Recently in Science Category
If so, I encourage you to attend the premiere, on U-Mich campus, of a new film: Life is for the Living, a documentary about the people, the politics and the science of stem cell research. It will be shown on March 12 at the Michigan Theater (603 E. Liberty St.) at 7:30 pm.
The film has added relevance as Michigan will be voting on a stem cell ballot initiative this fall.
The film includes the stories of five American families living with the painful realities of Juvenile Diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Spinal Cord Injury.
It is in the context of the statewide ballot initiative in Michigan this fall and the national debate over embryonic stem cell research.
As that debate continues in Washington and across the country, three generations of Americans reveal their challenges, their frustration with the President’s policy, and the hope that more funding for embryonic stem cell research will lead to new treatments and cures to relieve their suffering and save their lives.
Life is for the Living also explores the science behind stem cell research and the political debate taking place across the nation.
The film includes an introduction by CBS 60 Minutes' Mike Wallace and interviews with the nation's leading scientific researchers, political leaders, and advocates.
Here's a partial list of those who are in the documentary:
- The Honorable Janet Reno, Former United States Attorney General
- Senator Carl Levin (D-MI)
- Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm
- Congressman Michael Castle (R-DE)
- Former Congressman Joe Schwarz (R-MI)
- Dr. Sean Morrison, Director, University of Michigan Center for Stem Cell Biology
- Dr. Clive Svendsen, University of Wisconsin Madison
- Dr. David T. Scadden, Co-Director, Harvard Stem Cell Institute
- Dr. Stuart H. Orkin, Chair, Department of Pediatric Oncology, Harvard Medical School
- Dr. Amy Wagers, Harvard Stem Cell Institute
- Dr. Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, University of Utah School of Medicine
- Dr. Robert Lanza, VP Research, Advanced Cell Technology
Again, if you are in the area tomorrowthis evening, March 12, go see Life is for the Living at 7:30 pm at the Michigan Theater.
P.S. Oh and one more thing: the filmmaker, Michael Rubyan, is my son. He's 20 and a junior at U-M. I couldn't be prouder of him!
I've long believed that the Venn diagram of political junkies/indie rock fans/baseball nuts/sci-fi fanboys would be just about circular. What they have in common: controlled alternate universes that reward obsessive list-keeping and don't penalize lack of social skills....)I do SO have social skills. They are just manifested in weird ways...
McCain's problem has never been that he tells jokes, it's that he re-tells them. And re-tells them. And re-tells them...D'oh! Busted.
by shep
It is now becoming clear that, without some dramatic progress on carbon sequestration or an even more dramatic and potentially dangerous act of desperation, the earth’s climate is headed toward a disastrous tipping point in our, or our children’s, lifetimes.
To recap:
Arguments against:
It gets hot every epoch or so
Scientists are sometimes wrong
We might get hit by an asteroid, so WTF
The commies hate my Hummer
The Sun is hot
Even if true, it probably wouldn’t kill everything and I could grow coconuts in Minnesota
Science is hard
Arguments for:
Spiking CO2
Measurable warming
Melting glaciers, ice sheets and frozen tundra
Increasing cycles of floods and droughts
Rising sea levels
Dying tropical reefs
Dying species and strange migrations of animals, plants and diseases.
So, what should be done? If the methane-spewing cow is out of the barn, why go out in the heat to close the barn door now?
Because, even if we learn how to capture and sequester carbon and filter the sun by blasting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, we still have good reasons to wean ourselves off our carbon fuel addiction:
1) We can. We started using fossil fuels for our energy needs in the century before last. It replaced whale oil. Considering how far our technology has come since then, to say that this is a cultural throwback is an understatement of epoch proportions. Even though the idea gives the CEO of Exxon Mobile the dry heaves, he and his ilk are the only ones who won’t profit mightily by developing new alternatives.
2) It makes us wage stupid, bloody wars. Need I say more here?
3) Since a great deal of our energy consumption goes to complete waste, the cost of doing something can be quite small. What does it cost to build our houses facing south to take advantage of solar gain? Who doesn’t want to be able to work from home when there’s no need to slog through traffic to the office? You actually save money by walking or riding a bike instead of driving.
4) It would be good for us in many other ways. Dismantling the factory farming system and Chinese food imports in favor of locally cultivated food might cost a little more money but at least you’ll be alive to regret it. And advanced nations that get out of the business of making things lose lower skill jobs and become beholden to other nations to lend them money to buy the stuff they make.
Or, let’s all take a fossil-fueled cruise down that river in Egypt. Let’s face it: our technology expanded faster than our wisdom. Natural systems seeks stasis; wiping mankind off the planet is Mother Nature’s way of restoring earth’s equilibrium.
shep
Why should any American buy any food made in China?
We don’t know what’s in it; it goes mostly unscreened by anyone. We know that a number of producers spike it with poisons and antibiotics to make it more profitable. This has been going on for years and when they were caught spiking food with urea and food began to be screened for that poison, they simply switched to a new one; melamine.
So far, poisoned foods we have discovered through the deaths of possibly thousands of our pets include wheat gluten and rice protein. We have found catfish imported from China to be illegally contaminated with antibiotics. Dried fruit laden with cancer causing chemicals, mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides and seafood coated with putrefying bacteria.
As it turns out, it is standard procedure for Chinese food manufacturers to put poison in our food and, if caught, find another way to get those poisoned foods into US markets.
Did you know that nearly all vitamins sold in the United States are made in China (they priced domestic manufacturers out of the business)? Did you know that they go virtually untested for their contents in the US?
The FDA has no means to solve this problem through inspections and testing and the US government has little pressure to bring to bear on the Chinese since, thanks to Republican fiscal policy, the Chinese essentially own the US government. The Bush administration is actually deregulating the importation of Chinese poultry products, possibly increasing the risk of avian flu.
Industry, the much-vaunted free market, won’t protect you from toxic products because there’s a lot of money to be made in Chinese markets. And, besides, when has the health or safety of consumers been much of an obstacle when it comes to making a buck?
However, there is one remedy for US consumers in the power of the marketplace: stop buying Chinese made food. First, you won’t have to worry about whether you are feeding your family toxic substances. Second, the economic effect of a significant boycott will quickly force the Chinese to find ways to guarantee the safety of their exports. One thing is certain: if you do nothing, nothing will be done to protect the safety of imported food.
As much as is practical, buy locally – it’s also better for the environment. Buy domestically produced seafood and meat. In processed foods that contain wheat, rice or corn gluten, ask the grocer and/or manufacturer if it was purchased from China – if they can’t tell you or the answer is “yes”, tell them you’ll buy something else. For a while, at least, stop buying vitamins – they are of dubious value anyway if you have a well-balanced diet.
Find your local farmer’s markets. Buy organic. Whenever you can, when it comes to what you put in your body and feed to your loved ones, buy American.
If you don’t take action to protect yourself and your families, don’t expect government or industry to do it for you. At least, until it’s too late.
(Click image to enlarge)
Scientists have invented a technique which they say could help trigger deep sleep in the most chronic insomniac.Harmless magnetic pulses? Yow!Using medical equipment, they stimulated the brain with harmless magnetic pulses.
These penetrate the nerves that control a type of deep sleep called "slow-wave activity" and made their brains produce these waves.
by shep
[Note: this is the second article by long-time commenter shep.]
Charles Krauthammer uses his extraordinary powers of clinical psychiatry to determine (from reading Michelle Cottle's article in the New Republic about Dick Cheney's mental health) that she is not only wrong but that she must surely suffer from, "a condition that addles the brain of otherwise normal journalists."
In his ever so scientific opinion, Mr. Krauthammer brags about this disease of the mind that "I have been credited with identifying, 'Bush Derangement Syndrome, Cheney Variant."
This condition, which "can strike without warning," is apparently characterized by an extreme inability to rationally analyze the world around you, resulting in blinding hatred of George W. Bush and/or Dick Cheney.
In other words:
Dick Cheney is not the most power-hungry, secretive, manipulative, war-mongering, partisan, anti-democratic Vice President in the history of the republic -- rather it is the 150 -200 million Americans who disapprove of the way Cheney has acted on the job that are addled of brain.
I can agree with one of Krauthammer's conclusions -- it may not be Cheney's heart problems that have led to his mental condition. But that wouldn't explain Krauthammer and the people who agree with him.
In fact, a researcher in Manitoba has identified a surprisingly common condition that sounds quite a bit like Dr. Krauthammer's derangement syndrome in which the afflicted, "drive through life under the influence of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting sloppy reasoning, highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and - to top it all off - a ferocious dogmatism that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic."
Dr. Bob Altemeyer has developed the study of this frighteningly common condition called, "RWA," which, unfortunately for Dr. Chuck, seems unlikely to describe liberal critics of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Dr. Bob explains:
"I'm sure one can find left-wing authoritarians here and there, but they hardly exist in sufficient numbers now to threaten democracy in North America. However, I have found bucketfuls of right-wing authoritarians [RWAs] in nearly every sample I have drawn in Canada and the United States for the past three decades."
Oddly, Dr. Altemeyer's research shows that it is probably not the majority of people in the United States and the rest of the world who can't effectively parse observable reality pretty much like everyone else. He believes they are much more likely to be the, "36 percent [of Americans who] said the [Bush] administration had not purposely misled the public about evidence to build support for the [Iraq] war," as well as the "[t]hirty-seven percent [who] even thought the U.S. military effort was going 'well' (either 'fairly' or 'very')," and the "35 to 37 percent [who] approved of how Bush was doing his job in general, while 35 percent also were satisfied with the way things were going in the country."
Go figure.
Go check out Dr. Bob's research (I recommend chapters 3 and 7, in particular, for those who won't read the whole book - though it really is a pleasure to read). But first take the test in Chapter 1 to find your RWA score.
After all, Michelle Cottle has the New Republic in which to practice medicine without a license and Dr. Krauthammer has his syndicated columns, talking-head shows and a small army of RWAs to peddle his "peer-reviewed" condition.
Go ahead -- click to send a postcard to Congress asking them to act on global warming. Al Gore will be delivering the cards to Congress when he testifies there next week.
Americans are a practical bunch. We're not dreamers, we're not philosophers, we don't like pie. At least not the kind that's in the sky. We have a long tradition of trading and commerce. We love the market and capitalism. It's what has allowed us to transcend class (to the degree that we have). And transcending class is an important part of the American dream.
As such we revere characters like Ben Franklin. He was practical, he was a capitalist, he was wise and crafty. And he was a superb politician and tactician. Others have called him "the first American" and I think we can agree that he was indeed that. We honor his tradition when it comes time to do business of any kind -- including voting for political candidates.
Hey, just because "the selling of the president" has become a cliche doesn't mean it isn't true.
Simply put, we ask four questions before we buy anything (and that includes buying a candidate for public office):
- What is s/he selling?
- How much will it cost?
- What will this do for ME?
- Can I really believe her/him?
OK, so far, so good.
Now you have to decide what you're REALLY getting when you cast your vote for that candidate. The answer is not always a simple one. For example, voters in the Red-state South (I live in Louisiana), get $1.25 in government largesse for every $1 they pay in taxes. Yet they continue to vote for Republicans who want to make government smaller, further reducing the benefits of Federalism. Illogical? Sure. But apparently there are other factors involved, not the least of which are cultural and/or religious identification.
But I digress so let's do a quick recap:
The offer has been made, the price quoted and the evaluation of beneift has been completed., Now the buyer ("voter") asks the most crucial question of all, question #4: "Can I believe him?" This is where a "friendly" candidate often defeats a "stiff" candidate. Or as Bill Clinton (very friendly indeed) famously put it, "Strong and wrong beats weak and right."
Ask yourself how many people admire George Bush's friendliness, his down-home regular appeal COMBINED WITH his stubborn resolve. It's pretty much the core of his appeal (and the last thing he has left that keeps him from registering a 0% approval rating).
Anyway, that's all just my opinion. I could be wrong.
But I doubt it.
From New Scientist:
In coming decades will we: discover that we are not alone in the universe? Unravel the physiological basis for consciousness? Routinely have false memories implanted in our minds? Begin to evolve in new directions? And will physicists finally hit upon a universal theory of everything? In fact, if the revelations of the last 50 years are anything to go on - the internet and the human genome for example - we probably have not even thought up the exciting advances that lay ahead of us.I'm thinking it's life on other planets.
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