In Passo, Fundo Brazil geneticist Adil Pacheco took blood samples last Friday from three puppies in a poor neighborhood in in southern Brazil to settle a dispute over a claim they were born from a cat.

“It’s rather simple really. If the puppies prove to have 78 chromosomes, they are dogs. If they have 38, they are cats,” said Pacheco, director of the Institute of Biological Sciences of the University of Passo Fundo.

“But I seriously doubt they are feline. Every characteristic about them is canine.”  This is probably a hoax because there is no documented cases of dog and cats being able to mate successfully.

Stem cells may be responsible for tumors, according to two separate studies published on Sunday.

Canadian and Italian researchers both found that specialized colon cancer stem cells appeared to be the sources of colon cancer tumors in mice.

Their findings, published in the journal Nature, support the idea that future cancer treatments will have to target cancer stem cells, instead of the type of wide array treatments used today.

Similar findings have been seen for leukemia, breast and brain cancers, but the two studies are the first to show cancer stem cells are also responsible for colon tumors.

“Colon cancer is one of the best-understood neoplasms (tumors) from a genetic perspective, yet it remains the second most common cause of cancer-related death (in Canada), indicating that some of its cancer cells are not eradicated by current therapies,”

“These new studies demonstrate that a small number of colon cancer cells, distinct from those that make up the bulk of a tumor, initiate tumor growth,” Nature said in a statement.

It may be possible to design drugs that attack only those cells, and thus treat colon cancer in a way that better affects the tumors without hurting healthy cells, the researchers said.

Diet2Live is a great new forum intended for the discussion of all things health related. On the forum you’ll find categories where you can chat about different types of exercise, exchange tips on healthy recipes, and discuss all sorts of popular diets (such as South Beach and the Atkins diet).

As well as exercise tips, diet discussions and recipes, Diet2Live offers a section where you can keep readers up to date on your progress. If you want, you can post pictures of yourself periodically to give yourself that vital confidence boost as you see your shape improving. All in all, Diet2Live should be an essential bookmark for anyone trying to get into shape.

If you’re looking for ways to drop a few pounds, build stamina or just improve your general health, Diet2Live is a great place to start. Best of all, you can treat the site as a support group to lean on when you’re having trouble maintaining your diet or exercise regime. All in all, a very handy site. I suggest you take a look.  Check it out

Last month, it took a medical team led by Dr. Chen, 3 hours to perform an operation to remove the inner left arm.  At first there was much debate about which arm would be removed because both left arms were so fully developed but it became obvious that the inner arm would be the most likely candidate for removal.

It appears early reports that the left arms were not functional was untrue and even though both left arms were functional it was decided removal of one would be best long-term.

There have sure been many times in my life a third arm would have come in “handy”…but I do agree the social stigma would be potentially damaging.

A Lancaster University study of 120 toddlers found the ability to perform complex mouth movements was strongly linked to language development.

They also found children with well developed imagination skills had better language skills.

The findings could help experts identify children who may struggle with language skills at an early stage.

At 21 months - the age of the toddlers in the study - children are learning new words at a faster rate than any other time in their lives.

The children’s language ability was assessed through a parental questionnaire, word games with simple images, and monitoring during normal play.

As well as oral motor skills, she found that hand gestures such as waving or making shapes were associated with better language development but other movements such as walking and running were not.

This team plans to follow the children at three, four and five years to see how the skills that were found to be linked to language impact on later development.

Adam Khan author of the book Self-Help Stuff That Works has some great advice that has real-life application and it starts with understanding this basic life premise; “Remember whatever is happening is temporary.”

When someone assumes her problem is permanent, it can lead to depression and feelings of hopelessness.  Sometimes a different approach is what is needed to help change this train of thought. One important finding is that when people fail to accept the temporary nature of things, they suffer more than they need to.  According to Buddha (and I agree with this), this lack of acceptance that things are temporary and always changing is one of the main sources of suffering for humanity.

‘This too shall pass’. The one constant in this universe is that everything changes.  Remind yourself of this and you’ll suffer less. You’ll get disheartened less often and less intensely. And you’ll even deal with conflict much better.

Say that phrase to yourself next time you feel upset about something. Use it as a mantra. The circumstances that caused the upset will change  - maybe not all of them, but some parts of your circumstances will change all by themselves fairly quickly. And remind yourself that your feelings will change inevitably, even if you do nothing to change them. You won’t stay upset forever. I know this is obvious to you now, but when you’re upset, you tend to forget this important truth.

It’s a simple idea, but it can dramatically ease the strain of the moment, making you better able to deal with it, creating less stress in your body, and making you a calmer person to interact with. 

Try and use these wise words and thought next time you feel stressed or find yourself in conflict.

Doctors say sexually transmitted diseases among senior citizens are running rampant at many Florida retirement communities, as first reported by Local 6 News.

A gynecologist at The Villages community near Orlando, Fla., said she treats more cases of herpes and the human papilloma virus in the retirement community than she did in the city of Miami.

Wow, getting old might not be as bad as I thought. I better stay in shape.  Now they need to come out with a special condom for the elderly, I bet they do.

 Spiders on Drugs!