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Study Suggests That Being Too Clean Can Make People Sick

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Young people who are overexposed to antibacterial soaps containing triclosan may suffer more allergies, and exposure to higher levels of Bisphenol A among adults may negatively influence the immune system, a new University of Michigan School of Public Health study suggests.

Triclosan is a chemical compound widely used in products such as antibacterial soaps, toothpaste, pens, diaper bags and medical devices. Bisphenol A (BPA) is found in many plastics and, for example, as a protective lining in food cans. Both of these chemicals are in a class of environmental toxicants called endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), which are believed to negatively impact human health by mimicking or affecting hormones. (more…)

Black Friday Boasts $648 Million in U.S. Online Holiday Spending, Up 9 Percent vs. Year Ago

Culture, Technology

*Thanksgiving Day Surges 28 Percent to $407 Million as Consumers Increasingly Use Day for Online Shopping*

RESTON, VA, November 28, 2010 – comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, today reported U.S. retail e-commerce spending for the first 26 days of the November – December 2010 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $11.64 billion has been spent online, marking a 13-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Black Friday (November 26) saw $648 million in online sales, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2010 and representing a 9-percent increase versus Black Friday 2009. Thanksgiving Day (November 26), traditionally a lighter day for online holiday spending, achieved a strong 28-percent increase to $407 million. (more…)

Will This Be The End of Hamburger Disease?

Health

E. coli bacteria. Image credit: University of Montreal

Hamburger disease, a debilitating form of food poisoning, may be a thing of the past. New findings from an international research collaboration conducted by the French National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA), involving the Université de Montréal are the first to show how the contaminating E.coli bacterium is able to survive in the competitive environment of a cow’s intestine by scavenging specific food sources. Published in this month’s Environmental Microbiology, and featured in Nature Reviews Microbiology, this study may lead to non-medicinal methods for eradicating this invasive bug. (more…)

Spanish Woman Claims She Owns the Sun

Media, Politics

The Sun. Image credit: NASA

Angeles Duran, 49-year-old Spanish lady has claimed to be the owner of Sun. Woman from Spain’s soggy region of Galicia said that she registered the star at a local notary public as being her property after learning about the American man, who registered moon and most planets in our solar system as his property.

Here is an international agreement, which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she added.

“There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have done it, it simply occurred to me first,” she told the online edition of Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo. (more…)

Mammals Grew 1,000 Times Larger After the Demise of the Dinosaurs

Science

NSF enabled the assembly of an international, interdisciplinary team that was the first to quantitatively document body size patterns over the past 100 million years

Researchers have demonstrated that the extinction of dinosaurs some 65 million years ago paved the way for mammals to get bigger, about a thousand times larger than they had been when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The study, released in the journal Science, is the first to quantitatively document the patterns of body size of mammals after the existence of dinosaurs. (more…)

How Pathogens Hijack Host Plants

Science

Palo Alto, CA — Infestation by bacteria and other pathogens result in global crop losses of over $500 billion annually. A research team led by the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Plant Biology developed a novel trick for identifying how pathogens hijack plant nutrients to take over the organism. They discovered a novel family of pores that transport sugar out of the plant. Bacteria and fungi hijack the pores to access the plant sugar for food. The first goal of any pathogen is to access the host’s food supply to allow them to reproduce in large numbers. This is the first time scientists have a direct handle on controlling the food supply to pathogens and thus a new means to prevent a wide range of crop diseases and losses. (more…)

Passive Smoking Kills 600,000 Every Year

Health

More than 600,000 people, including 165,000 children, die every year from passive smoking, a report from World Health Organisation experts says today. The estimates from the first analysis of the true global toll are based on the best available data across 192 countries and the known effects of exposure.

The biggest impact on children is in the developing world. “Two-thirds of these deaths occur in Africa and south Asia,” the authors write in the medical journal The Lancet. “Children’s exposure to second-hand smoke most likely happens at home, according to The Guardian. (more…)

Russia to Restore Naval Presence in All Oceans

Politics, Weapons

Russian guided missile cruiser SLAVA. Source: Wikipedia

Russia may open new naval bases in other countries, President Dmitry Medvedev stated November 25 at a meeting with Russia’s top brass.

“Unfortunately, the reality is that a number of our previous opportunities have disappeared,” Medvedev said. Medvedev said that he now had “certain ideas” about how these could be replaced. “But for obvious reasons, I will not say them out loud,” he added.

First and foremost, it goes about support points for Russian vessels on the territory of foreign countries. It is necessary to build such objects to support Russia’s military presence in strategically important parts of the globe. (more…)