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Daily Rounds: Food Safety Bill; Aging Reversed In Mice; Sickle-Cell Surprise; New Weight Watchers Plan; Helping Others Helps You

A Stale Food Fight - NYTimes.com "The best opportunity in a generation to improve the safety of the American food supply will come as early as Monday night, when the Senate is scheduled to vote on the F.D.A. Food Safety Modernization bill. This legislation is by no means perfect. But it promises to achieve several important food safety objectives, greatly benefiting consumers without harming small farmers or local food producers." (The New York Times)

Aging Ills Reversed in Mice - WSJ.com " "These mice were equivalent to 80-year-old humans and were about to pass away," says Ronald DePinho, co-author of the paper and a scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. After the experiment, "they were the physiological equivalent of young adults."" (Wall Street Journal)

92 Years Later, A Sickle-Cell Surprise : NPR "Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger, of the National Institutes of Health, looked into a microscope this summer and saw something unexpected. He had been looking for evidence of a flu virus. Instead, he found the earliest known proof of sickle-cell anemia. That's a hereditary disease that disproportionately affects African-Americans." (npr.org)

Weight Watchers revamps plan, introduces PointsPlus - USATODAY.com "Fresh fruits and most vegetables are free.
Or at least they are zero points on the new Weight Watchers PointsPlus System being unveiled today. The new program is replacing the popular Points plan, which has been used by tens of millions of people for the past 13 years. "Essentially we are retiring the Points plan — you can't mix the new system with the old one," says Karen Miller-Kovach, chief scientific officer for Weight Watchers and the mastermind behind both the original system and the new one." (USA Today)

How to help (yourself) - The Boston Globe "Giving, it seems, is not just a seasonal thing. Altruism appears to be innate, and researchers, doctors, and patients say the act of giving or helping offers deep psychological benefits." (Boston Globe)

This program aired on November 29, 2010. The audio for this program is not available.

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