A small company is trying to bring to market a genetically engineered apple that does not turn brown when sliced or bruised. But it has much of the rest of the apple industry seeing red.
The company, Okanagan Specialty Fruits, says the nonbrowning apple will prove popular with consumers and food service companies and help increase sales of apples, in part by making sliced apples more attractive to serve or sell.
While Americans have been eatinggenetically engineered foods since the 1990s, those have been mainly processed foods. The Arctic Apple, as it is being called, could become one of the first genetically engineered versions of a fruit that people directly bite into.
Dietary supplements are the largest industry in Utah and the industry is worth over $7 billion, according to new data from the United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA).
(CN) - An Icelandic judge ordered major credit card companies to start processing WikiLeaks donations within two weeks or pay $6,200 a day in sanctions.
Days after major newspapers reported on WikiLeaks-published U.S. State Department cables in late 2010, Amazon, PayPal and major credit card companies stopped processing donations for the whistleblowing website, cutting off its financial lifeblood.
On Bastille Day 2011, WikiLeaks and its service provider Datacell sued Visa and Valitor hr, the Icelandic partner of Mastercard, in Reykjavik District Court, saying that the illegal "blockade" had cost them 95 percent of their donations.
A new Australian study has claimed that children who are solely breastfed in the first six months of life are at greater risk of developing a nut allergy.
There has been a sharp rise in nut allergies in Australian children over the past 20 years, but until now the medical world has found it hard to explain the risk factors. Australian National University (ANU) researchers found it is not the breast milk itself that seems to be the culprit, but rather the traces of nuts contained in it.
The link between the two was investigated using the ACT Kindergarten Health Check Questionnaire in a study conducted by the ANU Medical School and the ACT Health Directorate. Of the 15,000 preschool children studied, 3.2 per cent had a peanut allergy while 3.9 per cent were allergic to other nuts.
Yahoo Voice users: Change your Yahoo password immediately.
A hacker or hacking group that bills itself as "DD3Ds Company" Thursday leaked what it said were plaintext passwords for 453,492 Yahoo accounts, as well as over 2,700 database table or column names, and 298 MySQL variables. DD3Ds said it obtained the data by executing a SQL injection attack against an unnamed Yahoo subdomain, which security experts have identified as being Yahoo Voice.
"We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call, and not as a threat," read a note included in the password dump. "There have been many security holes exploited in webservers belonging to Yahoo! Inc. that have caused far greater damage than our disclosure. Please do not take them lightly. The subdomain and vulnerable parameters have not been posted to avoid further damage."
It has been a bad week for Yahoo when it comes to security issues.
ScienceDaily (July 11, 2012) - Is anxiety related to premature aging? A new study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) shows that a common form of anxiety, known as phobic anxiety, was associated with shorter telomeres in middle-aged and older women. The study suggests that phobic anxiety is a possible risk factor for accelerated aging.
The study will be electronically published on July 11, 2012 in PLoS ONE. Telomeres are DNA-protein complexes at the ends of chromosomes. They protect chromosomes from deteriorating and guard the genetic information at the ends of chromosomes during cell division. Telomeres are considered markers of biological or cellular aging. Shortened telomeres have been linked to increased risk of cancers, heart disease, dementia and mortality.
OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) - A photojournalist will collect $162,000 to settle claims that police officers at University of California, Berkeley, wrongfully arrested him and illegally seized his camera after a student protest.
David Morse, 43, says he was covering an unrelated assignment at Berkely on Dec. 11, 2009, when he noticed students marching toward the residence of UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. He allegedly began following the group and taking photographs, but was later arrested by UCPD officers.
"Rather than pursue the fleeing demonstrators, many of whom had their faces covered, the police car pulled up directly in front of Morse," his federal complaintsaid. "UCPD officers Manchester and Wyckoff exited the vehicle and briskly approached Morse. As they approached, Officer Wyckoff shouted, 'I saw you take a picture of us. We want your camera. We believe your camera contains evidence of a crime.'"
(Reuters) - The Republican-led House of Representatives, on a near party-line vote of 244-185, on Wednesday once again passed a bill to repeal President Barack Obama's overhaul of the healthcare system.
Just like previous House efforts to end the two-year-old healthcare law, the bill is certain to be stopped by Obama's fellow Democrats who control the Senate.
Regardless, the fight over the landmark law, which has divided Americans and rallied the Democratic and Republican political bases, will likely rage on into the November 6 elections.
Five Democrats joined all Republicans in voting to repeal the law, which requires nearly all Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty tax.
ScienceDaily (July 12, 2012) - For centuries, people made wine by stomping grapes with their bare feet. But now, the art of winemaking is going high-tech at The University of British Columbia's Wine Research Centre.
Have you ever gotten a headache or a rash from a single glass of wine? Has one glass of Merlot or Shiraz resulted in a painful hangover? If yes, you may be one of the 30 percent of people who are allergic to (or intolerant of) compounds that are in some of the world's most popular wines.
A team of researchers at UBC's Wine Research Centre -- which has received funding from the Government of Canada through the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) -- is working to resolve the allergic reaction some people have to wine. The research team has created a strain of yeast that prevents allergic reactions, producing a wine that is hypoallergenic and can be enjoyed by everyone. The yeast developed at the Wine Research Centre is now being used by some of the most recognizable vintages produced in Canada and the United States.
Right now, a British company named Oxitec is planning to release genetically modified mosquitoes into the fragile enviroment of the Florida Keys. The company wants to use the Florida Keys as a testing ground for these mutant bugs.
Even though the local community in the Florida Keys has spoken -- we even passed an ordinance demanding more testing -- Oxitec is trying to use a loophole by applying to the FDA for an "animal bug" patent. This could mean these mutant mosquitoes could be released at any point against the wishes of locals and the scientific community. We need to make sure the FDA does not approve Oxitec's patent.
Nearly all experiments with genetically-modified crops have eventually resulted in unintended consequences: superweeds more resistant to herbicides, mutated and resistant insects also collateral damage to ecosystems. A recent news story reported that the monarch butterfly population is down by half in areas where Roundup Ready GM crops are doused with ultra-high levels of herbicides that wipe out the monarch's favorite milkweed plant.
Radiation from Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster has been detected in the air in and rainwater in multiple Western states.
While federal officials continue to assure the public that no harmful levels have reached the United States, some Americans have not been content to take the government at its word. Geiger counters have been selling like popsicles in summer, and traffic has never been higher at websites that display data from radiation monitoring stations.
Check out this article for various links to sites where you can check local radiation levels in the States: http://www.forbes.com
(Reuters Health) - Sending patient images to ophthalmologists via smartphone may be an option for emergency room doctors looking to make a quick eye-related diagnosis, a new study suggests.
Two ophthalmologists gave higher quality ratings to inner-eye photos when they looked at the images on an iPhone as compared to a desktop computer, according to results published Monday in the Archives of Ophthalmology.
That may mean the phones can be used to diagnose and plan treatment for more obvious eye conditions - even when an ophthalmologist isn't available at the hospital, researchers noted.
Five doctors have agreed to pay $1.9 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil charges that they conducted insider trading in shares of a medical professional liability insurer that was preparing to be sold.
The SEC said Apparao Mukkamala routinely tipped the other doctors in 2010 about confidential details of the sale process for American Physicians Capital Inc ("APCapital"), where he had been chairman at the time.
It said the other doctors bought nearly $2.2 million of the East Lansing, Michigan-based company's stock between April 30 and July 7, 2010, based on the tips, and that Mukkamala himself bought shares through a charitable organization where he was president.
Medical device maker Orthofix International NV will pay $5.2 million to settle charges that its Mexican subsidiary paid bribes to government officials to obtain sales contracts with hospitals, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said.
The SEC alleged the company's Promeca subsidiary regularly paid bribes, referred to as "chocolates," in the form of cash, laptop computers, televisions and appliances in a scheme that yielded nearly $5 million in illegal profits over a period of seven years.
Now, however, the proof is starting to pile up. The first good, peer-reviewed research is emerging, and the picture is much gloomier than the trumpet blasts of Web utopians have allowed. The current incarnation of the Internet - portable, social, accelerated, and all-pervasive - may be making us not just dumber or lonelier but more depressed and anxious, prone to obsessive-compulsive and attention-deficit disorders, even outright psychotic. Our digitized minds can scan like those of drug addicts, and normal people are breaking down in sad and seemingly new ways.
In the summer of 1996, seven young researchers at MIT blurred the lines between man and computer, living simultaneously in the physical and virtual worlds. They carried keyboards in their pockets, radio-transmitters in their backpacks, and a clip-on screen in front of their eyes. They called themselves "cyborgs" - and they were freaks. But as Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at MIT, points out, "we are all cyborgs now."
"One of them came up to me, pointed at my shirt, laughed at me and said, "Fucking deafie". The Louisville TSA called me a "fucking deafie" and laughed at me because I was deaf, and they expected wouldn't say anything back (or wouldn't hear them). Make no bones about it - she was facing me and I read her lips. There was no mistake. I would later find out that they had called at least 4 other individuals the same thing."
After the man became agitated, his friends tried to calm him before another TSA agent began filming and laughing, calling the group of deaf people "dumb apes". When the group threatened to make a complaint, the TSA agent retorted, "You're dumb deafies anyway so no one would believe you".
(Reuters Health) - Vitamin supplements are meant to fill-in where diet may be lacking, but a new study finds that U.S. kids may not be getting some of the most needed nutrients from their vitamin pills and the kids taking vitamins may not be the ones who need them the most.
Looking at the diets and supplement use of more than 7,000 kids, researchers found that between the ages of nine and 18 many had low levels of certain vitamins and minerals, and few took supplements, while younger kids had adequate levels of most nutrients and were possibly getting too much of some vitamins and minerals.
A New Jersey meatball manufacturer is recalling more than 300,000 pounds (136,000 kg) of meat products due to possible listeria contamination, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said on Saturday.
Bridgeton, New Jersey-based Buona Vita Inc was recalling about 324,770 pounds of frozen, ready-to-eat meat and poultry products produced in May, including meatballs, chicken and beef patties, and loafs of chicken and beef, the agency said in a written statement.
The FSIS described the health risk related to the recall as "high," according to the statement.
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Jack Jacobs can proudly - and truthfully - say he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his valor in Vietnam. After a recent Supreme Court ruling, anyone else is free under the First Amendment to make the same claim, whether it's true or not.
Some military veterans say they consider the ruling a slap in the face. For Jacobs, though, it was the right decision. He said he wore the uniform to protect people's rights - even if he doesn't agree with how they exercise those rights.
The ruling was issued the same day as the high court's landmark decision upholding President Obama's signature health-care overhaul. While much of the nation watched with rapt focus on what would become of the law that requires every American to have health insurance, many people in military communities were more focused on the ruling on the Stolen Valor Act.
