#WTFis Plumpy'nut, the Life-Saving Peanut Butter? | Greatist

Greatist?s #WTFis series looks at new trends in health and fitness to explain what the heck they are, why people care, and if they live up to the hype.

At Greatist HQ we?re all peanut butter fiends, slathering the stuff on fruit, bread, and yogurt. So we were excited to learn about Plumpy?nut, a nutritional product not so far from our beloved PB. It?s been used since 2009 to combat severe malnutrition in children across the world. What exactly is this Plumpy?nut stuff? And why did Anderson Cooper compare it to penicillin?

The Lowdown

In the late 1990s, humanitarians and scientists alike were frustrated and befuddled by the problem of malnutrition, which affected hundreds of millions of children every year. The conventional treatment for severe malnutrition since the 1960s ? a slow remedy of nutrient-rich intravenous fluids ? was pricey and inconvenient, given that it had to happen within a hospital or clinic.

Looking for an at-home solution to severe malnourishment, the humanitarian organization Action Against Hunger invented a nutritionally-dense milk supplement called F-100 in 1994^[]. F-100 proved useful in combating hunger, but it had to be mixed with water, which can be contaminated by bacteria in developing countries. It also tasted awful.

Inspired by a jar of Nutella (who says chocolate breakfast spread can?t save the world?), French pediatrician Andr? Briand invented a paste that combines F-100 with peanuts, sugar, oil, and milk.? The 500-calorie packets are rich in nutritional all-stars like vitamins and minerals, fat, and protein.

What?s the Deal? Is it Legit?

Plumpy?nut is a ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), which means that it can be safely administered at home by anyone, not just by a doctor or nurse in a hospital. The paste is shelf-stable for 24 months, does not need to be refrigerated, and requires no special equipment.

Plumpy?nut is more effective than both traditional IV treatments and F-100 in promoting weight gain in children^[].?Two or three 92g packets a day of the sweet stuff can bring a severely underweight child to a healthy weight range in three to six weeks. In some regions, Plumpy?nut treatments boast a 90 percent?success rate. The paste has been embraced wholeheartedly by humanitarian organizations like UNICEF, WHO, and the World Food Programme (WFP), which buy thousands of tons of Plumpy?nut each year.?

The Buzz ? Why Do People Care Now?

According to the United Nations, up to 925 million people in the world face hunger every day, most of them in developing nations. In 2008, one third of worldwide child deaths were due to malnutrition and its side effects. Although hunger statistics in recent years are much lower than they were in the past, starvation is still a huge problem worldwide. Currently, nearly 20 million children are severely malnourished, between one and two million of which receive RUTFs like Plumpy?nut. The war against hunger is clearly nowhere near over, but making emergency malnutrition treatments more affordable and available is an important step in the process.

The Verdict

Plumpy?nut has been called a ?magic bullet? cure for malnutrition, but it?s not perfect. At $60, a 2-month dosage of the nutritional paste is much pricier than the Skippy All-Natural PB we snack on every day. This is partly due to the cost of the fortified ingredients, but also because the company that produces Plumpy?nut, Nutriset, is a for-profit enterprise that fiercely protects its patents. After a legal kerfuffle a few years ago, look-alike pastes like Medika mamba and Nourimanba have popped up due to relaxed patent laws. The product is clearly designed for emergency hunger relief, but critics worry Plumpy?nut will replace a regular diet?and?breastfeeding for children in developing countries. Despite these qualms, there can be no question that Plumpy?nut is helping malnourished children and helping cure extreme hunger around the world.

Do you think Plumpy?nut can end world hunger? Not convinced? Tell us about it in the comments below or tweet Sophia @SophBreene.

Photos:?? Micha?l Zumstein / Agence Vu

Source: http://greatist.com/health/what-is-plumpynut-paste-101112/

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Shale gas and oil revolution reshaping world economy and politics ...

This situation, if it comes to pass (and this is still a big ?if?, as the prospects for shale development are far from clear), will inevitably be a serious issue for Russia, which is a leading supplier of energy resources to the world market. Moscow will surely need to adjust its internal and external policies.

Ten years ago, it was impossible to imagine that the United States would become a major producer of natural gas and overtake Russia for first place in volume of production. Now, it is a fact. Many countries have begun to develop shale gas, including Poland, Ukraine, Australia, the UK and China. According to media reports, by 2032 the United Kingdom will be able to meet a quarter of its needs with this type of fuel.

New technologies have been developed that make it feasible to extract shale oil in many countries. For example, according to available information, Japan is betting on it. Japan Petroleum Exploration Company has managed to extract liquid shale oil, which may solve the country?s acute power shortage, exacerbated by Tokyo?s decision to abandon nuclear energy in the future.

The shale revolution, if it happens, will inevitably have a major impact on international relations. Imagine a purely theoretical scenario: the USA, Western Europe and China stop importing oil and gas, or at least dramatically reduce imports. It is safe to say that the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf would be among the biggest losers in such a scenario. Demand for their products would plummet, and they would have to significantly scale back their geopolitical ambitions.

The United States would become less interested in Central Asia, and pipeline projects bypassing Russia would likely come to a halt. The future of Caspian Sea development would be in question. Perhaps, instead of trying to gain access to foreign energy reserves, Washington would focus its efforts on other areas, such as restoring its position in the Western Hemisphere (i.e. Latin America), which has weakened in recent years.

China, which is also planning to start domestic production of shale gas and oil, would very likely lose interest in Central Asia. Chinese expansion into Africa would also peter out, and Beijing?s dependence on oil supplies from the Persian Gulf would diminish.

At first glance, if shale technology lives up to the hype, Russia would appear to be in the camp of losers. This, however, is not quite true. First, the country has a more diverse economy than, say, Saudi Arabia. It is of course heavily dependent on oil and gas revenues, but a fall in the latter would provide a further powerful stimulus to economic diversification.

It should be emphasized that the above scenario is only hypothetical and may remain so. It will be at least seven to tenyears before we understand the real impact of shale on international relations, and it may take even longer. Nonetheless, it is better to start thinking about it today.

Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_10_05/Shale-gas-and-oil-revolution-reshaping-world-economy-and-politics/

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Psychology Receives Challenge to Clean Up Its Act

Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman wants the field to restore its credibility with open data and by having multiple labs repeat experiments to make sure that results are robust

By Ed Yong

Image: flickr/inkynobaka

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  Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...

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By Ed Yong of Nature magazine

Nobel prize-winner Daniel Kahneman has issued a strongly worded call to one group of psychologists to restore the credibility of their field by creating a replication ring to check each others? results.

Kahneman, a psychologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, addressed his open e-mail to researchers who work on social priming, the study of how subtle cues can unconsciously influence our thoughts or behavior. For example, volunteers might walk more slowly down a corridor after seeing words related to old age, or fare better in general-knowledge tests after writing down the attributes of a typical professor.

Such tests are widely used in psychology, and Kahneman counts himself as a ?general believer? in priming effects. But in his e-mail, seen by Nature, he writes that there is a ?train wreck looming? for the field, due to a ?storm of doubt? about the robustness of priming results.

Under fire
This skepticism has been fed by failed attempts to replicate classic priming studies, increasing concerns about replicability in psychology more broadly (see 'Bad Copy'), and the exposure of fraudulent social psychologists such as Diederik Stapel, Dirk Smeesters and Lawrence Sanna, who used priming techniques in their work.

?For all these reasons, right or wrong, your field is now the poster child for doubts about the integrity of psychological research,? Kahneman writes. ?I believe that you should collectively do something about this mess.?

Kahneman?s chief concern is that graduate students who have conducted priming research may find it difficult to get jobs after being associated with a field that is being visibly questioned.

?Kahneman is a hard man to ignore. I suspect that everybody who got a message from him read it immediately,? says Brian Nosek, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

David Funder, at the University of California, Riverside, and president-elect of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, worries that the debate about priming has descended into angry defensiveness rather than a scientific discussion about data. ?I think the e-mail hits exactly the right tone,? he says. ?If this doesn?t work, I don?t know what will.?

Hal Pashler, a cognitive psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, says that several groups, including his own, have already tried to replicate well-known social-priming findings, but have not been able to reproduce any of the effects. ?These are quite simple experiments and the replication attempts are well powered, so it is all very puzzling. The field needs to get to the bottom of this, and the quicker the better.?

Chain of replication
To address this problem, Kahneman recommends that established social psychologists set up a ?daisy chain? of replications. Each lab would try to repeat a priming effect demonstrated by its neighbor, supervised by someone from the replicated lab. Both parties would record every detail of the methods, commit beforehand to publish the results, and make all data openly available.

Kahneman thinks that such collaborations are necessary because priming effects are subtle, and could be undermined by small experimental changes.

Norbert Schwarz, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who received the e-mail, says that priming studies attract skeptical attention because their results are often surprising, not necessarily because they are scientifically flawed. ?There is no empirical evidence that work in this area is more or less replicable than work in other areas,? he says, although the ?iconic status? of individual findings has distracted from a larger body of supportive evidence.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=f763e420ebc09c05527b53214959af40

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Retailers report slower sales growth in Sept

In this Monday, Sept. 10, 2012, photo, shoppers leave a store in Salem, N.H. Americans may have slowed their spending in September after splurging in the month before during the busy back-to-school shopping season. But most importantly, they are still spending. Still, given the economic and political uncertainty that weighs on many Americans right now, analysts say the results are an encouraging sign for stores as they head into what's traditionally the busiest shopping period of the year in November and December. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

In this Monday, Sept. 10, 2012, photo, shoppers leave a store in Salem, N.H. Americans may have slowed their spending in September after splurging in the month before during the busy back-to-school shopping season. But most importantly, they are still spending. Still, given the economic and political uncertainty that weighs on many Americans right now, analysts say the results are an encouraging sign for stores as they head into what's traditionally the busiest shopping period of the year in November and December. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Americans may have slowed their spending in September after splurging during the start of the busy back-to-school shopping season in the month before. But most importantly, they were still spending.

September sales rose 3.9 percent ? a slowdown from the 6-percent rise in August ? as 22 retailers like Macy's and Costco reported mixed results, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. Still, given the economic and political uncertainty that weighs on many Americans right now, analysts say the results are an encouraging sign for stores as they head into what's traditionally the busiest shopping period of the year in November and December.

"This should set up to be a good holiday season," said Ken Perkins, president of Retail Metrics LLC, a research firm.

Retailers' monthly sales figures are based on revenue at stores opened at least a year. That measure, which is considered to be an indicator of a retailer's health because it excludes results from stores recently opened or closed, offers insights into how Americans are spending during the slow economic recovery.

But only a handful of merchants representing about 13 percent of the $2.4 trillion U.S. retail industry report monthly revenue. And that list is dwindling: Target Corp. on Thursday said that it will no longer report monthly figures starting next year.

Target was among those retailers reporting results that fell short of analyst expectations. The discounter said its sales gain of 2.1 percent was slightly below analysts' expectations as shoppers picked up back-to-school items and groceries. Department-store chain Macy's also posted a 2.5 percent increase last month that was below the gain of 3.3 percent analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected. Meanwhile, Costco Wholesale's 5.7 percent gain put it among the merchants that posted results that beat Wall Street estimates.

September's results offer hope for retailers as they head into the winter holiday shopping season, a two-month period in which they can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue. It's the latest sign that consumers are feeling a little better about the economy. That's important because consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.

Right now, confidence is at a seven-month high as people are feeling better about rising home prices and a rebounding stock market. Still job growth remains weak and prices for everything from food to gas are higher. On top of that, there's a worry that the U.S. economy will fall into another recession next year. That's when tax increases and deep government spending cuts will take effect unless Congress reaches a budget deal.

"If (Congress) can get their act together, it will be good for the consumer's psyche," said Michael P. Niemira, chief economist at International Council of Shopping Centers, an industry trade group. "If they don't, I think you could see problems. It could affect high-end spenders and the general confidence on the economy."

Mary Mastenbrook, a 58-year-old who lives in Schaumberg, Ill., says she will be closely watching how the budget battle plays out. She bought a flat-screen TV last month at Abt Electronics, but she's not sure how much she will be spending for the winter holidays.

"If things are not clear, we are going to temper what we're going to spend," a homemaker whose husband is a defense contractor. "You can't spend a lot if you don't know whether your job is secure."

Because of economic and political uncertainty, The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, has tempered its expectations for the winter holidays. The group said this week that it expects sales for the November and December period to rise 4.1 percent.

That's more than a percentage point lower than the growth in each of the past years and the smallest increase since 2009 when sales were up just 0.3 percent. But the forecast still is higher than the 3.5 percent average over the past 10 years.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-10-04-Retail%20Sales/id-912a85dddbd54841a63f31936b86816a

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New Study Links Caffeinated Coffee To Vision Loss

For 80k women, there were a total 360 cases (.45%).

The increase was higher for women in families who already had a history of glaucoma.

The link was specific to caffeinated coffee and wasn't found for other products (Tea, Chocolate, decaffeinated coffee)

There was a tiny statistically significant increase compared to abstainers.

I.e. take those 360 cases, and say there were 160 cases among abstainers and 200 cases among caffeinated coffee drinkers. So the actual increased number of cases due to drinking caffeinated coffee in the population of 80k women may have been something like.05%. This is a rough swag. The actual increase was:
"increased risk of EG/EGS (RR = 1.66; 95% CI, 1.09?"2.54; P trend = 0.02)"

So give up a lifetime of drinking coffee, the other benefits of drinking coffee in return for reducing your risk of Glaucoma very very slightly.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/l1zGPuDJ3q0/new-study-links-caffeinated-coffee-to-vision-loss

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Smile (talking-points-memo)

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Denver debate: Romney took control (Michellemalkin)

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