24
Jun 12

All Plastics Are Bad for Your Body, New Study Finds

Time to stop using plastics, if you haven’t already…

Excerpt from the Rodale article:
“WHAT IT MEANS: There really aren’t any “safer” plastics, and it’s hard to predict which ones will leach estrogenic chemicals into your food. As this study shows, different plastics containing different types of foods will leach chemicals at different levels. That’s largely because there are so many steps and additives in the plastic-making process, says George Bittner, PhD, professor of biology at the University of Texas in Austin and lead author of the study. “A plastic item can subsist of anywhere from five to 20 chemicals, some of which are additives, which are incorporated within the plastic polymer but not bound to the structure,” he says. Both the materials that make up the plastic resin and the additives can leach out of plastics, says Bittner, who’s also the CEO of CertiChem, the lab that tested the plastics in this study, and a consultant for PlastiPure, a company that works with plastic manufacturers to produce estrogenic-chemical-free plastics. You also have mold-release agents and colorants that are used to make or decorate the plastics, adds Mike Usey, CEO of PlastiPure, and those colorants tend to be highly estrogenic.”


20
Oct 10

Are Starbucks Cups Recyclable?

There’s frigging plastic in Starbucks cups dammit!
Guess I’m bringing by travel mug there a lot more often: need to stop this waste and spare myself exposure to plastic…

24
Sep 10

Hardy Boys Retrospective

I’m glad this writer took the time to revisit and re-read the Hardy Boys series I read and enjoyed so much, so I didn’t have my golden memories of these childhood books as badly tarnished.
I loved the The Hardy Boys books. I can even remember distinct details from some of the episodes, like The Secret Of The Caves
— although they all tend to blur into on long ‘episode’ now. My gut tells me they would probably be underwhelming to re-read now, so I’ve left them well enough alone.
That said, I was surprised by the antipathy that their Canadian (way to go, eh) ghost writer, Leslie McFarlane, showed towards the series.
He pretty much detested them. Wonder how Nancy Drew’s writer(s) felt about their writings…



06
May 10

Some pretty amazing stuff happening for people with Type 1 Diabetes

From insulin in pill form to artifical pancreas efforts

Even though the former is still a ways away and the latter is no cure, it gives me hope that we may see a cure in my lifetime, and that my daughter’s quality of life can be decent. I shudder when I think of the lives of diabetics before insulin, let alone before the JDRF, glucometers, inuline pumps and the other advanced gear & techniques we have today.

For the ongoing effort against this terrible disease, tonight, I’ll open a beer and drink to science and the dedication of those in diabetes R&D…again; — rock on all!


06
May 10

If a cogent, succint, non-philosophical argument against the death penalty exists, it is this…

That you cannot kill innocent people!
8 People Who Were Executed and Later Found Innocent

Whether or not you ‘buy’ that any of the people in that article were, or were not innocent, the key fact is this — and we all know this in our hearts — that innocent people get ground up in Capital Punishment machines.

It has got to stop, OK world?