Friday, August 15, 2014

BPA-Free Plastic Containers May Be Just as Hazardous


 This is worth reproducing in full, even though it violates my own Linux ethics of reproduction and re-grafting.

But being a Free Software, Free Speech Convict, it for the grandchildren.

I may be in a coffin soon but hope nobody vilify me in the coffin.

BPA-Free Plastic Containers May Be Just as Hazardous

Animal studies find that a replacement compound for the estrogen-mimicking chemical bisphenol A may be also be harmful to human health
Aug 11, 2014 By Jenna Bilbrey


Currently, no federal agency tests the toxicity of new materials before they are allowed on the market.
Credit: Kyle LeBoeuf via Flickr
In 2012 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of baby bottles that contain bisphenol A (BPA), a compound frequently found in plastics. The ban came after manufacturers’ responded to consumer concerns of BPA's safety after several studies found the chemical mimics estrogen and could harm brain and reproductive development in fetuses, infants and children.* Since then store shelves have been lined with BPA-free bottles for babies and adults alike. Yet, recent research reveals that a common BPA replacement, bisphenol S (BPS), may be just as harmful.
BPA is the starting material for making polycarbonate plastics. Any leftover BPA that is not consumed in the reaction used to make a plastic container can leach into its contents. From there it can enter the body. BPS was a favored replacement because it was thought to be more resistant to leaching. If people consumed less of the chemical, the idea went, it would not cause any or only minimal harm.
Yet BPS is getting out. Nearly 81 percent of Americans have detectable levels of BPS in their urine. And once it enters the body it can affect cells in ways that parallel BPA. A 2013 study by Cheryl Watson at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston found that even picomolar concentrations (less than one part per trillion) of BPS can disrupt a cell’s normal functioning, which could potentially lead to metabolic disorders such as diabetes and obesity, asthma, birth defects or even cancer. “[Manufacturers] put ‘BPA-free’ on the label, which is true. The thing they neglected to tell you is that what they’ve substituted for BPA has not been tested for the same kinds of problems that BPA has been shown to cause. That’s a little bit sneaky,” Watson says.
A 2011 study published in Environmental Health Perspectives found that almost all of the 455 commercially available plastics that were tested leached estrogenic chemicals. This study lead to a bitter legal battle between Eastman Chemical Co. and the study’s author, George Bittner, professor of neurobiology at The University of Texas at Austin and founder of CertiChem and PlastiPure, two companies designed to test and discover nonestrogenic plastics.
Bittner claimed in the peer-reviewed report that Eastman’s product Tritan, marketed to be completely free of estrogenic leaching, showed such activity. Eastman claimed otherwise and filed a suit. A federal jury ruled in favor of the latter, saying Bittner’s testing methods were inadequate because the tests were done in vitro—in a petri dish rather than in vivo, in a live animal.
Since this episode, independent scientists have focused their efforts on in vivo testing. Deborah Kurrasch, from the University of Calgary, turned to zebra fish to study the effects of BPS on embryo development. Brain development in zebra fish is similar to that in humans but much easier to track. When the fish were dosed with BPS in similar concentrations to that found in a nearby river, neuronal growth exploded, rising 170 percent for fish exposed to BPA and a whopping 240 percent for those exposed to BPS. As the fish aged they began zipping around their tank much faster and more erratically than the unexposed fish. The researchers concluded that increased neural growth likely lead to hyperactivity. “Part of the problem with endocrine disruptors is they usually have a U-shaped dose response profile,” Kurrasch says. “At very low doses they have activity and then as you increase the dose it drops in activity. Then at higher doses it has activity again.”  She found a very low dose—1,000-fold lower than the daily recommended amount for humans—can affect neural growth in zebra fish.
In another study, Hong-Sheng Wang, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati, found that both BPA and BPS cause heart arrhythmia in rats. He tested almost 50 rats, giving them the chemicals in doses akin to concentrations found in humans. Even at such low concentrations the rats’ hearts began to race, but curiously only those of the females. They found that BPS blocked an estrogen receptor found only in female rats, which lead to the disruption of calcium channels—a common cause of heart arrhythmia in humans.
These in vivo studies agree with in vitro studies claiming that BPS is a hazard. But the problem doesn’t stop with removing bisphenol S from the market as was done for bisphenol A. The problem, according to Kurrasch, lies in the lack of industry regulation. Currently, no federal agency tests the toxicity of new materials before they are allowed on the market. “We’re paying a premium for a ‘safer’ product that isn’t even safer,” Kurrasch says. There are many types of bisphenols out there, so part of the public’s responsibility “is making sure [manufacturers] don’t just go from BPA to BPS to BPF or whatever the next one is.”

Is it “Just Browsing may not be SAFE”?


Is it “Just Browsing may not be SAFE”?
I tried Just Browsing with not so old computer.
It froze when I tried to listen to some old radio music of BBC.
I had 1 GiB of RAM.
I booted again with the same result.
My advice is for you to read all the instruction (I have no time for that) given by their home page.
In fact I have copied its introduction below.
Arch Linux is one of those pure Linux derivatives which (I had problom with it until Manjaro and Antegos came in) I found it very difficult to master Arch Linux.
It is so pure it has one application (unlike other Linux derivatives) fo one job
I am no novice to Linux and one who test Linux distribution and write few encouraging lines for the developers to keep improvng the distributions.
These guys and girls do it as a hobby (that is bit of a problem) and not as daily bread winner.
Having said that, unlike Microsoft, they do not take years to fix and patch.
Moment a bug is detected it is fixed within three months, in the Linux community.
That is the level of comradeship.
In fact, there is an article on current Linux magazine about Arch derivatives (read if you have time).
I do not think the problem is with Arch.
Even if they have they will fix it no time.
It is the problem with the Browser which tries to load all the application in one go, just like Windows do, and take up all the working memory.
That may be the reason for the freezing.
I just love Firefox from the days it was very tiny (now of course it has metamorphosed to a Gorilla at the Dinner Party).
Even now, it is my primary browser.

Maxthon’s Cloud Browser (?Sets You Free) has entered the fray.

I have not used it.

Mobile browser vulnerability lets hackers steal cloud computing time and material.


A novel technique based on MapReduce could let hackers hijack computing resources used by cloud-based mobile browsers and use them anonymously, according to security researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of Oregon.

There is no way out of out this menace you are spied from your spouse, friend, enemy to your boas and government.

The easiest way out is to not to visit or browse but make a physical or personal contact.


That is how the secret service worked in good old days.

But my recommendation is always a silky light weight browser for cloud computing but with lot of reservation if it does not have security built into it..

The nearest is Ice Weasel of Debian (I hope Debian would put a Live CD with cloud computing in mind).
With that reservation, I recommend this to you before parting with your money for USB key.
JustBrowsing is a bootable Linux "Live CD" that does not make any changes to the existing operating system on the computer. Enjoy a simple computing experience with only a web browser (your choice of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome).
Bundled webapps include a calculator, text editor, timer and more that are always one click away. Try JustBrowsing, it's safe, secure and no install necessary.
Designed with old machines in mind.
Don't throw out your old computer, put JustBrowsing on it!
No logins, no malware, no sluggish boot.
Perfect for guests. Boot from CD-ROM, USB, hard drive, I-ODD, or Virtual Machine.
Releases are built with the latest version of Firefox (stable) and Chrome (stable).
Both are loaded up with useful bookmarks and sensible extensions "out of the box" with the freedom to add your own and even to sync your profile with Firefox Sync or Chrome Sign-in.
Privacy is important and your browsing history is erased when you turn off the computer.
The default search uses DuckDuckGo which does not track your search history and does not "filter bubble".
Ad blocking is installed to protect you from misleading links and tracking advertisements. "Do not track" is enabled too.
JustBrowsing comes with a lockscreen to protect your privacy if you have to leave the computer and alerts you of intruders.
The JustBrowsing project is free and open source.
Based on ArchLinux i686 (32-bit).
Now available optimized for x86_64 (64-bit) too.