Everyone knows smoking is bad for your health. Even tobacco company’s must provide a surgeon general’s warning to the customer about how dangerous smoking is. Second hand smoke is just as deadly. However, no one really understood how cigarette smoke caused lung cancer. Was it the nicotine? Other toxins?Researchers from the University of California published a report in The FASEB Journal on how cigarette smoke causes cells to become cancerous. Hydrogen peroxide (and similar toxins) is the main culprit. In the study, the scientists exposed two different sets of human lung airway cells to cigarette smoke and to hydrogen peroxide.The cells were then incubated for one to two days. Airway cells that were not exposed to the toxins were also assessed for signs of cancer development. The cells exhibited to cigarette smoke and hydrogen peroxide showed the same molecular signs of cancer. The unexposed cells did not.With the five-year survival rate of lung cancer patients being 15.5%, the researchers hope the new find will allow the tobacco industry to develop ’safer’ cigarettes by eliminating the toxins in the smoke. They also hope to give other medical researchers the ability to develop better lung cancer treatments. photo credit: HAMED MASOUMI

Rachel Christie is quite an accomplished young woman.  Or she was, anyway.  At age 21, not only is she in training for the 2012 London Olympics as a heptathlete, she also found some time on her days off to become the first black winner of the Miss England competition.  However, while she might still represent […]

The 2009 inductees for the National Toy Hall of Fame have been announced, and this year’s class of honorees is the direct opposite of last year’s class.  Where the 2008 version required a lot of imagination to wring the most fun out of them, 2009’s hall of fame class requires a lot less thinking and […]

After 13 years on the police force, Terry Ashe has seen and experienced a lot of crazy things.  However, he hasn’t lost his sense of humor, or his ability to tell an appropriately lurid tale.  When his police cruiser was bitten by an angry alligator (apparently this is a common problem in Florida), he could’ve […]

Any time a baby goes missing, a big manhunt breaks out.  Fortunately for 7-month-old Shannon Lea Dedrick, her story has a happy ending.  Unfortunately for Shannon’s mother, Chrystina Lynn Mercer, and babysitter, Susan Elizabeth Brown, the baby’s happy ending will probably get them both jail time.  Shannon was reported missing on Saturday, and was discovered […]

It was a scene worthy of the great Mark Twain; indeed, it was a crucial moment in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer!  A case of mistaken identity allowed a Brazilian man named Ademir Jorge Goncalves to make an appearance at a very unlikely event:  his own funeral.  It’s like something out of a Coffin Joe […]

The champagne is drying in the locker room, and the Bronx is celebrating this morning as the New York Yankees have claimed their 27th World Series championship as the best team in Major League Baseball.  To the victors go the spoils, like rings, a trophy, and a ticker-tape parade through New York’s Canyon Of Heroes.  […]

There’s one thing that’s fun about slot machines.  You put money into them, lights flash and bells ring, and if you’re lucky, you’re a winner and money clinks noisily into the winnings slot.  Most of the time, you don’t get anything but the lights and noise, but Bill Seebeck hit the jackpot.  Literally and figuratively.  […]