HEALTH AND SCIENCE HIGHLIGHTS

June 20, 2013 (San Diego's East County) -- Our Health and Science Highlights provide cutting edge news each week that could impact your health and our future.

• Possible Alzheimer's drug shows promise (U-T San Diego)
• How CT Scans Have Raised Kids' Risk For Future Cancer (NPR)
• NASA wants your help lassoing an asteroid (Christian Science Monitor)
•  True cost of Britain’s wind farm industry revealed (UK Telegraph)
• Is BPA making girls obese? (Mother Jones)
• In-car dashboard 'smart' technology is distracting, AAA warns (Christian Science Monitor)
• Surgery reduction hope on cancer (BBC)
• The LandFillharmonic (YouTube)

Scroll down for excerpts and links to full stories.

Possible Alzheimer's drug shows promise (U-T San Diego)

A possible Alzheimer's drug restores synapses, Sanford-Burnham researchers say.

How CT Scans Have Raised Kids' Risk For Future Cancer (NPR)

Children are getting too many CT scans, a study says, and that's boosting their risk of cancer later on. Parents can ask for alternatives like ultrasound and MRI or ask for CT scans that use less radiation.

NASA wants your help lassoing an asteroid (Christian Science Monitor)

NASA has issued The Asteroid Grand Challenge, an effort to solicit ideas for how to capture an asteroid and, later, send humans to asteroids. / On Tuesday, NASA announced an Asteroid Grand Challenge that solicits the public’s help in proposing asteroid-wrangling strategies for the agency’s Asteroid Initiative."NASA already is working to find asteroids that might be a threat to our planet, and while we have found 95 percent of the large asteroids near the Earth's orbit, we need to find all those that might be a threat to Earth," said NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, in a press release.

 True cost of Britain’s wind farm industry revealed (UK Telegraph)

Every job in Britain’s wind farm industry is effectively subsidised to the extent of £100,000 per year, The Telegraph can disclose.

Is BPA making girls obese? (Mother Jones)

A chemical common in food packaging—Bisphenol-A (BPA)—has for years been scrutinized for potential links to reproductive problems, heart disease, cancer, and even anxiety. And now new research suggests BPA, which leeches out from things like aluminum cans, drink straws, plastic packaging, and even cashier's receipts, could increase the risk for obesity in preteen girls.A Kaiser Permanente study, published this week in PLOS ONE, examined obesity and BPA levels in a group of Chinese school children. While most of the kids were not significantly effected by the chemical, 9-12 year-old girls with high BPA levels in their urine were found to be twice as likely to be obese than other girls their age. In girls with especially high levels (more than 10 micrograms per liter) the risk of obesity was five times as great.

In-car dashboard 'smart' technology is distracting, AAA warns (Christian Science Monitor)

'Hands-free' apparently isn't enough when it comes to today's automative dashboard technology. / In a study released today, the organization found that in-car smart technology regularly led to "suppressed brain activity, slowed reaction times, missed visual cues, and reduced visual scanning of the driving environment (think tunnel vision)."

Surgery reduction hope on cancer (BBC)

 

Some breast cancer sufferers could be treated with radiotherapy instead of more invasive surgery after a Europe-wide study involving Cardiff doctors.

The LandFillharmonic (YouTube)

Video about a town built on a landfill, where children have formed an orchestra using instruments made from recycled materials.