What happens if you overwater a plant? How does gravity actually work? And should we be cancelling mass events to contain the coronavirus?
It’s Q&A time on the show, and this week Phil Sansom is joined by a brainy panel of experts: plant biologist Nadia Radzman, particle physicist Chris Rogers, bioarchaeologist Emma Pomeroy, and virologist and Naked Scientist Chris Smith. Prepare to have your curiosity satisfied…
Dr. Matthew Binnicker oversees Mayo Clinic’s laboratory response in developing a test to detect COVID-19 in clinical samples. A process that usually takes six months to a year, was accomplished in under a month, thanks to a dedicated team working around the clock. The test should help ease the burden currently being felt at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and state health labs. That will also mean faster turnaround times for results. Patients can expect results within 24 hours of when samples are collected and sent to Mayo Clinic Laboratories. Initially, Dr. Binnicker says the laboratory has the capacity to run between 200-300 tests daily. Additional equipment has been ordered to double that capacity in the coming weeks.
More health and medical news on the Mayo Clinic News Network. https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/
What’s new about the new Nutrition Facts label? Watch this Q&A with Susan T. Mayne, Ph.D., Director of FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.
Joe Biden won Michigan’s Democratic primary on Tuesday, extending his lead over main rival Senator Bernie Sanders. Michigan is a key general election battleground, and one which Sanders narrowly won in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.
In 2020, the state emerged as a battleground for black and white blue-collar voters as well as suburban moderates. The Democratic contest has effectively become a two-horse race between Biden and Sanders The former vice president’s victory in Michigan, as well as Missouri and Mississippi, dealt a serious blow to Sanders, who is urgently seeking to jump-start his flagging campaign.
From a The Guardian online article (Feb 12, 2020):
What characterizes ultra-processed foods is that they are so altered that it can be hard to recognize the underlying ingredients. These are concoctions of concoctions, engineered from ingredients that are already highly refined, such as cheap vegetable oils, flours, whey proteins and sugars, which are then whipped up into something more appetizing with the help of industrial additives such as emulsifiers.
From a MedPage Today online article (March 7, 2020):
The top ultra-processed foods by calorie intake were breads, beverages, cakes, 
cookies and pies, salty snacks, frozen and shelf-stable dishes, pizza, and breakfast cereals.
Altogether, ultra-processed foods accounted for 58% of all calories in the U.S. diet and nearly 90% of all added sugars.
They divided foods into four categories:
From a BMJ Research online study (March 4, 2020):
We found no association between egg consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease in three large US cohorts. Results from the updated meta-analysis lend further support to the overall lack of an association between moderate egg consumption (up to one egg per day) and cardiovascular disease risk.
Eggs are a major source of dietary cholesterol, but they are also an affordable source of high quality protein, iron, unsaturated fatty acids, phospholipids, and carotenoids.
Introduction: In the United States, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in men and women. Diet and lifestyle undisputedly play a major part in the development of cardiovascular disease. In the past, limiting dietary cholesterol intake to 300 mg per day was widely recommended to prevent cardiovascular disease. However, because of the weak association between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol, and considering that dietary cholesterol is no longer a nutrient of concern for overconsumption, the most recent 2015 dietary guidelines for Americans did not carry forward this recommendation.
From “Downton Abbey” creator and “Gosford Park” writer Julian Fellowes. Based on true events, this 19th century drama follows two footballers on opposite sides of a class divide who changed the game — and England — forever. The English Game arrives on Netflix March 20.
Super Tuesday provided contrasting fortunes for the Democratic candidates hoping to take on Donald Trump. BBC reporters were on the ground with the three leading campaigns as the results came in (but with no decision yet in the all-important Texas and California contests). Here are their verdicts on where Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg stand now.
Boomers Daily 