Smoking Causes Gene Damage in Minutes

Those first few puffs on a cigarette can within minutes cause genetic damage linked to cancer, US scientists reported. In fact, researchers said the "effect is so fast that it's equivalent to injecting the substance directly into the bloodstream," in findings described as a "stark warning" to those who smoke.

The study is the first on humans to track how substances in tobacco cause DNA damage, and appears in the peer-reviewed journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, issued by the American Chemical Society.Using 12 volunteer smokers, scientists tracked pollutants called PAHs, or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, that are carried in tobacco smoke and can also be found in coal-burning plants and in charred barbecue food.They followed one particular type -- phenanthrene, which is found in cigarette smoke -- through the blood and saw it form a toxic substance that is known to "trash DNA, causing mutations that can cause cancer," the study said.

"The smokers developed maximum levels of the substance in a time frame that surprised even the researchers: just 15-30 minutes after the volunteers finished smoking," the study said. Lung cancer kills about 3,000 people around the world each day, and 90 percent of those deaths are attributable to cigarette smoking.

The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute.

The MTA & Your Health

Consider your shiny new $104 Metro Card your express pass to... poor health.

According to a new British study, public transit riders are six times more likely to suffer from acute respiratory infections. Only take the subway sometimes? Well occasional riders aren't safe either, in fact the study showed they are most at risk. Those who ride public transit everyday may build up an immunity to viruses, making the occasional straphanger the one to get sick more often.

The study followed 138 patients at a doctor's office, and compared their public transit habits with their frequency of getting sick. While the study was conducted at the University of Nottingham, far from our own MTA, it's a safe bet that it translates to every public transit system in the world... except Sweden, of course.

Daily News

Fewer Big Fish in the Sea

Fewer big, predatory fish are swimming in the world's oceans because of overfishing by humans, leaving smaller fish to thrive and double in force over the past 100 years, scientists said Friday.Big fish such as cod, tuna, and groupers have declined worldwide by two-thirds while the number of anchovies, sardines and capelin has surged in their absence, said University of British Columbia researchers. Meanwhile, people around the world are fishing harder and coming up with the same or fewer numbers in their catch, indicating that humans may have maxed out the ocean's capacity to provide us with food.

"By removing the large, predatory species from the ocean, small forage fish have been left to thrive." The researchers also found that more than half (54 percent) of the decline in the predatory fish population has taken place over the last 40 years.

"Humans have always fished. Even our ancestors have fished. We are just much much better at it now," said UBC scientist Reg Watson.

Our Growing Population

A growing, more affluent population competing for ever scarcer resources could make for an "unrecognizable" world by 2050, researchers warned at a major US science conference Sunday. The United Nations has predicted the global population will reach seven billion this year, and climb to nine billion by 2050, "with almost all of the growth occurring in poor countries, particularly Africa and South Asia," said John Bongaarts of the non-profit Population Council.

To feed all those mouths, "we will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000," said Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It takes around seven pounds (3.4 kilograms) of grain to produce a pound of meat, and around three to four pounds of grain to produce a pound of cheese or eggs, experts told AFP. "More people, more money, more consumption, but the same planet," Clay told AFP, urging scientists and governments to start making changes now to how food is produced.