>Ice cream may target the brain before your hips, study suggests

>

Blame your brain for sabotaging your efforts to get back on track after splurging on an extra scoop of ice cream or that second burger during Friday night’s football game.

Findings from a new UT Southwestern Medical Center study suggest that fat from certain foods we eat makes its way to the brain. Once there, the fat molecules cause the brain to send messages to the body’s cells, warning them to ignore the appetite-suppressing signals from leptin and insulin, hormones involved in weight regulation.

The researchers also found that one particular type of fat – palmitic acid – is particularly effective at instigating this mechanism.

“Normally, our body is primed to say when we’ve had enough, but that doesn’t always happen when we’re eating something good,” said Dr. Deborah Clegg, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and senior author of the rodent study appearing in the September issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

“What we’ve shown in this study is that someone’s entire brain chemistry can change in a very short period of time. Our findings suggest that when you eat something high in fat, your brain gets ‘hit’ with the fatty acids, and you become resistant to insulin and leptin,” Dr. Clegg said. “Since you’re not being told by the brain to stop eating, you overeat.”

Dr. Clegg said that in the animals, the effect lasts about three days, potentially explaining why many people who splurge on Friday or Saturday say they’re hungrier than normal on Monday.

Though scientists have known that eating a high-fat diet can cause insulin resistance, little has been known about the mechanism that triggers this resistance or whether specific types of fat are more likely to cause increased insulin resistance. Dr. Clegg said she suspected the brain might play a role because it incorporates some of the fat we eat – whether it is from healthy oils or the not-so-healthy saturated fat found in butter and beef – into its structure.

via Ice cream may target the brain before your hips, UT Southwestern study suggests.

>Ice cream may target the brain before your hips, study suggests

>

Blame your brain for sabotaging your efforts to get back on track after splurging on an extra scoop of ice cream or that second burger during Friday night’s football game.

Findings from a new UT Southwestern Medical Center study suggest that fat from certain foods we eat makes its way to the brain. Once there, the fat molecules cause the brain to send messages to the body’s cells, warning them to ignore the appetite-suppressing signals from leptin and insulin, hormones involved in weight regulation.

The researchers also found that one particular type of fat – palmitic acid – is particularly effective at instigating this mechanism.

“Normally, our body is primed to say when we’ve had enough, but that doesn’t always happen when we’re eating something good,” said Dr. Deborah Clegg, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern and senior author of the rodent study appearing in the September issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

“What we’ve shown in this study is that someone’s entire brain chemistry can change in a very short period of time. Our findings suggest that when you eat something high in fat, your brain gets ‘hit’ with the fatty acids, and you become resistant to insulin and leptin,” Dr. Clegg said. “Since you’re not being told by the brain to stop eating, you overeat.”

Dr. Clegg said that in the animals, the effect lasts about three days, potentially explaining why many people who splurge on Friday or Saturday say they’re hungrier than normal on Monday.

Though scientists have known that eating a high-fat diet can cause insulin resistance, little has been known about the mechanism that triggers this resistance or whether specific types of fat are more likely to cause increased insulin resistance. Dr. Clegg said she suspected the brain might play a role because it incorporates some of the fat we eat – whether it is from healthy oils or the not-so-healthy saturated fat found in butter and beef – into its structure.

via Ice cream may target the brain before your hips, UT Southwestern study suggests.

>Water quality in orbit

>

Space is not a fun place to get a stomach bug. To ensure drinking water is adequately disinfected, University of Utah chemists developed a two-minute water quality monitoring method that just started six months of tests aboard the International Space Station.

“Now they bring water back on the space shuttle and analyze it on the ground. The problem is there is a big delay. You’d like to be able to maintain iodine or silver [disinfectant] levels in real time with an onboard monitor,” says Marc Porter, a University of Utah professor of chemistry and chemical engineering.

The new method involves sampling space station or space shuttle galley water with syringes, forcing the water through a chemical-imbued disk-shaped membrane, and then reading the color of the membrane with a commercially available, handheld color sensor normally used to measure the color and glossiness of automobile paint.

The sensor detects if the drinking water contains enough iodine (used on U.S. spacecraft) or silver (used by the Russians) to kill any microbes. The International Space Station has both kinds of water purification systems.

“Our focus was to develop a small, simple, low-cost testing system that uses a handheld device, doesn’t consume materials or generate waste, takes minimal astronaut time, is safe and works in microgravity,” says Porter.

As a spinoff, the test is being modified so it can quickly check water for the level of arsenic – a natural pollutant in places like Bangladesh and the U.S. Southwest and Northeast – and it can be adapted to quickly, inexpensively test for other pollutants.

“It is a general method,” says Lorraine Siperko, a senior research scientist in Porter’s laboratory. “It could be used on the ground for testing all kinds of water contaminants such as arsenic, chromium, cadmium, nickel and other heavy metals.”

The method is easy to use and much cheaper than existing tests, says Porter.

The water-monitoring system fits in a pack the size of a small ice chest. It was launched Aug. 28 on space shuttle Discovery bound for the International Space Station.

via Water quality in orbit.

>Water quality in orbit

>

Space is not a fun place to get a stomach bug. To ensure drinking water is adequately disinfected, University of Utah chemists developed a two-minute water quality monitoring method that just started six months of tests aboard the International Space Station.

“Now they bring water back on the space shuttle and analyze it on the ground. The problem is there is a big delay. You’d like to be able to maintain iodine or silver [disinfectant] levels in real time with an onboard monitor,” says Marc Porter, a University of Utah professor of chemistry and chemical engineering.

The new method involves sampling space station or space shuttle galley water with syringes, forcing the water through a chemical-imbued disk-shaped membrane, and then reading the color of the membrane with a commercially available, handheld color sensor normally used to measure the color and glossiness of automobile paint.

The sensor detects if the drinking water contains enough iodine (used on U.S. spacecraft) or silver (used by the Russians) to kill any microbes. The International Space Station has both kinds of water purification systems.

“Our focus was to develop a small, simple, low-cost testing system that uses a handheld device, doesn’t consume materials or generate waste, takes minimal astronaut time, is safe and works in microgravity,” says Porter.

As a spinoff, the test is being modified so it can quickly check water for the level of arsenic – a natural pollutant in places like Bangladesh and the U.S. Southwest and Northeast – and it can be adapted to quickly, inexpensively test for other pollutants.

“It is a general method,” says Lorraine Siperko, a senior research scientist in Porter’s laboratory. “It could be used on the ground for testing all kinds of water contaminants such as arsenic, chromium, cadmium, nickel and other heavy metals.”

The method is easy to use and much cheaper than existing tests, says Porter.

The water-monitoring system fits in a pack the size of a small ice chest. It was launched Aug. 28 on space shuttle Discovery bound for the International Space Station.

via Water quality in orbit.

>Master gene that switches on disease-fighting cells identified by scientists

>

A natural killer cell (NK cell, yellow) of the immune system attacking a cancer cell (red). (Photo credit: Prof. Dr. Rupert Handgretinger, Clinic for Children’s and Youth Medicine, University Hospital of Tübingen, Gemany; with permission of Eye of Science)

The master gene that causes blood stem cells to turn into disease-fighting ‘Natural Killer’ (NK) immune cells has been identified by scientists, in a study published in Nature Immunology today. The discovery could one day help scientists boost the body’s production of these frontline tumour-killing cells, creating new ways to treat cancer.

The researchers have ‘knocked out’ the gene in question, known as E4bp4, in a mouse model, creating the world’s first animal model entirely lacking NK cells, but with all other blood cells and immune cells intact. This breakthrough model should help solve the mystery of the role that Natural Killer cells play in autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Some scientists think that these diseases are caused by malfunctioning NK cells that turn on the body and attack healthy cells, causing disease instead of fighting it. Clarifying NK cells’ role could lead to new ways of treating these conditions.

The study was carried out by researchers at Imperial College London, UCL and the Medical Research Council’s National Institute for Medical Research.

Natural Killer cells – a type of white blood cell – are a major component of the human body’s innate, quick-response immune system. They provide a fast frontline defence against tumours, viruses and bacterial infections, by scanning the human body for cells that are cancerous or infected with a virus or a bacterial pathogen, and killing them.

NK cells – along with all other types of blood cell, both white and red – are continuously generated from blood stem cells in the bone marrow over the course of a person’s lifetime. The gene E4bp4 identified in today’s study is the ‘master gene’ for NK cell production, which means it is the primary driver that causes blood stem cells to differentiate into NK cells.

The researchers behind today’s study, led by Dr Hugh Brady from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London, are hoping to progress with a drug treatment for cancer patients which reacts with the protein expressed by their E4bp4 gene, causing their bodies to produce a higher number of NK cells than normal, to increase the chances of successfully destroying tumours.

Currently, NK cells isolated from donated blood are sometimes used to treat cancer patients, but the effectiveness of donated cells is limited because NK cells can be slightly different from person to person. Dr Brady explains: “If increased numbers of the patient’s own blood stem cells could be coerced into differentiating into NK cells, via drug treatment, we would be able to bolster the body’s cancer-fighting force, without having to deal with the problems of donor incompatibility.”

via Master gene that switches on disease-fighting cells identified by scientists.

>How stem cells make skin

>

Stem cells have a unique ability: when they divide, they can either give rise to more stem cells, or to a variety of specialised cell types. In both mice and humans, a layer of cells at the base of the skin contains stem cells that can develop into the specialised cells in the layers above. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Monterotondo, in collaboration with colleagues at the Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT) in Madrid, have discovered two proteins that control when and how these stem cells switch to being skin cells. The findings, published online today in Nature Cell Biology, shed light on the basic mechanisms involved not only in formation of skin, but also on skin cancer and other epithelial cancers.

At some point in their lives, the stem cells at the base of the skin stop proliferating and start differentiating into the cells that form the skin itself. To do so, they must turn off the ‘stem cell programme’ in their genes and turn on the ‘skin cell programme’. Researchers suspected that a family of proteins called C/EBPs might be involved in this process, as they were known to regulate it in other types of stem cell, but had so far failed to identify which C/EBP protein controlled the switch in skin. Claus Nerlov and his group at EMBL Monterotondo discovered it was not one protein, but two: C/EBPα and C/EBPβ.

The EMBL researchers used genetic engineering techniques to delete the genes that encode C/EBPα and β specifically in the skin of mouse embryos, and found that without these proteins the skin of the mice did not form properly.

“Mice with neither C/EBPα nor β had taut and shiny skin that couldn’t keep the water inside their bodies”, Nerlov explains, “they lacked many of the proteins that make skin mechanically strong and water tight, and they died of de-hydration shortly after birth”.

However, a single working copy of either the gene for C/EBPα or the gene for C/EBPβ was enough to ensure that skin developed properly. This means that the two proteins normally do the same job in the skin’s stem cells – an unexpected redundancy, which may have arisen because there are so many stem cells in skin that a tight control on proliferation is needed to avoid problems like cancer. Or it may simply be a by-product of the fact that these two proteins have different functions in other situations, such as wound healing or repair of sunlight-induced skin damage.

One of the hallmarks of epithelial cancers – which include skin, breast, and oral cancers – is that they have genes turned on which would normally only be expressed in embryonic stem cells, and which may help cancer cells divide indefinitely. Such genes become re-expressed in the skin in the absence of C/EBPs. So, by understanding how C/EBPα and β turn off such ‘stem cell’ programmes, researchers hope to come a step closer to finding ways to fight such cancers.

via How stem cells make skin.

>Purported bin Laden message surfaces

>

An audio message purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden emerged on radical Islamist Web sites on Sunday, just two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“To the American people, this is my message to you: a reminder of the reasons behind 9/11 and the wars and the repercussions that followed and the way to resolve it,” the message said.

“From the beginning, we have stated many times … that the cause of our disagreement with you is your support of your allies, the Israelis, who are occupying our land in Palestine. Your stance along with some other grievances are what led us to carry out the events of 9/11.”

He admits it now, but denied it previously.

[ “I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle,” Bin Laden told the Pakistani-based Ummat newspaper.]

I interviewed a professor who has translated every Bin Laden tape and he says there is no indication in any of them that Bin Laden was involved in 9/11.

Back to the story…

The video plays the audio over a undated photograph of bin Laden. The video also shows a banner with the American flag as the backdrop and an image of the New York City skyline with the twin towers of the World Trade Center — destroyed in the 9/11 attack — still standing, said terrorism analyst Laura Mansfield.

CNN could not independently authenticate bin Laden as the speaker in the 11-minute video posted by As-Sahab Media — al Qaeda’s production company.

I guess they won’t broadcast the audio because there could be hidden messages in the way it is worded or something?

In the message, President Barack Obama is accused of being “a vulnerable man who will not be able to stop the war, as he promised, but instead he will drag it to the maximum possible extent.” Obama, during the 2008 presidential campaign, promised to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.Though U.S. troops no longer patrol Iraq’s major cities and a large number have left, tens of thousands remain in the country and are expected to stay for years to come.

The message claims that the Obama administration is under the influence of the Republican White House it replaced, pointing out that the president kept Robert Gates as defense secretary — a holdover from the Bush administration.

“Prolong the wars as much as you like. By God, we will never compromise on it (Palestine), ever,” the message continued.

Mansfield noted that the video brings no new images of the elusive bin Laden, who was last seen in footage two years ago on the sixth anniversary of the terror attacks.

Bin Laden has released audio messages since then, most recently on June 9.

via Purported bin Laden message surfaces – CNN.com.

Here is President Obama on why we are currently fighting a war in Afghanistan:

“Many people in the United States — and many in partner countries that have sacrificed so much — have a simple question: What is our purpose in Afghanistan?” the president said. “After so many years, they ask, why do our men and women still fight and die there? And they deserve a straightforward answer. “So let me be clear: Al Qaeda and its allies — the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks — are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban — or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged — that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.”

When he says “the terrorists who planned 9/11” he’s talking about … who? Osama Bin Ladin? Why not name names? The FBI does it with their most wanted list.  (Here is the FBI’s Osama Bin Laden: Most Wanted Terrorist page.  Still no mention of 9/11, however.)

Wikipedia has this to say about Opium production in Afghanistan:

Afghanistan is, as of March, 2008, the greatest illicit (in Western World standards) opium producer in the world, before Burma (Myanmar), part of the so-called “Golden Crescent“. Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. Based on UNODC data, there has been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004-2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule. Also, more land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan.^[1] This amounts to an export value of about $4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords and drug traffickers.^[2] In the seven years (1994-2000) prior to a Taliban opium ban, the Afghan farmers’ share of gross income from opium was divided among 200,000 families.^[3]

Opium production is reportedly down this year:

Afghanistan’s opium production fell 10 percent last year and prices are at their lowest in a decade, meaning “the bottom is starting to fall out” of the world’s largest opium market, the U.N. said today.

A key finding of the 2009 Afghan Opium Survey, released today, was that cultivation in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold where U.S. and British troops have launched major operations this summer, dropped by about a third from 2007 to 2008. Helmand produces almost 70 percent of Afghanistan’s opium.

“At a time of pessimism about the situation in Afghanistan, these results are a welcome piece of good news and demonstrate that progress is possible,” Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N.’s office on drugs and crime, said in a statement. – independent

I wonder if we will need to fight terrorists in Burma. There seems to be more opium there than Afghanistan… at least at one point.  No, China is big in Burma.

Anyway, since Bin Laden is out there still taunting us, I’m wondering how he attached a “pod”  underneath the 2nd aircraft that hit the towers on 9/11. Rather than a drone as people suggest in the following video, what if Bin Laden was able to have the hijackers land and then, perhaps as they had planned for years, attach a missile launcher pod to the bottom to give a bigger explosion when it hit the tower. Fireworks. Would that fit is MO in other attacks? I don’t know enough to know.

That BBC reporter saying Building 7 was down when it wasn’t in the background? That’s just, uh, some kind of time difference… no, she was in New York… I’m thinking.

What doesn’t make sense to me is that Osama Bin Laden, if he is paying attention, should have positive things to say about Obama regarding Israel. “Barack Obama is to deliver a blunt warning to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that the era of the blank US cheque is over.” (4 months ago, telegraph)

>Purported bin Laden message surfaces

>

An audio message purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden emerged on radical Islamist Web sites on Sunday, just two days after the United States marked the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“To the American people, this is my message to you: a reminder of the reasons behind 9/11 and the wars and the repercussions that followed and the way to resolve it,” the message said.

“From the beginning, we have stated many times … that the cause of our disagreement with you is your support of your allies, the Israelis, who are occupying our land in Palestine. Your stance along with some other grievances are what led us to carry out the events of 9/11.”

He admits it now, but denied it previously.

[ “I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle,” Bin Laden told the Pakistani-based Ummat newspaper.]

I interviewed a professor who has translated every Bin Laden tape and he says there is no indication in any of them that Bin Laden was involved in 9/11.

Back to the story…

The video plays the audio over a undated photograph of bin Laden. The video also shows a banner with the American flag as the backdrop and an image of the New York City skyline with the twin towers of the World Trade Center — destroyed in the 9/11 attack — still standing, said terrorism analyst Laura Mansfield.

CNN could not independently authenticate bin Laden as the speaker in the 11-minute video posted by As-Sahab Media — al Qaeda’s production company.

I guess they won’t broadcast the audio because there could be hidden messages in the way it is worded or something?

In the message, President Barack Obama is accused of being “a vulnerable man who will not be able to stop the war, as he promised, but instead he will drag it to the maximum possible extent.” Obama, during the 2008 presidential campaign, promised to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq.Though U.S. troops no longer patrol Iraq’s major cities and a large number have left, tens of thousands remain in the country and are expected to stay for years to come.

The message claims that the Obama administration is under the influence of the Republican White House it replaced, pointing out that the president kept Robert Gates as defense secretary — a holdover from the Bush administration.

“Prolong the wars as much as you like. By God, we will never compromise on it (Palestine), ever,” the message continued.

Mansfield noted that the video brings no new images of the elusive bin Laden, who was last seen in footage two years ago on the sixth anniversary of the terror attacks.

Bin Laden has released audio messages since then, most recently on June 9.

via Purported bin Laden message surfaces – CNN.com.

Here is President Obama on why we are currently fighting a war in Afghanistan:

“Many people in the United States — and many in partner countries that have sacrificed so much — have a simple question: What is our purpose in Afghanistan?” the president said. “After so many years, they ask, why do our men and women still fight and die there? And they deserve a straightforward answer. “So let me be clear: Al Qaeda and its allies — the terrorists who planned and supported the 9/11 attacks — are in Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan. And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban — or allows al Qaeda to go unchallenged — that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.”

When he says “the terrorists who planned 9/11” he’s talking about … who? Osama Bin Ladin? Why not name names? The FBI does it with their most wanted list.  (Here is the FBI’s Osama Bin Laden: Most Wanted Terrorist page.  Still no mention of 9/11, however.)

Wikipedia has this to say about Opium production in Afghanistan:

Afghanistan is, as of March, 2008, the greatest illicit (in Western World standards) opium producer in the world, before Burma (Myanmar), part of the so-called “Golden Crescent“. Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. Based on UNODC data, there has been more opium poppy cultivation in each of the past four growing seasons (2004-2007), than in any one year during Taliban rule. Also, more land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. In 2007, 93% of the opiates on the world market originated in Afghanistan.^[1] This amounts to an export value of about $4 billion, with a quarter being earned by opium farmers and the rest going to district officials, insurgents, warlords and drug traffickers.^[2] In the seven years (1994-2000) prior to a Taliban opium ban, the Afghan farmers’ share of gross income from opium was divided among 200,000 families.^[3]

Opium production is reportedly down this year:

Afghanistan’s opium production fell 10 percent last year and prices are at their lowest in a decade, meaning “the bottom is starting to fall out” of the world’s largest opium market, the U.N. said today.

A key finding of the 2009 Afghan Opium Survey, released today, was that cultivation in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold where U.S. and British troops have launched major operations this summer, dropped by about a third from 2007 to 2008. Helmand produces almost 70 percent of Afghanistan’s opium.

“At a time of pessimism about the situation in Afghanistan, these results are a welcome piece of good news and demonstrate that progress is possible,” Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N.’s office on drugs and crime, said in a statement. – independent

I wonder if we will need to fight terrorists in Burma. There seems to be more opium there than Afghanistan… at least at one point.  No, China is big in Burma.

Anyway, since Bin Laden is out there still taunting us, I’m wondering how he attached a “pod”  underneath the 2nd aircraft that hit the towers on 9/11. Rather than a drone as people suggest in the following video, what if Bin Laden was able to have the hijackers land and then, perhaps as they had planned for years, attach a missile launcher pod to the bottom to give a bigger explosion when it hit the tower. Fireworks. Would that fit is MO in other attacks? I don’t know enough to know.

That BBC reporter saying Building 7 was down when it wasn’t in the background? That’s just, uh, some kind of time difference… no, she was in New York… I’m thinking.

What doesn’t make sense to me is that Osama Bin Laden, if he is paying attention, should have positive things to say about Obama regarding Israel. “Barack Obama is to deliver a blunt warning to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that the era of the blank US cheque is over.” (4 months ago, telegraph)

>Why treasures in safe deposit boxes get ‘lost’

>I found out today that my “$100,000” renter’s insurance policy from Farmers Insurance, covers only $100 and the max they will ever cover is $500. Not impressive. Not even very useful if you want to keep your vast coin collection gathered from the maze in the Great Underground Empire in your apartment.

So, now I have my coins safely in a rich friend’s white house in the forest, in a hidden safe … for now, but I’d like to not impose for too long. I was thinking my own safe at home would be fine … with appropriate insurance, but no it seems that money of any kind is hard to insure.

That is why I’m thinking about getting a safe deposit box. Then I read this story by Liz Pulliam:

Are the contents of your safe deposit box safe?

Are you sure?

Every year, untold numbers of safe deposit boxes are declared “abandoned,” drilled open and their contents turned over to state unclaimed-property offices. Whatever’s inside that can be auctioned — jewelry, stamp collections, coins, watches — eventually is sold to the highest bidder. …

Kristof’s subsequent investigation found an estimated 700,000 Californians may have permanently lost possessions or savings because of poor record-keeping by banks or the state. …

Bank mergers and changing policies on fees help contribute to the confusion. Records may be lost when banks change computer systems, often in the wake of a merger. Meanwhile, services the original bank offered for free may incur charges under the new regime. If the safe deposit box owners don’t know about the fee or ignore the bills, the bank can drill the box after a period of time — typically two or three years, depending on state law. …

Items that can’t be sold, like birth or marriage certificates, may be shredded….

3 ways to protect yourself
So how can you protect yourself and your possessions if you have a safe deposit box? Consider the following steps:

• Call your bank. If you don’t remember paying a safe deposit fee recently, ask your bank if your box is free. If not, stop by the branch, make sure your box is still there and pay the bill. If possible, set up an automatic payment so the fee is deducted each year from your checking account.
• Visit your box. At least once a year, open the box and inspect its contents. Then make sure the bank has the correct address on file for you.
• Tell your heirs. Ideally, you’ll mention the box in your will (which you won’t, by the way, store in the box — safe deposit boxes may be sealed at death). At the very least, let a trusted friend or relative know about the box’s existence.

via Why treasures in safe deposit boxes get ‘lost’ – MSN Money.

Good to know. I’m going to shop around and see what kind of deal Gringotts Bank can give me on a box.

What belongs in your safe deposit box?

PERSONAL DOCUMENTATION: Marriage certificate, Birth certificate, Copy of passport, Copy of college degree, Copy of professional license, Copy of separation/divorce papers, Social Security Card, Copy of health information (vaccinations, hospitalizations), Military records

REAL AND PERSONAL PROPERTY: Deeds, titles, title insurance for home, any other property you own and for auto(s), Videotape/DVD inventory of house, Copy of receipts for big-ticket items like furnishings, Copy of homeowner’s/renter’s insurance, Copy of receipts for home improvements, Coins, jewelry, etc.

FINANCIAL/BUSINESS: Copy of employment contract, Original stock certificates (if not held in street name, which is the recommended form of ownership), Original prospectuses and sales materials for any limited partnerships, Bonds and Treasury securities (if not held in street name), U.S. savings bonds

PROOF OF ALIENS: Thumb drive with your highly encrypted documentation proving that aliens exist on earth.

Okay, I added that last item.  A thumb drive with an electronic copy of your encrypted tax records would be a good idea, however. Store part of the 30 character password in your will and part elsewhere… perhaps even break it up into several parts… but they must all be retrievable or your data is forever lost.

Tip from jnwcmr:

For both my fireproof safe, and Safety Deposit Box, I keep all contents in sealed freezer bags. They may be fire-proof, but I’ll bet not water proof. When the fire department comes, everything gets hosed. Literally!

A safety deposit box will be frozen upon your death, so you can’t keep your will there.

Where should you store your will? … Yeah, okay, I don’t even have one, but if I did… where would I store it?

A copy of a will is useless. The court needs the original in order to probate it. And there should be only ONE original (not two, three, etc.), as multiple originals confuse the courts! The best place to store the original will is with the lawyer who drafted it (if you have one). Otherwise, most states allow you to deposit the original with the Register of Deeds at your local courthouse.

>What Dasani Bottled Water Have in Common with Death by Lethal Injection?

>The water wars are here now, in my town. I’ve been hearing about them for years, that big companies are buying up all the water rights and selling bottled water to the locals. The only bottled water available will be Coca-Cola’s tap water filled with harmful chemicals? Keep this in mind: Too much potassium according to one site can cause the following:

Symptoms of a potassium overdose include confusion, shallow breathing, seizure or convulsions, uneven heartbeat, heavy feeling in your arms or legs or feeling like you might faint.

Interesting. Sounds like a panic attack, the kind your doctor says is just due to “stress”. Another site says potassium can cause anxiety.

A potassium overdose will cause palpitations; stomach cramps; diarrhoea; muscle spasms; slow, weak pulse; irritability; anxiety; tiredness; heart failure.

Here is the article comparing Dasani and Lethal Injection:

The third largest ingredient in Dasani is potassium chloride. If you are to be put death, first you get a barbiturate, then a paralytic agent, and then the chemical to stop your heart (what a coincidence!) you guessed it: potassium chloride! “If you take everything out of the water, you don’t get the crisp, clean taste that consumers desire,” was the sanguine comment of Kim Price, spokesman for Coca-Cola. Question from Student at Oregon State University: I just noticed potassium chloride was listed as an ingredient in some bottled waters (Dasani, for example). But I remember from Chemistry and other sources of information KCl is used for lethal injections and is often times hazardous… so why would it be in bottled water?

Corporate Party line Answer: Potassium is a mineral found in a variety of natural foods and it is needed for your body to function properly. The reason you may see Potassium Chloride (KCl) as an ingredient in bottled waters is to help replenish a person’s natural potassium stores. The amount of KCl a person consumes through food and beverage consumption is much less than is necessary for it to be harmful to a person’s health. In order for KCl to be toxic, a person would have to consume more than 2500 mg/kg of KCl, which is an extremely large amount of KCl.

After contacting Coca-Cola directly, a representative from Coca-Cola stated that potassium chloride is added to their Dasani bottled water “because consumers prefer it.” After conducting several taste-test studies, the results showed that consumers prefer water with the mineral (Potassium chloride) than without it. The representative stated that the amount of KCl in the Dasani water is negligible according to FDA standards. This means there is less than 5 mg of KCl in each bottle of water. Another Coke representative, Ray Crockett, told Sun News last week that “the amount of KCL is tiny; there are no health effects for anybody, and that it is added for taste and to satisfy customer preference.” In other words, according to Coke: NO PROBLEM!

Checking a little further, we found that Potassium Chloride has some alarming properties: … Among other “contraindications” for taking potassium chloride as medicine are these: kidney disease; Addison’s disease; stomach ulcer or intestinal blockage; and chronic diarrhea. There is another one, according to the FDA which is almost never there to protect you: FDA pregnancy category C.” This medication may be harmful to an unborn baby. Tell your doctor if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant during treatment. It is not known whether potassium chloride passes into breast milk or if it could harm a nursing baby. Do not use this medication without telling your doctor if you are breast-feeding a baby.” Yet there are no warnings of any kind on a bottle of Dasani …

So if you drink a lot of Dasani, like 6-7 bottles a day, perhaps less, you might develop some of these symptoms: paralysis, numbness or tingly feeling, uneven heartbeat, feeling light-headed, fainting, chest pain or heavy feeling, pain spreading to the arm or shoulder, nausea, sweating, seizure (convulsions), or coma. If they persist or if you die from “Dasani poisoning,” on behalf of your living survivors, ask your lawyer to get in touch with Neville Isdell, the Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company. …

With regard to soft drinks, the article says:

Benzene is a known carcinogen and concerns over its presence in drinks went public last year, following an investigation by BeverageDaily.com and US lawyer Ross Getman. The widely used preservative sodium benzoate breaks down to form benzene in drinks also containing either ascorbic acid (vitamin C) or citric acid. America’s soft drinks industry and food safety officials had known this for 15 years, internal memos show, although levels found were “not considered a risk to consumers’ health.”

Coke said it would ensure anyone performing a Google search for ‘benzene,’ together with either of the products, would be directed to a special message on the Coca-Cola website.

via The Seoul Times: What Does Coca Cola’s Dasani Bottled Water Have in Common with Death by Lethal Injection?.

From wikipedia:

… Additionally, KCl is used (albeit rarely) in fetal intracardiac injections in second- and third-trimester induced abortions.^{[2][3] …}

Side effects can include gastrointestinal discomfort including nausea and vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding of the digestive tract. Overdoses cause hyperkalemia which can lead to paresthesia, cardiac conduction blocks, fibrillation, arrhythmias, and sclerosis.^[7]

Dr.Jack Kevorkian‘s thanatron machine injected a lethal dose of potassium chloride into the patient, which caused the heart to stop functioning, after a sodium thiopental-induced coma was achieved. A similar device, the German ‘Perfusor’, also uses potassium chloride as a suicide aid.^[8]

Potassium is needed, but too much or too little will mess you up.

Potassium is found in several different forms, including Potassium Chloride—the most common form. It has many functions in the body such as playing a role in protein synthesis and for the conversion of blood sugar in to glycogen (sugar). It triggers a number of enzymes, namely those concerned with energy production. Potassium also stimulates normal movements of the intestinal tract. The average human body contains about 140 g of potassium. – colostate

Potassium is essential for good nutrition and health. Meeting the minimum requirement is not difficult if you eat a variety of foods. Maintaining the recommended sodium-to-potassium ratio, however, may be more difficult. Eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer processed foods. A moderate increase in dietary potassium, in addition to a reduction of excess sodium, may be beneficial, especially for people at risk for hypertension. – colostate

Although there is said to be no recommendation as to how much potassium to take in the diet, 2,000 – 3,000 mg a day is thought to be adequate. Also the Institute of Medicine 2004 guidelines gave a specified RDA of 4,000mg a day.

What if you get too little?

What are the Effects of Potassium Deficiency?
Potassium deficiency can result in high blood pressure, stroke, congestive heart failure, cardiac arrhythmias, weakness, depression, glucose intolerance, as well as increased risk of kidney stones, and increased bone turnover. –natldairycouncil

As you can see, getting the right amount of potassium is very important.  My plan is to just eat a variety of healthy foods.

Add Dasani water to the mix and you may have side effects.

And in case you were wondering, Vitamin K is not potassium.

Vitamin K is known as Phylloquinone. It is a substance that promotes the clotting of the blood. Potassium, on the other hand, is a chemical element with the periodic symbol “K”- they’re two different things. – vitnutrition