Equinome, a company founded on research conducted at University College Dublin, just announced their new test to predict how horses will preform for racing. Testing will cost 1000 Euros per horse tested. Equinome’s test looks at the gene responsible for muscle mass development.

Muscle growth is governed by myostatin, a protein that determines whether an animal has compact muscles tuned for rapid sprints or a leaner body suited for endurance. There are three possible combination at this specific genetic marker. This test is not designed to identify how good a horse is likely to be, but rather what it will be good at.

According to Equinome, the three genetic combination that are possible are C:C, C:T and T:T.  A C:C horse is likely to be a fast, early maturing horse that performs well as a two-year-old, while a C:T horse has a mixture of speed and stamina and is the most versatile in terms of distance, and a T:T horse is best suited to races greater than 1 mile that require stamina.

Horse Genome Project coordinator Ernest Bailey of the University of Kentucky, Lexington stated that breeders have adopted genetic tests for paternity, coat color, and diseases but that performance prediction is new ground.

Equinome – The Speed Gene

For years, pregnant and nursing women have been warned to limit the amount of fish they eat, because many fish species may contain high levels of mercury, which endangers development in newborns and fetuses. Recently, National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, a children’s health group challenged the conventional wisdom, they are advising pregnant women and nursing mothers to eat more fish so as to ensure optimal brain development in their babies.

Fearing mercury contamination, many pregnant women eliminate fish from their diet altogether. Researcher are beginning to show that, that may actually harm newborns. (John McConnico for The New York Times) What’s going on here? Currently, the Food and Drug Administration advises pregnant women to limit their weekly seafood consumption to no more than 12 ounces, or about two servings, per week. In addition they recommend staying away from fish that are meat eating (shark, tuna, etc.) as they tend to have higher levels of mercury.

The newest recommendation comes from the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, a nonprofit group that focuses on childhood health issues. That group’s scientific advisers say that pregnant women and nursing mothers should eat at least 12 ounces of fish per week. Although both recommendations limit the amount of fish that pregnant women can safely eat to about two servings a week, fears of mercury contamination in seafood have prompted many pregnant women to eliminate fish entirely.

And here’s the issue that pregnant women face: an increasing number of studies indicate that omega-3 fatty acids, found mainly in fish, are essential to brain development in fetuses and newborns. Earlier this year, a report in The Lancet medical journal, concluded that women who had eaten more than 12 ounces of fish per week during pregnancy produced better developed, more intelligent children. “Advice that limits seafood consumption might reduce the intake of nutrients necessary for optimum neurological development,” wrote scientists from the National Institutes of Health and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“The real problem here are the women who are just eliminating fish from their diet,” said Judy Meehan, executive director of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition. “Eating 12 ounces is a very safe, smart move, and nobody is disputing that.’’ While none of the research cited in the coalition’s recommendations has been funded by the fish industry, the coalition is using a grant from the National Fisheries Institute, a seafood industry group, to fund an educational campaign.

For women who want the health benefits but worry about mercury and other toxins, the wisest course is to choose fish with the lowest levels of mercury. A recent report in The Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that the health benefits are likely greatest from such oily fish as salmon, herring and sardines — which are all generally low in mercury anyway. Among the fish to avoid are shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish, all of which may contain high levels of mercury.

I was reading Bedrooms, Backseats and Courtrooms which is available at http://www.dna-testing-paternity.com/ or by clicking the link and it got me to thinking about the aricle by Michael Cole I had read a few months ago…

For many years now we have been hearing about how hard it is to be a single mother. They have to hold down a job, maintain a household IE cook, clean, do laundry etc. They in effect have two very demanding full time jobs.

I think it is outstanding that there are so many programs designed to allow a single mom live with dignity. They have access to free or reduced cost child day care. There is “WIC” Women, Infants, and Children. There are education grants,reduced cost housing, free job training, and the list just goes on.

Google “single moms” and you get 19,500,000 results. Lots of programs geared to the the single mom.

Being a single parent is difficult at best, sometimes it is nearly impossible.

So why is the other side of the coin so often ignored? Where is “MIC” Men, Infants, And Children? Why are single fathers treated like low-life lay abouts if they are desperate and overworked enough to ask for a little assistance? It is no easier for a man to raise his children alone, in fact society often makes it harder.

Single dads are told “Be A man” or “Suck it up”. They are being men. They are raising the children they brought into this world. Yet, it is somehow their fault that the mother of their children could not be bothered to stick around and help raise the kids she conceived.

I recently worked with a man who narrowly escaped jail time because he didn’t want to pay child support to his daughter’s deceased mother. He supplied Michigan’s Friend of the Court with her Death Certificate at least twice that I know of, and yet it still took months to get it cleared up.

Some people will ask ” What right do you have to write this?” or “How dare you!” So here is a small part of my story as a single dad. I’m sorry, but it reads like a bad plot in a soap opera.

In Jan. of 1992 my wife told me she she wasn’t happy and “needed space to find herself” I tried to get her to go to marriage counseling, no way would she go. Let’s work it out ourselves, she said. I was willing to do anything to make her happy.

We lived in So. California and I worked in construction. I would get up at 3:30 AM six days a week to provide for my wife and two kids. As a result of my early schedule and heavy workload I was ready to sleep between 8:30 and 9:00 PM. She told me I needed to stay up longer so we could work it out. I told her anything she wanted I would try.

She pulls out the smallest zip-loc baggie I had ever seen with an off-white powder in it. “What’s that?” “Something to help you stay awake.” Being rather naive I said okay. Out comes a mirror, razor blade, and a straw. She proceeded to show me how to prepare and snort a line of Meth-Amphetamine. Stupid me, I tried it. Over the next few weeks she feed me way more than I could handle. The result? A drug clouded mind that would agree to anything she said.

She got her own apartment in March. In July she took my daughter and moved to New Jersey, 3,000 miles away. My son and daughter hardly know each other. New discoveries and revelations of what a fools paradise my marriage had actually been kept hitting me from all sides. I lost everything I had.

My family spirited my son away to Michigan because I was such a mess. Shake a man’s world hard enough the world doesn’t fall apart, the man does. I don’t know how I survived. Dumb luck and a little voice in the back of my mind “Your son needs you, you’re all he has.”

Even after all these years it is painful to think about.

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger

Fast forward to December 1994. I found enough of myself to get back up and stand on my own two feet. I got on a bus to Michigan with a suitcase half full of clothes(every thing I owned) and a vague plan. “Get the drugs out of my system, get my son, and go home to California to start over”.

I quit the drugs cold turkey with no rehab. I then realized if I went back to California the hole I had dug for myself and climbed out of was there waiting for me. I decided to start over in Michigan.

My sister and mother convinced me ask for state help, despite my very limited success in California I agreed.

Here is the “help” that was given me, a single dad trying to cope with loss and raise a young son who couldn’t understand why his mommy left him.

I was enrolled in a program called “Work First” I was thrilled, my new home was going to help me!! They were going to teach me use a computer. I was going to learn to program and repair computers. I would be able to get a high paying job in a high demand growth industry. I would once again be a fully functional and contributing member of society.

I couldn’t wait to go to class. I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. I was still recovering from the meth, my body wanted to sleep, my mind wouldn’t let me. I was up and ready an hour before I needed to be. I was on my way!

My first week I took my tests and did my assignments. I was in the top five percent of my class. Our assignment on Thursday was to fill out a job application. I didn’t have a car so I walked to the gas station across the street. I got a job paying $5.00 an hr.

Friday I told my instructor what I had done. “Congratulations, you graduated”. I was out of the program. No free training. But not to worry, we’ll still train you.

Since I am a high school graduate it would have only cost me $150.00 a credit and I only needed about 20 credits! Making $200.00 a week how was I to get $3,000.00 for my training?

I have no doubt that in some data bank I’m listed as a glowing success for the program. Less than one week to get me a job, without having to pay for my training.

I stopped asking for help after that. To have all that help taken away because I wasn’t lazy and was willing to work for what I got.

I worked hard and became Manager of that station and have since moved on to better things.

I still had a choice to make, work two jobs to buy my son expensive toys and clothes or spend time with my son. I chose to spend time with my boy. I did without so I could give him what he needed. He needed glasses, he got them. When he needed braces, he got them. We may not have had a lot, but we had each other.

So yes, I do know what I’m talking about.

I did not write this so anyone would feel sorry for me, I am proud of my son and what I overcame to raise him. He is in college with a 4.0 average.

If you are a single parent and have read this far, have hope. You have something that was not available to me. You have a computer, you have the Internet.

With these tools you can build a home based business. You can be there for your children while building a second income on line. You don’t have to be gone most of the time to give them a little more.

You will have to work hard, but you’re used to that. Anyone who tells you “Sign up, Do Nothing And Get Paid” is lying to you or trying to scam you. At best they want you to scam money from other hard working people.

There are many free and low cost training programs available on line. Do some research and find the one that is best for you.

And always remember,You are not alone, there others like you, overcoming the odds, join them.

I just came across an article distributed by WebVet announcing the above topic. This brought my thinking to  pets health in general.

By Claire Douglass for WebVet
Reviewed by Amy I. Attas, V.M.D.
All content on WebVet is reviewed annually by Vets to guarantee its timeliness and accuracy.
Article last reviewed – 8/1/2009

Some household cleaning products are loaded with chemicals, and can be harmful to your pet after prolonged exposure. Today, rates of canine cancer are increasing, following the same trend of rates of human cancers, which has caused researchers to look more closely at a shared environmental pathogenesis.

We are not immune to airborne toxins in the home. According to a 1992 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency publication “Targeting Indoor Air Pollution,” the air inside the typical home is an average of 2-5 times more polluted than the air outside, and in extreme cases, it can be up to 100 times more contaminated – largely because of household cleaners and pesticides.

According to the EPA more than 50 percent of indoor pollution is a direct result of household cleaning products. Pets and their owners are all vulnerable to the effects of perpetual exposure to the chemicals in these products.  The risks that people face being exposed to cleaning products increases with duration of exposure.  Stay at home or people who work at home have a reported 54 percent increased risk of cancer pets and companion animals are at even greater risk due to their faster metabolisms and smaller lungs. Pets process these chemicals at a faster rate and absorb more of these toxins into their bloodstreams as they breathe them in more rapidly.

According to the Morris Animal Foundation, an initiative to research and cure canine cancer that is endorsed by the Children’s Oncology Group, Animal Cancer Foundation, MIT/Harvard (Broad Institute), and the Mayo Clinic, one in four dogs will die of cancer. Cancer is the No. 1 cause of disease-related death in dogs over the age of two. The National Cancer Institute, the global leader in human cancer research, has included the study of cancer in dogs within its Comparative Oncology Program since 2003.

There are solution to this issue.  There are many affordable lines of organic cleaning products available at most grocery stores, as well as countless books and articles on making one’s own effective household cleaners for far less than the cost of conventional cleaning products.  I like apple vinegar mixed with water because it smells fresh and can be used on any surface as well as cutting through residue and lingering smells.

By using the numerous organic cleaning products now so readily available, or by saving money and easily making your own cleaning products, both pet and owner can breathe easier and live healthier lives.

Web Vet

Reported in the December issue of Molecular Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research; researchers at the University of Florida have been able to just just a fraction of the normal dosage of a highly toxic, debilitating chemotherapy drug to achieve even better results in the fight against colon cancer cells.

Scientist say that more research is needed before the therapy can be tested in patients, but the discovery in human colon cancer cell lines and mice with established human tumors suggests that the addition of a small molecule to the cancer drug Temozolomide disrupts repair mechanisms in a type of tumor cells that is highly resistant to treatment.

Satya Narayan professor of anatomy and cell biology at the college of Medicine and a member of the University of Florida Shands Cancer Center said that, “This is very important because aside from aggressive surgery with possibly chemotherapy, there are no specific treatments for colon cancer. The recurrence rate for this type of cancer after surgery is very high, about 30 to 50 percent, and there is an urgent need to develop new approaches to manage this deadly disease.”

The National Cancer Institute estimates there will be about 106,000 new cases of colon cancer in the United States in by the end of 2009. It is the second most common cause of cancer-related death in both men and women in the Western hemisphere.

Colon cancer forms in the large intestine and survival rates vary according to how soon the cancer is diagnosed and the treatment is started. The challenge of treating patients is that colon cancer is not a single disease but an array of disorders with distinct molecular mechanisms, with one type being quite proficient at repairing the DNA damage inflicted by the drugs currently used to treat the disease.

Narayan’s research team evaluated more than 140,000 small molecules, finally arriving at a tiny molecule that precisely blocks the ability of cancer cells to recognize and repair the DNA damage inflicted by Temozolomide, or TMZ. Narayan said, “Our idea was if you induce DNA damage (with TMZ), and at the same time block cell repair, you can synergize toxic effects to the cancer cells. We hope that with this combination treatment we can reduce the tumors drastically and expand the lifetime of patients much longer than is currently possible.”

TMZ is commonly used against certain types of brain cancer. It works by damaging the DNA of the cancer. By combining TMZ with the small molecule, Narayan’s team was able to disable the colon cancer’s ability to manufacture repair enzymes.

The UF researchers effectively used an amount of TMZ that is about 10 times lower than recommended in its studies of mice with human colon cancer tumors. According to Narayan, if only about one-tenth as much TMZ is needed to kill cancer cells, it will be possible to use lower doses of a drug that creates a great deal of adverse side effects, a partial listing of which includes anxiety, back pain, breast pain, constipation, cough, diarrhea, dizziness, drowsiness, dry skin, hair loss, headache, joint pain, loss of appetite, mouth sores, muscle aches and nausea.

“By using these strategies we can predict that disruption of DNA repair by small molecules can bypass drug resistance factors and dramatically reduce side effects caused by toxic doses of TMZ,” Narayan said.

More study is needed before the combination can be tested in patients, but Narayan believes that TMZ can be combined with the small molecule in a single dose in pill or capsule form.

Sankar Mitra, Ph.D., a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, who did not participate in the study, said that, the research demonstrates that it is possible to sensitize colon cancer cells to TMZ more broadly than is now possible — a benefit of particular importance to patients with cancers that are as varied as colon cancer. “This could be the start of other small molecule inhibitors”

Sankar Mitra also noted that the therapeutic molecules were selected through sophisticated analysis of the structure of tens of thousands of potential small molecules from the National Cancer Institute database. The computer-based process, which can suggest likely cancer therapeutics within hours, replacing manual analysis which would normally have taken weeks or months.

Robert W. Sobol, Ph.D., an assistant professor of pharmacology and chemical biology, and human genetics, at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute said that, “There have been a multitude of studies suggesting that inhibition of DNA polymerase beta would enhance chemotherapeutic response. However, potential inhibitors have been challenging to identify and most have proven to be non-specific and/or non-selective. The compound identified by Dr. Narayan appears to be the first in what I expect to be a growing list of DNA polymerase beta inhibitors that have clinical potential.”

The research was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

Science Daily