Understanding Stress

Stress-related diseases like heart attacks are becoming common. Science is trying to understand how the human body copes with stress

STRESS - always recognised by alternative medicine, ancient Indian practitioners and yogis as a cause for disease, is only now being studied by modern scientists and doctors for its implications for the human body. Advances in the understanding of the neurobiology of stress open vistas for preventive medical treatment including drug therapy and in the more distant future, gene therapy.

"The proper acti-vity and effects of the stress system in the resting state and appropriate activation and effects in the stress state are important both for normal daily functioning and for coping with superimposed stress," explains G P Chrousos, a stress expert at theUS-based National Insti-tutes of Health ( NIH ).

Farmer's Thoughts

Tony Ricci, Green Heron Farm, Farmer:


It’s hard to please a farmer – at least when it comes to weather.  First this season was too wet and the main topic of conversation was our inability to plant.  Then it became too hot and dry and farmers donned their drought persona.  It’s usually an easy switch.  You just slouch to one side or the other depending on the relative humidity as you engage the closest sympatric ear in your tale of woe.  That’s why it’s difficult for most farmers to express themselves when things go according plan – if you can call the vicissitudes of nature a plan.  Right now I’m at a total loss for words because it rained yesterday.  Not just a half hearted drizzle or flash in the pan thunderstorm – but a real soaker.  I’m not sure I’d be able to have a coherent conversation with another farmer in this hour of bliss because all we could say to each other is, “How many inches did you get?”  No moaning about the shriveled corn, no beating of breasts or wringing of hands over the flooded beet field.  Just, “Hey what about that rain.”  Might as well just go back to bed and wait for a random hail storm to liven up the conversation.  There’s just nothing to complain about – at least for the next twenty four hours.  That’s about how long it will take for those weeds we thought were completely eradicated to take over the carrot patch.  

Diabetes: A Global Epidemic?

According to a major international study which analyzed global data on diabetes since 1980, the prevalence of diabetes has gone up or at best remained unchanged in every part of the world for the last 30 years. The number of people with the disease has more than doubled during that period to 347 million adults. The increase can be attributed to population growth, aging, and to an overall higher prevalence.

Diabetes is a metabolic disease where a person has high blood sugar due to the body's inability to produce enough insulin or because the cells do not respond to insulin. High blood sugar can cause a number of troubling complications including hypoglycemia and cardiovascular diseases. Since medicinal insulin became available in 1921, diabetes has been treatable and people can still live healthy functional lives.

Dive!

in.gredients Wants To Be The First Packaging And Waste-Free Grocery Store

In an industry littered with excess packaging, it sounds like an impossible goal. And the Texas startup isn't just targeting waste, it's also going after food deserts, too.

In an industry littered with excess packaging, it sounds like an impossible goal: in.gredients, a startup out of Austin, Texas, wants to create the first zero-waste, packaging-free grocery store in the U.S.. Can this ever work?

Protesters destroy controversial field trial

May 29, 2011

Protesters have destroyed a controversial GM field trial in Belgium.

In Wetteren, a municipality in the Belgian province of East Flanders, activists succeeded in damaging the GM potatoes being trialled for blight resistance, despite a large contingent of police officers who had been ordered to guard the GM trial. The officers were unable to stop the 300-400 or more peaceful protesters of all ages, who included local people.