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n2doc's JournalHigh Levels of phthalates in organic foods?
Late last year two studies came out challenging the presumption that organic food is better for you, and now a University of Washington study shows your exposure to the chemicals phthalates and bisphenol A, better known as BPA, might be much higher from organic foods.
The study was led by Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana, an environmental health pediatrician in the UW School of Public Health and at Seattle Children’s Research Institute.
The researchers compared the chemical exposures of 10 families, half of whom were given written instructions on how to reduce phthalate and BPA exposures, explains a press release about the study. The other families received a five-day catered diet of local, fresh, organic food that was not prepared, cooked or stored in plastic containers.
“We were extremely surprised to see (the) results. We expected the concentrations to decrease significantly for the kids and parents in the catered diet group. Chemical contamination of foods can lead to concentrations higher than deemed safe by the U.S. EPA,” said Sathyanarayana.
When the researchers tested the participants' urinary concentrations for evidence of phthalates and BPA, they found that concentration of phthalates was 100 times higher than the levels found in the majority of the general population.
The contamination must be happening up the food chain, the research suggests.
Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/national/article/UW-study-finds-chemical-risk-in-organic-diet-4314019.php
Judges Rule in Favor of Japanese Whalers – But Are They Impartial?
2/27/13 A US federal court has ordered the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to cease interfering with the Japanese whaling at sea, making it possible for for Japanese whalers to continue legal action in the United States against the activists. The judges overturned the December 17, 2012 ruling by a district judge who had ruled that the piracy claim brought by the Japanese was unfounded. But are these judges unbiased?
Chief judge Alex Kozinski wrote that “you don’t need a peg leg or an eye patch” to be classified as pirates” and called the Sea Shepherd founder, Paul Watson, “eccentric” – yet he has admitted to posting pornographic material on his website.
The other two judges who ruled on this case are Judge Atsushi Wallace Tashima (born 1934) “the third Asian American and first Japanese American in the history of the United States to be appointed to a United States Court of Appeals”, and conservation conservative Judge Milan Smith Jr., who dissented on the need to use a different circuit judge but concurred on all other points.
Absolutely shocking is the vitriolic nature of chief judge Kozinski‘s written explanation of the ruling , in which he questions the impartiality of the district judge who dismissed Japan’s case last year). Kozinski writes:
more
http://blog.seattlepi.com/candacewhiting/2013/02/27/judges-rule-in-favor-of-japanese-whalers-but-are-they-impartial/
Judge sounds like someone from the Scalia/Thomas school of justice....
Thursday TOON Roundup 3- The Rest (may be upsetting)
Horse
Oil
Sugar deaths
Bad Fetus
Woman Spends A Year Building 400,000 Piece LEGO Replica Of Hogwarts
This is Alice Finch and her 400,000-piece LEGO replica (including interiors!) of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. If I was six, and that was in my house, my parents wouldn't even have to hire a babysitter. They could leave knives and bleach right out on the kitchen floor and I wouldn't even notice.
The Brothers Brick has an interview with Finch about her massive Hogwarts, which won both the Best in Show and People's Choice awards at BrickCon 2012. Finch spent 12 months assembling the campus, combining elements from the books and movies to create a complete structure inside and out.
more
http://www.geekologie.com/2013/02/now-thats-a-playset-woman-spends-a-year.php
Is a Comet on a Collision Course with Mars?
There is an outside chance that a newly discovered comet might be on a collision course with Mars. Astronomers are still determining the trajectory of the comet, named C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring), but at the very least, it is going to come fairly close to the Red Planet in October of 2014. “Even if it doesn’t impact it will look pretty good from Earth, and spectacular from Mars,” wrote Australian amateur astronomer Ian Musgrave, “probably a magnitude -4 comet as seen from Mars’s surface.”
The comet was discovered in the beginning of 2013 by comet-hunter Robert McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. According to a discussion on the IceInSpace amateur astronomy forum when the discovery was initially made, astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona looked back over their observations to find “prerecovery” images of the comet dating back to Dec. 8, 2012. These observations placed the orbital trajectory of comet C/2013 A1 right through Mars orbit on Oct. 19, 2014.
However, now after 74 days of observations, comet specialist Leonid Elenin notes that current calculations put the closest approach of the comet at a distance of 109,200 km, or 0.00073 AU from Mars in October 2014. That close pass has many wondering if any of the Mars orbiters might be able to acquire high-resolution images of the comet as is passes by.
But as Ian O’Neill from Discovery Space points out, since the comet has only been observed for 74 days (so far), so it’s difficult for astronomers to forecast the comet’s precise location in 20 months time. “Comet C/2013 A1 may fly past at a very safe distance of 0.008 AU (650,000 miles),” Ian wrote, “but to the other extreme, its orbital pass could put Mars directly in its path. At time of Mars close approach (or impact), the comet will be barreling along at a breakneck speed of 35 miles per second (126,000 miles per hour).”
Elenin said that since C/2013 A1 is a hyperbolic comet and moves in a retrograde orbit, its velocity with respect to the planet will be very high, approximately 56 km/s. “With the current estimate of the absolute magnitude of the nucleus M2 = 10.3, which might indicate the diameter up to 50 km, the energy of impact might reach the equivalent of staggering 2×10¹º megatons!”
An impact of this magnitude would leave a crater 500 km across and 2 km deep, Elenin said.
Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/100298/is-a-comet-on-a-collision-course-with-mars/
That would put the rovers to the test....
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