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Dec 3, 2009 — In the previous entry, Darwin inspired some geologists, even though he was wrong. Here are some news stories showing nature inspiring engineers with wonders right under their noses...

Symptoms of bipolar disorder are severe, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). They are different from the normal ups and downs that everyone goes through from time to time. Bipolar disorder symptoms can result in damaged relationships, poor job or school performance, and even suicide. But bipolar disorder can be treated, and people with this illness can lead full and productive lives.

At A Glance Two studies explored ultrasound as an alternative to invasive biopsies for young women with lumps or other specific, localized signs or symptoms.Targeted breast ultrasound successfully distinguished between benign and cancerous tumors in all cases across both studies.The researchers recommend ultrasound as the tool of choice for evaluating palpable lumps in the under-40 population. Media Contacts: RSNA Newsroom 1-312-949-3233 Before 11/28/09 or after 12/03/09: RSNA Media Relations: 1-630- 590-7762 Linda Brooks1-630-590-7738lbrooks@rsna.org Maureen Morley1-630-590-7754mmorley@rsna.org CHICAGO — Targeted breast ultrasound of suspicious areas of the breast, including lumps, is a safe, reliable and cost-effective alternative to invasive biopsies for...

Global Update A new drug-resistant strain of bacteria has emerged in the last decade in Africa and is causing unusual numbers of deaths there, British and African researchers said on Monday. The strain, a variant of Salmonella typhimurium, is named ST313. Its genome was decoded by researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and researchers in Kenya and Malawi. While most salmonella bacteria cause diarrhea and are rarely fatal, this one causes death in one of four cases among children and vulnerable adults in some African regions, the researchers said. Many of its victims have been weakened by the AIDS...

Up to 10,000 people die needlessly of cancer every year because their condition is diagnosed too late, according to research by the government's director of cancer services. The figure is twice the previous estimate for preventable deaths. Earlier detection of symptoms could save between 5,000 and 10,000 lives in England a year, Prof Mike Richards will reveal this week. The higher figure is nearly twice his previous calculation, which put the figure at about 5,000. Richards has revised up his estimate after studying the three deadliest forms of the disease ‑ lung, bowel and breast cancer ‑ which together kill...

AP story

MADISON, Wis. — Seven and a half months into Ta-Shai Pendleton’s first pregnancy, her child was stillborn. Then in early 2008, she bore a daughter prematurely. Soon after, Ms. Pendleton moved from a community in Racine that was thick with poverty to a better neighborhood in Madison. Here, for the first time, she had a full-term pregnancy... --snip-- The lives and pregnancies of black mothers like Ms. Pendleton, 21, are now the subject of intense study as researchers confront one of the country’s most intractable health problems: the large racial gap in infant deaths, primarily due to a higher incidence...

Today, the biggest event of the holiday, though competing with watching parades and football games on TV all day, is the preparation of the Thanksgiving meal. Thanksgiving Day is a time-honored American tradition, a time for family gatherings and a holiday meal that encourages over-the-top decadence, according to WebMD.com. And for many (some 97% of us), the thought of a Thanksgiving without turkey is heresy.

Pro-Darwin consensus doesn't rule out intelligent design --snip-- (CNN) -- While we officially celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" on November 24, celebrations of Darwin's legacy have actually been building in intensity for several years. Darwin is not just an important 19th century scientific thinker. Increasingly, he is a cultural icon. Darwin is the subject of adulation that teeters on the edge of hero worship, expressed in everything from scholarly seminars and lecture series to best-selling new atheist tracts like those by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The atheists claim that...

Enlarge ImageBusybody. A new study suggests HSV-2, seen here as orange particles, is constantly active even when patients don't have symptoms. Credit: Dennis Kunkel Microscopy Inc./Visuals Unlimited, Inc. Genital herpes comes and goes--at least that's what it looks like to patients. But a mathematical model published in the 18 November issue of Science Translational Medicine suggests that herpes never slumbers. Instead, nerve cells continuously pump out the virus in minuscule quantities over a sufferer's lifetime. If the findings hold, it may be much harder to stop patients from passing on the infection than researchers thought. As many as one...

Boosting the level of a brain chemical reverses learning impairments in a mouse model of Down syndrome, researchers report. The work adds to emerging evidence that cognition-enhancing drugs may one day help humans with Down syndrome lead more independent lives. Down syndrome is the most common cause of mental retardation, affecting approximately one in 800 babies at birth. People with the disorder have an extra copy of chromosome 21, giving them additional copies of hundreds of genes. This somehow alters brain development and causes mild to severe learning disabilities. To investigate what goes wrong in the brain of someone who...

The CDC now reports that nearly 4,000 Americans have been killed by H1N1 swine flu. This number is supposed to sound big and scary, motivating millions of people to go out and pay good money to be injected with untested, unproven H1N1 vaccines. "Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone." (Singh Gurkirpal, MD, “Recent Considerations in Nonsteroidal

ScienceDaily: “Slowing Evolution to Stop Drug Resistance” --snip-- For years, evolutionists have pointed to antibiotic resistance as proof of evolution in action. The argument often amounts to this (in simplified form): the fact that certain organisms grow resistant to certain antibiotics is evidence for the evolutionary idea that all animals must have descended from a single ancestor. Collapsing the argument does make it seem a bit silly, but that’s our point. We certainly don’t want to belittle the very real threat of dangerous organisms becoming immune to the best drugs we now have (though the vast majority of microbes are...

OTTAWA — Despite the recent surge in H1N1 deaths, the nation's chief public health officer says the pandemic virus appears no deadlier than regular seasonal influenza and that there could actually be substantially fewer flu deaths than normal this season. Although H1N1 is disproportionately infecting more children and otherwise healthy young adults, "the mortality rate from this (H1N1) is no worse than seasonal flu," Dr. David Butler-Jones said. "The individual risk of severe disease or dying if you happen to get the flu is very similar today as it was back in June. It's just that we're starting to see...

H1N1 vaccine distribution is a farce By Other Voices November 18, 2009, 3:58AM After being denied H1N1 vaccines for my asthmatic children in Cuyahoga County a short time ago, I took them to Summit County. This was an investment of time as we waited in line like cattle. We were herded throughout the building and given misinformation at almost every turn. The worst was about the type of shot my son could receive. I was informed on the phone and at two points in the line that he could get a thimerosal-free shot. Not so when he sat down for...

Health Care: A government task force has decided that women need fewer mammograms and later in life. Shouldn't that be between patient and physician? We have seen the future of health care, and it doesn't work. We have warned repeatedly that the net results of health care bills before Congress will be higher demand, fewer doctors, more cost control, all leading to rationing. New recommendations issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) regarding breast cancer and the necessity for early and frequent mammograms do not convince us otherwise. Just six months ago, the panel, which works under the...

Tufts University researchers have identified a gene-diet interaction that appears to influence body weight and have replicated their findings in three independent studies. Men and women carrying the CC genotype demonstrated higher body mass index (BMI) scores and a higher incidence of obesity, but only if they consumed a diet high in saturated fat. These associations were seen in the apolipoprotein A-II gene (APOA2) promoter. "We believe this is the first time a gene-diet interaction influencing BMI and obesity has been replicated in as many as three independent study populations," says corresponding and senior author Jose Ordovas, PhD, director of...

It's emblazoned across the front page of USA Today, just underneath a subhead declaring Michael Jackson was, indeed, killed by a drug overdose: "Flu could infect half of USA." The article goes on to describe the predicted number of deaths expected in the U.S. (30,000 - 90,000 Americans) as well as the actions being taken by the government to protect Americans from the coming swine flu pandemic. That advice reads sort of like a comic book of health care advice for kindergarteners: Wash your hands, cover your mouth if you cough and let "the grownups" take care of the rest...

Forty Years' War Many Americans do not think twice about taking medicines to prevent heart disease and stroke. But cancer is different. Much of what Americans do in the name of warding off cancer has not been shown to matter, and some things are actually harmful. Yet the few medicines proved to deter cancer are widely ignored. Take prostate cancer, the second-most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States, surpassed only by easily treated skin cancers. More than 192,000 cases of it will be diagnosed this year, and more than 27,000 men will die from it. And, it turns out,...

Implants could soon be a thing of the past. Researchers have developed a new technique to regrow breasts on pigs using their own tissue — and it's ready to be tested on human mastectomy patients. Phillip Marzella from the Bernard O'Brien Institute of Microsurgery is part of the team that developed Neopec, the new stem cell technique for regrowing breast tissue. The researchers implant a chamber containing some of the individual's own fat tissue under the skin. The chamber is connected to the individual's blood vessels, and fat then grows to fill the chamber, creating a new breast. The chamber...

Enlarge ImageStoking Fears. A new study has raised fresh concerns about nanoparticles, but they may be unfounded. Credit: Nandiyanto/Wikimedia The headlines are laced with fear. "Nanoparticles 'can damage DNA.'" "Nanoparticle Safety Looking More Complicated." "Nanoparticles Indirect Threat to DNA." All seem to suggest that a new study, released yesterday, has found that nanoscale materials, used in everything from medical imaging to cancer treatment, can damage genetic material in our bodies, feeding public fears. But this particular study has little relevance to human exposure risks, experts say, and it is deeply flawed in other ways. "I think it's a meaningless...

High blood pressure usually has no symptoms. In fact, many people have high blood pressure for years without knowing it. That's why it's called the "silent killer." Hypertension is the medical term for high blood pressure. It doesn't refer to being tense, nervous or hyperactive. You can be a calm, relaxed person and still have high blood pressure...

When has someone lived long enough that they are no longer worth certain treatments? We're about to find out the federal government's opinion on the subject. Read the following paragraph and then read it again. Every decision of what to insure or not—when an MRI can be used, or whether a stage-four breast cancer patient can get Avastin or some future expensive drug—will become subject to political intervention over moral disputes or budget constraints. Heretofore, these decisions have largely been made between a doctor and patient. This is the real "right to life" issue. Every single one of these issues...

"Don't be frightened. We mean you no harm."

Seventy-four percent of American physicians believe they have less control over the way they practice medicine than they did five years ago, mostly due to medical malpractice litigation. The majority, 85 percent, said the threat of medical malpractice litigation is their primary hindrance to practicing medicine as they see fit. “We found that regardless of a physician’s political affiliation, the respondents attributed the practice of defensive medicine to excessive waste in the health care system,”

With new studies showing the sun vitamin may slow come cancers, some physicians are eager to add it to treatment programs Responding to research indicating that vitamin D may slow the progression of breast, colon and other common cancers, some doctors have begun adding the supplement to their tool kit of cancer therapies alongside more conventional treatments such as radiation, surgery and chemotherapy. While not all physicians are convinced the evidence is strong enough to warrant taking an extra dollop of the sunshine vitamin, those recommending the course say popping the pills is a simple health strategy that has few,...

Ten Things that Probably Will Be in the Health-Care Bill (But Shouldn’t) 1. Removal of the Ability of Insurers to Deny Coverage 2. Coverage Mandates on Individuals and Employers 3. Government-Designed Insurance Plans 4. Threats to Medicare Advantage 5. New Taxes 6. A Stronger IRS 7. “Managed Competition” (a.k.a. “Government Control”) 8. Reckless Expansion of Medicaid 9. Welfare for the Middle Class 10. Government Rationing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ten Things that Ought To Be in the Health-Care Bill (but Probably Won’t) 1. Insurance Choice 2. Real Competition: A National Market for Health Insurance 3. Price Transparency 4. High Ceilings for HSAs (and...

From X-Rays to MRI's you are exposed to radiation in many medical treatments. Certain forms of cancer and other tumors are specifically treated with radiation. What are the potential hazards, and short-term/long-term effects?

Myriad of Compounds Intended to Stop the Progression of Metabolic Diseases Moves Through the PipelineThe competition to develop new therapeutics targeting metabolic disease is heating up. Here’s why: the latest estimates from the American Diabetes Association state that there are nearly 24 million Americans with diabetes. In addition, approximately 32% of American adults are medically obese. Many companies have honed in on this large and growing market, and several of them presented their latest findings at IQPC’s “Groundbreaking Advances and Key Opinions in Metabolic Diseases Drug Discovery and Development� held recently in San Francisco. “When we founded the company, we...

Darwin’s bulldog—Thomas H. Huxley --snip-- Huxley, although an unbeliever, was thoroughly familiar with the gospel, and had little time for Christians who compromised their position by supporting the anti-biblical belief of evolutionary naturalism. He wrote: ...

Immorality Drives Medical Costs By Roger Fredinburg Watching the “Great Debate” over medical insurance, rising medical costs and ever broadening government control, I am reminded of some interesting facts, the details of which are not evident in the public or political discussion. I thought we ought to at least review them before the “rulers” of “Amerika” completely destroy the republic. Have you asked questions like; What is the cost of substance abuse on the medical system? What are the medical costs of sexual deviance and promiscuity? What’s the price of gluttony? How about laziness, slothfulness, sedentary lifestyles etc. what is...

Nov. 2, 2009 (Philadelphia) -- A newly discovered strain of drug-resistant staph bacteria is five times more deadly than other strains, a new study suggests. Adding insult to injury, the new superbug appears to have some resistance to the antibiotic commonly used to treat it, researchers report. Half of patients infected with the new strain of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) died within 30 days, says Carol Moore, PharmD, a research investigator in infectious diseases at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. That compares to only about 10% of patients infected with other MRSA strains, she tells WebMD. Moore and colleagues studied...

I don’t often write about alternative remedies for serious medical conditions. Most have little more than anecdotal support, and few have been found effective in well-designed clinical trials. Such trials randomly assign patients to one of two or more treatments and, wherever possible, assess the results without telling either the patients or evaluators who received which treatment. Now, however, in describing an alternative treatment for asthma that does not yet have top clinical ratings in this country (although it is taught in Russian medical schools and covered by insurance in Australia), I am going beyond my usually stringent research criteria...

Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., (Nasdaq: AMLN) and Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved an expanded indication for BYETTA(R) (exenatide) injection. BYETTA is now approved for use as a stand-alone medication (monotherapy) along with diet and exercise to improve glycemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes. Previously, it was approved for use only in patients who were also taking other common diabetes medications and had not achieved adequate glycemic control. "The expanded indication gives physicians the option to prescribe BYETTA as a first-line treatment, increasing the number of patients...

The Congressional Budget Office is out with its analysis of the House Democrats' health care bill...in reality, the CBO says that the gross cost of the bill will be $1.055 trillion.....the CBO says the bill's gross spending will be $60 billion in the first four years, and $995 billion in the next six years (or 94 percent of the total).

New research in the FASEB Journal opens the door for new drugs that could prevent severe flu-related lung damage As the nation copes with a shortage of vaccines for H1N1 influenza, a team of Alabama researchers have raised hopes that they have found an Achilles' heel for all strains of the flu—antioxidants. In an article appearing in the November 2009 print issue of the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) they show that antioxidants—the same substances found in plant-based foods—might hold the key in preventing the flu virus from wreaking havoc on our lungs. "The recent outbreak of H1N1 influenza and the rapid...

See Movie Trialer HEREAlso Article HERE

Many of the world's favourite ingredients have more to offer than just flavour, says Ned Stafford. Many also show health benefitsGarlicTo stink or not to stink, that's often the question when deciding how much garlic to pep up your dinner with. A few years ago, health-conscious cooks might also have wondered whether eating garlic would improve their health, or if such claims were just hype. Any such doubts have now been laid to rest by hundreds of scientific studies confirming garlic's powerful medicinal properties.'Garlic is one of the most researched medicinal plants ever - its health benefits are not anecdotal,...

The skin of that pumpkin you carve into a Jack-o'-Lantern to scare away ghosts and goblins on Halloween contains a substance that could put a scare into microbes that cause millions of cases of yeast infections in adults and infants each year. That's the conclusion of a new study in the current issue of ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication. In the study, Kyung-Soo Hahm, Yoonkyung Park and colleagues note that some disease-causing microbes are becoming resistant to existing antibiotics. As a result, scientists worldwide are searching for new antibiotics. Past studies hinted that pumpkin, long...

Does HIV mean certain death? In the quarter century since the world was introduced to the idea that a new sexually transmitted virus was the cause of Aids, HIV has been generally regarded as one of the biggest killers of our time. HIV/Aids has not been the mass disease in Britain that people were led to believe in the 1980s, but the death toll from immune deficiency diseases ascribed to HIV in Africa has been staggering. The scale of death there is an ongoing tragedy that tests the moral resolve of the rich world. How much do we care? Enough...

Drugs that alleviate severe mental disorders can also result in troubling metabolic changes. Many young children and adolescents taking drugs for severe psychiatric problems gain substantial weight and, in some cases, show increased levels of LDL cholesterol and triglycerides in their blood, researchers report in the Oct. 28 Journal of the American Medical Association. Although the data from this study need to be replicated over a longer time frame, the findings nonetheless raise worrisome questions about anti-psychotic drugs that often benefit children who have schizophrenia, autism, tics, severe bipolar disorder or aggressive behavior. “We are between a rock and a...

Supplements of the sunshine vitamin may improve insulin resistance and sensitivity, both of which are risk factors for diabetes, says a new study from New Zealand. Insulin resistance, whereby insufficient insulin is released to produce a normal glucose response from fat, muscle and liver cells, was significantly lower in women following high-dose vitamin D supplementation, according to results of a randomised, controlled, double-blind trial published in the British Journal of Nutrition. The optimal effects were observed when blood vitamin D levels were in the range 80 to 119 nanomoles per litre, said the researchers, “providing further evidence for an increase...

TennCare in Tennessee has been hitting the news more today than at anytime since its conception. As a resident of Tennessee I believe the nation as a whole should listen to what people with experience in these government run programs have to say before they accept the proposed government option at face value. Trust but verify should not only apply to your enemies it should apply to all politicians. Read full article...http://healthmad.com/healthcare-industry/obama-health-plan-another-tenncare-fiasco/

TRENTON, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson executives said Tuesday a proposed tax on medical device makers, part of the health care reform package moving in the Senate, is too high and could cost jobs in the industry. "We think that the $4 billion tax that they're referring to is unreasonable," J&J Chief Financial Officer Dominic Caruso told The Associated Press in an interview. "We believe it's at least twice what it ought to be." Caruso spoke after New Brunswick, N.J.-based J&J reported its third-quarter earnings, which included a tiny profit increase and sales declines in every division except medical devices,...

A Japanese man misdiagnosed as having rectal cancer is suing the hospital that he says unnecessarily gave him an artificial rectum. The man, who has not been identified, underwent surgery to remove a tumor in March at a university hospital in Miyzaki prefecture, western Japan. Following the surgery, his doctor informed him that no cancerous cells had been found in the removed tissue. The complainant is seeking 35 million yen (USD $385,000) in damages.

NY finally gets the picture that the idea of shoving a vaccine on nurses and doctors is a violation of their liberties! First two body paragraphs: ALBANY, N.Y. New York state health officials have suspended a ruling that would have forced health care workers across the state to get vaccinated against the swine flu by the end of November or risk losing their jobs, saying in a decision issued Thursday that they did so because the vaccine is in short supply. New York will be getting only about 23 percent of its anticipated supply of the vaccine for the swine...

A word search of the 1,502-page Senate health care bill (S. 1796) reveals that the term "tax" is used 124 times, "taxable" is used 158 times, and "excise tax" is used 12 times.

The Human Methylome: What Do These Patterns Mean? by Brian Thomas, M.S.* For decades, researchers have noticed that tiny chemicals called “methyl groups� piggyback on DNA molecules, and that they occur in certain patterns. Intrigued by the meaning and function of methylation patterns, especially as they relate to medicine, a five-year, $ 190-million-dollar research effort funded by the National Institutes of Health began in 2008. In one of its studies, researchers have stumbled upon a new intricacy of cell function.Joseph Ecker of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies led a collaboration to generate the world’s first complete map of human...

Introduction: Surgery is the established treatment for early stage primary lung cancers (cancer that started in lung) or limited secondary cancers (cancer that started outside and spread to lung, also known as metastases or metastatic cancer). External beam radiation is an alternative local therapy to surgery, particularly for patients who are not candidates for surgery due to other medical conditions. Thermal ablation, using either heat or cold, is a newer treatment to destroy cells in lung tumors. Heat is most commonly used, and is referred to as Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA). RFA of tumors has gained significant interest and acceptance in...

Senate Finance Committee members have been notified that the committee's health reform bill was filed today. S. 1796 weighs in at 1,502 pages, according to a Senate Republican leadership source. It's still not up yet on the Finance Committee website or Thomas.gov. We'll post a link as soon as we get one.