Student science experiment finds plants won't grow near Wi-Fi router

Ninth-graders design science experiment to test the effect of cellphone radiation on plants. The results may surprise you.

MNN, Thu, May 23 2013

Photo courtesy of Kim Horsevad, teacher at Hjallerup Skole in Denmark

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Five ninth-grade young women from Denmark recently created a science experiment that is causing a stir in the scientific community.

It started with an observation and a question. The girls noticed that if they slept with their mobile phones near their heads at night, they often had difficulty concentrating at school the next day. They wanted to test the effect of a cellphone's radiation on humans, but their school, Hjallerup School in Denmark, did not have the equipment to handle such an experiment. So the girls designed an experiment that would test the effect of cellphone radiation on a plant instead.

The students placed six trays filled with Lepidium sativum, a type of garden cress into a room without radiation, and six trays of the seeds into another room next to two routers that according to the girls calculations, emitted about the same type of radiation as an ordinary cellphone.

Over the next 12 days, the girls observed, measured, weighed and photographed their results. Although by the end of the experiment the results were blatantly obvious — the cress seeds placed near the router had not grown. Many of them were completely dead. While the cress seeds planted in the other room, away from the routers, thrived.

The experiment earned the girls (pictured below) top honors in a regional science competition and the interest of scientists around the world.

According to Kim Horsevad, a teacher at Hjallerup Skole in Denmark were the cress experiment took place, a neuroscience professor at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, is interested in repeating the experiment in controlled professional scientific environments.

I'm sure the world will continue watching these young women, and this experiment, for many years to come.

via: Mathias Bohn, www.dr.dk

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"The A in Kundalini" – Oct 23, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) – (Subjects: What is Ascension, Ascended Consciousness, Ascension on cellular level (Biology), Activate/higher Efficiency DNA (90%), Air/Electromagnetic pollution in the air, Children will be born with bigger livers for pollution protection, Children will start to have instinct (like animals), 21-12-2012, Stop Aging, Ascension of Gaia, …etc.)

Kryon Q&A

(9) Question: Dear Kryon: I've read your books (only the ones that are translated in Dutch), and I have a French friend who also reads them. She tells me that it's not healthy to live near electric wires. She says that the cactus (which normally lives in the desert or tropical countries) helps eliminate the negativity of this electricity. Is that so, and is there any particular plant that can help eliminate the negative effects of electricity?

Answer: Indeed, we've admonished you to at least make a measurement (easily done) to see if you live in a magnetic field caused by the proximity to high-voltage lines that are often strung in the air near where you live. Not all these wires are bad. Some carry only communications, and some are lower voltages. The ones that are the most dangerous to you are those that are very large and that carry the power from city to city.

It's also true that certain kinds of plants carry energy that can help shield or void magnetics. This is actually a part of what you call "radionics," which we will leave for another discussion. This is not well known to the people reading this, however, and your friend is correct. Some cacti have water in them, which changes the situation slightly. However, if you're near a very large magnetic source, we still recommend moving instead of growing a lot of cactus. Even though the cactus "knows" what you're trying to do and might help reduce the risk, unfortunately, today's technology presents a far stronger field than can be voided by this plant.

Also know that there is now scientific validation to support the danger of the effects of long-term magnetic-field exposure on both plants and animals. It's not balancing for you to remain in a magnetic field. You should instead be exposed only to the one you were born in... the one that surrounds you and the earth, and which science is now beginning to understand is needed for your health and well-being... the earth's magnetic field. To have another one around you is to stop the flow of the balance that you need and deserve.

Doctors Save Life Of Kaiba Gionfriddo, Ohio Boy, By 3-D 'Printing' Him An Airway Tube

The Huffington Post, AP, Marilynn Marchione, May 22, 2013

  

In a medical first, doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of a baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day.

It's the latest advance from the booming field of regenerative medicine, making body parts in the lab.

In the case of Kaiba (KEYE'-buh) Gionfriddo, doctors didn't have a moment to spare. Because of a birth defect, the little Ohio boy's airway kept collapsing, causing his breathing to stop and often his heart, too. Doctors in Michigan had been researching artificial airway splints but had not implanted one in a patient yet.

In a single day, they "printed out" 100 tiny tubes, using computer-guided lasers to stack and fuse thin layers of plastic instead of paper and ink to form various shapes and sizes. The next day, with special permission from the Food and Drug Administration, they implanted one of these tubes in Kaiba, the first time this has been done.

Suddenly, a baby that doctors had said would probably not leave the hospital alive could breathe normally for the first time. He was 3 months old when the operation was done last year and is nearly 19 months old now. He is about to have his tracheotomy tube removed; it was placed when he was a couple months old and needed a breathing machine. And he has not had a single breathing crisis since coming home a year ago.

"He's a pretty healthy kid right now," said Dr. Glenn Green, a pediatric ear, nose and throat specialist at C.S. Mott Children's Hospital of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where the operation was done. It's described in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Independent experts praised the work and the potential for 3-D printing to create more body parts to solve unmet medical needs.

"It's the wave of the future," said Dr. Robert Weatherly, a pediatric specialist at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. "I'm impressed by what they were able to accomplish."

So far, only a few adults have had trachea, or windpipe transplants, usually to replace ones destroyed by cancer. The windpipes came from dead donors or were lab-made, sometimes using stem cells. Last month, a 2-year-old girl born without a windpipe received one grown from her own stem cells onto a plastic scaffold at a hospital in Peoria, Ill.

Kaiba had a different problem – an incompletely formed bronchus, one of the two airways that branch off the windpipe like pant legs to the lungs. About 2,000 babies are born with such defects each year in the United States and most outgrow them by age 2 or 3, as more tissue develops.

In severe cases, parents learn of the defect when the child suddenly stops breathing and dies. That almost happened when Kaiba was 6 weeks old at a restaurant with his parents, April and Bryan Gionfriddo, who live in Youngstown, in northeast Ohio.

"He turned blue and stopped breathing on us," and his father did CPR to revive him, April Gionfriddo said.

More episodes followed, and Kaiba had to go on a breathing machine when he was 2 months old. Doctors told the couple his condition was grave.

"Quite a few of them said he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive. It was pretty scary," his mother said. "We pretty much prayed every night, hoping that he would pull through."

Then a doctor at Akron Children's Hospital, Marc Nelson, suggested the experimental work in Michigan. Researchers there were testing airway splints made from biodegradable polyester that is sometimes used to repair bone and cartilage.

Kaiba had the operation on Feb. 9, 2012. The splint was placed around his defective bronchus, which was stitched to the splint to keep it from collapsing. The splint has a slit along its length so it can expand and grow as the child does – something a permanent, artificial implant could not do.

The plastic is designed to degrade and gradually be absorbed by the body over three years, as healthy tissue forms to replace it, said the biomedical engineer who led the work, Scott Hollister.

Green and Scott Hollister have a patent pending on the device and Hollister has a financial interest in a company that makes scaffolds for implants.

Dr. John Bent, a pediatric specialist at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, said only time will tell if this proves to be a permanent solution, but he praised the researchers for persevering to develop it.

"I can think of a handful of children I have seen in the last two decades who suffered greatly ... that likely would have benefited from this technology," Bent said.

UNFPA Focuses on Contraception for 222 Million in Developing World

Jakarta Globe, Thalif Deen, May 22, 2013

A person displays strips of contraceptive pills. (AFP Photo/Mychele Daniau)

When thousands of participants from around the world gather in Kuala Lumpur next week, the primary focus will be on health and empowerment of girls and women.

The meeting, scheduled for May 26-30 under a banner titled Women Deliver, will zero in on a longstanding unanswered question: how does the international community meet the massive unmet needs for contraception by over 222 million women in the developing world?”

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) points out that increased contraceptive use and reduced unmet needs for contraception are central to achieving three of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals — improving maternal health, reducing child mortality and combating HIV/AIDS — heading toward the 2015 deadline.

Sivananthi Thanenthiran, executive director at the Malaysia-based Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Center for Women (Arrow), told IPS the ability to decide the number, timing, and spacing of their children is one of the most fundamental rights individuals and couples can have.

Currently, she said, it is estimated 222 million women have an unmet need for family planning, and in many countries most women still continue to have more children then they desired.

“Investing in reproductive health and reproductive rights requires investment in a number of interventions by UN agencies, governments and donors,” she added.

Since UNFPA began operations back in 1969, the average global fertility has been cut in half. UNFPA says it has been a “critical catalyst” in this success by responding to requests by developing countries.

Asked how best the contraceptive needs could be met, Dr. Purnima Mane, president and chief executive officer of Pathfinder International, told IPS the United Nations and the international community need to continue advocating for increased funding — domestic and international — for access to contraception and for the integration of family planning into universal health coverage in all possible forums and through broader partnerships across sectors.

While it is true that investments in women’s education are essential to this effort, she said, much more needs to happen to change the situation of women.

Community-oriented work to change social norms around gender and enabling social and economic policies are essential to prevent early marriage, to keep girls in school, and to help women to space their births and give birth safely, when they want to bear children, said Mane, who heads an organization described as the global leader in sexual and reproductive rights.

She argued that based on historical evidence, political will is, and will be, the most critical element of success for strong family planning programs.

“However, we need to be vigilant about the voluntary nature of such programs and the quality of the care provided,” Mane added.

At this time, she said, the most critical priority is for the global community to come together to address the contraceptive and sexual and reproductive health information and service needs of the growing youth population of over three billion under the age of 25.

“There is no easy fix and we all know that. What we need is to address the multiple factors that impact on this issue rather than focus on any one aspect alone,” she said.

The Kuala Lumpur meeting, the third Women Deliver conference launched originally in 2007, is touted as the largest global event of the decade — primarily of government leaders, policymakers, healthcare professionals, representatives of non-governmental organizations, corporate leaders, and global media outlets.

The event will include a Youth Pre-Conference, a Minister’s Forum and a Parliamentarians Forum.

Asked about investments in reproductive health, Thanenthiran told IPS these include interventions around delaying the age of marriage and the age of first pregnancies, which include investments in girls’ education especially at the secondary and tertiary levels.

Interventions such as making available a range of contraceptive methods and ensuring women receive the right information so that they can make informed choices about the method that best suits them.

Health service providers should also treat women with kindness and providing quality care and service are essential in increasing trust towards family planning programs, she added.

Naturally this requires funding and political commitment, but the health of women and girls is well worth safeguarding, Thanenthiran added.

Asked how the United Nations’ post-2015 economic agenda could underline reproductive health,Mane told IPS human rights principles of the International Conference on Population and Development (which took place in Cairo in 1994) can be embedded constructively in a variety of ways in the new set of development goals.

But given that the relevant MDGs are especially lagging, “more explicit attention to the unfinished agenda is needed as we go forward.”

Population dynamics are also often left out of important discussions about future needs and development scenarios. For example, population growth may be mentioned but not in relation to access to contraception as a solution, she added.

She said universal health care is a start, if coverage of the broadest range of sexual and reproductive health care is explicitly included to move the unfinished agenda forward.

“Only then will we achieve sustainable development,” she said.

“My organization, Pathfinder International, stands behind confronting inequality by advocating with other civil society partners for better governance which not only addresses inequality but holds policymakers accountable for failing to address preventable deaths among women and children,” Mane declared.

Thanenthiran said it is essential that access to comprehensive, quality sexual and reproductive health services, as promised to women and committed to by governments in the Cairo ICPD Program of Action, is prioritized in the post-2015 development framework.

The ICPD Program of Action (PoA) is going to be 20 years in 2014, and women are yet to enjoy in full the promises made to them during that time, she pointed out.

In the MDGs, some attention was given to the agenda under MDG 5 (on improving maternal health), and those working in the field of sexual and reproductive health and rights are hoping to see a more comprehensive approach with more reproductive health issues and indicators being covered in the new goal on reproductive and maternal health.

This would be the best way to go about to ensure government commitments to the ICPD are fulfilled, and initial investments made during the MDGs are continued and fully realized in the new development framework, she declared.

Inter Press Service

Related Articles:

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…  3 - Longer Life is Going to Happen, But…

Here is one that is a review. We keep bringing it up because Humans don't believe it. If you're going to start living longer, there are those who are frightened that there will be overpopulation. You've seen the way it is so far, and the geometric progression of mathematics is absolute and you cannot change it. So if you look at the population of the earth and how much it has shifted in the last two decades, it's frightening to you. What would change that progression?

The answer is simple, but requires a change in thinking. The answer is a civilization on the planet who understands a new survival scenario. Instead of a basic population who has been told to have a lot of children to enhance the race [old survival], they begin to understand the logic of a new scenario. The Akashic wisdom of the ages will start to creep in with a basic survival scenario shift. Not every single woman will look at herself and say, "The clock is ticking," but instead can say, "I have been a mother 14 times in a row. I'm going to sit this one out." It's a woman who understands that there is no loss or guilt in this, and actually feels that the new survival attribute is to keep the family small or not at all! Also, as we have said before, even those who are currently ignorant of population control will figure out what is causing babies to be born [Kryon joke].

Part of the new Africa will be education and healing, and eventually a zero population growth, just like some of the first-world nations currently have. Those who are currently tied to a spiritual doctrine will actually have that doctrine changed (watch for it) regarding Human birth. Then they will be able to make free choice that is appropriate even within the establishment of organized religion. You see, things are going to change where common sense will say, "Perhaps it would help the planet if I didn't have children or perhaps just one child." Then the obvious, "Perhaps I can exist economically better and be wiser with just one. It will help the one!" Watch for these changes. For those of you who are steeped in the tradition of the doctrines and would say that sounds outrageously impossible, I give you the new coming pope [Kryon smile]. For those of you who feel that uncontrolled procreation is inevitable, I encourage you to see statistics you haven't seen or didn't care to look at yet about what first-world countries have already accomplished on their own, without any mandates. It's already happening. That was number three.….”

Germany's SAP speeds up recruitment of autistic persons

Deutsche Welle, 21 May 2013

German software giant SAP has announced it will recruit more autistic people over the next couple of years. The company claimed having such people on board would give it a competitive edge.

Walldorf-based software firm SAP announced Tuesday it would employ 100 autistic people globally over the next seven years. The German DAX-listed company said those people would be able to do a great job in programming and quality checks.

The World trade Organization defines autism as a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication and by restricted and repetitive behavior.

But SAP said it believed autistic people could help the company to explore different lines of thinking. "SAP thinks that employing people with autism can give us a competitive edge and can help such colleagues pursue a meaningful way of earning a living," the firm said in a statement.

Part of a larger drive

"The recruitment scheme is a chance to find extremely specialized people," said SAP's Anke Wittenberg who's responsible for integration matters.

In 2011, SAP started a pilot project in its development laboratory in India where autistic people have been found to be very successful. More people with the disorder are to be employed this year in Ireland, the United States, Canada and Germany with a view of enhancing the teams' productivity as well as customer satisfaction.

SAP said it was cooperating with a Danish initiative called Specialisterne which has been aiming to get at least one million autistic persons employed worldwide.

hg/hc (Reuters, dpa)

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"THE NEXT 18 YEARS"–  Dec 2, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll)

(Subjects: You are looking  at a Quantum event, clearing a filter - Portal pineal , Higher self to step forward and communicate to You, Still remains in 3D but exposure to multi dimensions, Evolution of humanity, Intent, Mayan Calendar, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, 26.000 Years, Milky Way, Nostradamus, 1987, Beginning to a New Time, Channellers/Teachers, Center of Galaxy – Black hole, Bridge of Swords, Pleiadians, Children, Inventions – The discoveries (e.g. : Airplanes - Medicines – Radio .. ): These new Discoveries were given all over the planet when Human consciousness was ready for it. New Inventions are coming, the timing depends on how the middle East problems are solved, Biology reaction of quantum energy; new radio of the future, seeing quantum energy, when it is revealed all science books will have to be rewritten, This will be an AHA moment – be possible to communicate with the rest of Galaxy, NASA, Church/Religion will be effected the most by these discoveries, The quantum discovery will see the grid, life, gardens and will redefine life, DNA (3 billion pieces) evolving piece DNA are chancing, Gaia/Humanity are linked, new instruments will start to reveal the DNA variance, Evolution revealed: Autistic children have born with the removal of their 3D structure in the brain, Gaia/Spirit are testing these quantum beings  (Evolved DNA), Universe central clock = Rifs,  Globally there will be only 5 currencies, Wars on earth will be declared barbaric, Middle East, Global Unity, .. etc.)

Human Evolution –  27 Sep 2008 (a message from Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)

“.. What do you think the Human brain can really do? What do you think it's built to do? Let me give you an example of what your society has come to accept as an "unbalanced person." Some of you think it's a "sick person." Let me talk about the autistic one. Let us talk about autism in what you call the most severe case.

Blessed is the autistic one who has come to this earth to show you what future Human evolvement looks like! They spend a lifetime trying to figure out linearity and it frustrates them. Blessed is the savant who the earth looks at and calls unbalanced. For the Humans who do this cannot see what they don't understand. The autistic one is able to get up off the paper and be in color! Many of the autistic ones can do what your calculators can do on your desks, did you know that? And they don't need a calculator! Give them a problem - two digits multiplied by three digits. Now watch how fast they give you the answer. Because they're not linear! Ask them what weekday the 13th of August will be in 2012, and they'll tell you, and they don't need a calendar. You might say, "What kind of a mind can do that?" I'll tell you - a nonlinear one without the walls in the brain that you have.

Have you ever thought about that? The autistic have a nonlinear mind. The barriers are dropped. Can you imagine the frustration of this Human? Here he is in a world of black and white while he is in color. Not only that, you want him to go in a straight line when he is used to all directions at once. This also explains why the only energies that will work to calm him are interdimensional ones - music, art, and love. Does this start to make sense to you? (see below)

What is taking place, dear ones, for all to know and see and understand, is that very, very slowly you have the linearity of the Human brain starting to be reduced. Unlike the autistic, it will be in ways that will still be balanced and make sense. In other words, you will be able to move in and out of quantum thought any time you wish in order to live in a linear, 3D existence, but have quantum consciousness. It will be a return to a form of consciousness that Lemurians had, but with the wisdom of the ages that you have collected. This will not be fast, but the forerunners of that are already here.

I'm going to give you some attributes of Human evolution in a moment, but let's return to the autistic ones. Many reading this are very concerned about autism. You wish to know why there are so many autistics being born. You say it's beyond coincidence that there are suddenly so many! There's more autistic children being born today than there ever have been on this planet. Humans are scurrying around wanting to know what's wrong. Is it the chemistry of the food? Perhaps it must be vaccinations! Some are saying, without any proof, "Yes, that's it - vaccinations must be it." You are grasping at almost anything to solve the puzzle of why so many autistics are arriving.

Yet very few Humans, if any, have looked at the puzzle and said, "Perhaps we're evolving, and this is the first wave of what we're going to see?" Not mentally unbalanced, but nonlinear thinking! This is, indeed, the case. You are seeing a form of evolution and you are calling it odd and unusual. It's simply those who are coming in early with activated quantum DNA. This early forerunner has DNA activated in an uncontrolled way, and so learning is needed to know how to make sense of it all. This is what they are doing, and each generation of savant will have a better time of it, figuring out what is linear and what is not.

Watch the autistic child go through what they must do (autism in its most severe form). They are so nonlinear that there is incredible frustration in trying to linearize even the Human voice as you speak to them. They will do the same actions over and over and over, trying to linearize the nonlinear. The linear walls are gone in their brain, and they have to learn to build the ones that they need. Humans then see them as a problem, and it's not a problem. It's a form of gifted children who are helping this planet to grow. Blessed are those who come into Earth as the new wave of consciousness to show you where it's going. They are setting the stage for a new kind of Human. For this quantumness will develop in a balanced way where many will have the autistic talents where they want them, and the linear when they want that. That's what the Human mind is capable of - being quantum when they wish to be. That's a return to the way it was given to you.  ‘’

You are Multidimensional - Celebrate Your Life! -  6 April 2008 (a message from Goddess of Creation channeled by Shelly Dressel)

Question: Why are so many new humans developing autism at this time?  Is there a purpose? Is there something we can do to assist them?  And then in addition to that, is there a correlation between autism and Alzheimer's?

Goddess: Autism is very much on people's mind at this time upon the earth.  It is a term that has been given to many children.  It is a definition that people give to a child as a means of trying to understand their behavior or how they think or how they are within their life.  Autism as you know it right now is but a fraction of what it truly is going to indicate in the future.  Many of the individuals that are being termed autistic are not necessarily autistic.  Autism in and of itself is a disconnection within.  Or you could say it's that these people have a different way of being able to communicate from others around them.  So when we say disconnect, it's not that they have fully disconnected with the other individuals; it's just that they are vibrating and living and experiencing life on a different level or a different plane.

Many have said that those who are autistic have their feet in two different dimensions or in multiple dimensions; yes, that is true.  Many have said that those children who are autistic have a short in their wiring as if there are aspects that are not working in this individual and this I would like to disagree with.  What's happening is, you are getting children especially who are of very high vibrations that are incorporating more of the crystalline vibration and less of the dense energies that have been upon the earth for the last several thousand years.

Therefore the electrical impulses that move through a crystal as opposed to the electrical impulses that move through a regular individual we shall just say or someone with regular wiring, there's going to be much less resistance, therefore their whole metabolism, everything about them is functioning on a completely different basis.

This journey tonight was to assist each one of you in recognizing just how much you are moving between dimensions.  These children that come in with these special gifts are used to moving (between dimensions) and they do it unconsciously.  To them, their sense of awareness, their sense of reality is very different from your own.  They may live in other realities while their physical body is here upon the earth.  Provide them with the structure that they may need to be able to function in society but also recognize that these are highly evolved individuals and respect that about them.

There may be crystals, there may be colors, there may be vibrations, things that emanate a vibration that assist the children in feeling more comfortable in their skin, in their reality.  If you are one of the individuals that would like to work with them or you find yourself perhaps having a child with these symptoms, go and open your senses and communicate from that of an expanded consciousness from the fifth, sixth or even seventh dimension.  Communicate from your heart, communicate without words, communicate through feelings and energies and you will find there's a great deal of information they are sharing with you.  These children are extremely sensitive so be aware of that and what is in their environment.

When it comes to Alzheimer's, there are some parallel pathways that one could point out.  Alzheimer's is a means of an individual beginning to cross over, beginning that journey back to this side of the veil but they have not yet fully chosen to return so they move at their own pace, experiencing whatever it is that they seek to experience.  And that is one reason why Alzheimer's seems to affect people for years at a time.  So while there are some similarities, that's as far as that goes.  Alzheimer's is a time to love and nurture an individual and again accept that this is their choice and this is their path.

Towards the end they are spending more and more of their reality in this other dimension.  For some it's a means of allowing them to feel comfortable with where they are going before they transition.  What you can do with them is also communicate from the heart, communicate without words. Assist them in being comfortable in other vibrations and assist them in being comfortable with the light and they will transition when the time is right for them.

I knew that this was something that was affecting many, many people and that is why I chose to give it a little bit more time and connection, and I thank you all for your patience. 

"THE THREE WINDS" – Feb 23-24, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) (Subjects: Humanity, Home - other side of the veil, Wind of Birth - Birth, Wind of Existence - Life, Wind of Transition - Death)

Accidental find shows Vitamin C kills tuberculosis

Google – AFP, 21 May 2013 

An Afghan woman holds a child in a tuberculosis section of the main

hospital in Herat on April 9, 2012 (AFP/File, Aref Karimi)

PARIS — Scientists said Tuesday they had managed to kill lab-grown tuberculosis (TB) bacteria with good old Vitamin C -- an "unexpected" discovery they hope will lead to better, cheaper drugs.

A team from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York made the accidental find while researching how TB bacteria become resistant to the TB drug isoniazid.

The researchers added isoniazid and a "reducing agent" known as cysteine to the TB in a test tube, expecting the bacteria to develop drug resistance.

Instead, the team "ended up killing off the culture", according to the study's senior author William Jacobs, who said the result was "totally unexpected".

Reducing agents chemically reduce other substances.

The team then replaced the cysteine in the experiment with another reducing agent -- Vitamin C.

It, too, killed the bacteria.

"I was in disbelief," said Jacobs of the outcome published in the journal Nature Communications.

"Even more surprisingly... when we left out the TB drug isoniazid and just had Vitamin C alone, we discovered that Vitamin C kills tuberculosis."

The team next tested the vitamin on drug resistant strains of TB, with the same outcome.

In the lab tests, the bacteria never developed resistance to Vitamin C -- "almost like the dream drug", Jacobs said in a video released by the college.

He stressed the effect had only been demonstrated in a test tube so far, and "we don't know if it will work in humans", or which dose might be useful.

"But in fact before this study we wouldn't have even thought about trying this study in humans."

In March, disease experts warned of a "very real" risk of an untreatable TB strain emerging as more and more people develop drug resistance.

In 2011, there were believed to be some 12 million TB cases in total -- 630,000 of them of the multi-drug resistant (MDR) variety which does not respond to the most potent drugs -- isoniazid and rifampin.

Extensively drug resistant (XDR) TB, does not respond to an even wider range of drugs.

TB was declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO) 20 years ago, but remains a leading cause of death by an infectious disease despite a 41-percent drop in the death rate from 1990 to 2011.

In 2011, 8.7 million people fell ill with TB and 1.4 million died, said the WHO.

Over 95 percent of TB deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, and it is a leading killer of people with HIV.

An airborne disease of the lungs, tuberculosis is usually treatable with a six-month course of antibiotics.

Resistance to TB drugs develops when treatment fails to kill the bacteria that causes it -- either because the patient fails to follow their prescribed dosages or the drug doesn't work.

It can also be contracted through rare forms of the disease that are directly transmissible from person to person.

MDR TB in the United States can cost as much as $250,000 (200,000 euros) per patient to treat.

XDR TB requires about two years of treatment with even more expensive drugs that cause side-effects and offer no guarantee of a cure.

The authors of the new study urged further research into the potential uses of Vitamin C in TB treatment, stressing it was "inexpensive, widely available and very safe to use."

"This would be a great study to consider because we have strains of tuberculosis that we don't have drugs for, and I know in the laboratory that we can kill those strains with Vitamin C," said Jacobs.

Angelina Jolie's cancer decision highlights row over genetic technology

Concerns that firms' rights to hold patents on genes linked to breast cancer is pushing up cost of testing for disease

The Guardian, The Observer, Paul Harris in New York, Sunday 19 May 2013

Angelina Jolie who has revealed she had decided to have a preventive double
mastectomy after testing for the ''faulty'' gene BRCA1. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/PA

Angelina Jolie's decision to speak out about her decision to have a preventive double mastectomy was intended to highlight the terrible risks of breast cancer. But the film star's move also cast a spotlight on the far less known arena of patent battles over genetic technology which could have far more impact than Jolie's widely applauded move.

Before the end of next month the US supreme court will issue a landmark decision in a case brought against the biotech firm Myriad Genetics, which is based in Utah, by the Association for Molecular Pathology.

The firm owns a patent on the BRCA1 gene, which Jolie carries and which is believed to carry a high risk of causing breast cancer. It also owns a patent on the similar BRCA2 gene.

It means that Myriad has the exclusive right to develop diagnostic tests for those genes – a fact that has implications for other firms, who thus might be prevented from developing innovations in the field.

It also has some serious hard-money business implications: in the wake of Jolie's announcement, Myriad's share price shot up. That has worried some commentators. In a New York Times column describing her decision, Jolie acknowledged she was lucky to be well-off enough to easily afford to take the test for the culpable genes.

Some have complained that the lengthy court battle over Myriad's patents has kept the price of the tests too high and have asked whether patents actually sacrifice patients' interests in favour of protecting corporate profits. "How many more women – and men – might have been able over the past four years to afford BRCA1 or BRCA2 testing in the absence of those protective patents?" wrote Andrew Cohen in Atlantic magazine.

The issue of patents and genetic technology is one of growing importance as a flood of companies enter the booming sector and scientific advances allow more and more advanced genetic manipulation. So far the supreme court has shown a willingness to side with big business. Earlier this month it ruled in favour of agricultural firm Monsanto in defence of a patent it holds on soy beans that dominate the US farming sector.

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"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)

"..... DNA - A Quantum Force 

Now we get to the core truth, don't we? So I will tell you. The ninety percent of DNA which is quantum, is filled with information, both esoteric and timeless. It is a quantum blueprint for everything you are and have been since you arrived on the planet the first time. DNA contains instruction sets for your life; everything from your full Akashic Record - every single lifetime you have had - to the benevolent creator's fingerprint within the seeds of creation itself. Every single talent you ever had is there, even if you don't have any of those today... the record is there. Every predisposition of weakness and strength are there. Biologically, every single instruction to every single stem cell is there. . ..."

"..... DNA is a Dynamic Molecule, not a static one.

Humanity is stuck in the 3D portion of their biological thinking. In your 3-D life, you simply accept the chemistry you're given. You act as though the three percent gene producing part is all there is. You believe it is a chemical protocol that is unchangeable and simply "you." You don't see it for the way it's designed. It's dynamic and always has been. It's not set, but will continue to simply repeat what it does unless there is another quantum influence on it.

Therefore you live with the 3 percent as though it were all there is, and since it just "came with your body" and seems to control everything, you never talk to it. Many of you come in with pre-dispositions based upon the karma which is put upon you from your past lives. You don't come in clean [without karmic energy]. Instead, you arrive with pre-dispositions, fears and phobias. Some are positive. Perhaps you come in as a prodigy continuing your last life... the 8-year-old who can paint like a master and do brushstrokes that take 30 years to develop. What does that tell you about what must be in the DNA?

Perhaps you come in as the composer, the pianist, the prodigy, the violinist, just waiting until your hands can go on the fingerboard or can reach up and fret the notes. Perhaps you come in knowing how to play the piano, just waiting for your hands to get big enough to do what you used to do... without any lessons. How do you explain that, dear ones? The answer is that all this is contained in the dynamic quantum instruction sets of your DNA... the part you never talk to it. .."

"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein are back, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism, Higgs Boson), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - (Text Version)

"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll)

UK backpacker dies from poisoned alcohol in Indonesia

Cheznye Emmons, 23, has life support machine turned off after drinking methanol from a bottle labelled as gin

guardian.co.uk, Martin Williams, Saturday 18 May 2013

Cheznye Emmons was trekking with her boyfriend and another traveller in the
 Indonesian jungle when they drank the methanol. Photograph: Peter Lawson/East
News Press Agency

A British backpacker has died after drinking poisoned alcohol in the Indonesian jungle.

Cheznye Emmons, 23, had bought a bottle labelled "gin" from a shop, which turned out to be deadly methanol. The beauty therapist from Essex had been trekking with her boyfriend and another man they met while travelling.

All three suffered health problems after drinking the methanol, which can cause kidney failure, blindness, seizures and death. Emmons lost her sight and was taken through the jungle to the nearest eye clinic. She was referred to hospital where she was placed in an induced coma.

Her parents flew to Indonesia where they eventually decided to turn off her life support machine.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We can confirm the death of a British national in Indonesia and we are providing consular assistance to the family at this difficult time."

Her brother, Michael Emmons, said: "We're all just in shock. From what we understand, the shop poured the gin out of the original bottle and then replaced it with methanol. It was in the original bottle with the gin label on it. As far as we're aware, the shop has been shut and there's a police investigation."

Home-brewed spirits are common in Indonesia because of an alcohol tax of more than 200%, but methanol is a by-product of poor distillation techniques.

Latin American states weigh legalizing pot

Google – AFP, 18 May 2013

View of marijuan plants in Los Algodones community, Culiacan, Sinaloa State,

Mexico on January 30, 2012 (AFP/File, Alfredo Estrella)

WASHINGTON — An Organization of American States report has called for taking a closer look at possibly legalizing marijuana in Latin America.

The report examined an issue that until recently was a taboo topic in the region. Politicians, desperate for measures to control drug-linked violence, are now open to legalization.

The report does not make specific proposals, but looks at different scenarios in which countries could handle the drug trade blamed on scores of deaths.

"Never before has a multilateral organization engaged in such an inclusive and intellectually legitimate analysis of drug policy options," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, the largest US group pushing for reforming drug policies in the United States.

"It would have been inconceivable just two years ago that the OAS -- or any multilateral organization -- would publish a document that considers legalization, decriminalization and other alternatives to prohibitionist policies on an equal footing with status quo policies."

According to Nadelmann, "political pressures by the US and other governments would have made that impossible."

The new focus on alternatives to prohibition reflects the "unhappiness" of Latin Americans toward a US policy that continues to focus on crop eradication and militarized crackdowns, said Peter Hakim at the Inter-American Dialogue, a leading Washington think tank.

"Legalization is one alternative. I don't think it's going to really be widely adopted, but is a way of getting the debate started," he said.

OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza traveled to Bogota to personally hand the report to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

Santos, a key US ally in Latin America, is also one of the leading voices in calling for a fresh look at counter-narcotics policies.

According to the report, the regulation of some drugs would allow governments to reassign resources to the prevention and treatment of addicts.

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