Friday, November 17, 2006

Speedlinking 11/17/06

Morning image is from Live Science:

Happy weekend! This has felt like a long, busy week. I'm looking forward to relaxing and watching the big game this weekend - Michigan vs. Ohio State. In deference to some friends and clients, Go Wolverines!

BODY
~ A New Maternal Diet Study Presented By Children's Hospital And Research Center-Oakland. What moms eat while pregnant will impact their grandchildren.
~ Low Cholesterol Lowers Risk for Aggressive Prostate Cancer. Makes perfect sense -- less cholesterol means less sex hormones, means less estrogen and testosterone, both of which have been implicated in prostate cancer.
~ New Links Detailed Between Diet, Cancer Risk. The link just keeps getting clearer and clearer. See next item.
~ The "Dirty Dozen" Fruits and Vegetables Containing the Most Pesticides: Read the whole article, but here's a teaser.

What's more, an analysis by the EWG estimated consumers could reduce their exposure to pesticides by almost 90 percent merely by avoiding foods on their "Dirty Dozen" list. A few members of this year's "Dirty Dozen" list:

  • Peaches
  • Apples
  • Sweet bell peppers
  • Celery
  • Strawberries
  • Spinach

Conversely, the "Cleanest 12" whole foods you can buy, according to the EWG, only expose you to less than two pesticides per day, a huge difference from the 15 pesticides you'd be exposed to daily on the "Dirty Dozen" list. Among the cleanest fruits and vegetables you can buy at your grocery store:

  • Onions
  • Avocado
  • Pineapple
  • Asparagus
  • Broccoli
~ Two smell systems in the human brain. "Today's Nature has a special supplement on chemical sensing, including a freely accessible article on smell and the flavor system that is full of surprising facts about one of the most neglected senses.
~ Lower Dementia Risk And Higher Level Of Certain Fatty Acid Linked. Either eat your fatty fish, take a fish oil supplement, or find a plant-based form of DHA (Neuromins), but get some DHA in your diet, NOW!
~ Hormone Linked To Brain's Cravings For Food And Other Energy Sources. This the newest holy grail hormone is seeking the "magic pill" for weight loss. Has been for a while now.
~ Neandertal DNA Partially Mapped, Studies Show. This might reveal a lot about how we have evolved since we split off from the big guys about 500,000 years ago. Very cool.


PSYCHE
~ Are You an Emotional Overeater? Take the quiz.
~ Interview with Brain Wansink, author of ‘Mindless Eating’.
~ Occupational Therapy Helps Those With Dementia. "Occupational therapy -- training to do simple things around the house -- improved the lives of people with dementia such as Alzheimer's disease, as well as the people who care for them, a Dutch study found."
~ People with vicious dogs may be vicious too. Isn't that just common sense?
~ Dying to Be Thin: HBO Documentary Shows That Anorexia Kills, but Downplays Fact That It Is Possible for Patients to Recover.
~ The "Illusion of Explanatory Depth": How Much Do We Know About What We Know? This is a good question for those of us interested in integral thought.
~ Gratitude Tools: Count Your Blessings.
~ Dealing with Shaming People, from Dharma at Fight The Misery Conspiracy.


CULTURE
~ Study: Condom use increasing in Africa. This is good news in the fight against AIDS.
~ Gender Gap in the Sciences: It's All about the Babies.
~Just what we need, even more incredibly fecund fundamentalists. "Whenever dogmatic, literal, fundamentalist interpretation of whatever holy scriptures someone believes in takes hold, the brain shuts off, and no other interpretation other than the narrow interpretation of the fundamentalist is viewed as acceptable."
~ Food for thought: A short review of Fast Food Nation.
~ Explaining the “23″ Phenomenon, from Pop Occulture Blog.
~ From Matthew Dallman: DEMOCRACY IS BEST BUILT FROM THE BOTTOM UP" . MD's down with Michael Rubin -- seems we should have been doing this from day one. Is it too late now?


HABITATS
~ Taco Bell to stem use of trans fats. I'm not holding my breath.
~ USDA says 12 mln Americans faced hunger in 2005 and by that they mean households-- or roughly 35 million Americans in 2005. The headline is deceiving and is bad journalism. Only one problem with this report: they may remove the word hunger.
~ From World Changing: Wireless Power.
~ Peak Oil Theory faulty: CERA report -- seems maybe there is more oil than some have thought.
~ Google Earth maps history -- "Google engineers have digitized one of the largest US map collections and integrated the information into the Google Earth program. The collection of David Rumsey Historical Maps, dated from 1680 to 1892, includes Cassini's Globe of 1790, Africa in 1787, and a map of Asia from 1710."
~ Best, Worst World Heritage Sites Ranked.


MATTERS INTEGRAL
~ Ebuddha on Integral Research, Google Notebook, Wiki's, Time, and Finance.
~ From Joe at Until: Two kinds of criticisms of integral theory: internal and external.


No comments: