SEED: Discovery Could Lead Memory-Enhancing Pill Out Of Realm Of Science Fiction

You're over the hill and — along with everything else — your memory is slipping. Your doctor gives you a pill and, suddenly, you can remember your high school locker combination.

Science fiction? Maybe not. New research out of the U.S. holds out the hope of a superhuman assist for failing memories — and a badly-needed new therapy for Alzheimer's patients.

The study by researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston — led by neuroscientist and former McGill University postdoctoral fellow Mauro Costa-Mattioli with contributions from a couple of Canadians — found suppressing a molecule called PKR in the brains of mice improved the rodents' memory function and learning abilities.

PKR is an immune molecule previously known to act as a signal to the brain of viral infections, Costa-Mattioli said.

"We recognize that PKR plays a dual role, one in regulating simple everyday processes like the way neurons talk to each other (for) memory, but also has a stress response," said John Bell, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute who also contributed to the study.

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SEED: It Turns Out That Smoking Marijuana May Actually Make You A Safer Driver

An amazing study authored by professors D. Mark Anderson (University of Montana) and Daniel Rees (University of Colorado) shows that traffic deaths have been reduced in states where medical marijuana is legalized.

According to their findings, the use of medical marijuana has caused traffic related fatalities to fall by nearly nine percent in states that have legalized medical marijuana (via The Truth About Cars).

The study notes that this is equal to the effect raising the drinking age to 21 had on reducing traffic fatalities.

One key factor is the reduction in alcohol consumption. The study finds that there is a direct correlation between the use of marijuana and a reduction in beer sales, especially in the younger folks aged 20-29.

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SEED: Medical Journal Article: 14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout

Impact Seen As Roughly Comparable to Radiation-Related Deaths After Chernobyl; Infants Are Hardest Hit, With Continuing Research Showing Even Higher Possible Death Count.

An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.

The IJHS article will be published Tuesday and will be available online as of 11 a.m. EST at http://www.radiation.org . Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S. The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water): Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200); Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92).

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SEED: Scientific Community Abuzz Regarding Potential Cancer Breakthrough

US researchers said Monday they have discovered how to keep tumor cells alive in a lab, generating buzz in the scientific community about a potential breakthrough that could transform cancer treatment.

Until now, scientists have been unable to make cancer cells thrive for very long, or in a condition that resembles the way they act in the body. Doctors diagnose and recommend treatment largely based on biopsied tissue that is frozen or set in wax.

The advance has sparked new hope that someday doctors may be able to test a host of cancer-killing drugs on a person’s own tumor cells in the lab, before returning to the patient with a therapy that is a proven to be a good match.

“This would really be the ultimate in personalized medicine,” said lead author Richard Schlegel, chairman of the department of pathology at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“The therapies would be exactly from their tissues. We would get normal tissue and tumor tissue from a particular patient and specifically match up their therapies,” he told AFP.

“We are really excited about the possibilities of testing we can do with this.”

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Soylent Brown? McFeces? Scientist Converts 'Human Secretion' and 'Raw Sewage' Into Meat for Human Consumption

I ran across this video today and it completely disgusted me, almost thought it was a joke. It wasn't.

It's common knowledge that population growth along with human-driven environmental stress factors, rising costs of raw materials, labor, transportation and food, and the massive quantity food production (and inherent waste of food) will one day result in global food shortages.

Skyrocketing food prices are hitting pocketbooks worldwide. The world’s poorest countries which have the highest population bases are most at-risk as core food supplies become scarce. Worldwide grain supplies are dropping precipitously. Exporting nations are now themselves running out of grain.

The argument to be made is that food is not as abundant or cost-effective as it once was and, accordingly taking into account all of the given factors, the future of food availability is ambiguous to say the very least. Sure, many solutions have been and are currently being floated by scientists, the government, and media, but unless real, tangible action is taken sooner than later, we may have a real global problem one day.

Having said that, this scientist thinks he has a solution - feces burgers to be exact.

We live on a planet capable of feeding all of its inhabitants, but because of humanity's greed and over consumption we face a future that might include, literally, eating @!$%# (pardon my language but why beat around the bush?).

Watch this video and think about it the next time you order a burger.

SEED: One-shot radiation found effective with breast cancer

A single dose of radiation during breast cancer surgery is as effective as three to six weeks of daily post-operative radiation for many women with early stage breast cancer, according to the first results from an ongoing study of more than 2,000 women.

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