Trance Bates Random: February 2010

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Top 10 Most Dangerous Foods

1. Hot Dogs

In a new paper, the American Academy of Pediatrics says hot dogs are also a choking hazard to children and should come with a warning label. About 17% of food-related asphyxiations in those younger than 10 are caused by hot dogs, according to a 41-state study cited in the paper.

2. Fugu

Served in paper-thin slices by expert chefs, fugu combines luxury with a high-stakes gamble. The intestines, ovaries and liver of fugu (or blowfish) contain a poison called tetrodotoxin, which is 1,200 times deadlier than cyanide. The toxin is so potent that a lethal dose is smaller than the head of a pin, and a single fish has enough poison to kill 30 people.

3. Ackee

In Jamaica, the ackee fruit is a mixed blessing. Though originally native to West Africa, it migrated to Jamaica in 1778 and is now the country's national fruit. If improperly eaten, though, ackee can cause what has been dubbed the Jamaican Vomiting Sickness — which, other than the self-explanatory symptoms, can lead to coma or death. Unripe ackee fruit contains a poison called hypoglycin, so preparers must be careful to wait until the fruit's protective pods turn red and open naturally.

4. Peanut Panic

Don't let Mr. Peanut's top hat and monocle fool you — beneath that gentlemanly exterior lies one deadly little nut if you're one of the roughly 1% of the population that has a peanut allergy. It's the most common cause of food-allergy deaths, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

5. Leafy Greens

Leafy greens — including spinach, lettuce, cabbage, arugula and kale — were listed as the riskiest foods of 2009, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is regulated by the FDA. The group identified 363 separate outbreaks linked to the veggies last year; 240 of those cases were linked to food from restaurants.

6. Rhubarb

Rhubarb, the vegetable so celebrated for its role in pastries that it's also known as the "pie plant," has a kick to it. While rhubarb has a medicinal history originating in Asia, ingesting a large amount of the leaves can cause poisoning.

7. Tuna

tuna has become one of the most widely consumed fish in the world. It also has one of the worst reputations. A well-publicized 2004 U.S. government advisory warned consumers against eating too much of the fish out of concern that the high mercury levels could damage the nervous system and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

8. Cassava

Better known to Americans as tapioca, the pudding favorite is produced from the roots of this bush-like plant. But the crop can have deadly consequences. If prepared incorrectly, the cassava plant can produce cyanide, a deadly compound when consumed.

9. Coffee

Aside from the possibility of increased heart rate, trouble sleeping and discoloration of teeth, there's another a way that a cup of joe can be detrimental to your well being. Call it the burned-crotch effect or the java jump and jive, because when that hot liquid hits your lap, you'll stop at nothing to end the pain.

10. Mushrooms

Aside from hallucinogenic properties, mushrooms can also kill. Varieties like the Death Cap, Destroying Angels and Deadly Webcap are highly poisonous and capable of inducing death

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1967235,00.html

KGUN talks with the owner of the world's tallest dog, a Great Dane, standing 3 feet, 7 inches, a Guinness World Record.

Kanye West - Coldest Winter

Friday, February 19, 2010

Beanie Sigel - Disses Jay-Z & T.I.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The men behind famous diseases

1. Crohn's disease

The inflammatory digestive disease could just have easily ended up with the name Ginzburg's disease or Oppenheimer's disease. In 1932, three New York physicians named Burrill Bernard Crohn, Leon Ginzburg, and Gordon Oppenheimer published a paper describing a new sort of intestinal inflammation. Since Crohn's name was listed first alphabetically, the condition ended up bearing his name.

2. Salmonellosis
Yes, the salmonella menace that haunts undercooked chicken is named after a person. Daniel Elmer Salmon was a veterinary pathologist who ran a USDA microorganism research program during the late 19th century.
Although Salmon didn't actually discover the type of bacterium that now bears his name -- famed epidemiologist Theobald Smith isolated the bacteria in 1885 -- he ran the research program in which the discovery occurred. Smith and his colleagues named the bacteria salmonella in honor of their boss.

3. Parkinson's disease
James Parkinson was a busy fellow. While the English apothecary had a booming medical business, he also dabbled in geology, paleontology, and politics; Parkinson even published a three-volume scientific study of fossils. Following a late-18th-century foray into British politics where he advocated a number of social causes and found himself briefly ensnared in an alleged plot to assassinate King George III, Parkinson turned his attention to medicine. Parkinson did some research on gout and peritonitis, but it was his landmark 1817 study "An Essay on the Shaking Palsy" that affixed his name to Parkinson's disease.

4. Huntington's disease
George Huntington wasn't the most prolific researcher, but he made his papers count. In 1872, a fresh-out-of-med-school Huntington published one of two research papers he would write in his life. In the paper, Huntington described the effects of the neurodegenerative disorder that now bears his name after examining several generations of family that all suffered from the genetic condition.

5. Alzheimer's disease
In 1901, German neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer began observing an odd patient at a Frankfurt asylum. The 51-year-old woman, Mrs. Auguste Deter, had no short-term memory and behaved strangely. When Mrs. Deter died in 1906, Alzheimer began to dissect the patient's brain, and he presented his findings that November in what was the first formal description of presenile dementia.

6. Tourette syndrome
Credit George Gilles de la Tourette for his modesty. When the French neurologist first described the illness that now bears his name in 1884, he didn't name it after himself. Instead, he referred to the condition as "maladie des tics." Tourette's mentor and contemporary Jean-Martin Charcot renamed the illness after Tourette.Tourette didn't have such great luck with patients, though. In 1893, a deluded former patient shot the doctor in the head. The woman claimed that she lost her sanity after Tourette hypnotized her. Tourette survived the attack.

7. Hodgkin's lymphoma
British pathologist Thomas Hodgkin first described the cancer that now bears his name while working at Guy's Hospital in London in 1832. Hodgkin published the study "On Some Morbid Appearances of the Absorbent Glands and Spleen" that year, but the condition didn't bear his name until a fellow physician, Samuel Wilks, rediscovered Hodgkin's work.

8. Bright's disease
The kidney disease bears the name of Richard Bright, an English physician and colleague of Hodgkin's at Guy's Hospital. Bright began looking into the causes of kidney trouble during the 1920s, and in 1927 he described an array of kidney ailments that eventually became known as Bright's disease. Today, doctors understand many of the symptoms historically clumped together as Bright's disease are in fact different maladies, so the term is rarely used.

9. Addison's disease
Guy's Hospital was apparently the place to work in the 19th century if you wanted to have a disease named after you. Thomas Addison, a colleague of Bright and Hodgkin at Guy's Hospital, first described the adrenal disorder we call Addison's disease in 1855. On top of this discovery, Addison also published an early study of appendicitis.

10. Tay-Sachs disease
Although both of their names are attached to this genetic disorder, Warren Tay and Bernard Sachs didn't work together. In fact, they didn't even work in the same country. Tay, a British opthalmologist, first described the disease's characteristic red spot on the retina in 1881. In 1887 Bernard Sachs, a colleague of Burrill Crohn at Mount Sinai Hospital, described the cellular effects of the disease and its prevalence among Ashkenazi Jews.

11. Turner syndrome
The chromosomal disorder got its name from Oklahoma doctor Henry Turner, who first described the condition in 1938.

12. Klinefelter's syndrome
The genetic condition in which males have an extra X chromosome bears the name of Harry Klinefelter, a young Boston endocrinologist who published a landmark study while working under the tutelage of endocrinology star Dr. Fuller Albright in 1942. Albright pushed his young protégé to be the lead author of the paper that described the condition, so the young Klinefelter's name is forever associated with the syndrome.

13. Asperger's syndrome
Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger first described the syndrome that now bears his name in 1944 after observing a group of over 400 children who suffered from what Asperger described as "autistic psychopathy." Interestingly, since Asperger's research was all written in German, his contributions to the literature went unrecognized until much later. The term "Asperger's syndrome" didn't come into widespread usage until 1981.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/02/17/mf.namesake.medical.condition/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Verizon smartphones to get Skype app

Verizon Wireless and Skype announced a partnership Tuesday to bring the Internet calling service to nine of the carrier's 3G smartphones beginning in March.

With the free Skype Mobile application, Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) smartphone users can make and receive unlimited free calls to other users who have Skype.

They can also use it to call any international phone number at Skype's standard rates, which are much lower than Verizon's international wireless calling rates. Calls abroad through Skype start at 2.1 cents per minute, and monthly unlimited packages are also available. The app will also let Skype users exchange instant messages.

"With any partnership, we're looking to do what our consumers want. In this case, they asked for Skype to be untethered from their PCs," Skype's chief executive, Josh Silverman, told CNNMoney.com.

Skype Mobile will be available on nine of Verizon's 3G smartphones: Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry Storm, Storm 2, Curve 8330, Curve 8530, 8830 World Edition, and Tour 9630; Motorola's (MOT, Fortune 500) Droid and Devour; and HTC's Droid Eris.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/16/technology/verizon_skype/index.htm?cnn=yes&hpt=Sbin