It’s a good thing we still have scientists who refuse to accept settled science and scientific consensus, and keep on digging and questioning prevailing wisdoms.
It seems that many of such scientists are in Israel, perhaps because politicized scientific conformity is not as prized in the “start-up nation” as it is in Euorpe and the U.S.
One example from Israel we reported on previously was Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded scientific denier:
Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for his discovery of quasicrystals, a mosaic-like chemical structure that researchers previously thought was impossible.The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Shechtman’s discovery in 1982 fundamentally changed the way chemists look at solid matter. It initially faced strong objections from the scientific community, and even got him kicked out of his research group in the United States.
Now another, from AFP via Times of Israel, Sweeteners boost diabetes risk, Israeli study finds:
Promoted as an aid to good health, artificial sweeteners may in fact be boosting diabetes risk, said an Israeli study Wednesday that urged a rethink of their widespread use and endorsement….After leaving a sensation of sweetness on the tongue, NAS [Non-caloric artificial sweeteners] molecules pass through the intestinal tract without being absorbed.This explains why, unlike sugar, they add negligibly, if at all, to the calorie count.But Israeli scientists reported in the journal Nature that experiments on lab mice and a small group of humans found NAS disrupted the makeup and function of gut bacteria, and actually hastened glucose intolerance.“Artificial sweeteners were extensively introduced into our diets with the intention of reducing caloric intake and normalizing blood glucose levels without compromising the human ‘sweet tooth,’” the paper said.“Our findings suggest that NAS may have directly contributed to enhancing the exact epidemic that they themselves were intended to fight,” it said bluntly.Scientists led by Eran Elinav and Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel added three commonly-used types of NAS — aspartame, sucralose or saccharin — to the drinking water of mice in body-size appropriate doses equivalent to recommended maximum human intake.
Oh, and one more thing.
The Weizmann Institute of Science is subject to the academic boycott of Israel championed by Steven Salaita, the controversial almost-U. Illinois professor and his supporters at the American Studies Association and in some pockets of academia.
The academic BDS supporters should ignore these Israeli research findings, in the spirit of anti-Zionist solidarity.CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY
