US today released environmental and health nanotech strategy http://www.nano.gov/sites/default/files/pub_resource/nni_ehs_research_strategy.pdf Cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo
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mazsa
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mazsa
“Of the more than 80,000 chemicals used in the U.S., only 300 or so have ever undergone health and safety testing. In fact, only five chemicals have ever been restricted or banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But now some 10,000 agricultural and industrial chemicals—as well as food additives—will be screened for toxicity for the first time, with the help of a rapid-fire testing robot. [...]” http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=robot-allows-high-speed-chemical-testing -
mazsa
A simple, unpatentable cancer treatment?
“DCA is an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule. And researchers at the University of Alberta believe it may soon be used as an effective treatment for many forms of cancer.
Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the U of A Department of Medicine, has shown that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast, and brain tumors.
Michelakis and his colleagues, including post-doctoral fellow Dr. Sebastien Bonnet, have published the results of their research in the journal Cancer Cell.
[Update 2011.05.12:
in Science: http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/2/31/31ra34.abstract
Full text: https://www.burtongoldberg.com/home/burtongoldberg/DCA%20and%20Glioblastoma%20May%20%202010.pdf ].
Scientists and doctors have used DCA for decades to treat children with inborn errors of metabolism due to mitochondrial diseases. Mitochondria, the energy producing units in cells, have been connected with cancer since the 1930s, when researchers first noticed that these organelles dysfunction when cancer is present.
Until recently, researchers believed that cancer-affected mitochondria are permanently damaged and that this damage is the result, not the cause, of the cancer. But Michelakis, a cardiologist, questioned this belief and began testing DCA, which activates a critical mitochondrial enzyme, as a way to “revive” cancer-affected mitochondria.
The results astounded him.
Michelakis and his colleagues found that DCA normalized the mitochondrial function in many cancers, showing that their function was actively suppressed by the cancer but was not permanently damaged by it.
More importantly, they found that the normalization of mitochondrial function resulted in a significant decrease in tumor growth both in test tubes and in animal models. Also, they noted that DCA, unlike most currently used chemotherapies, did not have any effects on normal, non-cancerous tissues.
“I think DCA can be selective for cancer because it attacks a fundamental process in cancer development that is unique to cancer cells,” Michelakis said. “One of the really exciting things about this compound is that it might be able to treat many different forms of cancer”.
Another encouraging thing about DCA is that, being so small, it is easily absorbed in the body, and, after oral intake, it can reach areas in the body that other drugs cannot, making it possible to treat brain cancers, for example.
Also, because DCA has been used in both healthy people and sick patients with mitochondrial diseases, researchers already know that it is a relatively non-toxic molecule that can be immediately tested patients with cancer.” http://www.dca.med.ualberta.ca/
FAQ: http://www.dca.med.ualberta.ca/Home/FAQS/
Science: http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/2/31/31ra34.abstract Full text: https://www.burtongoldberg.com/home/burtongoldberg/DCA%20and%20Glioblastoma%20May%20%202010.pdf
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mazsa
Kurzweil: 3 Supplements To Let You Live Until The Singularity; video 1′
(coenzyme Q10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coenzyme_Q10 , phosphatidylcholine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphatidylcholine , and vitamin D http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D )
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mazsa
The Purple Healthcare Plan
We, the undersigned economists, support the following principles governing fundamental healthcare reform and endorse immediate implementation of the Purple Healthcare Plan.
Principles of Healthcare Reform
1. All Americans need a basic health plan and should be free to purchase supplemental health insurance coverage.
2. Healthcare should be privately provided with people free to choose their doctors and hospitals.
3. All who can pay for their health plans should do so through a combination of existing tax payments and health plan co-payments.
4. The government’s projected healthcare costs must be strictly capped and affordable on a long-term basis.
5. Health plans should be affordable regardless of one’s pre-existing health conditions or risk.
6. The system must provide strong incentives to prevent overuse of healthcare services and discourage bad healthcare behavior.
7. Medical malpractice reform is needed to keep providers from engaging in unaffordable defensive medicine.The Standard Plan
1. All Americans receive a voucher each year to purchase a standard plan from the private-plan provider of their choice.
2. Vouchers are individually risk-adjusted; those with higher expected healthcare costs, based on documented medical conditions, receive larger vouchers.
3. Participating insurance companies providing standard plans cannot deny coverage.
4. Each year a panel of doctors sets the coverages of the standard plan subject to a strict budget, namely that the total cost to the government of the vouchers cannot exceed 10 percent of GDP.
5. Insurance companies providing standard plans contract with private providers to cover their plan participants.
6. Americans choose doctors and hospitals included in the standard plan they choose.
7. Plan providers compete and provide incentives to improve participants’ health and limit bad health practices.
8. Plan providers offer supplemental plans to their participants and cannot deny supplemental insurance coverage to their participants.
9. The government (federal and state) ends the tax exclusion of employer-provided health insurance premiums.
10. Like all other Americans, Medicare, Medicaid, and health exchange participants are covered by the Purple Health Plan subject to appropriate transition provisions.
11. The roughly 10 percent of GDP now spent or allocated by federal and state government on these and related programs, as well as on the tax exclusion of employer-provided health insurance premiums, is reallocated to help finance the vouchers. -
mazsa
Congress could require that people buy and consume broccoli at regular intervals, not only because the required purchases will positively impact interstate commerce, but also because people who eat healthier tend to be healthier, and are thus more productive and put less of a strain on the health care system.
Judge Vinson -
mazsa
Leaked – WHO/UNICRI Cocaine Project:
“Hightlights
• The WHO/UNICRI Cocaine Project is the largest study on cocaine ever undertaken. The
study was made possible through the generous contribution of the Italian Ministry of
Interior. The project produced:- Country Profiles on Cocaine from 19 developed and developing countries;
- Key Informant Study reports from drug users and others with an extensive
knowledge of cocaine use from 19 cities on almost every continent;
- A Natural History Study report on four sites in South America and Africa. [...]
• Health problem; from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use.
• Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health. Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less severe for occasional, low-dosage users.
• A majority of health consequences may not be directly attributed to cocaine use. Cocaine often contributes to or exacerbates the conditions reported, rather than causing them.
• There are widespread myths bet few scientific studies of the relationship between cocaine and
sexual behaviour. One finding was that sexual problems seem to occur among high-dosage regular cocaine users.
• A range of mental health problems are associated with cocaine use, though they are mainly limited to high-dosage users. [...]
• Most countries believe there needs to be more assessment of the adverse effects of current drug policies and strategies. [...]” http://www.tni.org/archives/docs/200703081409275046.pdfCf.: http://www.tni.org/archives/drugscoca-docs_sixhorsemen#4a
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mazsa
Somebody should cross http://dailyburn.com/foodscanner and
- http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements/ and
- http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ and
- http://www.scorecard.org/health-effects/chemicals.tcl?short_hazard_name=cancer&all_p=t
please!
And I’d like to invest a couple grand in this new app if it’s possible. Pleeease!
Update: This is the Vision that suits us: http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-06/found
admin is discussing. 
admin 19:58 on October 20, 2011 Permalink |
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/nnco-fgr102011.php