inkycircus

Number one child

FAMILIES. CAN'T LIVE WITH EM, CANT LIVE WITHOUT EM. (PHOTO: AVALORE)
Families disagree a lot, that's what makes them fun. They are also unequal, with every family member being treated differently. Whether this is positive or negative rather depends on the family. Much as every parent would wish to be and try to be impartial and fair, it is simply impossible to treat all your children the same. I would lay money on the fact the most oft-spoken sentence in a family with more than one child is "It isn't FAIR".

I am a younger sibling, and I know for a fact that my older brother thought I got away with murder. He got to stay up late? So did I. He started getting pocket money? So did I. Very unfair. But it was the way that I used to provoke him until he hit me then go crying to mum, who would then of course take my side because I was smaller and a girl, that really broke his spirit and destroyed any faith he ever had in his parents.

Naturally, I just thought I was getting my revenge because he was older and got to do everything first. Naturally, he thought it was yet another example of how much our parents preferred me to him. And there's the key point. Whatever real or imagined imbalance in the way we were treated, we didn't agree about it. (We do now, as he still thinks they liked me better and I agree with him. Kidding). According to a study of family dynamics done in Illinois, that disagreement is pretty common. But in the families which communicated the best, any real or imagined imbalance was less of a problem. The moral of the story is that families should talk more, which is always a good idea. Of course the idea of teenaged siblings who communicate well with each other is about as likely as a low-flying pig, so this is a lesson for parents more than children. If you have to treat your children differently, for example with extra time or help, make sure the other kid knows why. It's basic psychology but it makes so much sense.

PS - If you need a good way to open communication with your family, why not try one of these little gizmos from Popgadget?

Here's the Eurekalert press release.

An Apple Pill a Day

I am a psychic. Didn't I tell you that before? My bad. Anyways. I just had a vision about the future of fruit. You see a group of Cornell researchers have isolated several compounds from apple peels that all have anticancer effects on human breast, liver and colon cancer cells. Soon the health food companies will being to churn out the "Apple A Day Pill" - a concentrated form of these triterpenoids.

Subsequent clinical tests will show that the Apple A Day Pill does absolutely nothing, compared to consumption of whole apples. Media will report echoes of the whole tomato versus lycopene scandal of 2003.

It will be yet another chapter in the 'we spend billions of research dollars to figure out that eating a balance diet with lots of unprocessed foods and fresh fruits and veggies is good for us" book.

Popcorn worker's lung

(PHOTO: LINNELL ESLER)
I always felt that the microwave popcorn butter flavor was noxious, and now I know why. It's because it's chock full of diacetyl, a perfectly normal byproduct of fermentation that lends a buttery or butterscotchy taste to food in large doses but also has an evil side. It causes debilitating lung damage in artificial butter factory workers amongst other pockets of the flavor industry.

The disease, called "popcorn worker's lung" is actually bronchiolitis obliterans, a debilitating form of lung damage which normally strikes those exposed to toxic gas or as a manifestation of transplant rejection (ironically lung transplants are the only known treatment of popcorn lung). Suffice to say it's nasty and people are lobbying hard to protect flavor industry workers against the effects of inhaling that seemingly wholesome fake flavor in large doses.

In the past five years, the flavor industry has dished out over $100 million to popcorn workers lung victims in lawsuits. California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has introduced a bill to ban diacetyl in the workplace by 2010.

The next logical question is, what does this mean for the unwitting public? Judging by how the smell of fake butter permeates the air after nuking microwave popcorn, one imagines consumer exposure to be worthy of investigation. Back in 2003, the EPA commissioned a study to look at the effects of microwave popcorn in the home. It was slated to be finished by the end of that year but got stalled when the principal investigator was transferred to tend "homeland security duties." The EPA anticipates publication of the study in an academic journal by the middle of 2007. To which I reply, "pop goes the weasel."

Treadmill + work = misery!

People these days don't do enough exercise. So, the brainy person who comes up ways to make exercise fun will save lives and make big bucks, because treadmills and running machines are effective but TEDIOUS. This isn't a new idea, pop into any posh gym anywhere around and you'll find a selection of telly programmes and radio stations on offer to stop you dying of boredom. However, what is a new idea is this - making you do your work while walking on a treadmill instead of perched on your arse at a desk, to stop you getting so fat. A new idea, and a silly idea. Gimmicks are cute, they sometimes work, we spend the majority of our day at work so why not make the most of that time and maximise movement, I get it. But talk about the worst of both worlds! If I'm miserable because I'm running on a running machine like a hamster in a wheel, don't give me a computer and make me work! That's just mean!

(PHOTO: CWCAV)

Eye say

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE (PHOTO: ANCA-PUI)
I can't imagine life without my eyesight. I know that plenty of amazing people manage without their eyes and do as much if not more than those of us who can see, but if those people were offered an opportunity to see again, I bet they'd grab it. If the visual pathways in their brain work perfectly, but they're let down by their actual optical hardwear (namely their eyes), this might be possible. They'd have to walk around with specially adapted glasses fitted with tiny digital cameras that were attached to their brains with electrodes, but they'd be able to see.

Eyes are fiendishly complicated structures. They're often quoted as evidence against evolution, as if a process as blunt as natural selection could produce such a thing of beauty and efficiency. In fact, it's evolution itself that has helped the eye to achieve it's amazing capabilities (see Wikipedia). Once one creature developed sight, the arms race was on for everyone to catch up or be left in the dark. Which is why a bionic eye is that much more advanced than many other replacement organs, and has to be hardwired into the brain. At the moment, the researchers have only tested this out on monkeys, and have only used a very few electrodes to connect the bionic eye to the visual cortex. The number of electrodes they'd need to help a human see again is daunting. But the technology seems to work and that's at least some of the battle won of helping the blind to see again.

Via BBC News.

Friday Night Health Food: Behold the Margarita

You know how clothing sizes have grown along with Western waistlines, what people in the industry call vanity sizing? Well sometimes I think that scientists are conducting vanity research. You know, research about how chocolate lowers blood pressure, red wine fights gum disease and beer protects again heart disease? I mean..they aren't LYING or anything, but come on....

Which is why I am particularly impressed by this piece of COMPLETELY TRUE, TOTALLY WONDERFUL AND ACCURATE NEWS. Fruity alcoholic beverages with deep berry colors, like daiquiris, margaritas, cosmopolitans or Singapore Slings (cherry brandy, see) are literally HEALTH FOOD because the ethanol "boosted the antioxidant nutrients."

Yes. I realize that doesn't sound like English. Mostly because antioxidants aren't what we'd classically called nutrients, but seriously. BUT WHO CARES? It's Friday and I am in dire need of a Margarita - hold the fruit.

Pity the trolley dollies

Jet lag aint fun. But if you want to go on your hols to a far flung location on the other side of the world, you're going to mess up your body clock and suffer when you're back on home turf. I never really know how you're meant to counter jet lag, so I usually just try to sleep as much as I can on the plane, drink lots of water (cure for everything), and avoid the nap of doom (when you get home mid afternoon, think you'll just lay your head down for 2 minutes, and wake up 8 hours later feeling like death). But a new study claims that jet lag can leave you at risk of stomach problems, menstrual disturbance, and maybe even short periods of psychiatric disturbance.

We are built to operate on a time clock, to be awake a certain amount of time and asleep the rest, and it seems reasonable to say that messing with that programme probably isn't terribly healthy. But just not getting enough sleep is one thing, bouncing around the globe and never giving your body a chance to recover is quite another. Small amounts of discomfort caused by mixing up them time-zones is manageable, either because you've just had a nice holiday, or because you know that after a few nights back under your own duvet, you'll be right as rain again. But if it was your job to globetrot, what then? So we're left with the standard scientific refrain - more research is needed. What physical, chemical or biological effect does persistent jet lag have on frequent flyers? I see some "research" long haul trips on the horizon for sure...

Via ABC Australia. PHOTO: A GLITCH.

The lonliness of the long distance runner

My cousin is training for the Flora London Marathon at the moment, and is doing spectacularly well - she did a 3 hour, 18 mile run on Sunday. a)I myself probably couldn't even run for 18 metres, b)how she didn't get bored for all that time just running I'll never know. But anyway. The marathon is one of those things that pushes human ability to the max. One should think only of the original marathon runner, Pheidippides, who ran 26 miles from the town of Marathon to Athens with glad tidings, and then dropped dead - it's not a feat to be taken lightly. But for some people, the promise of torn muscles, chafed thighs, jogger's nipple, blisters, kidney problems, heart problems, dead toenails, dehydration, exhaustion and sunburn isn't enough of a challenge, and they have to run a marathon at the arctic. With two false hips, like Warrant Officer Steve Boswell.  Or in space, like NASA astronaut Sunita Williams.

For me, and we've already established that I'm quite lazy, being blasted up into space would be quite a good get-out clause for not having to run the marathon after all. But no. Sunita plans to follow through on the Boston marathon motto - 'It's all about the promises' - and to tether herself to a treadmill in the space shuttle for 3+ hours, and cover the 26 miles anyway, at the same time as her fellow runners in Boston. She'll incidentally have put a girdle round the earth twice in the process, actually travelling just over 50,000 miles before she reaches the metaphorical finishing line. How's that for going the distance?

Via BBC News. And you can see a pic of Sunita on her treadmill there too. PHOTO: PAUL KELEHER

Blood, blood, glorious blood

Most of the medical things I know I've learned from ER (and Casualty, Grey's Anatomy, House, Scrubs... etc). Such as what blood you can give to what patient when they come into ER/A&E (depending on which side of the pond you're from) spectacuarly leaking from a GSW to the chest. "He's bleeding out! Give him three pints of o-neg!" cries the hot-shot young rebel of an intern/SHO, as everyone scurries around. For o-neg is blood of type O negative, which can be given to anybody in an emergency, without any need for time-wasting blood tests. Blood that matches your blood type is better in the long run, but takes time to test for and get hold of, time you might not have.

Your blood type is determined by the presence or absence of three inherited antigenic substances on the surface of your red blood cells - the A antigen, the B antigen and the Rhesus D antigen. If you have no A's or B's, your blood type is O, if you do have A's or B's you'll be A, B or AB. If you have the Rhesus D antigen, your blood type is positive. If you don't have it, your blood type is negative. Being given the wrong type of blood plays merry hell with your immune system and can even bring about a swift and nasty death. So you really want to be careful what you give to whom. With o-neg you don't have to be so careful, but that's not so helpful when stocks of O-neg blood are low. 

But some highly brainy people from the University of Copenhagen have figured out a genius way to boost those stocks. They converted blood of type A, B or AB into the universally appropriate type O, by using bacterial enzymes to strip the antigens from the surface of the red blood cells. The enzymes can't do anything about the Rhesus D antigen at present, so only A-, AB- or B- blood can be used to create that elixir of life, O-neg. And they haven't done any patient trials, so the conversion method can't be used in hospitals just yet. But at the moment, blood banks rely on the few individuals who are altruistic enough to pop by every 4 months to bleed out a quick pint in exchange for a free sandwich. So this discovery would in theory make a noticable difference to blood stocks, and is really rather amazing news.

Via BBC News. PHOTO: COMBINAT.

Random medical cure o the day

IF YOU DON'T HAVE A WART BUT YOU DO HAVE DUCT TAPE YOU COULD ALWAYS MAKE A LITTLE HOUSE FOR YOUR BRUSSEL SPROUTS. (PHOTO: !ALEX!)
Got a wart? Fearing social rejection and humiliation? Fear not. All you need to re-enter society as a newly smooth individual is a roll of duct/duck tape. Nobody knows why it gets rid of warts, but it does. All you have to do is put a piece of tape over your wart and leave it for a week or so, then have a go at the weakened wart with a pumice stone, and you'll be sorted. That's if you can stand the shame of walking around for a week with tape on your face, but we have to suffer to be beautiful.

And if you ever find yourself in a late night pub argument about whether the versatile silvery tape is named after a vent or an aquatic bird, the answer is that there is no answer. It was developed in WW2 as a waterproof sealing for ammunition cases, and rumour has it that was made to withstand water like a duck's back. But it's certainly used to fix ducts, and plenty more besides, and has been since long before any mention of ducks came along. A company sells the tape under the brand name 'Duck Tape', but wikipedia opts for the duct spelling. Duct or duck, the fact remains that the tape is fabulously useful. And it gets rid of warts. So there.

Via The Boston Globe.