South Africa is under fire from breeders to ban its controversial canned hunting of captive lions. The barbaric “sport” of canned hunting means an animal is hunted in a small space, with no chance of escape. Lions are bred for the sole purpose of being shot.
Every year as New Years Eve approaches it seems that friends of all ages search for the biggest and most social party to attend. Suggestions of $100 tickets to ballrooms at hotels and open bar parties at fancy apartments just don’t sound that fun to me anymore. Somehow doesn’t it seem like the build-up for a fantastic New Years Eve party always leaves you a little bit letdown? Why is there a need to go to a big party to celebrate the start of the New Year?
This year I suggest the wonderful intimate one-on-one New Years Eve at home. Budgets are tights and big parties require fancy outfits and drink money, so I suggest truly enjoying yourself at home. Just relax this year and plan a romantic evening with your significant other away from all of the fireworks and countdowns. Doesn’t that sound kind of amazing?
My suggestion is to do the opposite of what everyone thinks of as the perfect New Years Eve. Plan an evening that is as relaxing and personalized as possible doing whatever you and your significant other want to do without worrying about pressure to attend big events. While the rest of the world gets all dolled up in their finest, you should be putting on your most comfortable sweat pants and slippers and cuddling up under a blanket with a big mug of hot chocolate. You don’t even have to watch the countdown or stay up ’til midnight!
Listen to your favorite music, rent a movie, go for a walk, bake cookies, play with your dog, do yoga, watch reruns, play cards, do whatever you like to do you in your leisure time! If you don’t have a loved one, it’s also just as wonderful to enjoy yourself at home.
My point is that you don’t need to feel the pressure of looming New Years Eve this year. Opt out of the cultural idea that this is a big night that represents the start of a New Year and it must be spent in a certain way. This night does not represent the start of anything new and you don’t need to be in a certain place with certain accomplishments in order to feel that you are ready to start the year.
This year enjoy a quiet Dec 31 at home doing whatever you would like to do with whomever you would like to be with. It’s just a night where you probably don’t have to work the next day, so focus on relaxation and making a special night for yourself.
Image: sxc.hu
Post from: Blisstree
| Tuesday, December 29, 2009 |
| By: Furniture World Magazine |
|
NHFA announced that Jeff Child, RC Willey Home Furnishings, Salt Lake City, Utah, takes office January 1 as 2010 president of National Home Furnishings Association (NHFA), the nation’s largest trade organization for home furnishings retailers. He succeeds Michael B. Spiller, Spiller Furniture, Tuscaloosa, Ala. who becomes chairman of the executive committee. The outgoing president becomes chairman in the following year. Other officers are: Senior Vice President and Treasurer, Dianne Ray, Garden City Furniture, Garden City Beach, S.C.; Senior Vice President, Marc Schewel, Schewel Furniture, Lynchburg, Va.; and Senior Vice President, Cherie Rose, the Rose Collection, Los Gatos, Calif. New directors are: Brian D. Casey, High Point Market Authority, High Point, N. C.; Robert J. Maricich, World Market Center, Las Vegas, Nev.; Thomas H. Olinde, Olinde’s Furniture, Baton Rouge, La.; Sherry Sheely, Sheely’s Furniture & Appliance, Inc., North Lima, Ohio; and John C. Stewart, Jr., Big Sandy Super Store, Franklin Furnace, Ohio. These individuals join a group of retailers who are already serving as directors. Child is a long time association member and leader of both NHFA and its West Coast affiliate, Western Home Furnishings Association (WHFA). Jeff, son of Sheldon, helped his father and uncle, Bill Child, with the family business working in the warehouse and later in merchandise display and the carpet department. After graduating from Brigham Young University, he worked as a sales associate and buyer, eventually becoming president. As one of the top home furnishings retailers in the country, RC Willey attracted the attention of Warren Buffet, and in 1995, the company and Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., announced a merger agreement. In 2004 Child was selected NHFA’s Retailer of the Year in the over $10 million category for his service to the industry, service to his community and creative leadership in his company. As president of NHFA, Jeff wants to strengthen the association’s mission to help retailers find ways to profitability and to provide the services which make that possible. One of these ways is HomeFurnishings.com, developed by the association to drive business to member retailers. NHFA is an almost ninety-year-old trade organization serving home furnishings retailers in all 50 states, Canada and abroad. NHFA’s stated mission is “to provide our members with the information, education, products and services they need to remain successful.” |
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Please join us on WEDNESDAY at 10 pm CT for the season’s final Yahoo! Fantasy Freak Show on The Score WSCR-AM 670. It’s more than just a best-of episode. We’ll attempt to help those of you who crazily settle league championships in Week 17. No callers will be denied access to our accredited gurus. And you’re sure to enjoy this week’s special musical guests, David Coverdale and Sheila E!
You can email questions anytime to [email protected], or you can wait patiently for the show to begin, then reach out via phone (312-644-6767) or text (67011). Thanks for the support this year, gamers. Good luck to those who are still in the fight.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVE TO WSCR-AM 670 CHICAGO SPORTS RADIO.
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It’s about that time of year when people return home from spending holidays with the family, only to realize they need a vacation to recover from their vacation. Well, if you’re a resident of the U.K. or Germany who’s in good health, between 18 and 64 years old, and can keep a diary for two and a half weeks, your vacation to Mexico or Guatemala could be gratis. Oh, and one more thing: You have to be a guinea pig for a potential diarrhea drug.
A U.S. vaccine manufacturer called Intercell calls it the “Trek Study.” The company says it needs 1,800 volunteers between now and May to visit these locales, where sun-seeking tourists often get diarrhea. But fear not, travelers: A smaller study Intercell did on Americans showed a 75 percent reduction in diarrhea incidence, so perhaps fewer of you will spend your Caribbean holiday in excruciating, gut-wrenching pain than you normally would.
From BBC News:
Intercell’s clinical director, Nigel Thomas, told the UK’s Independent newspaper: “We are looking for people who have already planned to go to Mexico or Guatemala and think this would add another interesting aspect.
“It is almost like going on a package holiday. They will be met by a concierge who will take them to their hotel and arrange for them to give their first blood sample within 48 hours.”
Fake leprosy, it seems, isn’t the only way to snag a medical vacation in the tropics.
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Image: flickr / lightmatter
Today, December 29, 2009, the New Horizons Pluto probe crosses an arbitrary but psychologically important line: it is now closer to Pluto than it is to Earth.
If there were people on board the small interplanetary probe, no doubt they’d be popping champagne. I’m sure that back on Earth, the team behind NH are pretty happy. This probe has a checkered history, having been planned, canceled, re-planned, delayed, on and on. It’s amazing it got to launch at all. But on January 19, 2006 the small, half-ton probe was sent on its way, and on July 14, 2015 it’ll sail past Pluto and its collection of moons, snapping pictures and taking data.
Today marks the official halfway point, where New Horizons has half its path already behind it. Here’s a plot of its distance to Earth (in blue) and Pluto (red) care of the New Horizons site:
Distance in the graph is measured in Astronomical Units (a yardstick used by astronomers for convenience; it’s the distance of the Earth to the Sun, about 150 million km (93 million miles)). The distance to Earth is wiggly because the Earth goes around the Sun as New Horizons moves out, and the distance to Pluto decreases steadily as the spacecraft catches up on its journey. Where the two lines cross is where the distances are equal, and that’s now, today!
You may be wondering about the timing: New Horizons is halfway in distance to Pluto, but the mission timeline halfway point isn’t until October 16, 2010 (if I’ve done the math correctly). The probe was launched at high speed, slowed down due to the Earth’s and Sun’s gravity, picked up a kick from Jupiter in early 2007, and has been slowing ever since. Since it was moving faster before, it reached the distance halfway point before the schedule halfway point.
New Horizons is now 16.37 AU – 2.449 billion km, or 1.522 billion miles — from home. But maybe now, home is no longer Earth. Once it crossed that line today, home became deep space. Even Pluto and its moons Charon, Nix, and Hydra are only milestones for it. It won’t be stopping when it gets there; New Horizons will sail on by, continuing into deep space. It’ll become one of several other spacecraft we’ve sent out of the solar system itself, set to wander interstellar space forever.
That is, unless one day we catch up to them ourselves. I imagine in a few hundred years they’d make fine museum pieces. Or maybe, if poetry still exists in humans all those far-flung centuries from now, we’ll let those probes continue on. I rather like that idea better.
You can follow the New Horizons probe on Twitter, which is how I found out about this milestone today.
Art credit: ESO/L. Calçada
|
Small forests a big help in curbing carbon
CNN They can serve as a "carbon offset" under a cap-and-trade system that allows forest owners to sell their enhanced carbon storage to an emitter when that … |
The images to the left of this paragraph and below are the most solid indication of the Google Phone (Nexus One) and the plans for it. We’ve been hearing for a few weeks now about a rumored January 5th date for launch or announcement and these seem to help substantiate that. Also a commonly spread . The sources for these two pictures are Boy Genius Report and TmoNews tipsters and both essentially say the same thing.
As it looks, the Nexus One will come from Google via the internet with carrier support from T-Mobile. An update to TmoNews article says to look for a January 5th 9:00AM sale.
The second, smaller image is harder to read but the text has been transcribed.
Google, with support from T-Mobile, is scheduled to launch a new Android device in early January. The Google Android phone will be sold directly by Google via the Web.
Support for the device including troubleshooting and exchanges will be managed by Google and HTC. T-Mobile will offer service support including billing, coverage, features, and rate plans. Additional details Streamline content regarding the launch of Google’s Android phone will be coming in early January.
This will be a very exciting few days! Will the Nexus One steal the CES thunder?
The word yesterday that Sprint was going to roll out a new webOS update turned out to be true. Last night, my Palm Pre was updated to version 1.3.5, with no issues. It may be wishful thinking, but the performance of the Pre definitely feels faster since the update. Menus pop up quickly, and lags are not as prevalent as they were before.
This update removed the goofy program limit that has plagued the Pre since day one, but I have to take Palm’s word on that as I don’t have that many apps installed to test it out. I will keep an eye on battery life, as the update is reported to be stingier with power consumption. The only thing negative I’ve run into is I can no longer take screen captures for some reason. No matter what I do, the screen won’t capture an image.
Filed under: Budget, Marketing/Advertising, Videos, Hatchback, Kia
The Kia Ignition Soul is out to reset every perception of what a Korean car can be and who it can be for. That’s why you get commercials like this one, for Jeff Wyler Kia in Ohio. We won’t spoil the surprise, but having spent a few years around Eastgate, Ohio (shoutout to Williamsburg!) we can say that if the Ignition Soul gets Jeff Wyler to make commercials like this, then it is indeed a car to change the game – and no, there isn’t a hamster behind the wheel.
Follow the jump for the vid, which has more than a little bit in common with R Kelly’s Ignition Remix: “It’s the remix to ignition, hot and fresh out the kitchen, mama rollin’ that body…” Hat tip to Mike!
Gallery: 2010 Kia Ignition Soul
[Source: Jeff Wyler Kia via Kia World]
Continue reading VIDEO: Kia Ignition Soul brings out the tire-shredder in everyone
VIDEO: Kia Ignition Soul brings out the tire-shredder in everyone originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 12:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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James Altucher has a lengthy column on why you should rent rather than buy. Shorter version: there are a lot of hidden costs, and outside of the bubble, housing has not historically been a great investment. The phenomena that made it a great investment for some people (the emptying out and then filling up of cities, the introduction of self-amortizing mortgages, rising and then plummeting interest rates, and the special status of mortgage debt after 1986) will not indefinitely continue to push prices up; most of them have played out. Over the long run, housing prices cannot grow much faster than incomes.
I agree with all of this. You should not buy a house because “renting is throwing your money away” or because you expect the house to become a cash cow. As an investment, housing is a good form of forced savings, but do not expect price appreciation to make you rich–nay, not even if it made your parents and all your neighbors rich.
But these articles, and the homeownership-skeptics (of which I am sort of one) often give short shrift to the benefits of owning. Renting has hidden costs, too. Outside of New York, with its massive stock of professional landlords hamstrung by restrictive rent rules, renting means you usually have to move every few years, because the landlord wants to live in the house again, or is selling it, or wants to raise the rent too much in the hope that you’ll be too lazy to move. Moving costs a ton of money, between the movers (now that I’m getting old and creaky), the new furniture that is inevitably required, and the old furniture that cannot be fit into the new house and must be thrown away. Moving also soaks up a month or so of your time on each side of the move, which needs to be factored in for both lost income and sheer misery.
Then there is the inability to have your house the way you want it. Sure, it’s not like we could afford high-end appliances. But if we owned our house, I might be able to hope that someday we would acquire a water heater bigger than a thimble, rather than hopelessly resigning myself to shallow, lukewarm baths. I might also be able to sink screws into the ceiling for a hanging potrack, install blackout curtains so that I could sleep later than 6 am in the summer, and otherwise make the house over more to my specifications. But the owners are fond of their home the way it is, so it stays.
For a long time, I didn’t care so much about this. I liked the freedom renting gave me. But once you’re committed to a city, and another person, that freedom starts looking overrated.
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The price of shipping is imperfection. If you wait for your product to be perfect, you’ll never finish it. Fortunately you can decide which features should be closer to perfect and which can slack off a little. The Kindle DX is a good case in point. Reading and flipping pages on the Kindle is a wonderful experience. On the other hand, using the keyboard is painful. The keys are hard to press. The modifier keys are confusing. Mistakes are easy to make, slow to spot and hard to correct. Yet despite all these problems, I still love the device.
A good way to square the great overall experience with a bad feature is the “suckage to usage” ratio. You can take any feature and say “it sucks,” but that doesn’t tell you anything about the whole product until you factor in how often you use the feature. Have a look at this unscientific chart.
| Feature | Suckage (1-5) | Usage | Contribution (1-5) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading | 0 | 90% | 0 |
| Typing | 5 | 3% | 0.15 |
| Switching books | 1 | 7% | 0.07 |
| Total suckage | 0.22 | ||
Suppose reading on the Kindle doesn’t suck at all (0 out of 5), typing sucks maximally (5 out of 5), and switching between books sucks a little (1 out of 5). Considering I spend 90% of my time just reading on the device, the contributions add up to a total suckage of only 0.22 out of 5. Inverted, that’s 4.78—basically a 5-star product.
It’s rational for the Kindle designers to skimp on the keyboard when every feature takes time and time is scarce. Maybe the third or fourth generation Kindle will change such that keyboard input becomes more important. Pressures do change over time. But for now, it’s a fair trade.
It’s easy to accept in theory that some parts of your own product won’t be up to standard. In practice, it’s hard to drop the sword. Nobody wants to release a feature that you know could be better. When this happens, try adding a factor of usage to the equation to see if perfection is really worth its price.
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There were quite a few years when Lincoln and the rest of the Ford family lost its appeal to the younger crowd, save for the ever-popular Ford Mustang. Over the last few years however, Ford has expended great effort, with success we might add, in redesigning, reengineering, and expanding their family of cars, with particular emphasis on the Lincoln brand. From physical design to branding strategy, Lincoln has certainly been re-invented. The MKZ and MKX have done well for the brand over the past few years, and the MKS was very well received by the public. Now, Lincoln brings to the market an all new full-size, three-row, luxury crossover that some will love and quite frankly, others will not.
Based on the chassis of the 2010 Ford Flex, the 2010 Lincoln MKT features a sharp, sleek design, that seems almost aerodynamic, and looks like a retro-styled vehicle based on an old 1930’s Lincoln or Cadillac. Aesthetics being a matter of personal taste however, join us after the jump as we see how everything between the doors and under the hood measure up.
Follow the jump to read more and to view the high-res image gallery (at the bottom of the post).
Review: 2010 Lincoln MKT EcoBoost:
Base Price: $49,200.
Price as Tested: $57,970.
Engine: 3.5L twin-turbocharged V6 EcoBoost – 355-hp / 350 lb-ft of torque.
Transmission: 6-speed SelectShift Automatic with Paddle Shifters.
Curb Weight: 4,924 lbs (for AWD with EcoBoost).
0 to 60 mph: 6.3 seconds.
Fuel-Economy: 16/22 mpg (city/highway).
All Photos Copyright © 2009 Omar Rana – egmCarTech.
Though they share a chassis, the 2010 Ford Flex and MKT have totally different bodies, and that is unfortunate for the MKT. While the MKT does sport some very elegant lines and shaping from some angles, it comes off as an obnoxious eyesore from others; particularly the rear, and we feel that this takes away from the overall visual experience of the vehicle.
The MKT looks decidedly-Lincoln with its split-wing grille, beveled shoulder-line chamfer, and flowing cantrail, full-width horizontal tail-lamps that gracefully flow and wrap themselves around the magnesium power lift-gate. The Panoramic fixed glass Vista roof, body-color rear spoiler, HID headlamps, and heated exterior mirrors complete the look and add a rich and luxurious look. Other exterior amenities include: Lincoln’s SecuriCode invisible keypad, reverse camera and sensor.
All of this sits standard on a set of 19-inch premium painted aluminum wheels, but a 20-inch polished aluminum wheel option is available.
We just feel like Ford did its best to attract younger car shoppers, while making sure that the 50+ something crowd doesn’t shy away from the brand altogether.
Contrary to the mixed feelings we had regarding the exterior, the 2010 MKT offered one of the most comfortable and visually pleasing interiors we’ve tested to date. The design is sharp and sleek, and the materials and build quality are impeccable. Standard in the 2010 MKT are AM/FM/CD/DVD/MP3 capabilities, Sirius satellite radio, Microsoft Sync, touch-screen audio and climate controls, rear-view camera, three-zone auto climate control, and 12-way power adjustable heated/cooled leather trim seats with lumbar support.
Our test-car came trimmed with the $4,000 Elite Package which includes; Blind Spot Information System with Cross-Traffic Alert, Voice-Activated Navigation System, THX II Certified 5.1 Surround audio system and panoramic Vista roof. Other options that were included in our fully-loaded test-model were the $895 second-row refrigerator, $195 woven metal trim, $1,295 Adaptive Cruise Control, and $595 Active Park Assist, which allows the car to parallel park itself.
The steeping windshield and sloping roofline moves the third-row seat forward which in turn, kills about 2.5″ of legroom for middle-row passengers. If this small space concession doesn’t cause you much concern, then we can honestly say that the interior of the MKT is without flaw.
While powerful engines are certainly always en vogue, V8s seem to be getting less and less popular. The MKT isn’t offered with a V8, but rather consumers can opt between a standard V6 and an EcoBoost V6. The standard power-source for the MKT is a 3.7L V6 24-valve Duratec engine, which produces 268-hp and a maximum torque of 267 lb.-ft. The model that we tested, however, was powered by Ford’s new 3.5L EcoBoost V6 twin-turbocharged engine which delivers 355 horses and a maximum torque of 350 lb.-ft. between 1,500 and 5,250 rpm. When mated to the 6-speed SelectShift Automatic with Paddle Shift Activation, the EcoBoost attains 60 mph in just 6.3 seconds.
That is certainly impressive power for a V6; it performs like a V8, no question about it. True to its EcoBoost moniker however, this engine does not consume the fuel that an equally powerful V8 would; the EPA estimates an average of 16/22 mpg, or 18 mpg combined. We were able to attain a combined 14 mpg throughout our week-long test.
Obviously, one shouldn’t expect the MKT to take turns like a performance vehicle would, but the ride is a substantially smooth and comfortable one nonetheless, being true to the Lincoln brand.
The starting MSRP for the ‘10 Lincoln MKT is $44,995 (the EcoBoost option will add another $5,000, bringing the total to $49,995). This is slightly higher than that of the Acura MDX, which starts at $42,230, but lower than those of the Audi Q7 3.6 FSI and Mercedes-Benz R-Class crossovers which start at $46,900 and $49,300, respectively. With best-in-class fuel economy however – MDX: 16/21 mpg, Q7: 14/20 mpg, and R-Class: 15/19 mpg – and standard interior features that blow away those of the competition, the MKT is one car that ought to be seriously considered by any crossover shopper; if one can disregard and not be put off by the appearance of the vehicle’s rear-end.
Review: 2010 Lincoln MKT EcoBoost:
– By: Omar Rana and Stephen Calogera
All Photos Copyright © 2009 Omar Rana – egmCarTech.
Earth’s placement on one of the outer arms of the galaxy gives us a view of what’s happening in the center.
As highlighted yesterday, UC David economics professor Christopher Knittel found that Tiger Woods-sponsored companies lost as much as $12 billion of market value during the aftermath of Mr. Woods' recent crisis.
Losses were allegedly so large that they might have exceeded the income Tiger Woods generated for these companies.
CNBC: "Total shareholder losses may exceed several decades' worth of Tiger Woods' personal endorsement income," Victor Stango, a professor of economics at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management and co-author of the study, said in a statement.
Stango, together with co-author UC Davis economics professor Christopher Knittel, looked at stock market returns for the 13 trading days between November 27, when the car crash that ignited the Woods' scandal happened, and December 17, a week after the golfer announced his indefinite leave from the sport.
Felix Salmon has already attacked the study as completely bonkers, which it is if taken seriously:
Reuters: This is silly stuff, of course: not only are the error bars larger than the estimated losses, but a huge proportion of those multi-billions comes from the decline of the share price of enormous companies like P&G, which had just one exposure to Tiger Woods through its Gillette subsidiary. Drawing a causal relationship between the Tiger Woods scandal and fluctuations in P&G’s share price is simply impossible.
Yet our broader challenge of both the study and the stock market's reaction to Tiger's travails is that Tiger Woods's loss isn't necessarily be a bad thing. These stocks could end up better off without him.
The upshot of the entire debacle is that these companies will spend less shareholder money on Tiger Woods sponsorship, and more somewhere else. They'll find other ways to market themselves or invest in other areas of their business, such as product development.
They only lose out if the massive outlays paid Mr. Woods were A) net gains to start with, which is debatable given how vague marketing performance measurement can be, and B) provided a higher return on investment than they could achieve via other forms of marketing or business activity.
Tiger Woods is surely a once-in-a-generation golf player, but it's pretty unlikely he's also a once-in-generation investment return. If he is, then he's under-charging big time. For investors, Mr. Woods's news is mere static and provided cheaper stock prices.
Read the full CNBC article here. and see yesterday's video here.
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No, it’s not the most original car out there. But you have to give Kepler Motors credit for entering an already-crowded ring; their MOTION supercar will debut this week at the Dubai International Motor Show. The MOTION’s greatest feature, other than its insanely gorgeous wheels, is its uniquely devised 800bhp, courtesy of a tweaked and turbocharged Ford EcoBoost engine that drives the rear wheels; the front wheels are powered by a 250bhp electric motor. Yes, you read that correctly. While Kepler’s finest creation looks a bit like supercars past (McLaren and S7, specifically), its the drivetrain that will truly set it apart from its competitors. The power will ultimately go through a seven-speed sequential transaxle, undoubtedly delivering performance on par with its classmates, and the carbon fiber monocoque chassis and active suspension would put it at the front of its group with the upcoming McLaren MP4-12C and others. Kepler hopes to produce 50 in total, with deliveries starting in early 2011. Move over, Tesla. The next generation of green supercars has arrived.
Continue reading for more images.
Source: AB
Planning for long-term sustainability crucialThe NationPrices could be propped up on demand for cassava for biofuel production. Traders said the price could exceed Bt2 a kilogram. The maize price is expected to …
Ideally, The Primal Blueprint is a living, breathing document. Whether it’s emails from insightful readers or random articles from my RSS feed casting a subject in a completely different light, or even personal N=1 revelations spurring a meticulous re-examination of previously-held stances, I’ll often find myself rethinking certain aspects of the PB. They usually hold up pretty well, mind you, but it’s always good to take stock of the evidence. It keeps us in the Primal community on our toes. Take yesterday’s post, for example. The discovery of grain residue from a 100,000 year old dig site was undoubtedly intriguing, because it suggested that a major tenet of the Primal lifestyle – that grains have no place in the human diet – might need some refining. In the end, our position remained the same (the intense labor inherent in the sourcing, gathering, hulling, processing, and cooking of grass seeds would have been too great for Grok to make it a staple food – especially when nutritionally-superior and far more nutrient-dense alternatives existed in abundance), but it was tested and therefore strengthened.
Sometimes, though, new evidence forces me to completely rethink things. Even something so seemingly innocuous as a random comment from a reader can set me off on a researching bender. Last week, someone mentioned the Bisphenol A (BPA) leaching tendencies of canned tomatoes. That was all it took to send me on a tear.
First, I looked deeper into the BPA issue. I’ve mentioned it before, and the battles over BPA content in plastics have gotten a lot of publicity, but after looking at the preponderance of evidence derived from recent animal trials, I’m not sure I can recommend using canned food at all anymore. Industry leaders say BPA is crucial for preventing direct contact between food and metal; they also say ditching the stuff would lead to far more botulism cases. That may be. But it’s undeniable that BPA has an effect on animals. Various dosages have different effects, and it’s unclear whether the animal models are relevant to human models, but the stuff does leach and it does impact the mammals that have been tested. A quick rundown (these are rodent studies unless otherwise noted) of dosages in µg/kg/day and the reported effects:
0.025 – Permanent changes to genital tracts in adult females with in utero exposure to BPA that only show up during adulthood. This may be attributed to “increased expression of estrogen receptor-alpha and progesterone receptors.” Another study found that BPA exposure “increased terminal end bud density at puberty as well as… terminal ends… in adult animals” in the mammary glands. In both rodents and humans, the end and terminal buds are where cancer arises.
1.0 – Ovarian cysts were seen in adult mice with prenatal exposure to BPA, but not in the corn oil group (don’t go chugging corn oil, though!). BPA-treated mice also exclusively displayed other adverse reproductive and carcinogenic effects, including sarcoma of the uterine cervix (a fairly rare cancer) and mammary adenocarcinoma (breast tumor).
2.0 – Pregnant mice fed normal levels of (read: in doses similar to the range “currently being consumed by people”) BPA, but not octylphenol (another xenoestrogen used in commercial products), bore males that developed enlarged prostates by adulthood.
2.4 – BPA exposures of pregnant rats (from gestation day 12 onward) and nursing rats (up until postnatal day 21) resulted in decreased testosterone levels in the testicles by nearly half.
2.5 – Given no further “treatment aimed at increasing tumor development” beyond fetal BPA administration, mice mammary glands were induced to develop carcinoma. Mice with prenatal exposure, then, were predisposed to breast cancer in adulthood.
10.0 – In male rats, low levels of BPA exposure affected the prostate epigenome (“genetic code” of the prostate), enough to render it especially susceptible to disease later in life. In female mice, exposure to BPA resulted in altered maternal behavior: BPA mothers expressed less interest in nursing and more time away from their pups when compared to the control corn oil group.
30.0 – A BPA dosage far below the human “tolerable daily intake” was apparently not tolerated especially well by rats; BPA “abolished and inverted” sexual differentiation of the brain and behavior.
50.0 (the official U.S. human exposure limit, as ordained by the EPA) – In nonhuman primates, continuous administration of BPA interfered in the formation of spine synapses in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Spine synapse formation is especially critical in the regulation of mood and general cognition; government-approved levels of BPA were enough to “abolish” synapse formation in some of our closest primate relatives.
There are plenty more, too.
(You might be wondering whether injecting rats with BPA is relevant to the kind of environmental exposure we humans get. Scientists found that the route of BPA administration in these studies – whether BPA was injected or given orally – did not impact plasma levels of the xenoestrogen. No matter how small the dose, oral exposure and injection resulted in identical blood plasma levels – so don’t think that just because we’re not shooting up with syringes of BPA we’re necessarily avoiding enhanced blood plasma levels.)
What makes these intriguing (and somewhat worrisome) is that dosages were kept well within the official daily limit supposedly tolerated by humans. In fact, most of the dosages fell far below the daily limit set by the EPA: 50 µg/kg/day.
Then I got to wondering just how much BPA we’re exposed to on a regular basis. While this PDF table, courtesy of Consumer Reports, may not apply to most of our readers, it gives a good idea of the amount of daily BPA regular folks who eat processed, canned food on a regular basis are taking in. If, for example, you eat a serving of Progresso Vegetable Soup, you’re eating (on average) 22 µg of BPA. A serving from a can of Del Monte Fresh Cut Green Beans contains 14.9 µg. A serving from a can of Campbell Chicken Noodle Soup contains 10.2 µg. These are just servings, mind you, and how many people just eat a third of a can of soup or green beans?
But wait – 22 µg, 14.9 µg, 10.2 µg? That doesn’t sound like much. Besides, the EPA and FDA say 50 µg/kg/day is totally safe. What’s to worry about?
Well, Consumer Reports also employs its own food safety experts. The same ones who ran the test on the BPA levels of popular packaged items arrived at a slightly different safe daily dosage, believe it or not. Citing the fact that exposures of 2.4 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight resulted in reproductive and sex hormone issues in rats (see above), the Consumer Reports food safety scientists “recommend 0.0024 micrograms per kilogram of body weight.” That means just a single serving of Del Monte green beans would put a 165-lb adult about 80 times past the Consumer Reports daily limit. Is that too much? Whom should we listen to – the FDA or Consumer Reports?
According to BPA researcher Frederik vom Saal, professor of developmental biology at the University of Missouri at Columbia, most regulatory standards regarding industrial chemicals are based on tests of abnormally high doses, but the evidence clearly shows that seemingly minute doses can have “completely different and potentially more harmful effects.” The FDA’s dosage limits, then, seem based on faulty or incomplete evidence. Even a special FDA scientific advisory panel was critical of the official company line, expressing disagreement with the FDA’s dismissal of a “large number” of studies on BPA. Congressmen Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak echoed the calls for further review of the official stance on BPA in a recent letter to the FDA commissioner, suggesting that “an industry meeting last week to discuss ways to block restrictions on BPA” indicated a willingness “to mislead the American people on this public health issue.” The two congressmen were of the opinion that the FDA shouldn’t exclude non-industry funded studies from consideration.
I’m not a fan of politicians, but I’m going to have to agree with these two. The evidence that BPA is damaging across a whole range of dosage levels in animal models is pretty compelling and deserves further consideration. It isn’t conclusive, but when we’re talking about the widespread, near-daily ingestion of manmade chemicals that exhibit some classically xenoestrogenic effects, it’s better to err on the side of caution and take a good hard look.
Some have tried. There are some limited human studies on BPA, but they haven’t established anything beyond correlation. In 2008, results on the first major study of health effects on humans were published. Higher serum BPA levels were strongly associated with various disorders, including heart disease and diabetes. Was it the BPA causing the problem, or was BPA merely a marker for processed junk (canned/in plastic) food consumption? Causality cannot be confirmed. Other studies have associated recurrent miscarriage, oxidative stress and inflammation with urinary concentrations of BPA, and another study (PDF) found an association between prenatal exposure to BPA and externalizing behaviors in children, including aggression, delinquency, and hyperactivity. “Altered hormone levels in men” have also been linked to urinary BPA concentrations.
Based on the animal models in which serum BPA had measurable effects, especially on developing fetuses, I think there might be something more than pure correlation going on here. We already know that BPA has been found in umbilical cord blood (PDF), so the possible delivery system is there. We already know that various amounts of BPA show up in canned and processed food, so there’s a possible source that people are tapping into. What we don’t know for sure is whether the dosages are safe or not. Do we trust the FDA or CR?
If a government agency explicitly tasked with regulating the safety of all the various things consumers put into their bodies can’t be bothered to look at the actual studies attempting to establish whether something is safe or not, I’m not sure I want to listen to its daily dosage recommendations. Consumer Reports is generally well-regarded, and they don’t exclude a study simply because its findings were inconvenient. While their donors may have agendas, at least those agendas, as far as I’m aware, don’t revolve around removing restrictions on potentially harmful chemicals.
From now on, I think I’ll be avoiding canned goods as much as possible (I already basically do this), and I’d advise most everyone else – especially expectant mothers – to do the same. Just don’t lose your minds over this. Can your own vegetables or buy vegetables stored in glass jars. Or, maybe, just eat fresh, whole food. This won’t be an issue if you’re already following the PB and avoiding processed food and sodas in cans, but it might be worth it to pass it on to friends, family, co-workers, vegans, vegetarians, and anyone else with whom you normally clash on nutritional matters.
So, what about the tomatoes – will I be tossing all my cans of organic tomato paste and organic crushed plum tomatoes? Probably not, to be honest. I don’t plan on giving birth anytime soon, and I don’t see myself prematurely entering puberty. I’m also a big fan of chili, which simply isn’t the same made with fresh tomatoes. I am going to look for alternatives, though; I plan on trying canning again, and I might give those glass jar tomatoes from Tropical Traditions a shot. A quick Googling reveals a number of other glass jarred tomato vendors if those don’t work out. I think Whole Foods might even carry a brand, but I can’t be sure. Eden Foods uses BPA-free cans, if you can find them.
Okay, maybe the new “stance” on canned food isn’t so new or revolutionary. We already avoided the stuff simply because it usually meant you weren’t eating fresh, whole food; now we’ve just got another reason to avoid it. Let’s hope more consumers come to the same conclusion, though, because I somehow can’t see the FDA or the industry having a change of heart anytime soon.
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