Researchers believe nuts are rich in protection from hardening of the arteries and suggest eating an ounce of the nuts every day… The study, by a Barcelona team, also showed walnuts had more health benefits than olive oil. Take that, fatty foods!
Eating Walnuts Fights Unhealthy Fats
Doctors Orders: Kids Should Play More
A new study by doctors is calling for changes in kids’ over-scheduled lifestyles with more time in the school day for recess. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says free and unstructured play is healthy and — in fact — essential for helping children develop into resilient young adults…
Bush Signs Bill to Leave No Pet Behind in Evacuations
A recent poll found that 61 percent of pet owners say that in an emergency they would refuse to evacuate their home if they could not take their pets with them.
On Friday President Bush signed the PETS Act (Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards) to help ensure that Americans will never have to confront the choice between personal safety and that of their animal companions…
Nearly Wiped Out Decades Ago, Bighorn Sheep Thriving in Texas
Bighorn sheep have flourished in the rough and dry West Texas mountains going back to prehistoric times. But unregulated hunting and exposure to disease from domestic sheep had almost wiped out the desert sheep by the 1960’s. Now, after years of restoration efforts led by the Texas Bighorn Society, there are close to 1,000 of the agile animals occupying the high ground of the Trans-Pecos region, according to a helicopter count this August. (Bighorn history)
Brutal Tragedy Turns Into Story of Healing
How miraculous that Kathy Stein found herself caring about a young man who tried to rob and kill her.
On the first day of court testimony, April 9, 1998, Stein waited in an adjacent room, still afraid to see the boys who nearly killed her.
The Ashville Citizen-Times featured her story with the unusual twist that by the end of the trial she’d started down a “tumultuous journey on a path less chosen — one toward forgiveness instead of rage…”
One year later, she had taken up a cause: reparative justice, promoting healing for all victims and offenders by addressing what they referred to as wounds born of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic injustice and oppression; advocating for such offenders to receive counseling, concern and rehabilitation.
The young boy felt Stein’s concern, received her many phone calls and perhaps it made a difference in the way he thought about himself while spending two and a half years in an adult prison.
Madonna Helps AIDS Orphans in Malawi
Madonna is visiting the African state of Malawi where she is building an orphanage and child care centre and is involved in other initiatives geared toward helping children orphaned by AIDS. She recently launched the new project called Raising Malawi, which aims to set up an orphan care center to provide food, education and shelter for up to 4,000 children who have lost parents to AIDS.
Madonna and her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, traveled Friday to the small village of Mchinji near the Zambian border where she distributed copies of her children’s book “The English Roses” and listened to children sing.
AP reports that “Just over 14 percent of the 12 million population are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and an estimated 1 million children have been orphaned.
Photo: YouTube
Dogs and Cats Can Sniff Out Cancer
Many people believe that animals can predict natural disasters, and we know service animals or household pets can forewarn their owners of imminent seizures or illness—like the service beagle who saved his owner’s life, a diabetic, by smelling his dangerous blood sugar levels.
Lately, several reports in the news highlighted cases of dogs or cats sniffing out cancer in unsuspecting owners. They stick their noses or paws into the afflicted area and won’t stop nudging until the owner is moved to do something about it. It turns out, there is scientific data to support the notion that not only can pets smell cancer, but dogs can be trained to find it.
In 1989, there was a published case of a Doberman-border collie mix belonging to a British woman sniffing out a malignant mole on the woman’s thigh, once even trying to bite it off.
Today, a woman in Westminster, Colorado, is thanking her dog for finding her breast cancer. The pooch, Tess, relentlessly sniffed around her chest and persisted, even while the woman tried to ignore it. Heidi Robertson said, “She would put her nose, push her nose into my right breast.” Next week she goes in for surgery, the doctors having confirmed finding cancer there, according to CBS News.
Researchers say a dog’s nose can be more accurate than any current cancer tests. Last month, a woman’s cat began kneading her left breast insistently. “Unbeknownst to Lynda, the exact placement of her cat’s affection was a cancerous tumor,” reports a Denver community Web site.
Lynda was relieved to be living with an early detection system built into her cat, so she decided to pay her good fortune forward by helping others who are not so fortunate. She began to see that cancer can present an enormous financial burden for survivors who are unable to work or left with inadequate insurance, so, as owner of Café Cartago — a specialty coffee company in Denver — Lynda decided to create a blend of coffee to raise money in support of women who are financially burdened by breast cancer, and called it Bald Lady Coffee.
In 2004, scientists in the U.K. reported that trained dogs could sniff out bladder cancer in patients’ urine. A leading medical journal there published the results of the first ever meticulously controlled, double-blind, peer-reviewed study on the subject and concluded, “The results are unambiguous. Dogs can be trained to recognize and flag bladder cancer.”
A 60 Minutes report in 2005 featured researchers in California and in Cambridge, England, who are studying this phenomenon. It told of dogs identifying the appearance of undetectable cancer bits.
“One of the three breast cancers, which we’ve had picked up by dogs, turned out to be a very, very small focus of malignancy, undetectable unless screened. And this was removed, and the dog immediately lost interest. But three months later, it began sniffing, snuffling and becoming agitated again when sitting on her lap. So, she shot back to the hospital, and lo and behold, they had missed a tiny bit of cancer.”
The dogs even provided a correction for the researchers, flagging a urine sample scientists had thought to be cancer-free. When the sample was triple checked, they found it had been mis-diagnosed.
In January, a study featured in National Geographic showed trained dogs could detect lung and breast cancer by smelling people’s breath. One of the Cambridge researchers recalled Hippocrates 2,400 years ago: “He was describing fruity smells associated with people with diabetes. And musty smells associated with liver disease.”
60 Minutes summarizes:
If dogs can recognize such odors, the implications for medicine could be enormous. Those noses might provide early detection that science cannot yet achieve… especially for… disease like prostate cancer, for which current detection through blood tests is notoriously inaccurate.
(Featured Photo by Rburtzel, CC)
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Homeless Kittens, Cats Need Help in No. CA
EDITOR’S BLOG
Linda needs help. Rather, 15 cats she’s rescued need help. Her e-mail plea arrived yesterday:
Help! I have rescued about fifteen cats and their kittens. After contacting every cat group I can think of I am still no closer to finding homes for them. Since I do not own my own home I must place these lovely cats soon or give them up to be killed. I am in the northern CA area. Please help in any way you can. I can help pay for their care. I just can’t have them in my home any more.
Email her at cats30 (at) volcano dot net (take out the spaces and add the symbols @ and . )
I’ve written her back asking for photos. I will post at Care2Network, where animals are beloved.
New York, a Melting Shot – Photos of Kids from Every Country
Photographer Danny Goldfield said, “A lot of other socially conscious art projects show atrocity, but this is something that touches people in a profound way. It’s positive.”
Check out the list of some 60 countries (like the Bahamas) from which Danny seeks to photograph a child and read features articles on NYChildren from Life magazine Photo, and peruse the gorgeous photos on Danny’s web site, NYChildren.org
Quotes and photo montage from GOOD, submitted by Vernon Sim, Singapore
Guardian Angel Saves Couple from Burning Car
Tommy, a volunteer firefighter was driving down route 81 in Virginia when he saw a Subaru strike the guard rail and go up in flames. He said, “At that point after seeing exactly what happened, I didn’t feel that there was gonna be any survivors.
But, both the passengers did survive, thanks to Tommy.
One recalls, “The car was on fire, I couldn’t get out and here this guy comes with a big, long wrecking bar and started chopping the front end apart…”
Marijuana May Help Stave off Alzheimer’s
New research shows that the active ingredient in marijuana may prevent the progression of the disease by preserving levels of an important neurotransmitter that allows the brain to function… Now, if only we can get the medical marijuana laws changed by the feds. (Reuters)
Veteran Claims $200M Powerball Jackpot
A Gulf War veteran and his wife who works at Wal-Mart were living paycheck-to-paycheck, but this week they stepped forward to claim a $200 million Powerball jackpot.
They plan to share their good fortune with their families, their church, and their community, Fort Dodge, Iowa…
Black Tea Soothes Away Stress
The BBC reports that scientists found evidence behind what many tea drinkers already know — a regular cuppa can help you recover more quickly from everyday life stresses…
Man Wins Nobel Prize Like His Father
Roger Kornberg, a biochemist at Stanford University, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for work with DNA and genes… just like his father before him, Arthur Kornberg, who shared the 1959 Nobel medicine prize for studies involving genetic information… The discovery of this year’s chemisty laureate is crucial to unlocking the medical promise of stem cells, and of understanding diseases, such as cancer. The win completes an American sweep of the science prizes, a feat that occurred only twice before, in 1946 and 1976. (Wash Post)
Google Launches Literacy Project with UN
Google along with the United Nations have launched a portal to connect literacy organisations around the world. "The Literacy Project enables teachers, organisations, and those interested in literacy to use the internet to search for and share literacy information in digitised books and academic articles, and through blogs, videos and groups." (BBC – submitted by Dave)
Infant saved from plunge
A Denver woman walking to her car came upon the unimaginable: A crying eight-month-old baby dangling off a balcony three stories above a cement sidewalk, hanging on by one hand. "I thought someone was on the other side of the railing holding on to her," Mary Bussey said. But it was the girl’s tiny fist clinging to the railing… (Rocky Mountain News – Submitted by Fred)
Court Orders No Drilling in Arctic Wetlands
Thirteen percent of public land, critical to caribou and other wildlife, will remain closed to drilling. A federal judge in Alaska last week ordered the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to keep 590,000 acres of environmentally sensitive land in northwest Alaska off-limits to oil and gas drilling. The acreage falls within what the U.S. government has dubbed the National Petroleum Reserve…
Prisoners Rehabilitate Death-Row Dogs
Having dogs in prison helps reduce violence among inmates. It’s like therapy for the men, especially when they’re given the job of training homeless dogs for adoption. Since August 2004, the Safe Harbor Prison Dog Program has rescued 1,200 shelter animals destined for an early death — bringing them to prison for training as pets and moving them on to adopted homes…
Dell Launches Free Recycling in U.S.
Dell has been hailed as one of the most environmentally-conscious computer gadget makers. Now they are the first manufacturer to offer free computer recycling to anyone owning a Dell — whether or not you are purchasing a new one. Friday, the company launched the program via a simple web page…
Anyone in the US — Dell has been doing this in Canada and Europe for years — can enter a product identification number online and be able to print a pre-paid shipping label or schedule a home pick-up of their Dell device at no charge. The best part is that the new program does not require people to purchase a new product.
U.S. Swaps Guatemalan Debt for Forest Protection
“The United States will forgive about 20 percent of the $122 million debt owed by Guatemala so the money can be used to protect threatened plants and wildlife.” It’s thanks to a 1998 law, the Tropical Forest Conservation Act, “which allows debt owed to the United States to be invested in protecting the environment.” $24 million will now serve to protect species and land. (Oct 2, 2006, Reuters)