Was Toxin Added on Purpose? Pet Food Recall Widens.

Another contaminated grain product used in pet food (and possibly other animal feed), has been discovered. This time it's rice protein concentrate. And it's contaminated, again with melamine.

Because of this the pet food recall has widened to include some brands that contain the tainted rice protein concentrate. This is because melamine has been found not just in imported wheat gluten but also rice protein concentrate; both contaminated grain products are from China, according to the Houston Chronicle's online news outlet, chron.com. The Chronicle also says there are South African press reports indicating that corn gluten, contaminated with melamine, has been found in that country's pet food.

Wilbur Ellis Co., which imported the tainted rice product, found the contaminant in rice protein from one supplier, Reuter's reports. They are voluntarily recalling all of the rice protein concentrate its feed division sold to pet food manufacturers.

The FDA is mulling over if the contamination might not have been deliberate. They say that adding melamine can boost the apparent protein content of the grain products.

Racing Leather Clad Females of the Pacific

The sun, the sea... the sands of Playa Grande.



Wait a minute! This is a science blog. What's with *that* title - it sounds like a cheesy badly written grindhouse flick. But it isn't. There isn't a film - this is real time. And they are female. They are swimming in the Pacific (or at least hanging out in the surf after having been on the tropical beaches of Playa Grande in Costa Rica). And they really are clad in leather, at least on their backs, sort of. And they really are 'racing' to their island getaway.

But they are almost certainly the wrong species for you - they are herptiles. Which means they have scaly skin, among other things. But hey, this is a race. Who cares if they are the wrong species?

What are they? Turtles. leatherback turtles to be specific. There are less than 100 of them left in the wild in some places! Marine turtles need all the help they can get.

In order to raise awareness of the need for sea turtle conservation, and the precarious existence of the leatherback sea turtle conservation agencies and several businesses have organized something they're calling the Great Turtle Race.

It features 11 sea turtles 'racing' as they migrate from their nesting sites in Costa Rica across the pacific just over about 500 miles to the Galapagos Islands (a place of which you may have heard, because Charles Darwin and how he came to his theories).

The turtles are wearing gear that allows a satellite to pick up their position, speed and other things like depths, in REAL TIME folks - and then this is beamed back to a computer where the data is updated every 10 minutes. So you can see how the turtles are doing! Plus you can pick a turtle to cheer on. It's actually kind of fun - you can sign up for updates.

The Great Turtle Race started this Monday and goes to the 29th of April.

Check out Dr. Turtle, based at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Also, at least one of the turtles has a blog. But Drexelina, as she is called, doesn't seem to be moving off the ebach very fast!

You can pick a turtle and cheer it on, and donate to help save the critically endangered and very cool leatherback sea turtles so there will be some around for your kids or grand kids or grandkids grandkids.

Which would be a good thing.

RIP, Dr, Liviu Librescu, Scientist & Hero 1932 - 2007.

One of the people who died in the horrible shooting at Virginia Tech was an engineering professor and internationally-known researcher in aerodynamics who died holding off the gunman while his students escaped through the window.

Dr. Librescu authored several books (one came out only last year). He was joint-editor of 7 journals, winner of over a dozen awards, and a holocaust survivor. He was to have given a keynote address in June in Korea at a scientific conference.

Thanks to user moosehead-beer over on the scientists of LJ, for the lead and most of this info.

Some of the other professors and students who were shot dead are listed here.

Our Earth Week/Astronomy Day Special!

Join Let X = X for our Earth Week/Astronomy Day special broadcast, this Wednesday, April 17th. Listen to us live, via webcast between 9:15 and 9:30 am! You'll need Real Player but you can download it from that page.

As usual, I had a half hour of stuff so half of it hit the virtual cutting room floor.

To Bee or Not To Bee: Cell Phones Behind Colony Collapse Disorder?

Science is stranger than fiction, frequently. As I like to say - science is silly, science is scary, science is sexy. File this one solidly under scary!

By now you may have heard of CCD, or Colony Collapse Disorder, which has been seriously depopulating the bees agriculture depends upon, throughout the US, Europe and, possibly, Canada. There are a lot of theories as to what the culprit is behind the mass die-off. Mostly it's a mystery.

Now there is a new one which sounds a bit like something written by the folks who penned Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, or some other B-grade sci-fi flick: Cell phones and their microwave transmitters may be behind the CCD that is wiping out bee populations in North America and Europe. I wish it was a joke! Nope - the theory goes that bees navigation is throw off by the radiation involved in mobile telephone systems. This comes from researchers at Landau University, according to the Independant's article.

Back in March, an alternative health reporter posted that Electromagnetic Radiation could be behind the bee die off. he ahs some interesting references and one link I saw that seems to make some sense is from HESE, the Human Ecological Social Economical project.. Again the idea is that EM from a variety of sources, in particular anything using what are known as VLF or ELF waves - very low frequency/extra-low frequency) which have been shown to have effects on some animals health, particularly so near power corridors.

I did a bit of research into this back in the late 80's when I
was bored and had time to poke around at U of O in the Vanier library. Unfortunately I cannot recall the name of the books and publications I read. It was forever ago! I looked into it because I used to get migraines whenever I visited an aunt who's place backed up onto the huge power corridor that runs through part of Scarborough, in Toronto.

Here is some older information the US National Institute of Health on effect of EM in the work place.

Pesticides, Pollutants, Linked to Diabetes & Insulin Resistance

Pathophysiology researchers at the Universities of Kyungpook (in Korea) and at U of Minnesota have just published "Association Between Serum Concentrations of Persistent Organic Pollutants and Insulin Resistance Among Nondiabetic Adults". The study shows links between blood serum levels of certain pollutants (like organophosphorous pesticides and PCB's) and onset of type 2 diabetes. Previously, the researchers had shown a link between this and diabetes itself.

Persistent Organic Pollutants are also known as POPs, for short. POPs are pollutants tend to bind to fat. Because of this they tend to accumulate in fatty tissue in animals especially. Then if another animal eats them, they concentrate up the food chain. This is kniown as bioaccumulation, and bioconcentration.

As Edie's Sam Bond points out it's,possible that being obese simply means more of the chemicals are likely to accumulate in the system. More fatty tissue means more sites for the pollutants to bind to. As he says, this is what is seen in the wild with top-chain predators like polar bears, for example, that have a lot of fatty tissue.

It's not just pesticides and PCB's that do this. Some metals do as well, for example methylmercury, which is lipid (fat) soluble.

The United Nations Environmental Program or UNEP, has more information on POPs here. There is an international agreement on POPs, known as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

Canada was the first country to ratify the Stockholm Convention. More information on Canada's strategy for dealing with these chemicals is here.