News

"Do you even need vitamins? New studies show possible risks"

By Rob Winters - Published on Friday, 14 October 2011 09:59

"Two studies this week raised gnawing worries about the safety of vitamin supplements and a host of questions. Should anyone be taking them? Which ones are most risky? And if you do take them, how can you pick the safest ones?

Vitamins have long had a "health halo." Many people think they're good for you and at worst might simply be unnecessary. The industry calls them an insurance policy against bad eating.

But our foods are increasingly pumped full of them already. Even junk foods and drinks often are fortified with nutrients to give them a healthier profile, so the risk is rising that we're getting too much. Add a supplement and you may exceed the upper limit.

"We're finding out they're not as harmless as the industry might have us believe," said David Schardt, a nutritionist at the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest."

"Should the Harper government allow Chinese ownership of Alberta’s oil sands?"

By Rob Winters - Published on Friday, 14 October 2011 09:53

"Chinese state-owned companies continue to invest billions of dollars in Alberta's oil sands raising fears about Chinese control over Canada's oil industry.

The most recent acquisition came earlier this week when Sinopec International, China's largest refiner, announced it had agreed to buy Canadian based Daylight Energy Ltd. for $2.1 billion US.

The Financial Post reported Chinese companies are poised to make even more significant investments in the weeks and months ahead.

Should the Harper government step in and restrict foreign ownership in our oil industry?

Under Canada's foreign-takeover legislation, known as the Investment Canada Act, foreign acquisitions of companies with assets worth more than $312 million CDN are reviewed by the federal government to determine whether the transaction is a "net benefit" to the country.

As illustrated in a colum in the New York Times, the federal government in the past has nixed several deals involving a foreign purchase or takeover.

In 2004, China Minmetals, a state-owned company, backed away from a takeover of Noranda, then Canada's largest mining company, after a backlash from the public and politicians."

"Occupy Wall Street: Ben & Jerry's flavour of the month"

By Rob Winters - Published on Thursday, 13 October 2011 09:46

"The board of directors of well-known ice cream brand Ben & Jerry's has issued a statement, "We stand with you", in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement:

"As a board and as a company we have actively been involved with these issues for years but your efforts have put them out front in a way we have not been able to do. We have provided support to citizens' efforts to rein in corporate money in politics, we pay a livable wage to our employees, we directly support family farms and we are working to source fairly traded ingredients for all our products. But we realize that Occupy Wall Street is calling for systemic change. We support this call to action and are honored to join you in this call to take back our nation and democracy."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/10/occupy-wall-street-ben-jerrys

"Fruits and Vegetables Could Modify Gene Linked to Heart Disease"

By Rob Winters - Published on Thursday, 13 October 2011 09:31

"Eating a healthy amount of greens could have an effect on genes linked to heart disease, according to a new study.

Researchers from Canada's McMaster and McGill universities found that eating fruits and vegetables may actually change a gene variant, called 9p21, that is one of the strongest predictors for heart disease.

"We found that in people with this high-risk gene who consumed a diet rich in vegetables and fruits, their risk came down to that of people who don't have that gene," said Dr. Sonia Anand, a lead author and professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University."

"Black Death Is 'Grandmother' of All Modern Plagues"

By Rob Winters - Published on Thursday, 13 October 2011 09:28

"The bacterium blamed for the Black Death that wiped out more than a third of Europe's population within about five years of the 14th century looks an awful lot like the modern versions of the plague-causing bug, new genetic research indicates.

By taking the now-powdery black pulp out of the teeth of plague victims buried in London's East Smithfield Cemetery — a cemetery established solely to handle the onslaught of the Black Death once it arrived in the city in 1348 — researchers have managed to reconstruct the entire genetic blueprint, or genome, of the bacterium blamed for the devastation."

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