It is amusing how simple natural processes can be described using fashionable terms in order to pander to various constituencies. "We have shown that it is possible to use the crude glycerol byproduct from the biodiesel industry as a carbon source for microalgae that produce omega-3 fatty acids" . . . After growing the algae in the crude glycerol, researchers can use it as an animal feed. This mimics a process in nature in which fish, the most common source of omega-3 fatty acid for humans, eat the algae and then retain the healthful compounds in their bodies. Humans who consume the fish in turn consume the omega 3s. Fish-derived products such as fish oil are an inexpensive alternative, but the taste has deterred widespread use. Wen has partnered with Steven Craig, senior research scientist at Virginia Cobia Farms, to use crude glycerol-derived algae as a fish feed. "The results so far have been promising," Wen said. "The fish...

Interesting news for older chocolate lovers. Cocoa flavanols, the unique compounds found naturally in cocoa, may increase blood flow to the brain, according to new research published in the Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment journal. The researchers suggest that long-term improvements in brain blood flow could impact cognitive behavior, offering future potential for debilitating brain conditions including dementia and stroke. . . the researchers found both short and long-term benefits of cocoa flavanols for brain blood flow, offering future potential for the one in seven older Americans currently living with dementia. When the flow of blood to the brain slows over time, the result may be structural damage and dementia. Scientists speculate that maintaining an increased blood flow to the brain could slow this cognitive decline. . . Contrary to statements often made in the popular media, the collective research demonstrates that the vascular effects of cocoa flavanols are independent of general "antioxidant" effects that cocoa flavanols exhibit in a...

I'm no fan of demon maize. It's a subsidized environmental problem made worse by misuse, especially for ethanol and livestock feed. But the HFCS foo has never made sense to me. Though fructose, a monosaccharide, or simple sugar, is naturally found in high levels in fruit, it is also added to many processed foods. Fructose is perhaps best known for its presence in the sweetener called high-fructose corn syrup or HFCS, which is typically 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose, similar to the mix that can be found in fruits. It has become the preferred sweetener for many food manufacturers because it is generally cheaper, sweeter and easier to blend into beverages than table sugar. . . The researchers found that lipogenesis, the process by which sugars are turned into body fat, increased significantly when as little as half the glucose was replaced with fructose. Fructose given at breakfast also changed the way the body handled the food...

The earlier post Death Fish discussed the harmful fat profile of farmed fishes, especially tilapia and catfish, due to their diets of grain. This problem may cure itself. Catfish farmers across the South, unable to cope with the soaring cost of corn and soybean feed, are draining their ponds. “It’s a dead business,” said John Dillard, who pioneered the commercial farming of catfish in the late 1960s. Last year Dillard & Company raised 11 million fish. Next year it will raise none. Some intend to fill their ponds and grow maize and soya since it is more profitable than growing fish that eat maize and soya. People can eat imported fish, Mr. Dillard said, just as they use imported oil. . . The industry’s decline accelerated when producers from Vietnam and China flooded the domestic market, putting a ceiling on prices. . . last summer when the Food and Drug Administration announced broader import controls on Chinese seafood, including...

I love olives. Do not expect a reasonable discussion. You can have my olives when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers - or teeth. We used to grow lots of them around here but the market crashed a few years ago due to cheap imports. Lots of groves were ripped out and replaced with more profitable crops - pistachios for instance. The olive curing and packing operations closed their doors. Olive towns, such as Lindsay, went into free-fall. That has changed a bit in recent years as olive love became more widespread. Now the emphasis is on fancy varieties, high value fruits and oils rather than commodities. The news that olives are sources of "good fat" has increased worldwide demand for the luscious, versatile fruits. Olives have become extremely popular, enjoyed as condiments, appetizers, spreads, and additions to salads and sauces. Their heart-healthy oil has is also enjoying superstar status in kitchens around the world. The olive's...

More suggestions that you really are what she ate. "Why is everyone getting heavier and heavier? One hypothesis is that maternal obesity before and during pregnancy affects the establishment of body weight regulatory mechanisms in her baby. Maternal obesity could promote obesity in the next generation." . . . "We think DNA methylation may play an important role in the development of the hypothalamus (the region of the brain that regulates appetite)," said Waterland. "Twenty years ago, it was proposed that just as genetic mutations can cause cancer, so too might aberrant epigenetic marks – so called 'epimutations.' That idea is now largely accepted and the field of cancer epigenetics is very active. I would make the same statement for obesity. We are on the cusp of understanding that," he said. This seems right. The idea that maternal nutrition can have profound effects on progeny is comfortable for those of us involved in animal husbandry, and humans are animals...

The medical community, whatever that is, has a terrible track record for giving good dietary advice. They are responsible for the old USDA food pyramid that sought to stuff people full of grains, and so made a lot of fat and unhealthy people. They are also responsible for all the wacko fat ideas that have been promulgated, changed, changed again and are still giving bad advice. their research revealed that farm-raised tilapia, as well as farmed catfish, "have several fatty acid characteristics that would generally be considered by the scientific community as detrimental." Tilapia has higher levels of potentially detrimental long-chain omega-6 fatty acids than 80-percent-lean hamburger, doughnuts and even pork bacon . . . "For individuals who are eating fish as a method to control inflammatory diseases such as heart disease, it is clear from these numbers that tilapia is not a good choice," the article says. "All other nutritional content aside, the inflammatory potential of hamburger and...

What could a post with such a title possibly be about? scientists say watermelon has ingredients that deliver Viagra-like effects to the body's blood vessels and may even increase libido. . . Beneficial ingredients in watermelon and other fruits and vegetables are known as phyto-nutrients, naturally occurring compounds that are bioactive, or able to react with the human body to trigger healthy reactions . . . In watermelons, these include lycopene, beta carotene and the rising star among its phyto-nutrients – citrulline – whose beneficial functions are now being unraveled. Among them is the ability to relax blood vessels, much like Viagra does. Scientists know that when watermelon is consumed, citrulline is converted to arginine through certain enzymes. Arginine is an amino acid that works wonders on the heart and circulation system and maintains a good immune system, Patil said. "The citrulline-arginine relationship helps heart health, the immune system and may prove to be very helpful for those who...

Clocks aren't very interesting for me. My days are ruled by the sun, and vary considerably at this latitude during the year. This is siesta season. I start work very early, in the cool pre-dawn, and get after it until it gets too hot. Then I eat, rest and nap for a few hours along with all other sensible creatures except, it is said, mad dogs and Englishmen. Most mammals sleep for short periods throughout the day. . . Our bodies are programmed for two periods of sleepiness: in the early morning, from 2 to 4 a.m., and in the afternoon, between 1 and 3 p.m. It isn't the heat, or high carb food, that makes us drowsy. That's how we are. Tips for napping. A short afternoon catnap of 20 minutes . . . enhances alertness and concentration, elevates mood, and sharpens motor skills. To boost alertness on waking you can drink a cup of coffee before you...

I don't have a link for this article, which seems to be a press release for a paper published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. I got the text from a grazing group list, but the sender is usually reliable so I'll paste it. Omega-3 EPA linked to less depression By Stephen Daniells 13-May-2008 - Increased blood levels of the omega-3 fatty acid eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) may reduce the severity of symptoms of depression, particularly in people taking antidepressants, suggests new research from France. A study of 1390 subjects from Bordeaux in France reports that EPA levels in people with depressive symptoms were on average 0.16 per cent lower than in normal people, according to data published in this month's issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. "This result adds to the growing body of evidence implicating long-chain PUFAs in mental disorders," wrote the researchers from the Equipe Epidemiologie de la Nutrition et des Comportements Alimentaires (INSERM...

Just a reminder. Scientists already know that in many animals, more sons are produced when a mother has plentiful resources or is high ranking. The phenomenon has been most extensively studied in invertebrates, but is also seen in horses, cows and some species of deer. The explanation is thought to lie with the evolutionary drive to produce descendants. . . New research by the Universities of Exeter and Oxford provides the first evidence that a child?s sex is associated with the mother's diet. . . the study shows a clear link between higher energy intake around the time of conception and the birth of sons. The findings may help explain the falling birth-rate of boys in industrialised countries, including the UK and US. . . As well as consuming more calories, women who had sons were more likely to have eaten a higher quantity and wider range of nutrients, including potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12. There...

The controversy about the use of performance enhancing drugs by athletes has always seemed like a futile rear-guard action to me: humans have always dosed themselves and likely will always do so in ever more effective ways. Perhaps the resistance will soften soon. Apparently, in order to be considered for funding this year, PIs have to submit a signed affidavit stating that they will refrain from using brain-enhancing drugs, such as Provigil, in the course of their research. Does that not strike y’all as slightly Big Brother-ish? Forgive me for gliding down a slippery slope, but what’s next? Are we only going to be allowed to drink decaf coffee while at lab? Perhaps LASIK will be forbidden so that some researchers don’t have an unfair advantage over others when it comes to microscopy or micro-surgeries? Provigil, from my limited understanding, is pretty spectacular. Quinn Norton said (sorry, haven’t read the literature myself) that soldiers who were given Provigil performed...

Again. The market for antimicrobial doorknobs, hospital fixtures and other products that kill germs on contact may be about to take on a coppery sheen. The Copper Development Association, a trade group for copper companies, said Tuesday that federal regulators had approved its application to market a group of copper alloys, including brass and bronze, as capable of killing bacteria and microbes effectively enough to protect human health. . . Researchers who worked on the concept expect hospitals and other public institutions to be the initial market for the product, based on the approvals gained by the trade group. The tests showed 99.9 percent kill rates within two hours against the leading antibiotic-resistant bacteria now plaguing hospitals, said Harold T. Michels, senior vice president for technology and technical services at the trade group. “This is very, very solid data,” said Mr. Michels, who said that the tests involved more than 3,000 samples and included a requirement to reinfect a...

I wonder if in future this development will be seen as being of comparable importance to birth control pills? Ten years ago this month the lives of millions of men and women were changed almost overnight by the advent of a little blue pill -- the first oral treatment for impotence . . . developed by accident by scientists at Pfizer Laboratories, was first approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration on March 27, 1998. I'd like to try some. It is said that it makes good wood better, as a sort of off-label use....

Is the cure worse than the disease? Epilepsy has been known for thousands of years and has been subjected to various forms of conventional and non-conventional therapies including a non-pharmacological conservative treatment known as aromatherapy, ever since. One commonly practiced form of aromatherapy that persists as an immediate first-aid measure even today in some parts of developing countries in the East is the application of “shoe-smell” during an epileptic attack. The questionable remedial role has intrigued neuro-scientists at least in these parts of the world. This brief paper attempts to provide an insight to the basis of persistence of this practice and to explore a possible scientific logic behind its unscientifically reported remedial effectiveness. The neurophysiology of olfactory stimulation from “shoe-smell” reveals a sound and scientific reasoning for its remedial efficacy in epilepsy; olfactory stimuli in this study have been found to possess significantly effective anti-epileptic influence which could have formed the basis for the use of application of...

else, you'll make yourself sick. Stress hormones may not only affect the competence of the immune system. We have found that they also act directly on bacteria to increase both their growth and virulence (ability to cause an infection). In fact, we and others have now shown that for dozens of infectious bacteria the presence of human stress hormones is a signal for the bacteria that they are inside a potential host, and that this host is stressed, its immune defences weakened, and the time is opportune to begin their attack. The stress hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline can turn blood that is normally very hostile to bacteria into a kind of bacterial tomato soup. Addition of these stress hormones to blood or serum will enable 10 bacteria to grow to 100 million cells in less than a day. Don't worry. Be Happy. the news is not all bad, as intriguingly, we have also found that the same drugs that...

And Englishmen. At least the old fashioned sort. PEOPLE should sit outside in the middle of the day to help stave off potential deadly medical conditions, an Australian researcher says. Current recommendations about when people should be exposed to the sun the most were wrong and did not allow people to get enough vitamin D, according to David Turnbull, a research fellow at the University of Southern Queensland's Centre for Rural and Remote Area Health. Vitamin D, when absorbed through the skin from UV rays, has been found to help prevent various cancers, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. . . . "In the US, between 50,000 and 60,000 people die each year because of issues relating to not getting enough sun exposure," he said. Well, I don't have that problem....

Brains are fat. That's not a problem, that's just how they are. So it isn't very surprising that brain health is related to dietary fat. Omega-3 fatty acids protect the brain against Parkinson’s disease, according to a study by Université Laval researchers published in the online edition of the FASEB Journal, the journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. This study, supervised by Frederic Calon and Francesca Cicchetti, is the first to demonstrate the protective effect of a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids against Parkinson’s. . . Analyses revealed that omega-3 fatty acids—in particular DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), a specific type of omega-3—had replaced the omega-6 fatty acids already present in the brains of the mice that had been given omega-3 supplementation. “This demonstrates both the importance of diet on the brain’s fatty acid composition and the brain’s natural inclination for omega-3 fatty acids,” observes Calon. Since concentrations of other types of omega-3’s had remained similar...

You know that old joke about avoiding hospitals because they have diseases there, as if you go there to get sick rather than get well? Perhaps . . . The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine ... When ... social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that ... three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual. ... Most troubling was that people ... now felt that the source of their false beliefs was the respected CDC. ... The research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, have broad implications for public policy. ... The psychological studies highlight ... the potential paradox in trying to fight bad information with good information. ... once an idea has been implanted in people's minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information,...

Viruses, it is argued, are not really living things because they don't fit the generally accepted definitions. For example, they depend on hosts to reproduce, and don't respond to environmental changes. But it gets fuzzy since there are bacteria, such as Chlamydia, that can only reproduce within host cells. And there are even simpler particles such as viroids, satellites, and prions that make viruses seem comparatively life-like. How did such things come to exist? One of the interesting theories is retrograde-evolution. They began as more complex organisms and gradually shed unnecessary capabilities over time as they commandeered host systems to perform those chores. It seems that every living thing is prey for some sort of virus. See Adam, Had em, Virotherapy, and Oncolytic Viruses for previous discussions of the longish history of the use of viruses to combat bacterial infections and recent uses to fight cancer. Now it seems that they may be useful to fight Alzheimer's disease. Scientists...

Most of us grow fruits of some sort around here. It's not only a big time ag county with huge commercial groves, every home has a partially edible landscape. I nearly live off the land this time of year, just snatching the low hanging fruit as I pass through the neighborhood. I eat like a bull but can't pinch an inch. The interesting bit, the thing worth posting about, is that it tastes soooo good. Today I raided Warren and Mary Lee's apricots. They were small and deceptively plain looking, but when you bite one there's a sweet, juicy explosion that stops you in your tracks. If I came to your door with a bucket of these cots and tried to give them to you, you might well decline to take them. They don't look special. I see this all the time. Home fruit growers beg their friends and neighbors to take some before the birds get them all...

All the cool SF stories have autodocs that sniff out a severely wounded or recently deceased human, or whatever, and swot up replacement parts from the tattered remains of the carcass. If you have any piece of the original body, then you can manufacture needed components. We may be getting closer. In a surprising advance that sidesteps the ethical debates surrounding stem cell biology, researchers have come much closer to a major goal of regenerative medicine, the conversion of a patient’s cells into specialized tissues that might replace those lost to disease. The advance is an easy-to-use technique for reprogramming a skin cell of a mouse back to the embryonic state. Embryonic cells can be induced in the laboratory to develop into many of the body’s major tissues. If the technique can be adapted to human cells, it would let scientists use a patient’s skin cell to generate new heart, liver or kidney cells that might be transplantable and...

Extra Virgin Anti-Inflammatories. I was observing the annual Los Angeles international extra virgin olive oil competition, where nearly 400 oils from 15 countries were evaluated by expert judges last month. Through the three days of competition I learned what a wonderful variety of aromas you can discover in olive oils when you sip and slurp. (Vigorous slurping aerates the viscous oil and helps release its flavors.) . . . I also learned a lot about the not-so-delicate side of olive oil: the bitterness, the drying astringency and especially that peppery pungency that hits the back of the throat and provokes a cough. Some oils were so strong that they seemed more medicinal than delicious. But the Italian and Spanish judges consistently rated the most peppery, throat-catching oils at the top, nodding in admiration even as they gasped for breath. The sensations of bitterness, astringency and pungency are caused by members of the phenolic family of chemicals. Phenols also have...

Long ago (September 11, 2003), in a far away galaxy (the old Crumbtrail blog), while the great and good were making a mess in Cancun, I argued, as did many others, that the whole idea of developing countries bootstrapping themselves on agricultural trade was a hustle fueled by big players and sloppy statistics. An Economist article said some of those things with more authority. If, as promised, the EU eliminates export subsidies on products “of interest” to poor countries, the price of those products would rise on world markets. This would benefit big agricultural exporters, such as Argentina and Brazil. It is not all good news, however. Arvind Panagariya, an economist at the University of Maryland, points out that 85 out of 148 developing countries are net importers of agricultural goods. Raising the price of those goods on world markets would leave them worse off. Farm-trade reform is at the centre of the Doha round, but Mr Panagariya’s results...

And prosper. . . by getting hungry and dirty. Getting dirty may lift your mood. Treatment of mice with a ‘friendly’ bacteria, normally found in the soil, altered their behavior in a way similar to that produced by antidepressant drugs, reports research published in the latest issue of Neuroscience. These findings, identified by researchers at the University of Bristol and colleagues at University College London, aid the understanding of why an imbalance in the immune system leaves some individuals vulnerable to mood disorders like depression. Dr Chris Lowry, lead author on the paper from Bristol University, said: "These studies help us understand how the body communicates with the brain and why a healthy immune system is important for maintaining mental health. They also leave us wondering if we shouldn’t all be spending more time playing in the dirt." It's never too late. [R]educing calorie intake later in life can still induce many of the health and longevity benefits of...

Build strong bodies in unusal ways. Scientists have shown for the first time that food enriched with natural isotopes builds bodily components that are more resistant to the processes of ageing. The concept has been demonstrated in worms and researchers hope that the same concept can help extend human life and reduce the risk of cancer and other diseases of ageing, reports Marina Murphy in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. A team led by Mikhail Shchepinov, formerly of Oxford University, fed nematode worms nutrients reinforced with natural isotopes (naturally occurring atomic variations of elements). In initial experiments, worms' life spans were extended by 10%, which, with humans expected to routinely coast close to the centenary, could add a further 10 years to human life. Food enhanced with isotopes is thought to produce bodily constituents and DNA more resistant to detrimental processes, like free radical attack. The isotopes replace atoms in susceptible bonds making these bonds stronger....

I'm less energetic in the winter. I seem to go offline a bit, waiting as it were for it to be over. The days are shorter, so that's part of it, but they are also dimmer, and I think that's a bigger part for me. Some talk of Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD, and propose light therapies. I suspect there's something to it. Just now I was standing under an overhang sheltering from a steady rain. It had been a dim day - cold, overcast and drizzly - and I was too blank for comfort. Then the sun shone through the overcast. Not brightly, but very much brighter than a moment before. It had dropped low enough in the afternoon sky to shine wanly through the overcast, a perfunctory reminder that it would return though it was on its way behind the mountain and then the whole earth for the night. The rain was falling with a slight slant due...

I got a call from old Jim the other day. He's another absentee ranchette owner in my neighborhood that I manage for. He's 91, lives in town now, and can't remember things straight any more. Actually, he seems to remember the long ago past just fine, but loses track of more current things. He may be inventing that past he speaks of so clearly for all I know, but it seems like he's lost the ability to make new memories, as if at some point his head got full and new stuff goes in one ear and overflows out the other. He calls me Jake and no amount of correction sticks. Maybe there was some Jake in his past that I remind him of. His daughter, a grandmother herself, handles his affairs for the most part and sealed the deal with me. Someone in the clan has it straight, so I go with the flow. He wanted me to...

Few things in the home are more revolting than the old sponge. Part of that problem seems solvable. University of Florida engineering researchers have found that microwaving kitchen sponges and plastic scrubbers -- known to be common carriers of the bacteria and viruses that cause food-borne illnesses – sterilizes them rapidly and effectively. That means that the estimated 90-plus percent of Americans with microwaves in their kitchens have a powerful weapon against E. coli, salmonella and other bugs at the root of increasing incidents of potentially deadly food poisoning and other illnesses. "Basically what we find is that we could knock out most bacteria in two minutes," said Gabriel Bitton, a UF professor of environmental engineering. "People often put their sponges and scrubbers in the dishwasher, but if they really want to decontaminate them and not just clean them, they should use the microwave." . . . The results were unambiguous: Two minutes of microwaving on full power mode...

So, why is it that cancer cells thrive and overwhelm victims? DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact that they make their energy throughout the main body of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar. Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably damaged. However, Michelakis’s experiments prove this is not the case, because DCA reawakened the mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered and died (Cancer Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2006.10.020). Michelakis suggests that the switch to glycolysis as an energy source occurs when cells in the middle of an abnormal but benign lump don’t get enough oxygen for their mitochondria to work properly (see diagram). In order to survive, they switch off their mitochondria and start producing energy through glycolysis. Crucially, though, mitochondria do another job in cells: they activate apoptosis, the...

This is another chapter in the continuing saga: Everything I Know is Wrong. New research shows that at least 10 percent of genes in the human population can vary in the number of copies of DNA sequences they contain--a finding that alters current thinking that the DNA of any two humans is 99.9 percent similar in content and identity. This discovery of the extent of genetic variation, by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholar Stephen W. Scherer, and colleagues, is expected to change the way researchers think about genetic diseases and human evolution. Genes usually occur in two copies, one inherited from each parent. Scherer and colleagues found approximately 2,900 genes--more than 10 percent of the genes in the human genome--with variations in the number of copies of specific DNA segments. These differences in copy number can influence gene activity and ultimately an organism's function. To get a better picture of exactly how important this type of...

This might revolutionize your first aid kit. When the liquid, composed of protein fragments called peptides, is applied to open wounds, the peptides self-assemble into a nanoscale protective barrier gel that seals the wound and halts bleeding. Once the injury heals, the nontoxic gel is broken down into molecules that cells can use as building blocks for tissue repair. "We have found a way to stop bleeding, in less than 15 seconds, that could revolutionize bleeding control," said Rutledge Ellis-Behnke, research scientist in the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. This study will appear in the online edition of the journal Nanomedicine on Oct. 10 at http://www.nanomedjournal.com/inpress. It marks the first time that nanotechnology has been used to achieve complete hemostasis, the process of halting bleeding from a damaged blood vessel. Doctors currently have few effective methods to stop bleeding without causing other damage. More than 57 million Americans undergo nonelective surgery each year, and as much as...

Heart attacks seem increasingly common in western countries. In part it may be simply that the average age of westerners is increasing, and hearts wear out. In part it may be poor diets which weaken those old hearts more. There are good arguments that one should learn to own and operate a heart when young so that it will last longer. Exercise is good and so is attention to diet. This is a highly contentious subject that attracts quacks with diet books and wellness centers, making it difficult, and in the end disgusting, to contemplate. A pox on all their houses. There's a semi-interesting debate about dietary substances, food extracts, being used as medicine. ROME — Every patient in the cardiac care unit at the San Filippo Neri Hospital who survives a heart attack goes home with a prescription for purified fish oil, or omega-3 fatty acids. . . But in the United States, heart attack victims are not...

"A kiss is not a kiss if it is inflicted instead of offered". . . as is the case with one local species of assassin bug called the Western Conenose, Triatoma protracta. This 3/4-inch, brown-black nocturnal insect, whose wings form a distinctive "X" when folded over the abdomen, also goes by the name of the "kissing bug" or, as it is known in Latin America, "vinchuca." The kissing bug label comes from the insect's ability to steal a blood meal by painlessly piercing the lips, eyelids or ears of a sleeping human victim. The real problem is that during the feeding process, the bug injects its saliva into the victim, which can result in anaphylactic shock to persons sensitive to the bite. In rare cases, an individual might contract Chagas disease, a form of African sleeping sickness, which is caused by a one-celled organism carried by 40 percent of the bugs in some areas of southern California. They are...