UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Arsenic found in infant formula

HANOVER, N.H., Feb. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say organic brown rice syrup may be a hidden source of arsenic in food ranging from infant formula to energy bars.

Brown rice syrup is used in organic food products as a preferred alternative to high fructose corn syrup. Dartmouth researchers, who had previously called attention to the potential for harmful levels of inorganic arsenic in rice, say brown rice syrup can also be a major source of arsenic.

One organic infant milk formula containing brown rice syrup had as much as six times the Environmental Protection Agency's safe drinking water limit of 10 parts per billion for total arsenic, researchers said.

Cereal bars and high-energy foods containing organic brown rice syrup also had higher arsenic concentrations than those without the syrup, the Hanover, N.H., college said Thursday. None of the products was identified by name.

Brian Jackson, director of the Trace Element Analysis Core Facility at Dartmouth and a member of the college's Superfund Research Program, is lead author on the study published Thursday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Jackson and his colleagues tested 17 infant formulas, 29 cereal bars and three energy gel "shots" purchased from local stores. Of the 17 formulas tested, only two had listed organic brown rice syrup as the primary ingredient. Researchers said these two formulas were extremely high in arsenic. The amount of inorganic arsenic, which is more toxic than organic arsenic, averaged 8.6 parts per billion for the dairy formula and 21.4 parts per billion for the soy formula.

The researchers said the findings suggest an urgent need for regulatory limits on arsenic in food.

Swiss look to tidy up space junk

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Swiss scientists say they're developing a satellite to help tidy up debris floating in Earth's orbit.

The CleanSpace One project is the first installment of a series of satellites designed to clean up space debris, the Swiss Space Center at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne said Thursday.

At least 16,000 objects, including abandoned satellites, spent rocket stages, bits of broken spacecraft and fragments from collisions are crowding Earth's orbit, creating a growing risk for spacecraft.

"It has become essential to be aware of the existence of this debris and the risks that are run by its proliferation," astronaut Claude Nicollier said on the school's Web site.

The symbolic target for the initial CleanSpace One launch will be either Switzerland's first orbiting object, the Swisscube picosatellite, which was put in orbit in 2009, or its cousin TIsat, launched in July 2010.

CleanSpace One is expected to cost about $21 million to develop and launch, officials said. The first rendezvous could take place in three to five years.

Volker Gass, director of the Swiss Space Center, says there is a market for "a whole family of ready-made systems, designed as sustainably as possible, that are able to de-orbit several different kinds of satellites."

"Space agencies are increasingly finding it necessary to take into consideration and prepare for the elimination of the stuff they're sending into space. We want to be the pioneers in this area," Gass said in a release.

Lab mouse library making itself heard

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Feb. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say a scientific mouse genetics library called the Collaborative Cross is providing resources that will help speed health discoveries.

A common complaint about using animal models in scientific study is that some research doesn't carry over when applied to humans, Fernando Pardo-Manuel de Villena of the University of North Carolina Department of Genetics and Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center said Thursday.

The Collaborative Cross resource hopes to answer this complaint by mirroring the diversity of human genetics in the laboratory mouse population.

"The Collaborative Cross contains ten times the genetic diversity of a typical laboratory mouse population -- a level equivalent to the natural genetic variation in humans," the UNC School of Medicine said Thursday in a release.

The genetic diversity is spread out across the genome of the Collaborative Cross, while the limited ancestry of typical laboratory mice means that about half of the genome lacks good data for geneticists.

"The Collaborative Cross fills in those gaps, and the result for scientists is a fast track to understanding and testing new treatment and prevention approaches for numerous human diseases with an underlying genetic component," the release said.

Pardo-Manuel de Villena is lead author of a paper published in the journal Genetics that provides the first comprehensive description of the mouse genome library, which is being shared with other scientists through an online resource called a genome browser.

"It is important that all scientists have free access to this resource, which is a census of every genetic line we have and consolidates the work of researchers in the U.S., Israel and Australia in one central place," Pardo-Manuel de Villena said.

The Genetic Society of America said the international consortium developing these mouse populations includes the University of North Carolina, North Carolina State University, The Jackson Laboratory, Tel Aviv University, Oxford University and Geniad/Australia. The mice are housed at UNC-Chapel Hill.

'Immortal Devil' tied to Tasmanian deaths

HINXTON, England, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Researchers say a female Tasmanian devil who died more than 15 years ago is the source of a contagious cancer that is killing off the species.

She is nicknamed "The Immortal Devil" because the contagious cancer cell line spawned by the devil from northeast Tasmania lives on and is threatening the carnivorous marsupial with extinction. Researchers say new discoveries based on the devil's genome may lead to a way to stop the cancer from spreading.

Research published in the Feb. 17 issue of the journal Cell said scientists have sequenced the complete genome of the female Tasmanian devil, providing clues about where the cancer came from and how it became contagious.

The cancer, which causes tumors on the face of the devils, can cause death within months. The cancer is spread between animals by biting.

"There are targeted drugs that work against cancer genes," Elizabeth Murchison, a Tasmanian native working at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England, said Thursday in a release. "We hope some of the mutations that we have found in genes in the devil cancer may point to therapeutic strategies."

The first photograph of a Tasmanian devil with one of these facial tumors turned up in 1996 and by the early 2000s "it was clear that this was a new type of infectious disease," Murchison said.

The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute said researchers have found genetic differences between tumors, indicating the cancer has genetically diverged during its spread through the Tasmanian devil population.