Urine

In rejecting PSA screening for prostate cancer, an influential federal panel has chipped a cornerstone of preventive medicine, declaring that it's not always best to catch cancer as early as possible. "At best, PSA screening may help only 1 man in 1,000 avoid death from prostate cancer," the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said Monday. "Most prostate cancers found by PSA screening are slow growing, not life threatening, and will not cause a man any harm during his lifetime.

Question: What causes my urine to have a lot of foam? Is it serious? Answer: Have you ever had lemon meringue pie? Those tall peaks of frothy white that make up meringue are made from two simple ingredients: sugar and egg whites. When whipped, egg whites will at first foam, and then stiffen into white peaks with continued beating. That's a result of the unique properties of the albumin protein of egg whites. It's normal to have a trace of protein in standing urine, which foams like meringue as the urine mixes with the water in the toilet.

Ten women who were protesting a pigeon shoot at a Montgomery County gun club were sprayed with deer urine yesterday by three juveniles who were working at the shoot. State police corporal Linda Scott said that the women were among about 20 protesters from several animal rights organizations who were standing along the road that runs in front of the Powderbourne Gun Club in Upper Hanover Township. She did not know where the youths obtained the deer urine or how it was sprayed on the women.

Companies who decide to test their employees for marijuana may find themselves in for more than they bargained for. The active ingredient in marijuana, THC, is a fat-soluble chemical and traces of it can linger in the body for years, whether or not a person uses the drug heavily. I daresay there are few 1960s or '70s college graduates among us who haven't "experimented" with pot at some point. The dismissal of multitudes of college graduates who fail drug tests will leave a huge gap in the ranks of senior- and mid-management nationwide.

THE PERSON who collected Ryan Braun's urine sample that tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone said he followed the collection program's protocol. Dino Laurenzi Jr. issued a statement yesterday confirming he handled the sample submitted following a playoff game on Oct. 1. He says he has been a collector for Comprehensive Drug Testing since 2005 and has taken more than 600 samples for Major League Baseball's drug-testing program. "At no point did I tamper in any way with the samples," he said.

Police Commissioner Kevin M. Tucker has asked the Civil Service Commission to approve regulations authorizing him to require police officers to undergo urinalysis and, in certain cases, polygraph examinations. Under Tucker's proposal, the police commissioner would have total discretion in deciding which officers would have to submit to urine tests, which are given to uncover drug use. He could order that testing be done randomly and without probable cause. Both the Fraternal Order of Police and the American Civil Liberties Union said they are opposed to testing at random and without probable cause.

Ray Akers Jr. of Mantua said the inspiration for his business came from a Mr. Coffee machine. "I had been aware for quite some time that there was no inexpensive and rapid way to detect drugs in urine," Akers, 30, said last week. "So, while I was making coffee one morning in a Mr. Coffee machine, the idea hit me: Drugs are present in urine in minute quantities. All tests concentrate them. Why not filter them out of the urine?" That was about 1 1/2 years ago. Today, Akers and his father, Ray Akers Sr., run Drug Screening Systems Inc., a Blackwood-based company that produces the InstaScreen testing system.

President Reagan's doctors most likely ordered two urological tests for him today after seeing blood - either microscopic or visible to the naked eye - in his urine, a urologist in Philadelphia said yesterday. Dr. Philip Hanno, assistant professor of urology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said that when blood is identified in the urine, the first possibility that must be considered is cancer. Doctors will look carefully at his prostate gland, which sits like an acorn surrounding the neck of the bladder.

Bob Pierson says he kicks off the topic "always with a wink. " "It serious stuff, though," he quickly adds. "Big stuff. " Sure is. How would you like to wake up on a Saturday or Sunday morning with your street "smelling like the subway steps at Broad and Locust"? That's why Pierson volunteered to head up the Public Urination Task Force, a committee formed by the South Street Neighborhood Association. Its aim is to get some people to watch their P's and Q's when visiting the popular strip and to correct "the noticeable lack of public toilets in the South Street corridor.

THE WATER bottles lying in a pile on Buttonwood Street were not filled with water. Their contents were a mysterious, yellow liquid - one closer to brown, the others the color of lemonade. Like Cris, the Callowhill resident who told us about the bottles, we assumed it was urine. But in the name of journalistic integrity, we had to be certain. Yes, readers, we opened the bottles and smelled them. Fortunately (or unfortunately), it took only one whiff: definitely urine. But let's start at the beginning.

THE WATER bottles lying in a pile on Buttonwood Street were not filled with water. Their contents were a mysterious, yellow liquid - one closer to brown, the others the color of lemonade. Like Cris, the Callowhill resident who told us about the bottles, we assumed it was urine. But in the name of journalistic integrity, we had to be certain. Yes, readers, we opened the bottles and smelled them. Fortunately (or unfortunately), it took only one whiff: definitely urine. But let's start at the beginning.

THE PERSON who collected Ryan Braun's urine sample that tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone said he followed the collection program's protocol. Dino Laurenzi Jr. issued a statement yesterday confirming he handled the sample submitted following a playoff game on Oct. 1. He says he has been a collector for Comprehensive Drug Testing since 2005 and has taken more than 600 samples for Major League Baseball's drug-testing program. "At no point did I tamper in any way with the samples," he said.

NEW YORK - National League MVP Ryan Braun's 50-game suspension was overturned Thursday by baseball arbitrator Shyam Das, the first time a baseball player successfully challenged a drug-related penalty in a grievance. The decision was announced by the Major League Baseball Players Association on Thursday, one day before the 28-year-old outfielder was due to report to spring training with the Milwaukee Brewers. Braun's urine tested positive in October for elevated testosterone, and ESPN reported the positive test in December.

ROME - Lawyers for survivors of the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia pressed Saturday for new drug tests on the ship's captain after traces of cocaine were reportedly found on the outside of a hair sample. But the consultant who did the analyses for prosecutors stood by results, which found no presence of the drug in urine samples or within the hair of Capt. Francesco Schettino. The Italian consumer-protection group Codacons is representing some survivors of the shipwreck of the cruise liner, which rammed a reef near a Tuscan island the night of Jan. 13 and turned on its side.

Question: What causes my urine to have a lot of foam? Is it serious? Answer: Have you ever had lemon meringue pie? Those tall peaks of frothy white that make up meringue are made from two simple ingredients: sugar and egg whites. When whipped, egg whites will at first foam, and then stiffen into white peaks with continued beating. That's a result of the unique properties of the albumin protein of egg whites. It's normal to have a trace of protein in standing urine, which foams like meringue as the urine mixes with the water in the toilet.

A woman who claims Pennsylvania state police pepper-sprayed her, doused her with cold water, then urinated on her will have her day in court. A federal judge ruled Monday that Derena Marie Madison, 40, can proceed with her lawsuit against five troopers who had sought to have the case dismissed. Madison, of Fayette County, was arrested Feb. 3, 2011, during a traffic stop near Pittsburgh. Though the vehicle belonged to her, she wasn't at the wheel. Troopers arrested the driver and charged him with driving under the influence.

THE SOUND OF a dog yapping on Saturday morning led landlord Turgut Gozleveli down into the lower basement of the Northeast Philadelphia apartment building he owned, down to an abandoned boiler room that was bizarrely locked shut with a chain wrapped around the door handle. Gozleveli, 71, unwrapped the chain and opened the door, smelling urine and the earthiness of the dirt floor mixed into something he could only describe as a "horrible smell, like unexpected, like undesirable smell - the urine smell.

Three weeks after an earthquake and tsunami severely damaged Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, Lisa Daniels opened an e-mail with test results of river water samples from Southeastern Pennsylvania. It was just after lunch April 1. Nationwide, officials were testing rain, rivers, milk, and other substances to learn if radioactivity from the stricken plant was present. They'd seen it after Chernobyl, and now it was showing up nationwide, including in rainwater from a deluge in central Pennsylvania.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Call it the big flush. Because a 21-year-old man was caught on a security camera urinating into a city reservoir, Oregon's biggest city is sending 8 million gallons of treated drinking water down the drain. Portland officials defended the decision yesterday, saying they didn't want to send city residents water laced, however infinitesimally, with urine. Public-health officials say, however, that urine is sterile in healthy people and that the urine in the reservoir was so diluted - perhaps a half pint in millions of gallons - that it posed little risk.