Day: 03/28/2017

Smart kids more likely to smoke weed & drink alcohol as teens

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Smart kids more likely to smoke weed & drink alcohol as teens — study
Children who do well in school are more likely to smoke weed and drink alcohol as teens and adults, but less likely to smoke cigarettes, according to a new study.
published in the British Medical Journal.

ts aim was to determine the link between childhood academic ability and the use of cannabis, alcohol, and tobacco in English teenagers.

Academic ability was defined in the study by results of a nationwide test taken by 11-year-olds which assessed their prowess in English, maths, and science. The research found that higher achieving children are more likely to smoke weed in their late teens than their peers.

The researchers also found these patterns persist into adulthood, refuting the notion that experimentation with drugs or alcohol in teen years is a ‘phase’.

“Our finding that adolescents with high academic ability are less likely to smoke but more likely to drink alcohol regularly and use cannabis is broadly consistent with evidence base on adults,” read a statement from the researchers.

Smarter students being more open to experience is one of the possible explanations suggested by William and Hagger-Johnson for their findings, along with a more affluent lifestyle affording some students the opportunity to access drugs and alcohol.

source:https://www.rt.com

Chemtrails: The Consequences of Toxic Metals and Chemical Aerosols on Human Health.

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For decades, we have known that heavy metals and chemicals can cause grave physical harm. Going back to Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” we have known and been amply warned of the serious consequences of using or being exposed to these poisons in our daily activities. Thousands of these are well-documented carcinogens.

Building on Carson’s ground-breaking research, we also know that certain kinds of chemicals can and do disrupt human [and other animals’] entire immune system. Going back 30 years, researchers were investigating what became known as endocrine [hormone] disrupting chemicals and how they were affecting frogs [who sometimes had five legs or hermaphroditic characteristics], other aquatic animals, and mammals. These animals were the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. In another pioneering book, “Our Stolen Future,” authors Dr. Theo Colburn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers clearly demonstrate that 1 + 1 hormone-disrupting chemicals did not equal 2.

Rather, in a nightmare of mathematical proportions, these poisons acted synergistically; and 1+1 could equal up to 1,600 times the original dose. We are also exposed to more than 100,000 chemicals regularly. Most of them have never been tested for human safety. So, almost nothing has been done to reduce human exposure to a myriad of hazardous chemicals. In fact, over the past decade, the Bush administration dismantled many environmental laws in existence for 30 years, to let corporations off the proverbial hook. [Just look at what’s unfolding in the Gulf with the BP oil spill.]

Although this information, on the dangers of hormone disruption, is now more widely available on Internet sites, it still is not well known by the average person who gets news mostly from mainstream media.(1) Most of these highly toxic chemicals are invisible; and, therefore, are easily off our collective radar. With the high stress level created by the deliberately orchestrated financial crisis –where millions have lost their jobs and homes– a degraded/collapsing environment or serious health problems are not priorities –especially, if very little is reported in mainstream news. This disaster scenario is part of the larger picture of what Naomi Klein writes about in her book “The Shock Doctrine.” We have so many major crises, one after another, that it is hard just to keep up with one’s daily routine –let alone have time to read and consider the toxicological health ramifications of massive amounts of thousands of heavy metals and chemicals that have poisoned our entire food chain and, thus, our own supposed “health.” We are at the very top of this wrecked food chain.

Now, however, there is another far more insidious layer of toxicity that is not being addressed at all in any mainstream, corporate-controlled news, and it is affecting our very survival. It is, however, being addressed more and more by independent researchers who have supporting evidence to back up their Internet reports.

For more than a decade, first the United States and then Canada’s citizens have been subjected to a 24/7/365 day aerosol assault over our heads made of a toxic brew of poisonous heavy metals, chemicals, and other dangerous ingredients. None of this was reported by any mainstream media. The US Department of Defense [DOD] and military have been systematically blanketing all our skies with what are known as Chemtrails (also known as Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering).(2) These differ vastly from the usual plane contrails that evaporate rather quickly in the sky.  Chemtrails do not dissipate. Rather, planes (fitted with special nozzles) release aerosols “lines” in the sky that do not evaporate. Multiple planes are deployed, flying parallel (or often “checkerboard” patterns) overhead; and soon the sky is blanketed with many grayish-white lines [miles and miles long, although this is changing]. At first, these lines are thin; but soon they expand and, in a short time, merge together. Our once-blue sky has vanished and has been replaced by a grayish-white toxic haze that blots out and greatly diminishes our usual sunshine.

Military and commercial planes are involved in more than 60 secret operations. Last year, when I flew across the country, I saw a United Airlines jet (flying below us at about 37,000 feet) spraying a black aerosol that went for miles and miles across the sky. This clandestine program now includes aerosol-spraying planes in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand [all NATO countries]. Hundreds (if not thousands) of people have called and written their public officials to get answers. Replies from US and Canadian officials are not forthcoming; or, if they do reply, queries are dismissed. This remains an ongoing, deliberate cover-up. No one is held accountable, while we continued to be poisoned daily. This is not the first time, however, that citizens are being used as experimental laboratory test subjects. The US government and its military have a very long and sordid history of using us, without informed consent, in this illegal manner. As Carole Pellatt notes:

The U.S. military has been spraying chemical and biological weapons in open air testing over civilian populations since the 1940’s. They are called “vulnerability tests”. This is not a controversial statement. The military has admitted to this practice on many occasions and there’s plenty of documentation from the government to corroborate it. There is also documentation of intentional, experimental releases of radiation on civilian populations. Unfortunately, this information tends to surface long after it could have saved lives, or eased the suffering of victims.(3)

Over the past decade, independent testing of Chemtrails around the country has shown a dangerous, extremely poisonous brew that includes: barium, nano aluminum-coated fiberglass [known as CHAFF], radioactive thorium, cadmium, chromium, nickel, desiccated blood, mold spores, yellow fungal mycotoxins, ethylene dibromide, and polymer fibers. Barium can be compared to the toxicity of arsenic.(4) Barium is known to adversely affect the heart. Aluminum has a history of damaging brain function. Independent researchers and labs continue to show off-the-scale levels of these poisons. A few “anonymous” officials have acknowledged this on-going aerosol spraying.(5)

Numerous tests have been done to verify that these poisons are off the scale in their toxicity. They are documented in our water, in our soil, and in our air. For more than 10 years, researcher Clifford Carnicom has been valiantly and systematically reporting on the various detrimental aspects of these aerosols –and what they are doing to our entire environment, as well as our blood.(6) Various “sky watch” groups also have been carefully documenting and diligently reporting about these daily assaults.(7)

With all these poisons surrounding our every breath, it is not surprising to see a dramatic increase in illnesses. There are numerous reports of the increase in cardiac deaths and upper respiratory illnesses (asthma, chronic bronchitis, lung cancer, and often multiple chronic illnesses). Chemtrails toxicity has already dramatically affected our deteriorating “collective health.” The significant increase in heart disease and various upper respiratory illnesses has been linked to a vast increase in “particulate matter” in our air. This can be seen by some revealing statistics:

1. Coronary heart disease is now the leading cause of death in the US. According to the CDC, in 2006, 631,636 died of heart disease. This means 1 out of every 5 Americans are affected.(8)

In Canada, every seven minutes someone dies of heart disease.(9)

2. Asthma and upper respiratory illnesses. Between 100-150 million people suffer from asthma worldwide. In the US, 16.4 million adults have asthma and 7 million children have it. Chronic bronchitis and emphysema: 9.8 million Americans were diagnosed with chronic bronchitis this past year; for emphysema the figure is 3.8 million.(10) Total: 37 million Americans afflicted.

In Canada, 2.4 million have been diagnosed with asthma.

3. Particulate matter in air pollution. Particulate matter [PM] consists of tiny particles 10 microns or less. [1 micron is about 1/70 the thickness of a single human hair.] These particles can lodge in the deepest part of your lungs; and over a period of time, they can damage lung function. This kind of pollution, that we breathe daily, can and does cause various upper respiratory illnesses, coronary heart disease, and premature aging and death. Particulate matter can also exacerbate any existing illness.(11) Unanswered questions: Does hazardous particulate matter act in synergistic ways in human bodies (as do endocrine disrupting chemicals)? How does PM affect millions who already have multiple chronic illnesses?

Brain Injury

Even with the increases in preventable illnesses, the issue that has not been linked or addressed –with what Clifford Carnicom rightly calls “aerosol crimes”– is the deterioration of cognitive function. Our immune system is already under siege daily; and this has resulted in millions (possibly billions) of people with not just one illness, but often multiple ones. The skin, the largest organ in our body, is a permeable membrane. This means that invisible toxins in our air, including Chemtrails and other highly dangerous chemicals, go right into our skin. Poisoned rainwater (or snow touching our skin) does the same thing. When the air we breathe is filled with a dangerous assortment of toxins, with each breath we take, these poisons assault our entire immune system. These poisons also affect our brain and, thus, our cognitive function.

Aluminum is a major component in these aerosols. Although it is our planet’s most abundant metal, our body has no biological need for it. Pesticide Action Network North America [PANNA] lists it as “toxic to humans, including carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, and acute toxicity.”(12) Yet, aluminum is commonly used [this is a very short list] in vaccines, deodorants and anti-perspirants, over-the-counter medications, soft drink and beer cans [aluminum leeches from the cans], baking powder, cake mixes, processed cheeses, and other food products and additives. Over years, aluminum accumulates in the brain, tissues, and to a lesser amount the bones. It causes brain degeneration, dysfunction and damage –due to the blockage and reduced blood flow and oxygen of brain arteries. The brain shrinks, as brain cells die. This causes dementia. Symptoms include: emotional outbursts, paranoia, forgetfulness and memory loss, speech incoherence, irritability, diminished alertness, changes in personality, and poor/bad judgment. All these are on the rise, as more than 4-million Americans are afflicted. Brain deterioration and dementia take decades to cause serious and visible harm. Eventually, however, dementia is fatal. “Alzheimer’s” is now being used incorrectly as a catch-all term for all kinds of dementia. Just a few days ago, the front page of the New York Times had a headline: “More with Dementia Wander from Home.”(13) People afflicted with, what the Times terms “Alzheimer’s” were interviewed. One person mentioned he “has a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.” This is patently wrong. Alzheimer’s dementia can only be accurately diagnosed after death when a post-mortem can be done. However, heavy metals poisoning can be diagnosed through lab testing; but this is rarely done for basic check-ups.

What is not addressed in this increase in dementia is the more than 10 years of breathing Chemtrails with nano aluminum-coated fiberglass. Billions of tons have been sprayed on us.

With all these sources of aluminum added to the air we breathe with each breath, the cumulative toxicity is very high. Even in daily events, it is obvious –to anyone who is paying attention– that many people are behaving oddly. While it may be considered “anecdotal” reporting, there are millions of people whose behavior is strange. There have been numerous times in just the past year when I have asked someone a question and received an answer that is totally unrelated. There have been more and more uncontrolled outbursts in public areas: someone “snaps” for no apparent reason. Violence levels are up. Look at all the shootings on school campuses. There are more unexplained auto accidents that never should have happened. In just one day a few weeks ago, I witnessed three traffic accidents that need not have happened. The news is full of these stories.

Add to this already highly toxic body burden is the US military’s use of aluminum in its aerosols. It is used because of its electrical conductivity, durability, and light weight. The US Air Force reported in 1997 that it released “2 million, 6-7 ounce bundles of CHAFF.” These are laid by military aircraft form 15-50 miles in length.(14) Another unanswered question: Why is the USAF not releasing up-to-date figures?

A 2002 report notes that: “over the last 25 years, the US Navy [has released from planes] several hundred thousand pounds of aluminized chaff during flight operations over a training area on the Chesapeake Bay.”(15) If the Navy used hundreds of thousands of pounds in just this small area of the US, what could be extrapolated for the release of possibly billions of tons of nano aluminum by all the military divisions throughout the US and Canada more recently than 2002? CHAFF is being stored that has lead in it. Has that been released, without our knowledge, and added to these aerosols? What enormous, yet invisible, harm has that created for all of us?

Dr. Hildegarde Staninger reported last year that “exposure to aerial emissions of nano composite materials resulted in cholinesterase inhibition.”(16) The human body has three kinds of cholinesterase: for the brain, for plasma (manufactured by the liver), and red blood cells. Some pesticides and nerve gases (such as VX, an organophosphate) inhibit cholinesterase. The chronic inhibition of this enzyme (that normally circulates in red blood cells), caused by the spraying of these Chemtrails aerosols [for weather modification, but also used for mosquito and other insect eradication], causes chronic poisoning. This exposure causes severe neurological disorders, including paralysis in humans.

In a ground-breaking 2003 online essay, Dr. Kaye Kilburn, asks: “Why is Chemical Brain Injury Ignored?”(17) His article lists 13 concealed factors that affect our willingness to believe that dangerous chemicals do affect the brain. They include: 1. “It’s all in your head” [meaning real symptoms are ignored by allopathic medicine].

2. Resistance to vulnerability [individuals, and society collectively, cannot believe the brain is at risk].

3. The acceptance of mind-altering prescription drugs [such as Paxil] that can and do affect the brain [millions are on anti-depressants –what long-term damage does that also do to cognitive thinking?].

4. Chemical brain injury is considered not to be “an imminent threat.”

5. Competition from other serious threats [causing indifference or denial];

6. Delay in acknowledging health risks.

7. Economic interests [delaying tactics by big corporations are well known –delay continues profits and ignores taking responsibility –We are all expendable for corporate profits].

8. The field of neurology has been slow to consider causes [how many independent researchers are left who do not have any ties to the pharmaceutical/chemical companies?].

In  all these valuable reasons for not addressing this human crisis, the one that Dr. Kilburn has not addressed directly is the chronic assault of breathing/absorbing these now billions of tons of hazardous aerosolized chemicals and heavy metals over more than a decade without our informed consent. When one does not look for or address primary causes, then other issues can be blamed. This, on top of a government’s silence or refusal to respond and the corporate media’s complicity, make for an extremely dangerous combination that puts us all at grave and daily risk. As brain function is diminished, and other things are blamed for it, any population is easier “to control.”

Dr. Kiburn’s research clearly shows that chemicals do affect and seriously harm the brain [and, thereby, cognitive function]. Chemicals –especially a daily onslaught of toxic chemicals over many years– can damage our ability to think clearly. Even if we find this hard to believe, the evidence is there. Dr. Kilburn has expanded this essay into the first book to research this: “Chemical Brain Injury” (published in 1998). Dr. Kilburn notes:

The brain’s preservation represents the only possibility of survival for mankind. To find in many parts of the country and in many individual patients that its function is eroded seriously by chemicals, chemicals that have been introduced into the environment basically in the last 50 years, is bad news indeed.(18)

It seems almost unbelievable that millions/billions of people could look up at the sky and not notice the dramatic changes that have occurred from what it was, for instance, in the mid-1990s. Then our sky was a gorgeous, deep blue. Clouds were a beautiful assortment of shapes. The sun was glorious. But people under 30, may not have a real sense of recollection about looking up every day and seeing this panoramic magnificence. Most of them are too busy texting or chatting on their cell phones. There are other issues to consider, as well: People are in their own comfort zones; and denial is a very powerful human emotion. In the hustle and bustle (now quite out of hand, for reflective time), how many people look up at the sky? It also takes huge courage, a very deep, internal willingness to examine politically motivated corporate controlled media spin, and search for the real answers. Humans like their regular routines. To re-examine what we think we know, based on new evidence, takes a willingness to think outside the proverbial box; to want to find out the truth –not the pervasive Orwellian doublespeak that pervades our society. If everything in our daily routine belies what is truly going on, it requires fortitude to explore the unknown –to question the litany.

Another courageous person is Dr. R. Michael Castle who continues to address the Chemtrails toxicity issue. He is a noted polymer chemist who has been interviewed frequently and has written articles about the extreme hazards of Chemtrails. Dr. Castle has also written a ground-breaking document, the Universal Atmospheric Preservation Act [UAPA]. This document has been in Congress since 2008; but is tied up in committee. The only way to have this vital piece of legislation passed is to have real congressional representatives actually representing us (instead of the corporate lobbyists). See:

http://anticcorruptionsociety.files.wordpress.com/22010/04/the-unified-atmospheric-preservation-act.pdf

Given these issues, since our collapsing society has so many different levels of deceit –the financial debacle, the lies and deceit of government and the Federal Reserve blaming people for the housing/mortgage nightmare, the emerging police state, the disasters that envelope our fragile environment– it becomes increasingly difficult just to maintain a daily routine and survive the economic depression and its daily fallout. Mainstream media does its supporting role and deceives us. Millions, like the proverbial lemmings, hasten to join the group demise. There are countless historical instances of this collective insanity. We Homo sapiens [sic, wise men?] have never learned the lessons of 5,000 years of history. This is because each new generation of corrupt political leaders (often tied historically to previous ones) never has the real interest of their constituents as a basic part of their political practice. Further, there is no Precautionary Principle in place.(19) It’s not the way the political game of deception works. Precaution is not part of an equation that is broken from the beginning. Humans are gullible and want to believe the Orwellian deceptions.

To add to this already heavy burden, to ask uninformed, although supposedly “well educated” [What does that actually mean, given that much of our higher education has omitted much of what Prof. Peter Dale Scott calls “deep political events” that never get into our history books?] people to reconsider what they think they know about what is really going on –this takes enormous internal strength. It requires profound courage. The basis of this “courage” actually means creating new synaptical pathways in the brain. Without them, we feel scared, nervous…because those new synapses have not yet been created. It takes repeated effort, and, thus, an emerging sense of ease, to create these new synapses.

If, however, millions of people are already on prescription pharmaceuticals to “calm them down” [long term, what is this doing to their ability to think clearly?] and, in addition, are breathing poisoned air rife with mind-distorting chemicals, then how clearly (if at all) is anyone able to think? How can anyone feel well and safe, if the very air we breathe is deliberately poisoned and is affecting our ability to think cogently? It is already evident that no one in any official capacity is willing to tell the truth. It is like Diogenes, the ancient Greek, searching for a truthful individual. No one seems to have the desire, or courage, or authority to stop this massive poisoning, because it is the secret plan of the elite insiders to deliberate destroy everything we once knew.

Our BASIC human rights, constitutional and international laws are mere paper. These rights and laws have all been torn asunder by those in charge. It has been done by stealth. We must organize peacefully. PEACEFULLY is the operative word. If these many-pronged aerosol attacks by military and commercial planes can spray these horrific toxins on us, year after year with impunity –against all laws– then it is absolutely imperative that we organize peacefully. As Peter Dale Scott notes in Jason Bermas’ new DVD “Invisible Empire”: we must use the Internet and our peaceful intellectual powers to come together and shut this nightmare down. It is possible to do this.

Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri is author of the highly acclaimed book, “The Uterine Crisis.”

Source:http://www.globalresearch.ca

 

After 130 years, we might have to completely redraw the dinosaur family tree.

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We’re in for a major shake-up.

 

Scientists are claiming that the classification of two major dinosaur groups has been wrong for over a century, and if they’re right, it would be like everyone realising that some types of “cats” are actually dogs.

The controversial paper has also suggested that the physical location of the first dinosaurs might be incorrect – pointing to a previously unimportant cat-sized fossil in Scotland as their evidence.

 “This is a textbook changer – if it continues to pan out,” palaeontologist Thomas Holtz from University of Maryland, who wasn’t involved in the research, told Nature.

“It’s only one analysis, but it’s a thorough one.”

Right now, the dinosaur evolutionary tree divides dinosaurs up into two groups:Ornithischia and Saurischia.

Species have been placed into one of these groups depending on their hip bone structure – if their hips were bird-like, they’re an ornithischian, if their hips werelizard-like, they’re a saurischian.

As Hannah Devlin explains over at The Guardian, the bird-like Ornithischia group includes relatives of Stegosaurus and Triceratops, whereas theropods such as Tyrannosaurus rex, sauropods such as Diplodocus, and a meat-eating group called the Herrerasauridae all fell within the lizard-hipped Saurischia group.

Now, researchers from the Natural History Museum in London say this might not be the case at all, based on their analysis of 457 anatomical features from 74 dinosaur species across both groups.

 The team’s hypothesis is that the theropod meat-eating beasts may have been wrongly classified – citing a number of similarities between the theropods and the Ornithischia group.

The analysis indicates that the theropods and the Ornithischias share 21 anatomical traits, such as a distinctive ridge on their jaw, and a particular bone fusion in their feet.

Dmitry Bogdanov, Torley, DurbedDmitry Bogdanov, Torley, Durbed

“Luckily, most of what we’ve pieced together about dinosaurs – how they fed, breathed, moved, reproduced, grew up, and socialised – will stand unchanged,” Lindsay Zanno from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, who was not involved in the study, told Ed Yong at The Atlantic.

“[But] these conclusions lead us to question the most basic structure of the entire dinosaur family tree, which we have used as the backbone of our research for over a century.”

“If confirmed by independent studies,” she adds, “the changes will shake dinosaur palaeontology to its core.”

But that’s not all.

Until this study, the research had placed the emergence of dinosaurs at around 237 million years ago on the Gondwana super-continent, in an area that would later become the Southern Hemisphere.

With this redrawing of the dinosaur family tree, a previously unimportant fossil from Scotland called Saltopus might now have a much more central role.

The researchers think this cat-sized specimen could be a common ancestor to alldinosaurs – putting their emergence 5 million years earlier than the currently accepted estimates.

“The northern continents certainly played a much bigger role in dinosaur evolution than we previously thought and dinosaurs may have originated in the UK,” Matthew Baron, the lead researcher on the paper, told Pallab Ghosh at the BBC.

But not everyone agrees.

“There’s nothing special about this [Saltopus] guy,” Max Langer, a palaeontologist from the University of São Paulo in Brazil, told Hannah Devlin atThe Guardian.

“Saltopus is the right place in terms of evolution, but you have much better fossils that would be better candidates for such a dinosaur precursor.”

The fossil comprises a pair of legs, some hip bones, and a vertebra – all of which are pretty badly squashed.

Even the researchers acknowledge it’s not in the best shape.

“It looks like a chicken carcass after a Sunday roast,” Baron explains to Devlin.

However, for such a controversial and historic paper, there have been quite a few influential backers.

In a Nature piece accompanying the paper, palaeontologist Kevin Padian from the University of California, Berkeley who was not involved in the research, calls the study an “original and provocative reassessment of dinosaur origins and relationships”.

“When we do these other analyses, we sometimes get very different results,” palaeobiologist Jakob Vinther from the University of Bristol, who was also not involved with the paper told The Guardian.

“I get the same result.”

If accepted into the literature, the revised evolutionary tree would also need the formal definition of dinosaurs to be rewritten – potentially kicking long-necked herbivores, such as Brontosaurus and Diplodocus, outside the dinosaur family tree.

“I didn’t want to make Dippy not a dinosaur. That would have created a lot of upset,” Baron told Ghosh.

Dippy of course being the iconic skeleton that was displayed at the Natural History Museum for 112 years.

“To be truthful, I didn’t want to be chased out of every conference I went to for the rest of my career.”

No matter the outcome of this research paper, what we are seeing is historic science in action.

It’s not every day scientists get to argue if 130 years of dinosaur knowledge is wrong.

source:http://www.sciencealert.com

Women, Menstruation And Impurity: Why Men Need To Give Up This Obsession

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Women, Menstruation And Impurity: Why Men Need To Give Up This Obsession

Whether women want to enter temples or preside over religious functions during menstruation is a matter only they can decide.

It is not for men to place these arbitrary restrictions, especially in the modern age when feminine hygiene products are so widely available.

For any man who obsesses about the “impurity” of menstruating women and why they must be restricted from entering sacred spaces of worship, here is a one-line quiz: Would you stop a man carrying a bottle of urine or stool samples from entering your sanctum sanctorum?

Most hands will probably go up, including possibly that of the Kerala Congress chief who came up with this idea two days ago. Many men will probably be aghast at the suggestion that “dirty stuff” like urine can enter temples or other places of worship.

But here’s the kicker. If you have answered yes to the question, you should be barred from temples. All living beings, including men and priests, have urine accumulating in their bladders almost all the time, and fecal matter is not something that turns up in the intestine just before you head for the morning potty. If the logic of keeping women out is that their bodies are accumulating or ejecting waste material through menstruation, men are not excluded from this logic. Maybe we need clinics to certify that only those whose bodies are clean from the inside should be allowed into temples.

The human body is a huge filtration and waste disposal system for both men and women. Our noses and ears accumulate external dirt to prevent them from entering areas where they can do damage. Our skin is generating sweat to cool the body, emitting sodium and other minerals in the process. Our hearts clean the blood before they circulate all over the body. The liver cleans blood coming from the digestive tract and generates bile. And, of course, women clean up their wombs once it is clear there is no pregnancy during any month.

And so on.

The body is constantly working on cleaning and purging waste material and impurities, and to presume that only one function involving one gender – menstruating women – equals impurity and lack of cleanliness displays huge ignorance.

Patriarchy has such a strong hold on men and women primarily because of two reasons: the physical handicap women face while bearing and nurturing infants; and the regressive idea that menstruation somehow makes women unclean, and therefore inferior, to men when performing godly duties.

India, which has avoided the patriarchal Abrahamic mindset of having only male gods, has, despite having female gods, chosen this route to subjugate and mentally debase and colonise women. If we presume that our goddesses will have the same physiology of women born to humans, we are essentially abusing Saraswati, Durga, Laxmi and Parvati, among others.

The point that needs underscoring is this: whether women want to enter temples or preside over religious functions during menstruation is a matter only they can decide. It is not for men to place these arbitrary restrictions, especially in the modern age when feminine hygiene products are so widely available.

The gods and goddesses would not be amused to hear that one of their kind is somehow unclean. For a society that thought up elevating ideas like Aham Brahmasmi (I am brahman, the creator and me are the same), one wonders how laws on purity can be so different for men and women. We also have the concept of the Ardhanareeswar (the human being as being both male and female in parts). To hold one half of humankind as somehow inferior when we are both man and woman rolled into one body is nonsensical.

Source:/swarajyamag.com

Alien intelligence: the extraordinary minds of octopuses and other cephalopods.

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After a startling encounter with a cuttlefish, Australian philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith set out to explore the mysterious lives of cephalopods. He was left asking: why do such smart creatures live such a short time?

An Australian giant cuttlefish
An Australian giant cuttlefish: ‘It is no stretch to say they have personalities.’ 

Inches above the seafloor of Sydney’s Cabbage Tree Bay, with the proximity made possible by several millimetres of neoprene and a scuba diving tank, I’m just about eyeball to eyeball with this creature: an Australian giant cuttlefish.

Even allowing for the magnifying effects of the mask snug across my nose, it must be about 60cm (two feet) long, and the peculiarities that abound in the cephalopod family, that includes octopuses and squid, are the more striking writ so large.

Its body – shaped around an internal surfboard-like shell, tailing off into a fistful of tentacles – has the shifting colour of velvet in light, and its W-shaped pupils lend it a stern expression. I don’t think I’m imagining some recognition on its part. The question is, of what?

While snorkelling on a visit home to Sydney in about 2007, he came across a giant cuttlefish. The experience had a profound effect on him, establishing an unlikely framework for his own study of philosophy, first at Harvard and then the City University of New York.

The cuttlefish hadn’t been afraid – it had seemed as curious about him as he was about it. But to imagine cephalopods’ experience of the world as some iteration of our own may sell them short, given the many millions of years of separation between us – nearly twice as many as with humans and any other vertebrate (mammal, bird or fish).

Elle Hunt with an Australian giant cuttlefish at Cabbage Tree Bay in Manly, Sydney.
Elle Hunt with an Australian giant cuttlefish at Cabbage Tree Bay, Manly, Sydney. 

Cephalopods’ high-resolution camera eyes resemble our own, but we otherwise differ in every way. Octopuses in particular are peculiarly other. The majority of their 500m neurons are in their arms, which can not only touch but smell and taste – they quite literally have minds of their own.

That it was possible to observe some kind of subjective experience, a sense of self, in cephalopods fascinated Godfrey-Smith. How that might differ to humans’ is the subject of his book Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, published this month by HarperCollins.

In it Godfrey-Smith charts his path through philosophical problems as guided by cephalopods – in one case quite literally, when he recounts an octopus taking his collaborator by hand on a 10-minute tour to its den, “as if he were being led across the sea floor by a very small eight-legged child”.

Charming anecdotes like this abound in Godfrey-Smith’s book, particularly about captive octopuses frustrating scientists’ attempts at observation.

A 1959 paper detailed an attempt at the Naples Zoological Station to teach three octopuses to pull and release a lever in exchange for food. Albert and Bertram performed in a “reasonably consistent” manner, but one named Charles tried to drag a light suspended above the water into the tank; squirted water at anyone who approached; and prematurely ended the experiment when he broke the lever.

Most aquariums that have attempted to keep octopuses have tales to tell of their great escapes – even their overnight raids of neighbouring tanks for food. Godfrey-Smith writes of animals learning to turn off lights by directing jets of water at them, short-circuiting the power supply. Elsewhere octopuses have plugged their tanks’ outflow valves, causing them to overflow.

This apparent problem-solving ability has led cephalopods (particularly octopuses, because they’ve been studied more than squid or cuttlefish) to be recognised as intelligent. Half a billion neurons put octopuses close to the range of dogs and their brains are large relative to their size, both of which offer biologists a rough guide to brainpower.

The coconut octopus is one of the few cephalopods known to exhibit the behaviour of using a tool.
The coconut octopus is one of the few cephalopods known to exhibit the behaviour of using a tool. 

In captivity, they have learned to navigate simple mazes, solve puzzles and open screw-top jars, while wild animals have been observed stacking rocks to protect the entrances to their dens, and hiding themselves inside coconut shell halves.

But that’s also reflective of their dexterity: an animal with fewer than eight legs may accomplish less but not necessarily because it is more stupid. There’s no one metric by which to measure intelligence – some markers, such as tool use, were settled on simply because they were evident in humans.

“I think it’s a mistake to look for a single, definitive thing,” says Godfrey-Smith. “Octopuses are pretty good at sophisticated kinds of learning, but how good it’s hard to say, in part because they’re so hard to experiment on. You get a small amount of animals in the lab and some of them refuse to do anything you want them to do – they’re just too unruly.”

He sees that curiosity and opportunism – their “mischief and craft”, as a Roman natural historian put it in the third century AD – as characteristic of octopus intelligence.

Their great escapes from captivity, too, reflect an awareness of their special circumstances and their ability to adapt to them. A 2010 experiment confirmed anecdotal reports that cephalopods are able to recognise – and like or dislike – individual humans, even those that are dressed identically.

It is no stretch to say they have personalities. But the inconsistencies of their behaviour, combined with their apparent intelligence, presents an obvious trap of anthropomorphism. It’s “tempting”, admits Godfrey-Smith, to attribute their many enigmas to “some clever, human-like explanation”.

Octopus
A paradox: octopuses have big brains and short life spans. 

Opinions of octopus intelligence consequently vary within the scientific community. A fundamental precept of animal psychology, coined by the 19th-century British psychologist C Lloyd Morgan, says no behaviour should be attributed to a sophisticated internal process if it can be explained by a simpler one.

That is indicative of a general preference for simplicity of hypotheses in science, says Godfrey-Smith, that as a philosopher he is not convinced by. But scientific research across the board has become more outcome-driven as a result of the cycle of funding and publishing, and he is in the privileged position of being able to ask open-ended questions.

“That’s a great luxury, to be able to roam around year after year, putting pieces together very slowly.”

That process, set in motion by his chance encounter with a cuttlefish a decade ago, is ongoing. Now back based in Australia, lecturing at the University of Sydney, Godfrey-Smith says his study of cephalopods is increasingly influencing his professional life (and his personal one: Arrival, the 2016 film about first contact with “cephalopod-esque” aliens, was a “good, inventive film”, he says, though the invaders “were a bit more like jellyfish”).

When philosophers ponder the mind-body problem, none poses quite such a challenge as that of the octopus’s, and the study of cephalopods gives some clues to questions about the origins of our own consciousness.

Our last common ancestor existed 600m years ago and was thought to resemble a flattened worm, perhaps only millimetres long. Yet somewhere along the line, cephalopods developed high-resolution, camera eyes – as did we, entirely independently.

“A camera eye, with a lens that focuses an image on a retina – we’ve got it, they’ve got it, and that’s it,” says Godfrey-Smith. That it was “arrived at twice” in such vastly different animals gives pause for thought about the process of evolution, as does their inexplicably short life spans: most species of cephalopods live only about one to two years.

a cuttlefish
The study of cephalopods gives some clues to questions about the origins of our own consciousness. 

“When I learned that, I was just amazed – it was such a surprise,” says Godfrey-Smith, somewhat sadly. “I’d just gotten to know the animals. I thought, ‘I’ll be visiting these guys for ages.’ Then I thought, ‘No, I won’t, they’ll be dead in a few months.’”

It’s perhaps the biggest paradox presented by an animal that has no shortage of contradictions: “A really big brain and a really short life.” From an evolutionary perspective, Godfrey-Smith explains, it does not give a good return on investment.

“It’s a bit like spending a vast amount of money to do a PhD, and then you’ve got two years to make use of it … the accounting is really weird.”

One possibility is that an octopus’s brain needs to be powerful just to preside over such an unwieldy form, in the same way that a computer would need a state-of-the-art processor to perform a large volume of complex tasks.

“I mean, the body is so hard to control, with eight arms and every possible inch an elbow.” But that explanation doesn’t account for the flair, even playfulness with which they apply it.

“They behave smartly, they do all these novel, inventive things – that line of reasoning doesn’t resolve things, by any stretch,” says Godfrey-Smith. “There’s still a somewhat mysterious element there.”

Source:https://www.theguardian.com

Side effects of birth control pill.

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The birth control pill was introduced in the 1960’s, and it quickly became one of the most popular birth control methods in the world. However, this new pill contained really high levels of estrogen and progestin which had many dangerous side effects.

The amount of hormones in the pill was 10 times than needed for contraception. The consequences were horrible: thousands died or became disabled by blood clots. 40 years later the pill might have a different formula, but the possible dangerous side effects remain.

10 things that every woman should know about the pill:

-The pill is a carcinogen

According to the World Health Organization, birth control pills are in the  same class of toxins as tobacco and asbestos. Moreover, studies suggest that these pills increase the risk of breast cancer for up to 30%.

-The pill leads to plaque buildup in arteries.

Synthetic estrogen’s cardiovascular risks have been known since 1940 including its ability to cause blood clots, varicose veins, miscarriage, and PMS. According to research done at the University of Ghent, Belgium, every 10 years of oral contraceptive use was correlated with a 20 to 30 percent increase in plaque buildup. Studies show that newer birth control pills contain drospirenone, a synthetic version of the female hormone, progesterone, which leads to a higher risk of blood clots than previous forms.

Studies show that newer birth control pills contain drospirenone, a synthetic version of the female hormone, progesterone, which leads to a higher risk of blood clots than previous forms.

-The pill lowers your libido.

The pill inhibits the production of certain hormones called androgens, such as testosterone, which directly interfere with sex drive and pleasure.

-Clitoral shrinkage

According to doctors, synthetic hormones in birth control pills can shrink the clitoris by 20% causing her to refer to the pill as “genital mutilation”.

 -The pill and weight gain

The estrogen dominance leads to insulin resistance, weight gain, depression, and psychosis.

-The pill is linked to weaker bones (osteoporosis)

According to Canadian researchers, women who are taking birth control pills have a lower bone mineral density than women who have never used oral contraceptives.

-The pill and diabetes

According to a new study, women who used the pill before getting pregnant are 40% more likely to suffer from gestational diabetes than women who do not use any method of birth control.

-The pill damages our gut flora

Birth control pills destroy the good bacteria in your digestive system which opens up a pathway to yeast infections and other illness. Usually, when women decide to get off the pill and have babies, they develop a severe microbial imbalance in the intestines.

It can cause arthritis, autoimmune illness, vitamin B deficiency, chronic fatigue syndrome, cystic acne, eczema, food allergies and food sensitivities, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, psoriasis and more. Besides, when you give birth naturally, your baby inherits your gut flora. If your gut flora is imbalanced, your baby consequently inherits it.

-The pill and nutritional depletion

Oral contraceptives can result in the following nutritional deficiencies: zinc, magnesium, selenium, vitamin C, vitamins B2, B3, B6, and B12, along with folate. These deficiencies can occur because the liver uses more of these nutrients to metabolize estrogen and detoxify it out of the body.

-Other risks

Other risks include migraines, gallbladder disease, high blood pressure, mood changes, depression, nausea, irregular bleeding or spotting, benign liver tumors, breast tenderness, and more.

Think twice before taking the pill. You need to take into account future long-term health implications that can ruin your health and potentially the health of your baby.

Source:http://www.medicalonline1.com

 Release of Arctic Methane “May Be Apocalyptic,” Study Warns

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On a lake, plumes of gas, most likely methane from the breakdown of carbon in sediments below the lake, keep the water from freezing in spots, outside Fairbanks, Alaska, October 21, 2011. As the Arctic warms, the threat of abrupt methane releases is rising, too. (Photo: Josh Haner / The New York Times)

On a lake, plumes of gas, most likely methane from the breakdown of carbon in sediments below the lake, keep the water from freezing in spots, outside Fairbanks, Alaska, October 21, 2011. As the Arctic warms, the threat of abrupt methane releases is rising, too. 

A scientific study published in the prestigious journal Palaeoworld in December issued a dire — and possibly prophetic — warning, though it garnered little attention in the media.

“Global warming triggered by the massive release of carbon dioxide may be catastrophic,” reads the study’s abstract. “But the release of methane from hydrate may be apocalyptic.”

The study, titled “Methane Hydrate: Killer Cause of Earth’s Greatest Mass Extinction,” highlights the fact that the most significant variable in the Permian Mass Extinction event, which occurred 250 million years ago and annihilated 90 percent of all the species on the planet, was methane hydrate.

In the wake of that mass extinction event, less than 5 percent of the animal species in the seas lived, and less than one-third of the large land animal species made it. Nearly all the trees died.

Methane hydrate, according to the US Office of Fossil Energy, “is a cage-like lattice of ice inside of which are trapped molecules of methane, the chief constituent of natural gas.”

While there is not a scientific consensus around the cause of the Permian Mass Extinction, it is widely believed that massive volcanism along the Siberian Traps in Russia led to tremendous amounts of CO2 being added to the atmosphere. This then created enough warming to cause the sudden release of methane from the Arctic sea floor, which kicked off a runaway greenhouse effect that led to sea-level increase, de-oxygenation, major oceanic circulation shifts and increased acidification of the oceans, as well as worldwide aridity on land.

The scenario that humans have created by way of the industrial growth society is already mimicking these eventualities, which are certain to worsen.

“The end Permian holds an important lesson for humanity regarding the issue it faces today with greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, and climate change,” the abstract of the recent study concludes.

As the global CO2 concentration continues to climb each year, the threat of even more abrupt methane additions continues to escalate along with it.

The Methane Time Bomb

The methane hydrate situation has, for years now, been referred to as the Arctic Methane Time Bomb, and as been studied intensely.

A 2010 scientific analysis led by the UK’s Met Office, published in the journal Review of Geophysics, states clearly that the time scale for the release of methane in the Arctic would be “much shorter for hydrates below shallow waters, such as in the Arctic Ocean,” adding that “significant increases in methane emissions are likely, and catastrophic emissions cannot be ruled out.… The risk of rapid increase in [methane] emissions is real.”

A 2011 study of the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), conducted by more than 20 Arctic experts and published in the Proceedings of the Russian Academy of Sciences, concluded that the shelf was already a powerful supplier of methane to the atmosphere. The conclusion of this study stated that the methane concentration in the atmosphere was at levels capable of causing “a considerable and even catastrophic warming on the Earth.”

Scientists have been warning us for a number of years about the dire consequences of methane hydrates in the Arctic, and how the methane being released poses a potentially disastrous threat to the planet. There has even been a study showing that methane released in the Arctic could trigger “catastrophic climate change” that would cost the global economy $60 trillion.

Of course, that level of planetary heating would likely extinguish most life on the planet, so whatever the economic costs might be would be irrelevant.

“Highly Possible at Any Time”

The ESAS is the largest ice shelf in the world, encompassing more than 2 million square kilometers, or 8 percent of the world’s total area of continental shelf.

In 2015, Truthout spoke with Natalia Shakhova, a research associate professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks’ International Arctic Research Center, about the ESAS’s methane emissions.

“These emissions are prone to be non-gradual (massive, abrupt) for a variety of reasons,” she told Truthout. “The main reason is that the nature of major processes associated with methane releases from subsea permafrost is non-gradual.”

Shakhova warned that a 50-gigaton — that is, 50-billion-ton — “burp” of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the ESAS is “highly possible at any time.”

This, Shakhova said, means that methane releases from decaying frozen hydrates could result in emission rates that “could change in order of magnitude in a matter of minutes,” and that there would be nothing “smooth, gradual or controlled” about it. She described it as a “kind of a release [that] is like the unsealing of an over-pressurized pipeline.”

In other words, we could be looking at non-linear releases of methane in amounts that are difficult to fathom.

A study published in the prestigious journal Nature in July 2013 confirmed what Shakhova had been warning us about for years: A 50-gigaton “burp” of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the East Siberian sea is highly possible.

Such a “burp” would be the equivalent of at least 1,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide. (For perspective, humans have released approximately 1,475 gigatons in total carbon dioxide since the year 1850.)

The UK’s Met Office considers the 50-gigaton release “plausible,” and in a paper on the subject added, “That may cause ∼12-times increase of modern atmospheric methane burden, with consequent catastrophic greenhouse warming.”

Source:http://www.truth-out.org

Pioneering stem cell gene therapy cures infants with bubble baby disease.

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Evangelina Vaccaro (far right), who received Dr. Kohn’s treatment for bubble baby disease in 2012, with her family before her first day of school.
Evangelina Vaccaro (far right), who received Dr. Kohn’s treatment for bubble baby disease in 2012, with her family before her first day of school.

FINDINGS
UCLA researchers have developed a stem cell gene therapy cure for babies born with adenosine deaminase-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency, a rare and life-threatening condition that can be fatal within the first year of life if left untreated.

In a phase 2 clinical trial led by Dr. Donald Kohn of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA, all nine babies were cured. A 10th trial participant was a teenager at the time of treatment and showed no signs of immune system recovery. Kohn’s treatment method, a stem cell gene therapy that safely restores immune systems in babies with the immunodeficiency using the child’s own cells, has cured 30 out of 30 babies during the course of several clinical trials.

BACKGROUND
Adenosine deaminase-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency, also known as ADA-SCID or bubble baby disease, is caused by a genetic mutation that results in the lack of the adenosine deaminase enzyme, which is an important component of the immune system. Without the enzyme, immune cells are not able to fight infections. Children with the disease must remain isolated in clean and germ-free environments to avoid exposure to viruses and bacteria; even a minor cold could prove fatal.

Currently, there are two commonly used treatment options for children with ADA-SCID. They can be injected twice a week with the adenosine deaminase enzyme — a lifelong process that is very expensive and often does not return the immune system to optimal levels. Some children can receive a bone marrow transplant from a matched donor, such as a sibling, but bone marrow matches are rare and can result in the recipient’s body rejecting the transplanted cells.

METHOD
The researchers used a strategy that corrects the ADA-SCID mutation by genetically modifying each patient’s own blood-forming stem cells, which can create all blood cell types. In the trial, blood stem cells removed from each child’s bone marrow were corrected in the lab through insertion of the gene responsible for making the adenosine deaminase enzyme. Each child then received a transplant of their own corrected blood stem cells.

The clinical trial ran from 2009 to 2012 and treated 10 children with ADA-SCID and no available matched bone marrow donor. Three children were treated at the National Institutes of Health and seven were treated at UCLA. No children in the trial experienced complications from the treatment. Nine out of ten were babies and they all now have good immune system function and no longer need to be isolated. They are able to live normal lives, play outside, go to school, receive immunizations and, most importantly, heal from common sicknesses such as the cold or an ear infection. The teenager who was not cured continues to receive enzyme therapy.

The fact that the nine babies were cured and the teenager was not indicates that the gene therapy for ADA-SCID works best in the youngest patients, before their bodies lose the ability to restore the immune system

IMPACT
The next step is to seek approval from the Food and Drug Administration for the gene therapy in the hopes that all children with ADA-SCID will be able to benefit from the treatment. Kohn and colleagues have also adapted the stem cell gene therapy approach to treat sickle cell disease and X-linked chronic granulomatous disease, an immunodeficiency disorder commonly referred to as X-linked CGD. Clinical trials providing stem cell gene therapy treatments for both diseases are currently ongoing.

Source:https://stemcell.ucla.edu

Mobilizing Health Care.

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The Family Van.

Patients treated at mobile health clinics report a high level of engagement in their care and the motivation to pursue healthy behaviors, according to the results of a qualitative study led by Zoe Bouchelle, Harvard Medical School Class of 2017, and communications scholar Heather Carmack of James Madison University.

The findings of the analysis suggest mobile clinics are a powerful tool to engage patients in care and to encourage more active participation in their own treatment, the researchers said. The study, which involved in-depth interviews with 25 patients, ages 19 to 72 treated at Family Van mobile clinic, was published online Feb. 14 in Communication Quarterly.

Mobile health clinics bring free health care services to underserved communities whose residents may lack the means and transportation to visit a regular clinic or a hospital.

“Mobile health clinics are emerging as vital players in the process of rebalancing our health system towards those who have a harder time accessing care,” said study senior author Nancy Oriol, faculty associate dean for community engagement in medical education at HMS.

“Such clinics seek to shift the power imbalances and prioritize marginalized voices by listening to patients’ needs and involving them more actively in their own care,” Oriol said.

The Family Van provides a range of services, including blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol screenings, vision exams, HIV and STI testing, low-cost dental care and counseling, and referrals. It has served more than 100,000 people since its inception 25 years ago.

The following dominant themes emerged from participant interviews:

  • Promoting generosity and inclusion: Participants viewed the Family Van as a vehicle for social justice by helping those in need; providing a safe, welcoming space; and creating a sense of inclusion. Such a view, the researchers point out, underscores the power of mobile health clinics to provide an environment that fosters relationships with patients, which can be difficult to achieve in traditional clinical settings.
  • Activating an interest in health by sheer presence: Participants reported that the mere presence of the van and the convenience of being able to simply walk in and get tested stimulated their interest in their own health. Patients reported that they were stimulated to seek care due to the fact that services were provided for free, citing co-pays as a major deterrent to seeking care in a standard setting.
  • Fostering motivation for behavior change: Patients also reported feeling empowered to take an active role in their health as a result of health-related education provided by the mobile clinic staff. In addition to administering tests and screenings, the staff provides recommendations and counseling for long-term care and follow-up.

Additionally, many patients reported a desire to encourage family members and friends to be more proactive about their care.

Past research has shown that mobile health clinics can help improve blood pressure outcomes among return patients screened, potentially averting dangerous and costly complications. Chronically elevated blood pressure, or hypertension, is a leading cause of stroke, heart disease and kidney damage.

More than 2,000 mobile health clinics in the United States provide basic screening and health services, including chronic disease management, prenatal care and pediatric care. There are some 6.5 million visits a year to mobile clinics across the U.S. Researchers estimate that on average, mobile health clinics prevent 600 visits to emergency rooms each year.

For more information on the impact of mobile health clinics, visit: http://www.mobilehealthmap.org/impact-report.

Source:hms.harvard.edu

Age-reversing pill that Nasa wants to use will begin human trials within six months

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Scientists have made a discovery that could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing. 

Scientists have made a discovery that could lead to a revolutionary drug that actually reverses ageing.

The drug could help damaged DNA to miraculously repair and even protect Nasa astronauts on Mars by protecting them from solar radiation.

A team of researchers developed the drug after discovering a key signalling process in DNA repair and cell ageing, according to the Daily Mail.

During trials on mice, the team found that the drug directly repaired DNA damage caused by radiation exposure or old age.

“The cells of the old mice were indistinguishable from the young mice after just one week of treatment,” said lead author Professor David Sinclair.

Human trials of the pill will begin within six months.

“This is the closest we are to a safe and effective anti-ageing drug that’s perhaps only three to five years away from being on the market if the trials go well,” said Professor Sinclair.

The work has drawn the attention of Nasa, which is considering the challenge of keeping its astronauts healthy during a four-year mission to Mars.

Even on short missions, astronauts experience accelerated ageing from cosmic radiation, suffering from muscle weakness, memory loss and other symptoms when they return.

On a trip to Mars, the situation would be far worse: Five per cent of the astronauts’ cells would die and their chances of cancer would approach 100 per cent.

Professor Sinclair and his colleague Dr Lindsay Wu were winners in Nasa’s iTech competition in December last year.

“We came in with a solution for a biological problem and it won the competition out of 300 entries,” Dr Wu said.University of Otago’s Dunedin Study links lead with lower IQ

The effects of cosmic radiation are not limited to astronauts.We’re all exposed to it aboard aircraft, with a London-Singapore-Melbourne flight roughly equivalent in radiation to a chest x-ray.

In theory, the anti-ageing pill could mitigate any effects of DNA damage for frequent flyers.

The other group that could benefit from this work is survivors of childhood cancers.

Dr Wu says 96 per cent of childhood cancer survivors suffer a chronic illness by age 45, including cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancers unrelated to the original cancer.

“All of this adds up to the fact they have accelerated ageing, which is devastating,” he said.

“It would be great to do something about that, and we believe we can with this molecule.”

The experiments in mice, from a team at the University of New South Wales, suggest a treatment for these issues is possible through a new drug.

While our cells can naturally repair DNA damage – such as damage caused by the sun – this ability declines with age.

The scientists identified that the call signalling molecule NAD+, which is naturally present in every cell in the body, has a key role in protein interactions that control DNA repair.

Treating mice with an NAD+ ‘booster’ called NMN improved their cells’ ability to repair DNA damage caused by radiation exposure or ageing.

For the past four years, Professor Sinclair and Dr Wu have been working on making NMN into a drug substance with their companies MetroBiotech NSW and MetroBiotech International.

The human trials will begin this year at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston.

Source:http://nzherald.co.nz