The week began with the extremely welcome news that the LEAP study, which had been on-going on at Guys's and St Thomas' Evelina Hospital for the last 5 years, has come up with exactly the results that we had all hoped that it would: that eating peanuts from an early age is likely …
Can we blame male trees for the dramatic increase in the rates of hay fever? Tom Ogren says ‘yes’!
The sex life of plants, including trees, is not simple. Some, known as perfect flowered plants, have their male and female parts in the one flower so are effectively self pollinating (roses or apples); some, known as monoecious flowered plants have separate male and female …
PPD, henna and the dangers of cross reactivity
The inquest into the death of Julie McCabe four years ago has finally come to a close – with the coroner suggesting that the black henna tattoo that Mrs McCabe had had done in Dubai four years earlier could have been a factor in raising her sensitivity to the PPD which killed …
Traceability and ‘cumin-gate’
Issues of traceability loomed large a couple of weeks ago at the judging for the FreeFrom Food Awards. Whatever about manufacturing in a dedicated nut/dairy/gluten-free factory, does a 'freefrom' manufacture also need to know (and declare) the contamination risks that might …
With apologies to The Week readers….
Apologies to those of you who have already read these reports in last weeks' Week but their Health & Science pages not only informed but induced such a pleasant chortle that I wanted 'to share'..... In brief: Eggs make us nicer! Dutch researchers have concluded that the …





