Roberto A. Ferdman, Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: If you read SR regularly you have been following with me the rise of Avian flu, its correlation with industrial animal husbandry practices, and the tens of millions of birds that have been put down.
It is not a big sexy story, so it hasn't gotten much coverage but, as I have predicted, it is going to have very real-world pocketbook implications. And here is the evidence that this prediction is coming true.
In recent days, an ominous sign has appeared throughout Texas. “Eggs [are] not for commercial sale,” read warnings, printed on traditional 8 1/2-by-11-inch pieces of white paper and posted at H-E-B grocery stores across Texas. “The purchase of eggs is limited to 3 cartons of eggs per customer.”
H-E-B, which operates some 350 supermarkets, is one of the largest chains not only in the state, but in the whole country. And it has begun, as the casual but foreboding notices warn, to ration its eggs.
“The United States is facing a temporary disruption in the supply of eggs due to the Avian Flu,” a statement released on Thursday said. “H-E-B is committed to ensuring Texas families and households have access to eggs. The signs placed on our shelves last week are to deter commercial users from buying eggs in bulk.”
The news, as the grocer suggests, comes on the heels of what has been a devastating several months for egg farmers in the United States. Avian flu, which has proven lethal in other parts of the world, has spread throughout the United States like wildfire. Since […]
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Jeff Minerd , Contributing Writer - MedPageToday
Stephan: The evidence for the benefits of even modest exercise just keep piling up. Here is the latest. Please take it to heart -- literally.
If sedentary office workers could get off their posteriors for at least 2 hours a day, it could reduce their risk for heart disease, diabetes, and all-cause mortality, according to a panel of public health experts convened by the U.K. Department of Health.
Ideally, office workers should stand or move about for at least 4 hours during their workday, but the initial 2-hour goal is a step in the right direction, the committee said in a consensus statement published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine
Even more ideally, individuals should be exercising moderately for 150 minutes per week, but so few people are meeting this goal that the panel, headed by John Buckley, PhD, MSc, of the University of Chester, instead offered the more modest goal of simply getting people up out of their seats for a few hours.
“The evidence is clearly emerging that a first ‘behavioral’ step could be to simply get people standing and moving more frequently as part of their working day,” the panel wrote. “Moreover, in the workplace, this may potentially be […]
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IANS, - The Economic Times (India)
Stephan: You would think that since this reports is on American research about a disease which afflicts a growing number of Americans that it would be featured in American corporate media. You would be wrong. I saw this in the professional literature but found a general account in an Indian publication. That is a commentary in its own right. This is potentially a huge deal.
Researchers found that prolonged exposure to a toxin produced by Staphylococcus aureus bacteria can cause Type-2 diabetes.
NEW YORK — In an important research that could lead to the development of vaccine to prevent one of the most prevalent diseases of our time – Type-2 diabetes, US researchers have found that toxins produced by a bacterium may cause the disease. The researchers found that prolonged exposure to a toxin produced by Staphylococcus aureus (staph) bacteria causes rabbits to develop the hallmark symptoms of Type-2 diabetes, including insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, and systemic inflammation.
“We basically reproduced Type-2 diabetes in rabbits simply through chronic exposure to the staph superantigen,” said lead researcher Patrick Schlievert, professor at University of Iowa in the US.The findings suggest that therapies aimed at eliminating staph bacteria or neutralising the superantigens – toxins produced by all strains of staph bacteria – might have potential for preventing or treating Type 2 diabetes.
“I think we have a way […]
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Stephan: This is how science is supposed to work, it is a constantly self-correcting process in which things that once seem sure, suddenly are shown not to be correct. Here is an example of what I mean.
Credit: www.nba.com
Most sports fans and athletes believe in hot streaks. A basketball player who has hit several shots in a row, the thinking goes, has a greater chance of hitting the next one, due to a “hot hand.” Think of Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, who recently hit 77 straight three-pointers in practice.
Yet for a long time, scientists were skeptical. In 1985, a hugely influential study by a trio of psychologists argued that the hot hand was a myth. Among the NBA and college players they studied, hitting one shot made no difference in their odds of hitting the next shot. Like coin tosses, players were subject to the laws of probability, with the same baseline percentage chance of hitting every shot. Ever since that study, psychologists have held up fans’ belief in the hot hand as an example of human irrationality: our tendency to see patterns in randomness.
Now, however, it’s starting to look like the hot hand might be real after all.
Psychologists thought it was just our tendency to […]
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Stephan: Here is an interesting assessment by a major publication concerning solar. When you start seeing stories like this in magazines like Time -- even though it is a shadow of its former self -- you know there has been a shift in consciousness in American society.
This July 2014 photo provided by Samuel Avery shows a 2014 Chevy Volt plug in Hart County, Ky. Avery, who is a professional solar installer, built both the garage and panel installation. A growing number of electric-vehicle owners are powering their cars with solar energy from panels on their homes.
Credit: AP Photo/Samuel Avery
You don’t need to live in Florida to benefit.
If you’ve been noticing more solar panels lately, you’re onto something. While only one in 100 houses has them, says David Feldman, senior financial analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, that’s 46 times as many as a decade ago. Some of that fast growth is due to a federal tax credit that is worth 30% of installation costs (and which is set […]
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In recent days, an ominous sign has appeared throughout Texas. “Eggs [are] not for commercial sale,” read warnings, printed on traditional 8 1/2-by-11-inch pieces of white paper and posted at H-E-B grocery stores across Texas. “The purchase of eggs is limited to 3 cartons of eggs per customer.”
