News The Morning News
posted by January 30 at 8:53 AM
on57 Delegates: McCain wins the Florida GOP primary.
Dropping Out: Giuliani and Edwards. Guiliani backs McCain, Edwards has yet to endorse.
The Big Slowdown: The U.S. economy grew at a meager .06% last quarter. Meanwhile, the Fed is expected to cut interest rates yet again today.
When Urban Legends Become Fact: Some 500 people in India are missing kidneys thanks to a group of sick doctors.
Still Listening: Congress extended the expanded intelligence surveillance laws yesterday after the White House threatened a veto.
The Torture Party: Attorney General Michael Mukasey refused to discuss waterboarding before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Pink Slips: After a dismal fourth quarter, Yahoo! will cut 1,000 jobs.
“You Can Win, and You Can Win Properly”: UW President Mark Emmert responds to the Seattle Times’ series on the 2000 Husky football team.
Shannon Harps: King County prosecutors call her murder a “random predatory violent killing.”
Buy Organic: This is scary:
Government promises to rid the nation’s food supply of brain-damaging pesticides aren’t doing the job, according to the results of a yearlong study that carefully monitored the diets of a group of local children.The peer-reviewed study found that the urine and saliva of children eating a variety of conventional foods from area groceries contained biological markers of organophosphates, the family of pesticides spawned by the creation of nerve gas agents in World War II.
More Oversight, More Transparency: Mayor Nickels backs a review board’s recommendations for the Seattle Police Department.
Military Honors: Staff Sgt. Jon Hilliard and Sgt. 1st Class Ismael Iban, two Fort Lewis soldiers, are to be awarded the Silver Star for service in Iraq.
Vote Johnson:
Comments
Hmmm. Missing kidneys. Isn't that like one of the most persistant urban legends?
It still works. Hey, Daisy.
Scientists are also linking pollution by long-lasting pesticides (think DDT) to diabetes. A thin person with high levels of these pesticides is more likely to have diabetes than a fat person with low levels.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080125125108.htm
I used to be skeptical of organic stuff, now I tend to buy much more organic stuff than regular.
http://www.newrootsorganics.com/
Seasonal, local, and delivered to your door.
The Food Quality Protection Act limits the amount of pesticide residue that is allowed in our foods. Just because we have the analytical methods to identify every single metabolite in our urine doesn't mean that we are suffering any adverse health effects. Chill out. We scientists spend careers determining what is and isn't safe to put into the nation's food supply ... and we don't work for a big chemical company, we work for you local, friendly, and highly-respected University.
great link Spooky:
"Research into adult onset diabetes currently focuses on genetics and obesity; there has been almost no consideration for the possible influence of environmental factors such as pollution"
Apparently the neglect of environment causes of disease is pretty general. Sounds like we have a big corruption problem in terms of research funding...
Kuow had Devra Davis from the University of Pittsburg talking about this issue in the area of cancer:
http://kuow.org/defaultProgram.asp?ID=14203
If she's right, a lot of folks are dying that shouldn't be...
I like science and scientists David, I appreciate your hard work; but I also know that it's very difficult to tackle everything in every study. Isn't it true that most of the time the safe levels of pesticides are based on their LD50? If so then more subtle problems could easily be missed. I'm not going to panic and fuss over every little thing in our bodies, but if studies are showing links to real problems at real levels of pesticides in people's bodies, then we need to pay attention to that science also.
@5 But how much of your funding comes from endowments, grants, etc. from big chemical companies?
I would Emmett to specifically address the organizational problems mentioned in the article series.
Yes, Hedges and Neuheisel are gone, as are all the criminal players mentioned in the article. But does the UW still give athletes first crack at classes? Do they still offer the Swahili course where learning the word for "hello" gets you an "A" (very helpful when trying to get that GPA above the required 2.0)? Do athletes have different scholarship terms than other scholarship recipients (stipends, food, housing)? Does the UW still offer special tutoring or counseling services not available to regular students? Is there in fact ANY reason to believe that an athlete's educational career bears any resemblance at all to a university student's?
Do any members of the scholarship board who reinstated Curtis Williams over the objection of even his coach still work at the UW? How about the people who worked in the emergency legal response team? How about the lawyers who pressed to humiliate the student rape victim years after the event (recently, in other words)? What has been put into place to prevent major boosters from contacting the program or players?
At most universities, a non-athlete student who is charged with a felony will receive absolutely nothing from the university -- no lawyers, no counseling, no late-night phone calls, no nothing. Is there any indication that athletes will in future be similarly ignored?
Actually SpookyCat we spend most of our time these days talking about how LD50s are a really poor indicator of toxicity and aren't useful at all for risk assessment purposes. The risk assessments do include epidemiological and clinical studies with extremely low doses in an attempt to address the most subtle health effects. Great care is taken to base the limits allowable in food on the most sensitive effects seen in humans or laboratory animals and then "safety factors" of up to 1000 are added for additional protection of human health. All is well.
And amazonmidwife, all of my funding (I can't speak for others) comes directly from the EPA. No big chem money.
If nothing else good comes from McCain's nomination, at least we'll have a president who follows the Geneva Conventions.
And one who will need to, because we'll be fighting two or three wars his entire time.
@9,
Hujambo.
I'm surprised Dubya never tried that advertising tactic.
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