If you live in the US and drink Mountain Dew and some other citrus-flavored sodas and sports drinks, then you are also getting a dose of a synthetic chemical called brominated vegetable oil (BVO), which was originally patented by chemical companies as a flame retardant.

Case in point- I loved drinking Mt. Dew but this is scary

10 American Foods That Are Banned in Other Countries

The researchers found that 57 percent of childhood ADHD patients had at least one psychiatric condition as adults - most commonly alcohol or substance abuse, anxiety and depression - compared to 35 percent of the people in a comparison group who did not have ADHD while growing up.

Childhood ADHD may lead to troubles later on

Scientists from Georgetown University Medical Center have found that blocking the pathway that leads stressed people to gain weight is the key to manipulating fat — at least in laboratory animals.

The findings, explain why people who are chronically stressed often develop "metabolic syndrome," a condition which causes individuals to gain more weight than they should based on the calories they consume.

Sixty million Americans were estimated to be affected by metabolic syndrome in 2000, according to a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2004.

This pathway, according to researchers, involves two players − a neurotransmitter (neuropeptide Y, or NPY) and the receptor (neuropeptide Y2 receptor, or Y2R), which activate in two types of cells in the fat tissue: endothelial cells lining blood vessels and fat cells themselves.

The researchers found that both NPY and Y2R are activated during stress, leading to apple-shape obesity and metabolic syndrome.

With this understanding, researchers were able to add fat selectively to the mice by injecting NPY into a specific area. They were also able to block weight gain and metabolic syndrome by injecting the mice with Y2R blocker into the abdominal fat.

"We couldn’t believe such fat remodeling was possible, but the numerous different experiments conducted over four years demonstrated that it is, at least in mice; recent pilot data also suggest that a similar mechanism exist in monkeys as well," said the study’s senior author, Zofia Zukowska, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at Georgetown University Medical Center.

For the study, stressed animals fed a normal diet did not gain weight, but stressed mice given a high-fat diet did. The researchers found these mice put on more weight than expected given the calories they were consuming.

"They gained twice as much fat as would be expected, and it was all in their belly area," said Lydia Kuo "Stressed versus non-stressed animals ate the same amount of food, but the stressed animals processed it differently", she said, adding, "the novel finding here is that NPY works on fat tissue, not in the brain."

"We are hopeful that these findings might eventually lead to control of metabolic syndrome, which is a huge health issue for many Americans," Zukowska said. "Decreasing fat in the abdomen of the mice we studied reduced the fat in their liver and skeletal muscles, and also helped to control insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, blood pressure and inflammation. Blocking Y2R might work the same way in humans, but much study will be needed to prove that."

It will be interesting to see what comes out of this

Have scientist found a way to block weight gain in stressed people?

Your not alone!!!!!

This page is your resource for highly uncommon phobias -- many of which you won't even find in the most comprehensive of books about Phobias. ALL, however, are 100% legitimate (as far as I know).

Send me descriptions of unusual phobias you currently have or may have experienced in the past. Feel free to suggest a name for it if it's 'unlisted'. This page thrives off your various neuroses!

So my roommate and I were doing some research and typed "things that come in clusters" in to our search engine and got this page full of submissions of people who have a fear of things in clusters. This is intriguing to me....

Scare of something strange or weird?

Scientists have transformed mouse skin cells into embryonic stem cells and proved their potency by using the new cells to produce baby mice.

The experiments are seen as a major advance for regenerative medicine, which aims to custom-build tissues and cells to repair ailing and ageing bodies.

Scientists caution there are serious safety issues that must be resolved before the techniques could ever be used on people, but say the advance points to a new way of making embryonic stem cells for patients from their own cells.

There is no need to destroy embryos, and the procedure might allow researchers to sidestep many of the ethical objections now dogging stem-cell research.

Until now, the only way to obtain embryonic stem cells has been to take them from an embryo. Producing cells that are a genetic match for a patient would entail making a clone of that person and harvesting the cells when the cloned embryo is days old, which raises thorny ethical issues and is illegal in several countries, including Canada.

The new work promises cells free of such contentious issues.

"You could take a skin cell, or a blood cell, and reprogram it with these four genes to make embryonic stem cells," Mr. Rudnicki said. The cells could then be turned into any type of cells required for therapeutic use, be they neurons to treat Alzheimer's or insulin producers for diabetics.

He cautions that significant hurdles still need to be overcome.

Embryonic stem cells made from mouse skin

So I am teaching kindergarten summer school and have run in to an "issue" with one of my little girls. It is frequent and somewhat disruptive. The parent was no help...so I was doing some research to figure out how to deal with this issue. Little did I know....

Physiologic signs of sexual arousal occur in all children from very early infancy onward. This arousal can happen randomly, in response to physical stimulation, or during the dream phase of sleep. There is evidence that even very young infants find the physical sensation of sexual arousal emotionally pleasurable, and most children will learn how to create this feeling in themselves by the preschool years. Indeed, by the age of 5 or 6 repeated, systematic, intentional masturbation is almost universal! There is some debate over HOW children learn to masturbate. Some think it is initially an accidental or random phenomenon - as the young child explores their own body they by chance discover that touching certain areas feels better than touching others, so they are motivated to touch those places again. Others feel this discovery is more likely related to some discomfort in the genital area which draws the child's attention - such as a diaper rash. It really doesn't matter how it gets started however - once begun, the behavior perpetuates itself.

There is nothing inherently harmful to the child about masturbation itself. It neither causes nor is a sign of any physical or emotional problems whatsoever. The best evidence for this comes from cross-cultural studies which have looked at masturbation and other aspects of sexual development in societies where both adult sexual activity and masturbation are more accepted and "public" than in our own. In these places children are routinely witness to normal adult sexual behaviors, and they in turn they do indeed masturbate more, earlier, and incorporate sexual themes into much of their play among each other as well. It turns out that, if anything, these cultures have lower rates of sexual dysfunction, of deviant sexual behaviors, and family disruption than we do here in western cultures. There are, however, three issues related to masturbation that parents should be aware of and think about: The first is how their own reaction to the discovery of a child's masturbation may affect the child. The second is how masturbation fits into their larger job of teaching children socially appropriate behavior. The third is the need for sensitivity towards what the meaning of the masturbation is to the child, and to what that in turn might signify regarding the normalcy of the child's other sexual experiences and ideas.

In summary, masturbation is a normal and harmless behavior in childhood even at a very young age. It is important that as a parent you not react too strongly to it, and that you avoid disciplining, repressing, or making your child feel guilty about it. On the other hand, you do have a responsibility to teach your child to limit this behavior to an appropriate time and place. Occasionally (but not often) masturbation can be a sign or symptom that a child is under undue stress or has been sexually abused. Should such a situation ever arise, your child needs you to focus on and address the root problem, not the symptom of masturbation, in order to really help them.

Young Children and Masturbation

What was meant to be a mission to save the life of a man in desperate need of a lung transplant ended instead on Monday in the deaths of four members of a medical team and two pilots of a plane that crashed while racing to fly the organs from Milwaukee to Michigan.

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday that they thought mechanical difficulties, not a light rain or wind, caused the plane, an eight-seat Cessna jet, to slam into Lake Michigan at about 190 miles an hour on Monday afternoon, just minutes after taking off from General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee.

Besides the two pilots, the accident killed two transplant surgeons and two perfusionists — specialists in transplanting organs — from the University of Michigan Medical Center.

Hospital officials vowed that their transplant program would not be interrupted, despite the loss to their transplant team. The surgeons were among 15 transplant surgeons at the University of Michigan. The perfusionists were among three full-time perfusionists.

The crash highlighted the inherent dangers for air ambulance crews, under pressure from transplant programs to move quickly when an organ becomes available. Both the safety board and the Federal Aviation Administration began scrutinizing medical flights several years ago after an increase in accidents.

“For the flight crews who are doing this routinely, they have a very high death rate,” Dr. Baker said. “It’s a very high-risk occupation.”

I did not realize this was this was a common occurrence. This is really sad.

Crash Kills Transplant Team

To simplify a complicated subject,
there are two basic attitudes towards deaf people.
One is cultural, the other is medical.

THE CULTURAL VIEW
In the cultural view, deaf people are seen as whole, non-defective persons, as members of a socio-linguistic minority culture. They have a full-fledged, sophisticated language (American Sign Language in this country) that can be used in everyday life. Deaf people enjoy having their own sign-based schools, churches, theatrical events, and celebrations.

THE MEDICAL VIEW
In the medical view (also known as the "pathological" view), deaf people have a disability that needs to be remedied. If they have defective, damaged, or incomplete auditory equipment, they can use prostheses (hearing aids and cochlear implants) to correct or lessen this disability. Since hearing people use speech and listening to communicate with each other, deaf people should strive to improve their speech and listening skills to fit comfortably into this community. "Separatism" is discouraged. Sign language is looked on with disfavor or indifference, since it isn’t a "hearing" means of communication. Speech is "normal," signing is not.

This is an interesting article about the history of how society viewed and dealt with hard of hearing people.

Opposing Approaches

] BME: What's your background with RFID technology?

] AG: I have no RFID background at this point, though I
] do have an extensive tinkering and gadgetry background. I
] like to mod things, and I guess it was only natural that
] it extended to my own body.

] I became interested in RFID and other alternate means of
] identification a while back. I constantly lose my keys
] and my wallet-yeah, I'm one of those guys. So
] I was sitting around thinking about keys and credit
] cards, and the obvious truth that these chunks of metal
] and pieces of plastic were really representing me and
] basically identifying me to whatever mechanisms and
] systems they worked with, be it my front door deadbolt or
] my bank account. I basically just wanted to get rid of my
] keys and wallet.

One Small Step For Hand

] As Japan produces fewer children and more retirees,
] toymakers are designing new dolls for the lonely elderly --
] companions which can sleep next to them and offer caring words
] they may never hear otherwise.

] The Yumel doll, which looks like a baby boy and has a
] vocabulary of 1,200 phrases, is billed as a "healing
] partner" for the elderly and goes on the market Thursday
] at a price of 8,500 yen (80 dollars).

] The 37-centimeter (15-inch) Yumel is equipped with six sensors and
] an IC chip which keep track of the owner's sleeping time.

] "I feel so good, g-o-o-d n-i-g-h-t," the doll says before
] falling asleep if the owner pats it on the chest gently.

] Or Yumel may ask, "Aren't you pushing yourself too hard?"
] when it judges the owner has been going to bed too
] irregularly or not spending enough time playing with it.

] Some customers are so much in love with the doll that
] they are troubled by casual questions it asks.

] "I thought that you need to enjoy the night together if
] you really hope to live with a doll."

Does anyone else find this statement deeply disturbing?

I find it interesting that there is such a big market for this. Lets get analytical about it and ask...What does that say about society? It just doesn't seem like a logical solution. Plus it would really creep me out to have a doll tell me when to go to sleep. I guess overall it just doesn't make sense to me.

Unusual new companion for elderly