Poor Mojo's Newswire

The researchers had come to believe that what damaged hearts was not just the thick edge of fat on steaks, or the delectable marbling of their tender interiors. In fact, these scientists suspected that saturated fat and cholesterol made only a minor contribution to the increased amount of heart disease seen in red-meat eaters. The real culprit, they proposed, was a little-studied chemical that is burped out by bacteria in the stomach after people eat red meat. It is quickly converted by the liver into yet another little-studied chemical called TMAO that gets into the blood and increases the risk of heart disease. That, at least, was the theory. So the question that morning was: Would a burst of TMAO show up in peoples’ blood after they ate steak? And would the same thing happen to a vegan who had not had meat for at least a year and who consumed the same meal? The answers were: yes, there was a TMAO burst in the five meat eaters and no, the vegan did not have it. And TMAO levels turned out to predict heart attack risk in humans, the researchers found. The researchers also found that TMAO actually caused heart disease in mice. Additional studies with 23 vegetarians and vegans and 51 meat eaters showed that meat eaters normally had more TMAO in their blood and that they, unlike those who spurned meat, readily made TMAO after swallowing pills with carnitine. “It’s really a beautiful combination of mouse studies and human studies to tell a story I find quite plausible,” said Dr. Daniel J. Rader, a heart disease researcher at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research.

Back in 1964, a pair of Australian scientists (Isabel Joy Bear and R. G. Thomas) began the scientific study of rain’s aroma in earnest with an article in Nature titled “Nature of Agrillaceous Odor.” In it, they coined the term petrichor to help explain the phenomenon, combining a pair of Greek roots: petra (stone) and ichor (the blood of gods in ancient myth). In that study and subsequent research, they determined that one of the main causes of this distinctive smell is a blend of oils secreted by some plants during arid periods. When a rainstorm comes after a drought, compounds from the oils—which accumulate over time in dry rocks and soil—are mixed and released into the air. The duo also observed that the oils inhibit seed germination, and speculated that plants produce them to limit competition for scarce water supplies during dry times. These airborne oils combine with other compounds to produce the smell. In moist, forested areas in particular, a common substance is geosmin, a chemical produced by a soil-dwelling bacteria known as actinomycetes. The bacteria secrete the compound when they produce spores, then the force of rain landing on the ground sends these spores up into the air, and the moist air conveys the chemical into our noses. “It’s a very pleasant aroma, sort of a musky smell,” soil specialist Bill Ypsilantis told NPR during an interview on the topic. “You’ll also smell that when you are in your garden and you’re turning over your soil.”

The Native Indians of Ohio called the area that is now northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan the "Great Black Swamp" -- a land of marshy wetlands. The early pioneers were able to dredge the land and turn it into the rich, productive region it is today. Corn and soybeans dominate in the region, and high prices for both commodities in recent years have encouraged farmers to keep sowing more rows, said Joe Logan, director of agricultural programs for the Ohio Environmental Council. "There is a compelling economic interest for farmers to maximize productivity," Logan said. Below the surface of the fields lie networks of perforated tubing, which pull excess water from the soil and send it to the lake, rich in phosphorus, Logan said. Before the 1970s, phosphorus runoff to Lake Erie's western basin was mostly due to municipal sewers and industry, said David Baker, who founded the National Center for Water Quality Research at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio, in 1969. By 1980, the phosphorus from agricultural runoff was almost twice the amount from municipal sources, he said. The patterns also changed. While municipal sources of pollution tend to be consistent throughout the year, agricultural runoff increases tremendously in the spring with the swelling of rivers and streams from the rain.