Roundup (glyphosate ) linked to cancer

The World Health Organisation’s cancer agency has declared the world’s most widely used weedkiller (glyphosate) a “probable carcinogen” in a move that will alarm the agrochemical industry and amateur gardeners.

The IARC assembled 17 experts to assess five organophosphate pesticides. After meeting for a week this month at IARC headquarters in Lyon, France, the panel decided that two of the chemicals were “possible” (class 2B) carcinogens and three were “probable” (class 2A) carcinogens.

Although malathion, another widely used insecticide, and tetrachlor vinphos were also given a 2A classification, the glyphosate ruling will make the most impact.

According to the IARC, “there was limited evidence of carcinogenicity in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma,” a cancer of the lymph system.
In addition, the study said there was evidence that glyphosate could also cause cancer in laboratory animals.


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sbarrkum

Liberia, Ebola, Firestone and a Rubber Farm

Liberia and Ebola is in the News. A Rubber Farm (Estate for us Sri Lankans) leased by Firestone is also in the news  as one of the few places where Ebola has been stopped from spreading.

What the articles dont mention about the Rubber Farm is that it is a million acres (4% of the land in Liberia), and in 2005 the lease was renewed for 37 years at USD 0.50 cents/acre.   I could not find out if the 0.50 was for a year, or for the 37 years.

Over here in Sri Lanka an acre of Rubber is over USD 10,000 (LKR Million).  So for the price of one acre of Rubber in Sri Lanka one can lease 540 acres for 37 years.   Talk about exploitation of Africa.

Note: Firestone is currently owned by Bridgestone which is Japanese.

Some Facts of Liberia and the Rubber Farm

• In 1820, the American Colonization Society (ACS) establishes colony of African Americans with tradition infused with American notions of racial supremacy, and political republicanism.


• 1847 Independent Republic of Liberia created. The leadership of the new nation consisted largely of the Americo-Liberians.


• Supported by prominent American politicians such as Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay, and James Monroe, believed repatriation was preferable to freeing of slaves.


• Indigenous Africans were excluded from citizenship until 1904.


• 1926, the Liberian government granted Firestone a 99-year lease for a million acres (to be chosen by the company wherever in Liberia) at a price of 6 cents per acre.  Thats 4% of the countrys 27,520,000 acres.


• Firestone also provided a $5 million loan at a 7% interest rate.


• The loan was given in exchange for complete authority over the government's revenues until the loan was paid.


• The loan took a larger and larger portion of the Liberian government's incomes: it grew from 20% of the total revenue of Liberia in 1929, to 32% in 1930, to 54.9% in 1931 and nearly the whole revenue in 1932.


• In 2005, the Firestone Company and the Liberian government signed a new 37-year deal raising the lease to 50 cents per acre .

http://online.wsj.com/articles/liberian-rubber-farm-becomes-sanctuary-against-ebola-1412629331
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_Natural_Rubber_Company

US involvement with Ebola Virus

Some interesting facts on US involvement with the Ebola Virus.  Also read this on Ebola.

#20 Researchers from Tulane University have been active for several years in the very same areas where this Ebola outbreak began.  One of the stated purposes of this research was to study "the future use of fever-viruses as bioweapons".

#21 According to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone, researchers from Tulane University have been asked "to stop Ebola testing during the current Ebola outbreak".  What in the world does that mean?

#22 The Navy Times says that the U.S. military has been interested in studying Ebola "as a potential biological weapon" since the 1970s...

Filoviruses like Ebola have been of interest to the Pentagon since the late 1970s, mainly because Ebola and its fellow viruses have high mortality rates — in the current outbreak, roughly 60 percent to 72 percent of those who have contracted the disease have died — and its stable nature in aerosol make it attractive as a potential biological weapon.

#23 The CDC actually owns a patent on one particular strain of the Ebola virus...

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control owns a patent on a particular strain of Ebola known as "EboBun." It's patent No. CA2741523A1 and it was awarded in 2010. You can view it here.

It is being reported that this is not the same strain that is currently being transmitted in Africa, but it is interesting to note nonetheless.  And why would the CDC want "ownership" of a strain of the Ebola virus in the first place?

#24 The CDC has just put up a brand new webpage entitled "Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Hospitalized Patients with Known or Suspected Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever in U.S. Hospitals".

#11 A study conducted in 2012 proved that Ebola could be transmitted between pigs and monkeys that were in separate cages and that never made physical contact.

#12 This is a new strain of Ebola, so what we know about other strains of Ebola may not necessarily apply to this strain of Ebola.

via http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-04/25-critical-facts-about-ebola-outbreak-every-american-needs-know

also see
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-05/us-government-caught-using-humanitarian-hiv-program-front-foster-cuban-dissent

Chronic Kidney Disease: Cause Hard Water + Heavy Metals + RoundUp

A research article by Jayasumana et al (2014) proposes the cause for Chronic Kidney Disease  of Unknown etiology (CKDu) are chemical complexes formed by Glycphosate (RoundUp) when it combines with  hard water and heavy metals in fertilizer.
I would not rule out dioxins as a another contributory cause to CKDu.


Bullet points from the article.

Prevalence  15% [2] affecting a total population of 400,000 patients with an estimated death toll of around 20,000 

Individuals who drink treated water from large water supply schemes (especially in the twocities of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa), while living in the same endemic areas, do not have the disease.

Jaffna and Northern province which has very hard water (Fig 1) has low incidence of CKDu because agro chemicals were prohibited during the war.

Three potential sources of glyphosate/AMPA-metal complexes:

[Glyphosate/AMPA + Ca/Mg/Fe/Sr ] complex in drinking water.

[Glyphosate/AMPA + Cd/Cr/Ni/Co/Pb/Vanadium (V) or As] complex in food.

[Glyphosate/AMPA coming from dermal/ respiratory route] + low amount of [metals/As] from water and foods, here the complex is formed within circulation.

I can well attest to the heavy usage of RoundUp out here in the Wanathavillu/Eluvamkulam area.  RoundUp is used to clear paddy fields, vegetable plots, road side, gardens of weeds.  Its much cheaper than using manual labor.  That said as far as I know there arnt any patients suffering from CKDu.  Probably attributable to drinking water wells are by the side of tanks/wewas like Ralmadu and Nelum Wewa or are diluted by Kala Oya waters.  All other wells the water is absolutely hard and undrinkable.

Update:
Research shows that Roundup (glyphosate) and its principal breakdown product, Aminomethylphosponic acid (AMPA) is taken up and accumulated in GM soy bean.

All of the individual samples of GM-soy contained residues of both glyphosate and AMPA, on average 9.0 mg/kg. This amount is greater than is typical for many vitamins. In contrast, no sample from the conventional or the organic soybeans showed residues of these chemicals .

Full Article
Jayasumana, C.; Gunatilake, S.; Senanayake, P. Glyphosate, Hard Water and Nephrotoxic Metals: Are They the Culprits Behind the Epidemic of Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Etiology in Sri Lanka? Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2014, 11, 2125-2147.

via:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/03/links-3314.html

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and a new form of head and neck cancer

Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is considered the cause for Cervical and Genital cancers. In Sri Lanka Cervical Cancer is the second most common cancer among women.  Now it appears HPV can also cause throat and neck cancer and associated with those who have had many oral-sex partners.


Excerpts:

the next year, she released a study showing that HPV-positive and HPV-negative oropharyngeal cancers had completely different risk profiles.

People with HPV-positive cancer tended to have had many oral-sex partners, but there was no statistical association with tobacco smoking or drinking;

those with HPV-negative cancers were heavy drinkers and cigarette smokers but there was no association with sexual activity.

“These were two completely different diseases,” says Gillison. “They might superficially look similar — a patient comes in with a neck mass and their throat hurts — but I realized what drove the pathogenesis was completely different in the two cases.”

more at
http://www.nature.com/news/hpv-sex-cancer-and-a-virus-1.14194

Michael Douglas says Oral Sex caused Throat Cancer

Michael Douglas, was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2010, says oral sex was the cause.  He went on to add that if you have it, oral sex is also the best cure.

So are Michael Douglas's comments medically correct.

So excerpts:

There are more than 100 variants of HPV, otherwise known as the human papilloma virus, and they appear in different parts of the body and manifest in different ways – some, for example, can cause warts (including genital warts), while in most cases most appear symptomless

 HPV is really, really common – to the point that if you're a sexually active adult, you've probably had it. By the age of 25, 90% of sexually active people will have been exposed to some form of genital HPV (whether high or low risk), almost none of whom will ever have had any visible warts or other symptoms.

US study found the prevalence of HPV in the mouths of men was 10%, versus 3.6% for women. Overall, HPV-related oral cancers are most common in heterosexual men in their 40s and 50s, leading the NHS guide to conclude that:

This indicates that performing cunnilingus (oral sex on a woman) is more risky that performing fellatio (oral sex on a man). This seems counterintuitive, but the concentration of HPV in the thinner moist skin of the vulva is mugh higher than the amounts of virus shed from the thicker dry skin of the penis, and this affects how easy it is to pass the virus on.

 Douglas used HPV to exonerate smoking for his particular cancer. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests he wasn't quite right to do so. Most people rid themselves of HPV within a few years of catching it – but smoking disrupts this process, meaning the virus remains for far longer in smokers than non-smokers, increasing their risk of HPV-related cancers of all varieties.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/jun/02/michael-douglas-oral-sex-cancer-facts

578 Influenza Patients in SL: Or is it the MERS-CoV (Update)

The Nation reports that  4 people have died and 578 have been diagnosed with Influenza. The symptoms are fever, dry cough, muscle and joint pain, tiredness and extreme exhaustion, prolonged headache or sore throat.

Meanwhile there is a MERS-CoV (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome)  initially named Novel Corona Virus (nCoV) that has been affecting Gulf Countries and has also spread to UK and France.

Update:  June 03-2013
Has spread to Italy, 3 cases detected

The Center For Disease Control (CDC) reports

From April 2012 to May 2013, a total of 33 people from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and France were confirmed to have an infection caused by the novel coronavirus.

• Saudi Arabia: 24 people; 13 of them died
• Qatar: 2 people; both survived
• Jordan: 2 people; both died
• UK: 3 people; 2 died, 1 recovered
• UAE: 1 person; died
• France: 1 person, receiving treatment 

Symptoms of novel coronavirus infection?
Most people who got infected with the novel coronavirus developed severe acute respiratory illness with symptoms of fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Only two people experienced a mild respiratory illness

Update June 1st

Of the 50 people who contacted the disease 30 died.
The authors of the study estimated the incubation period at 9-12 days, a long time in which infected people could spread the disease without realizing that they are ill. It still isn’t certain at what stage people carrying the virus are most contagious, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Another concern is that the virus is difficult to identify. Yet doctors could not confirm the presence of the MERS virus in the youngest of the patients, and were not able to confirm it in the two who died until after they passed away.

For more information, see the World Health Organization (WHO).

via http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-12/two-people-dead-sars-virus-saudi-arabia-two-more-infected-france

Vinegar a Test for Cervical Cancer

In Sri Lanka about 1,250 cases of cervical cancer are detected each year.  Nearly 50 percent of the patients die each year and is the second most dangerous cancer amongst women after breast cancer (LBO). Testing for cervical cancer in its initial stages is done by a Pap smear which requires laboratory work.

Now there is a simple visual test for cervical cancer using vinegar.

Excerpts

A simple vinegar test slashed cervical cancer death rates by one-third in a remarkable study of 150,000 women in the slums of India, where the disease is the top cancer killer of women.

This study tried a test that costs very little and can be done by local people with just two weeks of training and no fancy lab equipment. They swab the cervix with diluted vinegar, which can make abnormal cells briefly change color.

"It's just not possible to provide Pap smear screening in developing countries. We don't have that kind of money" or the staff or equipment, so a simpler method had to be found, Shastri said.

More progress against cervical cancer may come from last month's announcement that two companies will drastically lower prices on HPV vaccines for poor countries. Pilot projects will begin in Asia and Africa; the campaign aims to vaccinate more than 30 million girls in more than 40 countries by 2020.

via http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/06/links-6313.html
http://news.yahoo.com/vinegar-cancer-test-saves-lives-india-study-finds-113800022.html

Groundwater Depletion, Chronic Kidney Disease (CKDu) and Jaffna River Project

From Hidayathulla and Karunaratna

A recent research article by Thushyanthy Mikunthan and C.S. De Silva highlight the accelerating
depletion of the limestone groundwater aquifer in Jaffna peninsula. There are two serious concerns that need to be addressed because of this.

a) As the authors point out, with thousands of people returning to settle in the former war zone, groundwater extraction is bound to increase, resulting in  shortages of water supply in the Jaffna peninsula for agriculture and domestic use.

b) With pesticides and fertilizer runoff seeping into the groundwater  the main source of drinking water in the Jaffna peninsula, kidney and other health issues are going to become more common.  I think the Chronic Kidney Disease (CKDu) prevalent in Anuradhapura will be be a walk in the park, compared to what is probably in store for the Jaffna dwellers.   CKDu incidence in Jaffna has been low probably because agriculture and use of fertilizer/pesticides were minimal due to lack of access to markets in the South during the civil war.

Background on Chronic Kidney Disease (CKDu).

The majority of CKDu patients are from the Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa, Kebithigollewa, Girandurukotte, Padaviya, Vilachchiya and Ampara  areas. In the Anuradhapura area CKDu prevalence averages around 12% and affects more women (62%)  than men (32%).  The disease progresses slowly and majority of patients do not have any symptoms until they are in the late stages of the disease

Many causes have being attributed to CKDu excessive cadmium in the natural environment; high levels of fluoride in drinking water; using fluoride-rich water in low quality aluminium pots; “hard water” with higher than normal levels of minerals; and toxins generated by blue-green bacteria in the water and of course Arsenic.  My untested opinion is that dioxins too may be a cause (see Dioxin causes Kidney Disease: Alternative Explanation to Arsenic). If Dioxins are one of the causes of CKDu then not just the individuals exposed, but potentially the great-grandchildren may experience increased adult-onset disease susceptibility.

So what can be done

a) Better testing and monitoring of ground water (and blood).
b) Increased rain water collection and harvesting.
c) Controlled use of Fertilizer, Pesticide

Testing and Monitoring of Ground Water 

Ms. Thushyanthy Mikunthan has publications on water quality.  However, the analysis are for rudimentary components, e.g. chloride, iron and sulphate concentration, total alkalinity, total dissolved solids,  pH and Nitrate.  Let alone dioxins and dioxin-like product, metals or arsenic are not tested.  Most likely this is because the equipment and material needed for sophisticated testing (e.g. HPLC's) are unavailable in Jaffna and/or testing in Colombo is cost prohibitive.

So maybe its time to consider a project to test/monitor groundwater for metals, dioxins and dioxin-like chemicals.  Maybe donation of instruments, or a collaborative research project to link agricultural use, dioxin content in ground water incidence CKDu and effect of alleviation methods such as rain water harvesting.

Increased rain water collection and harvesting

The biggest project for Rainwater collection that has been proposed and partially completed is the Jaffna River project. The basic concept is to create fresh water lakes from the Elephant Pass, Vadamarachchi and Upparu lagoons, by preventing saltwater intrusions.  More details from D. L. O Mendis in the Daily News. 

As  Dr Rajasingham Narendran says
The ‘ River for Jaffna’ project, which is vital for Jaffna is stalled , although considerable work has been recently done. The Elephant Pass lagoon has been isolated from the sea on both sides. I was pleasantly shocked to learn yesterday at a seminar on water resources that this work was completed by the government in 2008, amidst the war. Further, after the war the Thondamanaru and Ariyalai barrages have been reconstructed. However, the construction of the Mulliyan canal to connect Elephant Pass reservoir with the Vadamaracchchi lagoon has not commenced. The bund of the Iranaimadu tank has been raised preventing a natural spill into Kanagarayan Aru and flow into the Elephant Pass reservoir. Mr. Anandasangari is leading the effort against Iranaimadu waters spilling over to fill the Elephant Pass reservoir. It is imperative that the government make the visionary river project for Jaffna of the Late Engr. Arumugam come true. There can be no greater blessing for Jaffna. This project if completed will make Jaffna bloom in every possible way – agriculture, tourism, inland fisheries, industrialisation fresh water availability, good quality ground water availability, greenery etc.,

Resources
http://www.scidev.net/en/south-asia/news/jaffna-aquifer-depleting-from-overuse.html
http://idosi.org/aejaes/jaes7%281%29/15.pdf
http://www.gsslweb.org/home/files/109-113-hidayathulla-final.pdf
http://archive.riversymposium.com/index.php?element=ARUMUGAM

Water Resources Development, Jaffna Peninsula by  K. Shanmugarajah, Fast Books, Australia, 1993

 

Chinas Bird Flu is Airborne

A follow up to the nCoV post with update on on the Bird Flu in China.  Apparently the H7N9 virus can be also transmitted by airborne exposure.  More disturbing is that it takes a while before symptoms can be seen.  That mean it can be transmitted to many by a infected person who travels or  is in busy crowded places.

A similar virus the H1N1, the Spanish Influenza 1918 of killed more soldiers than the World War I.

More at: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-23/chinas-bird-flu-goes-airborne

Diabetes: Reverse with 800-calorie diet for eight weeks

People of South Asian ancestry are up to four times more likely than Europeans to develop type 2 diabetes. The risk of type 2 diabetes is approximately 2-fold higher in African Americans than in European Americans.
 
Type 2 diabetes could be reversed by following a daily 800-calorie diet for eight weeks.

When our bodies are deprived of normal amounts of food they consume their own fat reserves, with the fat inside organs used up first. The idea of Taylor's diet is to use up the fat that is clogging up the pancreas and preventing it from creating insulin, until normal glucose levels return. With my GP's blessing and a home glucose-testing kit, I began my experiment.

The diet was strict: three litres of water a day, three 200-calorie food supplements (soups and shakes) and 200 calories of green vegetables. Thanks to my doctor's dietary guidance, and running three times a week, I had already lost a stone. Yet my glucose levels were still above 6mmol/L (millimols per litre), the upper limit for a healthy person without diabetes. According to Taylor, I had to lose a sixth of my pre-diagnosis bodyweight


On the first full day, I weighed 9st 7lb with a healthy body mass index of 21. After reaching my target of 8st 12lb, I would be able to build myself up through exercise, as larger muscles use more energy, soaking up excess glucose before it is converted and stored as fat.

It wasn't easy. Yet water staved off the worst hunger pangs. "If you feel hunger, celebrate the fact with a glass of water, even fizzy water," Taylor said. By the third day, I weighed 9st 5lb.

On day four, my glucose levels had dropped to 4.6 after fasting for 10 hours overnight. It was the first time I'd ever scored a 4. But on day six, I felt really cold. It was mid-July but in the morning my fingertips were white and I had to wear a T-shirt, shirt, jumper and jacket to work. I was hungry, and just walking around the office was tiring. But I was down to 9st 3lb.

By day eight, I was being called the "disappearing man", and began to feel a bit detached from my colleagues. While my energy levels were fine and glucose levels were 4.3mmol/L, constipation had set in, as a result of not drinking enough water. Thankfully, laxatives cured this. Taylor emailed to say my progress was so good, I  could come off the liquid diet and go back to normal foods.

By day 11, my glucose was 4.1, the lowest yet, and I was down to just 8st 13lb. The next day I treated myself to my first full evening meal of rice and fish, plus a chocolate shake to celebrate.

I waited two months to be sure, but on 24 September last year it was confirmed. Following a fasting glucose test at my surgery, my doctor declared: "The diabetes has resolved itself." My glucose level was 5.1mmol/L, well below the diabetes mark of 6.

I had stuck to the diet for just 11 days and reduced my blood sugar to a healthy non-diabetic level. It has remained that way for the past seven months.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/may/12/type-2-diabetes-diet-cure
 
http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_30-8-2011-11-40-47

Ganja good to control Diabetes and become thinner: American Medical Journal

These are the kinds of studies I like.

People who regularly smoke marijuana may have better control of their blood sugar and may be skinnier than non-marijuana users, according to a new study.
The research, published in the American Journal of Medicine, shows that people who reported regularly using marijuana had a lower risk of insulin resistance and had lower fasting insulin levels, compared with people who never used marijuana. Researchers also found an association between using marijuana and having a smaller waist circumference and higher levels of "good" HDL cholesterol, compared with non-users. The research was conducted by scientists from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the University of Nebraska and the Harvard School of Public Health.

From  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/15/marijuana-users-skinnier-blood-sugar-control_n_3280053.html

Dioxin causes Kidney Disease: Alternative Explanation to Arsenic

The increased incidence of kidney disease in the North Western Province is true.  That said is Arsenic the true cause as Nalin de Silva makes it out to be.  Could dioxins  which can be contaminants in Agrochemicals be more likely the cause of kidney disease in the NWP.

Agent Orange in Vietnam was contaminated by a Dioxin where even "vanishingly small" quantities in the diet caused adverse health effects.

From ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2012)

• Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, biologist Michael Skinner and members of his lab say dioxin administered to pregnant rats resulted in a variety of reproductive problems and disease in subsequent generations. The first generation of rats had prostate disease, polycystic ovarian disease and fewer ovarian follicles, the structures that contain eggs. To the surprise of Skinner and his colleagues, the third generation had even more dramatic incidences of ovarian disease and, in males, kidney disease.
• "Therefore, it is not just the individuals exposed, but potentially the great-grandchildren that may experience increased adult-onset disease susceptibility," says Skinner.
• Skinner is a professor of reproductive biology and environmental epigenetics -- the process in which environmental factors affect how genes are turned on and off in the offspring of an exposed animal, even though its DNA sequences remain unchanged. In this year alone, Skinner and colleagues have published studies finding epigenetic diseases promoted by jet fuel and other hydrocarbon mixtures, plastics, pesticides and fungicides, as well as dioxin.
• The field of epigenetics opens new ground in the study of how diseases and reproductive problems develop. While toxicologists generally focus on animals exposed to a compound, work in Skinner's lab further demonstrates that diseases can also stem from older, ancestral exposures that are then mediated through epigenetic changes in sperm.

Mohan Manikkam, Rebecca Tracey, Carlos Guerrero-Bosagna, Michael K. Skinner. Dioxin (TCDD) Induces Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of Adult Onset Disease and Sperm Epimutations. PLoS ONE, 2012; 7 (9): e46249 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0046249

Eating Meat helped Humans have a shorter Breast Feeding period

New research appears to explain that eating meat was why humans breast feed less than great apes.
Below excerpt from the  Daily Mail

The research compared 67 species of mammals, including humans, apes, mice and killer whales, and found a clear correlation between eating meat and earlier weaning.

The research compared 67 species of mammals, including humans, apes, mice and killer whales, and found a clear correlation between eating meat and earlier weaning.

They found young of all species stop suckling when their brains have developed to a particular stage, but that carnivores reached this point more quickly than herbivores or omnivores. 

Eating meat enabled the breast-feeding periods and thereby the time between births to be shortened,' said Elia Psouni, lead author of the study. 'This must have had a crucial impact on human evolution.'

Among natural fertility societies, the average duration of breast-feeding is 2 years and 4 months. This is not much in relation to the maximum lifespan of our species, around 120 years.
It is even less if compared to our closest relatives: female chimpanzees suckle their young for 4 to 5 years, whereas the maximum lifespan for chimpanzees is only 60 years.

Below excerpts from the  Psouni, Elia et al abstract at PLoS

Our large brain, long life span and high fertility are key elements of human evolutionary success and are often thought to have evolved in interplay with tool use, carnivory and hunting. 

Crucially, carnivory predicted the time point of early weaning in humans with remarkable precision, yielding a prediction error of less than 5% with a sample of forty-six human natural fertility societies as reference. Hence, carnivory appears to provide both a necessary and sufficient explanation as to why humans wean so much earlier than the great apes.

While early weaning is regarded as essentially differentiating the genus Homo from the great apes, its timing seems to be determined by the same limited set of factors in humans as in mammals in general, despite some 90 million years of evolution.

Our analysis emphasizes the high degree of similarity of relative time scales in mammalian development and life history across 67 genera from 12 mammalian orders and shows that the impact of carnivory on time to weaning in humans is quantifiable, and critical.

Since early weaning yields shorter interbirth intervals and higher rates of reproduction, with profound effects on population dynamics, our findings highlight the emergence of carnivory as a process fundamentally determining human evolution.

Ibogaine to Treat Heroin and Cocaine Addiction

Ibogaine appears to be successful in  treating Heroin, Cocaine and other Addiction.

The drug, derived from the root of a central African plant called iboga, had been used for centuries by the Bwiti people of Gabon and Cameroon, as part of a tribal initiation ceremony.  The total alkaloid extract of the Tabernanthe iboga plant, which also contains all the other iboga alkaloids and thus has only about one-fifth the potency by weight as standardized ibogaine hydrochloride.
Currently, pure crystalline ibogaine hydrochloride is the most standardized formulation. It is typically produced by the semi-synthesis from voacangine in commercial laboratories.  There is also a synthetic derivative of ibogaine, 18-methoxycoronaridine.

Excerpts from BBC Article

In 1962 a young heroin addict called Howard Lotsof took iboga to get high, but when the hallucinogenic effects wore off, he realised he no longer had the compulsion to take heroin. He became convinced that he had found the solution to addiction and dedicated much of his life to promoting ibogaine as a treatment.

Howard Lotsof's early campaign had little success and ibogaine was banned in the US, along with LSD and psilocybin mushrooms, in 1967.

They began working together and in 1995 secured full approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate its potential in humans. But these tests cost millions of dollars, and Mash applied for five separate public grants but each one was declined.

Usually, this money would come from big pharmaceutical companies but drugs like ibogaine offer little potential for profit. It only has to be taken once, unlike conventional treatments for heroin addiction such as methadone which is a substitute and addictive itself.

"One very cynical reason they are not being developed is that there is no patent on these drugs anymore so there is no pharmaceutical company involvement," says Ben Sessa.
Pharmaceutical companies make money by patenting new chemicals but ibogaine is a naturally occurring substance and is difficult to secure a patent on.

Marriage and fatherhood have both been shown to decrease testosterone levels

Excerpt of an Article in Zero Hedge (a Financial blog)

Newsweek reported in 2009:

Monkeys that see sexually active females register as much as a 400 percent jump in testosterone (nature’s own performance-enhancing drug) promoting lean muscle and quick recovery times, according to the Yerkes Center for Primate Research at Emory University. In humans, German researchershave found that just having an erection is enough to spur testosterone levels. it makes no difference whether a man is watching sex on a screen or having it in real life, his testosterone levels will go up. Just having an erection, in fact, is enough to spur production.

Such findings, along with work that shows family life to be a drain on testosterone levels, prompted Rutgers University sex researcher Helen Fisher to advise this month that males in the “captivity situation”-her term for married with kids-”go on the Internet and look at porn” as a kind of hormone-replacement therapy. “[Porn] drives up dopamine levels, which drives up your testosterone,” she tells NEWSWEEK, while kissing your wife or hugging your kids drives it down.

Indeed, marriage and fatherhood have both been shown to decrease testosterone levels.

Other stuff to Boost Testosterone Levels.

• six-second bout of sprinting increased serum total testosterone levels.
• Numerous studies have shown that resistance training is a powerful stimulant for testosterone production. So – if you are physically able – be sure to lift heavy things every now and again
• The JAMA  reports that lack of sleep dramatically lowers testosterone in healthy young men.
• Studies in the the Journal of Hormones and Behavior, the European Journal of Applied Physiology show prolonged stress produces cortisol reduces T levels. So take breaks and play sports, go for a walk, meditate, do yoga or do whatever else de-stresses you.
• Vitamin D (sunlight) positively correlates with testosterone levels in men, according to the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and researchers at the Medical University of Graz in Austria.
• Eat Monounsaturated and Saturated Fat. See this, this and this.

Birth Control For Men: Great for Casanovas

Apparently an  inexpensive procedure developed in India, excerpts below.
My opinion is great  for Casanovas, who can run around.  Ultimately the decision should be left to the woman.

The procedure called RISUG in India (reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance) takes about 15 minutes with a doctor, is effective after about three days, and lasts for 10 or more years. A doctor applies some local anesthetic, makes a small pinhole in the base of the scrotum, reaches in with a pair of very thin forceps, and pulls out the small white vas deferens tube. Then, the doctor injects the polymer gel (called Vasalgel here in the US), pushes the vas deferens back inside, repeats the process for the other vas deferens, puts a Band-Aid over the small hole, and the man is on his way. If this all sounds incredibly simple and inexpensive, that’s because it is. The chemicals themselves cost less than the syringe used to administer them. But the science of what happens next is the really fascinating part.

The two common chemicals — styrene maleic anhydride and dimethyl sulfoxide — form a polymer that thickens over the next 72 hours, much like a pliable epoxy, but the purpose of these chemicals isn’t to harden and block the vas deferens. Instead, the polymer lines the wall of the vas deferens and allows sperm to flow freely down the middle (this prevents any pressure buildup),  and because of the polymer’s pattern of negative/positive polarization, the sperm are torn apart through the polyelectrolytic effect. On a molecular level, it’s what super villains envision will happen when they stick the good guy between two huge magnets and flip the switch. ...

To reverse the procedure

With one little injection, this non-toxic jelly will sit there for 10+ years without you having to do anything else to not have babies. Set it and forget it. Oh, and when you do decide you want those babies, it only takes one other injection of water and baking soda to flush out the gel, and within two to three months, you’ve got all your healthy sperm again.

via Brown Pundits, complete article here

The Odd: Arecoline to the Influence of Population Pyramids on Revolution

An Odd line of thought, Betel Nut (puwak) to Population Pyramids and Revolution

From the wiki on Arecoline which is found in areca nut (Puwak/Betel Nut)

Arecoline is an alkaloid natural product found in the areca nut, the fruit of the areca palm (Areca catechu). Owing to its muscarinic and nicotinic agonist properties, arecoline has shown improvement in the learning ability of healthy volunteers. Since one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease is a cognitive decline, arecoline was suggested as a treatment to slow down this process and arecoline administered intravenously did indeed show modest verbal and spatial memory improvement in Alzheimer's patients.

Hmm, I did not see that coming. Puwak/Betel Nut and by extension chewing Betel improves learning ability for the healthy and shows modest improvements in verbal and spatial abilities of Alzheimer's patients.

Now the big question is how should the Betel be chewed. Here is a comparison between the Burmese and Papua New Guinea (PNG) ways to chew betel from an gloves off article on Papua New Guinea (PNG)

If you have some time to waste during the day, though, you might try chewing betel. PNG [Papua New Guinea] is the second country I’ve visited where people do that; Burma was the first. Only, Papuans chew it differently. The Burmese dry out the nut, slice it into discs and wrap the discs in a leaf with a slurry of calcium hydroxide (that is, slaked lime that’s been slaked again) and various aromatic seeds and herbs. The lime reacts with the nut and turns it bright red, sort of like the dirt in my old town — seeing betel-cud splattered on a sidewalk always reminds me of Roebourne on a rare, wet, muddy December day — while releasing arecoline, the actual drug behind the betel high.
Papuans can’t be fucked with all that delicate drying and slicing. They get their betel (“buai“) fresh — the fruits look like little green coconuts — and crack open the husk with their side-teeth. (You can see dried husks by the thousands lying across town, like mini grass skirts for a mountain of Hula Barbies.) If the nut inside is white, that means it’s good for chewing; the whiter the better. Red-brown, oxidized-looking nuts are thrown away, replaced by the vendor for no extra charge, since they supposedly smell bad. You pay a kina ($0.50) for a nut, crack it open, chew it, spit out the latexy sap, grab a little loofah-shaped seed pod (the “daka“), bite the tip off, moisten it, dip it in a bag of lime (“kambang“) and try to chew on the nut-pod-lime mixture for as long as possible.

For those who think that that habits like chewing Betel are only in the East/Third World, tobacco chewing is equally disgusting and prevalent in rural America, specially among white Gun toting rednecks.
So now for Population Pyramids and the possibility of revolution in Burma (the thread/link connection was Burmese Betel Chewing habits)

But there’s a snag: popular uprisings really only succeed in countries with large populations of angry young men. Poland in the early 80s. Romania in ’89, Czechoslovakia in ’89, Indonesia in ’98, Egypt in ’11 – look at the population pyramids for those countries, and you’ll see they had an awful lot of 15-25 year olds, right when the shit hit the entrenched-ruling-elite fan.
Same goes for the pro-Western “color revolutions” in the Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan: demographic spikes in the 15-19 and 20-25 groups followed by rapid regime change. With revolutions, it’s age that matters. More than geography. Maybe more than ethnicity. Definitely more than fucking Twitter.

In Burma people hit twenty during the last decade, and, sure enough, massive protests suddenly broke out in 2007 after 19 years of relative tranquility. Media sources never failed to mention that the protests were “monk-led,” but no one seems to have caught the significance of that. By Southeast Asian standards, monks are basically college students (especially in Myanmar, where the government was smart enough to close most universities after the ’88 riots).

So, given Sri Lanka's Population Pyramid, where the biggest segment of the population is over 30 its unlikely we will have a LTTE or JVP like uprising which we saw in the last few decades. Can this be said of our neighboring countries, where the majority of the population is still very young and male dominated because of birth selection. Could invasion be a possibility in the next few decades from our immediate neighbors.