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The paper you cite shows a correlation between size of the right amygdala and self-reported political attitudes, with "conservatives" having a larger amygdala.

What correlates with the size of the amygdala? Social network size and artistic creativity.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3079404/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18922517

A small amygdala correlates with anxiety disorders and social problems. Also, the anterior cingulate gyrus enlarges if people experience more conflict between their beliefs and reality, as liberals apparently do.

So if you insist on interpreting these results in the way you do, they suggest that liberals tend towards fearful, non-artistic loners who can't make sense of the world, while conservatives tend towards social, artistic types who understand how the world works.

(As for "fairness", grow up.)

The paper you cite shows a correlation between size of the right amygdala and self-reported political attitudes, with "conservatives" having a larger amygdala.

What correlates with the size of the amygdala? Social network size and artistic creativity.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3079404/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18922517

A small amygdala correlates with anxiety disorders and social problems. Also, the anterior cingulate gyrus enlarges if people experience more conflict between their beliefs and reality, as liberals apparently do.

So if you insist on interpreting these results in the way you do, they suggest that liberals tend towards fearful, non-artistic loners who can't make sense of the world, while conservatives tend towards social, artistic types who understand how the world works.

(As for "fairness", grow up.)

Wow, so I guess this paper published 43 years ago in 1970 titled “Carbon Dioxide and its Role in Climate Change” must have been way ahead of its time.

You don't need to suffer untreated. You can get help. Maybe you can start here: Mental Health and Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator .

I'll say a prayer for you.

If you're impaired, you're impaired. It doesn't matter the cause, nor some arbitrary tests. There are people that can drive fine at over 0.10, and there are people who are entirely dysfunctional at 0.01. There are also people that are wholly impaired at 0.00, generally these would be sleep deprived folks, some even on loads of caffeine or other uppers (witness all those single truck accidents - driver "fell asleep". Note that truckers can only drive 11 hours at a stretch according to federal law .

So is 0.05 ridiculous? Yes, for some it's too high. For the large majority of the population, it's ridiculously low. It's also gender biased. Women are more deeply affected by alcohol so should men be held to the same standard?

What's the real answer to this problem? Making a license a privilege, and losing one meaningful and a much more realistic option.

At first, I thought you were bluffing or just misinformed. A quick consultation with the oracle (No, not that Oracle) indicates you are correct. Except that the levels are too low to interfere with quantitative testing and legal proceedings. Don't try this excuse without consulting appropriate counsel.

In Australia,

If you have a medical certificate that proves that, you can have a drink driving charge reversed quite easily.

The same with the old Listerine excuse (IIRC, Listerine no longer contains actual alcohol), if this is the truth (you've used an alcohol based mouthwash) then you can ask for a blood test (which you should do anyway if you've been charged with DUI... Unless you're actually really drunk and a blood test will show up a higher BAC) which will be negative due to the fact you didn't ingest the mouthwash.

The Australian court recognises that roadside detection can be flawed, so they offer you the choice of a blood test.

However, if you're only looking at these as an excuse to get out of a DUI charge, you're SOL.

At first, I thought you were bluffing or just misinformed. A quick consultation with the oracle (No, not that Oracle) indicates you are correct. Except that the levels are too low to interfere with quantitative testing and legal proceedings. Don't try this excuse without consulting appropriate counsel.

CBT does not work with untreated schizophrenia spectrum disorders

The evidence is tiny because there is enormous pressure to treat schizophrenia with drugs; but it disagrees with your assertion. "CBT is a feasible treatment for people with schizophrenia who are not prescribed antipsychotic medication. It may be a valuable alternative to medication in treating symptoms of schizophrenia."

No, the "I like MLP" group says "Hey, I like MLP! There's nothing wrong with that!" The "bronie" group says something quite different.

See the "brohoof" skein above. Being compelled to make an "in crowd gesture of support" like that is directly indicitative of being far more than "just liking the show."

The problem with association, is that it creates a false sense that this is normal.

Say, alcholics meeting at a bar. All their friends are alcoholics, their friends are alcoholics, what's wrong with drinking heavily every night after work?

This is why the definition is made so clinically. If it preoccupies you, such that it causes deficits in your other interests or personal life, it is defined as harm, and persistent behaviors of this type are signs of mental illness.

Like alcoholism, it is an illness, and people can and do get better. They have to accept that there is a problem first.

So that you can see this is not some definition I pulled out of my ass, I will look it up for you.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3101504/

Congress just recently passed legislation saying that any papers produced and at least partially funded by the NIH must be made public within one year of publication. This, of course, is dependent upon the NIH making an actual database for this

This has been policy for several years now, and the NIH does indeed have an actual database for this. Apparently they are known to call up investigators who are tardy uploading their papers (some journals do this automatically, but usually not the big commercial publishers).

Congress just recently passed legislation saying that any papers produced and at least partially funded by the NIH must be made public within one year of publication. This, of course, is dependent upon the NIH making an actual database for this, and Cthulhu only knows how long that will take.

http://publicaccess.nih.gov/

1. Done:

http://publicaccess.nih.gov/

2. Done:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

(if you discount the value of immediate access to research, that is)

1. Done:

http://publicaccess.nih.gov/

2. Done:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/

(if you discount the value of immediate access to research, that is)

Piperine, the main alkaloid of Thai black pepper, protects against neurodegeneration and cognitive impairment in animal model of cognitive deficit like condition of Alzheimer's disease.

At the High School my wife works at five students have committed suicide with guns in their homes. Zero have been killed by an armed intruder.

only 55% of US males who commit suicide use firearms, and only 30% of women. More women poison themselves than shoot themselves. And home invasion is not uncommon here. Here's one in the news right now, two men who allegedly broke into a home and killed all five family members with a tire iron are on trial right now.

Cell phone usage is a level 2b carcinogen, the same as coffee, pickled vegetables and talcum powder. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142790/

Paracetamol/acetaminophen is potentially carcinogenic. It has been shown to inhibit DNA repair (see e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7715617 or Google yourself) and has been associated with an increase in various cancers, for instance blood cancers which are often associated with factors that cause DNA damage (see e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21555699).
It has also been associated with other cancers. In contrast to this, the alternative painkiller aspirin has been associated with a decreased risk of many different types of cancer, notably colon cancer but also blood cancers as well as many other cancers (too lazy to find all the references). In animals, it can protect animals exposed to other carcinogens from cancer.
Ibuprofen seems to be mixed, in some studies it is associated with increased cancer in other with decreased risk.
By the way, note that aspirin is not a magic bullet against cancer; it is also a blood thinner. People who take it chronically are prone to getting bruises from the slightest hits. This also means it increases the risk of potentially fatal bleeds, as well as certain types of strokes (intercranial haemorrage). On the other hand it decreases the risk of blood clots. The net effect is difficult to assess.

Paracetamol/acetaminophen is potentially carcinogenic. It has been shown to inhibit DNA repair (see e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7715617 or Google yourself) and has been associated with an increase in various cancers, for instance blood cancers which are often associated with factors that cause DNA damage (see e.g. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21555699).
It has also been associated with other cancers. In contrast to this, the alternative painkiller aspirin has been associated with a decreased risk of many different types of cancer, notably colon cancer but also blood cancers as well as many other cancers (too lazy to find all the references). In animals, it can protect animals exposed to other carcinogens from cancer.
Ibuprofen seems to be mixed, in some studies it is associated with increased cancer in other with decreased risk.
By the way, note that aspirin is not a magic bullet against cancer; it is also a blood thinner. People who take it chronically are prone to getting bruises from the slightest hits. This also means it increases the risk of potentially fatal bleeds, as well as certain types of strokes (intercranial haemorrage). On the other hand it decreases the risk of blood clots. The net effect is difficult to assess.

The human auditory system can absolutely use timing difference to determine the location of sound. We are sensitive to interaural time differences as small as 10 microseconds. If you don't have access to that article, just search anywhere for "ITD JND" (stands for interural time difference just-noticeable-difference"

Your first paragraph appears to describe beamforming, methods of which have numerous patents.

The liver toxicity of Acetaminophen is used to deter opioid addiction by mixing opioids with Acetaminophen. Opioids are powerfully addictive narcotics and this practice kills about 500 Americans per year.

This isn't like spiking rubbing alcohol with methanol and other toxins. The opiods really do increase the pain relieving properties of the acetaminophen greatly. Unfortunately, the opiods are, as you say, addictive narcotics. But unlike how you interpret it, the practice actually increases narcotic addition rather than deterring it. Patients end up abusing the drugs that their own doctors gave them. Doctors don't really have that many better options for serious pain, and many don't really do a good job at preventing addiction. Patients aren't deterred by the acetaminophen toxicity when they beg their doctors for "Vike" or Percoset or Oxycontin refills because withdrawal is painful and unpleasant.

If the acetaminophen were really put in to "poison" the opiods, then it's doing an absolutely terrible job. It doesn't kill all that quickly, it doesn't make people violently ill. I think I'd have to call it the second-worst conspiracy I ever saw.

The first thing you should note:

METHODS:

We enrolled 677 case participants that had been shot in an assault and 684 population-based control participants within Philadelphia, PA, from 2003 to 2006. We adjusted odds ratios for confounding variables.

Does Philadelphia represents the entire US?

Second thing to note, from the full article rather than the abstract:

However, compared with control participants, shooting case participants were significantly more often Hispanic, more frequently working in high-risk occupations1,2, less educated, and had a greater frequency of prior arrest. At the time of shooting, case participants were also significantly more often involved with alcohol and drugs, outdoors, and closer to areas where more Blacks, Hispanics, and unemployed individuals resided. Case participants were also more likely to be located in areas with less income and more illicit drug trafficking (Table 1).

Again, does the above represent the entire US?

Studies show that among people who are involved in firearm-related crimes, those victims who carry guns are 4.46x more likely to get shot than those victims who aren't carrying guns: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19762675 Protection, my ass.

From what I gather from the literature, you are right about the hangover, but wrong about the mixing with alcohol. The blood concentration of the toxic degradation product is lowered when paracetamol is taken with alcohol, probably due to the alcohol successfully competing with cytochrome P450 in the liver, in much the same way that alcohol can be used to treat methanol poisoning (though another enzyme is competed for here).

Stumbled upon a good review of the pharmacology of Acetaminophen-Alcohol interactions (from back in 2000). Apparently it's more complicated than I thought:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2014937/

The interactions between paracetamol and ethanol are complex and many questions remain to be answered. In animals, chronic administration of ethanol causes microsomal enzyme induction with increased toxic metabolic activation of paracetamol and enhanced hepatotoxicity. Conversely, the acute administration of ethanol inhibits the potentially toxic oxidative metabolism of paracetamol and protects against liver damage. This protective effect disappears when the ethanol is eliminated and the time interval between the intake of ethanol and paracetamol is critical.

Although the possibility that chronic alcoholics are at increased risk of paracetamol hepatotoxicity can by no means be excluded, the available evidence does not support claims for a major toxic interaction between ethanol and paracetamol in man.

In contrast to the findings in animals, chronic alcoholics do not produce abnormally increased amounts of the potentially toxic metabolite of paracetamol. There is only modest, short-lived induction of CYP2E1 in chronic alcoholics and it seems that other isoenzymes are primarily responsible for the metabolic activation of paracetamol in man. In keeping with the metabolic data, there is no convincing clinical evidence to support the claims that chronic alcoholics are at increased risk of liver damage either following overdosage of paracetamol or with its therapeutic use. Such evidence as exists is purely anecdotal and similar toxicity has been reported in both circumstances in patients who are not alcoholic.

I would caution though, that while normal humans have an enormous amount of extra functional reserve in their livers, this may not be true for chronic alcohol users. Even if the absolute pharmacological toxicity is identical (or even modestly lessened), the same overdose that a non-alcoholic recovers from, could be fatal to someone with pre-existing damage. In addition, the cognitive and psychological impairment produced by alcohol could make both accidental and deliberate mis-use of other drugs more likely.

Using a word like deniers to label people whose opinion you oppose is morally offensive. Climate changes this rapidly fairly commonly. http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/abrupt-climate-change-during-the-last-ice-24288097 If you review the vostok data the Holocene is already much longer than any recent interglacials, from that data we can infer that a glaciation lasting approx. 10000 years is about to descend and ruin human civilization. I'm not saying greenhouse gases are not causing global warming. What I'm saying is that is a hell of a lot better then dealing with another ice age. . The theory for long term global warming seems to be based on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIS_11 Hitting a window of 30000 years width 400000 years ago while simultaneously predicting the Milankovitch cycles at the time is a lot to bet the fate of humanity on. Picking MIS-11 out of the last five interglacials seems to me like cherry picking your data to support a populare opinion. Further, the guy who wrote the book picking MIS-11 wrote a book claiming the exact opposite in the seventies. New data on MIS-11 refutes it's pleasantly warm reputation. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2748712/ IF you look at all the scientific evidence other than the geologically insignificant data for the last 130 years it is abundantly obvious that a long-term ice age is much more likely than long-term global warming.

The liver toxicity of Acetaminophen is used to deter opioid addiction by mixing opioids with Acetaminophen. Opioids are powerfully addictive narcotics and this practice kills about 500 Americans per year.

Yes but when did they change it from climate change to global warming? Here's a paper published in 1970 titled Carbon Dioxide and its Role in Climate Change ]PDF] by George Benton. It's always been climate change but global warming is also descriptive of what's happening.

1. I'm more interested in the suicide stats to prove that people act in a rash manner. I agree it should be legal.

2. For every shot fired in self defense, 11 people shoot themselves, 7 people are shot by criminals, and 4 others are accidentally shot, That totally ignores the times somebody pulls a gun and chases somebody off, so it is difficult to judge. To be fair, it also ignores the number of times somebody is mugged by gunpoint but not shot. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182

But, ignoring the cases of "threat of gun" versus "shooting by gun", by at least this one measurement, guns cause 22 times the negative impact, versus the positive impact.

If I had a life-saving operation that could save the life of a baby, but required the hearts of 22 living babies to work, would you consider that an effective ratio, and worthwhile cost to society? Obviously this is an extreme and unrealistic example, I'm just using it to make a point. You think guns are overall effective for self-defense, but I consider the consequences and side-effects of those 22 other people who get shot as an example of "the cure is worse than the disease", for society as a whole. Obviously the one person who's life gets saved is happy. But what about the 22 families of the other victims? Is that one persons life worth the cost to them?

Now, solutions are difficult, and none of the gun control proposals are going to instantly fix the problems. I'm just pointing out that having a gun in hand, DOES make someone more likely to commit suicide, and it DOES make someone more likely to shoot a loved one during an argument, and you can't simply ignore the 95.6% of times guns are used against society, just because they are also used in defence of society 4.347% of the time.

> This could only possibly be true because belief in God is not properly being diagnosed as dementia.

Do you know what dementia is? I'm guessing you're not a psychiatrist, psychologist, or neurologist. Unless you are, you shouldn't be diagnosing anything.

Are you saying that if you had a gun in your possession, that it would increase the liklihood that you would become a violent threat to the public?

It does. Just like easy access to guns increases the suicide rate. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3456383/

People make rash decisions. If they have a gun in their hand at the time, those rash decisions tend to have deadlier consequences.

"One of the things that the majority of studies have determined is that gun availability does in fact affect the rate of suicides, and this has been confirmed in all states. As strange as it sounds, people on the verge of making this decision will often give up on the idea if they are given enough time to reconsider. They might also be diverted from it by the fact that they don’t have an “easy” way to end their life. Ultimately this is to say that a lot of people who have committed suicide with a gun might still be alive today if they didn’t have access to a weapon."

http://stateofguns.com/impact-of-weapon-availability-on-suicide-rates-865/

Google is the wrong place to educate yourself. The only true source are scientific publications, everything else is BS.
get educated here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
Many people don't know but organic farming does use dangerous products such as: copper (dangerous heavy metal) and nicotine (cancerogenous insecticide)

A couple of things wrong with that interpretation. First, all of the subjects in the study apparently received treatment, the independent variable was belief in God. So, there isn't really any placebo in the study. Second, the placebo effect has been studied with an interesting result:

Is the placebo powerless? An analysis of clinical trials comparing placebo with no treatment

CONCLUSIONS:
We found little evidence in general that placebos had powerful clinical effects. Although placebos had no significant effects on objective or binary outcomes, they had possible small benefits in studies with continuous subjective outcomes and for the treatment of pain. Outside the setting of clinical trials, there is no justification for the use of placebos.

Third, it isn't hard to find educated, accomplished people that believe in God, including many doctors:

Collins: Why this scientist believes in God
Survey: Most doctors believe in God, afterlife

Just think - if you go to see a doctor for depression, there is a good chance he or she will believe in God.

Fourth, ignorance in this case isn't bliss, it is misery. Those who know God had better clinical outcomes.

A couple of things wrong with that interpretation. First, all of the subjects in the study apparently received treatment, the independent variable was belief in God. So, there isn't really any placebo in the study. Second, the placebo effect has been studied with an interesting result:

Is the placebo powerless? An analysis of clinical trials comparing placebo with no treatment

CONCLUSIONS:
We found little evidence in general that placebos had powerful clinical effects. Although placebos had no significant effects on objective or binary outcomes, they had possible small benefits in studies with continuous subjective outcomes and for the treatment of pain. Outside the setting of clinical trials, there is no justification for the use of placebos.

Third, it isn't hard to find educated, accomplished people that believe in God, including many doctors:

Collins: Why this scientist believes in God
Survey: Most doctors believe in God, afterlife

Just think - if you go to see a doctor for depression, there is a good chance he or she will believe in God.

Fourth, ignorance in this case isn't bliss, it is misery. Those who know God had better clinical outcomes.

A couple of things wrong with that interpretation. First, all of the subjects in the study apparently received treatment, the independent variable was belief in God. So, there isn't really any placebo in the study. Second, the placebo effect has been studied with an interesting result:

Is the placebo powerless? An analysis of clinical trials comparing placebo with no treatment

CONCLUSIONS:
We found little evidence in general that placebos had powerful clinical effects. Although placebos had no significant effects on objective or binary outcomes, they had possible small benefits in studies with continuous subjective outcomes and for the treatment of pain. Outside the setting of clinical trials, there is no justification for the use of placebos.

A couple of things wrong with that interpretation. First, all of the subjects in the study apparently received treatment, the independent variable was belief in God. So, there isn't really any placebo in the study. Second, the placebo effect has been studied with an interesting result:

Is the placebo powerless? An analysis of clinical trials comparing placebo with no treatment

CONCLUSIONS:
We found little evidence in general that placebos had powerful clinical effects. Although placebos had no significant effects on objective or binary outcomes, they had possible small benefits in studies with continuous subjective outcomes and for the treatment of pain. Outside the setting of clinical trials, there is no justification for the use of placebos.

90%+ of GMO food is either herbicide resistant or produces its own insecticide.

First off, all plants produce their own insecticides. Chemical defenses are how they evolved to compensate for not being able to swat at the things that want to eat them. So, if you are going to argue against doing GE like that, you are unknowingly arguing against the conventional breeding that alters those internal biocides to produce resistant varieties. That is very silly. And, especially in developing countries where they do not have access to pesticides, producing more food is exactly what it has done. Also, it has made better food. Less pest damage=less fungal infection-less mycotoxins.

Second, there is a reason why there is herbicide resistant crops. Weeds are bad, weed control is expensive and environmental damaging (read up on the tillage that GE crops have helped replace). I understand the ill will but it is misplaced.

It's focus is not producing more or better food.

Unfortunately, due to the massive over regulation, in the past only profitable GE crops were able to get through the regulatory hurdles, but the desire is there. Keep in mind that Golden Rice, which should be saving millions of lives, has been held up for so long not due to lack of interest by scientists or by companies but thanks to pro-starvation groups like Greenpeace. Or consider the Enviropig...it would have had benefit only to the environment, so the project was canceled because of anti-GE sentiment (which I guess was more important than the environment). If we want to see this technology be used to its fullest we need to ignore those who oppose religiously. There's plenty of good ones out there, they just can't be legally used.

This is quite specific to liver transplants in the United States. Here most patients who die while awaiting a liver transplant have had an offer of a donor liver. 55% of patients who die have had the offer of a high-quality donor liver.

Increasing supply will always be a good thing, but there are huge issues to be addressed in making sure those on the US wait list for a liver transplant actually get a transplant from the available organ supply. It seems patients and doctors are turning down way too many good organs.

"Our data show that the current liver allocation system has provided one or more transplant opportunities to nearly all candidates before death/delisting. Therefore, simply increasing the availability of de-ceased donor livers or the number of offers may not substantially reduce wait-list mortality." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22841780

Got bored waiting, so took 10 seconds to refer to Google:
As can be seen from the graph below, schizophrenia definitely has a very significant genetic component.
Note that this link has references which lead to (drum roll....) peer reviewed studies! Some of you may want to view with caution.

Scientists aren’t certain about what causes ASD, but it’s likely that both genetics and environment play a role. Researchers have identified a number of genes associated with the disorder.
ASD == Autism Spectrum Disorder. This page is informational, but contains links to more info. Again, view with caution.

So, tell me again how there is no genetic link to these diseases and that you don't need to provide any proof to support that statement? I wasn't asking you to prove a negative, a reference citing that no genetic link had ever been found, maybe that X other causal factors were, would support your point. It seems that the exact opposite of your unsupported claim is what is generally accepted. Or are you going to tell me that NIH has it completely wrong?

She have already too much problems with money and want that have problems with alcohol now?

But the best solution would be going that road if the apps runs under wine, or there are already open source programs (EyePACS?) that do most if not all of what she needs.

Have you seen this or this? Those are actually fairly well-defined at least, but they read like something that was supposed to be punched into cards.

What was meant was, IF there is a gun in the house for "self defense" and you die because of gun violence, 98% of the time it will be the occupant that will die because they have a gun in the house in the first place. But I guess I was wrong, but serving life for illegal shooting is kind of like killing yourself anyway.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182

10/626 => 1.45% of shootings were self-defense/justifiable and were civilians (not police officers).

RESULTS:

During the study interval (12 months in Memphis, 18 months in Seattle, and Galveston) 626 shootings occurred in or around a residence. This total included 54 unintentional shootings, 118 attempted or completed suicides, and 438 assaults/homicides. Thirteen shootings were legally justifiable or an act of self-defense, including three that involved law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty. For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.

CONCLUSIONS:

Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

It would seem that this is not an entirely new discovery - paper from 2011 here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170546/

The risk for teenagers comes from attempts to use magnets to simulate piercings.

See "Magnet Ingestions in Children Presenting to United States Emergency Departments from 2002 to 2011." "A national estimate of 16,386 (95% CI: 12,175-20,598) children The incidence of visits increased 8.5-fold (0.45 per 100,000 to 3.75 per 100,000) from 2002 to 2011 with a 75% average annual increase per year. The majority of patients reported to have ingested magnets were under 5 years (54.7%). From 2009-2011 there was an increase in older children ingesting multiple small and/or round magnets, with a mean average age of 7.1+-0.56 years over the study period. "

Prayer helps. Couldn't hurt.

Actually, it can.

it was canned or smoked or candied, NEVER a single chemical preservative.

Smoked and candied foods are chemically preserved. You just don't recognize the preservatives as "chemical". In addition, the wood smoking process which preserves food uses cancer-causing chemicals including benzene.

I guess the difference is that your grandparents' benzene came "straight from the land". Heh.

Never confuse lucky genetics with a lack of "chemicals".

God dammit! I didn't include a source for the quote! How embarassing.

There is no such thing as a 'kuru strain' of the CJD prion.

The origin of the prion agent of kuru: molecular and biological strain typing

Kuru is an acquired human prion disease that primarily affected the Fore linguistic group of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The central clinical feature of kuru is progressive cerebellar ataxia and, in sharp contrast to most cases of sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), dementia is a less prominent and usually late clinical feature. In this regard, kuru is more similar to variant CJD, which also has similar prodromal symptoms of sensory disturbance and joint pains in the legs and psychiatric and behavioural changes. Since a significant part of the clinicopathological diversity seen in human prion disease is likely to relate to the propagation of distinct human prion strains, we have compared the transmission properties of kuru prions with those isolated from patients with sporadic, iatrogenic and variant CJD in both transgenic and wild-type mice. These data have established that kuru prions have prion strain properties equivalent to those of classical (sporadic and iatrogenic) CJD prions but distinct from variant CJD prions. Here, we review these findings and discuss how peripheral routes of infection and other factors may be critical modifiers of the kuru phenotype.

That's just the first hit when you Google "kuru strain".

Actually, you're not even allowed to joke about that.

By and large, the U.S. power grid is in a very good position to support the adoption of electric vehicles while still reducing emissions. This can not be said about some places, such as India and China, whose power plants are more dirty than gasoline cars.

You wanted to see an epidemiological study for humans that shows a link between cell phone radiation and cancer.

Here you go:

Hardell L, Carlberg M, Hansson Mild K.
Pooled analysis of case-control studies on malignant brain tumours and the use of mobile and cordless phones including living and deceased subjects.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21331446

So much amazing stuff going on in medicine atm, I wouldn't be surprised if a cure wasn't that far off. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1559800/