60% mindre cancer närmare bestämt, enligt en klinisk undersökning i USA med 1200 kvinnor under fyra år, som ska publiceras i sommar.

Vitamin D kan komma från maten eller från solen. Den kanadensiska tidningen jag citerar nedan menar att det är synd om kanadensare som bara kan få nog med sol för Vitamin D-produktion, från april till september. Men de bor ju ändå långt mer söderut än vi.

Om resultaten från undersökningen visar sig hålla, så bör man ju se till att äta mat med mycket vitamin D i. Här är en bra källa för att ta reda på vilken mat det är.  Dessutom bir ju solsemestern på vinterhalvåret inte valfri längre...

In June, U.S. researchers will announce the first direct link between cancer prevention and the sunshine vitamin. Their results are nothing short of astounding. A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn't take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error.

Läs mer: globeandmail.com: Vitamin D casts cancer prevention in new light

Uppdatering 20:06

Här två kritiska röster från slashdot:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=232675&cid=18917853
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=232675&cid=18919311

En del D-vitaminer aktiveras först av solljus, tydligen.

Uppdatering 2007-04-30
Här några fler intressanta synpunkter från slashdotdiskussionen:

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=232675&cid=18920141

The revolution in Vitamin D research came with the discovery that D is "activated" (25OH-D3 turns into 1,25OH-D3) in a variety of different tissues of the body, not just the kidneys.

Which body tissues do we know can "activate" Vitamin D3? Here's some: prostate tissue, colon tissue, breast tissue. Where are some popular places that cancer likes to form? Same list. Hmmm.

...

There is a simple hypothesis (far from proved, but I'll bet my pill taking regimen on it for now) that explains this: local tissue conversion of 25OH-D3 to 1,25OH-D3 shuts down as soon as serum levels of 25OH-D3 start to decline, and doesn't start up again until serum levels stabilize.

If this hypothesis is true, then allowing your vitamin D3 serum levels to drop during the winter may be as bad for you as just having low levels of vitamin D3 all year round.

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=232675&cid=18920401

The reason that be is this: a fair-skinned person sitting naked in the sun at the equator may make as much as 20,000IU of Vitamin D in 20 minutes. Now go to your grocery store and find a multi-vitamin with Vitamin D in it. It will likely have about 200IU in it. Now try taking 100 of those so you will get the same effect as sitting in the equatorial sun for 20 minutes. Ooops -- you just overdosed on a lot of other substances!

This discovery that the body makes huge amounts of Vitamin D via sunlight is part of what led to the revolution in Vitamin D research. It's hard to look at that number and not ask: WHY, did we evolve to make such large amounts of Vitamin D?

I Svd kan man läsa i en reserapport:

Efter några hektiska, blåsiga och under stundom regniga dagar (vilket är ovanligt i Andalusien där det annars är 330 soldagar om året) i först Cadiz och sedan Jerez styr vi åter bilen mot Costa de la Luz, ”Ljusets kust”, för att njuta av solen

Det är en felaktig uppfattning att Andalusien nödvändigtvis är torrt. Faktum är att Cadiz, som Stina Cederholm skriver om i början, faktiskt är bland de regnigare platserna i Spanien:

Surprisingly, one of the wettest villages in Spain is Grazalema in the Sierra de Grazalema in Western Andalusia with an average of 2,153 mm a year. Although this value is extreme, much of the provinces of Cadiz and Huelva , and the Sierra de Cazorla receive more than 1000mm of rain a year, double that of Madrid .

Läs mer: Climate of Andalusia

Å andra sidan är Almeria i östra Andalusien den torraste platsen i Europa!

Läs mer: SvD: Andalusien anropar

In humans, that means the left brain is associated with positive feelings, like love, a sense of attachment, a feeling of safety and calm. It is also associated with physiological markers, like a slow heart rate. At a fundamental level, the right brain specializes in behaviors involving withdrawal and energy expenditure. In humans, these behaviors, like fleeing, are associated with feelings like fear and depression.

Läs mer: If You Want to Know if Spot Loves You So, It’s in His Tail - New York Times

Together, these findings demonstrate that human relational memory develops during offline time delays. Furthermore, sleep appears to preferentially facilitate this process by enhancing hierarchical memory binding, thereby allowing superior performance for the more distant inferential judgments, a benefit that may

Läs mer: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog : 2007 04

"The average income difference between a person with an IQ score in the normal range (100) and someone in the top two percent of society (130) is currently between 6,000 and 18,500 dollars per year," it said.

Uppdatering 23:40
Hoppsan, klantigt citat. Bör tilläggas att ekonomin (tillgångar) inte är korrelerat med IQ.

Läs mer: Intelligence not linked to wealth, according to US study - Yahoo! News

In an advance online publication in the journal Nature, researchers describe developing a drug designed to be taken orally to treat diseases caused by "nonsense mutations," which cause cells to prematurely stop making a needed protein. The drug, PTC124 is now in early human trials for treatment of nonsense mutations in Duchenne muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis.

Läs mer: ScienCentral Video News: Gene Repair Pill Update

Police have apparently told Mr Litvinenko's widow Marina they plan to lay murder charges against the suspects — Andrei Lugovoi, Dmitri Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko.

Läs mer: FOXNews.com - Report: Arrest Warrants Set for Suspects in Spy Poisoning - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

Richard Muller, one of the UC Berkeley physicists who co-discovered the cycle, said Melott and his colleagues have come up with a plausible galactic explanation for the biodiversity cycle. Muller and Robert Rohde also speculated that our solar system’s movement through the galactic plane was behind the cycle, but the pair could not conceive of any reason why conditions on the north and south side of the galactic plane should differ. “That’s where they succeeded,” Muller said in a telephone interview. “They came up with something we didn’t think of, which puts an asymmetry in. I’m delighted they did that and I congratulate them.”

Läs mer: SPACE.com -- Out-of-This-World Hypothesis: Cosmic Forces Control Life on Earth

Om man ska tro de uppgifter som står i t ex Times Online så förbereder Al-Qaeda en attack mot Storbritannien och andra ställen, med hjälp av en s k dirty bomb, dvs en konventionell bomb som använder radioaktivt material för att förorena stora områden, och skada många människor.

Om detta lyckas, kommer vanmakten och frustrationen att vara stor i Europa, och jag tror inte man kommer att reagera annorlunda än vad USA gjorde efter 11 september. Man kommer att vidta åtgärder - ökade befogenheter för polis, mer övervakning - för att försöka hindra ännu en attack, men jag tror inte opinionen kommer att nöja sig med det. Detta innebär att man kommer att vilja flytta frontlinjen från Europa till de fästen i mellanöstern som man tror har gjort attacken möjlig. Iran spelar ett väldigt högt spel här, vare sig de objektivt kommer att vara inblandade eller inte.

The researchers showed that one of the compounds, 6-thioguanosine, blocked the spores' germination inside mammalian cells -- thus blocking anthrax infection, the journal said Friday in a release. The scientists are planning to test 6-thioguanosine in mice infected with the anthrax bacterium.

Läs mer: ScienceDaily: Scientist find chemical to stop anthrax

from her superhero past. Here is a woman who began her life with a clear, noble purpose, only to have it taken away by the co

Läs mer: 20 Comics That Can Change Your Life by the Nerve staff - Nerve.com

MOSCOW: At their first meeting with journalists since taking over Russia's largest independent radio news network, the incoming managers had some startling news of their own: From now on, at least 50 percent of the reports about Russia must be "positive." In addition, opposition leaders cannot be mentioned on the air and the United States is to be portrayed as an enemy, journalists employed by the network, Russian News Service, say they were told.

Läs mer: Kremlin to radio network: Be 'positive' - International Herald Tribune

The main reason for an anthropologist to be interested in cephalopod cognition is that their brains evolved largely independently from ours. The common ancestor of vertebrates and cephalopods had nothing like the neural complexity and brain anatomy of either mammals or cephalopods, so most shared functional capacities in these animals must be convergent. As the review notes, there are both functional and anatomical convergences, and the question is to what extent the form and function are related. Many of the genes that determine neural development in these lineages are shared from their common ancestor, so there is also an interesting question about the extent that genetic homology may predispose descendant lineages to functional and anatomical convergences.

Läs mer: John Hawks Anthropology Weblog : 2007 04

The oxygen-oxygen unit in the peroxides causes malaria parasites essentially to self-destruct. The parasites digest hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying pigment of red blood cells, and, in the process, release a substance called heme, a deep-red iron-containing blood pigment. When the heme encounters peroxides, a powerful chemical reaction occurs, releasing carbon-free radicals and oxidizing agents that eventually kill the parasites.

Läs mer: Malaria-infected mice cured by 1 dose of new drug | Science Blog

''We found that E85 vehicles reduce atmospheric levels of two carcinogens, benzene and butadiene, but increase two others-formaldehyde and acetaldehyde,'' Jacobson said. ''As a result, cancer rates for E85 are likely to be similar to those for gasoline. However, in some parts of the country, E85 significantly increased ozone, a prime ingredient of smog.''

Läs mer: Ethanol vehicles pose a significant risk to human health | Science Blog

Stora risker med at ta sig in i Europa via västafrika

Thura Ram's sister-in-law has two sons working in Greece. "Their life has improved enormously. They have bought more land, a bigger car, and built a big house. Money comes every month from Greece. They live well. They have money in the bank earning interest," he said, sitting cross-legged on a wooden double bed. "My wife feels that her sister's life is easier." Tacked to his wall is a cheap poster hinting at the kind of lifestyle the family aspires to, a fantasy vision of a whitewashed, two-story chalet with gothic wooden beams and a lush green garden. "We knew it was dangerous. We knew it could be a matter of life and death. We knew it was illegal," Thura Ram said of his son's trip. "I was so worried I couldn't sleep at night. But there was no other way. It is up to my sons to give a good upbringing for their children."

Läs mer: In an Indian village, going abroad is a son's duty - International Herald Tribune

"Spain has no evidence that there is a Human Rights problem in Cuba") while produced TOP SECRET reports - assuring all the atrocities - that never were published.

Läs mer: Castro, a Spain Protegé | The News is NowPublic.com

Domain kiting registrars abuse the 5 day refund period to work their scheme. After a domain name is registered, a registrar has five days to cancel a domain name registration – i.e. drop the name – and get their money back. Domain kiting registrars abuse this rule and cancel the lion’s share of the names they register just before the five day period expires – so they get their money back. But then something unexpected happens. After names are cancelled or dropped, the domain kiting registrar goes out and immediately registers the same names again.

Läs mer: 35 million names registered in May. Only 8% of registrations were paid. 32 million were part of a scam. It's called "domain kiting." - Hot Points

Sajten Fark har ibland Photoshoptrådar, där man manipulerar bilder på ett tema. Ibland blir det fantastiskt bra, men jag tycker kvalitén har varit sämre de senaste månaderna. Det har mycket att göra med temat. Men nu har det dykt upp två mycket bra bildtrådar:

• Använd sovjetiska propagandaaffischer som bas för avalaffischer för amerikanska presidentvalet 2008
  Convert an old Soviet propaganda poster or mural into a campaign ad for the 2008 U.S. elections
  
• Om religion styrde den kommersiella världen
  If religion ruled the business world...
  

I dagens DN gör Lennart Pehrson en analys av vad outsourcing av jobb från rika länder till fattiga länder kan innebära, bl a vilka jobb som inte kommer att ha en direktverkande prispress nedåt:

De jobb som inte kan flyttas är de som kräver personlig närvaro snarare än en väldigt hög utbildning. Tänk sjuksköterska, polis, taxichaufför eller servitris. Om det är den typen av jobb som blir kvar krävs ett nytänkande inom utbildningspolitiken.

Det finns dock två faktorer som kan göra det bra ändå för högutbildade i rika länder:

• Lönerna för de högutbildade i fattiga länder kommer med outsourcing snabbt att stiga, vilket gör att lönepressen minskar
  
• Man kan flytta till ett låglöneland som högutbildad och ha en hög standard. Det görs redan idag, t ex människor från Malaysia som jobbar ihop en förmögenhet i Storbritannien och pensionerar sig hemma vid 40. I framtiden behöver de inte alls flytta.
  

Läs mer: Bankjobb flyttas till låglöneländer