Tuesday, October 29, 2019

Researcher Warns That 5G Might Actually Cause Cancer After All

As  5G cellular network tech looms, conventional wisdom dictates that cell  phone radiation is more or less safe for humans. But writing for the  widely respected magazine Scientific American, University of California,  Berkeley, a public health researcher argues that we don’t yet  understand the risks and that more study is necessary before we roll out  5G infrastructure. There just isn’t any research on the health effects  of 5G. But he also points to a swathe of studies that suggest that the  existing standards 2G and 3G are more dangerous than generally believed.  The researcher insisted that regulators listen to the 250 doctors and  scientists who recently signed the 5G Appeal, a petition for a  moratorium on public rollout of the tech until the health implications  are better understood. “Instead, we should support the  recommendations of the 250 scientists and medical doctors who signed the  5G Appeal that calls for an immediate moratorium on the deployment of  5G and demand that our government fund the research needed to adopt  biologically based exposure limits that protect our health and safety.” (Futurism)

Clapping is now considered anxiety trigger, ‘jazz hands’ to replace applause at Oxford

The  student union at the prestigious University of Oxford has voted to put  an end to clapping. Instead of putting hands together to celebrate  something, students are now being encouraged to pull them apart, throw  them in the air and do what’s called jazz hands when celebrants shake  their hands in the air. Oxford isn’t the only institute of higher  learning to silence claps. The University of Manchester passed a similar  rule last year. Manchester added the suggestion to the inclusion  training for new students. he change is to help calm those whose anxiety  may be triggered by the loud noise of clapping. It also may cause an  issue for those with sensory sensitivity and those with hearing aids,  Oxford’s student union said. Jazz hands are the British Sign Language  movement for applause. The use of silent applause will be encouraged at  events held by Oxford’s student union, and the group is now lobbying the  school to replace applause with jazz hands at all university events. (Oxford Student)

Researchers have found a correlation between exposure to air pollution and aggressive behavior or violent crime

The  health effects of air pollution might be noticeable to most people,  especially those suffering from asthma or other respiratory conditions,  but the study’s lead author, assistant professor in the Department of  Agricultural and Resource Economics at Colorado State University, said  the correlation between poor air quality and violent crime would be  difficult to suss out on an individual or community level. Results of  the study merges with FBI crime statistics with a map of air pollution  in counties across the United States. The study’s lead author said this type of data could be useful for policymakers trying to improve the  quality of life in their communities. He also pointed out that when it’s not feasible to perform a controlled experiment, scientists often rely  on identifying connections in aggregate data sets. (Journal of Environmental Economics and Management)

Arkansas hunter dies after being attacked by deer he shot

According  to the Chief of Communications at the Arkansas Game and Fish  Commission, an Arkansas hunter was killed after a deer that he had just  shot attacked him. Wildlife officials said that the 66-year-old man shot  the buck using a muzzleloader while hunting near Yellville in Marion  County. Investigators said the hunter approached the deer to check if he  had killed it, but that the deer then attacked him while he was  inspecting the animal, leaving him with serious injuries. Despite his  injuries, the man was able to call his family who alerted emergency  responders. He was rushed to hospital but medical staff were not able to  save him. The injuries inflicted by the deer may have killed him, but  another cause, like a heart attack, cannot be ruled out. The Arkansas  Game and Fish Commission urges hunters to be careful when approaching  deer which they have just shot, making sure to leave them for around  half an hour to be certain that the animal is not still alive. Deer are  not normally aggressive animals, given that they prefer to flee from  predators. However, they are known to become aggressive if they feel  that their young are threatened. (KTHV)

Illusive Dream

Last  week, an Arkansas woman found the largest brown diamond picked up at  the Crater of Diamonds State Park in more than two years. She and her  husband live in Jacksonville, about a two-hour drive from the park.  They’ve visited several times and found five diamonds before, but she  made her biggest discovery after she spent about 30 minutes searching  the southwest part of the area before she spotted it. “I saw something shiny several feet ahead of me and walked over to see what it was,” she said, according to a news release. “I lost sight of it when I got close, but then I turned around I found the diamond lying beside me!” Staff registered the diamond and discovered it weighed 3.29 carats. She named it “Illusive Dream.” The  Crater of Diamonds State Park is the only diamond-producing site in the  world where the public can search for diamonds and keep them. (KHBS)

Rats have learned how to drive and steer their own tiny cars in exchange for Froot Loops

The  real discovery in the study  and its wider implications for human  mental health treatment was found in their poop, per new findings  published in Behavioural Brain Research. Rats are better drivers when  they’re mentally stimulated. The study author is head of the University  of Richmond’s Lambert Behavioral Neuroscience Laboratory and she trained  two groups of young rats: One bunch raised in an “enriched environment”  with toys, ladders, balls and pieces of wood designed to spark mental  stimulation, and another reared in a standard, unexciting lab cage. The  rats learned to enter a custom “rat-operated vehicle,” or ROV,  adorably constructed from a one-gallon plastic container turned on its  side. Once inside, the rat racers would stand on an aluminum plate and  press on a copper bar that would trigger the wheels’ motor. They’d hold  down on the bar until they propelled their tiny car to the end of their  enclosure, where they collected their reward: Froot Loops. When it came  time to drive, the rats who played with ladders, balls and toys were  more adept at operating and steering the ROV, thanks to the  neuroplasticity (their brains’ ability to change over time) triggered by  their environment. Their unstimulated cage counterparts effectively “failed their driving test,”  she said. However, Hormones found in their feces showed improved  emotional resilience. In sifting through their fecal matter, she found  both groups of rats trained to drive secreted higher levels of  corticosterone and DHEA, hormones that control stress responses.  Corticosterone is a hormone animals could secrete in high-stakes  scenarios like running from a wild animal or defending themselves from  predators, but it can also be expressed in lower-risk tasks like doing  taxes or worrying about a loved one (though rats likely aren’t advanced  enough to form a government, let alone impose taxes on fellow rats).  DHEA acts as a sort of “buffer,”  when corticosterone becomes  toxic, that is, when it can’t be turned off in a reasonable amount of  time, creating prolonged stress. It’s evidence that mastering a complex  task, like driving a car, bolstered the rats’ emotional resilience. The  brains of humans and rats share nearly all of the same areas and  neurochemicals — they’re just smaller in rodents. And though humans are  certainly more complex than rats, there are “universal truths”  in how both species’ brains interact within their environment to  maintain optimal mental health. Emotional resilience is one of the first  lines of defense against mental illnesses like depression and learning  what behaviors build that up could clue physicians in on how to treat  those illnesses in humans. It’s a concept that is refered to as “behaviorceuticals,”  activities that release hormones that can ward off prolonged stress  brought on by corticosterone.  The activity can be something as simple  as knitting, or in rats’ case, learning to drive a car. Just engaging  hands, paws and brains of varying sizes can enhance a participant’s  sense of control. (N.C.B.I.)

Never Take Mom’s Ride Without Permission

A  Texas woman is being hailed mother of the year after she tracked her  son down after he took her BMW without her permission, then whooped him  with a belt on the side of a highway. The swift discipline was caught on  camera by the woman’s daughter. She said her brother was on break from  school when he disconnected the Wi-Fi so his mother wouldn’t see through  home surveillance cameras that he had taken her new BMW. The  14-year-old then picked up some friends and went cruising around El  Paso. The mother was unaware of the son’s joyride until she got a call  from the mother of one of his friends, saying he had just driven to her  home to pick up her son. The mother called the daughter from work to ask  if her BMW was in the driveway. When she said the car wasn’t in the  driveway, the mother left work, picked up the daughter and had her bring  a belt to search for the son. However, the mom got word from a friend that her son and car were heading over to a friends house. When the  mother spotted her BMW, she laid on the horn and pulled up alongside the vehicle while screaming “Pull over now!” The boy’s friend, who was in the passenger’s seat, was trying to get out of the car to run home because he was in shock. The mother took away her son’s  phone, Playstation 4, and other electronic devices, so he had no clue  the videos that his sister posted had gone viral. Initially worried he  would be bullied because he was spanked by his mother, the 14-year-old  has received mostly positive attention by his classmates who call him a “legend,” referring to him as the modern-day Ferris Bueller. However, the mother is trying to keep a low profile because while many  from Texas and New Mexico understand her reaction, others are accusing  the mother of child abuse. (KSAT)

 California Is Fired Up

Wildfires  there have forced more than 200,000 people to evacuate and burned tens  of thousands of acres. Over the weekend, the governor declared a state  of emergency in Sonoma and Los Angeles Counties. PG&E, the state’s  largest utility, has cut power to more than 2.5 million people in the  largest blackout to prevent wildfires in California history. That’s  because with dry weather and high wind speeds, power lines could spark  fires that grow out of control this time of year. Meanwhile, nearly  200,000 people were ordered to leave their homes as the Kincade Fire  continues to burn in northern California’s wine country. (NBC News)

Gunned Down

The  Montana Supreme Court struck down a local gun law that had been upheld  by a state judge, which would have forced Montanans to submit to  background checks for every transfer of firearms, including purchases at  gun shows. The city of Missoula adopted Ordinance 3581 on Sept. 26,  2016, which imposed a requirement “upon persons purchasing or  otherwise receiving a firearm in the City, including from private  unlicensed dealers, to pass a national instant background check”. According to the city leaders, the ordinance was enacted “to close a loophole in federal law,”  provided some exceptions such as for transactions involving immediate  family members, antique firearms, law enforcement, and temporary  transfers “necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to the transferee.” Any person violating the ordinance would be guilty of a misdemeanor “punishable  by a fine of up to $500 on the first offense and thereafter for  subsequent violations by a fine of up to $500 or by imprisonment for not  more than six months, or by both such fine and imprisonment,” the Montana Supreme Court opinion stated. The ordinance went too far, according to the court. (The Epoch Times)

Tuesday Craves Attention With:

• Internet Day
• National Cat Day
• National Hermit Day
• Rabi’-al-Awwal
• World Psoriasis Day