Humans caused wipeout of Australian fauna

Humans caused wipeout of Australian fauna - The arrival of human beings in Australia devastated the local fauna so much that huge extinctions soon followed.

Up until now, the extinction of Australia's megafauna had been a mystery.

Australian scientists said they pinpointed hunting by humans as being the primary cause of the disappearance of many species about 40,000 years ago.

They made the discovery by using a new method of tracking the abundance of large herbivores through time by counting spores of dung fungi.

"The spores of these fungi can be preserved in sediments in swamps and lakes," team leader Professor Chris Johnson from the School of Zoology at the University of Tasmania said.

"As those sediments accumulate over time, they create a historical record of the abundance of very large herbivores in the environment."

Pollen and charcoal particles are trapped in the same sediments, so the team found it could match up the history of abundance of large herbivores with changes in vegetation and fire.

This was done by using radiocarbon dating.

The team examined sediment at Lynch's Crater on the Atherton Tableland in north Queensland.

"It showed that the abundance of large mammals was stable until just before 40,000 years ago when it suddenly crashed," Professor Johnson said.

"This rules out climate change as a cause of extinction as there were several periods of climate drying before the extinction and they had no effect on abundance, and when the animals did go extinct the climate was stable.

"But the extinctions followed very soon after the time that people arrived in the region. So it seems that people did it.

While the study did not directly address how people caused extinction, the scientists say circumstantial evidence suggested it was most likely the result of hunting.

"Beforehand, the environment seems to have been quite open, probably with patches of rainforest separated by areas of open grassland and there was very little fire," Professor Johnson said.

Soon afterwards, fire increased and the vegetation turned into widespread eucalypt forest.

"Probably these changes were caused by the decrease in consumption of plant material by large herbivores, which allowed forest to spread and also resulted in a build-up of dry fuel for bushfires."

Professor Johnson believes that the extinction of the megafauna was the catalyst for ecological changes which were profound.

"These results should provoke us to look at `natural' places in a new way, as landscapes that have been fundamentally changed by the indirect effects of early Aboriginal people."

The team included scientists from the Australian National University, the University of Adelaide, the University of New South Wales and Monash University. ( news.com.au )

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Study Suggests Obesity May Delay Boys' Puberty

Study Suggests Obesity May Delay Boys' Puberty. Reasons For Maturity Delay Unclear, Implications May Be Far-Reaching. Researchers may have found yet another reason not to let boys become obese -- it could delay their puberty.

A study following over 400 boys shows that those who are obese are twice as likely as their normal-weight counterparts not to have started puberty by the age of 11 and a half. While previous studies in girls had shown the opposite phenomenon -- girls who are obese tend to hit puberty earlier than their normal-weight counterparts -- it seems obesity may cause a maturity delay in boys, a situation with unknown and possibly far-reaching effects.

"With the epidemic of childhood obesity, there's concern this is going to have a negative effect on growth and development," said Dr. Joyce Lee, a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of Michigan and the study's lead author.

Lee said that while girls have been well studied when it comes to the effects of early obesity, "there was a paucity of studies in boys."

In the new study, which was published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, it was found that 14 percent of obese boys had not started puberty by the end of the study, while only 7 percent of normal weight boys had not.

"This could add a further burden to obese, adolescent boys," said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital in Boston. "For [a boy] that may already be teased because of his appearance, delayed puberty could further increase the stigmatization."

He said that while the findings of this study are new, they confirm an observation some had made when working with obese boys.

"It may not be a well-recognized phenomenon but it is one that had been considered previously," Ludwig said.

A study following over 400 boys suggests those who are obese are twice as likely as their normal weight counterparts not to have started puberty by the age of 11 and a half. (Getty Images)

Opening The Door to More Questions

"It's pretty well established in girls that puberty starts earlier [if they are obese]. The studies in boys really weren't as clear," said, Dr. Jennifer Helmcamp, a pediatrician specializing in obesity with Scott & White Healthcare. "This really helps say, delayed puberty may actually be caused by something that's going on because of this weight."

But while we may now know another potential consequence of obesity, Helmcamp notes that we still do not know what is causing it.

"There still needs to be more studies, we can't say for sure," she said.

One thing the results do is cast doubt on the hormone leptin, which is found in greater levels in people with more fat and was a suspect for the early puberty in girls who are obese. Because the hormone was found in high levels in both boys and girls, it appears less likely as an explanation for the changes in time of puberty because of obesity.

Ludwig said one possible reason obesity has an apparently opposite impact in boys and girls is that it appears that fat tissue converts male hormones into the female hormone estrogen, which could speed up puberty in girls but delay it in boys.

Because so little research has been done on the effects of obesity on boys when it comes to puberty, it is unclear what impact this new finding will have.

Lee said that while this study gives some indication that puberty works differently in boys and girls, it also means that we know less about what the possible impact might be on boys, or what the impact might be if obesity trends continue and girls, already ahead when it comes to puberty, move even further ahead of their males counterparts at the same ages.

All this study does, she said, is "It confirms that obesity has effects on children's growth and development for both genders."

Several researchers noted that early puberty has been shown to have an effect on fertility, and having more sex hormones may have an impact on future cancer risks.

Tom Baranowski, a professor of pediatrics specializing in behavioral nutrition at the Baylor College of Medicine, explained that the problem may come for boys who hit puberty earlier than their peers rather than those who see it delayed.

"The fear has been that the boys who experience puberty earlier would not have peers they could bounce their experience off of," he said. "They're forced into probably doing upwards comparisons. There's a risk that they run of running into children we might not prefer that they talk to."

Explaining exactly how obesity affects puberty may be far off, but one benefit of the study, Lee said, is it alerts parents to more immediate effects of obesity, rather than the further off risks like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, which may appear to be more abstract.

"I think the fact that obesity could affect how they currently grow and develop could be of greater concern to parents because that affects them in the short term," she said. ( abcnews.go.com )

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Sex on a platter

Sex on a platter. Rewind. Way back in the age of Greek Gods and Goddesses, the ‘Venus’ of the Romans or the Goddess of Love and Sensuality was Aphrodite.

That’s how foods that enhance sexual pleasure got their name — Aphrodisiacs. According to mythology, the Goddess of Love herself considered the amorous sparrows sacred, which is why sparrows were added to brews... However for the sexual desire to take flight, sparrows seem passé. The pills are in. But not many know that some herbs, veggies, fruits, nuts and grains can do the job for you, too.

Actress Kim Sharma, tells us, “The concept of aphrodisiacs isn’t new. It has been existent since time immemorial. And let’s not talk about western fads that have been ‘adopted’ by us. On the contrary, aphrodisiac foods have always been a part of Indian tradition and customs, and the recipes are being passed on gradually to the next generation. It’s another story that we aren’t aware about the ‘aphrodisiacal qualities’ about these things.”

The actress further explains, “What do you think your grandmother or your mother-in-law is doing when she walks into your room with kesar-badam ka doodh? Well, she is doing more than just being nice to you. Milk with saffron and almond is aphrodisiacal and meant to up the libido. It’s a custom that has been followed over the years... The ‘love potions’ or the need to consume such foods may have arisen from the importance given to procreation then. To father a child was the mission of man; to take the race forward. It was a religious issue then and the potency of both the male and the female was of utmost importance.”

Some of the most common foods with aphrodisiacal characteristics are chocolate, ginger, ginseng, saffron, cardamom, garlic, pineapple, pomegranate, pine seeds, mustard, basil, dates, cherries, figs... “Oyster meat is supposed to be very rich in aphrodisiacal elements,” adds Kim, “And then there’s of course cocoa. You know, in some parts of the world, like Mexico, earlier prostitutes were paid in cocoa beans. Interesting na?”

According to Tanushree Poddar, author of You Are What you Eat, aphrodisiac foods are found all over the world, and every culture has their respective beliefs in the union of the male and female. While in China the bird’s nest soup is recommended to cure impotency, Arabs consider the camel’s hump to be the panacea of sexual inadequacy.

Most foods reminiscent of the male or female sex organ are automatically considered to be those that boost the sexual drive — bananas, carrots, sea urchins, seeds, nuts, asparagus... “But augmenting sexual desire is not only about boring healthy things, it can be made interesting with wine, honey, chocolate, vanilla, truffles, raspberries and strawberries,” suggests Kim,

“Sometimes it’s the scent of the food that does the trick for you. And also more often than not there’s a lot that you can do for yourself and your partner ensuring a perfect end to a perfect date.”
Sensuous Sharma proposes, “A sexy dress, a great perfume, romantic music, scented candles, beautiful flowers, wine, strawberries covered with chocolate, oyster soup, tossed salad, garlic chicken parmesan, dessert wine followed by beautifully presented dessert. And yes, drop the fork and knife, and lick those luscious fingers... it’s ahem!” ( indiatimes.com )

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Is it OK to impregnate a 60-year-old woman?

Fertile Old Ladies. Is it OK to impregnate a 60-year-old woman?. Should old women have babies?

Until recently, this wasn't an issue. Nature exhausted your egg supply, and that was it. But technology has surmounted that problem. Now you can get in vitro fertilization, donor eggs, and womb-rejuvenating hormones. You can freeze your eggs or embryos. You can even freeze your ovarian tissue, reimplant it later, and resume ovulating.

Everywhere you look, moms are older. Over the last three decades, the U.S. birth rate among women aged 35 or older has increased by 140 percent. These women now produce one of every seven American children. In Europe, women over 35 have increased their share of pregnancies from 5 percent to 20 percent. More than 100,000 American women aged 40 or older have babies each year. In the last 15 years, at least a dozen women aged 60 or older70. have done it. The oldest age at which a woman has given birth is now

Is middle-aged motherhood getting out of control?

The latest poster children for this controversy are the offspring of Maria del Carmen Bousada. Three years ago, Bousada, a 66-year-old unmarried Spaniard, pretended to be 55 and persuaded a California clinic to impregnate her using donated eggs and sperm. Later that year, she delivered twins. Two weeks ago, she died of cancer at age 69. Her 2-year-old sons are now orphans.

The case has provoked outcries around the world. "There's a lesson for baby boomers in the story of Maria del Carmen Bousada," wrote columnist Allison Pearson in London's Daily Mail. "The lesson is that, contrary to the fond belief perpetrated by the most self-absorbed generation ever to grace the planet, 60 is not the new 40 and it never will be." Pearson called Bousada "part of an epidemic of older women who think they can get away with defying biological laws that have held good for thousands of years."

That would be a tidy lesson, but it isn't quite true. The biological laws of maternity are shifting. Sixty may not be the new 40, but in some respects, 65 is the new 55. Maternal age is going up in part because, in terms of frailty and longevity, older women aren't as old as they used to be.

The clinic that impregnated Bousada ends eligibility for treatment at age 55. British and Spanish clinics have informal cutoffs at 50. Tony Rutherford, the head of the British Fertility Society, draws the line at 45 in his own practice. A bioethics institute is proposing to enforce the same limit in Spain. Britain's National Health Service cuts off in vitro fertilization at 40.

Why draw these lines? One rationale is nature. The British Fertility Society opposes fertility treatment after age 50 because "nature didn't design women to have assisted conception beyond the age of the natural menopause," says its secretary, Allan Pacey. "Once you get into the mid-50s, I think nature is trying to tell us something."

But what exactly is nature saying? Assisted conception is inherently unnatural. Strictly speaking, nature is telling us not to do it at all. Furthermore, in 1900, life expectancy for a girl born in the United States was 50.7 years. Was nature telling us that women shouldn't live, much less bear children, beyond that point? That didn't stop us from using science to extend women's lives. Why should it stop us from extending their fertility?

For that matter, the British Fertility Society supports IVF, egg donation, and cloning human embryos for research. Why, when the debate turns to menopause, does it suddenly invoke nature?

The second argument for line-drawing is efficacy. Rutherford's clinic cuts off IVF at age 45 because beyond that age, it's unlikely to work. But for many women, egg donation circumvents that problem. So do frozen eggs, embryos, and ovarian tissue. The reason why so many people are freaking out over middle-aged moms is that the old rules of efficacy are gone. These women aren't failing to have babies. They're succeeding.

So the debate boils down to a third argument: These women are too old to raise kids. Why does the clinic that impregnated Bousada draw a line at 55? Because, according to the clinic's owner, any woman who's going to have babies should "survive until the kids reach 18."

A century ago, that would have been a good reason to draw the line at 55. In 1910, an American woman who reached age 55 could expect 18 more years of life. But by 1950, the line had moved: Women could expect 18 more years if they made it age 60. Today, they can expect 18 more years if they make it to age 67. In 2006, when Bousada gave birth at age 66, she had a remaining life expectancy of about 19 years.

Does that mean 66-year-old women should run out and get pregnant? No way. To begin with, the hormone injections that facilitate pregnancy at such an age can be dangerous. In Bousada's case, they may have contributed to the cancer that killed her. Second, life expectancy is an average, not a guarantee. Bousada thought she'd live a long time because her mother made it to 101. Three years later, Bousada was dead. That's the cruelty of averages: Nineteen years of life expectancy means that one 66-year-old woman will live 35 more years, while another will live 3. By definition, the chance that you'll die before your projected life expectancy is 50 percent.

Third, life expectancy includes years of frailty when you're no longer effectively able to raise children. In 2002, for instance, a 65-year-old American woman could expect 19.5 years of life but only 14.3 years of good health, 11.7 years of full activity, and five years of freedom from chronic diseases. If you want mothers to stay healthy and active until their kids reach 18, you'd better cap maternity at an earlier age.

But if health and activity are what's important, why focus on age? Fertility clinics already screen patients for health risks such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. No law of biology says a middle-aged woman can't meet such tests. Mary Shearing, who had twins at 53 in 1992, is thriving at 70 today. So are her 16-year-old daughters.

Maybe Shearing owes her good health to her daily gym workouts, or maybe she owes both to lucky genes. Either way, should her clinic have turned her away? Is she slower and weaker than most younger moms would be? Sure. But she's also wiser and steadier. Barack Obama was raised by a grandmother in her 50s, and I don't see many folks complaining about how he turned out.

And what about men? Strom Thurmond, the late senator from South Carolina, had kids at 68, 69, 70, and 73. Where was all the "nature" talk then? Do men get a pass if they have younger wives? Shearing's husband was 32 when her kids were born. Shouldn't that count?

Waiting till you're 45 or 50 to bear a child is a bad idea. Waiting till you're 60 or older is even worse. The odds are that you'll fail to get pregnant, or you'll miscarry, or you won't be able to raise the child. But those are just the odds. Some women can do it. More women can do it today than could have done it a century ago. Little by little, the laws of biology are changing. The fertility industry, born of that change, must change with it. (slate.com )

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Evolution's place in a created universe

The Structure of Scientific Evolutions. Evolution's place in a created universe. The quarrel between religion and evolution has taken an interesting turn. Instead of attacking religion, some Darwinists have embraced it as a product of human evolution. Now they're debating to what extent this evolution was biological. Evolution and biology are coming apart.

This is a tricky concept to grapple with in today's biologically dominated era of science. Let me try to explain where we are. Three years ago, while on a Templeton fellowship at the University of Cambridge, I heard one of those ideas that not only sticks in your head but starts to reorganize your thinking. The idea was convergence. The speaker was Simon Conway Morris, the Cambridge paleontologist and author of Life's Solution. Conway Morris affirmed evolution as a mechanical explanation of animal and human development. But he also argued that evolution takes place in an ordered world. Because similar features evolve repeatedly in different contexts, there must be something about the world that favors such features.

There's nothing inherently spooky or religious about this idea. We have a straightforward model of it in the well-known pattern of phase changes. At certain temperatures and pressures, this or that element will naturally change from solid to liquid to gas. The fact that such transitions can be explained mechanically doesn't erase the fact that the points at which they'll happen can be predicted independently. In that sense, they're caused not just by heating or cooling but by the pre-existing structure of the universe.

Conway Morris takes this idea a step further. He suggests that such structural causation might occur not just in physics but in biology. This is a gamble, since biology is more complex than physics or chemistry. In physics or chemistry, you can make solid predictions from a limited set of data and laws. Biology is a lot messier. With the emergence of life, organisms that arose from physics and chemistry begin to operate according to new patterns. Functional explanations replace chemical ones. You can't assume that an underlying order constrains biological evolution in the same way that the underlying order of chemistry constrains phase changes. But Conway Morris suggests, based on evolutionary convergence, that to some extent it does.

If he's right, two much bigger questions start to become serious. One is how far this architecture of the universe extends. If it influences developments at the chemical and biological levels, does it extend to the next level of complexity, the mind? How about the level beyond that, society? Are there mental and cultural laws? Does some pre-existing order favor, and thereby produce by adaptation or selection, certain kinds of cultural development?

The other question is what to think of this architecture. Is it just the way things are? Is it creation? Is it God?

If you're interested in either of these questions—and as the cutting edge of biological and cultural development, you should be—the guy whose work you ought to read is Robert Wright. Two confessions up front: One, I consider Bob a friend. Two, for several years (well, it seemed like years—maybe it was months), he routinely kicked my ass at squash. So I gave up squash and took up science writing. And guess what? Now he kicks my ass at science writing. (Check out his latest Slate piece on shamans and their sex, money, and protection rackets.)

In a series of books—Three Scientists and Their Gods, The Moral Animal, and Nonzero—Wright has pushed the idea of pre-existing architecture from the chemical to the biological to the cultural level. He believes that the structure of our world has favored the evolution of societies based on peace, commerce, reciprocal altruism, and mutual benefit. His latest book, The Evolution of God, takes this argument further: God may or may not have shaped biological and cultural evolution (just by establishing an initial algorithm), but these processes have definitely shaped Him. The evolution of the human brain led to religion, and our ideas about God have subsequently changed in concert with cultural progress. On the whole, despite history's ups and downs, God has become more peaceful, more beneficent, and more compatible with a scientific understanding of the world.

Not everyone is thrilled with Wright's version of God. To many religious people, a nonpersonal deity that never intervenes in the ordered world is no deity at all. But the more interesting critique has come from scientists. Many of them don't like theism, even in Wright's deistic form. They prefer simple explanations. They think that biological evolution can account for religion's emergence and that this form of explanation is uniquely God-free.

The most notable of these scientific critics is Nicholas Wade, a reporter for the New York Times. Wade is the author of Before the Dawn, an ingenious reconstruction of human prehistory from genetic and linguistic evidence. This fall, he has another book coming out: The Faith Instinct. In a preview on the Times Web site, he agrees with Wright that "morality has a genetic basis and may well have evolved over the millennia into forms that are objectively higher." But Wade thinks religion's original function was clear:

to instill, through group cohesion, morality within a group and hostility toward those outside it. So in very early human societies, groups with strong religious behavior would have prevailed over less cohesive adversaries. We are descended from the religious groups, the argument goes, and that is why everyone harbors a religious instinct. …

Wade concludes: "Natural selection also explains rather well how religious behavior would have conferred such advantages on early human societies that it became a part of human nature."

Wright disagrees. He calls religion "an incidental by-product" of biological evolution. "Religion arose out of a hodgepodge of genetically based mental mechanisms designed by natural selection for thoroughly mundane purposes," he writes. Those mechanisms include conformist bias (believing what your peers believe, in order to get along), a tendency to explain events in terms of personal agency (since our mental machinery for thinking about causality evolved in the context of social interaction), and interest in remote control (a bias toward beliefs that promise influence over predators, diseases, and bad weather). Given these biases, we're prone to believe in powerful, jealous, tempestuous personal deities.

But Wright doesn't think our consequent religious belief systems evolved in the same way that these underlying mechanisms did. He argues that

biological evolution isn't the only great "designer" at work on this planet. There is also cultural evolution: the selective transmission of "memes"—beliefs, habits, rituals, songs, technologies, theories, and so forth—from person to person. And one criterion that shapes cultural evolution is social utility; memes that are conductive to smooth functioning at the group level often have an advantage over memes that aren't. Cultural evolution is what gave us modern corporations, modern government, and modern religion.

Wade calls this theory "a disappointment from the Darwinian perspective." It isn't "real evolution," he concludes; it's "just the development of ideas about God." Therefore, "the God of [Wright's] title owes nothing to Darwin."

So who's right in this debate? Is religion a product of natural selection, cultural evolution, or God's truth?

Here's one possibility: all of the above.

I agree with Wade that cultural evolution is an exaggerated metaphor. Wright asserts that "just as genes are transmitted from body to body, down the generations, memes are transmitted from mind to mind." But that's a stretch. Memes don't pass from generation to generation the way genes do. One requires only procreation; the other requires parenting and education. For this reason, our cultural inheritance is vulnerable in a way that our biological inheritance isn't.

On the other hand, I agree with Wright that biological evolution isn't the only ordered process that shaped us. Life originally emerged from an architecture of physical and chemical laws. So natural selection isn't the first level of the cosmic order; it's at least the second or third. Why should we assume the architecture stops there? Shouldn't we look for directional patterns in cultural history? If such patterns exist, they'll be far more complicated than the patterns of biology, just as the patterns of biology are more complicated than the patterns of physics or chemistry. But science doesn't promise that everything can be explained with the same ease, or even in the same terms. You have to face the world as it is and develop new tools when the old ones fail.

Natural selection has become a tremendous tool for understanding biology. But it wasn't the first kind of science we invented, and it won't be the last. The notion that major components of our society or its development, such as religion, must be explained entirely through natural selection is no more scientific than the notion that they must be explained through physics or chemistry. All of these sciences, these levels of order, work together. We are physical, chemical, biologically designed, culturally guided organisms.

If this complex, multitiered, gradually emerging architecture is the concept of God we're heading toward, then yes, God owes plenty to Darwin. And Darwin owes plenty to God. ( slate.com )

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The organic vs. conventional

The organic vs. conventional. Are Organic Veggies Better for You? Maybe, or maybe not. Either way, it's a useless debate..

Last week the United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency published an extensive report on organic food that concluded with this bombshell: "There is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs." The finding—based on a review of 55 relevant studies conducted over the past 50 years—now threatens an organic food industry that has been growing at an annual rate of 20 percent for the past couple of decades and is now worth something like $23 billion in global sales. The overwhelming success of the organics market has a lot to do with the pervasive belief that eschewing synthetic pesticides and fertilizers makes food more nutritious. Now we know that belief may be unfounded.

Many health professionals took the news in stride. Connie Diekman, a nutritionist at Washington University in St. Louis and former head of the American Dietary Association, said "it is good to see that a systematic review of the literature supports what has long been believed … if [consumers] choose conventionally grown foods or organic foods they will be meeting their nutritional needs." Laura Telford, national director of the Canadian Organic Growers, said, "We don't dispute what they found," before highlighting some non-nutritional benefits of eating organic.

Others, of course, were dismayed. "I'm angry and perplexed," explained Peter Melchett, policy director of the U.K.-based Soil Association, "We genuinely expected the FSA to report the facts. … I think it's outrageous." In more measured tones, Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at the Organic Center, charged the FSA with "downplay[ing] positive findings in favor of organic food," using data from "very old studies" and omitting measures of "some important nutrients."

This is a debate that tends to the extremes. If the past is any indication, here's how it will eventually play out: Boosters of the study will highlight a dozen supporting conclusions reached over the past two decades and stress that the FSA report was the most comprehensive examination of organic heath claims ever undertaken; detractors will highlight a dozen contrasting conclusions reached over the past two decades and note that the FSA report failed to measure for antioxidants and pesticide residues. Both sides have a leg to stand on with these critiques. What's lost in all the mudslinging and nitpicking, however, is a point that cuts to the core of the debate: Any comparison between such general categories as "organic" and "conventional"—no matter which side comes out ahead—is of very limited value. One might even say it's useless.

First, the demographic profile of organic consumers makes this debate one that's hardly worth having. There's no broad public health issue at stake here. Organic food costs 60 percent more than conventional and comprises a mere 2.5 percent of the food eaten in the United States. Advocates of organic agriculture often argue that there's no such thing as a "typical" consumer of organic food. It's true that organic consumers are rapidly diversifying, but the fact remains that consistent buyers of organic goods tend to be female, college-educated, and at least somewhat well-off. All these demographic factors happen to correlate with better access to health care and basic nutritional awareness. Why should we worry whether an already healthy, wealthy, and well-informed cohort absorbs minimally more nutrition from an organic apple? It's far more important that we get more fresh food—organic or not—to those wide swaths of the country that sociologists now call "food deserts."

Another factor undermining the FSA study is the fact that the terms "organic" and "conventional" encompass a wide spectrum of practices. It's so wide, in fact, that accurately comparing the categories is virtually impossible. For example, it's well-known that large, industrial farms overuse pesticides and fertilizers, but many conventional family farms practice integrated pest management, selectively employ advanced fertilizers to reduce runoff, spray very selectively, and establish grazing systems for livestock that rely on environmentally sound rotational schedules. Likewise, the environmental virtues of organic agriculture are conspicuously (and deservedly) touted, but the glowing reports rarely note that most organic food comes from large corporate operations, that some organic farmers rely heavily on natural pesticides that are toxic in high doses, that organic compost can contain more contaminants than conventional fertilizer, and that soil erosion can be as bad or worse on organic farms. There is no standard "organic" or "conventional" farm, so any broad comparison is little more than speculative.

That's part of the reason why these organic vs. conventional studies have yielded such maddeningly mixed results—which, in turn, allow consumers to cherry-pick whatever data support their preconceived notions. Proponents of organic agriculture can cite, if they want, a 2007 report from Newcastle University showing that organic produce has 40 percent more antioxidants than conventional produce. Whereas the naysayers might refer to a 2000 study that found no effect on the levels of healthful phenols in organic strawberries and blueberries. Or perhaps they'd choose a report that found higher rates of naturally occurring toxins in organic foods on account of their being grown without the benefit of synthetic fungicides. All are sound science, but what do they tell the health-conscious consumer who's trying to decide whether to go organic?

To choose one study and declare a position on the debate, as so many advocates do, is not only intellectually dishonest; it ignores the underlying complexity of agriculture itself—a complexity that includes variables that transcend the organic/conventional divide, including plant genetics, cultivars, soil type, farmer skill, harvest methods, timing of harvest, place, and climate. To pick one example, the use of seeds with high yields (by both organic and conventional farmers) may have much more to do with the decline in the nutritional content of produce since World War II than any other factor in agricultural production.

Perhaps most important, our obsession with proving one system better than the other obscures a more critical public health issue. As a nation, we eat far too much meat (273 pounds per year each on average, as of 1999) and not nearly enough fruits and vegetables. According to B.J. Friedman, a nutritionist at Texas State University-San Marcos, only one-quarter of Americans eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day. "We should be concentrating on encouraging people to eat more fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables," she says. "I'm all for eating organically and locally to protect our environment, but this way of eating is economically and geographically out of reach for most Americans." Her point is getting lost in the debate over last week's FSA report. Let's first focus on what we eat before we start fighting over the details of how, exactly, it's grown. ( slate.com )

READ MORE - The organic vs. conventional

Best Marriage Proposals 2009

Best Marriage Proposals 2009. Talk about setting the bar high! Just in time for proposal season, TheKnot.com announces the most creative marriage proposals of the year.

You Ought to Be in Pictures

The one thing my boyfriend, Josh, and I don't have in common is movies -- I love them, but he could care less. But for our third anniversary, Josh offered to take me to see one. When we walked into the theater, it was already dark, so we grabbed a seat near the front. Suddenly, a picture of us came up on the screen -- Josh had made a movie about us! He and some of our friends acted out scenes from our relationship, and as the movie ended, I turned and Josh was kneeling on the floor. He opened a box with a ring pop inside just as the words "WILL YOU MARRY ME?" flashed on the screen. Then the lights turned on and everyone yelled, "Surprise!" Both of our families and our closest friends were in the theater watching the whole time!

A Fish Tale

My boyfriend and I flew to Seattle and visited Pike Place Market, famous for its fishmongers who throw fish. One of the fishmongers asked me if I wanted to catch a fish. I was nervous that I'd drop it, but I caught the fish and held it above my head to the applause of onlookers -- and then someone shouted that there was something in the fish's mouth. I discovered a plastic bag, tore it open, and found a small box inside. I turned around to find my boyfriend down on one knee!

Love Note, Redux

My fiance and I started dating our senior year of high school. He was shy, so he wrote me a note and left it on my desk -- it was super-dorky and asked if I wanted to "go out with him, be together, or whatever." Then he wrote, "Sorry about the note. I really like you. Jim." Now we're both teachers, and when I got back to my apartment one day after school, there was an envelope taped to my door. As I began to read the note, I realized I'd read it somewhere before. He had rewritten that original note, but changed it to "Will you marry me, be together forever, or whatever. Sorry about the note. I really love you. Jim." He was waiting in my room to propose.

An Offer She Couldn't Refuse

My boyfriend, Mike, and I were at my cousin's apartment, hanging out with her and her husband and their baby, Ryan. Mike is Ryan's godfather. We were all in the living room playing with the baby, and my cousin asked us to change him into his pajamas. So I unsnapped his onesie and went to pull it off over his head, and I realized he had on another one underneath. That onesie had writing on it: "AUNT GG, WILL YOU MARRY MY GODFATHER?" I read it, and then I looked next to me, and there was Mike down on one knee with the ring! And, of course, I said yes!

An Unforgettable View

My boyfriend, Rob, is a pilot, and we often take trips in a Cessna airplane. One night, Rob told me he had rented a plane for the next morning for what I thought would just be a typical flight. After we were in the air for about five minutes, he switched radio frequencies. This wasn't a normal procedure, so I was thinking, Oh gosh, what's wrong? Then Rob asked me, "What's that down there?" I looked down to the ground below us, and written on a football field were the words "Will You Marry Me, Delilah?" Of course I said yes, and the news of our engagement was broadcast for all to hear on radio frequency 123.45.

Love in Any Language

One day, at the hospital where I work, a fellow nurse walked into the OR and handed me a card. One side of the card said, "Chinese," and the back had something written in Chinese. A moment later, another nurse came in and handed me another card. On one side it said, "German," and the other side said something in German. This continued for 45 minutes, with cards coming in all different languages. I didn't know what to think until one of my patients complained of stomach pain, and I lifted up her blanket to find a card that said, "French," which is a language I read well -- I realized that all of the cards said, "Will you marry me?" I opened the door to the recovery room and found my fiance holding the final card. One side said, "English," and when I flipped it over, it said, "Will you marry me?"

Well-Played Proposal

For my birthday, Dell surprised me with a weekend at this beautiful, secluded house. That night after dinner, we decided to play Monopoly. On one of my first rolls, I landed on "Chance." When I pulled the card, it said my name and I was so confused. Dell had designed the card and had written a letter to me! At the end of the card, it said, "If you'll look my way, there is one thing I want to ask..." And when I turned to look at Dell, he was on his knee and holding the ring.

Rules of Engagement

My boyfriend, Nate, had been deployed in Afghanistan for a year, so for my birthday, Nate's friends threw me a party so I wouldn't be alone. The last present I opened was a card that told me to check my closet upstairs. In the closet, I found a DVD with a note that said, "Watch immediately." It was a video of Nate in Afghanistan, holding a sign that said to go to the first place we met. We all drove over to the school where Nate and I had been kindergarten classmates, and then I saw a soldier on the playground. Before I could process what was happening, I realized it was Nate, who had somehow managed to come home. I started bawling on his shoulder, and then he got on his knee and pulled out a ring that was custom-made for me in Afghanistan.

A Walk to Remember

Daniel and I met when we both decided to hike the Appalachian Trail. We met only a few days into our separate hikes and developed a wonderful friendship as we walked across the country together. Six-and-a-half months later, we reached the summit of Mount Katahdin at the end of the trail, and one year after that, Daniel took me back to the trail for a picnic. After we ate, Daniel helped me to my feet and then dropped to one knee. He said if we could walk 2,000 miles together through rain, snow, stress fractures, lightning, bugs, and creepy townies, then there is no doubt that we could take on anything else that life has to offer, and he couldn't imagine any adventure he would want to embark on without me by his side. ( msn.com )

READ MORE - Best Marriage Proposals 2009

Middle-class drinkers in their homes are as bad as riotous youths

Middle-class drinkers in their homes are as bad as riotous youths. Middle-class drinkers who consume alcohol in their homes are just as irresponsible as drunk youths on the streets, a senior bishop has claimed.

The Rt Rev John Gladwin, the Bishop of Chelmsford, criticised the double-standards he claims exist in the attitudes of more affluent sections of society towards Britain's "binge-drinking" culture.

He argued that they could not condemn teenagers' behaviour if they are getting drunk themselves, and claimed that they are ultimately responsible for the rise in alcoholism.

Recent figures show one in four adults are putting their health at risk by drinking too much and that 360,000 11 to 15 year-olds get drunk every week Photo: David Burges

His comments follow the release of official figures that show one in four adults are putting their health at risk by drinking too much and that 360,000 11 to 15 year-olds get drunk every week.

Bishop Gladwin, a former social responsibility secretary for the Church, called for a new approach to the problem, which he said was caused by "growing prosperity".

"While do we have a significant problem among young people, not least the binge drinking that breaks out onto our streets, that is not the issue," he said.

"Growing prosperity is behind the rise in alcoholism. We now go out and buy our wine for the weekend."

The bishop said that it was unfair to draw attention to young and poorer people getting drunk in public when they are also having too much alcohol, but in the privacy of their own homes.

"Often poorer people in society haven't got the protection – the safety of jobs and homes – so when young people do go out clubbing it's all very public, whereas for older people you can collapse at home at the weekend and have levels of alcohol consumption that are just as bad."

He added: "People in the middle-classes have got into habits of high levels of alcohol consumption without thinking through the implications for the whole community.

"They can't turn around and complain about another generation who, with cheap alcohol and easy access to it, are doing the same but more publicly."

One in three men and one in six women are classified as hazardous drinkers, according to the NHS Information Centre, while six per cent of men and two per cent of women drink so much that they are likely to suffer physical or mental harm such as liver disease or depression.

The charity Alcohol Concern warned last month that "While the attention paid to binge-drinking and town centre disorder is important, there is a crucial need to tackle the hidden harm caused by alcohol to older people, women and children."

A Government report last year, commissioned by Ed Balls, the Children, Schools and Families Secretary, criticised middle-class parents who introduce their children to wine-drinking using the excuse that the approach works on the Continent.

Bishop Gladwin admitted that clergy were also affected by the problems with alcohol.

"Clergy have gone beyond the limit and got themselves into higher levels of alcohol dependency," he said.

Discussing the Rt Rev Tom Butler, the Bishop of Southwark, who was alleged to have been drunk after a Christmas drinks reception at the Irish embassy, he said: "I like Tom [Butler] because he's a straightforward human-being like the rest of us. There can be no doubt about his shared humanity.

"I think that's why people warm to him. I guess people know that this (alcohol) is an issue for a lot of people. This is what lots of people's lives can be like.

"Whatever went on, right or wrong, a bishop caught up in it and seeking to deal with it is a sign of a shared humanity."

After the party, in December 2006, witnesses reported seeing a man who looked like Bishop Butler climb into the back of an unlocked Mercedes and start throwing toys out the car.

When asked what he was doing, the man replied: "I'm the Bishop of Southwark, it's what I do." ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Middle-class drinkers in their homes are as bad as riotous youths

Bulimics 'are more impulsive'

Bulimics 'are more impulsive'. Bulimics are more impulsive than other people, a new study has found. Scientists have found that patients with the condition are less able to control their urges and more likely to act on instinct than non-sufferers.

Tens of thousands of people in Britain are thought to suffer from bulimia, although the true figure could be much higher as many sufferers hide their condition.

The illness came to prominence in the mid-1990s when Diana, Princess of Wales,
admitted that she had been a sufferer
Photo: GETTY IMAGES

The illness came to prominence in the mid-1990s when Diana, Princess of Wales, admitted that she had been a sufferer.

Researchers found that during psychological tests sufferers reacted more impulsively than non-sufferers.

Asked to give an answer to a simple test they were more likely to plump for an answer more quickly, even when it could be wrong, the findings show.

Brain scans also showed different responses in the part of the mind that regulates behaviour.

Bulimia, in which sufferers binge eat and then purge to avoid gaining weight, often affects people in their teenage years or early adulthood.

It is most common in women and is often associated with a feeling of a lack of control.

"Patients with bulimia exhibited greater impulsivity than (non-sufferers), responding faster and making more errors," according to the findings, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry journal.

Even immediately after they had got one of the questions wrong they would still go on to make another unforced error for the same reasons, the study found.

This inability to regulate their behaviour could be part of the reason why they become bulimic, the researchers believe.

They called for more research into the problem and into ways that doctors can help patients to manage their impulses.

The study, by researchers from Columbia University in New York and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, tested 40 women, half of whom had the condition and half who did not. Figures released earlier this year showed that young people suffering from anorexia and bullimia were waiting an average of more than six months for treatment, with some waiting almost two years.( telegraph.co.uk )

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One in five young women 'has an eating disorder'

One in five young women 'has an eating disorder'. One in five young women suffers from an eating disorder, an NHS survey suggests.

The "snapshot" of the nation's mental health shows that 20 per cent of 16 to 25-year-olds showed signs of a problem with food.

The figure is more than twice the female average, the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity in England 2007 study, found.

An NHS survey shows that 20 per cent of 16 to 25-year-olds showed signs of a problem with food
Photo: GETTY

The most common forms of eating disorder are anorexia, where patients start to starve themselves, or bulimia, in which they binge on food and then purge.

Experts warn that both conditions typically start in childhood or adolescence and can vary greatly in severity.

The study also shows that one on four of those suffering from an eating disorder are men.

While nine per cent of women appeared to have a problem, so did three per cent of men, the study found.

The problem of male anorexia and bullimia has traditionally been a taboo subject, but was pushed to prominence last year when John Prescott admitted that he had suffered from bulimia in the past.

Overall the study found that around 6.4 per cent of adults had an eating disorder.

Another 19 per cent screened positive for a possible eating disorder and 1.6 per cent said that their feelings around food had a significant effect on their life.

Although the problem appeared to diminish with age, one woman in a 100 over the age of 75 was still thought to have some form of eating disorder.

Lucie Russell, from the YoungMinds campaign, said: "These statistics reflect a worrying trend that there is a generation of young people growing up unhappy and depressed, leading often to problems such eating disorders.

"We have to start intervening early. One in three children in every classroom has a diagnosable mental health disorder and that's just the ones that have been classified.

"There is still a huge stigma around mental health which means children and young people are not getting the support they need." ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - One in five young women 'has an eating disorder'

'One in ten women suffer eating disorders'

'One in ten women suffer eating disorders'. More than one in ten women suffer from eating disorders such as binge eating and bulimia, according to new research.

The investigation established a link between eating behaviours and 'self-rated health' - saying deviant eating behaviours are more likely to occur in women who perceived themselves to be in poor health.

Lise Gauvin, a professor at the Université de Montréal Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, said: "Our results are disquieting.

"Women are exposed to many contradictory messages. They are encouraged to lose weight yet also encouraged to eat for the simple pleasure of it."

Dr Gauvin said the study sheds new light on binge eating and bulimia - which are characterized in part by excessive eating accompanied by feelings of having lost control.

She went on: "About 13.7 percent of women interviewed for this study reported binge eating one to five days or one to seven times per month."

It was also discovered that 2.5% of women reported forcing themselves to vomit, use laxatives, or use diuretics to maintain their weight or shape.

Over 1,500 women took part in the phone survey on eating disorders and disordered eating. Not one participant had been classified as anorexic before the study.

The average age of these urban-dwelling participants was 31, and the majority were non-smokers and university graduates.

Another finding of the study was that 28 percent of women complete intense exercise twice a month with the sole objective of losing weight or influencing.

Dr Gauvin said: "We practice a sport for the pleasure it provides, to feel good, but when the activity is done to gain control over one's weight and figure, it is indicative of someone who could be excessively concerned about their weight.

"Our data suggests that a proportion of the female population displays maladaptive eating patterns."

The new study from the Université de Montréal and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute has been published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders. ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - 'One in ten women suffer eating disorders'

Male Pleasure Positions

READ MORE - Male Pleasure Positions

When Accusations Start to Fly, They Multiply

When Accusations Start to Fly, They Multiply. Witnessing someone get blamed for something leads to more self-defensive finger pointing, study finds.

The blame game is a contagious one, a new study reports, even when the target is innocent.

Researchers found that when people see someone blame someone else for a problem, even if it's an unfair accusation, they're much more likely to engage in blaming others, too.

"When we see others protecting their egos, we become defensive, too. We then try to protect our own self-image by blaming others for our mistakes, which may feel good in the moment," study lead author Nathanael J. Fast, an assistant professor of management and organization at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, said in university news release.

The study authors conducted four experiments aimed at discovering what happens when we see someone else being blamed for something. The study was released online in advance of publication in the January print issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

In one experiment, participants read one of two newspaper articles. In one article, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took the blame for the failure of a special election; in the other article, he blamed special-interest groups.

Those who read the article that cast blame on special-interest groups were more likely to blame others for their own problems, the researchers found.

In the big picture, blaming "creates a culture of fear," Fast said, "and this leads to a host of negative consequences for individuals and for groups." (HealthDay News)

READ MORE - When Accusations Start to Fly, They Multiply

Society must decide if it 'will accept relationships between humans and robots'

Society must decide if it 'will accept relationships between humans and robots'. Society must decide if it is willing to accept relationships between humans and robots before the machines become so sophisticated they start demanding rights, a legal expert has warned.

Rapid advances in technology mean cyborgs, or human-like robots, are no longer a vision of a distant future.

Arnold Schwarzenegger in the fim Terminator Photo: COLUMBIA FILMS

The machines have been made famous by films like Terminator and Blade Runner but real life is increasingly catching up with fiction.

Earlier this year researchers announced they had created robot ‘scientists’ – complete with the ability to think for themselves.

As the machines become more sophisticated, they will increasingly seem more like humans and could demand ‘human rights’, Anna Russel, from the University of San Diego warns.

One of the flashpoints could be over relationships, including sexual relationships, with humans, she claims.

In an article titled “Blurring the love lines” she warns: “While this humanoid is a giant leap forward technologically, if a self-aware, super-intelligent, thinking, feeling humanoid is developed, the legal system will be hard-pressed to distinguish this creature legally from human actors on grounds not stemming from a religious or moral prejudice.”

Lawyers have to start thinking now about what rights should be accorded to cyborgs, she argues.

Most societies will want to regulate such relationships but Russel claims they have to prepare themselves for how they would respond if the cyborgs clamoured for sexual freedoms.

As the technology improves “it will be inevitable that legal issues would be raised and the love lines blurred,” she warns.

“In what way would such sexual activities be regulated, however, and how regulation would work is not clear.” ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - Society must decide if it 'will accept relationships between humans and robots'