A gene that contributes to obesity has been identified for the first time, promising to explain why some people easily put on weight while others with similar lifestyles stay slim. People who inherit one version of the gene rather than another are 70 per cent more likely to be obese, British scientists have discovered. One in six people has the most vulnerable genetic make-up and weighs an average 3kg more than those with the lowest risk. They also have 15 per cent more body fat. The findings provide the first robust link between a common gene and obesity, and could eventually lead to new ways of tackling one of the most significant causes of ill health in the developed world. One in four British adults is classified as obese, and half of men and a third of women are overweight. Obesity is a main cause of heart disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes. An adviser to the Government’s health spending watchdog said recently that the condition was a bigger national danger than smoking, alcohol or poverty. Related Links * Comment: ‘It’s not just genes if your are overweight’ […]
NEW YORK — The charisma king of the 2008 presidential field. The world’s best golfer. The captain of the New York Yankees. Besides superstardom, Barack Obama, Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter have another common bond: Each is the child of an interracial marriage. For most of U.S. history, in most communities, such unions were taboo. It was only 40 years ago-on June 12, 1967-that the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down a Virginia statute barring whites from marrying nonwhites. The decision also overturned similar bans in 15 other states. Since that landmark Loving v. Virginia ruling, the number of interracial marriages has soared; for example, black-white marriages increased from 65,000 in 1970 to 422,000 in 2005, according to Census Bureau figures. Factoring in all racial combinations, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld calculates that more than 7 percent of America’s 59 million married couples in 2005 were interracial, compared to less than 2 percent in 1970. Coupled with a steady flow of immigrants from all parts of the world, the surge of interracial marriages and multiracial children is producing a 21st century America more diverse than ever, with the potential to become less stratified by race. ‘The […]
WASHINGTON — Five years after the Bush administration began a crackdown on voter fraud, the Justice Department has turned up virtually no evidence of any organized effort to skew federal elections, according to court records and interviews. Although Republican activists have repeatedly said fraud is so widespread that it has corrupted the political process and, possibly, cost the party election victories, about 120 people have been charged and 86 convicted as of last year. Most of those charged have been Democrats, voting records show. Many of those charged by the Justice Department appear to have mistakenly filled out registration forms or misunderstood eligibility rules, a review of court records and interviews with prosecutors and defense lawyers show. In Miami, an assistant United States attorney said many cases there involved what were apparently mistakes by immigrants, not fraud. In Wisconsin, where prosecutors have lost almost twice as many cases as they won, charges were brought against voters who filled out more than one registration form and felons seemingly unaware that they were barred from voting. One ex-convict so unfamiliar with the rules that he provided his prison-issued identification card, stamped ‘Offender,’ when he registered just […]
A few weeks ago, residents of Catalina Island off the coast of southern California were invited to a screening of Al Gore’s global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The mayor of Avalon, Catalina’s one and only town, didn’t have high expectations; the island, 20 miles out from the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, is known for its conservative politics and its population of affluent weekend yachting types who don’t believe in crimping their lifestyles for anything as nebulous as the future of the planet. The event, though, was a sell-out – attracting about 400 people, or almost 12 per cent of Avalon’s population – and the crowd stayed at the end for a lively question and answer session. Anyone who has seen Gore’s film can guess why it had such a powerful impact. If global warming causes the oceans to rise, Catalina will be the first place on the US West Coast to feel the effect; mostly probably, it will split into two islands at the point where its two mountain ranges meet. The Pacific would quickly swallow up Avalon’s pretty semi-circular waterfront, with its pedestrian walkways, cafés, ice-cream parlours and surf and diving equipment […]
Diabetics using stem-cell therapy have been able to stop taking insulin injections for the first time, after their bodies started to produce the hormone naturally again. In a breakthrough trial, 15 young patients with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes were given drugs to suppress their immune systems followed by transfusions of stem cells drawn from their own blood. The results show that insulin-dependent diabetics can be freed from reliance on needles by an injection of their own stem cells. The therapy could signal a revolution in the treatment of the condition, which affects more than 300,000 Britons. People with type 1 diabetes have to give themselves regular injections to control blood-sugar levels, as their ability to create the hormone naturally is destroyed by an immune disorder. All but two of the volunteers in the trial, details of which are published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), do not need daily insulin injections up to three years after stopping their treatment regimes. The findings were released to reporters yesterday as the future of US stem-cell research was being debated in Washington. Stem cells are immature, unprogrammed cells that have the ability […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
