S. D. Wells - Health basics: What is MSG?

by S. D. Wells 

http://www.naturalnews.com/034272_MSG_monosodium_glutamate.html

(NaturalNews) Monosodium Glutamate, better known as MSG, is a form of concentrated salt added to foods to enhance the flavor. This salt version of glutamic acid is an amino acid the body can produce on its own, but the MSG we find on store shelves is processed and comes from fermented sugar beets. Because this kind of MSG is processed, it can cause many adverse reactions, including skin rashes, itching, hives, nausea, vomiting, migraine headaches, asthma, heart irregularities, depression and even seizures (http://www.msgtruth.org/migraine.htm).

Since MSG acquired its infamous reputation for causing migraines, the food industry has given it new names and new forms, including autolyzed yeast, yeast extract, maltodextrin, hydrolyzed protein, sodium caseinate, mono-potassium glutamate, and textured protein. Consumers who are watching out for monosodium glutamate in long ingredients lists usually don't know the aliases, but should.

Because MSG is so cheap, the food industry can use much lower quality foods and simply add MSG as a flavor enhancer. Currently, there is a huge investment by the food giants in MSG medical research to convince consumers of its safety. Monsanto, the giant biotech company that creates genetically modified corn, soy and canola, also controls more than 90% of the sugar beet industry; therefore, MSG contains the gene of the pesticide Roundup. Consumers who don't filter MSG out of their diet are catching a double dose of toxicity.

Click to read more ...

Eurekalert.org - New research distinguishes roles of conscious and subconscious awareness

Public release date: 30-Nov-2011

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/thuo-nrd113011.php

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Nov. 30, 2011 – What distinguishes information processing with conscious awareness from processing occurring without awareness? And, is there any role for conscious awareness in information processing, or is it just a byproduct, like the steam from the chimney of a train engine, which is significant, but has no functional role?

These questions - which have long puzzled psychologists, philosophers, and neurobiologists - were recently addressed in a study by Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers and published by the journal Psychological Science.

The study was headed by Prof. Leon Deouell from the Hebrew University's Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) and Department of Psychology and Prof. Dominique Lamy from the Department of Psychology at Tel Aviv University, and conducted by research student Liad Mudirk of Tel Aviv University with collaboration of research student Assaf Breska from the Hebrew University.

We are not consciously aware of most of the input that hits upon our sensory systems. Yet subjectively, conscious awareness dominates our mental activity. "One of the dominant theories in cognitive sciences and psychology posits that parts of the information perceived without awareness may be processed to a certain extent," says Prof. Deouell. "Yet to bind the different parts of a complex input into something meaningful and coherent requires conscious awareness.

Click to read more ...

Eurekalert.org - New research distinguishes roles of conscious and subconscious awareness

Public release date: 30-Nov-2011

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/thuo-nrd113011.php

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Jerusalem, Nov. 30, 2011 – What distinguishes information processing with conscious awareness from processing occurring without awareness? And, is there any role for conscious awareness in information processing, or is it just a byproduct, like the steam from the chimney of a train engine, which is significant, but has no functional role?

These questions - which have long puzzled psychologists, philosophers, and neurobiologists - were recently addressed in a study by Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers and published by the journal Psychological Science.

The study was headed by Prof. Leon Deouell from the Hebrew University's Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC) and Department of Psychology and Prof. Dominique Lamy from the Department of Psychology at Tel Aviv University, and conducted by research student Liad Mudirk of Tel Aviv University with collaboration of research student Assaf Breska from the Hebrew University.

Click to read more ...

Radiological Society of North America - Violent video games alter brain function in young men

30-Nov-2011
Radiological Society of North America

CHICAGO – A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis of long-term effects of violent video game play on the brain has found changes in brain regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control in young adult men after one week of game play. The results of the study were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to users has raged for many years, making it as far as the Supreme Court in 2010. But there has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect.

"For the first time, we have found that a sample of randomly assigned young adults showed less activation in certain frontal brain regions following a week of playing violent video games at home," said Yang Wang, M.D., assistant research professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. "These brain regions are important for controlling emotion and aggressive behavior."

For the study, 22 healthy adult males, age 18 to 29, with low past exposure to violent video games were randomly assigned to two groups of 11. Members of the first group were instructed to play a shooting video game for 10 hours at home for one week and refrain from playing the following week. The second group did not play a violent video game at all during the two-week period.

Each of the 22 men underwent fMRI at the beginning of the study, with follow-up exams at one and two weeks. During fMRI, the participants completed an emotional interference task, pressing buttons according to the color of visually presented words. Words indicating violent actions were interspersed among nonviolent action words. In addition, the participants completed a cognitive inhibition counting task.

The results showed that after one week of violent game play, the video game group members showed less activation in the left inferior frontal lobe during the emotional task and less activation in the anterior cingulate cortex during the counting task, compared to their baseline results and the results of the control group after one week. After the second week without game play, the changes to the executive regions of the brain were diminished.

"These findings indicate that violent video game play has a long-term effect on brain functioning," Dr. Wang said.

Dina Rasor - The Pentagon Flunks Another Audit

Thursday 24 November 2011

by: Dina Rasor, Truthout | Solutions

http://www.truth-out.org/pentagon-flunks-another-audit/1322085539

How can you know what to cut if you don't know where the money is going?

The military-industrial complex is in high alert. They can't really believe that the Obama administration will keep its word and veto any Congressional action that would try and get the Pentagon out from the sequestration problem of cutting over a half a trillion from the Department of Defense (DoD) budget over the next ten years. If they are confident it won't happen, they are doing a good job of panicking over the cuts

for public consumption and to protect their turf.

News articles and columns are popping up with various lists of what could be cut to come up with the money, and the DoD is maneuvering to offer up cuts on military pensions and health care, readiness and training budgets to save the required amount of money without touching their holy grail, the overpriced and ineffective weapons systems.

Although the DoD acts like Armageddon is just around the corner with these looming proposed cuts, it is really still looking at the low-hanging fruit. There is more than enough money left to fund national security if the Pentagon would change its ways.

Winslow Wheeler, the director of the Straus Military Reform Project, points out what a realistic cut this is when put in context:

Click to read more ...

Ellen Brown - The European Central Bank Fiddles While Rome Burns

Wednesday 30 November 2011

by: Ellen Brown, Truthout | News Analysis

http://www.truth-out.org/european-central-bank-fiddles-while-rome-burns/1322579407

"To some people, the European Central Bank [ECB] seems like a fire department that is letting the house burn down to teach the children not to play with matches." 

So wrote [4] Jack Ewing in The New York Times last week. He went on:

"The E.C.B. has a fire hose - its ability to print money. But the bank is refusing to train it on the euro zone's debt crisis.

"The flames climbed higher Friday after the Italian Treasury had to pay an interest rate of 6.5 percent on a new issue of six-month bills ... the highest interest rate Italy has had to pay to sell such debt since August 1997....

"But there is no sign the E.C.B. plans a major response, like buying large quantities of the country's bonds to bring down its borrowing costs."

Click to read more ...

S. Edmonson - ALL the Vaccines Are Contaminated - Every Last One of Them

Nov-29-2011

S. Edmonson for Salem-News.com

http://salem-news.com/articles/november292011/vaccines-contaminated-se.php

"The chief, if not the sole, cause of the monstrous increase in cancer has been vaccination" - Dr. Robert Bell, once Vice President International Society for Cancer Research at the British Cancer Hospital

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Have you been rushing out to get a yearly flu vaccine or diligently taking your children for the 40 or so mandated childhood vaccines?

That's really a shame because you have unwittingly been trading a run-of-the-mill flu or just the measles, for loading up your or your children's bodies with cancer and other deadly viruses, a destructive bacteria, a chemical selected to damage fertility, and with synthetic DNA that threatens to damage your own DNA - the biologic code for your existence.

Who is saying the vaccines are contaminated?

Click to read more ...

Dennis Kucinich - A Revelation; The Fed Grants $7.77 Trillion in Secret Bank Loans – The Fed Works for Banks, Not The Rest of America

Dennis Kucinich/ November 29, 2011

Kucinich’s NEED Act Would Reclaim Monetary Authority for the People, Save Homes and Put Americans Back to Work

WASHINGTON - November 29 - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a longtime advocate for reform of the Federal Reserve, is sharply criticizing the Federal Reserve today after Bloomberg news reported that the Federal Reserve secretly committed nearly $8 trillion in support to American and international financial institutions during the 2008 bailout. Kucinich recorded a video for his website before going to the floor of the House of Representatives to call upon Congress to reclaim its Constitution primacy over monetary policy.

Kucinich also called threats by ratings agency to downgrade U.S. debt a threat to our national sovereignty.

“The Federal Reserve extended extraordinary support to financial institutions that crashed the economy with reckless speculation, and on that support many of the firms made billions in profit and paid obscene bonuses. The Fed asked for nothing from these firms in return and that is because the Federal Reserve works first and foremost for the welfare of private financial institutions, not the American economy.

“The message that emerges from these revelations for Americans who have lost their jobs, lost their homes, or watched their retirement nest eggs disappear is that we have unlimited resources available for the banks, but nothing for the American people,” Kucinich stated.

Click to read more ...

Amnesty International - United States Must Halt Life Without Parole Sentences for Children, says Amnesty International

Human Rights Organization Details Stories of Three Young Offenders From Louisiana, Illinois and North Carolina, in New Juvenile Justice Report

Louisiana Case to be Featured in Amnesty International’s Global Write-a-Thon

WASHINGTON - November 30 - Authorities in the United States must ban the imposition of life without parole sentences against children and review the cases of more than 2,500 prisoners currently serving such sentences to bring the sentences into line with international law, Amnesty International said today in a new report.

"In the United States, people under 18 cannot vote, buy alcohol or lottery tickets or consent to most forms of medical treatment, but they can be sentenced to die in prison for their actions. This needs to change,” said Natacha Mension, U. S. campaigner at Amnesty International (AI).

Children as young as 11 at the time of the crime have faced life imprisonment without parole in the United States – the only country in the world to impose this sentence on children.

Amnesty International’s 34-page report 'This is where I’m going to be when I die': Children facing life imprisonment without the possibility of release in the United States,illustrates the issue through the stories of Christi Cheramie, Jacqueline Montanez and David Young.

Click to read more ...

Alliance for Natural Health - TSA Attempts to Cover Up Cancer Threat From Its Airport X-ray Machines

Alliance for Natural Health On November 29, 2011

http://www.anh-usa.org/tsa-cancer-cover-up/

Forget the embarrassment of your private parts being seen by strangers. The scanners can cause cancer—and TSA is trying to keep you from knowing about it.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) uses two types of body scanners. The backscatter machines are of particular concern because these X-ray scanners emit low levels of radiation and can cause cancer. The European Union has even put a moratorium on the scanners in light of the cancer threats—member states have been told not to install scanners until scientific assessment of risks has been carried out [1], and they will be banned completely in April if experts find them dangerous—but the US has so far swept the safety issues under the carpet.

According to a ProPublica/PBS NewsHour investigation, up to 100 US airplane passengers could get cancer from the machines each year. As reported by Natural News over a year ago [2], some noted scientists think that the risk is actually far higher than this because of the particular way that these machines operate, and they wrote TSA with their concerns. They described how the majority of the machine’s energy is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue—not distributed throughout the volume of the entire body—so the dose to the skin may be dangerously high. This means that the ionizing radiation from the naked body scanners may pose a much higher risk of cancer than one might be assumed from the total radiation emissions, an observation that has so far been totally ignored.

Click to read more ...