Life purpose buffers negative moods triggered by diversity

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-09/cu-lpb090413.php

Public release date: 4-Sep-2013
Contact: Melissa Osgood
Cornell University

ITHACA, N.Y. – Being in the minority in an ethnically diverse crowd is distressing, regardless of your ethnicity, unless you have a sense of purpose in life, reports a Cornell University developmental psychologist.

Anthony Burrow, assistant professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology, led the study, which was conducted on Chicago trains. The findings shed light on how people encounter diversity in everyday settings at a time when the United States is more racially mixed than ever, with demographic trends pointing to a more multicultural melting pot in decades to come.

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But the sore feelings vanished in purpose-driven individuals. Burrow, whose research focuses on the value of purpose, particularly among teens and young adults, suspects that it enabled participants to look beyond themselves to appreciate their role in the world and to build the psychological resilience necessary to overcome adversity.

"There is evidence that focusing on personally meaningful and valued goals can buffer the negative effects of stress by allowing individuals to reinforce a sense of who they are," he said. "This suggests that creating opportunities for individuals to cultivate a sense of purpose is important as we move forward as a society."

Burrow warned that the study should not be misread as rejecting multiculturalism, even if diversity can be distressing for people.

"Neither previous research nor our interpretation of the current findings suggest that diversity is inherently problematic," Burrow said. "In fact, there are many reasons to believe ethnically diverse friendships, classrooms and workplaces are optimal for high-quality outcomes."

Inner-ear disorders may cause hyperactivity

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-09/aeco-idm090413.php

Public release date: 5-Sep-2013
Contact: Kim Newman
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

September 5, 2013 — (Bronx, NY) — Behavioral abnormalities are traditionally thought to originate in the brain. But a new study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has found that inner-ear dysfunction can directly cause neurological changes that increase hyperactivity. The study, conducted in mice, also implicated two brain proteins in this process, providing potential targets for intervention. The findings were published today in the online edition of Science.

For years, scientists have observed that many children and adolescents with severe inner-ear disorders – particularly disorders affecting both hearing and balance – also have behavioral problems, such as hyperactivity. Until now, no one has been able to determine whether the ear disorders and behavioral problems are actually linked.

"Our study provides the first evidence that a sensory impairment, such as inner-ear dysfunction, can induce specific molecular changes in the brain that cause maladaptive behaviors traditionally considered to originate exclusively in the brain," said study leader Jean M. Hébert, Ph.D., professor in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience and of genetics at Einstein.

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"Our study also raises the intriguing possibility that other sensory impairments not associated with inner-ear defects could cause or contribute to psychiatric or motor disorders that are now considered exclusively of cerebral origin," said Dr. Hébert. "This is an area that has not been well studied."

Global warming has increased risk of record heat, say Stanford scientists

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-09/su-gwh090413.php

Public release date: 5-Sep-2013
Contact: Noah Diffenbaugh
Stanford University

Drought shriveled crops in the Midwest, massive wildfires raged in the West and East Coast cities sweltered. The summer of 2012 was a season of epic proportions, especially July, the hottest month in the history of U.S. weather record keeping.

And it's likely that we'll continue to see such calamitous weather.

In the north-central and northeastern United States, extreme weather is more than four times as likely to occur than it was in the pre-industrial era, according to a new study by Noah Diffenbaugh, a Stanford associate professor of environmental Earth system science, and Martin Scherer, a research assistant in the department.

Diffenbaugh and Scherer found strong evidence that the high levels of greenhouse gases now in the atmosphere have increased the likelihood of severe heat such as occurred in the United States in 2012.

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A Dark Future for Science

I remember when Reagan cut back on funding for medical research. Years later, a friend of mine was allowed to die after getting a spinal cord injury. Within six months, researchers announced a procedure that could prevent much damage if done soon after the accident. I felt really bitter. If Reagan had not cut back on medical research, maybe my friend would be alive.

Within two years, there were several more advances in preventing paralysis from spinal cord injuries.

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/a-dark-future-for-science/?_r=0

September 4, 2013
By DAVID FIRESTONE

Two years after House Republicans threatened not to raise the government’s debt ceiling, the full brunt of that once-unthinkable offense is now hitting the National Institutes of Health. As Annie Lowrey reported in The Times this morning, 2013 has been the “darkest ever” year for the agency, because the budget cuts demanded by Republicans are taking a significant toll on research into medical cures.

¶One biomedical researcher whose budget was cut by 20 percent said science is falling behind, delaying promising results and discouraging young scientists, who are leaving the field.

¶The sequester — the direct result of the 2011 debt-ceiling fight — has had an immediate effect on the lives of people squeezed out of Head Start programs and public housing, on jobless workers whose benefits were cut, and on government employees and contractors whose lower salaries and layoffs are dragging down the economic recovery. But it has also produced shock waves that will continue harming the country for years to come, because researchers operate on long-term schedules and need a reliable stream of revenue to produce results.

The University of Chicago had to close three labs that treated cancer and gastro-intestinal diseases. George Mason University is laying off HIV researchers. Arkansas State University is losing 30 scientists who developed techniques to detect bombs and nerve gas. In all, half the recipients of federal science funding are laying off researchers, according to the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

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J&J recalls Infant Motrin due to plastic specks

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/jj-recalls-infant-motrin-due-plastic-specks

By MATTHEW PERRONE
— Sep. 6, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — Johnson & Johnson is recalling 200,000 bottles of Motrin Infants formula due to the risk that they contain tiny plastic particles.

J&J's McNeil unit said Friday that the recall affects three lots of its popular Motrin Drops Original Berry Flavor, which is used to lower fever and treat aches and pains in children 2 years old and younger. The company warned that the medicine may be contaminated with specs of PTFE, a plastic also used in Teflon coatings.

McNeil says it's unclear if the recalled bottles actually contain the particles, which were found in a different product during the manufacturing process. The company decided to issue the recall because both products contain the same shipment of ibuprofen from a third-party supplier. Ibuprofen is a common pain reliever and fever reducer, also used in Advil.

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Better hygiene in wealthy nations may increase Alzheimer’s risk

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/better-hygiene-in-wealthy-nations-may-increase-alzheimers-risk

People living in industrialised countries may be more likely to develop Alzheimer’s due to greatly reduced contact with bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms - which can lead to problems with immune development and increased risk of dementia, suggests a new study. - See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/better-hygiene-in-wealthy-nations-may-increase-alzheimers-risk#sthash.M7xDak5L.dpuf

New research has found a “very significant” relationship between a nation’s wealth and hygiene and the Alzheimer’s “burden” on its population. High-income, highly industrialised countries with large urban areas and better hygiene exhibit much higher rates of Alzheimer’s.

Using ‘age-standardised’ data - which predict Alzheimer’s rates if all countries had the same population birth rate, life expectancy and age structure - the study found strong correlations between national sanitation levels and Alzheimer’s.
- See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/better-hygiene-in-wealthy-nations-may-increase-alzheimers-risk#sthash.M7xDak5L.dpuf

This latest study adds further weight to the “hygiene hypothesis” in relation to Alzheimer’s: that sanitised environments in developed nations result in far less exposure to a diverse range of bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms - which might actually cause the immune system to develop poorly, exposing the brain to the inflammation associated with Alzheimer’s disease, say the researchers.

“The ‘hygiene hypothesis’, which suggests a relationship between cleaner environments and a higher risk of certain allergies and autoimmune diseases, is well- established. We believe we can now add Alzheimer’s to this list of diseases,” said Dr Molly Fox, lead author of the study and Gates Cambridge Alumna, who conducted the research at Cambridge’s Biological Anthropology division. - See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/better-hygiene-in-wealthy-nations-may-increase-alzheimers-risk#sthash.M7xDak5L.dpuf

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Yelling doesn't help, may harm adolescents

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-09/uop-ydh090413.php

Public release date: 4-Sep-2013
Contact: Adam Reger
University of Pittsburgh
Yelling doesn't help, may harm adolescents, Pitt-Led study finds

Impact of harsh verbal discipline similar to that of physical discipline, researchers report

PITTSBURGH—Most parents who yell at their adolescent children wouldn't dream of physically punishing their teens. Yet their use of harsh verbal discipline—defined as shouting, cursing, or using insults—may be just as detrimental to the long-term well-being of adolescents.

That's the main finding of a new study led by Ming-Te Wang, assistant professor of psychology in education in the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education and of psychology in Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. The results were published online today in the journal Child Development.

Research has shown that a majority of parents use harsh verbal discipline at some point during their child's adolescence. Relatively little research has been done, however, into understanding the effects of this kind of discipline.


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The paper, coauthored by Sarah Kenny, a graduate student in the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, concludes that, rather than minimizing problematic behavior in adolescents, the use of harsh verbal discipline may in fact aggravate it. The researchers found that adolescents who had experienced harsh verbal discipline suffered from increased levels of depressive symptoms, and were more likely to demonstrate behavioral problems such as vandalism or antisocial and aggressive behavior.

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Significantly, the researchers also found that "parental warmth"—i.e., the degree of love, emotional support, and affection between parents and adolescents—did not lessen the effects of the verbal discipline. The sense that parents are yelling at the child "out of love," or "for their own good," Wang said, does not mitigate the damage inflicted. Neither does the strength of the parent-child bond.

Even lapsing only occasionally into the use of harsh verbal discipline, said Wang, can still be harmful. "Even if you are supportive of your child, if you fly off the handle it's still bad," he said.

Another significant contribution of the paper is the finding that these results are bidirectional: the authors showed that harsh verbal discipline occurred more frequently in instances in which the child exhibited problem behaviors, and these same problem behaviors, in turn, were more likely to continue when adolescents received verbal discipline.

"It's a vicious circle," Wang said. "And it's a tough call for parents because it goes both ways: problem behaviors from children create the desire to give harsh verbal discipline, but that discipline may push adolescents toward those same problem behaviors."

The researchers report that parents who wish to modify the behavior of their teenage children would be better advised to communicate with them on an equal level, explaining their worries and rationale to them. Parenting programs, say the authors of the study, are well positioned to offer parents insight into the ineffectiveness of harsh verbal discipline, and to offer alternatives.

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Significantly, most of the students were from middle-class families. "There was nothing extreme or broken about these homes," Wang stressed. "These were not 'high-risk' families. We can assume there are a lot of families like this—there's an okay relationship between parents and kids, and the parents care about their kids and don't want them to engage in problem behaviors."

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Ability to delay gratification may be linked to social trust

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-09/uoca-atd090413.php

Public release date: 4-Sep-2013
Contact: Yuko Munakata
University of Colorado at Boulder
Ability to delay gratification may be linked to social trust, new CU-Boulder study finds

A person's ability to delay gratification—forgoing a smaller reward now for a larger reward in the future—may depend on how trustworthy the person perceives the reward-giver to be, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder.

A body of research that stretches back more than a half-century has shown that the ability to delay gratification is linked to a number of better life outcomes. On average, people who were able to delay gratification as children go on to have higher SAT scores, for example. They also tend to be more socially conscious as adolescents, less obese as adults, and less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol.

But despite the long history of studying delayed gratification, little research has focused on the role of social trust in a person's ability to wait for a larger payoff in the future.

"Most of the time, when people talk about delaying gratification, they talk about basic processes of evaluation and self-control," said Laura Michaelson, a CU-Boulder doctoral student in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and co-lead author of the new study appearing in the online journal Frontiers in Psychology.

In general, people who choose not to delay gratification have often been characterized as irrational and as having poor impulse control. But if the role of social trust is considered, it introduces the possibility that the person who is choosing not to delay gratification may be acting rationally after all, the researchers said.

"If you don't trust someone, it's rational not to wait for them to give you $20 in a month instead of $15 now," said study co-lead author Alejandro de la Vega, also a doctoral student in CU-Boulder's Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.

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"This offers an alternative explanation for why certain populations might be notoriously bad at delaying gratification or notoriously impulsive, like criminals and addicts," Michaelson said. "It had been chalked up to a lack of self-control. But it may be the case that they are poor at delaying gratification because they have low social trust."

The findings could have implications for determining the best intervention strategies to use with children who find it difficult to delay gratification. Creating environments in which children can develop social trust, for example, could be more effective than having those children work solely on self-control, Michaelson said.

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Fracking practices to blame for Ohio earthquakes

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/fracking-practices-blame-ohio-earthquakes-8C11073601

Charles Q. Choi LiveScience
Sept. 4, 2013

Wastewater from the controversial practice of fracking appears to be linked to all the earthquakes in a town in Ohio that had no known past quakes, research now reveals.

The practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves injecting water, sand and other materials under high pressures into a well to fracture rock. This opens up fissures that help oil and natural gas flow out more freely. This process generates wastewater that is often pumped underground as well, in order to get rid of it.

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Before January 2011, Youngstown, Ohio, which is located on the Marcellus Shale, had never experienced an earthquake, at least not since researchers began observations in 1776. However, in December 2010, the Northstar 1 injection well came online to pump wastewater from fracking projects in Pennsylvania into storage deep underground. In the year that followed, seismometers in and around Youngstown recorded 109 earthquakes, the strongest registering a magnitude-3.9 earthquake on Dec. 31, 2011. The well was shut down after the quake.

Scientists have known for decades that fracking and wastewater injection can trigger earthquakes. For instance, it appears linked with Oklahoma's strongest recorded quake in 2011, as well as a rash of more than 180 minor tremors in Texas between Oct. 30, 2008, and May 31, 2009.

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Low-Wage Employers Have Fought Hard to Keep Their Workers Poor

http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/04/low-wage-employers-have-fought-hard-to-keep-their-workers-poor-now-workers-are-fighting-back/

September 4, 2013
by Joshua Holland

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Between 1973 and 2011, the top 10 percent of American households saw their inflation-adjusted incomes rise by almost $100,000, while the bottom 90 percent – the vast majority of us –actually saw their incomes drop by $4,425 per year, according to economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty (XLS). During that time, pensions largely disappeared, and the costs of health care and education shot through the roof.

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But it’s not just companies like Wal-mart and McDonald’s paying their employees too little. According to a study by Demos, the federal government, indirectly, is the nation’s largest low-wage employer. A coalition called Good Jobs Nation began a campaign earlier this year urging President Obama to sign an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their employees a living wage. With the stroke of a pen, Obama could lift the living standards of two million American workers.

These campaigns are filling a gap left by Congress, which hasn’t raised the federal minimum wage fast enough to keep up with the cost of living. Poverty wages represent a type of “market failure.” Like selling widgets for less than what it costs to make them, low-wage workers are selling their labor for less than what it costs to cover the basic necessities of life, which is why taxpayers end up subsidizing the profits of low-wage employers with various public benefits. “In today’s economy, the math simply doesn’t make sense,” says Basta. “If you’re paying workers between $10,000 and $18,000 a year, it’s impossible to live in a place like New York City without receiving public assistance.”

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Supreme Court rules Drug Companies exempt from Lawsuits

I had to do a search to find out who was in the 5-4 majority. No surprise, it was the five Republicans. The first couple of news sites I looked at simply said it was a 5-4 decision. Reuters at least said the opinion was written by Alito.

http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/q32013/supreme-court-rules-drug-companies-exempt-from-lawsuits/

July 7, 2013. Washington. In case readers missed it with all the coverage of the Trayvon Martin murder trial and the Supreme Court’s rulings on gay marriage and the Voting Rights Act, the US Supreme Court also made a ruling on lawsuits against drug companies for fraud, mislabeling, side effects and accidental death. From now on, 80 percent of all drugs are exempt from legal liability.

In a 5-4 vote, the US Supreme Court struck down a lower court’s ruling and award for the victim of a pharmaceutical drug’s adverse reaction. According to the victim and the state courts, the drug caused a flesh-eating side effect that left the patient permanently disfigured over most of her body. The adverse reaction was hidden by the drug maker and later forced to be included on all warning labels. But the highest court in the land ruled that the victim had no legal grounds to sue the corporation because its drugs are exempt from lawsuits.

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One industry critic was quoted by Reuters after the verdict. "Today's court decision provides a disincentive for generic makers of drugs to monitor safety of their products and to make sure that they have a surveillance system in place to detect adverse events that pose a threat to patients," Michael Carome, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group told the news outlet.

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In other words, if the FDA says something is safe, it doesn’t matter if that decision is wrong or the result of lies, fraud or deception on the part of the world’s pharmaceutical companies. And there’s no way to sue the FDA for being wrong and costing millions of unsuspecting Americans their lives. That result leaves 240 million Americans unprotected from an industry responsible for more preventable deaths in the US than any other cause.

[Note that drug companies have often hidden the results of tests that show that their products have adverse, even lethal, effects.]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/24/us-usa-court-generics-idUSBRE95N0RC20130624

By Lawrence Hurley and Bill Berkrot
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK | Mon Jun 24, 2013

(Reuters) - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that generic drugmakers cannot be sued under state law for adverse reactions to their products, a decision that consumer advocates called a blow to patient safety.
In a 5-4 vote, the court ruled for Mutual Pharmaceutical Co, owned by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, overturning a multimillion-dollar jury award to a badly injured patient in New Hampshire who alleged a generic drug she had taken was unsafe based on its chemical design.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, said the state's law could not run against federal laws on prescription medicines whose design has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

A Supreme Court ruling in 2011 found that pharmaceutical companies that make branded drugs are liable for inadequacies in safety warnings of a medicine's label, but not the makers of cheaper copies of those medicines.

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http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/mutual-pharmaceutical-co-v-bartlett/

Judgment: Reversed, 5-4, in an opinion by Justice Alito on June 24, 2013. Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Kagan joined. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Ginsburg joined.

[Even here, the five justices who voted in the majority are not given, except for Alito. We only know who they are because the four justices who voted against the decision are given.]

Congress blocked funding to to thin brush, may have worsened California wildfire

I note that Reuters doesn't mention that it is the Republicans in Congress that blocked the funding for these projects.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_09/pouring_flammable_tea_on_the_r046682.php

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/01/usa-fire-yosemite-brush-idUSL2N0GX02220130901

By Jonathan Kaminsky
Sun Sep 1, 2013

(Reuters) - A cluster of controlled fire and tree-thinning projects approved by forestry officials but never funded might have slowed the progress of the massive Rim Fire in California, a wide range of critics said this weekend.
The massive blaze at the edge of Yosemite National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountains has scorched an area larger than many U.S. cities - with some of that land in the very location pinpointed by the U.S. Forest service for eight projects aimed at clearing and burning brush and small trees that help fuel wildfire.

The projects, which were approved by the U.S. Forest Service but never funded by Congress, would have thinned the woods in about 25 square miles (65 square km) in the Groveland District of the Stanislaus National Forest, much of which was incinerated by the Rim Fire.

About 9,000 acres (3,642 hectares) were suitable to be deliberately burned as fire prevention buffer zones in 2012, the Forest Service said in a document provided to Reuters.

But reductions in funding for fire prevention efforts by Congress in recent years coupled with stringent air quality standards that limit the timeframe for such burns have hampered efforts to carry them out on a larger scale.

Every minute of physical activity really does count, new study shows

http://www.today.com/health/every-minute-physical-activity-really-does-count-new-study-shows-8C11042850

Melissa Dahl
Sept. 1, 2013

A new study suggests something encouraging for busy people: Every minute of movement counts toward the 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity we’re all supposed to be getting each week. University of Utah researchers found that each minute spent engaging in some kind of moderate to vigorous physical activity was associated with lower BMI and lower weight.

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"High intensity," Fan says, essentially means moving with a little pep, enough to get your heart rate going: it's not sprinting or racewalking, for example, but it's not ambling down the sidewalk, either.

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Mantell has, oh, about a thousand ideas to put this idea into practice: You could energetically clean the house while listening to peppy music, or go outside to wash and wax your car. In the kitchen, you could chop veggies, wash dishes or stir batter by hand instead of with an electric mixer. On your way to work or while doing errands, get off the bus or subway a stop earlier than normal, or park a little farther away from the store. At home, play with your kids or grandkids, push the baby in the stroller, or walk the dog.

More than 110,000 Dead In Syrian Conflict

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/01/syria-death-toll_n_3851982.html

Agence France Presse
Posted: 09/01/2013

More than 110,000 people have died in the conflict in Syria since March 2011, a rights watchdog said Sunday, days after alleged gas attacks near Damascus shocked the world.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the toll since the beginning of the 29-month uprising now stands at 110,371 people, with at least 40,146 civilians killed including nearly 4,000 women and more than 5,800 children.

The group, which relies on a network of activists, doctors and lawyers on the ground throughout Syria, said 21,850 rebel fighters had also been killed.

On the regime side, the group reported the deaths of at least 27,654 army soldiers, 17,824 pro-regime militia and 171 members of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, which has sent fighters to battle alongside the Syrian army.

The group counted another 2,726 unidentified people killed in the fighting throughout the war-torn country up until August 31.

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Wealth and the Inflated Self: Class, Entitlement, and Narcissism

http://billmoyers.com/2013/08/27/a-plutocracy-ruled-by-self-centered-jerks/

http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/08/19/0146167213501699.full#aff-1

Paul K. Piff
Sept. 2013

Americans may be more narcissistic now than ever, but narcissism is not evenly distributed across social strata. Five studies demonstrated that higher social class is associated with increased entitlement and narcissism. Upper-class individuals reported greater psychological entitlement (Studies 1a, 1b, and 2) and narcissistic personality tendencies (Study 2), and they were more likely to behave in a narcissistic fashion by opting to look at themselves in a mirror (Study 3). Finally, inducing egalitarian values in upper-class participants decreased their narcissism to a level on par with their lower-class peers (Study 4). These findings offer novel evidence regarding the influence of social class on the self and highlight the importance of social stratification to understanding basic psychological processes.

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Upper-class individuals also behave in a more self-interested fashion. In one study, upper-class individuals proved more selfish in an economic game (Piff et al., 2010). In other research, upper-class individuals showed reduced sensitivity to others’ suffering (Stellar, Manzo, Kraus, & Keltner, 2012) and exhibited increased tendencies toward self-serving unethical behavior (Piff, Stancato, Côté, Mendoza-Denton, & Keltner, 2012).

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An Open Letter to Venues That Exploit Their Musicians

Full-time saxophonist, Dave Goldberg, wrote an honest letter to venue owners addressing their disregard and exploitation of the working musicians.

I suggest reading the full article at the following link:

Small business owners are often Republican, and will express dislike of welfare, but they expect musicians to perform for free or almost so to bring in customers and provide free advertising.

http://www.grassrootsy.com/2012/02/22/an-open-letter-to-venues-that-exploit-their-musicians/

FEBRUARY 22, 2012

As Ive been looking for gigs lately, I’ve never seen so many free and low paying gigs. Well the economy is bad, so I can understand that a little bit. However, it is no longer good enough for the musician to be willing to perform for little compensation. Now we are expected to also be the venue promoter? The expectations are that the band will not only provide great music, but also bring lots of people to their venue. It is now the band’sresponsibility to make this happen, not the club owner.

Just the other day I was told by someone who owned a wine bar that they really liked our music and would love for us to play at their place. She then told me the gig paid $75 for a trio. Now $75 used to be bad money per person, let alone $75 for the whole band. It had to be a joke, right? No, she was serious. But it didn’t end there. She then informed us we had to bring 25 people minimum. Didn’t even offer us extra money if we brought 25 people. I would have laughed other than it’s not the first time I’ve gotten this proposal from club owners. But are there musicians really doing this? Yes. They are so desperate to play, they will do anything. But let’s think about this for a second and turn this around a little bit.

What if I told the wine bar owner that I have a great band and we are going to play at my house. I need someone to provide and pour wine while we play. I can’t pay much, just $75, and you must bring at least 25 people who are willing to pay a $10 cover charge at the door. Now wouldn’t they look at you like you are crazy?

“Why would I do that?” they would ask. Well because it’s great exposure for you and your wine bar. The people there would see how well you pour wine and see how good your wine is. Then they would come out to your wine bar sometime. ”But I brought all the people myself, I already know them”, they would say. Well maybe you could make up some professional looking flyers, pass them out, and get people you don’t know to come on out. ”But you are only paying me $75. How can I afford to make up flyers?”

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Eating whole fruits linked to lower risk of Type 2 diabetes

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-08/hsop-ewf082613.php

Public release date: 29-Aug-2013
Contact: Todd Datz
Harvard School of Public Health

Boston, MA — Eating more whole fruits, particularly blueberries, grapes, and apples, was significantly associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers. Greater consumption of fruit juices was associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. The study is the first to look at the effects of individual fruits on diabetes risk.

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School-age drinking increases breast cancer risk

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-08/wuso-sdi082813.php

Public release date: 28-Aug-2013
Contact: Jim Goodwin
Washington University School of Medicine

Here's a sobering fact for millions of young women heading back to school: The more alcohol they drink before motherhood, the greater their risk of future breast cancer.

That's according to new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis that, for the first time, links increased breast cancer risk to drinking between early adolescence and first full-term pregnancy. Previous studies have looked at breast cancer risk and alcohol consumption later in life or at the effect of adolescent drinking on noncancerous breast disease.

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If a female averages a drink per day between her first period and her first full-term pregnancy, she increases her risk of breast cancer by 13 percent,” said co-author Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH, associate director for cancer prevention and control at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.

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The researchers also found that for every bottle of beer, glass of wine or shot of liquor consumed daily, a young woman increases her risk of proliferative benign breast disease by 15 percent. Although such lesions are noncancerous, their presence increases breast cancer risk by as much as 500 percent, Liu said.

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'Safe' levels of environmental pollution may have long-term health consequences

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-08/foas-lo082913.php

Public release date: 29-Aug-2013
Contact: Cody Mooneyhan
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology

Bethesda, MD—If you're eating better and exercising regularly, but still aren't seeing improvements in your health, there might be a reason: pollution. According to a new research report published in the September issue of The FASEB Journal, what you are eating and doing may not be the problem, but what's in what you are eating could be the culprit.

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"This report that confirms something we've known for a long time: pollution is bad for us," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "But, what's equally important, it shows that evaluating food contaminants and pollutants on an individual basis may be too simplistic. We can see that when "safe" levels of contaminants and pollutants act together, they have significant impact on public health."

Old whooping cranes show young ones the way

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/old-whoopers-keep-young-ones-course-study-shows-8C11034087

John Roach NBC News
Aug. 29, 2013

When endangered whooping cranes fly their routes to summer breeding grounds, the old birds play a crucial role in showing the young birds where to go.

"This learning takes place over many years," Thomas Mueller, an expert on animal migration at the University of Maryland and lead author of a study on the cranes' migration habits, told NBC News. "It is a long-term process."

The finding adds new support for the idea that at least some of the bird's migratory behavior is learned from experience rather than all of it being the result of information encoded in genes, he noted.

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