News stories 5.9.2012

Yesterday I talked about two things that I'll talk about again: The circumcision issue and whether or not organic or bio products are good for you.

FAZ: Öko-Debatte im Bioladen -> Ecological debate in Bio-stores
This is basically the same story as the Guardian's yesterday, so I won't have to repeat myself. I did however manage to find the actual paper the stories are based on:
Crystal Smith-Spangler, Margaret L. Brandeau, Grace E. Hunter, J. Clay Bavinger, Maren Pearson, Paul J. Eschbach, Vandana Sundaram, Hau Liu, Patricia Schirmer, Christopher Stave, Ingram Olkin, Dena M. Bravata; Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives?A Systematic Review. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2012 Sep;157(5):348-366.

This is only the short version by the way, the whole article is only for people who have money, which I don't. It shows one thing I didn't see in the Guardian story, so here it is:

Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Again, not surprising. I'm still buying organic food if I can.

FAZ: Berlin stellt Beschneidungen straffrei -> Berlin allows circumcision

... with certain rules. Only certified doctors can do it, it has to be in a sterile environment, etc. That's a huge improvement over what was done before, but it's still mutilation. Westerwelle (German Minister of Foreign Affairs) wants to "preserve Jewish and Muslim traditions".

To which I say: No, fuck em! It's not tradition, it's mutilation.

Breakthrough study overturns theory of 'junk DNA' in genome

There's an excellent video that explains DNA, watch it then come back. Don't read the comments though, they're quite stupid. Or actually, DO read them and try to figure out just WHY they're stupid.

Done? Good.
Now I'm not sure about you, but this seems like slightly out-dated news to me. We already knew that non-coding DNA had something to do with the regulation of gene expression. We're just finding out that it plays a bigger part than we thought.

Now I'm going to wait until one of two things happens:
1) An expert in the field blogs/talks about it and I find out I've been wrong.
2) I get my hands on the actual research.

I couldn't find the actual research yet and Encode seem to have published their last paper in 2011, so it's unlikely that the article is referring to that...