Fluoride, added to the water supply of many cities and counties and sold by WalMart in its nursery water, has a tendency to accumulate not only in developing teeth causing discoloration, and in bones making them brittle. The mineral is associated with cancer and it also accumulates in the pineal gland, an important hormone control center, where it wreaks considerable havoc. Paul Connett of Fluoride Action Network comments on Jennifer Luke’s research which was part of her PhD thesis and had just been published in Caries Research under the title: Fluoride Deposition in the Aged Human Pineal Gland.

Fluoride is a poison, yet we add it to our water and toothpaste and even call it a supplement, although it has no nutritional value. Its medicinal value - the prevention of tooth decay - is the official explanation for adding the toxic mineral to the water supply. But that value is far outweighed by its toxic side effects - amply documented by Paul Connett in his Statement of Concern.

Recent European Union legislation on food supplements lists fluoride as an essential element to offer for supplementation. This is somewhat ironic when contrasted with the European legislators’ feigned concern over the putative toxicity of vitamins and their efforts to limit dosages of these vital nutrients in order to “protect public health”. (more…)

Experiments that claim to ‘cure’ homosexual rams spark anger

Scientists are conducting experiments to change the sexuality of “gay” sheep in a programme that critics fear could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans.

The technique being developed by American researchers adjusts the hormonal balance in the brains of homosexual rams so that they are more inclined to mate with ewes.

It raises the prospect that pregnant women could one day be offered a treatment to reduce or eliminate the chance that their offspring will be homosexual. Experts say that, in theory, the “straightening” procedure on humans could be as simple as a hormone supplement for mothers-to-be, worn on the skin like an anti-smoking nicotine patch.

The research, at Oregon State University in the city of Corvallis and at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, has caused an outcry. Martina Navratilova, the lesbian tennis player who won Wimbledon nine times, and scientists and gay rights campaigners in Britain have called for the project to be abandoned. (more…)

A combination of global warming and the El Niño weather system is set to make 2007 the warmest year on record with far-reaching consequences for the planet, one of Britain’s leading climate experts has warned.

As the new year was ushered in with stormy conditions across the UK, the forecast for the next 12 months is of extreme global weather patterns which could bring drought to Indonesia and leave California under a deluge.

The warning, from Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, was one of four sobering predictions from senior scientists and forecasters that 2007 will be a crucial year for determining the response to global warming and its effect on humanity.

Professor Jones said the long-term trend of global warming - already blamed for bringing drought to the Horn of Africa and melting the Arctic ice shelf - is set to be exacerbated by the arrival of El Niño, the phenomenon caused by above-average sea temperatures in the Pacific.

Combined, they are set to bring extreme conditions across the globe and make 2007 warmer than 1998, the hottest year on record. It is likely temperatures will also exceed 2006, which was declared in December the hottest in Britain since 1659 and the sixth warmest in global records. (more…)

British scientists are on the verge of producing a revolutionary flu vaccine that works against all major types of the disease.

Described as the ‘holy grail’ of flu vaccines, it would protect against all strains of influenza A - the virus behind both bird flu and the nastiest outbreaks of winter flu.

Just a couple of injections could give long-lasting immunity - unlike the current vaccine which has to be given every year.

The brainchild of scientists at Cambridge biotech firm Acambis, working with Belgian researchers, the vaccine will be tested on humans for the first time in the next few months.

A similar universal flu vaccine, being developed by Swiss vaccine firm Cytos Biotechnology, could also be tested on people in 2007 - and the vaccines on the market in around five years. (more…)

An ice island the size of a small city is adrift in the Arctic after breaking free from one of Canada’s largest ice shelves, scientists said today.
The ice island is 37 metres (120ft) thick and measures 9 miles by 3 miles, according to the CanWest News Service. It broke clear from Ellesmere island, about 500 miles south of the North Pole, 16 months ago, triggering tremors so powerful they were picked up by earthquake monitors 155 miles away.

Scientists have only just released details about the island after piecing together the break-up from seismic monitors and satellite images.

Within days of breaking free from its fjord on Ellesmere, the floating ice island had drifted a few miles offshore. It travelled west for 31 miles until it froze into the sea ice in early winter.

The island was part of the Ayles ice shelf, one of six major ice shelves in Canada’s Arctic. Scientists believe the shelf’s break-up - the largest of its kind in the Canadian Artic in 30 years - is the result of global warming. (more…)

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will declare today that meat from cloned animals is safe to eat.

A safety assessment released on Thursday is expected to approve the entry of products from genetically identical cattle and other livestock into the human food chain.

The FDA indicated which way the wind was blowing back in 2005. Now an article published by its scientists in the journal Theriogenology dated January 1 forms the scientific basis of the approval. Larisa Rudenko and John C Matheson wrote: “[The FDA] concludes that meat and milk from clones and their progeny is as safe to eat as corresponding products derived from animals produced using contemporary agricultural practices”.

The pair said no special labelling of cloned meat would be needed, which has outraged some consumer groups. AP reports Joseph Mendelson, legal director of the Centre for Food Safety, said: “Consumers are going to be having a product that has potential safety issues and has a whole load of ethical issues tied to it, without any labelling.” (more…)

The hunt for alien life took on a new urgency yesterday with the launch of a spacecraft designed to search out Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars.

The Corot (pronounced “Coreau”) mission to scan the skies for new worlds blasted off on a Russian Soyuz 2-1B rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, said Igor Panarin, a Russian Federal Space Agency spokesman.

The space telescope will be the first instrument capable of finding small rocky planets beyond the Solar System. Situated in the right orbit so they are not too hot and not too cold, so called “Goldilocks planets” stand a good chance of having liquid water on their surface, perhaps even life. (more…)

In her historical mystery, The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey (a pen name of Elizabeth MacKintosh) has Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant, while confined to his hospital bed, solve the 15th century murder of the two York princes in the Tower of London. The princes were murdered by Henry VII, and the crime was blamed on Richard III in order to justify the upstart Tudor’s violent seizure of the English throne.

Tey makes the point that if a 20th century mystery writer can detect the truth about a 15th century murder, historians have no excuse to persist in writing in school textbooks that Richard murdered his nephews. British historians remained loyal to the Tudor propaganda long after the Tudors were no longer around to be feared or served.

At the beginning of the scientific era, men had the hope that the ability to discover truth would free mankind from superstition, dogma, and the service of power. The belief in truth was powerful. Truth would deliver justice and bring an end to status-based privileges and the falsehoods propagated by privilege. The faith in truth was short-lived. Today propaganda is everywhere in the ascendency. (more…)

WASHINGTON — Meat and milk from cloned animals may not appear in supermarkets for years despite being deemed by the government as safe to eat. But don’t be surprised if “clone-free” labels appear sooner.

Ben & Jerry’s, for one, wants consumers to know that its ice cream comes from regular cows and not clones. The Ben & Jerry’s label already says its farmers don’t use bovine growth hormone.

“We want to make sure people are confident with what’s in our pints,” company spokesman Rob Michalak said. “We haven’t yet landed on exactly how we want to express that publicly.”

For food that does come from clones, the Food and Drug Administration is unlikely to require labels, officials said.

The FDA gave preliminary approval Thursday to meat and milk from cloned animals or their offspring. Federal scientists found virtually no difference between food from clones and food from conventional livestock. (Watch the ethical concerns, the safety concerns and the ‘yuck’ factor Video)

The government believes “meat and milk from cattle, swine and goat clones is as safe to eat as the food we eat every day,” said Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine. Meat and milk from the offspring of clones is also safe, the agency concluded. (more…)

Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one.

Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 “looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago,” says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and colleague Robert Wilson presented this conclusion last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Right: An erupting solar prominence photographed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Their forecast is based on historical records of geomagnetic storms. (more…)

WASHINGTON — En route home from the Persian Gulf on a military supply ship in 2003, merchant seaman James Francis and his mates got an ultimatum: Take anthrax and smallpox vaccinations or lose your jobs.

Francis’ Seattle attorney, Russell Williams, described the shipboard scene the next day off the isle of Crete as: “Wham, bam. ‘Get in line. Take your shots.’”

Within days of taking the two shots, Francis’ feet began to tingle and burn. When he later took the second in a series of six anthrax shots, his health slid downhill. Since then, the 45-year-old messmate from Las Vegas has fought a rare nervous system disease known as Guillain-Barre Syndrome, along with chronic pain, pneumonia and a life-threatening blood clot. (more…)

Study Examined 1918-19 Outbreak

An influenza pandemic of the type that ravaged the globe in 1918 and 1919 would kill about 62 million people today, with 96 percent of the deaths occurring in developing countries.

That is the conclusion of a study published yesterday in the Lancet medical journal, which uses mortality records kept by governments during the time of “Spanish flu” to predict the effect of a similarly virulent outbreak in the contemporary world.

The analysis, the first of its kind, found a nearly 40-fold difference in death rates between central India, the place with the highest recorded mortality, and Denmark, the country with the lowest. The reason for the huge variation is not known, but it may reflect differences in nutrition and crowding.

If a modern Spanish flu killed all its victims in one year, it would more than double global mortality. About 59 million people now die each year. (more…)

“Red tape” is allegedly delaying money to a seriously ill Ground Zero volunteer, as Fox News’ Neil Cavuto reports.

Joe Piccuro, who now suffers from chronic bronchitis among other ailments, was among the many who arrived to help at the World Trade Center on September 11. His is not the first complaint about how the workers’ compensation system is not supporting Ground Zero workers who grew sick after 9/11. (more…)

The crunch of Martian soil underfoot and the feel of Martian wind against your cheek could one day be experienced by anyone with an internet connection as a result of a new collaboration between NASA and internet titan Google.

Google has already produced interactive maps of Mars and the Moon by combining their own software with NASA imagery (see NASA and Google bring Mars to PCs everywhere).

Now, NASA and Google have signed a Space Act Agreement that will see the two organisations cooperating to make more NASA data accessible to anyone on the internet. (more…)

Mount Saint Helens is emitting some steam and Fox News is reporting that Mt. Saint Helens in Washington state is ‘putting on a little show today.’ According to a report broadcast on FNC there has been low rates of seismic activity and low emissions of steam and volcanic activity and a minor production of ash was happening at 9:27am Pacific Time.

The vapor is seen rising out of the mountain from a live shot from the mountain and there was another slight earthquake over the weekend, according to the broadcast report. Is she ready to blow - likely not. But experts always warn that it is active. (more…)