Biology – Page 69 – David Bradley

Smoking cadmium and benchtop X-rays

Latest science news including this week’s round up from my SpectroscopyNOW column:

Smoking out cadmium problem – A statistical analysis of spectroscopic data is helping scientists home in on the problem of decreased fruit and vegetable consumption being associated with an elevated concentration of cadmium in the blood of male smokers.
Short, sharp outburst – A new approach to generating ultra-short, high-density electron pulses for the production of advanced X-ray sources has been developed. The approach could lead to a bench-top X-ray synchrotron for materials science, pharmaceutical research and nanotechnology research.
Metabolic obesity – Evidence from NMR spectroscopic studies of individual metabolic profiles would suggest that the way our bodies digest and process nutrients in the food we eat is different for every person and could ultimately affect overweight and obesity problems.
Heavy metal and hardened arteries – The way in which arterial plaques form, atherogenesis, is not yet completely understood despite a significant number of research studies in this area. Now, a study using rabbits on a high-fat diet (HFD) has investigated the effects of changes in the concentrations of heavy metalsin several tissues using spectroscopy.
Electronic ‘nose’ can predict pleasantness of novel odours – Our sense of smell may not be as subjective as we thought, as scientists develop an electronic nose that can distinguish between pleasant and unpleasant odours.
Scientists embrace openness – "Everybody makes mistakes. And if you don't expose your raw data, nobody will find your mistakes." –Jean-Claude Bradley [no relation]

Very Personal Data Rights

iris-recognition Across the globe privacy laws and property rights are confused. Having usually been established in centuries past it is unlikely that any established legal system can cope easily with the requirements of the digital age. Nowhere is this more likely to hold true than when discussing the use of peoples’ biometric information, which are very personal data indeed.

Biometric information might include iris or retinal scans, digitized fingerprints, DNA samples, even lip-recognition knee X-rays, or any of dozens of other measurements and readings that could be collected from an individual and that would be unique to that person.

Yue Liu of the Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law, in Oslo, suggests that there is a legal precedent for treating biometric information as personal property rather than data acquired. She adds that the viability of her argument should apply equally well to the legal systems of both the United States and the European Union.

Some observers have previously argued that because current legal systems are inadequate in protecting society from data misuse that ascribing property rights to digital information might allow its regulation and protection. Others have argued that these so-called inadequacies do not exist and that present legal frameworks are perfectly able to cope with the digital age without the addition of yet another layer of regulation.

I asked Liu what aspect of the term property she was concerned with. “My paper about property right and biometric information, doesn’t refer to ‘intellectual property, I was only talking about it as a ‘personal property’,” she told me, “Because biometric information is some kind of bodily information , I don’t think it is very accurate to regard it as an intellectual property, but I think it may make sense to regard it as a property of an individual since it is so intimately linked with our body.”

To my mind, however, I think Liu is missing a trick. I think biometric information is more akin to intellectual property (data gathered about a person’s blood type, fingerprints, iris pattern) than property in the old-school sense of something we own like our clothes, a car or a homes.

If someone steals the shirt of your back, then you no longer have that piece of apparel, that is conventional theft. Whereas someone manufacturing an unlicensed generic version of a patented invention has stolen the intellectual property but not the physical property of an individual example of that invention. If someone steals your biometric data, then surely that is more akin to the latter example than taking a piece of clothing.

I get the feeling that Liu’s paper argues the idea into a corner. Would a judge equate biometric information with a physical possession? I suspect that they are more likely to equate biometrics to other forms of data and IP rather than possessions.

Liu argues that neither side of the debate is without controversy. No law is wholly capable of coping with all situations but in the context of biometric information a property-rights based law might operate to protect the individual, their biometric data, and prevent misuse.

“Strictly speaking there was not yet any precedent that treat biometric information as personal property,” she concedes, “The precedent I mentioned was just something that might be compared to or is related to biometric
information.” Genetic information, human tissues, voice recordings,
and pictures, all might be considered as related in this way. “I attempted to find some legal basis that might be used for treating biometric information as personal property, and I found it possible both in the United States and EU legal system,” Liu asserts.

We are increasingly using online social media, digitized medical records, and plastic money and store loyalty cards. It is becoming obvious that information generated by our transactions with websites, sellers, banks, healthcare workers, and others is being transformed into a commodity to be sold by the information industries. There are obvious benefits for that industry to gathering and marketing such information. However, privacy remains a controversial aspect of any such transaction even in the case of medical data where the data might have long-term social benefits through improvements in healthcare that result from its analysis.

Biometric information is a special category of personal information. It is usually a unique representation of a person’s identity and is, by definition, intimately linked to that person’s body.

“Does that indicate that in the context of biometrics, the argument about using property rights as a protection measure for personal information will find more legal justification?” asks Liu.

Given that our personal data is becoming increasingly marketable, it may be beneficial to recognize a property right in relation to the commercial exploitation of our biometric data, asserts Liu. “Such data, being intimately linked to individuals and helping to make them special and unique, ought arguably to belong to the individual from whom they are ultimately derived,” she says.

The liberal discourse on property rights during the nineteenth century focused on individual freedoms and rights and led us through enormous changes of the industrial age and throughout the twentieth century. If the twenty-first century is the digital age, then perhaps it is time to begin a new discourse regarding our individual rights and freedoms regarding the use of our very personal data.

Yue Liu (2009). Property rights for biometric information — a protection measure? International Journal of Private Law, 2 (3), 244-259

Sperm, Discharge, Heroin, and Alzheimers

alkaline-batteries Batteries are included (unfortunately) – A chemical cocktail of toxic gases is released when you burn alkaline batteries, according to the latest research from Spain. The investigating team highlights the issue with respect to municipal waste incineration, which is used as an alternative to landfill and suggests that recycling is perhaps the only environmentally viable alternative.

Today, UK government departments BERR and Defra, in conjunction with the Devolved Administrations,
today published a Consultation Document containing draft Regulations setting out proposed systems for the collection, treatment and recycling of waste portable, industrial and automotive batteries.

Cutting heroin analysis – Analysing samples of street heroin just got easier as researchers have developed a statistical method for removing uninformative signals from their near-infra-red spectra of seized samples.

Sperm and eggs – Scientists in Sweden have determined the precise molecular structure of a protein, ZP3, essential to the interaction of the mammalian egg coat and sperm. The work could eventually lead to improved contraceptives, has implications for fertility studies, and might, in some sense, explain how new species arise.

Untangling Alzheimer molecules – Magnetic resonance spectroscopy provides new clues about how a dipeptide molecule blocks the formation of the toxic amyloid beta-peptide aggregates in the mouse brain. The discovery could put paid to the theory that amyloid beta-peptide causes Alzheimer’s disease and suggest a therapeutic lead that focus on the real culprit at an earlier stage.

Dioxins in Pork

dioxin-pig Dioxins Before Swine – Irish pork is off the menu, according to the BBC.

The UK’s Food Standards Agency is monitoring pork products in the Irish Republic because of fears of contamination with dioxins. “Tests showed some pork products contained up to 200 times more dioxins than the recognised safety limit.” Interestingly, dioxin levels in soil have been declining in recent years, according to another BBC report from 2007. The alert over dioxins followed an alert after PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) were reported to have been found in Irish pork on 1st December after samples were taken 19th November.

There is some hint that machine lubricating oils contaminated with PCBs (stable polychlorinated biphenyls) may have degraded to release dioxins which somehow found their way into the pig feed. But, more likely is that non-feed grade oil is being used at some point in the cycle to dry biscuit meal (out of date biscuits and bakery goods from the food industry). Such non-feed oils obviously do not have the same quality controls as extra virgin olive oil and so could very easily have higher than food-safe levels of contaminants, including PCBs and dioxins. This suggestion hints once again, as did the ongoing melamine scandal, at how easy it seems to be for unscrupulous sectors of the food industry to use non-food materials in their products, allegedly.

So, what are dioxins and should we be worried about them?

Dioxin Dioxins are organic compounds formed when a huge range of materials, particularly chlorinated polymers (PVC plastics) burn and in some industrial processes. They are ubiquitous in the environment and became the focus of environmental activism because of their reputation for being among the most toxic compounds known. Colloquially “dioxin” is talked of as if it were a single compound rather than a class of compounds, but the most usual reference is to the chlorine-containing compound 2,3,6,7-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin. Dioxins should not be confused with the compound 1,2-dioxin and 1,4-dioxin, which are heterocyclic, organic, antiaromatic compounds.

2,3,6,7-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin can have some nasty effects such as irritation to the eyes, allergic dermatitis, chloracne, porphyria; gastrointestinal disturbance, possible reproductive, teratogenic effects, liver, kidney damage, haemorrhage, and occupational carcinogenicity. But, does that long list of problems mean anyone eating any of the food products from Ireland – bacon, ham, sausages, white pudding and pizzas with ham toppings – were or are in any danger. “The UK’s Food Standards Agency said it did not believe at this stage that UK consumers faced any ‘significant risk’,” reports the BBC. Seems like fair comment, only serious chronic exposure to low levels of dioxins or acute high-level exposure are of real concern.

No member of the public has ever died from dioxin poisoning, despite the fact that for several decades industry has been inadvertently releasing these materials into the environment as impurities in hundreds of products and that countless burning materials release the same supposedly deadly compounds across the globe continuously. Occupational exposure has led to probably at most four deaths from industrial accidents involving the release of dioxins, according to John Emsley writing in The Consumer’s Good Chemical Guide.

Top Ten Mutants

dna-test If you ever thought genetics was only about disease, then check out the popular SNPs list on SNPedia. A SNP (pronounced “snip”) is a single nucleotide polymorphism, which in BradSpeak(TM) is basically a difference in a bit of your DNA that makes you different from the rest.

Anyway, here’s the Top Five SNPs that might be described as having no obvious direct medical importance.

rs1815739 sprinters vs endurance athletes (I reckon I lack both)
rs7495174 green eye color and rs12913832 for blue eye color
rs6152 can prevent baldness (this was discovered far too late for me)
rs1805009 determines red hair (some “comedians” might suggest this be swapped to the second list below)
rs17822931 determines earwax (and presumably how well your ears stay clear of insect infestation)

And, here’s the more sober list of SNPs that could have serious medical implications should you happen to discover you have one of these when you have your genome read by the likes of 23andMe.

rs9939609 triggers obesity (not a genetic excuse for eating too much)
rs662799 prevents weight gain from high fat diets (ditto)
rs4420638 and rs429358 can raise the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by tenfold or more
rs7903146 and rs12255372 linked to type-2 diabetes, the latter also to breast cancer
rs324650 influences alcohol dependence, rs1799971 makes alcohol cravings stronger (it would not be funny to say, “Mine’s a pint, with a whisky chaser”, right now)

It was a twitter discussion between SNP experts mza and attilacsordas that led me to the SNP list.

Melamine in baby formula, an open secret

melamine-eggs Thousands of babies had apparently taken ill having drunk formula milk to which the organic compound melamine had been added. The melamine was being added by unscrupulous operatives somewhere in the milk supply chain, to artificially boost the nitrogen content of the product, and so spoof higher protein levels than are actually present.

Subsequently, lists of contaminated products appeared in the media and on the web and as the melamine scandal widened, the Chinese government issued an apology and promised to crack down on the problem.

However, with news this week that batches of eggs imported into Hong Kong from China have tested positive for melamine, which is suspected of causing kidney problems, it now appears that the compound is being added routinely to animal feed in China. According to the BBC, this news has been released into the Chinese state media by a government realising it has far less control over food standards that it ought to have.

The melamine scandal is not new. It is essentially an open secret in China that the compound is added to all kinds of foods, particularly animal feed and pet food to artificially inflate the protein readings at the so-called quality control stage. Melamine was at the heart of the petfood scandal in 2007, but that was simply the first time that the West learned of the problem. It seems obvious that melamine could have been in the food chain much longer than that.

But, whether the open secret of melamine in the food supply is actually as serious a problem as the media would have us believe is down to toxic dose. AP quotes Peter Dingle, a toxicologist from Murdoch University, Perth, Australia, who says that aside from the tainted baby formula that killed at least four Chinese infants and left 54,000 children hospitalized in September, it is unlikely humans will get sick from melamine. The amount of the chemical in a few servings of bacon, for instance, would simply be too low, he said. But he is not recommending that the practice continue unchecked. China should have cracked down sooner on feed companies he and others have said.

However, if the melamine open secret is as big as it appears from the outside, it is unlikely to be stopped any time soon, particularly because of the heirarchical government system in China. “It could take five or even 10 years” before some companies stop adding the chemical to food products, Jason Yan of the US Grains Council is quoted by AP.

Ayurvedic Heavy Metal

Before reading on, and specifically before asking why I’ve used a picture of Buddha in an article about Ayurveda…it’s not Buddha, it’s Nagarjuna, redactor of the Sushruta Samhita a sixth century BCE text on surgery, the only treatise for two of the eight branches of Ayurveda. The snake is part of Nagarjuna and is usually depicted as a protective canopy, I’ve never seen Buddha depicted in that way. Apologies for any confusion, but please no more comments or emails telling me I’ve used an inappropriate photo. I don’t believe I have.

Ayurvedic medicines can contain dangerous quantities of heavy metals, including lead, mercury, thallium and arsenic, clinical toxicologists in London have warned. Writing in the International Journal of Environment and Health, they suggest that recent European legislation aimed at improving safety of shop-bought products will have little impact on medicines prescribed by traditional practitioners, imported personally from overseas or bought over the Internet.

The problem is that the heavy metals are not simply inadvertent contaminants of natural herbal products, they are added deliberately in order to supposedly return the body to health by rebalancing allegedly essential minerals. You can read the full article on this via AlphaGalileo.

There are wide and wild claims for Ayurvedic medicine including the ability to treat diabetes, flue, cancer, asthma, flu, acne, boils, diarrhoea, headaches, and that perennial of the alternative remedy market, sex drive. Unfortunately, Ayurveda, although ancient, is no panacea.

Some practitioners are hoping to modernise the Ayurvedic system. However, until it is more widely recognised among users that adding arsenic, lead, thallium and other potentially toxic heavy metals to so-called medicinal preparations is unacceptable, it will remain a practice more associated with the past than contemporary medicine.

Paul I. Dargan, Indika B. Gawarammana, John R.H. Archer, Ivan M. House, Debbie Shaw, David M. Wood (2008). Heavy metal poisoning from Ayurvedic traditional medicines: an emerging problem? International Journal of Environment and Health, 2 (3/4), 463-474

Blog Action Day on Poverty

We are, the media tells us, either on the verge or diving head first into a global recession the likes of which we have never seen. Countless financial headlines have screamed Credit Crunch, which sadly isn’t a wholegrain breakfast cereal for day-traders, for a year now. Banks are borrowing billions from taxpayers to allow them to lend even more money to each other.

There has almost been not a thought for the millions of people out of work and out of a home the ruins of whose lives the apparent collapse of capitalism is built. Anyone who thought Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae were porn star names, or the Lehmann Brothers were a support act for Marx (as in Groucho and gang) surely now knows better. Stocks and share prices yo-yo between lower highs and increasingly depressing lows.

But, away from the cold-sweating of traders, the pinging of stripy braces, and the red screens of death, on the market floors of the so-called developed world, the old-school third world, the allegedly developing world continues in its grinding abject poverty. However, providing the developed world does not collapse into utter chaos, Jenifer Piesse of the Department of Management, at King’s College London and the University of Stellenbosch, RSA working with Colin Thirtle of the Centre for Environmental Policy, at Imperial College London, and the University of Pretoria, RSA, suggest in a recent issue of the IJBT that at least one product of modern capitalism, genetically modified (GM), herbicide tolerant (HT) white maize, developed in the USA to save labour might help ease poverty in the developing world too.

They report how HT white maize is now being grown by smallholders in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, and elsewhere and use panel data for Africa, Asia and Latin America to investigate the effects of factor endowments and biased technological change on productivity growth, labour incomes and poverty reduction. Can GM produce a Green Revolution (GR) in Africa and would it be poverty
reducing, as it has been in Asia, they ask.

Their preliminary findings demonstrate that a simple absence of population pressure on the land slows yield growth, which itself largely explains labour productivity growth in agriculture. Labour productivity growth is the key determinant of wages, growth in GDP per capita and poverty reduction.

“Africa seems to have fared poorly in poverty reduction because many countries have abundant poor quality land,” the researchers explain, “There has been yield growth, but it has not led to growth in labour productivity, as it did during the Asian green revolution.” This finding suggests that GM technology that raises labour productivity could be enormously beneficial, so long as employment is maintained.

Their analysis reports that yield growth in Asia was about 2.6% per year, but that Africa was not far behind at 2.0%. However, labour productivity in Asia grew at 1.5% per annum, whereas Africa managed only 0.4%. Yields in Asia grew at 1.1% faster than labour productivity and there was substantial progress in poverty alleviation. In contrast, in Africa, yields grew 1.6% faster than labour productivity, but the impact on poverty has been less.

They explain that yield growth is in fact a main cause of labour productivity growth in both continents, but in Africa the impact is far weaker. The most obvious cause is that both yields and labour productivity grow less where land to labour ratios are low, which is particularly true in the countries of sub-saharan Africa, the researchers say.

Jenifer Piesse, Colin Thirtle (2008). Genetically modified crops, factor endowments, biased technological change, wages and poverty reduction International Journal of Biotechnology, 10 (2/3) DOI: 10.1504/IJBT.2008.018354

This post was published as part of the Sciencebase contribution to Blog Action Day.

Cancer Research Blog Carnival #14

cancer research blog carnival I don’t know anyone who hasn’t got a cancer story to tell, whether it is personal experience, a relative or friend, or association with their patients or through their research.

Cancer has always been with us, but contrary to the popular image propagated by the mainstream media it is not a simple, nor single disease. In this month’s cancer research blog carnival hosted on the Sciencebase Science Blog, I present a few selected posts from fellow bloggers discussing various aspects of cancer research. Thanks to everyone who submitted a cancer research post.

First up is PalMD on the Denialism blog who explains that cancer is the second leading cause of death, in the US at least, and confirms the ubiquity of the disease as 4% of the population is directly affected (think six degrees of separation type networks to see how almost all of us can have a cancer story to tell). The post provides answers to some of the LAQs (least asked questions) and FAQs (frequently asked questions about cancer. A post from Stephan Grindley augments the cancer 101 with a straightforward commentary on breast cancer prevention and detection.

According to Charles Daney on Science & Reason, recent studies are making it increasingly apparent that cancer is really many different diseases and he explains how this means a new approach to understanding cancer at the molecular level.

More particularly covering cancer research, GrrlScientist offers an interesting take on the genetics of colour and cancer in Behold The Pale Horse and BayBlab discusses a recent publication in the journal Science on the subject of trans splicing and chromosomal translocations as well as the connection between chilis and cancer – preventative or protagonist?

HighlightHealth, meanwhile, discusses the implications of a large-scale, multi-dimensional analysis of the genomic characteristics of glioblastoma, the most common primary brain tumour in adults. On Hematopoiesis, we learn how travelling normal and malignant cells decide where to stay and on get linked up to five great talks from the experts.

Cancer vaccines are big news and none more so than the vaccine being offered to young girls to protect them from cervical cancer caused by HPV. Health blogger Grace Filby has posted on why this vaccination campaign is not a good idea given the lack of safety data currently available.

Orna Ross tells us about the good things she has gained from having cancer/ and points out that fighting cancer as if it were a battle is not the only approach to tackling the disease. Actorlicious meanwhile provides a star-studded perspective and how the famous and infamous are standing up to cancer.

A post from the University of Oxford science blog on exploiting the Achilles’ heel of cancer, describes how a new approach will lead to treatments with none of the common side effects of cancer therapy. And, Sally Church on the Pharma Strategy blog asks will Abiraterone impact survival in advanced prostate cancer?, the most common carcinoma in men. She also provides a fascinating insight into treating triple negative breast cancer.

Science Metropolis discusses how public health expert Dave Ozonoff hopes to use mathematics and chaos theory to explain paradoxical cancer frequencies, such as those seen in Cape Cod, where rates are 25% higher than the state average in Massachusetts.

Finally, one from the recent Sciencebase archives entitled (hopefully quite controversially) alcohol causes cancer.

Visit the Cancer Carnival site to read past carnivals, to get information on scheduled posts and to find out how to host your own cancer research blog carnival.

Melamine Scandal Widens

chinese-baby Four infants in China have died and at least 53,000 are reportedly ill, many seriously so, having been fed milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. A three-year old girl in Hong Kong is also ill, but has now been released from hospital, she was the first reported case outside mainland China. Major formula milk producer Nestle says none of its products in China has been contaminated with melamine, although the Hong Kong government says it has found the contaminant in the company’s milk formula.

I guess it’s no surprise that this scandal has emerged after, rather than before or during, the Olympic Games, but that is not something that would be peculiar to China. Governments the world over try to manage bad news and China certainly does not have a monopoly on cover-ups. If melamine is the primary contaminant, then regardless of claims that other compounds may be present, long-term use (six months or so) would be enough for this toxic compound to accumulate in an infant and lead to toxic effects such as kidney stones. The LD50, or acute toxic dose is not entirely relevant if an infant is being fed contaminated milk day after day. Incidentally, LD50 is a measurement per kilogram of body mass, so it is not higher for people than it is for rats, although it may be different because of differences in our body’s biochemistry.

I used to use an analytical instrument when I worked part-time in quality control in a milk-processing plant during my early post-student days. The machine could give you an almost instantaneous printout of fat, protein and sugar levels in the milk passing through the dairy. Those in QC also had to look at the milk for colour and quality and smell and taste it to check for taints (from pipe disinfectants, bacterial action, or contaminants). Indeed, one of the qualifications for the job was to have a palate sensitive enough to detect phenolic (smoky) compounds down to a few parts. It would usually have been quickly apparent if there was a problem with any incoming milk supply and I cannot see how others in the supply chain in China were not duplicitous in this conspiracy.

There could, of course, be other contaminants, I alluded to that in the original melamine in milk post. If someone is unscrupulous enough to add melamine to baby milk to falsify protein levels, then there’s no reason to think that they would use expensive chemically pure material. This would go some way to answering one of the questions asked by a commenter on the original post. Apparently, the Chinese government reported findings 2565 ppm or 0.25% of melamine in Sanlu’s milk powder. The cost of melamine is relatively high, so what would be the economic justification for such an irresponsible act if it were only increasing the apparent protein level by 1.2%?

The melamine may have been obtained from low-quality sources that are themselves contaminated with other toxic compounds, or it may be high-quality melamine, but stolen to order at some point in the supply chain? It has been suggested that other contaminants may be urea and aminopterin, but I have not seen any official note on that anywhere.

Melamine decomposes on heating, so one commenter on the original post was curious as to how does melamine survive the pasteurization and evaporation processes without decomposition used to make milk powder from raw milk.

Apparently, melamine has been mentioned in dispatches across China for more than 15 years, why is it that a pet food scare in 2007, and now this infant formula milk scandal are the only times that the western media has covered the problem?

nissin-cha-cha-dessert It is becoming apparent that contaminated baby formula is not the only problem. Milk, ice cream, yoghurt, confectionery such as chocolates, biscuits and sweets, as well as any foods containing milk from China have been banned from import into Singapore after the country’s agri-food and veterinary authority found melamine in imported samples. Similarly, Taiwanese authorities seized imported products after notification of contamination from Beijing earlier this month. Japan has recalled various products. Canada’s Food Inspection Agency has warned citizens not to eat a dessert – Nissin Cha Cha Dessert – imported from China that has been found to be contaminated with melamine. The authorities in the Philippines are currently testing.

It is curious, but perhaps not surprising, that the Chinese authorities say not a single hospitalisation case has any connection with contaminated milk. Fonterra, parent company of milk producer Sanlu which is at the centre of the scandal says the whole debacle is one of sabotage and that there is no point in the production process at which melamine could have been added. Fonterra chief executive Andrew Ferrier claims an unknown third party put the banned chemical melamine into raw milk supplied to Sanlu. However, the company new about the contamination on August 2, just ahead of the Olympic Games, and claims that Chinese regulations prevented it from going public at the time.

RELATED: Melamine in Milk, this was the original item I posted on the melamine in milk scandal. I’ve also added an UPDATE: Milky Melamine, dated 2008-09-29.