Today's gleanings:
–As I've noted here before, there's something fishy about the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. And some of that fishy smell is clinging to Texas Gov. Rick Perry. This week, James Drew and Sue Goetinck Ambrose of the Dallas Morning News update us with a story reporting that the institute's director is stepping down and that the district attorney has "opened a criminal investigation into the agency." If you're new to this story, you can catch up with the timeline they append to their story. It notes, among many other things, that companies belonging to one businessman got $12.8 million in grants from the institute after he and his associates donated $90,000 to the campaigns of Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. This is a national story. Where is the coverage?
–At On Science Blogs, Tabitha M. Powledge collects all the intelligence–and a lot of the dumb stuff–on the great Mayan apocalypse coming Dec. 21. Her wedding anniversary happens to fall on the same day, which makes her an expert on the apocalypse, or at least as much of an expert as anyone else.
—Sarah Williams, in a blog post at Cancer Research UK, sounds suspiciously as though she's writing for the Tracker. She dares to go after the press, writing that "the media’s appetite for things that cause or prevent cancer can be as notable for its sheer volume as for – in some cases – its hype." She goes on to address a question raised in a recent scientific publication: Is everything we eat associated with cancer? Williams sorts it out.
–At IEEE Spectrum, Dexter Johnson is going after what he calls "hyperbolic reporting on nanotechnology" by the press. (With all these press critics, it's getting a little crowded in here.) An environmental magazine, he tells us, reports on a study that found carbon nanoparticles in caramelized sugar! When sugar is heated, Johnson explains, carbon is indeed left behind, "probably in nanoscale particles." But how about mayonnaise? It contains an "emulsion of lipids and proteins that are on the nanoscale," Johnson writes. Too much mayonnaise might kill us, but probably not because of its nanoparticles.
–I'm late catching up with this, but on Dec. 2, 60 Minutes did a brutal story alleging that Hospital Management Associates, the fourth-largest for-profit hospital chain in the country, was pressuring doctors to admit patients who didn't need to be in the hospital, routinely performing lab tests before patients had been seen by doctors, and could be guilty of Medicate fraud. Thanks to Gary Schwitzer of HealthNewsReview.org for calling my attention to this disturbing piece, based on a year-long investigation.
–Heard enough about the gut microbiome? Well, you probably haven't heard this: Diet "influences the composition of the gut microbiome" in the elderly, and that these alterations could have a lot to do with ill health as we grow old. All this–and much more–thanks to Virginia Hughes, whose story appears in Nature as part of a package on aging.
-Paul Raeburn
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