New Study: Fluoride Can Damage the Brain

“The prolonged ingestion of fluoride may cause significant damage to health and particularly to the nervous system,” concludes a review of studies by researchers Valdez-Jimenez, et al. published in Neurologia (June 2011), reports New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF).

The research team reports, “It is important to be aware of this serious problem and avoid the use of toothpaste and items that contain fluoride, particularly in children as they are more susceptible to the toxic effects of fluoride.” (1)

“Fluoride can be toxic by ingesting one part per million (ppm), and the effects are not immediate, as they can take 20 years or more to become evident,” they write.

Most fluoridating U.S. public drinking water suppliers add fluoride chemicals to deliver 1 ppm fluoride (equal to about 1 milligram per quart) intending to benefit teeth and not to purify the water.

“Fluoridation clearly jeopardizes our children and must be stopped,” says attorney Paul Beeber, President, NYSCOF.  ”We can actually see how fluoride has damaged children’s teeth with dental fluorosis; but we can’t see the harm it’s doing to their brains and other organs. No U.S. researcher is even looking,” says Beeber.

Valdez-Jimenez, et al. describe studies that show fluoride induces changes in the brain’s physical structure and biochemistry which affects the neurological  and mental development of individuals including cognitive processes, such as learning and memory.

“Fluoride is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier, which may cause biochemical and functional changes in the nervous system during pregnancy, since the fluoride accumulates in brain tissue before birth,” they write.*

Animal studies show fluoride’s toxic brain effects include classic brain abnormalities found in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, Valdez-Jimenez’s team reports.

A different research team (Tang et al.) reported in 2008 that “A qualitative review of the studies found a consistent and strong association between the exposure to fluoride and low IQ.” (Biological Trace Element Research)  (2)

In 2006, the U.S. National Research Council‘s (NRC) expert fluoride panel reviewed fluoride toxicology and concluded, “It’s apparent that fluorides have the ability to interfere with the functions of the brain.” And, “Fluorides also increase the production of free radicals in the brain through several different biological pathways. These changes have a bearing on the possibility that fluorides act to increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.” (3)

On April 12, 2010, Time magazine listed fluoride as one of the “Top Ten Common Household Toxins” and described fluoride as both “neurotoxic and potentially tumorigenic if swallowed.” (4)

Phyllis Mullenix, Ph.D., was the first U.S. scientist to find evidence that fluoride damages the brain. She published her animal study in a respected peer-reviewed scientific journal in 1995 (5) and then was fired for doing so.(6)

Vyvyan Howard, M.D., Ph.D., a prominent fetal toxicologist and past-President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment, said that current brain/fluoride research convinces him that we should stop water fluoridation. …

via New Study: Fluoride Can Damage the Brain – Avoid Use in Children — NEW YORK, June 21, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ –.

This industrial waste in your water also changes your behavior, making you more compliant, or so I’ve read.  If true, the government is not going to stop fluoridating.

Man robs bank to get medical care in jail

Some people who need medical care but can’t afford it go to the emergency room. Others just hope they’ll get better. James Richard Verone robbed a bank.

Earlier this month, Verone (pictured), a 59-year-old convenience store clerk, walked into a Gastonia, N.C., bank and handed the cashier a note demanding $1 and medical attention. Then he waited calmly for police to show up.

He’s now in jail and has an appointment with a doctor this week.

Verone’s problems started when he lost the job he’d held for 17 years as a Coca Cola deliveryman, amid the economic downturn. He found new work driving a truck, but it didn’t last. Eventually, he took a part-time position at the convenience store.

But Verone’s body wasn’t up to it. The bending and lifting made his back ache. He had problems with his left foot, making him limp. He also suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis.

Then he noticed a protrusion on his chest. “The pain was beyond the tolerance that I could accept,” Verone told the Gaston Gazette. “I kind of hit a brick wall with everything.”

Verone knew he needed help–and he didn’t want to be a burden on his sister and brothers. He applied for food stamps, but they weren’t enough either.

So he hatched a plan. On June 9, he woke up, showered, ironed his shirt. He mailed a letter to the Gazette, listing the return address as the Gaston County Jail.

“When you receive this a bank robbery will have been committed by me,” Verone wrote in the letter. “This robbery is being committed by me for one dollar. I am of sound mind but not so much sound body.”

Then Verone hailed a cab to take him to the RBC Bank. Inside, he handed the teller his $1 robbery demand.

“I didn’t have any fears,” said Verone. “I told the teller that I would sit over here and wait for police.”

The teller was so frightened that she had to be taken to the hospital to be checked out. Verone, meanwhile, was taken to jail, just as he’d planned it.

Because he only asked for $1, Verone was charged with larceny, not bank robbery. But he said that if his punishment isn’t severe enough, he plans to tell the judge that he’ll do it again. His $100,000 bond has been reduced to $2,000, but he says he doesn’t plan to pay it.

In jail, Verone said he skips dinner to avoid too much contact with the other inmates. He’s already seen some nurses and is scheduled to see a doctor on Friday. He said he’s hoping to receive back and foot surgery, and get the protrusion on his chest treated. Then he plans to spend a few years in jail, before getting out in time to collect Social Security and move to the beach.

Verone also presented the view that if the United States had a health-care system which offered people more government support, he wouldn’t have had to make the choice he did.

“If you don’t have your health you don’t have anything,” Verone said. …

via Man robs bank to get medical care in jail – Yahoo! News.

Cutting edge training developed the human brain 80 000 years ago

Advanced crafting of stone spearheads contributed to the development of new ways of human thinking and behaving. This is what new findings by archaeologists at Lund University have shown. The technology took a long time to acquire, required step by step planning and increased social interaction across the generations. This led to the human brain developing new abilities.

200 000 years ago, small groups of people wandered across Africa, looking like us anatomically but not thinking the way we do today. Studies of fossils and the rate of mutations in DNA show that the human species to which we all belong – Homo sapiens sapiens – has existed for 200 000 years.

But the archaeological research of recent years has shown that, even though the most ancient traces of modern humans are 200 000 years old, the development of modern cognitive behaviour is probably much younger. For about 100 000 years, there were people who looked like us, but who acted on the basis of cognitive structures in which we would only partially recognise ourselves and which we do not define today as modern behaviour.

It is precisely that period of transformation that the researchers at Lund University in Sweden have studied. In the next issue of the well renowned Journal of Human Evolution, they present their new findings on the early modern humans that existed in what is now South Africa, approximately 80 000 years ago.

The findings show that people at that time used advanced technology for the production of spearheads and that the complicated crafting process developed the working memory and social life of humans.

“When the technology was passed from one generation to the next, from adults to children, it became part of a cultural learning process which created a socially more advanced society than before. This affected the development of the human brain and cognitive ability”, says Anders Högberg, PhD.

The technology led to increased social interaction within and across the generations. This happened because the crafting of stone spearheads took a long time to learn and required a lot of knowledge, both theoretical and practical. Producing a stone spearhead also required the ability to plan in several stages. This social learning contributed to the subsequent development of early modern humans’ cognitive ability to express symbolism and abstract thoughts through their material culture, for example in the form of decorated objects.

via Cutting edge training developed the human brain 80 000 years ago – Lund University.

Farmer hospitalized following UFO encounter

Koiremba Kumam, a 31-year-old farmer, claims to have been hospitalized after an encounter with a UFO in Manipur, India. The Assam Tribune reports that the alleged incident took place on the afternoon of June 15th. According to the witness, he was shooting video of a fish farm with his cell phone when he suddenly saw the UFO in the sky. He claims that the UFO sped towards him, resulting in an electric shock that rendered him unconscious. After regaining consciousness, he returned home. His family took him to the hospital where he was treated and released the same day. But in the article published by the Assam Tribune yesterday, Kumam said he had not yet fully recovered from his UFO encounter.

Critics of Kumam’s video footage suggest the UFO was nothing more than a glitch in the camera resulting from shooting directly into the sun. However, there has been no official explanation for this UFO, or for the physical reaction claimed by the witness.

via Farmer hospitalized following UFO encounter | Openminds.tv.

Shocking people into unconsciousness now, are they? I do hope UFOs won’t get to be a nuisance. I’m undecided about the origins, but interested. Experimental military UAVs?  Some believe we are being visited by aliens …

US nuke regulators weaken safety rules

This photo made available by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission shows a 10-gallon-per-minute leak which sprung Oct. 19, 2007, in rusted piping that carried essential service water at the Byron nuclear plant in Illinois. The water is needed to cool the reactor in an emergency. The plant was immediately taken offline for repairs.

Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation’s aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards, or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.

Time after time, officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission have decided that original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.

The result? Rising fears that these accommodations by the NRC are significantly undermining safety — and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize the future of nuclear power in the United States.

Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed — up to 20 times the original limit. When rampant cracking caused radioactive leaks from steam generator tubing, an easier test of the tubes was devised, so plants could meet standards.

Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes — all of these and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in the AP’s yearlong investigation. And all of them could escalate dangers in the event of an accident.

Yet despite the many problems linked to aging, not a single official body in government or industry has studied the overall frequency and potential impact on safety of such breakdowns in recent years, even as the NRC has extended the licenses of dozens of reactors.

Industry and government officials defend their actions, and insist that no chances are being taken. But the AP investigation found that with billions of dollars and 19 percent of America’s electricity supply at stake, a cozy relationship prevails between the industry and its regulator, the NRC. …

via AP IMPACT: US nuke regulators weaken safety rules – Yahoo! News.

Cat gets caught barking by a human and resumes meowing

YouTube – Cat gets caught barking by a human and resumes meowing.

This caught my attention because I heard the cat next door making very realistic crow noises yesterday while I was in my garden. The cat didn’t know I was there.

Human eye protein senses Earth’s magnetism

A light-sensitive protein in the human eye has been shown to act as a “compass” in a magnetic field, when it is present in flies’ eyes.

The study in Nature Communications showed that without their natural “magnetoreception” protein, the flies did not respond to a magnetic field – but replacing the protein with the human version restored the ability.

Despite much controversy, no conclusive evidence exists that humans can sense the Earth’s magnetic field, and the find may revive interest in the idea.

Although humans, like migratory birds, are known to have cryptochrome in their eyes, the idea of human magnetoreception has remained largely unexplored since pioneering experiments by Robin Baker of the University of Manchester in the 1980s.

Dr Baker used a long series of experiments on thousands of volunteers that suggested humans could indirectly sense magnetic fields, though he never definitively identified the mechanism. In subsequent years, several groups attempted to repeat those experiments, claiming opposing results. …

At the heart of the current study is a molecule called cryptochrome – an ancient protein present, in one of its two major forms, in every animal on Earth.

The protein is implicated in the regulation of circadian rhythms – the “body clocks” of humans and other animals – and in the navigational skills of several species including migratory birds, monarch butterflies, and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

The exact mechanism behind animals’ navigational abilities remains a mystery, however, and an active area of research.

… Dr Reppert said that the difficulty in unpicking the nature of human magnetosensing – if it exists – was that, like the circadian rhythms that cryptochromes are also implicated in, we react to it without knowing that we are.

“I would be very surprised if we don’t have this sense; it’s used in a variety of other animals. I think that the issue is to figure out how we use it.”

via BBC News – Human eye protein senses Earth’s magnetism.

A Collection of Breakdancing Gorilla videos

Indian god Manjunatha to solve political disagreement and charge of corruption

Two arch political rivals in the Indian state of Karnataka have decided to resolve their political differences before a Hindu god.

The state chief minister and his opposition rival – a former chief minister – agree that a divine showdown will resolve their dispute.

On 27 June they are due to present their arguments in a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Manjunatha.

He is the deity who arbitrates on land and property disputes.

The BBC’s Habib Beary in the state capital Bangalore says that Manjunatha will seldom have been called on to adjudicate between two such high-profile litigants.

Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa has been accused by opposition leader HD Kumaraswamy of corruption.

Mr Kumaraswamy has threatened to expose land scams allegedly committed by Mr Yeddyurappa, in addition to accusing the chief minister of trying to “buy” his silence on the matter through intermediaries.

In reply, Mr Yeddyurappa has rubbished the allegations as “humbug”, and has challenged his rival to stand before Lord Manjunatha and repeat his charge. Mr Kumaraswamy has accepted the challenge.

The former chief minister is so convinced as to the strength of his case that he has declared his willingness not only to testify before God but also before an inquiry.

“I am even prepared to undergo the truth serum test,” Mr Kumaraswamy said. …

In an open letter to his opposition rival, the chief minister said: “I believe in God. I hope you are also a believer in God. Therefore I am throwing you a challenge… If you have the courage to stick to your allegations in front of the Almighty, I will appreciate your courage.”

However the chief minister’s party colleagues are unhappy over the oath challenge.

Karnataka Health Minister Sreeramalu said that God should not have to arbitrate in the state’s political disputes.

“Such actions would only affect the religious sentiments of people,” he said. …

via BBC News – Indian politicians place disagreements ‘before god’.

Ah, India. If only our gods in the USA would get involved and help out. Our gods, well, you can’t even find them these days. Truly, no one even knows what our gods look like anymore.  It is embarrassing. This Indian god Manjunatha really stands out well. You wouldn’t overlook him, even in a crowded airport, for example. Dot on the hand, golden cobra, mustache, lipstick, tiger skin toga, big ear rings. It will be interesting to hear what he decides.

Vincent van Gogh self-portrait revealed as his brother

A Vincent van Gogh painting, which had always been believed to be a self-portrait, is actually a depiction of his brother, experts have concluded.

The artwork, which is on displayed at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, is thought to be the only known painting of Theo.

“People have often thought it was funny that there were no portraits of Theo, given that they were so close,” said museum spokeswoman Linda Snoek.

It is thought the 1887 work was created when the pair lived together in Paris.

The museum’s head researcher Louis van Tilborgh made the discovery after comparing it to another Van Gogh self-portrait.

“They are two small, detailed portraits that when you see them you think they belong together,” Mr Van Tilborgh said.

While the brothers appear to be physically similar, he discovered there were a number of differences between Vincent and his brother’s features, including different ear shapes and the colour of their beards.

Theo also has shaven cheeks, which match up with photographs taken of him at the time, while he has rounder ears.

The portrait of Vincent which famously depicts him after mutilating one of his own ears was created later.

The painting has been in storage, but is being displayed at the Dutch museum as part of an exhibition on new findings about time the painter spent in Antwerp and Paris during 1885-1888.

The artist shot himself in 1890 and died shortly afterwards. …

via BBC News – Vincent van Gogh self-portrait revealed as his brother.