If you know anything about the food supply, you know that honey bees are a crucial part of the food production chain. In the United States, they pollinate roughly one-third of all the crops we eat, and without them, we’d be facing a disastrous collapse in viable food production.
That’s why, when honey bees started to disappear a few years ago, scientists scrambled to find the root cause of the phenomenon, which has since been dubbed “Colony Collapse Disorder”.
The name is a bit of a misnomer, though. It’s not really a “disorder.” It’s more of a poisoning. Or at least that’s what we may be learning from new research that’s just been published in the ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
At the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Western Human Nutrition Research Center in Davis, Calif., research molecular biologist Daniel H. Hwang conducts studies to solve the complex puzzle of precisely how phytochemicals fight inflammation. His investigations with cells cultured in his laboratory have uncovered probable modes of action used by phytochemicals from red wine, green tea, garlic, curcumin and cinnamon.
Michael Pollan has been awfully busy these days, and in addition to the new Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids (out now!), his upcoming Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, and a live online chat last week, PBS will soon premiere The Botany of Desire, a television special based on one of his earlier books.
The Botany of Desire was the first of Michael’s books that I read, and it helped ignite my fascination with food history and zeal for understanding where our food comes from, so I am really excited to see the show. By examining the intricate relationship between humans and four plants (apples, potatoes, tulips, and marijuana), Botany reveals how certain plant species have used us to their advantage and proliferated exponentially by offering attractive qualities to us.
Shortly before they all were happily handcuffed Tuesday, the farmers took one look at what the activists had brought to dig with, and just shook their heads.
The symbolic shovels were shiny, chrome-plated affairs, the kind for turning the earth in a Washington photo op, stamped with slogans: "Reefer Madness Will Be Buried." When the shovel blades were experimentally pressed into the mulch outside the group's hotel, they bent like toys.
The polyphenols found in red wine are thought to help prevent Alzheimer's disease, and new research from Purdue University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine has shown that some of those compounds in fact reach the brain.
Mario Ferruzzi, a Purdue associate professor of food science; Connie Weaver, Purdue's head of foods and nutrition; and Elsa Janle, a Purdue associate professor of foods and nutrition, found that the amount of polyphenols from grapeseed extract that can reach a rat's brain is as much as 200 percent higher on the 10th consecutive day of feeding as compared to the first. Many previous experiments, in which absorption was measured after single or sporadic doses, often found very little, if any, of the bioactive polyphenols reaching brain tissues. However, more chronic exposure appears to improve absorption.
A collaborative team of international EMF activists has released a report detailing eleven design flaws of the 13-country, Telecom-funded Interphone study.
The exposé discusses research on cell phones and brain tumors, concluding that:
• There is a risk of brain tumors from cell phone use
• Telecom funded studies underestimate the risk of brain tumors
• Children have larger risks than adults for brain tumors
Obesity is a growing concern especially because overweight rates have doubled among children and tripled among adolescents. This increases the number of years that they are exposing themselves to dangerous health risks associated with obesity. While it is difficult to truly predict the future impact of obesity, there is strong scientific agreement that obesity significantly increases the risk of serious chronic diseases and contributes to overall mortality.
Researcher Kamal Meattle shows how an arrangement of three common houseplants, used in specific spots in a home or office building, can result in measurably cleaner indoor air. This is accomplished with 3 types of carefully selected basic and common waist high potted plants. Areca Palm, Mother-in-law’s Tongue and “Money Tree”. This without dobut is using green to go green to be sustainably healthy.
Of particular note is that studies show, 20% productivity improvement in workers and a 1% increase in blood oxygen ( measured after only 10 hours ). Impressive. It would seem that if you must plant a tree, put one of these 3 in your office or home at the very least, and at the best, follow Kamal’s simple guidance for trees per person for 100% balance, essentially erasing your own exhaled C02 footprint such as it is, and being healthy while doing it.
