Raft-building ants exhibit memory

This is interesting because it was believed brains had to be a certain size to have a certain complexity, which allowed memory.

1. Researchers focused on Formica selysi, an ant species found in floodplains in central and southern Europe.
2. Ants cluster together during floods in order to survive.
3. These ants repeatedly go to the same position when they build a raft with their bodies.

There have been other studies about other social insects, like bees, which show some surprising intelligence also. There are also some bees which generate their own heat! It was thought that no animal except mammals and birds could generate their own heat.


Source
ScienceDaily, Apr 18, 2016.

History of "safe" products: thalidomide

Thalidomide was a drug first marketed in West Germany in 1957. During this time the effects on pregnant women and the fetus was not studied carefully. It was used as a sedative, and used to treat anxiety, gastritis, insomnia, and nausea and excessive morning sickness in pregnant women. Shortly after the drug was introduced in West Germany about 5000-7000 babies were born with malformed or missing limbs. Only about 40% of these babies survived. Limbs could have appeared as stumps, or missing altogether. An example is hands joined at the shoulder with no arm bones in between.

Thalidomide is currently used for treating immune system problems such as Crohn's disease, skin problems that won't respond to other treatments, HIV/AIDS, sarcoidosis, rheumatoid arthritis.

In 1958 Chemie Grünenthal approached William S Merrell Company in Cincinnati, Ohio who then approached the US FDA six times to market the drug in the US but the FDA declined as Chemie Grünenthal provided no test results to show the safety of thalidomide. The FDA approved the drug for testing in the US and huge quantities entered the US.

In November 1961 thalidomide was taken off the US market after a large amount of pressure from the media and the public. Thalidomide was sold in pharmacies in Canada until 1962.

In 1962, FDA pharmacologist Frances Oldham Kelsey received the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service from President John F. Kennedy for blocking sale of thalidomide in the United States.

Since 1965 Brazilian physicians used thalidomide to treat ENL, a painful skin condition, caused by leprosy.

In 1968 an agreement was reached with the Distillers Company, who distributed the drug in the UK, with victims of thalidomide.  The settlement, called the Thalidomide Trust, was increased in 2005 by Distillers.

Chemie Grünenthal continued to deny harmful effects for nearly 50 years. Until...

On 31 August 2012, Grünenthal chief executive Harald F. Stock, PhD, who served as the Chief Executive Officer of Grünenthal GmbH from January 2009 to May 28, 2013 and was also a Member of Executive Board until May 28, 2013, apologized for the first time for producing the drug and remaining silent about the birth defects.[91] At a ceremony, Stock unveiled a statue of a disabled child to symbolize those harmed by thalidomide and apologized for not trying to reach out to victims for over 50 years. At the time of the apology, there were 5,000 to 6,000 sufferers still alive. Victim advocates called the apology "insulting" and "too little, too late"...

Sources
Wikipedia.

Monsanto and EU hid studies showing glyphosate was dangerous

News from July 13, 2011.

Don't forget, these past articles show a history of corruption with Monsanto, putting profit above people. 

A report from Open Earth Sources (OES) shows Monsanto and EU regulators conspired to hide studies showing glyphosate exposure caused birth defects, DNA damage, endocrine disruption, and more. The European Commission approved glyphosate despite knowing about these results. Studies as far back as the 1980s showed problems with glyphosate and lab animals, which are accepted models for use in studies of substances that might harm humans.


Source
i-sis.org.uk. Last accessed Apr 17, 2016. (This link is dead.)
BING search here, Aug 3, 2019.

Pesticides in organic and non-organic food

Remember: The USDA Organic program allows non-approved chemicals and GMO products if no other organic product is available. USDA Organic does not mean organic! More info here on the USDA Organic Program. Look for Non-GMO Project verified instead.

Below: Just a few points about how often pesticides occur in certain foods.

Below: Foods most likely to have pesticides:

Below: Highest and lowest ranked in pesticides:

The corn is hard to believe since 92% of corn grown in the US is Roundup Ready.

Below: Pesticides found in 15% of organic foods in 2014. Source: Foodsafety News.

Below:  And what's the effect of pesticides?

Below: And what about conventional, vs "natural", vs "organic"?

Below: What level of pesticides does one person have?

Source: Off-Grid. Urine levels of pesticides were 6.7x higher before he ate organic foods. After eating organic, pesticide levels dropped by a factor of 6.7x.

A summary of fibromyalgia.

When one talks about alternative medicine one cannot forget conditions like ME/CFS and fibromyalgia. These have both been dismissed by the majority of American doctors, much like they dismissed Celiac disease (discovered in the 1950s) and HIV. Here is a summary of facts.

1. About 2-5% of US adults have fibromyalgia. 
2. It can take an average of 5 years for a person to get a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. It is not well understood, so it must be diagnosed by eliminating other possibilities. 
3. FM is characterized by: pain in at least 11 of 18 points. 
4. Sleep disturbances. Trouble getting to sleep, feeling tired when they wake up.
5. Irritable bowel or similar symptoms.
6. Cognitive problems also called "fibro fog". 
7. Fibromyalgia often occurs (up to 25-65%) with other rheumatic conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and ankylosing spondylitis.
8. Fatigue that won't go away.
9. Widespread stiffness, aching, and burning sensations. (Of course this will lead to sleeping problems and fatigue!)
10. Many patients report they can't get to sleep, and when they do, they wake up still feeling tired. This might be a lack of proper REM sleep. A sleep study might help determine if they get enough REM sleep but many American insurances do not cover this.
11. Frequent peeing caused by bladder spasms. 
12. Researchers have also found abnormalities in the hormone system known as the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal gland (HPA) axis. The HPA axis controls important functions, including sleep, the stress response, and depression. Disturbances to the HPA axis is correlated to exposure to BPA. See Chen 2014 below. 
13. Fibromyalgia can be triggered by infection of Epstein-Barr virus or Lyme disease, chronic physical or emotional stress, hormonal changes, emotional trauma of an accident, "seeing the elephant" (believing you will truly not survive a given situation), or medications.
14. Abnornally thick vascular walls, which may prevent enough oxygen from getting to the muscle.

For medical coding using ICD9-CM, FM is usually coded as 729.1, "Myositis and Myalgia, unspecified". Overall, many of the symptoms above seem to be inflammatory symptoms.

Treatments
FM is not well understood so not all treatments will work well for all, or even a majority of people. Treatments include:

1. Aerobic and resistant exercise for the pain. 
2. Psychological support to deal with the frustration and depression. 
3. Some medications to address the pain and lack of good sleep. Some medications the FDA has approved for fibromyalgia: Lyrica, Cymbalta, Savella, which all help reduce pain.
4. Relaxation training. 
5. Acupuncture, chiropractic treatments help most patients. But again, many American insurances cover neither.

FM can be difficult and expensive to diagnose and patients have to put up with pathological disbelief, but, with much persistence, once diagnosed it can be treated. But not all treatments will work well for all people. 

Sources

1. Chen F, Zhou L, Bai Y, Zhou R, Chen L. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis hyperactivity accounts for anxiety- and depression-like behaviors in rats perinatally exposed to bisphenol A. J Biomed Res. 2015 May;29(3):250-8. doi: 10.7555/JBR.29.20140058. Epub 2014 Nov 12. PMID: 26060449. Link to NIH abstract.
2. CDC. Fibromyalgia page from the CDC. Last accessed Apr 10, 2016.  
3. FDA. Living with Fibromyalgia. Last accessed Apr 10, 2016.  
4. Fibromyalgia center. University of Maryland. Last accessed Apr 10, 2016. 
5. Fibromyalgia: Maligned, Misunderstood and (Finally) Treatable. Scientific American. May 27, 2014.
6. Fibromyalgia criteria from American College of Rheumatology. Link to PDF.  
7. Fibromyalgia on Medscape.
8. Fibromyalgia treatment on Medscape. 
9. JAMA articles on musculoskeletal issues.
10. National Fibromyalgia Association page. Contains history of FM and latest research and much more info. Last accessed Apr 10, 2016.
11. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. Last accessed Apr 10, 2016.
12. NIH Pubmed page on fibromyalgia. Lots of links to studies here. Last accessed Apr 13, 2016.
13. NORML and fibromyalgia and pot. A few small studies show THC reduces pain. Last accessed Apr 10, 2016.
14. ScienceDaily Fibromyalgia articles. Last accessed Apr 10, 2016.
15. Understanding Fibromyalgia and Its Related Disorders. (2008). Primary Care Companion to The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 10(2), 133–144. Link to NIH study. 

Margaret Hamburg bribed her way into FDA.

Former FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg bribed her way into the FDA by paying Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Major US company Johnson and Johnson also involved. 

Source
Natural News. April 25, 2016.
The lawsuit is here at Scribd.

The Detox Project will be testing for glyphosate

The program was so popular that they have had to stop testing until they get a bigger lab!

The Detox Project, partnered with some NGOs, have been looking for 3 years to find the best way to test for glyphosate in foods and urine. Here are some bullet points about why and how to test for glyphosphate:

1. Agencies should be testing for glyphosate in food.
2. ELISA testing is not reliable. Don't use it. 
3. Minimum limits of detection of should be 0.5 parts per billion (PPB) or lower for urine and water and under 20 PPB for food samples.
4. Validated or Verified LC/MS/MS (Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry) testing methods are the most responsible methods.
5. Some LC/MS/MS methods used by the food industry are inaccurate.

Source
Detox Project. A description of good testing practices.
Detox Project on getting the testing

Glyphosate in wines that weren't even sprayed

10 wines were tested for glyphosate. All 10 tested positive, even the organic ones. Even your organic food is not safe. It seems nothing can escape the glyphosphate plague.

More organic foods contaminated with Roundup:

2015-07-01 Which foods are mostly likely contaminated with glyphosate? The US code of federal regulations allows this food to contain glyphosate at these levels:

1. 400 ppm: for animal feed, nongrass, group 18
2. 310 ppm: for grain aspirated fractions
3. 300 ppm: for grass, forage, fodder and hay, group 17
4. 210 ppm: for cotton gin byproducts
5. 200 ppm: for peppermint and spearmint tops, soybean hay, leucaena and kenaf forage
6. 120 ppm: for soybean hulls
7. 100 ppm: for soybean forage, corn, field, stover, grain, cereal forage, fodder and straw, group 16, except field corn, forage and field corn, stover, teff hay and forage
8. 40 ppm: for oilseeds, group 20 (includes sunflower and cottonseed), except canola
9. 30 ppm: for barley bran, grain, cereal, group 15 (includes rice, sorghum, wheat, barley, buckwheat, millet, oats, rye) except field corn, popcorn, rice, sweet corn, and wild rice, sugarcane molasses
10. 25: for almond hulls, beet, sugar, dried pulp
11. 20 ppm: for canola seed, soybean seed
12. 13 ppm: for corn, field, forage
13. 10 ppm: for beet, sugar, roots and tops
14. 8 ppm: for dried peas
15. 7 ppm: for hop, dried cones, certain spices, instant tea
16. 5 ppm: for carrot, quinoa grain, teff grain, legumes except soybean and dry pea, cattle, hog, sheep, and goat meat byproducts, corn, field, grain,
17. 3.5 ppm: for corn, sweet, kernel plus cob with husk removed
18. 3 ppm: for shellfish, sweet potato
19. 2 ppm: for Mexican oregano leaves, sugarcane

2016-04-26 USDA certified organic foods. "A new investigation by Tropical Traditions has revealed that the U.S. organic grain market is contaminated with glyphosate. Sadly, the presence of glyphosate residue was found in organic wheat and other organic grains, including organic barley, oats, spelt, and einkorn (an ancient strain of wheat)."

Source
Organic Consumers. April 12, 2016.

Monsanto breaks law in India by smuggling GMO seeds

• Monsanto-Mahyco Biotech brought 100 grams of cotton seeds into India, containing the MON531-Bt gene, without the approval of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC).
• Monsanto-Mahyco started large scale, open field trials of said Bt cotton in 40 locations spread across nine states, again without GEAC approval. (These could easily mix with non-GMO cotton, and Monsanto would have be able to collect huge fines from impoverished farmers.)
• Some of this GMO cotton was sold in open markets. 
• Indian law does not permit patents on seeds and in agriculture. 
• US officials have pressured India's gov't to change their laws about this.  
• And more cheap tricks by Monsanto. See article.

Source
GMO Inside. Mar 1, 2016. Link to article.

Microbeads

Microbeads have been in the news here and there. They are tiny, plastic, non-soluble beads that are sometimes put into liquid soaps to add a scrubbing action. These microbeads get washed down the drain, to the water treatment plant. As there is no US law requiring them to be removed they go right out to the lakes, rivers, and to the seas.

The base of an aquatic ecosystem is algae and bacteria. These are eaten by critters one level up the food chain with a generic name of "plankton". Plankton eat very tiny things, including microbeads  in the ocean. Since the microbeads are not digestible, the organism gets full of microbeads, cannot eat any thing else, and starves to death.

This plastic doesn't physically break down much more, but it also absorbs toxins. When other animals eat high-toxin microbeads, the animals can produce damaged young, or simply die.


Data bits: 

1. Microbeads are typically 1mm or smaller but it depends on the agency and how the define "microbead". On the ingredients list look for ingredients of plastics, like polyethylene, polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate (PET), or polymethyl methacrylate.
2. Plastic particles store PCBs up to 100,000 to 1 million times the levels found in ocean water. 
3. "Microplastics" are microbeads but also tiny plastic particles that have broken down from larger plastic pieces. If you are researching this, also use the search term "microplastics". 
4. Some microbeads float, some sink. It all depends on the density of the material they are made from. 
5. Some studies show microbeads are "safe", like the one by Karposi 2014 which studied sea urchins, but the study was only 5 days long, hardly enough to show subclinical non-obvious effects. 
6. The US emits enough 100um microbeads to cover more than 300 tennis courts each day. 
7. The oceans contain about 250,000 tons of microbeads. 
8. Microbeads have been found in St. Lawrence sediment.
9. In St. Lawrence sediment they found more than 1000 microbeads per liter of sediment.

How you can help.

• Stop buying products with microbeads. Look on the label for the word "microbeads" or look for the materials in Data Bits bullet 1. 
• Email your congress person to tell them you support banning microbeads. 

If humans destroy the base of the foodchain, that hurts us.

Sources

1. List of studies on Beat The Microbead. 
2. Microbeads, a Science Summary. Canada. July 2015. Link to PDF.
3. Rochman, Chelsea, et al. Scientific evidence Supports a Ban on Microbeads. Environmental Science and Technology. Sep 3, 2015. Link to PDF. 
4. Rowshyra A. Castañeda, Suncica Avlijas, M. Anouk Simard, Anthony Ricciardi, Ralph Smith. Microplastic pollution in St. Lawrence River sediments. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 2014; 1 DOI: 10.1139/cjfas-2014-0281. Link to abstract.
5. Schneiderman, Eric T. Unseen threat: How Microbeads Harm New York Waters, Wildlife, Health, and Environment. New York State Attorney General. This PDF has tables showing max concentrations of microbeads per sq km, and average concentrations in the Great Lakes. There is also a map of the Great Lakes showing the density of microbeads at various sample sites. Link to PDF.
6. ScienceDaily search for "microbead". Last accessed Apr 20, 2016.