Raindrops and snowflakes don’t just form by accident. They usually grow on tiny ice crystals, and unless it is supercold, the crystals have to grow on even tinier particles called ice nucleators. Different particles like dust, soot and sulfate can be nucleators. Bacteria can do the job, too, particularly at temperatures closer to freezing (which is why some ski resorts add benign microbes to snowmaking water).

And even though we here in the San Fernando Valley don't get much of the white stuff, those of you from the lands of four seasons likely can remember sticking your tongue out as snow fell, or scooping up freshly fallen ice into your mitten covered hands....ahhhh.

More from the Associated Press:

Parents who warn their kids not to eat dirty snow (especially the yellow variety) are left wondering whether to stop them from tasting the new-fallen stuff, too, because of Pseudomonas syringae, bacteria that can cause diseases in bean and tomato plants.

The answer, of course, is moderation....licking a glove with ice crystals isn't too bad, experts say.

From the story:

The city closed the 80-acre park Feb. 14 after state toxic regulators warned of a positive test for lead at a former skeet range there.

An environmental consultant hired by the city found that one-third of the samples it took from the park two weeks ago contained lead at or exceeding health standards.

"If a child were to get that soil in their system, by putting it in their mouth ... it could have adverse health effects," said Paul Davis, environmental specialist for the Department of Recreation and Parks.

"Which means we need to take note and do something about it."

The consultant, California Environmental of Camarillo, found lead in 23 of 66 soil samples at or exceeding 150 milligrams per kilogram in 23 of 66 samples - the limit set by the California Environmental Protection Agency for residential and children's play areas.

The samples - taken from 4 inches to 1 foot deep on a grassy glade on the site of a former gun and skeet range up against the Santa Susana Mountains - tested positive for lead, Davis said.

From the story:

If you want to have lots of kids, look for a Barry White instead of a Justin Timberlake. Men with a deep voices have more offspring, a new study suggests. Previous studies conducted by David Feinberg of McMaster University in Canada have shown that women are more attracted to men with deeper voices, judging them to be older, healthier and more masculine than their higher-pitched rivals. Men, on the other hand, go for women with higher pitched voices because they find them more attractive, subordinate, feminine, healthier and younger-sounding. In the new study, detailed in a recent issue of the journal Biology Letters, Feinberg set out to see how that attraction to deeper-voiced men affected reproduction and the survival of offspring. "While we find in this new study that voice pitch is not related to offspring mortality rates," Feinberg said, "we find that men with low voice pitch have higher reproductive success and more children born to them."

From Reuters:

Steroids can help batters hit 50 percent more home runs by boosting their muscle mass by just 10 percent, a U.S. physicist said on Thursday.

Calculations show that, by putting on 10 percent more muscle mass, a batter can swing about 5 percent faster, increasing the ball's speed by 4 percent as it leaves the bat.

Depending on the ball's trajectory, this added speed could take it into home run territory 50 percent more often, said Roger Tobin of Tufts University in Boston.

"A 4 percent increase in ball speed, which can reasonably be expected from steroid use, can increase home run production by anywhere from 50 percent to 100 percent," said Tobin, whose study will be published in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Physics.

Tobin, who normally studies condensed matter and physics, wondered if professional baseball players who have recently been accused of boosting their performance with steroids really would benefit from using the drugs.

"If you look at other sports, you don't see radical changes in performance. No one is running a 6-second 100-meter dash, no matter what they are taking," Tobin said in a telephone interview

Lunchboxes distributed by the California Department of Public Health at health fairs are being recalled because they contain lead.

The lunch boxes, pictured here, say: "Eat Fruits & Vegetables and Be Active."
From the press release:

Dr. Mark Horton, director of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), today urged consumers to stop using lunch boxes, which have been distributed as CDPH nutrition educational items, after testing showed elevated levels of lead in three lunch boxes.

The canvas lunch boxes that showed elevated levels of lead were green with a logo reading EAT FRUITS & VEGETABLES AND BE ACTIVE. Approximately 56,000 of these lunch boxes have been distributed throughout California at health fairs and other events.

“CDPH will no longer use lunch boxes until such time as we are assured that every lunch box is safe. In addition to lunch boxes, we are assessing all of our health promotion items to ensure that they are safe,” Horton said. “We are urging Californians to not use these lunch boxes and keep them away from infants and young children

From the Associated Press analysis:

More than 200,000 pounds of codeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine were purchased at retail stores during 2005, the most recent year represented in the data. That is enough to give more than 300 milligrams of painkillers to every person in the country.

Oxycodone, the chemical used in OxyContin, is responsible for most of the increase. Oxycodone use jumped nearly six-fold between 1997 and 2005. The drug gained notoriety as "hillbilly heroin," often bought and sold illegally in Appalachia. But its highest rates of sale now occur in places such as suburban St. Louis and Fort Lauderdale.

Here's the story from Reuters:

Healthy subjects who received daily caffeine-free green tea extract capsules had an increased production of detoxification enzymes, which may provide some cancer-fighting benefits, study findings show.

"Concentrated green tea extract could be beneficial to those who are deficient in the detoxification enzyme and shouldn't be harmful for those who have adequate detoxification enzyme," lead investigator Dr. H.-H. Sherry Chow, of the University of Arizona, Tucson, told Reuters Health.

Genetic and environmental factors cause people to have varying levels of glutathione S-transferase (GST) enzymes. These enzymes may play a crucial role in helping the body defend against toxic and cancer-causing compounds, note Chow and colleagues.

Previous laboratory and animal studies found that green tea compounds, antioxidants called "catechins," activate these GST enzymes. Therefore, Chow's team investigated the effect that concentrated compounds from green tea would have on GST enzymes levels in 42 healthy adults.

Their findings are published in the medical journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

For 4 weeks prior to the study, the non-smoking volunteers refrained from drinking green tea, taking supplements, or eating foods known to contain epigallocatechin gallate, a potential cancer-fighting antioxidant.

Over the next 4 weeks the volunteers took four capsules, each containing 200 mg of epigallocatechin gallate, every morning prior to eating. This provided the equivalent amount of epigallocatechin gallate obtained from drinking 8 to 16 cups of green tea daily, Chow said.

The researchers found that the detoxifying GST enzymes increased by 80 percent in the study participants with the lowest GST levels at the start of the study. Participants with medium or high GST levels had either no increase or a slight increase in GST levels.

The capsules used in this study were specifically made for clinical trial use. Chow cautions that commercially available green tea extracts are not required to meet the same strict concentration and purity standards.

Chow adds, "More clinical testing is underway to confirm the cancer preventive activities of green tea or green tea extract."

The virus, which is similar to those that respiratory and eye infections, caused animals to gain weight, researchers told Reuters:

"We're not talking about preventing all types of obesity, but if it is caused by this virus in humans, we want a vaccine to prevent this," said Nikhil Dhurandhar, an associate professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University System.

Dhurandhar also has shown that obese people were three times more likely to have been infected with Ad-36 than thin people in a large study of humans, according to Reuters.

Now a new study pinpoints several risk factors for developing deadly encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) caused by mosquito-borne West Nile virus infection, according to Reuters today.

Older adults with a history of heart and vascular disease and those with high blood pressure seem to be the ones who become sickest, researchers say.

In a presentation of the findings to the International Conference on Diseases in Nature Communicable to Man, in Madison, Wisconsin, Dr. Kristy Murray, of the University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, suggested that high blood pressure might make it easier for the virus to enter the brain.

After adjusting for age, a suppressed immune system, being African-American, being infected with hepatitis C virus and having kidney disease all raised the risk of death from West Nile-associated encephalitis.

Researchers took a look back at the hospital charts of 172 people with West Nile infection, including 113 cases of encephalitis (including 17 deaths), 47 of meningitis and 12 with uncomplicated fever. The median age of the hospitalized cases was 54, and the median age of those who died was 75 (range 47-95).

From the story:

In the study, published in the journal Science, researchers searched for "circuits" in the brain that signal when a person is hungry or full and found that they were linked to areas involved in determining the enjoyment of food.

To see how the hormone worked, the researchers showed the patients pictures of different types of food, ranging from tasty fare like chocolate cake and pizza to blander choices such as cauliflower and broccoli.

The patients with the genetic disorder -- of which there are about a dozen known cases in the world -- liked all types of food, ate excessively and were obese, the researchers said.

And so in honor of this, Maggie Moo of MaggieMoo's Ice Cream and Treatery will visit the Mission Hills facility Thursday to pass out milk shakes to the staff of the Labor and Delivery department to congratulate them for working hard and earning the honor. The fun comes just as National Breastfeeding Week ends, so hey, there's all these wacky connections going on.

From a story in the LA TIMES:

Nearly threequarters of new mothers in the United States breast-feed their babies, a new high, but they quit too soon and resort to infant formula too often, federal health officials said Thursday.

A government survey found that about 30% of new moms are feeding their babies only breast milk three months after birth.

At six months, 11% are breast-feeding exclusively.

And just so you know, I asked if the whole "Maggie Moo" thing was some kind of bovine reference to women who breast feed.

No, and no, said hospital rep. Natasha Adeimy. MaggieMoo's just happened to step up and provide shakes. But there will be a cow impersonator to hand out the goodies.

Myth: Colorectal cancer is a man’s disease.

Truth: Colorectal cancer is just as common among women as men. This year, about 150,000 Americans will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer, and more than 55,000 will die from the disease.

Myth: Colon cancer cannot be prevented.

Truth: In many cases colon cancer can be prevented. Colon cancer almost always starts with a small growth called a polyp. If the polyp is found early, doctors can remove it and stop colon cancer before it starts.

Myth: African Americans are not at risk for colon cancer.

Truth: African-American men and women are diagnosed with and die from colon cancer at higher rates than men and women of any other US racial or ethnic group.

Myth: Age doesn’t matter when it comes to getting colon cancer.

Truth: More than 90% of colon cancer cases occur in people age 50 and older. For this reason, the American Cancer Society recommends you start getting tested for the disease at age 50. People who are at increased risk for colon cancer -- for example, those with a family history of the disease -- may need to begin testing at a younger age. You should talk to your doctor about your specific situation and when you should begin getting tested.

Myth: It’s better not to get tested for colon cancer because it’s deadly anyway.

Truth: Colon cancer is often highly treatable. If colon cancer is found early and treated, the 5-year survival rate is 90%. But because many people are not getting tested, only 39% of cases are diagnosed at this early stage when treatment is so successful.

To find out if you are at an increased risk for colon cancer, please read "Colorectal Cancer: Early Detection."

From the story:

Lynn Masterson hurt in a most unusual place after gallbladder surgery June 16.

"I had actually had more pain and decreased mobility with my tongue," says Masterson, 47, a radio station traffic reporter.

That's because her surgeon pulled her gallbladder out through her mouth.

She was Lee Swanstrom's third through-the-mouth patient. Swanstrom, of the Oregon Clinic, performs the operation at Portland's Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital.

Friends and family were shocked to learn the route Masterson's gallbladder took from her body. A co-worker joked that he had wondered why her breath smelled funny after surgery.

The thought of having the gallbladder extracted through the mouth or, in women, the vagina, is enough to send some patients fleeing. But by eliminating an external incision, proponents say, the approach promises to reduce pain and speed recovery.

From the intro:

Today, drug manufacturers do everything in their considerable power to ensure that their brand-name prescription medications are on the lips of patients and in the minds of physicians every time the two meet across an exam table. A growing chorus of critics says their efforts have begun to rewrite the dialogue between patient and doctor, influence physicians' judgments and open the act of prescribing to forces more profit-minded than sacred.

In 2006, drug-makers spent almost $5 billion to reach out to consumers with direct advertising.

Today we feature a story about how vinegar, cotton, and a bright light can be used to help detect cervical cancer. It appears to be working when used in developing countries, though I wonder what the reaction would be if the method were used in the United States. The study was published in the Lancet.

From the story in the Daily News:

The visual screening test is done by a nurse or trained health care worker who washes a woman's cervix with vinegar and gauze using a speculum to hold it open. After one minute, any pre-cancerous lesions turn very white and can be seen with the naked eye under a halogen lamp.

There were 167 cases and 83 cervical cancer deaths in the women who received the screening, compared with 158 cases and 92 deaths in those who didn't. That represents 25 percent less cervical cancer and a 35 percent lower death rate among those screened.