Chayote: another weapon in the fight against cancer.
Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy treatments are accustomed to cocktails of chemicals designed to combat malignant tumor cells, but now a Mexican scientist has developed a chayote-based alternative.
It took cellular biologist Edelmiro Santiago Osorio and his team at the Zaragoza Higher Studies School (FES) of the National Autonomous University (UNAM) a decade of research and trials to prove the effectiveness of their hybrid chayote as tumor-fighting agent.
Chayotes, also known as pear squash or mirliton, are eaten around the world, but Santiago explained that the varieties found in stores and markets would be of no use in the fight against cancer.
“We would have to eat many kilograms of market chayotes to obtain the effect we get from the hybrid,” he said.
Santiago’s chayote is the result of combining two wild varieties found in Mexico, and it becomes antitumoral after it is processed to obtain a raw extract.
He claimed that his chayote extract is 1,000 times more potent than what could be obtained from common chayote varieties, and is as effective as cytarabine, a chemotherapy medication used to treat several types of cancer.
Santiago and his team used mice to test the chayote extract and found that it greatly inhibited the proliferation of some cancer-producing cell lines.
After creating his hybrid chayote strain, Santiago is now looking to create and fund a business that can grow it commercially to bring his “super chayote” to market.
Santiago remarked that the goal of the fight against cancer is not to have a single cure-all molecule or substance, but to gather an arsenal: “We must find the way to attack the tumoral cell at different stages of its development with different molecules.”
Several sites in Oaxaca were scenes for the Mexican-South Korean video.
A new musical recording that blends the popular Mexican song Cielito Lindo with a famous South Korean folk song celebrates the growing friendship between the two countries.
Two weeks after the South Korean soccer team helped Mexico to qualify for the second round of the World Cup by beating Germany — triggering an outpouring of love for the east Asian nation — musicians from Mexico and South Korea this week launched their music video entitled Cielito Lindo Coreano at the official residence of South Korea’s ambassador to Mexico.
Starring Korean-born pianist KL Joon, Mexican flautist Horacio Franco and Korean multi-instrumentalist Gamin Kang, the video also features some of Oaxaca’s most famous and stunning sights, while a trio of mariachi trumpeters makes a cameo appearance.
The natural rock formations at Hierve el Agua, the streets of the state capital’s historic center, the city’s cathedral and Santo Domingo church and the Tule tree — which has the widest trunk in the world — all get their moment in the limelight in the five-minute clip directed by Carlos Santos, ensuring that it will also be a good advertisement for tourism in the state.
Speaking at yesterday’s presentation, South Korean Ambassador Sang-Il Kim said the recording was not just a video but a production that extols the goodness of humanity.
He also said the song could serve as comfort for people who are suffering and hope for those who are attempting to overcome difficult times in their lives.
The folk song Arirang, which is often considered the unofficial national anthem of South Korea, also features in the musical fusion, which Joon and Franco played live at Tuesday’s presentation.
“Mexican and Korean music combine with the beautiful landscapes of Oaxaca, which was the location for this magnificent video,” Sang-Il Kim said.
KL Joon, who was born in South Korea but moved to Mexico during his teenage years and is now a Mexican citizen, said he has loved songs such as Cielito Lindo since he was a young boy but he didn’t realize that it was a Mexican song until he moved to the country.
He later decided that he wanted to find a way to combine the music of his country of birth with that of his adopted homeland, explaining that initially people thought it was a strange idea but eventually he found a willing accomplice in Franco.
The aim of the pair — along with New York-based Gamin Kang — is to show that instrumental music is not boring, Joon said.
“The world is full of reggaeton and pop and a lot of people think that instrumental music is boring but it’s not and it’s also very cultural. That’s why we wanted to make this fusion . . .” he explained.
Franco — an acclaimed musician who plays both flute and recorder in the song — said that for him the musical project is representative of the democratic transition that Mexico is currently passing through, adding that he thought that Korea’s development could serve as a model for progress here.
“It’s a dialogue with another country, another culture. I hope that Korea, with its example of economic growth and technological development, inspires us to change for the better,” he said.
Cancelled: an order for eight Seahawk helicopters will be cancelled by the new president.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador won’t be sworn in as the next president of Mexico for more than four months, but he is already moving ahead on campaign promises.
Speaking after a meeting with his party’s elected lawmakers, López Obrador said yesterday that his administration will cancel the purchase of eight MH60R combat helicopters worth US $1.2 billion.
The Navy has ordered the eight Seahawk aircraft from the United States manufacturer Lockheed-Martin and in April the U.S. State Department authorized the sale, on the grounds that the helicopters would improve the security operations of a regional strategic partner and would aid in the fight against organized crime.
When the purchase was announced, López Obrador asked that the order be cancelled.
“That purchase is going to be cancelled because we cannot make that expenditure,” said the president-elect yesterday.
He made this announcement as he prepares for his first meeting with representatives of the U.S. government as president-elect.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner, senior advisor to President Donald Trump, are scheduled to travel to Mexico City tomorrow.
On the campaign trail López Obrador was critical of federal spending on military equipment.
He also plans to sell the presidential airplane, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner purchased by the federal government two years ago. The president-elect has said he would never “board that plane.” Instead he plans to continue flying on commercial flights.
Scene of one of yesterday's attacks on police in Veracruz.
Violence in Veracruz yesterday took the lives of four municipal police officers who were attacked and killed in the municipality of Tezonapa, located in the central mountainous region of the state and an area where petroleum theft is common.
Armed civilians in the town of Motzorongo drove up to a municipal police patrol car and started shooting, killing an officer and severely injuring another.
Minutes later, a second group of police officers was attacked on the highway between Tezonapa and Laguna Chica by armed commandos who opened fire. Three police officers lost their lives, along with two civilians.
In the south of the state two men were found dead in a street in the port city of Coatzacoalcos; they had been tortured.
A woman’s body, minus the head, was found in the municipality of Puente Nacional, adjoining the port of Veracruz.
Alejandro Prieto is an award-winning Mexican nature photographer whose pictures have graced the pages of publications like National Geographic and BBC Wildlife Magazine.
Prieto was born and lives in Guadalajara and has distinguished himself for his ability to capture dramatic images of elusive creatures like the Mexican jaguar, in their native habitat.
I sat down with Prieto recently to learn about his newly completed project to point his camera at Mexico’s extraordinary “walking fish,” the axolotl.
The species Ambystoma mexicanum is a kind of salamander which remains in its larval state all its life. It is not a fish at all, but it does have gills — feathery growths outside its body — as well as lungs. As if that were not enough, the axolotl can also breathe through its skin.
These abilities, however, pale before this amphibian’s true “super power:” it can regenerate not only its limbs, but just about every part of its body, including its heart and brain, for which reason it has been called “the Peter Pan of exotic creatures.”
Naturally, these characteristics have made axolotls the subject of much research into ways to regenerate human body parts, especially since the successful sequencing of its genome (10 times the size of ours) that was announced in February.
So you’d think the “Mexican Amphibian with a Mona Lisa smile” as the New York Times called it ought to be just about the most prized and protected creature on the planet — but if you had opened a newspaper a year ago you would have read that it was about to go extinct in its native habitat.
Why was such a thing allowed to happen?
This was the question that occurred to Alex Prieto a year ago when he decided to go find the answer for himself and, fortunately for the rest of us, to document and photograph everything he discovered.
I caught up with the photographer at his home high in the hills overlooking Jalisco’s Primavera Forest.
“Why is the axolotl in trouble?” I asked.
The axolotl.
“First of all,” he said, “I should point out that the Ambystoma mexicanum is endemic to Mexico and found nowhere else. There are simply not a lot of them around to begin with. So the world was shocked not long ago when it was announced that the population of ajolotes in Lake Xochimilco — where they had thrived in pre-Hispanic times — had dropped from 6,000 per square kilometer in 1998 to only 35 in 2014, after which some researchers had claimed they couldn’t find any at all.”
The cause for this dramatic change, Prieto told me, was simply loss of habitat. Mexico has some of the world’s most stringent laws forbidding water pollution, but rarely enforces them. Axolotls can only survive in clean water and Xochimilco had serious problems.
But this is only half the problem. The other half is tilapia. This Middle East-African fish has been introduced into the lake for commercial purposes. As it is an omnivore, it not only devours the axolotl’s food, it also eats their eggs.
Even though a few axolotls can still be found in this city-enclosed lake, the species will have a hard time rebounding despite a National Autonomous University initiative launched in May.
After observing the situation in Xochimilco, Prieto traveled to visit the habitats of other varieties of Ambystomas in the rest of Mexico. He says, “I found a very beautiful kind of ajolote in Lake Zacapu in Michoacán. It’s called Ambystoma tigrinum and indeed it looks like a tiger. Unfortunately, this lake is suffering from an invasive water plant locally referred to as lirio that covers the surface and removes oxygen from the water.
“In Lake Pátzcuaro, also in Michoacán, there is another species that I believe is the biggest of all and can reach a length of about 30 centimeters, a foot long. Unfortunately, pollution is a problem in both lakes and both species are considered endangered.”
Michoacán nuns have world’s largest axolotl farm
Prieto walked over to his coffee table and brought me back a thick book. “You may be surprised, but there are nuns in Pátzcuaro who breed axolotls. They’re called the Sisters of the Monastery of the Dominican Order. They raise them for medicinal purposes and sell a number of traditional products derived from axolotls.
“At the same time they cooperate in conservation projects and donate specimens to researchers who are studying these creatures. They are raising the foot-long species I mentioned before, Ambystoma dumerilii, which is yellow with red fins. So these nuns have the biggest axolotl farm in the world raising the biggest species and they have been doing this for 150 years.”
Discovering that a new species of axolotl has recently been discovered in the Sierra de Manantlán Biosphere Reserve, Prieto went to this sanctuary, which straddles the border of the states of Colima and Jalisco and, for the first time, was able to photograph an Ambystoma swimming in unpolluted water.
“In Manantlán, the water’s clean,” he told me, “but is also freezing cold, so I needed a diving suit of seven-millimeter neoprene. Another problem is that you often have to squeeze into tight spaces.
“On the other hand, it’s relatively easy to photograph axolotls because they’re not very active by day. They’re only on the move at night, when they’re hunting. They may look like they are always smiling, but when it comes to feeding or reproducing, they become very aggressive. They usually eat insects and larvae, but they are also cannibals and quite happy to eat another axolotl.”
The word axolotl, Prieto told me, means “The god who fears death,” perhaps indicating that the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of Mexico associated its ability to regenerate body parts with everlasting life.
“They had legends,” Prieto explained, “that this curious creature — often seen in their art — originated with a god who was chosen to be sacrificed but refused the honor and ran away. Finally, they say, he jumped into the water and was turned into an ajolote.”
Actually, axolotls as a species had no cause at all to fear death in pre-Hispanic times, but in the 21st century the amazing Mexican walking fish may have good reason to worry about its survival.
(Parts of this article previously appeared in The Guadalajara Reporter.)
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador has begun outlining a strict austerity plan that Mexico’s next government intends to implement when it takes office later this year.
Slashing the upper levels of government bureaucracy by 50%, eliminating undersecretaries as well as state branches of federal offices and some parliamentary committees, reducing politicians’ salaries and cutting a range of other government expenses are all on the incoming administration’s agenda.
After meeting yesterday with a group of lawmakers from the three parties that make up the coalition that swept him to a landslide victory on July 1, López Obrador told a press conference that the next Congress will propose a 50% reduction to the wages paid to federal deputies and senators.
If approved, members of the lower house in the next Congress will earn a gross monthly salary of 37,336 pesos (US $1,983) while senators will be paid 58,700 pesos (US $3,120).
López Obrador also said that the gross salary he will receive as president will be halved from its current monthly level of 209,135 pesos (US $11,090) and that perks and benefits for all politicians — such as health insurance covering major medical expenses — will be eliminated.
The president-elect said that pensions for former presidents are also on the chopping block because having worked in the public service they are already entitled to ISSTE state workers’ pensions.
In addition, if they are over 65, they can claim old-age pensions, which López Obrador has said he will double.
The political veteran, who made stamping out corruption central to his bid for the presidency, said that whether the Morena party he leads decides to accept the 1.5 billion pesos (US $80 million) it will be entitled to next year due to the high percentage of votes it won on July 1 will be subject to analysis.
López Obrador also presented a plan to the lawmakers elected under his Together We Will Make History coalition entitled Considerations for deputies and senators.
The president-elect said that he and his team believe that the changes proposed in the plan “will be sufficient to fulfill [the government’s] commitments and to carry out the . . . transformation of the country.”
The Morena-led coalition will have a majority in both houses of federal Congress, although it will likely need to negotiate with opposition parties in order to pass constitutional reforms that require two-thirds support.
The Considerations document, which serves to set priorities for the government’s legislative agenda and instruct Congress, proposes 12 “possible reforms to the legal framework” that López Obrador read out at yesterday’s press conference. They are:
Changing article 127 of the constitution, which currently stipulates that no public official can earn a higher salary than the president.
Establishing a federal Secretariat of Public Security.
Eliminating political immunity known as the fuero and other privileges currently afforded to government officials.
Including corruption, petroleum theft and electoral fraud on the list of serious crimes for which there is no right to bail.
Transferring responsibility for preparing the federal budget to the Secretariat of Finance.
Incorporating the Estado Mayor Presidencial — the institution charged with protecting the president of Mexico — into the Secretariat of Defense.
Overturning the recent decree which privatizes water.
Modifying or repealing the 2013 educational reform.
Establishing the right to free, public education at all school levels in article 3 of the constitution.
Establishing a legally-binding consultation mechanism that enables the presidential term to be revoked.
Reviewing the need to increase the minimum salary in the northern border region.
Carrying out the changes to laws, regulations, decrees and agreements to adjust the administrative structure of the government in accordance with the federal austerity plan.
A man identified as a drug cartel plaza chief in La Paz, Baja California Sur, was arrested yesterday without incident at a home in the Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood.
Andrés “N,” also known as “El Pájaro,” is suspected of coordinating the distribution and sale of drugs in the municipality of La Paz for the Beltrán Leyva Organization, said Federal Police chief Manelich Castilla Craviotto.
The cartel boss carried out his operations from two houses in La Paz. Another man was arrested in the second house, located in Zona Central.
Drugs and firearms were seized during the arrests.
The capture of Andrés “N” was one of the principal objectives for security forces in Baja California Sur, Castilla said.
Hydrothermal vents have been discovered off the coast of Baja California Sur.
Deep waters located off the coast of Los Cabos have high geothermal energy potential that is capable of meeting the electricity needs of the twin resort cities of Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo, according to scientists at the National Autonomous University (UNAM).
After searching for more than 10 years, a research team from the Department of Natural Resources at UNAM’s Institute of Geophysics has located a deep-sea deposit containing hydrothermal vents or “sea chimneys” off the southern coast of the Baja California peninsula.
Leading researcher Rosa María Prol said the geothermal energy potential of the team’s discovery is significantly greater than 500 megawatts, adding that there are other marine sites located up and down the 1,200-kilometer-long peninsula that could also be exploited.
She explained that while there are hydrothermal vents located in the Pacific Ocean further to the south of Mexico, it was thought that there wouldn’t be any geothermal activity in the area where the find was made because it was not known to have tectonic activity.
However, it has now become evident that there is a very deep area of the ocean where tectonic plate fractures do exist and where sea water that has been heated to very high temperatures is emitted.
Prol explained that the UNAM team first detected the presence of geothermal activity during visits to the area between 2004 and 2006.
“We found that there were wells [with water] of 90 degrees C. When we went to get samples, we calculated that the temperature of the deposit was close to 200 C, which suggested that it could produce a lot of energy,” she said.
However, it wasn’t until this year that by using the echo sounding sonar technique, the exact location of the deposit was found.
Following further deep-sea exploration, the team hopes to find water that is hot enough for turbines to convert it into electricity that could supply homes, hotels and other businesses in Los Cabos.
“This marine energy source will be permanently renewed, which doesn’t always happen on land . . . We are also planning to deliver the final results [of our research] to authorities so that they know that this resource exists and the benefits of exploiting it,” Prol said.
She added that “with what we have discovered, we believe that Los Cabos has sufficient geothermal resources to not have to depend on the energy that is supplied from La Paz.”
In the Tierra Caliente region of Guerrero, an area notorious not just for hot weather but drug production and lawlessness, one farmer has been producing some of Mexico’s most delicious melons for the past 35 years.
“My dad was a farmer in Sonora, that’s where I got to know the fields and I became interested in growing cantaloupes,” Lee Shipley told the newspaper Milenio.
“We grew grapes and sent them to Mexico City with a distributor,” he added.
“He [the distributor] spoke to me about a place called [Ciudad] Altamirano, where there was a lot of water and a lot of land. That’s how I heard about this region. He sent me here with a guide, I started planting [cantaloupes] and now I’ve been here 35 years.”
Production increased over time and Shipley is now the largest melon grower in the country.
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All these years later, Shipley still arrives at the farm every day before sunrise and throughout his work day he is constantly busy, allocating tasks to his workers, monitoring his melons, checking them for insects and disease and thinking about what he can do to improve the quality of his crop.
The farmer, who admits to being obsessed with achieving perfection in his fruit, said the introduction of drip irrigation and the use of hybrid seeds had been particularly beneficial for his business.
“The hybrids that we started using in 1986 helped a lot. Production increased by between 20% and 30% and the fruit also had a longer shelf life,” Shipley said.
He also said that bees have played a vital role in his success, explaining that farm workers first found African beehives on his property in 1990, at which time officials from the federal Secretariat of Agriculture (Sagarpa) “saw them as a threat.”
Shipley explained that “there are African [bees] and Italian [bees] and the secret is to treat them with respect” regardless of their origin.
“. . . We learned to look after them and not to kill them because they’re at the service of pollination. When we fumigate by tractor, we do it at night when they are not there and that way we preserve them,” he said.
Shipley is proud that he has been able to achieve a dream that he first had in his childhood and remains committed to producing the best fruit he can.
“The sweetness of a melon is one thing and the flavor is another. We’re looking for the best flavor [and] the best color, which without a doubt is the key to having the highest possible internal and external quality of each fruit.”
San Miguel de Allende, No. 1 city in the world. travel+leisure/getty images
Three Mexican cities have made the list of the world’s top 15 cities for 2018 and San Miguel de Allende has ranked No. 1 for the second year in a row.
Oaxaca city, capital of the state of the same name, moved into second place from last year’s sixth and Mexico City returns to the list, placing 11th.
The annual awards program is operated by Travel + Leisure magazine, whose readers choose their favorite cities based on sights and landmarks, culture, food, friendliness, shopping and value.
What makes a city truly great, the magazine says, is “jaw-dropping architecture, distinctive restaurants, a rich array of cultural offerings, and intriguing shops . . . . A teeming street life, a friendly population, and a harmonious relationship with nature are equally essential.”
Travel + Leisure said it was “no wonder” that San Miguel, with a score of 91.94, topped the list again. “With its colorful, flower-festooned architecture and cobblestoned streets, San Miguel has the feel of a village, but its large population of artists lends it a cosmopolitan air.”
Said one reader, “This is one of the best cities in the world. There are lots of stores selling local artisan crafts, jewelry and art. Bring an extra suitcase!”
Oaxaca was not far behind with 90.52, while Mexico City scored 87.65.
In third place was Udaipur, India, followed by Ubud, Indonesia; Kyoto, Japan; Florence, Italy; Luang Prabang, Laos; Hoi An, Vietnam; Chiang Mai, Thailand; Charleston, South Carolina; Mexico City; Cape Town, South Africa; Rome; Istanbul; and Beirut, Lebanon.
On the list of the world’s best hotels 10 are in Mexico, led by the Viceroy Riviera Maya in Playa del Carmen leading in 20th place.
The other nine were Cala de Mar Resort & Spa in Ixtapa, Guerrero; the Resort at Pedregal, Cabo San Lucas; Las Ventanas al Paraíso, San José del Cabo; the Rosewood, San Miguel de Allende; the Banyan Tree Cabo Marqués, Acapulco; Nizuc Resort & Spa, Cancún; Chileno Bay Resort & Residences, Cabo San Lucas; Rosewood Mayakoba, Playa del Carmen; and Esperanza, Cabo San Lucas.
