Why People Go Vegetarian

There are plenty of reasons to change your diet to a vegetarian one and blogger Brain Gordon has concluded that there are four primary reasons why people go veggie.

Many millions of people have considered going vegetarian at some point in their life, and millions have. (Hundreds of millions including those who do so as part of their religion.) As climate change, fisheries collapse, desertification, and other crises become less ignorable, many of us will have to consider eating less meat, if not forgoing many animal products entirely.
In my experience, there are four reasons that people go veg:

Personal Health
Weight Loss
Planetary Health
Compassion for Animals
There is a fifth reason that may remove the choice for many: Economic. Meat and animal products may simply become too costly.

Keep reading Brain’s reasons for going vegetarian.

Two Cancer Codes Cracked

Here’s some good news from the fine people trying to uncover the mysteries behind all sorts of cancers.

Researchers have mapped the DNA mutations in skin and lung cancer — findings that one researcher says will change how cancer is viewed.

For lung cancer, the British team found almost 23,000 mutations — one mutation for every 15 cigarettes smoked.

“This is a fundamental moment in cancer research,” said Prof. Michael Stratton from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge. “From here on in we will think about cancers in a very different way.”

Scientists knew that smoking causes genetic mutations than can start tumours. But they didn’t expect to see evidence of the genome bearing scars of every cigarette smoked. When they catalogued the mutations, they saw how cancer-causing agents in tobacco repeatedly bombard the DNA.

Keep reading the article at the CBC.

Wind Turbines are not a Health Risk

A small group of people have complained and argued that wind turbines can cause health problems. A new study confirms that those people are wrong and in fact wind turbines are not a health risk at all.

The study acknowledges that a minority of people find the intermittent swooshing noise emitted by the turbines’ giant blades to be annoying, but it also concluded: “Annoyance is not a pathological entity.”

The study says there’s “nothing unique” about the noise or vibrations emitted by wind turbines and no evidence that the audible or sub-audible sounds have any direct adverse effect on health.

It suggests that those who are bothered by turbines simply have a lower tolerance for annoying sounds of all sorts.

“A major cause of concern about wind turbine sound is its fluctuating nature. Some may find this sound annoying, a reaction that depends primarily on personal characteristics as opposed to the intensity of the sound level.”

Keep reading at the CBC.

The Benefits of Coffee and Tea

The CBC has an article on the benefits of drinking coffee and tea, the benefits range from preventing cancer to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease in women.

3 cups a day curbs memory loss?

Women aged 65 and older who drink at least three cups of coffee or tea a day are less likely to suffer memory loss, according to a French study published in the August 2007 issue of the journal Neurology.

Lead researcher Karen Ritchie, of the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research, said it was premature to suggest caffeine conclusively cut cognitive decline but she noted the psychostimulant appeared to have a positive effect on the brain.

The study also found the positive effects of coffee appeared to heighten with age. Women over 80 who drank three or more cups of coffee daily were found to be 70 per cent less likely to experience memory loss over those who didn’t drink coffee.

Ritchie and her team observed the caffeine intake and cognitive skills of 7,000 participants over the course of four years.

Keep reading at the CBC.

Uganda Bans Female Circumcision

From the BBC:

Ugandan MPs have voted to outlaw female genital mutilation – also known as female circumcision.

Anyone convicted of the practice, which involves cutting off a girl’s clitoris, will face 10 years in jail, or a life sentence if a victim dies.

The BBC’s Joshua Mmali in Uganda says it is not officially condoned but is still practised in several rural areas.

Read the complete article

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