Saturday, January 14th, 2012
CATHARINE PADDOCK PHD, - Medical News Today
Stephan: I hate these stories. Science has to be based on a certain kind of trust. No one has time to check every statement in every paper they read. There has to be trust. When that breaks down the system breaks down. Scientists who break this trust degrade themselves and science's core integrity. This is the story of a resveratrol researcher.
The good news is that the system self-corrects and, according to a report from the Associated Press, Dr Nir Barzilai, whose team conducts resveratrol research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, says Dr. Dipak Das, who has been found guilty of falsification is not a major player in the field, and the general conclusions concerning resveratrol remain sound.
An extensive misconduct investigation that took three years to complete and produced a 60,000-page report, concludes that a researcher who has come to prominence in recent years for his investigations into the beneficial properties of resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, ‘is guilty of 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data’.
In a statement published on the university’s news website on Wednesday, the University of Connecticut (UConn) Health Center said the investigation has led them to inform 11 scientific journals that had published studies conducted by Dr Dipak K. Das, a professor in the unversity’s Department of Surgery and director of its Cardiovascular Research Center.
The internal investigation, which covered seven years of work in Das’s lab, was triggered by an anonyomous allegation of ‘research irregularities’ in 2008.
Das has been in UConn’s employ since 1984, and was awarded tenure in 1993.
UConn Health Center said it worked closely with the US Office of Research Integrity (ORI) throughout its internal investigation. ORI have received the report, and they will now conduct an independent investigation.
Inquiries involving former members of the lab are still under way, and no findings have been released as yet.
All externally funded research in Das’s lab is now frozen, and […]
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Friday, January 13th, 2012
ARI LEVAUX, - The Atlantic
Stephan: Read this keeping in mind the stories I ran yesterday. Everything I can find out about the drive to promote GMO foods tells me this is evil because it is becoming increasingly clear the Central Dogma of DNA is inadequate. The simple model that information flows only from DNA to the cells it governs, as this report shows must be changed. If we do not allow science to guide us we and our world will never be the same.
As time goes on this will become clearer and clearer. Yet by that time GMO may have altered human DNA, and GMO plants may have altered the DNA of several of humankind's staple plants. This is an extraordinary risk so that a few can become rich.
There is no way in the United States to tell whether you are eating GMO foods so, once again, I urge you to take the time to research where you can obtain locally grown organic food and, if you possibly can, to start your own garden. You can grow a garden on a balcony or a roof, as well as your yard. This is the only way I know to assure your health and the health of your family
Thanks to Terrence Glassman.
Chinese researchers have found small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the blood and organs of humans who eat rice. The Nanjing University-based team showed that this genetic material will bind to proteins in human liver cells and influence the uptake of cholesterol from the blood.
The type of RNA in question is called microRNA, due to its small size. MicroRNAs have been studied extensively since their discovery ten years ago, and have been linked to human diseases including cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. The Chinese research provides the first example of ingested plant microRNA surviving digestion and influencing human cell function.
Should the research survive scientific scrutiny, it could prove a game changer in many fields. It would mean that we’re eating not just vitamins, protein, and fuel, but information as well.
The Chinese RNA study threatens to blast a major hole in Monsanto’s claim. It means that DNA can code for microRNA, which can, in fact, be hazardous.
That knowledge could deepen our understanding of cross-species communication, co-evolution, and predator-prey relationships. It could illuminate new mechanisms for some metabolic disorders and perhaps explain how some herbal medicines function. And it reveals a pathway by which genetically modified (GM) foods […]
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Friday, January 13th, 2012
Ruby Carat, - Cold Fusion Now
Stephan: Here is the latest on the Rossi technology. The skeptics rant on, but Rossi just keeps gathering momentum. I can tell you one thing. If they sell home units, as he says they will, I will be the first to buy one.
Not afraid to enter a specialty that kills careers, Mr. Rossi says, ‘To work in this field you have to be absolutely non-reactive towards controversy.
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Friday, January 13th, 2012
MARK HOSENBALL, - Reuters
Stephan: While government seeks to make itself secret from the citizens who fund it, the government's surveillance of its citizens -- you and me -- just grows like mold. Personally, I think this is getting pretty creepy, what are your views?
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document.
A ‘privacy compliance review’ issued by DHS last November says that since at least June 2010, its national operations center has been operating a ‘Social Networking/Media Capability’ which involves regular monitoring of ‘publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards.’
The purpose of the monitoring, says the government document, is to ‘collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture.’
The document adds, using more plain language, that such monitoring is designed to help DHS and its numerous agencies, which include the U.S. Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency, to manage government responses to such events as the 2010 earthquake and aftermath in Haiti and security and border control related to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.
A DHS official familiar with the monitoring program said that it was intended purely to enable command center officials to keep in touch with various Internet-era media so that they were aware of major, developing events to which the Department or its […]
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Friday, January 13th, 2012
BOB GRANT, - The Scientist
Stephan: Once again the impulse to make what the government does with your money secret rears it head, and this would certainly be the will of the Illness Profit System. This is a situation where citizen outcry can make a difference. Let you Repressentative and Senators know your mind on this.
US Representatives Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) introduced a bill into the House of Representatives in mid-December that would roll back the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy, which mandates that any published research that was funded by the federal science agency be submitted to the publically accessible digital archive PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication in journals. The bill, H.R. 3699, would also make it illegal for other federal agencies to adopt similar open-access policies.
The legislation, referred to as the Research Works Act, is being applauded by the Association of American Publishers, a book publishing industry trade organization that claims the NIH policy and others like it undercut the scientific publishing business, which seldom receives federal funds. ‘At a time when job retention, US exports, scholarly excellence, scientific integrity, and digital copyright protection are all priorities, the Research Works Act ensures the sustainability of this industry,
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