995, the researchers reported that a normally harmless coxsackie
virus mutated into a heart-damaging pathogen in selenium-deficient mice,
but not in selenium- adequate mice. Beck and collaborators are now looking
for mutations in the influenza virus genome."
ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's primary scientific research
agency.
Good
Nutrition Could Help Prevent Bad Viruses
News Release, June 8th 2001, ARS News Service, Agricultural Research
Service, USDA
"Once again, a relatively benign virus has mutated into a nasty pathogen
in laboratory mice that were raised on a diet deficient in selenium, a
potent antioxidant. This time the mutations occurred in a common influenza
virus, a strain isolated in Bangkok in 1979.
And the mutations persisted in mice fed ample selenium, causing a much
more severe case of flu than the original strain. A report on the study,
by researchers with the University of North Carolina, the Nestle Research
Center in Switzerland and the Agricultural Research Service, will appear
online in The FASEB Journal Express at:
http://www.fasebj.org/express
The discovery, according to the researchers, demonstrates a unique mechanism by which viruses can mutate and points to the importance of antioxidant protection against viral diseases. The selenium level in the study's deficient diet was one-sixtieth that of the adequate diet.
Seven years ago, UNC virologist Melinda A. Beck and ARS nutritionist
Orville Levander reported that a lesser known virus--a strain of coxsackie--mutated
from "Jekyll" to "Hyde" in selenium-deficient mice. This April, the two
researchers and their colleagues reported that the Bangkok strain of influenza
virus also caused a much more severe case of flu in
selenium-deficient mice than in animals given adequate selenium in
their feed. In the new report, they explain why.
Twenty-nine bases in a normally stable section of the viral genome had mutated in the selenium-deficient mice. By contrast, there were no mutations in the same area of the viral genome from selenium-adequate mice. It shows that the host's nutrition can have considerable influence on the virulence of viral pathogens and that the virulence persists in well-nourished animals and, presumably, people.
The findings have global implications, according to Levander, who is
at the Beltsville (Md.) Human Nutrition Research Center. While Americans
generally get the recommended dietary levels of selenium, there are pockets
of selenium deficiency around the world that might be generating harmful
mutations in a number of viruses. And viruses know no boundaries."
ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research
agency.
Bicycle driven by a
fuel cell
"ZAPWORLD.com expects to have a fuel cell powered electric bicycle
on the market by 2002, repositioning itself from an electric scooter company
to an overall provider of EV products."
After the second world war, bicycles powered by small petrol motors
were not uncommon n Europe. They were noisy, and not very efficient. Fuel
cells may allow a combination of human pedal power on the flat, and electric
motor assistance on the hills - quiet and efficient.
http://www.zapworld.com/news/newdirection.html
Chemicals 'stunt
sexual development'
Scientists found that boys from the suburbs had smaller testicles and
girls smaller breasts than their rural peers.
But they also found high levels of two particular chemical pollutants,
dioins and PCBs, in the children's bodies, both of which are thought to
retard sexual development."-BBC NEWS ONLINE Thursday, 24 May, 2001
Full text:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1349000/1349245.stm
Brain
sense of self closes itself down - profoundly important finding on the
biology of valued 'religious' states
posted 2001.May.11
"In a quiet laboratory, Andrew Newberg takes photographs of what believers
call the presence of God.
The young neurologist invites Buddhists and Franciscan nuns to meditate
and pray in a secluded room. Then, at the peak of their devotions, he injects
a tracer that travels to the brain and reveals its activity at the
moment of transcendence.
A pattern has emerged from Professor Newberg's experiments.
There is a small region near the back of the brain that constantly
calculates a person's spatial orientation, the sense of where one's body
ends and the world begins. During intense prayer or meditation, and for
unknown reasons, this region becomes a quiet oasis of inactivity. "It creates
a blurring of the self-other relationship," said Professor Newberg, an
assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose work appears
in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. "If they go far enough, they have
a complete dissolving of the self, a sense of union, a sense of infinite
spacelessness.""
Full story-
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0105/10/world/world8.html
Evolution
and childraising - civilisation may have altered our ability to empathise
posted 2001.May.9
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, a scientist writing in the 'Natural History' magazine
suggests that, over our evolutionary history, children were more or less
co-operatively brought up by mothers very well supported by extended family.
She compares this with isolated, unvalued and poorly supported modern day
mothers, and asks what long term evolutionary consequences this may have
as humans continue to slowly genetically evolve. Required
reading.
http://www.amnh.org/naturalhistory/0501/0501_feature.html
See also: http://dcs.unl.edu/acpp/thompson/hrdy/chat.html
Engaging
with out Society - Critical thinking posted
2001.May.4
"Telling the Truth About Damned Lies and Statistics
By JOEL BEST
The dissertation prospectus began by quoting a statistic -- a "grabber"
meant to capture the reader's attention. The graduate student who wrote
this prospectus undoubtedly wanted to seem scholarly to the professors
who would read it; they would be supervising the proposed research. And
what could be more scholarly than a nice, authoritative statistic, quoted
from a professional journal in the student's field?
So the prospectus began with this (carefully footnoted) quotation: "Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled." I had been invited to serve on the student's dissertation committee. When I read the quotation, I assumed the student had made an error in copying it. I went to the library and looked up the article the student had cited. There, in the journal's 1995 volume, was exactly the same sentence: "Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled."
This quotation is my nomination for a dubious distinction: I think it
may be the worst -- that is, the most inaccurate -- social statistic ever."
Full story:
http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i34/34b00701.htm
Dark
pigmentation in skin may relate to immunity from tropical diseases
'Exclusive' from New Scientist magazine:
"Black skin could be better than white skin at protecting against disease,
according to an Australian researcher. This enhanced immunity could explain
why dark skin evolved in humans and animals living in tropical climes ....In
laboratory studies, 'melanosomes' from human skin can inhibit microoganisms,
says Mackintosh. "Melanin is a sticky molecule. The bacteria and fungi
get all tangled up, and it stops them from proliferating." Also, a protein
called attractin is known to regulate both melanisation and immunity in
humans, suggesting a link between the two."
Full text:
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999666
Everyday
Irrationality : How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically
Fail to Think Rationally
by Robyn M. Dawes
Hardcover - 192 pages (March 2001) Westview Pr (Trd); ISBN: 081336552X
AMAZON - US
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/081336552X/darwinanddarwini/
AMAZON - UK
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/081336552X/humannaturecom/
Synopsis
"This volume reveals how numerous everyday judgments are based on what
the author calls everyday irrationality - misjudgments characterized by
story-based thinking, rather than comparative thinking. Robyn Dawes defines
irrationality as adhering to beliefs that are inherently self-contradictory,
not just incorrect, self-defeating, or the basis of poor decisions. Such
beliefs are unfortunately common. This book demonstrates how such irrationality
results from ignoring obvious comparisons, while instead falling into associational
and story-based thinking. Strong emotion - or even insanity - is one reason
for
making automatic associations without comparison, but as the author
demonstrates, a lot of everyday judgment, unsupported professional claims,
and even social policy is based on the same kind of everyday irrationality.
Such beliefs are unfortunately common. Witness two examples: the belief
that child sexual abuse can be diagnosed by observing symptoms typically
resulting from such abuse, rather than symptoms that differentiate between
abused and non-abused children; and the belief that a physical or personal
disaster can be understood by studying it alone in-depth rather than by
comparing the situation in which it occurred to similar situations where
nothing bad happened. This book first demonstrates how such irrationality
results from ignoring obvious comparisons. Such neglect is traced to associational
and story-based thinking, while true rational judgment requires comparative
thinking."
Evolution
of almost monogamy
From New Scientist magazine- "WOMEN only stay with men for security,
and men only stay with women for sex. It's a cynical view of human relationships,
but researchers now say it is the driving force behind the evolution of
monogamy--and women started it. By offering sex all the time, females in
monogamous species disguise whether they are fertile and trick males into
sticking around..."
Full text:
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999667
Anger,
Depression Linked to Heart Disease in Women
By Will Boggs, MD
"NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who harbor feelings of anger or
depression are more likely to have heart disease risk factors such as high
cholesterol and an unhealthy weight, a new study shows. Researchers say
the findings add more support
to the idea that physical and psychological factors conspire to raise
an individual's heart disease risk."
Full text:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010424/hl/heart_women_1.html
Osteoporosis
on the increase in the West
Osteoporosis New Zealand Inc, in a recent press release, says 56% of
women and 29% of men over 60 will suffer a fracture caused by osteoporosis.
Around the world more than 200 million people have the disease, but if
sufferers are found and treated early, the numbers of future fractures
in those people could be halved. A good calcium intake, exercise,
exposure to sunlight, limiting alcohol use, not smoking, eating fibre,
adequate fat, and animal protein (which increase calcium absorbtion), are
the positive measures to prevent osteoporosis.
Sleep
in early life may play crucial role in brain development
"University of California, San Francisco researchers are reporting
direct evidence that sleep in early life may play a crucial role in brain
development.
Their study, the cover story in the April 26 issue of Neuron, indicates that sleep dramatically enhances changes in brain connections during a critical period of visual development in cats, says the lead author of the study, Marcos G. Frank, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of senior author Michael P. Stryker, PhD.
The capacity for "change," or growth and strengthening, of connections
between nerve cells is the basis of development in the brain. The elaboration
and refinement of neural circuitry continues to a lesser extent in the
adult brain. The process of growth, known as plasticity, is believed to
underlie the brain's capacity to control behavior, including learning and
memory. Plasticity occurs when neurons are stimulated by events, or information,
from the environment."
News release. Full story-
http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/ucsf-sie042001.html
Researchers
Discover Human Gene that May Produce Sweet Taste Receptor
"April 23, 2001— Two research groups led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute
(HHMI) investigators have independently identified a human gene that
encodes a likely receptor for sweet compounds. The researchers say finding
the gene, which is expressed by the tongue’s taste cells, opens an important
research pathway that may help answer fundamental questions such as how
the brain perceives sweet taste and why molecules with dramatically different
chemical structures can taste sweet.
Discovery of the candidate sweet taste receptor adds to a repertoire
of recently discovered receptors thought to be involved in the perception
of bitter and umami tastes."
News release. Full story-
http://www.hhmi.org/news/sweet.html
Archives
2000
TO ALL OUR READERS-IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER-We
do our best to sort fact from fiction, substantial truth from distortion,
half truth and outright lies and 'disinformation'. But, in the flood of
information that threatens to sink us all, we struggle to verify and authenticate
information. Some of our emails, faxes and letters go unanswered. So anything
you read here is true only so far as it has already been reported on the
Internet and in newspapers, magazines and books published, and interviews
on public record. So take everything here with a grain of salt, be critical,
understand that what we report may not be the whole story, or our sources
may be misleading us. We do our professional best in the time available,
but the information in this newsletter should be looked at critically,
an open mind on any issue kept, and assertions understood to be only
fairly reliable in the context of the inevitable distortion, biase, and
'loss' in modern reporting systems. So, enjoy the debate, please participate
(publicly or anonomously), but realise what we say here includes opinions,
debate, arguement, partiality, contentiousness, possibly occaissional deliberate
deception (not deliberate on our part, we despise manipulation), and statements
that new knowledge will one day expose as incorrect. We do a relentlessly
honest job, we are not open to 'persuasion' by money, threat, or 'spin',
we owe no favors, and we do our best. You can't reasonably ask more than
that. Even so, we struggle with the information deluge, so keep a critical
mind, think for yourself, seek sources beyond just this one on any issue.