Health – Happiness – Page 183

Tickproof Your Yard Without Spraying Pesticides

CR – Consumer Reports

Tickproof Your Yard Without Spraying Pesticides

Paul Hope June 5, 2021

For many of us this past year, our backyards took on a profoundly important role. In the era of social distancing, yards were transformed into outdoor oases, and even now, there are no signs that the trend is slowing down—increasing demand and a national lumber shortage has made it difficult to acquire wood to build a deck.

In order to stay safe in your yard this spring and summer, it’s crucial to avoid exposure to ticks, which can transmit about a dozen common diseases. The past few years have been some of the worst on record for ticks, and not just in the Northeast. At least one variety of disease-transmitting tick has been found in all of the lower 48 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And a lab at Cornell University has identified 26 species of ticks along the East Coast alone—far more than the deer ticks most of us associate with Lyme disease.

With a little bit of work, including cutting your grass more often, you can significantly limit exposure to the insects in your yard.

“Tick control is mostly about wildlife,” says Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, coordinator of New York State’s Integrated Pest Management Program at Cornell. “If you have an open yard where animals can enter, you’re almost certainly going to have ticks.”

One way to know for sure? Perform what’s called a tick drag. Cut a 5-inch-square swatch of fabric and tie it to an 18-inch-long pole or stick. Holding the pole, drag the fabric along tall grass or weeds, particularly near woodland edges of your lawn. Ticks will typically transfer themselves to the swatch.

If you spot them on the fabric, you’ll need to deal with the problem now to safely enjoy your yard. And even if you don’t find ticks, it could pay to be proactive. Follow these five steps to deal with them effectively.

1. Keep Your Grass Short

“Black-legged ticks, the type that transmit Lyme disease, don’t like dry, hot environments,” Gangloff-Kaufmann says. The taller the grass, the cooler the environment, because taller blades cast a shadow and create shade. That means that leaving your lawn a little shaggy is a bad idea in tick-rich areas.

Gangloff-Kaufmann says it’s okay to let your grass reach the 4 to 4½ inches that Consumer Reports recommends, then trim it down to about 3 inches with each cut. That strategy promotes healthy growth. If you shear your lawn down to an inch or two, you’ll send the grass into a panic and it will grow too tall, too fast, and suffer from a weak root structure. The trick is to be vigilant about keeping up with mowing and not letting grass grow to a height of 5 or 6 inches.

If you miss a week and the grass gets tall, it’s a good idea to use the bagging attachment with your tractor or lawn mower, because leaving those long lawn clippings behind can create the perfect environment for ticks.

2. Make a Mulch Moat

Many tick varieties, including the Lyme-transmitting black-legged variety, favor the dense cover of woodlands over open lawn. That makes any wooded areas adjacent to your property potential hotbeds for ticks. Adding a 3-foot-wide protective barrier of mulch around the perimeter of your yard does double duty.

First, it creates a physical barrier that’s dry and sometimes hot, something ticks can’t tolerate. Second, it serves as a visual reminder to anyone in your household to be especially careful once they step past the perimeter.

For the border, you want mulch made from broad, dry wood chips or bark, not the damp, shredded variety, which creates exactly the kind of cool, damp conditions ticks love.

3. Trim Tall Grass and Weeds

“Ticks like to climb to the top of tall grass blades and look for questing opportunities—the chance to grab on to animals like deer or humans,” Gangloff-Kaufmann says.

By keeping grass and weeds at bay with a string trimmer, you’ll minimize those chances and make it more difficult for ticks to latch on to you or members of your family, or to travel around your property by hitching a ride on your dog.

4. Eliminate Tick Habitat

CR has long recommended mulching grass clippings when you mow. That’s because these clippings break down and release nitrogen into the soil, feeding your yard and potentially reducing the amount of fertilizer you use by about 20 percent.

And in many instances, it’s okay or even preferable to leave behind fallen leaves to nourish the lawn for the same reason. But if you live in an area with a large tick population, you might benefit from a different approach.

By bagging grass and blowing leaves into piles for collection, you keep your yard clear and cut back on tick-friendly places. You’ll want to recycle leaves and grass clippings through your town if possible, or compost them in a pile far from the house.

Rather than letting them rot in a landfill, you can let your leaves and clippings break down naturally and use the resulting compost to feed and fertilize plants around your yard.

5. Consider a Targeted Approach

Following the four steps above will make your yard less inviting to ticks. But if you want to make a serious dent in the tick population on your property, you’ll need to focus on methods that kill them.

Many people opt for spraying their entire yard with pesticide, an approach that CR’s experts say is ineffective and potentially dangerous.

“Spraying your yard provides a false sense of security,” explains Michael Hansen, PhD, senior scientist at Consumer Reports. “Instead, consider products that treat the fur of mice or deer with small quantities of tick-killing agents.”

Why target mice or deer rather than your yard? “Mice play an important role in the transmission cycle of Lyme disease,” says Laura Goodman, senior research associate in Cornell’s department of population medicine and diagnostic sciences. If you can stop critters from transmitting ticks, you can curb the tick population in and around your yard.

“Tick tubes” are one product we’ve encountered. They’re essentially cardboard tubes stuffed with cotton treated with permethrin, a tick-killing chemical. Mice collect the cotton and take it back to their nests. The permethrin binds to oils on their fur, killing any ticks that try to attach without harming the mice.

The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (PDF) has found that such systems have resulted in statistically meaningful drops in tick levels after several years of use. And at about $4 per tube, they’re cheaper than tick bait boxes.

Bonus: Tickproof Yourself

When working in the yard, wear a long-sleeved shirt, long pants, socks, and closed-toe shoes. Use insect repellent; the best in our tests provide more than 8 hours of tick protection.

“And regardless of the time of year, perform a tick check as soon as you return indoors,” Goodman says.

If you do suffer a bite, Goodman advises properly removing the tick. For more information about ticks in your area, check your state health department’s website. Connecticut, home to the town of Old Lyme, where the disease was first documented, has a particularly comprehensive guide to ticks (PDF).

Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit organization that works side by side with consumers to create a fairer, safer, and healthier world. CR does not endorse products or services, and does not accept advertising. Copyright © 2021, Consumer Reports, Inc.

The poison used to eradicate a biblical mouse plague ravaging southeast Australia is having a deadly effect on native wildlife

Insider

The poison used to eradicate a biblical mouse plague ravaging southeast Australia is having a deadly effect on native wildlife

Zac Ntim June 5, 2021

australia mouse plague — Mice scurrying around stored grain on a farm near Tottenham, Australia, on May 19, 2021. Rick Rycroft/AP

The poison that is being used to cull Australia’s mouse infestation is damaging the native wildlife.
Experts say birds in New South Wales have died after ingesting poison intended for mice.
The infestation has ravaged large parts of southeast Australia.

The poisonous bait that is being used to eradicate a huge mouse plague ravaging large parts of Australia is having a deadly effect on native wildlife, experts have warned.

Earlier this week, an image of dozens of Galah Cockatoo birds dead in a cemetery in Parkes, New South Wales, went viral after it was shared on Facebook by Kelly Lacey, a volunteer for the NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service (WIRES).

In the post, she said: “Seeing them sitting with each other under trees, knowing they were suffering until they have eventually died, has utterly broke me. Found 2 still alive, sadly 1 died on way home. (whatever the poison was it is more potent then I have experienced, and they have bled internally).”

Later during an interview with The Guardian, Lacey said that she found over 100 dead Galahs in the cemetery.

“I received a call from another WIRES member, saying ‘I think you might want to see this, there are dead galahs everywhere,'” she told the newspaper. “My heart sank. When I arrived and began collecting all the dead bodies I was in shock.”

In a statement released earlier this week, the New South Wales Environmental Protection Agency asked the public to “think carefully” about the location and amount of poisonous bait that is being used after an investigation by the organization found that dozens of birds in the state had died after ingesting the poison.

“The safe baiting of mice is an important step in reducing mice numbers and pesticide users must make sure they handle baits safely and are careful to always follow the directions on the label to protect their family, neighbors, domestic animals, wildlife, and the environment from harm,” the statement read.

A mixture of poisonous bait and other deadly traps have been deployed across southeast Australia to deal with the huge rise in mice populations. Experts say that the infestation is the result of wet weather that has provided ample food for the mice, fueling their fast reproductive cycle.

Farmers across the region have felt the brunt of the infestation with reports of mice ravaging crops, destroying farming equipment, and causing electricity blackouts. The state government has called the plague “absolutely unprecedented” and warned that it could cause huge economic damage.

The NSW Farmers Association, an agricultural group in the state, estimated that the plague could cost farmers a total of 1 billion Australian dollars ($771,000) during the winter crop season, which runs from June to August, the AP reported.

Earlier this month, Adam Marshall, the agriculture minister for New South Wales, announced a $50m support package to help farmers that include the wide-scale use of bromadiolone, a poison described as “napalm” for mice.

“It’ll be the equivalent of napalming mice across rural NSW,” Marshall told the ABC. “This chemical, this poison, will eliminate mice that take these baits within 24 hours.”

A ‘megadrought’ in California is expected to lead to water shortages for production of everything from avocados to almonds, and could cause prices to rise

Business Insider

A ‘megadrought’ in California is expected to lead to water shortages for production of everything from avocados to almonds, and could cause prices to rise

Grace Kay June 4, 2021

California is facing its worst drought in four years.
As water levels continue to fall, farmers have left large portions of their fields unseeded.
The state’s $50 billion agriculture industry supplies over 25% of the nation’s food.

A megadrought in California is threatening to push food prices even higher.

The state is already facing its worst water shortage in four years and the its driest season has only just begun, according to data from the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).

As water levels continue to fall, farmers and ranchers will be unable to maintain key crops and feed livestock. As of Tuesday, nearly 75% of California was classified as in “extreme drought,” meaning the land does not have adequate water supplies to sustain agriculture and wildlife, according to the NIDIS.

While farmers have come to expect and prepare for droughts, this year has already been much hotter and drier than previous ones. Scorching California weather is drying up reservoirs, as well as the Sierra Nevada snowpack that helps supply them. The reservoirs are 50% lower than they should be in June, Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California-Davis, told Associated Press.

The farmer’s plight could make products like almonds, avocados, and milk more expensive for shoppers as farmers struggle to produce crops of the state’s top exports. California produces over 25% of the nation’s food supply. California agriculture is a nearly $50 billion industry and is known for producing over 400 key commodities, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Dave Kranz, a California Farm Bureau spokesperson, told Insider it’s too soon to tell whether the drought will have a significant impact on grocery prices, but it is sure to be a “catastrophic” year for farmers. He said he’s already seen several farmers scaling back their crops and prioritizing ones that rely less on water supplies.

“A lot of factors play into the prices people see at stores,” Kranz said. “The payment that farmers receive for their crops is a very small portion of the price shoppers pay. Most of it comes from transportation, packaging, and marketing.”

The last time the state faced a drought of this magnitude, experts said shoppers could expect prices to rise about 3% and predicted the Californian agriculture industry could be handicapped for years, Gannett reported. During the 2014 drought, experts told CNBC prices for top California exports like avocados, berries, broccoli, grapes, and lettuce could rise anywhere from 17 to 62 cents, depending on the product.

Any potential price increases do not occur immediately or all at once. They are often felt long after the drought has already wreaked havoc on local farm crops, Annemarie Kuhns, a member of the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service, told the Des Moines Register in 2015.

“It takes time before the effects are seen at the retail level,” Kuhns said. “Once you see drought conditions start to improve you’ll see these effects further down the road.”

Droughts are nothing new for California farmers, who use conservation practices that reduce water runoff and allow moisture to enter the soil. Farmers also focus on crops that require less water, though about 40% of the 24.6 million acres of farmland in California require irrigation, Reuters reported. Many farmers told the publication that they are planning to leave large portions of their land unseeded due to this year’s drought.

The farms are allocated some water from the state, but this year the California Department of Water Resources reduced farmers and growers to 5% of their expected water allocation in March. Last month, Chris Scheuring, California Farm Bureau senior counsel, said it appears the state will soon not be able to deliver even at the 5% level.

“It’s one of those existential years in California, when we’ve got an extreme drought and farmers are going to be hurting all over the place,” Scheuring said. “Some folks may be able to default to groundwater, but it’s going to be a very, very tough year for farmers.”

Farmers can purchase supplemental water if they can find it, but it comes at a hefty price. Supplemental water was priced at $1,500 to $2,000 per acre-foot in mid-May, according to a report from California Farm Bureau.

During the state’s last drought, which ended in 2016, the agriculture industry lost roughly $3.8 billion, according to National Geographic. NIDIS analysts said in their last report that the outlook for this year is “grim.”

The California water shortage and potential for a dip in food exports from the state pile onto a growing supply chain crisis precipitated by COVID-19 shutdowns. California dairy products, almonds, grapes, lettuce, and avocados won’t be the only products in short supply in the coming months. Imported goods like olive oil and cheese are also facing shortages, while meats, including hot dogs, bacon, and chicken have become increasingly valuable.

Known carcinogen found in some popular sunscreens, tests show

CBS News

Known carcinogen found in some popular sunscreens, tests show

Elizabeth Elkind June 5, 2021

Traces of a chemical tied to blood cancers including leukemia have been detected in dozens of popular sunscreens and after-sun products, according to tests conducted by online pharmacy and lab Valisure.

Benzene, a known carcinogen, was found in 78 of nearly 300 sprays and lotions tested — about 27% — including products sold by Banana Boat and CVS, according to Valisure.

In a petition, the company has asked the FDA to recall these contaminated batches. The regulating body is reviewing the claim.

“The FDA takes seriously any safety concerns raised about products we regulate, including sunscreen,” the FDA told CBS News in a statement.

Sunscreens and after-sun, classified as cosmetics, are generally subject to FDA regulation.

The chemical is identified as “a colorless or light-yellow liquid chemical at room temperature.” Valisure states that it’s been used “primarily as a solvent in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.”

Trace levels of benzene can be found in cigarette smoke, gasoline, glues, adhesives, cleaning products and paint strippers.

Valisure also reported that 14 sun care product lots with some of the highest contaminations are sold across four different popular brands — Neutrogena, Sun Bum, CVS Health and Fruit of the Earth. Not all of the aforementioned brands’ products were found to contain benzene, and lists of products found to contain and not to contain benzene are included further down the page in Valisure’s petition form.

For example, Neutrogena’s Ultra Sheer Weightless Sunscreen Spray, SPF 100+ and Ultra Sheer Weightless Sunscreen Spray, SPF 70 were among 14 products Valisure claims have some of the highest levels of benzene tested. But products like Neutrogena’s Ultra Sheer Dry-Touch Sunscreen Lotion SPF 30 and Oil-free Facial Moisturizer with Sunscreen SPF 15 were not found to contain the carcinogen.

All of the samples tested have “contained up to three times the conditionally restricted FDA concentration limit of 2 parts per million” of benzene, according to Valisure’s website.

David Light, the founder and CEO of Valisure, believes the issue is manufacturing contamination affecting specific batches. While the source of the contaminant is unknown and more of the products tested passed than failed, Light urged manufacturers and consumers to take the matter seriously.

“Benzene is one of the most studied and concerning human carcinogens known to science. Its association with forming blood cancers in humans has been shown in numerous studies at trace levels of parts per million and below. The presence of this known human carcinogen in products widely recommended for the prevention of skin cancer and that are regularly used by adults and children is very troubling,” Light said in the company’s statement.

He is also urging the FDA to better define its standards for contamination, and “address current regulatory gaps regarding benzene in both drug and cosmetic products.”

Valisure is encouraging people to send in their own samples of sunscreen and sun care products for evaluation.

The company also made their FDA petition public, which includes a list of the batches with detected benzene levels. The products can be found on pages 12 to 15.

Johnson & Johnson, the maker of Neutrogena products, told CBS News that “benzene is not an ingredient in any of our personal care products.”

The maker of Banana Boat defended its products as well, stating that “our sun care products undergo rigorous testing to ensure safety and quality and meet all FDA regulations.”

CVS said in a statement that products they sell are “safe” and “we are in the process of reviewing and evaluating information in and related to Valisure’s petition and we will respond accordingly.”

Sun Bum told CBS News in a statement, “To further ensure the quality of our products, we will work with suppliers to understand how trace amounts may have been detected.”

However, Valisure stressed to consumers that they should not avoid using sunscreen and should continue to do so.

“It is important for people, especially heading into the summer months, to understand that many sunscreen products tested by Valisure did not have benzene contamination, and those products are presumably safe and should continue to be used, along with appropriate hats and sun-protective clothing, to mitigate skin cancer risk,” Dr. Christopher Bunick, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Dermatology at Yale University was quoted as saying in the company’s press release.

Below is a list of sunscreens and sun care products that were tested by Valisure and found not to contain benzene.

After judge overturns California assault weapons ban, state officials vow to fight back

By Alex Wigglesworth and Thomas Curwen June 5, 2021

Police photos of assault rifles and handguns are displayed during a news conference

Families of mass shooting victims, gun control advocates and California officials condemned a federal judge’s decision to overturn California’s 30-year-old ban on assault weapons, largely because of the manner in which he justified his ruling.

In declaring the ban unconstitutional late Friday, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez compared the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to a Swiss Army knife, calling it “good for both home and battle.”

Benitez, who was nominated by former President George W. Bush and serves in the Southern District of California, issued a permanent injunction against the law’s enforcement but stayed it for 30 days to give the state a chance to appeal.

California is one of seven states, plus Washington, D.C., that ban assault weapons, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

In his 94-page ruling, Benitez wrote that it was unlawful for California to prohibit its citizens from possessing weapons permitted in most other states and allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Advocates for the right to bear arms hailed the ruling.

“This is by far the most fact-intensive, detailed judicial opinion on this issue ever,” said Dave Kopel, an adjunct professor of constitutional law at the University of Denver and adjunct scholar at libertarian think tank the Cato Institute.

State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta called the decision “fundamentally flawed” and said he would appeal.

“There is no sound basis in law, fact, or common sense for equating assault rifles with Swiss Army knives — especially on Gun Violence Awareness Day and after the recent shootings in our own California communities,” Bonta said in a statement.

Last month, a gunman opened fire at a light rail yard in San Jose, killing nine co-workers and dying of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Officials said he was armed with three semiautomatic 9-millimeter handguns and 32 high-capacity magazines loaded with additional ammunition.

AR-15s have been used in some of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings, including the attack at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub that killed 49 people in 2016, and one in Las Vegas that killed 58 people in 2017.

“I can assure you — if a Swiss Army knife was used at Pulse, we would have had a birthday party for my best friend last week,” Brandon Wolf, who survived the Florida attack, wrote on Twitter. “Not a vigil.”

Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the ruling made her do a double-take.

“I have two daughters, and they read dystopian fiction, like the ‘Hunger Games,’ and it was kind of like that,” she said. “It can’t be real. Nobody, ever, who is a thinking human being with a heartbeat, could possibly liken a Swiss Army knife to an AR-15.”

In response to several mass shootings on his watch, President Biden announced in April that his administration would take steps toward greater gun regulation.

They include a proposal to require background checks for self-assembled firearms — so-called ghost guns — and a law that would allow family members or law enforcement agencies to request a court order to take guns away from a person who is a danger to themselves or others. Nineteen states, including California, have already passed such laws.

“Today’s decision is a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians, period,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday in a statement. “The fact that this judge compared the AR-15 — a weapon of war that’s used on the battlefield — to a Swiss Army knife completely undermines the credibility of this decision and is a slap in the face to the families who’ve lost loved ones to this weapon.”

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed in August 2019 by pro-gun groups, including the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, California Gun Rights Foundation, Second Amendment Foundation and Firearms Policy Coalition.

The plaintiffs also included three San Diego County men who said they own legal rifles or pistols and want to use high-capacity magazines in them but can’t, because doing so would turn them into illegal assault weapons under California statutes.

In cases in which the government seeks to limit people’s constitutional rights, such as those guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment, the government has the burden of proving the limitation is helping to advance an important public interest, like reducing mass shootings, Kopel said.

“You’re essentially weighing how much of a burden you are inflicting on law-abiding people versus how much you are reducing whatever problem you’re trying to deal with,” he said. In this case, he said, the judge found that “we’re not getting any reduction in mass shootings, and it’s imposing quite a severe burden on innocent people, like people who want to have these types of firearms for protection in the home.”

Other legal experts found the judge’s reasoning less compelling.

“The judge in this case, in declaring the ban on assault weapons to be a failed policy experiment and therefore unconstitutional, was engaging in his own policy judgment,” said Susan Estrich, professor at the USC Gould School of Law. “His very reasoning undercuts his own conclusion.”

California became the first state to ban the sale of assault weapons in 1989 in response to a shooting at a Stockton elementary school that left five students dead. The ban, signed into law by Republican Gov. George Deukmejian, has been updated multiple times since then to expand the definition of what is considered an assault weapon.

Each time, those who owned the firearms before they were prohibited were required to register them. There are an estimated 185,569 such weapons registered with the state, Benitez said.

In response to the ban soon after it was enacted, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found the 2nd Amendment applied only as a limitation on the federal government, not state governments, Kopel said.

But in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling saying the 2nd Amendment applies to cities and states, which helped pave the way for this decision, he said.

In the current case, the state attorney general’s office argued that assault weapons are more dangerous than other firearms and are disproportionately used in crimes and mass shootings. Similar restrictions have previously been upheld by six other federal district and appeals courts, the state argued.

But the judge said the firearms targeted by the ban are most commonly used for legal purposes.

“This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of 2nd Amendment protection,” he wrote. “The banned ‘assault weapons’ are not bazookas, howitzers, or machine guns.”

“In California, murder by knife occurs seven times more often than murder by rifle,” he added.

The state is also appealing two other rulings by Benitez: one from 2017 that overturns a ban on buying and selling magazines that hold more than 10 bullets, and another from April of last year that blocks a 2019 law requiring background checks to buy ammunition.

In the case of the assault weapons ban, the decision will almost certainly be stayed beyond 30 days, pending an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and there’s an excellent chance the court will issue a reversal, given its liberal tendencies, Estrich said.

“Ultimately,” she said, “the question may be whether the United States Supreme Court, with its new conservative appointees, sees this as an opportunity to dig into assault weapons bans.”

That could imperil gun control laws that are on the books across the country, Brown said.

“The Supreme Court overturning these kinds of laws that are designed to promote public safety has huge negative implications, not only for assault weapons bans but for every public safety law that we have ever crafted to regulate guns, including the Brady law.” she said, referring to the 1994 requirement that firearm purchasers undergo federal background checks.

“So yes, I’m very concerned about it.”

Honeybee Venom Kills Aggressive Breast Cancer Cells, Study Shows

EcoWatch

Honeybee Venom Kills Aggressive Breast Cancer Cells, Study Shows

Olivia Rosane Repeated From September 02, 2020

Honeybee venom has shown promise against an aggressive type of breast cancer. Susan Walker / Moment / Getty Images

Could honeybees hold the key to treating an aggressive form of breast cancer?

A new study out of Australia found that honeybee venom rapidly killed the cells for triple-negative breast cancer, a type of breast cancer that currently has few treatment options.

“It provides another wonderful example of where compounds in nature can be used to treat human diseases,” said Western Australia Chief Scientist Professor Peter Klinken in a Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research press release.

The research, published in Nature Precision Oncology Tuesday, was led by Dr. Ciara Duffy of the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and the University of Western Australia.

As far back as 1950, bee venom was shown to kill tumors in plants. It has also been shown to work against other cancers like melanoma, BBC News explained. However, Duffy said in the press release that this was the first time honeybee venom had been tested against every type of breast cancer cell, as well as normal breast cells.

Duffy and her team tested both the venom itself and a synthetic version of a compound in the venom called melittin. They found that both were effective against triple-negative breast cancer and HER2-enriched breast cancer cells. In fact, a certain concentration of honeybee venom could kill 100 percent of cancer cells without seriously impacting healthy ones.

“The venom was extremely potent,” Duffy said.

Duffy explained to Australia’s ABC News how the melittin worked.

“What melittin does is it actually enters the surface, or the plasma membrane, and forms holes or pores and it just causes the cell to die,” Duffy said.

The researchers also found that the melittin interfered with the cancer cells’ messaging system, which is essential for the cancer to reproduce and grow.

The fact that melittin makes holes in the cancer cells actually means it could potentially be paired with existing chemotherapies that would enter the cancer cells through the openings it carved and kill them. Duffy found this treatment strategy worked to shrink tumors in mice.

However, outside scientists cautioned that there is a big difference between killing cancer in a lab and successfully treating it in humans.

“It’s very early days,” Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney associate professor Alex Swarbrick told BBC News. “Many compounds can kill a breast cancer cell in a dish or in a mouse. But there’s a long way to go from those discoveries to something that can change clinical practice.”

Duffy agreed that more research had to be done before the melittin could be used on human patients.

“There’s a long way to go in terms of how we would deliver it in the body and, you know, looking at toxicities and maximum tolerated doses before it ever went further,” she told ABC News.

For the study, Duffy gathered venom from 312 honeybees and bumblebees in Perth, Western Australia; England; and Ireland.

“Perth bees are some of the healthiest in the world,” she said.

She found that the national origin of the honeybees did not alter their venom’s impact on the cancer. The bumblebee venom, however, had no cancer-killing powers.

Hundreds of lakes in U.S., Europe are losing oxygen

Associated Press

Hundreds of lakes in U.S., Europe are losing oxygen

Drew Costley June 2, 2021

Oxygen levels have dropped in hundreds of lakes in the United States and Europe over the last four decades, a new study found.

And the authors said declining oxygen could lead to increased fish kills, algal blooms and methane emissions.

Researchers examined the temperature and dissolved oxygen — the amount of oxygen in the water — in nearly 400 lakes and found that declines were widespread. Their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found dissolved oxygen fell 5.5 % in surface waters of these lakes and 18.6% in deep waters.

The authors said their findings suggest that warming temperatures and decreased water clarity from human activity are causing the oxygen decline.

“Oxygen is one of the best indicators of ecosystem health, and changes in this study reflect a pronounced human footprint,” said co-author Craig E. Williamson, a biology professor at Miami University in Ohio.

That footprint includes warming caused by climate change and decreased water clarity caused in part by runoff from sewage, fertilizer, cars and power plants.

Dissolved oxygen losses in Earth’s water systems have been reported before. A 2017 study of oxygen levels in the world’s oceans showed a 2% decline since 1960. But less was known about lakes, which lost two to nine times as much oxygen as oceans, the new study’s authors said.

Prior to this study, other researchers had reported on oxygen declines in individual lakes over a long period of time. But none of have looked at as many lakes around the world, said Samuel B. Fey, a Reed College biology professor who studies lakes and was not involved in this study.

“I think one of the really interesting findings here is that the authors were able to show that there’s this pretty pronounced decline in dissolved oxygen concentrations in both the surface and (deep) parts of the lake,” Fey said.

The deep water drop in oxygen levels is critical for aquatic organisms that are more sensitive to temperature increases, such as cold water fish. During summer months, they depend on cooler temperatures found deeper in the water, but if deep waters are low on oxygen, these organisms can’t survive.

“Those are the conditions that sometimes lead to fish kills in water bodies,” said study co-author Kevin C. Rose, a professor of biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “It really means that a lot of habitats for cold water fish could become inhospitable.”

Other organisms, Rose said, are more tolerant of warmer temperatures found at the surface level and can get enough oxygen by remaining near the surface, where water meets air.

About a quarter of the lakes examined actually showed increasing oxygen in surface waters, which Rose says is a bad sign because it’s likely attributable to increased algal blooms — sudden growth of blue green algae.

In these lakes, he said, dissolved oxygen was “very low” in deep waters and was unlivable for many species.

And the sediment in such oxygen-starved lakes tends to give off methane, a potent greenhouse gas, research shows.

Lakes examined in the new study were in the U.S. or Europe, except for one in Japan and a few in New Zealand. The authors said there was insufficient data to include other parts of the world.

Rose said lakes outside the study area probably are experiencing drops in dissolved oxygen, too. The reason, he said, is that warmer temperatures from climate change reduce the ability of oxygen to dissolve in water — its solubility.

“We know that most or many places around the planet are warming,” he said. “And so we would expect to see declining solubility.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Everglades are dying. An alliance between Biden and Republicans could save them

The Guardian

The Everglades are dying. An alliance between Biden and Republicans could save them

Francisco Alvarado June 3, 2021

For years environmental groups warned the Florida Everglades, a vast 1.5m-acre (607,000-hectare) subtropical preserve, may be doomed to extinction. Agricultural pollution, saltwater intrusion and rampant real estate development had turned the waterways toxic and the state’s environmental landmark was left to slowly choke to death. Perhaps until now.

A sweeping Everglades restoration effort decades in the making is finally seeing renewed optimism thanks to a cast of unlikely champions: Florida state Republicans. In April, Ron DeSantis, the governor, signed an agreement with the US Army Corps of Engineers to build a massive $3.4bn reservoir west of Palm Beach, which would help restore the flow of freshwater to the Everglades. Other state-funded projects to revitalize the region’s delicate ecosystem are already months ahead of schedule, DeSantis said.

And now, the Everglades have a new ally in the White House. Last week Joe Biden included $350m in his 2022 budget proposal to apply toward environmental restoration efforts in south Florida, a $100m increase from the previous year. But will it be enough? Florida’s congressional delegation, led by Republican Senator Marco Rubio, had previously requested more than double that amount in federal assistance, while local advocates argued the price tag should be closer to $3bn over four years.

There’s also a possibility that Congress could add more federal dollars to Biden’s proposal, especially now that five members of Florida’s congressional delegation sit on appropriations committees, said Chauncey Goss, board chairman of the South Florida water management district, which oversees the state’s Everglades infrastructure projects.

“The $725m would be better, but I am not going to laugh at the $350m,” Goss said. “It’s not exactly what we wanted, but it is really up to Congress.”

Still, Biden’s proposed funding is substantial, Goss added, and will allow the army corps to begin work on the federal portion of the reservoir project, such as building new canals from Lake Okeechobee. “This will definitely keep the ball moving down the field,” he said.

An alligator floats in an algae bloom in Lake Okeechobee on 26 April. Photograph: Joe Cavaretta/AP

Efforts to restore the Everglades’ unique ecosystem hinge on Lake Okeechobee, Florida’s largest body of freshwater located near Palm Beach county. The lake has been used as a dumping ground for farmland pollutants for several decades, allowing high concentrations of phosphorus and nitrates from fertilizers to leach into the soil. During heavy rains and storms, runoff water from the tainted soil flows into dozens of intersecting canals that end up in Lake Okeechobee. To avoid the lake from overflowing and bursting its levee during storm events, the tainted water is often released into rivers that flow to the ocean and the Everglades.

The goal is to treat overflowing dirty water from Lake Okeechobee so that by the time it reaches the Everglades, the water is mostly free of the nutrients that cause toxic algae blooms. Construction is under way to create a network of marshes spanning 6,500 acres made up of non-native plants that act as a natural filtration system to suck up fertilizer nutrients from contaminated water, which will flow from the planned 10,500-acre reservoir that will store excess water that builds up in Lake Okeechobee during rainy months of the year.

John Kominoski, a biological sciences professor at the Florida International University Institute of Environment, says the reservoir project will probably play a critical role in alleviating overflows in Lake Okeechobee during Florida’s wet season, which will be used to replenish the Everglades.

“This reservoir is very important for Everglades restoration,” he added. “It will enable the clean-up of more of the dirty water and hold more of the water longer as opposed to dumping it out to sea.”

Still, environmental advocates remain split about whether the Everglades restoration projects are enough. Some worry the reservoir and the marshes will not have a meaningful impact in reversing decades of pollution and water diversion. Others are concerned the restoration could be upended by recent attempts to bring industrial and commercial activities closer to the ecosystem. Eve Samples, executive director of the advocacy group Friends of the Everglades, said the 17,000-acre footprint for the reservoir and the adjoining wetlands are not large enough to achieve the amount of water flow to keep the River of Grass healthy.

“When the project was first envisioned 20 years ago, it was in the neighborhood of 60,000 acres,” Samples said. “In 2017, when we had the toxic algae blooms on the east and west sides of the state, the project got accelerated. But by the time the bill was approved, the reservoir and the wetlands portion were shrunken down to 17,000 acres.”

One key reason the reservoir was scaled back was due to politics. The state legislature barred the South Florida water management district from using eminent domain to acquire sugar cane fields and farms. To compensate for the lost acreage, state and federal environmental agencies made the reservoir 23ft (7 meters) deep with 37ft (11 meters) high retention walls.

“This project is a shadow of its former self,” Samples said. “It doesn’t look like anything in nature.”

A mangrove tunnel in Everglades national park in Florida. Photograph: Francisco Blanco/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Stock Photo

Another key worry is the compounding threat brought by climate change, Kominoski says. Weather changes in recent years have severely impacted the transition from Florida’s dry season to the wet season, which typically begins in late April and lasts until mid-November. “Last year, the wet season didn’t start until late May,” he said. “We are losing about a month of our wet season window.”

As a result, mangroves and other plant life that help filter pollutants are drying out and dying. “We need water flowing so the wetlands don’t dry out,” he said.

Jason Totoiu, senior attorney with the Center of Biological Diversity’s south-east division, agreed, noting the restoration projects like the $3.4bn reservoir and marshes can significantly increase the flow of freshwater to the Everglades as long as farm pollutants are effectively filtered out. Increasingly hotter summers are threatening large swaths of the Everglades, Totoiu said. “We are seeing an increasing amount of saltwater that can dramatically alter natural habitats,” he said. “Rising sea levels could be a tipping point there.”

The reservoir project and other Everglades infrastructure proposals are about more than just revitalizing Florida’s most important ecosystem, added Julie Wraithmell, executive director of Audubon Florida. “It is also about protecting our vibrant tourism economy, the drinking water for all residents and visitors and against sea level rise,” she said. “With so many projects lined up, it makes sense to strike while the iron is hot.”

Fighting to save the Everglades has been a daunting endeavor for many decades, but Republican and Democratic elected officials on the local, state and federal levels are now putting in the work, Wraithmell added.

“Whether you are far left or far right, everyone has a vested interest in dealing with the effects of climate change,” she said. “There is great reason for optimism.”

Is it covid or Lyme Disease? If you’re vaccinated and have a rash, it’s easier to diagnose

Tribune Publishing

Is it covid or Lyme Disease? If you’re vaccinated and have a rash, it’s easier to diagnose

Tom Davidson, The Tribune-Review, Greensburg June 3, 2021

June 3rd—It’s tick season, and with it comes an increased risk of contracting Lyme disease or another tick-borne illness.

Diagnosing the disease can be trickier this year amid the covid-19 pandemic, as some of the symptoms of the diseases are similar.

“There’s a lot of overlap,” Dr. Amesh Adalja said of the symptoms between Lyme disease and covid-19.

Adalja is a Pittsburgh-based infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Lyme disease and covid-19 both can cause fever and aches and pains associated with the flu. But each have symptoms that help to distinguish one from the other, Adalja said.

With Lyme disease, a bull’s-eye skin rash develops around the spot of the tick bite.

With covid, the flu-like symptoms are generally accompanied by respiratory problems not associated with Lyme.

“Most tick bites are innocuous and do not transmit an infection,” Adalja said.

But there are a host of bacterial and viral illnesses, including Lyme disease, that are spread by exposure to certain ticks.

In the U.S. there are 16 different diseases transmitted by ticks, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The most common among them in Western Pennsylvania is Lyme disease, transmitted by the deer tick, according to the Allegheny County Health Department.

In 2019, the latest year that data is available, there were 6,763 confirmed and 2,235 probable cases of Lyme disease in Pennsylvania, according to the CDC. Between 2000 and 2018, there have been more than 106,000 cases in the state, according to tickcheck.com, a site managed by Pennsylvania-based tick researchers.

In Allegheny County there were 2,306 cases of Lyme disease reported in 2019, an 11% decrease from the 2,605 cases in 2018, according to the county health department.

Westmoreland County had 435 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in 2019, down from 496 in 2018, according to CDC data. The county had a high of 577 cases in 2017.

To prevent Lyme disease, one needs to use common sense and do things that may be unpopular when spending time outdoors, Adalja said.

They include wearing clothing that covers the arms and legs, using tick repellent, being careful in wooded areas and looking for ticks that may have latched on.

They’re “standard, common-sense recommendations,” Adalja said.

Otherwise, if someone is bitten by a tick, they don’t need to seek immediate medical treatment.

Instead, they should be aware “for the next several weeks” should they develop a rash, fever or muscle aches that are associated with Lyme disease, which is signaled by a “bull’s-eye rash” around the bite.

“Lyme can be treated with an antibiotic,” Adalja said.

Because the symptoms of fever and flu-like symptoms are similar to covid-19, people who may have been exposed to ticks should advise their doctor of it.

He again advised people to get vaccinated for covid. If they are vaccinated against covid and develop symptoms of Lyme disease, they should tell the doctor about their vaccination in order to speed the diagnosis.

For more on Lyme disease, click here for information from the Allegheny County Health Department or click here for information from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Tom Davidson is a Tribune-Review staff writer.

A Fatty Heart Puts Your Health at Risk No Matter Your Weight, New Study Suggests

Prevention

A Fatty Heart Puts Your Health at Risk No Matter Your Weight, New Study Suggests

Arielle Weg June 3, 2021

Photo credit: Rasi Bhadramani - Getty Images — Photo credit: Rasi Bhadramani – Getty Images

Having high pericardial fat volume—fat around your heart—can increase your risk of heart failure regardless of your bodyweight, a new study suggests.
More than 6 million people in the U.S. are impacted by heart failure, a condition in which the heart can’t pump enough blood for the body’s needs.
To reduce the risk of excess pericardial fat, experts recommend working toward habits that contribute to better heart health overall.

Pericardial fat—the fat that surrounds your heart—may be a strong risk factor for heart failure regardless of your bodyweight, according to new research from Mount Sinai in New York.

For the study, which was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers used CT scans to determine the connection between pericardial fat volume and newly diagnosed heart failure, a condition in which the heart can’t pump the amount of blood the body needs to function. More than 6 million people in the U.S. have heart failure, which a person can develop suddenly or over time.

The CT scans were sourced from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and included scans from 6,785 men and women between the ages of 45 and 84 without pre-existing cardiovascular disease.

The researchers found that, even though women typically had less pericardial fat than men, women who did meet the criteria for high pericardial fat volume (70 cubic centimeters or more) had double the risk of developing heart failure. Men who met the fatty heart criteria (120 cubic centimeters or more) had a 53% increased risk.

What’s more, a higher amount of pericardial fat was dangerous regardless of the participants’ body weight. That means being thin didn’t necessarily prevent harmful fat build-up around the heart.

The researchers also adjusted for other well-known risk factors for heart failure such as age, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, a sedentary lifestyle, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and previous heart attacks. Results were similar across all racial backgrounds.

“The fat around the heart is known to be a predictor of heart disease, largely because it can be associated with other risk factors like obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure,” explains Eugenia Gianos, M.D., associate professor of cardiology at the Zucker School of Medicine who was not involved in the study. “The fact that this association held true even after accounting for all these factors indicates that the fat may have a direct effect on the heart muscle that contributes to the abnormalities associated with heart failure.”

When there is extra fat surrounding your heart, fatty droplets may begin to accumulate within the heart muscle cells, says lead study author Satish Kenchaiah, M.D., associate professor of medicine and cardiology specialist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. These droplets can interfere with how your heart chamber expands and reduce your heart’s ability to pump blood properly, setting the stage for heart failure, he says.

A fatty heart is also related to plaque buildup in the coronary arteries that supply blood to the heart muscles. This is a known risk factor for heart attacks, which could subsequently increase the risk of developing heart failure down the line, he adds.

Dr. Kenchaiah says more research is needed to determine how to reduce and prevent excess pericardial fat, but working toward habits that contribute to better heart health overall is a good place to start. To keep your ticker in tip-top shape, he recommends the following:

Eat a Mediterranean-style diet, which is rich in colorful fruits and vegetables, fiber-rich whole grains and legumes, olive oil, nuts and seeds, and lean proteins like seafood and poultry.
Aim for 75 minutes of heart-pumping exercise (such as running) or 150 minutes of moderate activity (like brisk walking) throughout the week.
Avoid excessive alcohol intake, which is considered no more than one drink per day for women and two for men.
Work with your doctor to lower high blood pressure, high blood sugar, or high cholesterol levels—all of which increase your risk of heart disease.