Today, I got the Saturday and Sunday RC Journals and the June 1, Science News. This combination was interesting on this day.
The RC Journal indicated the Mayoral candidate Kirkeby criticized Rapid City Mayor Sam Kooiker for attacking capitalism when Kooiker opposed Hookah lounges. Now, I don't know if Mayor Sam went after Hookah pipes because his fundamentalist religious ideals frowned on such sin and alcohol or because he was aware of the extra problems with such smoking.
Science, religion, and politics are often lap at the edges of the others. Today, Science News gave another very good reason to oppose Hookah lounges in Rapid City and elsewhere. The June 1, 2013 Science News article "Hookah smoking far from safe" page 9 indicates that research shows that smoking via hookah pipes is actually more dangerous to lungs and other organs that even are cigarettes. Hookah smokers got more benzene and pyrene and absorbed more carbon monoxide than did cigaretter smokers. One might be a bit suspicious of research that comes from a tobacco state, but the results were interesting. I guess we should not be surprised that pulling any non-air substances into our lungs is not a real great idea. Public TV do-it-yourself carpentry shows stress the importance of dust masks because of the dangers associated with inhaling dusts from exotic woods.
The same Science Now issue on page 23 "Sweet Confusion" (see related link following this) reports research indicating the the real problem with Fructose vs. Sucrose is not so much with either being much better or much worse than the other but fructose is so cheap that food manufacturers load everything they can with it. Early research showed a parallel between increased fructose consumption and increased obesity, etc. However, that may have been a coincidence of timing with increased consumption. Also, our brains might not indicate sugar levels with fructose compared to sucrose. Consequently, we all get far too much fructose and sucrose. What we need to avoid obesity and some other problems is less of either or both. Miriam Vos, a researcher's comment is used to end the article with ""If you replaced all the high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar, would we be better off?", she says. "No, We would be in exactly the same place.".
So, if you need to lose weight, claiming "fructose is the problem" is only a good excuse for some people with particular genetic differences.
I find it hard not to think that our society would be a better system if more politicians and judges (also politicians by the way) knew more about science and less about religion and partisan scheming, deception, and propaganda tactics.
Despite living in a part of the "wheat Breadbasket" of the USA, I had missed a story that apparently has been developing for over a year. A new wheat rust fungus UG99 is attacking wheat in Africa and has spread on the wind apparently to other areas of the world, but not yet to the US except in research labs in frigid Minnesota.
You can read the story I saw in Wired Magazine today Inside the Race to Stop the UG99 Fungus by Brendan I. Koerner . Koerner notes the Wired Story and has a photo with some additional info at Micokhan .
Earlier mention of the UG99 Wheat Stem Rust from Uganda can be found in a February 18, 2009 Washington Post article In the Wheat Fields of Kenya, A budding Epidemic . A New York Times blog in a Science Area Dot Earth March 17, 2009 has an article indicating new wheat strains may resist the UG99 Wheat Stem Rust.
And an April 4, 2008 article at Asia Times Online indicates that Monsanto and other companies working with genetic manipulation or engineering may be trying to get patents on wheat resistant to UG99. This story may contain a bit of paranoia toward corporations doing GM on plants. The article in Wired noted at the beginning of this post suggests that Pakistan has another variant of the UG99, but apparently views such pathogens as something they should keep less somebody gets a patent on a way to eliminate its danger.
So, if you are a wheat farmer or a consumer who eats bread and breakfast cereals, you may find reading all the Wired story both interesting and worth your time. It indicates that the USDA's Cereal Disease Laboratory about a half mile from the Minnesota Fairgrounds in St. Paul is working on the Fungus. Les Szabo at the CDL is the recognized authority on P. Griminis discusses research and the possible result of spreading of this dangerous fungus.
I don't know if this is being considered in any kind of South Dakota research or if it is viewed as any kind of significant threat, but if you do know, let me and readers here know.
--- By Doug Wiken with information from Wired, NY Times, Asia Times, Washington Post, and Micokhan..and of course Google ..
Tags: Fungus, UG99, Wheat Rust, Wired.