Men with high blood levels of lycopene ? the compound that makes tomatoes red ? are about half as likely to have a stroke as those low on lycopene, researchers in Finland report October 9 in Neurology.
Some evidence suggests that lycopene quells inflammation, limits cholesterol production and inhibits blood clotting. But first and foremost, lycopene is a carotenoid, an antioxidant that sops up unstable molecules in the body called free radicals ?agents that can induce DNA damage, kill cells, attack proteins and contribute to blood vessel disease.
Lycopene?s direct effect on stroke risk is less clear. Studies have found that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, meaning plenty of carotenoids, seems to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. But few studies have analyzed lycopene?s effect specifically on stroke risk over time, the researchers note.
Jouni Karppi and colleagues at the University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio used blood tests to determine the lycopene levels of 1,031 men ages 46 to 65. Afterward, the men were monitored for a median of 12 years. The researchers tallied 67 strokes in the men over that span. Men with the lowest lycopene levels at the outset were more than twice as likely to have a stroke later as were those with the highest.
?This is a very good study, and I?m really surprised they were able to find this relationship with only 67 strokes,? says Lyn Steffen, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota.
The researchers also accounted for differences between the men such as smoking, body mass, blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, diabetes and any history of stroke.
It?s not certain that the effect apparent in this study arises solely from lycopene. Tomatoes are loaded with it, but they have many other useful ingredients as well, says John Erdman, a nutritionist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. So high lycopene levels in the blood may suggest high tomato consumption, and therefore high levels of those other components, he says, such as polyphenols, folic acid, and vitamins C and E. Polyphenols are potent antioxidants that show up in red and purple fruits, chocolate, coffee, red wine and vegetables.
?There hasn?t been a heck of a lot of lycopene/tomato research in stroke,? Erdman says. ?It?s encouraging that they?ve got these results.? Lycopene also appears in guava, papaya, pink grapefruit, red peppers, rose hips and watermelon.
Steffen says high lycopene levels might also flag people who have a healthy diet, ingesting lots of fruits, veggies and whole grains at the expense of red meats and processed grains. ?In Finland they have this rye bread that?s really wonderful as a whole grain. So the risk of stroke is lower not just because of lycopene but also from the background diet.?
A.E. Hak et al. Prospective study of plasma carotenoids and tocopherols in relation to risk of ischemic stroke. Stroke, Vol. 35, July 2004, p. 1584. doi: 10.1161/01.STR.0000132197.67350.bd. [Go to]
Y. Ito et al. Cardiovascular disease mortality and serum carotenoid levels: a Japanese population-based follow-up study. Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 16, July 2006, p. 154. doi: 10.2188/jea.16.154. [Go to]
P. Palozza et al. Tomato lycopene and inflammatory cascade: Basic interactions and clinical implications. Current Medicinal Chemistry, Vol. 17, August 2010, p. 2547. doi: 10.2174/092986710791556041. [Go to]
Increasing your income through utilizing the internet is possible with Webcamp. Webcamp will be opening the gates for you to learn how to make more money online. Webcamp 2012 is an internet business super conference to be helad at Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City on November 28.
Head straight to the venue at 5:30 pm and start learning how to grow your online business. Technopreneurs are not the only one invited to join this great money-making event. Even if you have a day job, be it a teacher, a lawyer, a secretary, an accountant, or a photographer, you are very much welcome to attend this Webcamp.
This is a very promising seminar because you will hear great stuff from Webcamp?s successful speakers. One of the speakers is Jorge ?Jojy? Azurin, the #1 expert on membership sites who earned six figures in USD on his executive book summary service and sold it to one of the biggest content publishers in the world. During the Webcamp, he will share his insights on How to Create Your Lean, Mean, Money-Making Online Machine. Another great speaker is Ian del Carmen, a former TV scriptwriter of ABS-CBN. He is also the #1 internet marketer in the Philippines who made a lot of money selling e-books and other digital products and now runs an internet marketing empire catering to over 70,000 clients worldwide. He will be teaching you on How to Build Your Own Internet Marketing Empire.
Grab also this opportunity to hear tips from Eireen Diokno-Bernardo, the #1 e-commerce specialist in the country who is an eBay Power Seller endorsed by eBay, PayPal, and UnionBank and who has trained thousands of budding online entrepreneurs. She will teach you how to Run your Own Global E-Commerce Business. Our last speaker is Chris Ducker, the #1 virtual outsourcing service provider in the Philippines offering virtual assistance and call center services to the world and a fast rising blogger in the international scene. He will teach you how to Become your Own Virtual CEO.
Just prepare a fee of 995 pesos. This is nothing compared to what you will learn at the Webcamp. Your 995 pesos can be worth a lot of money in the near future when you participate in this event. This is really inspiring. Who doesn?t want to earn more money? Start saving your buck each day so that you won?t miss out this great event. Get paid even when you sleep.
WebGeek is amongst the official media for the Webcamp 2012
Featuring bravura set pieces, sly humor, and white-knuckle action, Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the most consummately entertaining adventure pictures of all time.
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Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is no ordinary archeologist. When we first see him, he is somewhere in the Peruvian jungle in 1936, running a booby-trapped gauntlet (complete with an over-sized rolling boulder) to fetch a solid-gold idol. He loses this artifact to his chief rival, a French archeologist named Belloq (Paul Freeman), who then prepares to kill our hero. In the first of many serial-like escapes, Indy eludes Belloq by hopping into a convenient plane. So, then: is Indiana Jones afraid of anything? Yes, snakes. The next time we see Jones, he's a soft-spoken, bespectacled professor. He is then summoned from his ivy-covered environs by Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) to find the long-lost Ark of the Covenant. The Nazis, it seems, are already searching for the Ark, which the mystical-minded Hitler hopes to use to make his stormtroopers invincible. But to find the Ark, Indy must first secure a medallion kept under the protection of Indy's old friend Abner Ravenwood, whose daughter, Marion (Karen Allen), evidently has a "history" with Jones. Whatever their personal differences, Indy and Marion become partners in one action-packed adventure after another, ranging from wandering the snake pits of the Well of Souls to surviving the pyrotechnic unearthing of the sacred Ark. A joint project of Hollywood prodigies George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, with a script co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman, among others, Raiders of the Lost Ark is not so much a movie as a 115-minute thrill ride. Costing 22 million dollars (nearly three times the original estimate), Raiders of the Lost Ark reaped 200 million dollars during its first run. It was followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1985) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), as well as a short-lived TV-series "prequel." ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
It's finally time for Rex to get his party on. The lovable "Toy Story" dinosaur has been a staple of the Pixar franchise and many of its spinoff short films, but never in a role like this. A new short, titled "Partysaurus Rex," has been released online by Disney after it premiered in front of [...]
Sitting on top of the worldPublic release date: 10-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dr. James Liebherr JKL5@cornell.edu 607-255-4507 Pensoft Publishers
Mountain marvels of French Polynesia
Do you have it in mind to go to a mountain top and study beetles that nobody else has ever seen? Well, there are two fewer such mountains available now that beetle species discovered on Mont Tohiea and Mont Mauru in the Society Islands have been named. James Liebherr, Curator of the Cornell University Insect Collection, has just described 14 species of predatory carabid beetle, also called ground beetles, as part of a U.S. National Science Foundation team that surveyed the insects and spiders of French Polynesia.
Liebherr described the species in two papers published in the on-line journal, ZooKeys, taking advantage of the recent changes to rules that now allow electronic publication of names for newly described animal species.
The new beetles are members of the genus Mecyclothorax, a group that seems to have found a home in remote Pacific Islands. The Society Islands have about 100 species, and the Hawaiian Islands support well over 200 species. Conversely, the Australian continent, where all this evolution presumably started, is home to a mere 25 species. Like the flightless Dodos of Mauritius, all the Pacific Island beetles are flightless, whereas many of the Australian species can fly.
Liebherr's discoveries of the seven new species on Moorea's Mont Tohiea expands the known distribution of the genus in the Society Islands from Tahiti to the island of Moorea, mirroring the distribution of related beetles in Hawaii, where members of the genus are recorded from Oahu to Hawaii Island. In Tahiti and Moorea these beetles are very rarely recorded below 1000 m elevation, so the new species have very limited geographic distributions. "When we travel to a new mountain we find only new species. It's like moving to a different continent as far as these beetles are concerned" says Liebherr. Being able to identify these small areas of endemism is essential for justifying conservation programs that can maintain biodiversity.
The new species take their place in the Tahitian fauna next to 67 species revised by the late Dr. Georges Perrault, whose collection of Tahitian beetles is housed at the Natural History Museum in Paris. "Georges Perrault made this study possible through his valuable work describing the Tahitian beetle fauna. If he hadn't completed his work, we would not have been able to gain the support needed to expand upon his studies of this remarkable fauna" states Liebherr. These new species are not the end of biodiversity discovery for these beetles and their relatives.
Liebherr is working in the lab to name more collected from other mountains, and many more no doubt occur on unexplored peaks. Conservation programs in French Polynesia will be busy for a long time documenting these hidden gems of the Pacific.
###
Original sources:
Liebherr J (2012) The first precinctive Carabidae from Moorea, Society Islands: new Mecyclothorax spp. (Coleoptera) from the summit of Mont Tohiea. ZooKeys 224: 37-80. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.224.3675
Liebherr J (2012) New Mecyclothorax spp. (Coleoptera, Carabidae, Moriomorphini) define Mont Mauru, eastern Tahiti Nui, as a distinct area of endemism. ZooKeys 227: 63-99. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.227.3797
About ZooKeys
ZooKeys is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal launched to support free exchange of ideas and information in biodiversity science, issued by Pensoft Publishers. All papers published in ZooKeys can be freely copied, downloaded, printed and distributed at no charge for the reader. ZooKeys implemented several cutting-edge innovation in publishing and dissemination of science information and is considered a technological leader in its field.
Additional Information
National Science Foundation DEB-0451971; Biotic Surveys and Inventory: Arthropods of French Polynesia (R. G. Gillespie, PI)
Richard B. Gump South Pacific Field Station http://moorea.berkeley.edu/
Posted by Pensoft Publishers.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Sitting on top of the worldPublic release date: 10-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Dr. James Liebherr JKL5@cornell.edu 607-255-4507 Pensoft Publishers
Mountain marvels of French Polynesia
Do you have it in mind to go to a mountain top and study beetles that nobody else has ever seen? Well, there are two fewer such mountains available now that beetle species discovered on Mont Tohiea and Mont Mauru in the Society Islands have been named. James Liebherr, Curator of the Cornell University Insect Collection, has just described 14 species of predatory carabid beetle, also called ground beetles, as part of a U.S. National Science Foundation team that surveyed the insects and spiders of French Polynesia.
Liebherr described the species in two papers published in the on-line journal, ZooKeys, taking advantage of the recent changes to rules that now allow electronic publication of names for newly described animal species.
The new beetles are members of the genus Mecyclothorax, a group that seems to have found a home in remote Pacific Islands. The Society Islands have about 100 species, and the Hawaiian Islands support well over 200 species. Conversely, the Australian continent, where all this evolution presumably started, is home to a mere 25 species. Like the flightless Dodos of Mauritius, all the Pacific Island beetles are flightless, whereas many of the Australian species can fly.
Liebherr's discoveries of the seven new species on Moorea's Mont Tohiea expands the known distribution of the genus in the Society Islands from Tahiti to the island of Moorea, mirroring the distribution of related beetles in Hawaii, where members of the genus are recorded from Oahu to Hawaii Island. In Tahiti and Moorea these beetles are very rarely recorded below 1000 m elevation, so the new species have very limited geographic distributions. "When we travel to a new mountain we find only new species. It's like moving to a different continent as far as these beetles are concerned" says Liebherr. Being able to identify these small areas of endemism is essential for justifying conservation programs that can maintain biodiversity.
The new species take their place in the Tahitian fauna next to 67 species revised by the late Dr. Georges Perrault, whose collection of Tahitian beetles is housed at the Natural History Museum in Paris. "Georges Perrault made this study possible through his valuable work describing the Tahitian beetle fauna. If he hadn't completed his work, we would not have been able to gain the support needed to expand upon his studies of this remarkable fauna" states Liebherr. These new species are not the end of biodiversity discovery for these beetles and their relatives.
Liebherr is working in the lab to name more collected from other mountains, and many more no doubt occur on unexplored peaks. Conservation programs in French Polynesia will be busy for a long time documenting these hidden gems of the Pacific.
###
Original sources:
Liebherr J (2012) The first precinctive Carabidae from Moorea, Society Islands: new Mecyclothorax spp. (Coleoptera) from the summit of Mont Tohiea. ZooKeys 224: 37-80. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.224.3675
Liebherr J (2012) New Mecyclothorax spp. (Coleoptera, Carabidae, Moriomorphini) define Mont Mauru, eastern Tahiti Nui, as a distinct area of endemism. ZooKeys 227: 63-99. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.227.3797
About ZooKeys
ZooKeys is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal launched to support free exchange of ideas and information in biodiversity science, issued by Pensoft Publishers. All papers published in ZooKeys can be freely copied, downloaded, printed and distributed at no charge for the reader. ZooKeys implemented several cutting-edge innovation in publishing and dissemination of science information and is considered a technological leader in its field.
Additional Information
National Science Foundation DEB-0451971; Biotic Surveys and Inventory: Arthropods of French Polynesia (R. G. Gillespie, PI)
Richard B. Gump South Pacific Field Station http://moorea.berkeley.edu/
Posted by Pensoft Publishers.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Back when Lenovo formally announced the ThinkPad Tablet 2, it shared almost everything there was to know about its new Windows 8 slate: specs, an approximate shipping date and details on the optional accessories. The one thing Lenovo didn't reveal? The price. Well, you can rest easy now because the company just announced the tablet will start at $649, making it slightly more expensive than other Atom-powered slates running Windows 8. (To be fair, it does offer NFC and pen input, so perhaps we can all agree to call it even.) As a quick refresher, other key specs include a 10.1-inch (1,366 x 768) IPS display, a 10-hour battery, dual 2MP / 8MP cameras and optional 3G / 4G connectivity, with AT&T's LTE network being the spectrum of choice in the US. You'll also be able to buy it with an optional keyboard and a dock with three USB ports, HDMI-out and an Ethernet jack. That's all coming soon, so hopefully our full review won't be too far off either.
Grab also this opportunity to hear tips from Eireen Diokno-Bernardo, the #1 e-commerce specialist in the country who is an eBay Power Seller endorsed by eBay, PayPal, and UnionBank and who has trained thousands of budding online entrepreneurs. She will teach you how to Run your Own Global E-Commerce Business. Our last speaker is Chris Ducker, the #1 virtual outsourcing service provider in the Philippines offering virtual assistance and call center services to the world and a fast rising blogger in the international scene. He will teach you how to Become your Own Virtual CEO. 
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Public release date: 10-Oct-2012
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