Thursday, January 17, 2008
Roots and Evils
What happens when an action motivated by greed conflicts with more basic greed? Litigation, of course. In order to build the xenophobe's panacea that will be the DHS' boarder fence against Mexico (expected to cost billions to build and save about $25.03 in American GDP from illegals), the gubmin is of course trying to seize land.
Eloisa Tamez, whose name probably sounds a bit too Mexican to the DHS crowd, lives on land granted to her family before the American Revolution, and even longer before we hated Mexicans or needed them for gardening. So, DHS is doing everything it can to evict her to build a fence that only a vocal minority of citizens (backed, of course, by monied contracting firms and jingos-at-large) think they want. Ain't democracy grand?
Eloisa Tamez, whose name probably sounds a bit too Mexican to the DHS crowd, lives on land granted to her family before the American Revolution, and even longer before we hated Mexicans or needed them for gardening. So, DHS is doing everything it can to evict her to build a fence that only a vocal minority of citizens (backed, of course, by monied contracting firms and jingos-at-large) think they want. Ain't democracy grand?
Labels: Chertoff, DHS, evil, immigration, Mexico, politics, stupidity, USA, xenophobia
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
New Causes, Solutions, and Concoctions
Multiple Sclerosis is a degenerative autoimmune disease, causing severe pain and disability in its victims. Like other autoimmune conditions, its causes are unknown and treatments are scarce. Argentine researchers are reporting the results of a small cohort of MS patients (24), some of whom showed sign of parasitic infection and some of whom did not. The parasite hosts had much less severe MS symptoms and fewer relapses than did non-hosts. Similar to previous findings that intestinal parasites relieved Crohn's, this result is in support of a 'hygiene hypothesis' of autoimmune disorders: relatively unchallenged by our germ-free modern environment, our immune systems have started 'looking' for things to attack. Such as ourselves.
On a different (and mysterious) causal chain, a large sample study has found that men with gum disease are 63% more likely to suffer hard-to-treat pancreatic cancers. One idea is that this could be due to the inflammation of gum disease 'spreading' to other parts of the body, but that seems a bit far-fetched to me, in terms of cancer. The findings are really fascinating, but I can't help but wonder if there's not a confounding factor in the mix.
In to good news: Canadian researchers have found that the old, apparently safe, off-label (read: cheap) drug dichloroacetate (DCA) may be a potent cancer killer. The compound acts by reactivating cancer cells' mitochondria, which are normally shut off in favor of cellular metabolism glycolysis in cancer cells, and which subsequently initiate apoptosis of the unhealthy cells.
Business, union, and retiree leaders in one room, agreeing on something?!?! It seems so. The group met in Washington to send a message to the politicians: the time has come for universal health care. This needs to happen, and it needs to be done right (or it'll be a disaster akin to what we have now, only even harder to fix), and it needs to be done now. Neither side of the aisle in Congress or the White House has been really willing to step up yet, but hopefully this meeting will prompt them to do so.
Finally, everything you didn't want to know aboutmolecular gastronomy cooking-using-funny-tools-and-ingredients. I've never been to any of the places mentioned, but I get the idea, and am pretty much already bored with it. Like avant-garde art, there comes a point when you're just doing to be shocking, or contrary, or because you can.
For some I guess this is part of the fun, but for me I think it ends up detracting from the actual flavor of the food. Butterscotch bacon? Sounds awesome. Edible menus? Once, cool, twice, yawwwnnn. Soup in a pipette? No thanks.
On a different (and mysterious) causal chain, a large sample study has found that men with gum disease are 63% more likely to suffer hard-to-treat pancreatic cancers. One idea is that this could be due to the inflammation of gum disease 'spreading' to other parts of the body, but that seems a bit far-fetched to me, in terms of cancer. The findings are really fascinating, but I can't help but wonder if there's not a confounding factor in the mix.
In to good news: Canadian researchers have found that the old, apparently safe, off-label (read: cheap) drug dichloroacetate (DCA) may be a potent cancer killer. The compound acts by reactivating cancer cells' mitochondria, which are normally shut off in favor of cellular metabolism glycolysis in cancer cells, and which subsequently initiate apoptosis of the unhealthy cells.
Business, union, and retiree leaders in one room, agreeing on something?!?! It seems so. The group met in Washington to send a message to the politicians: the time has come for universal health care. This needs to happen, and it needs to be done right (or it'll be a disaster akin to what we have now, only even harder to fix), and it needs to be done now. Neither side of the aisle in Congress or the White House has been really willing to step up yet, but hopefully this meeting will prompt them to do so.
Finally, everything you didn't want to know about
For some I guess this is part of the fun, but for me I think it ends up detracting from the actual flavor of the food. Butterscotch bacon? Sounds awesome. Edible menus? Once, cool, twice, yawwwnnn. Soup in a pipette? No thanks.
Labels: autoimmune, bladder cancer, food, gum disease, health care, hygiene, molecular gastronomy, MS, parasites, politics, science
Friday, January 05, 2007
Smarty-Pants
Brains are important. Smart people caused the Democrats to take control of the House and Senate, electing us our first female Speaker, and scientists keep figuring out cool stuff that can make our lives better, and make us all even smarter still!
It seems that millions of people are growing up to be less smart than they could be, and much of this could be alleviated if only they had more toys. That's right: more toys. Well, that and better nutrition, but toys is so much more sensational a thing to say.
Once we get smart, of course, we want to stay that way, and the prospect of Alzheimer's is so scary in part because it takes away our hard-won intelligence and knowledge. The good news is, it seems, that doing simple 'mental exercises' could help stave off dementia, and improve our performance here and now as well.
The results of our smarter selves? Well, there's stuff like this: Johns Hopkins researchers have patented a new sugar combination to fight cancer. By binding cancer-killer butyrate to N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, it allows for quick access to target cells, and seems to effectively kill them. Though the results are only on culture so far, this is a really promising step.
With all this new information flying at us all the time, it needs storage: and smart people at Seagate claim that they've found what looks like a way to make 30+ terabyte drives available pretty soon. What comes after tera?
Finally, people who read this blog are clearly pretty smart. Not just because you're reading it, but because at least 60% of you know better than to read it using Internet Explorer! ...I'm just sayin...
It seems that millions of people are growing up to be less smart than they could be, and much of this could be alleviated if only they had more toys. That's right: more toys. Well, that and better nutrition, but toys is so much more sensational a thing to say.
Once we get smart, of course, we want to stay that way, and the prospect of Alzheimer's is so scary in part because it takes away our hard-won intelligence and knowledge. The good news is, it seems, that doing simple 'mental exercises' could help stave off dementia, and improve our performance here and now as well.
The results of our smarter selves? Well, there's stuff like this: Johns Hopkins researchers have patented a new sugar combination to fight cancer. By binding cancer-killer butyrate to N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, it allows for quick access to target cells, and seems to effectively kill them. Though the results are only on culture so far, this is a really promising step.
With all this new information flying at us all the time, it needs storage: and smart people at Seagate claim that they've found what looks like a way to make 30+ terabyte drives available pretty soon. What comes after tera?
Finally, people who read this blog are clearly pretty smart. Not just because you're reading it, but because at least 60% of you know better than to read it using Internet Explorer! ...I'm just sayin...
Labels: Alzheimers, brains, cancer, computers, dementia, development, HDD, intelligence, internet, neuroscience, nutrition, politics, storage, toys
