Thousands of tiny red crabs continue to wash up on California beaches

© Credit: KTLA
Thousands of dead or dying red crabs washed up onto the sand at Huntington Beach on June 15, 2015.

Thousands of small crabs native to the waters off Baja California have washed up on beaches in Orange and San Diego counties, coating the sand in a spiky layer of red.

The crustaceans — Pleuroncodes planipes, known as red crabs, or tuna crabs — began appearing in great numbers last week. Out of the water, they become stranded and typically perish, leaving their bodies to decay on the beach.

The crabs were first reported in San Diego and then ventured up the coast, with thousands appearing as far north as Huntington Beach on Sunday. They were also reported in Newport Beach in January, according to the

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About 1 to 3 inches in length, the crabs look like small lobsters. They often appear in El Niño years, prompted to venture north by warmer Pacific Ocean currents.

The crabs travel in dense schools in the spring and sometimes wash ashore, the San Pedro-based Southern California Marine Institute's director told the .

They appeared in the late 1990s locally and then several years later in the Channel Islands, the reported.

"They often hang around with tuna, and tuna love to eat them," Charina Layman, education manager of La Jolla's Birch Aquarium, told KFMB. "We see this occur every few years, and right now the water is a little bit warmer off our coast."

A park ranger at Doheny State Beach said the water temperature on Sunday was 72 degrees.

Orange County lifeguards were asking people not to touch or take the crabs from marine protected areas, the reported.

Weekend beachgoers, meanwhile, were posting photos of the striking invasion to social media.

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Starfish are capable of ejecting foreign objects from their bodies to quickly heal themselves

© University of Southern Denmark
A starfish squeezes a foreign body through its arm tip.

Starfish have strange talents. Two biology students from University of Southern Denmark have revealed that starfish are able to squeeze foreign bodies along the length of their body cavities and out through their arm tips. This newly discovered talent gives insight into how certain animals are able to quickly heal themselves.

The two biology students, Frederik Ekholm Gaardsted Christensen and Trine Bottos Olsen have discovered a starfish behaviour that has never previously been described in the scientific literature. As part of their studies they were asked to tag some starfish (), so that researchers could reidentify and study the starfish. The tags were injected into the starfish, as a veterinarian tags a dog or cat.

"But every time we put a tag into a starfish, they rid themselves of the tag within a few days. It came out directly through the skin; the starfish simply pushed it out through the skin at the end of one arm and then went on as if nothing had happened", the two students explain.

Many organisms are capable of removing some foreign objects from their body. Think of a splinter that can be pushed out of a finger by itself. However, when the foreign object is lodged deep inside the organism, like a bullet between the internal organs, most organisms have no way to get rid of it without surgery.

The starfish do not attempt to push the tag out of the hole in the skin through which it was injected. Instead they let the tag wander seemingly randomly between the organs for a while, before they finally squeeze it out through an arm tip.

© University of Southern Denmark
Here, the foreign element has been squeezed completely out through the arm tip.

Starfish physiology differs in many respects from ours. They have an external skeleton and decentralized nervous system, and their eyes are placed on the end of each arm. But like us, they have a body cavity filled with organs, and it is through the body cavity that the tag moves before it reaches the tip of an arm, the researchers conclude.

Previous research has documented that starfish are able to regenerate whole limbs and organs, but this trick of ejecting deeply embeded foreign bodies has never before been demonstrated in any organism.

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6.0 magnitude earthquake strikes off East Indonesia; no tsunami warning issued

© theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com

An earthquake measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale jolted North Sulawesi province in the eastern part of Indonesia earlier Tuesday, but it was not potential for tsunami and left no casualties, an official said in Jakarta.The quake struck at 04:04 a.m. Jakarta time Tuesday with epicenter at 71 km northeast Sangihe Island of the province and with the depth at 71 km under seabed, an official of the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency told Xinhua over phone.

"The shakes of the quake were felt moderate. It was not potential to trigger tsunami and did not cause damage. The condition of the people is normal," Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman of the national disaster management agency told Xinhua via phone after the quake.

Previously at 00:40 a.m. Jakarta time Tuesday another quake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale struck off East Nusa Tenggara province in central part of Indonesia, the official of the meteorology and geophysics agency said.

The quake was centered at 64 km southeast of the province and with the depth at 65 km under seabed, he said.

Sutopo also confirmed that the quake did not cause any damage.

Indonesia is prone to quake as it lies on a vulnerable quake- hit zone called "the Pacific Ring of Fire."

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Truvia's deception: A highly processed GMO sweetener that contains only 5% stevia

If you're one of the people who was excited when the "natural" sweetener that was allegedly made from the stevia plant became more commonly available, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you.

All of that hype about the "new" zero-calorie Truvia? All the talk about how natural it is? That's just not true.

Incidentally, while the FDA has approved this bastardization of stevia, the actual leaf, where the active chemicals are found, is banned from sale as a food additive or sweetener and may only be sold as an "herbal supplement."

The Big Food/Big Agri Connection

There's a direct connection to Big Agri - Cargill, a privately held, multi-billion dollar corporation, was the driving force behind getting FDA approval of the sweetener, despite evidence that it might not actually be safe in its processed form. Cargill is also a major player in the meat industry (with all of its unspeakable feedlot horrors) and has been subject to numerous food safety recalls over the past few years due to contaminated meat. Cargill, that bastion of food safety, was the driving force behind the FDA's decision to switch the status of stevia from a "supplement" to a food that is "generally recognized as safe".

Cargill wasn't alone, however. Big Food joined forces, since diet soda sales have plummeted over the past 10 years. According to the Wall Street Journal, the sale of low-calorie soft drinks has declined by billions per year over the past decade, as consumers became aware of the potential risks of neurotoxic artificial sweeteners.

So, to combat those health concerns, Coca Cola produced Truvia and Pepsi produced PureVia. Now, I don't know about you, but I can't consume anything produced by either of those companies (both Coke and Pepsi lobbied fiercely against the labeling of GMOs) and delude myself into believing the product is healthy.

Decades ago, diet sodas were touted as a healthy way to have a refreshing beverage without expanding your waistline. Unfortunately, the zero-calorie beverages were anything but healthy, and many people have suffered ill effects from the consumption of those drinks. Even corporate-funded Fox News was forced to admit that diet sodas were detrimental to human health.

Enter Truvia, the cure for all of those diet soda ills. Because, it's !

Truvia is the second best-selling sugar substitute in the United States, most likely because the deceptive marketing is targeted at those who want to make healthier, less artificial choices. Remember how last week we discussed that Big Food isn't making very much money? This is just the next volley of propaganda in which Big Food attempts to deceive the public into believing their processed food-like substances are actually food. Sales of Truvia in 2014 exceeded $400 million.

But...Truvia is not actually "natural"

Not so fast. While it's true that the powdered stevia you get in the little packets is in part derived from a plant grown in Paraguay, it isn't just the plant you're getting. If it was just a powdered up plant, Coca Cola and Cargill wouldn't be able to hold the patents to make it, right?

Traditionally, a leaf from the stevia plant was dropped into a hot beverage to steep and lend its sweetness. But the current product that's being touted for its "natural sweetness" is a far cry from a leaf from the garden. (Despite how Cargill glosses over the heavy processing on the Truvia website.) In fact, Cargill had to settle a civil lawsuit a few years back because of their claims that the product was natural. The lawsuit forced them to put millions of dollars aside to settle future claims and they were required to put an asterisk on their tagline "Nature's calorie-free sweetener."

Nor is it actually mostly stevia...it's mostly derived from GMO corn

Truvia is actually made mostly of erythritol, a sugar alcohol derived from genetically modified corn. Only 5% of the compound is actually derived from the stevia plant.

Despite the fact that erythritol is made from corn, and most corn is GMO, the Truvia website provides the strangest dance of denial I've witnessed in quite some time. They seem to feel that since it's just derived from corn, then processed like crazy, that the origin of the corn has no bearing on the end product.

Here's what the website says, which sure sounds to me like GMO corn is used:

Does Truvía® natural sweetener contain GMO? Is it genetically modified? [Link]

No. Truvía® natural sweetener is not GMO, and does not contain any genetically modified ingredients. There are no known varieties of genetically modified stevia available anywhere in the world. The carrier for the intensely sweet stevia leaf extract is called erythritol. The erythritol used in Truvía® natural sweetener is produced by a yeast organism that is found in nature. The yeast ferments or digests dextrose and other nutrients. In other words, dextrose is the food for the yeast - much like corn may be food for a cow that produces meat or milk. The dextrose used as the feedstock for the yeast is a simple sugar that is derived from the starch component of U.S.-grown corn. Although genetically enhanced corn and non-transgenic corn are grown in the U.S. today, erythritol is not derived from corn and dextrose feedstock (just as milk is not derived from cattle feed); it is derived from the yeast organism. Erythritol is not genetically modified, and does not contain any genetically modified proteins.

Do you use GMO corn to produce the erythritol used in Truvía®natural sweetener? [Link]

The erythritol used in Truvía® natural sweetener is produced by a yeast organism that is found in nature. The yeast "ferments" or "digests" dextrose and other nutrients. Dextrose is the food for the yeast - much like corn may be food for a cow that produces meat or milk. The dextrose is derived from the starch component of U.S.-grown corn. Both GM corn and non-GM corn are grown in the U.S. today. Cargill does not segregate the corn used to manufacture the dextrose used in the erythritol process.

Why is Truvía® natural sweetener non-GMO if you use GMO corn?[Link]

Erythritol is not made from corn or dextrose (just as milk is not made from cattle feed); erythritol is made from a yeast organism that eats the dextrose for food. Erythritol itself is not derived from a genetically modified source, and does not contain any genetically modified proteins.

Here's how Truvia is made

Truvia contains 3 ingredients: Erythritol, Rebiana, and natural flavors.

Erythritol

We talked about erythritol and it's genetically modified origins above. This ingredient makes up 95-99% of the "natural sweetener." Straight from the Cargill website, here's how erythritol is made:

Erythritol is the first polyol to be manufactured on a commercial scale by a fermentation process. The starting material is a simple sugar-rich substrate which is fermented by a yeast like fungus to yield erythritol.

The product is then crystallized to 99.5 percent purity from the filtered and concentrated fermentation broth.

Rebiana

Rebiana (chemical name rebaudioside A) makes up less than 1% of the little packet. Rebiana (also called Reb-A) is a substance that is derived from the stevia leaf, but is not actually stevia. Although Truvia's website says that Rebiana is retrieved from the stevia leaf by soaking it in water, the patent held by Coca Cola divulges that it actually takes 40 steps (!!!) to extract the desired molecule, steps that include the use of yummy stuff like acetone, methanol, ethanol, acetonitrile, and isopropanol.

Natural Flavoring

If you've been paying attention, you know that the term "natural flavoring" is so broad as to be without definition. Even MSG can be considered "natural" according to some, since it originates, far far back in the process, from yeast. Other types of natural additives are repugnant, so they hide the real origins behind that much-abused word, natural. (Read Natural Additives: Bugs, Hair, and Anal Secretions, Oh My for the full story on that meaningless ingredient listing.)So, really, this third ingredient could be anything.

A Dishonorable Mention Goes to Stevia in the Raw

Another deceptive product on the stevia bandwagon is Stevia in the Raw. It's also not really stevia -it's primary ingredients are dextrose and maltodextrin, both derived from corn, and both likely to be genetically modified. As well, maltodextrin often contains MSG, which doesn't have to be disclosed in the ingredients list.

The Conclusion? Truvia is NOT Stevia

Here's the long and the short of it: if you have a sweet tooth, you simply have to understand that sweet things have calories. Whether you decide to consume things that are sweet is entirely up to you, but a non-harmful, no-calorie sweetener is simply the stuff of fairy tales. Little packets of sweet substances without calories are, without exception, highly processed and often very harmful.

If you want to sweeten a beverage with stevia, your very best bet is to make like the folks in Paraguay and steep a leaf of it in your beverage. (You can get organic stevia leaves HERE, or you can grow it yourself.) The second best option is a pure extract like this one.

Truvia, for all its gushing propaganda, contains less than 5% of anything even derived from the stevia plant, much less actual stevia.

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Washington's Puget Sound skies dotted with 'fire rainbows'

© Jen Brazas

The thin, wispy clouds floating around the Puget Sound region Monday usually do nothing more than give the blue skies a little bit of character.

But today, they were giving the skies a little bit of color.

© Brian Willard Roetger

We had a number of reports of rainbow arcs in the sky -- both in a circular halo around the sun and just lighting up some clouds near the horizon -- a circumhorizontal arc, otherwise known informally as "fire rainbows."

They're both caused by the same thing -- those thin clouds are made of tiny ice crystals that at a certain angle to the sun will refract the sunlight like a prism. The type of arc they create are based on cloud position and shape of ice crystal -- and we had two rather common ones Monday.

© Krystie Baker

The sun halos, like these captured by @zargoman, can happen year round:

© @Zargoman

The circumhorizontal arcs only happen near the summer solstice near solar noon as the sun has to reach a certain height above the horizon for the angles to work. Sure enough, this arc was seen by Bob Hutchins around lunchtime near Boeing Field:

© Bob Hutchins

Many times these can be signals of approaching rain, as cirrus clouds like these will frequently precede a cold front. But not in this case, they're just some fair weather clouds passing through and no rain is in the forecast for at least the next few days.

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So much for food safety: Each week products are found contaminated with allergens, pathogens, particulate matter

One of the clear and present dangers in having such a highly industrialized, highly centralized food system in this country (a system where a whopping 96% of everyone relies on the other 4% for their food) is contamination. Our food is so centralized now that 10 megacorporations essentially own and produce all the brands you see on your grocery store shelf.

In short, it ain't like your mom's mom's mom used to make.

So in a typical week, several products are found contaminated with everything from undeclared major allergens to potentially fatal food-borne pathogens to "particulate matter". You never know what you're gonna get.

In just the last few days, these things have been recalled (via the FDA's recall page and the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service FSIS):

June 12, 2015 - Larry's Custom Meats Inc., a Hartwick, N.Y. establishment, is recalling approximately 529 pounds of beef tongue products that may have been shipped with lingual tonsils still attached, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.

June 10, 2015 - Walgreen Co. of Deerfield, IL is recalling Nice! Powdered Sugar Mini Donuts, because it has received consumer complaints alleging that mold was observed on some products.

June 10, 2015 - Vitamin Cottage Natural Food Markets Inc., a Lakewood, Colo., based natural grocery chain, is recalling additional lots of Natural Grocers brand Macadamia Nuts as the product has the potential to be contaminated with , an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems.

June 10, 2015 - A Wisconsin firm is voluntarily recalling its potato salad, due to the possibility of Listeria monocytogenes contamination. The product was distributed to Jewel stores in the Chicago area and may have been sold at delicatessen counters between May 30 and June 9 under the brand name Garden Fresh Steakhouse Potato Salad.

June 9, 2015 - Big Easy Foods Louisiana Cuisine, Inc., a Lake Charles, La. establishment, is recalling approximately 93,006 pounds of both raw and cooked stuffed chicken product due to misbranding and an undeclared allergen, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. The product contains wheat, a known allergen which is not declared on the product label.

Too bad for all those Celiacs and gluten intolerant people. Or, if you ate what's listed below, you wouldn't even now what you actually ate.

June 6, 2015 - Benedetti Farms, Inc., a Sonoma, Calif. establishment, is recalling approximately 11,670 pounds of chicken and turkey sausage products due to misbranding, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. The chicken and turkey sausages were wrapped in hog and sheep casings that were not listed on the labels. Hog and sheep casings may elicit allergic reactions in the rare cases of individuals known to be allergic to pork or sheep proteins.

This one below was just updated June 5, 2015 to a total of nearly 600,000 pounds of recalled meat that was processed without any inspection using another facility's mark of inspection to make consumers think the meat was inspected when it wasn't:

May 20, 2015 - LQNN, Inc., a Garden Grove, Calif. firm, added additional poundage to the recalled products list, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. The added products should have been part of the original 213,192 pounds of chicken, beef and pork products that were recalled on May 20, 2015. The new total recalled poundage is 598,374 pounds. The products which were moved and sold in commerce included the unapproved use of another facility's mark of inspection, which has been identified as Establishment number 18995. LQNN, Inc., operating as Lee's Sandwiches, has been processing products from federally-inspected establishments and re-packaging them without the benefit of inspection. Products produced without inspection present potential of increased human health risk.

June 4, 2015 - Santa Barbara Smokehouse of Santa Barbara, CA is voluntarily recalling all smoked salmon EXCLUDING HOT SMOKED SALMON from March 1st to April 8th 2015, because it has the potential to be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.

In addition, the CDC is reporting that unopened frozen ground tuna products found two types of salmonella: salmonella newport in one, and salmonella weltevreden in another.

Via Food Safety News:

The unopened frozen ground tuna products represented two different lots of product imported from Indonesia by Osamu Corporation of Gardena, CA, CDC stated. On May 27, Osamu Corporation recalled the two lots of ground frozen yellowfin tuna imported from Indonesia and distributed in California and Arizona due to possible Salmonellacontamination.

The company's recall announcement includes a seven-page retail distribution list of restaurants and sushi bars in California where the recalled product had been distributed. CDC is advising restaurants and retailers not to sell or serve the recalled ground frozen yellowfin tuna imported from Indonesia by Osamu Corporation.

In another frightening twist, Food Safety News also reported another recall on June 12 I did not find on the FSIS or FDA websites:

Shirks Meats of Dundee, NY, is recalling "Smoked Andouille Sausage" due to Listeria monocytogenes contamination. No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this problem.

The recalled in-store packed "Smoked Andouille Sausage" comes in a clear plastic package with a date of 6-5-15 on it. Package sizes varied from 9-12 ounces. The "Smoked Andouille Sausage" was sold only from the retail location at 4342 John Green Rd. in Dundee, NY.

To find all that out took three different government agencies and a food safety news website: the FDA, the USDA, the CDC, and Food Safety News. This is just a few days in America's food system, just a snapshot. Can you imagine trying to keep up with this on a constant basis?

I'm not telling you all this just to scare you. I'm putting all this information in one place so people can see just how screwed up our food system is. This is just what we know about. This is just what has come to the surface.

Beyond being lied to about our food on its packaging - everything from not being told if our food is genetically modified to the entirely misleading names on ingredient lists - practically every day or two, something horridly wrong is found with our food that could potentially damage or even kill us if we eat it.

This is a place where people need to start taking their power back. This is a place where buying local matters the most. Otherwise, how are you ever really going to know what's in your food? What's on your dinner plate? What's on the end of your fork?

Food used to just be food. Now it's an industrialized battleground where we misplace a lot of our trust in corporations much more interested in bottom lines than human beings.

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House-shaking mammoth bang baffles Auckland residents (again)

© File photo/NZ Herald
The mysterious sound was heard in the Auckland suburbs of Onehunga and Mangere Bridge on Sunday night.

A house-shaking explosion noise has baffled Auckland residents.

The mammoth bang was heard by residents in the suburbs of Onehunga and Mangere Bridge about 10.30pm on Sunday. One reader who wrote in to the said they could feel the house shake.
The scary noise sounded "super sonic" and no one knew what it was, the woman said.

Residents turned to Twitter to find the source of the mysterious noise - but no clues have turned up yet. Dean Taylor tweeted: "What was that Big Bang in Onehunga just now?" Twitter user Peter Tainui said it might have been related to the mystery bang or explosion heard in the same area a couple of weeks ago. "What/who the hell is the cause?" he asked.

Another loud bang stumped residents in the Onehunga, Three Kings, Mt Roskill, Epsom and Mt Albert area on May 30. One Twitter user at the time said it sounded like a loud boom, thunder or an explosion.

A series of mysterious explosion noises were also reported across Auckland in June 2014, which turned out to be Defence Force training exercise at the Kaipara Bomb Range. New Zealand Defence Force spokesman Geoff Davies said the noise did not come from the organisation. He said the Defence Force had not received any calls about the noise.

An Auckland Council spokeswoman said there was no known record of calls about the bang on Sunday night.

Another loud bang was reported by central Auckland residents in May when a power line worker was injured in a substation accident, cutting power to homes. But there was no power outages or incidents on Sunday night, Vector spokeswoman Sandy Hodge said. The company had "a really quiet weekend", she said.

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