Get some sun: Risk of Dying Linked to Low Vitamin D

The patients were followed for about eight years. During that time, 737 of them died, including 463 from cardiovascular problems.

Researchers found that people with the lowest levels of vitamin D in their blood had the highest chances of dying. Although chances of dying due to heart disease rose with decreasing levels of vitamin D, dying from other causes was more likely, too. Patients with little coronary artery disease were still much more likely to die during follow-up if they had low vitamin D levels.

It’s not yet known whether low levels of vitamin D can trigger death from heart disease. Researchers say intervention trials using vitamin D could help establish if there is a casual relationship. …

In an article accompanying the research, the researchers report that on average both older and younger people around the world may not be getting enough vitamin D. They speculate that it may be due to air pollution, a lack of outdoor activities, and increased urbanization, with more people staying and working indoors.

Vitamin D is naturally produced by your body when it is exposed to the sun, although sunscreens interfere with this process. As we age, vitamin D production slows down as well. …

Studies have shown that low levels of vitamin D are related to, among other things, heart disease, hypertension, and metabolic syndrome. In this study, researchers speculated that the vitamin may have anti-inflammatory effects that protect heart health.

The next part caught my attention because I have an auto-immune inflammatory reaction in my eyes which causes them to dry out if I don’t take flaxseed oil daily. Perhaps I need more Vitamin D too if it is anti-inflammatory.

They also believe it may affect how plaque is produced and builds up in the artery walls. The vitamin’s anti-inflammatory properties may also be protective against a host of other diseases, including immune disorders and cancer. Adequate levels of vitamin D are also essential for bone health, and low levels are associated with osteoporosis and fractures. – webmd

I got some sun this weekend and it always feels great. The trick seems to be getting the right amount. Will vitamin supplements help the same as time in the sun?

Lightning sparks 800-plus fires in California

click to enlarge. ap photo

Firefighters from neighboring states arrived to help Monday after an “unprecedented” lightning storm sparked more than 800 wildfires, from Big Sur to wine country to Humboldt County.

Thousands of firefighters battled the blazes on the ground and from the air and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he was alarmed by the number of fires that kept erupting.

He said he was told late Sunday evening that the state had 520 fires, and he found it “quite shocking” that by morning the number had risen above 700.

Moments later, a top state fire official standing at Schwarzenegger’s side offered a grim update: The figure was actually 842 fires, said Del Walters, assistant regional chief of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. All but a couple were in the northern part of the state.

“This is an unprecedented lightning storm in California, that it lasted as long as it did, 5,000 to 6,000 lightning strikes,” Walters said. “We are finding fires all the time.”

The assistance, mostly firefighting aircraft, arrived Monday from Nevada and Oregon after being requested over the weekend. Schwarzenegger said he had enlisted the help “because you can never prepare for 500 or 700 or 800 fires all at the same time.” – yahoo

I didn’t hear about any lighting personally, but a friend of a friend was caught in the lightning storm that triggered these fires. Did anyone else personally see the lightning storm? It must have been spectacular. I’d also like to find a map of where, exactly, these fires are.

The Not-So-Lost Tribe

Even in an age when cynical sleuths can hyper-analyze stories for truth and accuracy, the occasional hoax still slips through the cracks. Such was the case with a so-called “lost Amazon tribe.”

A few months ago, mainstream news outlets (including, ahem, Yahoo!) reported that a photographer had found a lost tribe of warriors near the Brazilian-Peruvian border. Photos of the tribe backed up his claim.

As it turns out, the story is only half true. The men in the photo are members of a tribe, but it certainly ain’t “lost.” In fact, as the photographer, José Carlos Meirelles, recently explained, authorities have known about this particular tribe since 1910. The photographer and the agency that released the pictures wanted to make it seem like they were members of a lost tribe in order to call attention to the dangers the logging industry may have on the group. – ybuzz

Much of our species lives in a state of violent denial about who and what we are, as a group. This leads to disturbing hatred and attacks by some individuals toward members of un-contacted tribes. For some persons, finding groups of humans “living naked like animals” triggers their own primitive xenophobic genes. Ironically, those with the most self loathing of their true animal nature act the most like animals.

McCain Proposes a $300 Million Prize for a Next-Generation Car Battery

In the 18th century the British offered a £20,000 prize to anyone who figured out how to calculate longitude. More recently, Netflix offered a million dollars for improving movie recommendations on its Web site. Now Senator John McCain is suggesting a new national prize: He said here Monday that if elected president he would offer $300 million to anyone who could build a better car battery.

The high cost of gasoline — a gallon of regular was selling for $4.65 at a gas station near California State University, Fresno, where Mr. McCain spoke — has made energy policy a big issue in this year’s presidential campaign, and barely a day has passed recently without one of the candidates weighing in with new energy policies, proposals and attacks on opponents.

Mr. McCain, of Arizona, alienated some environmentalists last week during a speech in Houston when he dropped his opposition to allowing offshore drilling for oil; this week, in a swing through California, he spoke about trying to wean the nation from its dependence on oil. He called for improving the enforcement of fuel economy standards, building more cars that could run on alternative fuels, dropping the tariff on imports of sugar-based ethanol from Brazil and offering big tax credits for nonpolluting cars.

“I further propose we inspire the ingenuity and resolve of the American people,” Mr. McCain said, “by offering a $300 million prize for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”

He said the winner should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs. “That’s one dollar, one dollar, for every man, woman and child in the U.S. — a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency,” he said. – nytimes

Cool. Obama should just say that he will offer the same prize if elected. I won’t vote for McCain because doesn’t have the spine to stand up for what is right.  If he did, he would have said no to torture. He should know better.

The revelations of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo, Bagram, Camp Cropper, Abu Ghraib and the secret CIA sites in eastern Europe shook McCain to his core. He’d been tortured for five years by the Vietnamese four decades ago. One of the things that enabled him to survive the Hanoi Hilton was the knowledge that America, the country he had fought for and loved, would never do the same to any prisoners in its own custody. And yet President Bush – the man he championed – authorized some of the very stress positions against terror suspects that to this day prevent McCain from being able to lift his arms much above his shoulders. – timesonline

Plus, McCain would run the country like Bush. More fake terror attacks to gain more control.

Top McCain strategist Charlie Black — the one who lobbies for Iran — dominated this afternoon’s 2-hour news cycle by saying in an interview with Fortune magazine that if we had a terrorist attack right now, “Certainly it would be a big advantage” for John McCain. This line, of course, meant everyone had to feign shock over an accurate political truth, but voiced thus — that if there were a terrorist attack today, Barack Obama would be behind it, potentially hurting his electoral prospects. After a scolding from McCain, Black has come out with an apology. He “deeply regrets” the comments doesn’t recall making… -washpost