Alphabeter's Blurty

Subject:	Why I will be watching ABC and not a network airing the Propaganda Special
Time:	5:20 am.
Mood:	aggravated.

It makes no difference who I am voting to be the next President of the United States of America. I advise all viewers of this post to actually read it.

Fox, CBS and NBC have decided that money makes it okay to flex FCC rules about equal time and air a half-hour "special" of whatever Barack Obama decides is suitable propaganda to influence viewers and/or voters on Wednesday, October 29th. The "Barack Obama Message" will air at 8:00 p.m. EST.

I will be watching ABC's "Pushing Daisies" instead because:
1) I regularly view the show and while this season has started a little rocky, the preview for this week's show looks better;
2) I watch several different news programs and I am sure they will all have clips; and
3) I already saw the good version on SNL last Saturday (too bad it was non-black mixed minority person in blackface playing Obama but then Lorne Michaels has a one-black-main cast-member-per-season rule and Keenan is too heavy).

The part that pisses me off the most is "to accommodate a half-hour Obama time buy on Fox, Major League Baseball has agreed to move the start time of World Series Game 6 by about 15 minutes. That would move the start of the game from 8:20 p.m. EST or so to 8:35 p.m."

"Fox will accommodate Senator Obama's desire to communicate with voters in this longform format," Fox Sports said in a statement. "We are pleased that Major League Baseball has agreed to delay the first pitch of World Series Game 6 for a few minutes in order for Fox to carry his program on Oct. 29. If requested, the network would be willing to make similar time available to Senator McCain's campaign."

Given that Obama lied about limiting his campaign to matching Federal Election funds and instead is funneling millions of dollars from Soros and his cronies through his DNC campaign by listing contributions from hundreds of names gleened (falsely) through ACORN's voter registration drive, I think McCain deserves his own half-hour.

Remember those pesky FCC equal time rules? I know that a McCain-based program would not have received the bump and blessing because Rupert Murdoch (the owner of the corporation that owns the Fox and Fox News networks) doesn't want to be seen as "in the bag" for the RNC.

Just what makes Obama so special that the great Major League of Baseball would move its first pitch time? M-O-N-E-Y. The blessing from MLB clears the way for Fox to air the promo and collect upward of $1 million in ad revenue for the half hour, more than what either CBS or NBC was charging.

If McCain's advisor team has a brain cell left, they will buy an ad in every break on every network airing this "special aka program aka promo aka longform format propaganda". Include all the rules the 'special' is being allowed to break while reminding people Obama has already had three known assassination attempts (the latest revealed yesterday) since his nomination was secured in June.

Should Obama be killed, there will be Joe Biden left to 'run' the country. A man whom most of Washington hates...to work with on anything. I might not be fond of "caribou barbie" but I suspect she'll be dialing Gore for advice on relieving boredom while McCain actually gets his agenda through a peeved Congress.

It really saddens me that people are so desperate for "change" that they will take the same old shit because it comes in a shiny wide-eared package. Yet the shiny new VP package is shredded in ways that must make Hilary Clinton squeal with delight because she won't fit in the
1) 'expected' (huh? Ferraro is the mold? What meeting did I miss?);
2) RNC preferred (they don't forget anything in spinsville); and
3) controllable (aha)
image that seems to be preferred by anyone who doesn't like her anti-abortion stance. I don't like it either (no one with a dick should have any say about anyone with a vagina is my stance) but I admire her taking on the RNC PR boot camper pressers to try and get her actual self through to voters.

No matter who I do vote for in seven days, I can only hope that the person chosen by the 'legal' voters is able to make it through the next four years alive, having creating a better USA.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	AIDS Drug From Sunflowers - Substance Could Add Completely New Weapon To Drugs Arsenal
Time:	1:04 am.

Sunflowers can produce a substance which prevents the AIDS pathogen HIV from reproducing, at least in cell cultures. This is the result of research carried out by scientists at the University of Bonn in cooperation with the caesar research centre. For several years now the hopes for a completely new group of AIDS drugs have been pinned to what is known as 'DCQA'. However, the substance is only available in very small quantities and is thus extremely expensive. By using the Bonn method it could probably be produced for a fraction of the costs. The researchers have patented their method. Together with the Jülich Research Centre they now want to attempt to manufacture the substance on a large scale. They are looking for partners in industry to help them with this.

It all began with a small mould with the tongue-twisting name sclerotinia sclerotiorum. The pathogen responsible for the dreaded 'white stem rot' can, if the weather conditions are unfavourable, destroy an entire sunflower crop. However, some sunflowers survive the fungus attack more or less unscathed. They do this by producing specific antibodies which eventually put a stop to the fungus.

The agricultural engineer Claudio Cerboncini wanted to find out what chemical weapons the fungus-resistant sunflowers have at their disposal. In his PhD thesis for Professor Heide Schnabl of the Bonn Centre of Molecular Biotechnology (CEMBIO) Claudio infected different types with their sworn enemy. In this way he was able to isolate the antitoxins which the plants produce in response to the fungus. Among these was a substance which is also mentioned in the literature, albeit in a completely different context: this is dicaffeoyl quinic acid, or DCQA for short - the highly prized prototype for a new group of AIDS drugs.

One million euros per gram

'Dicaffeoyl quinic acid can prevent the HI virus from reproducing, at least in cell cultures,' explains Claudio Cerboncini, who is now working at the caesar research centre. 'It is one of the few substances known today which inhibit viral integrase - this is an enzyme which is essential if the pathogen is to reproduce.' In contrast to other enzymes medical experts expect there to be only a few side-effects from such integrase inhibitors. In the pharmaceuticals industry they are therefore seen as the great white hope for a completely new class of AIDS drugs. Initial clinical tests seem to confirm DCQA's potential.

'We need these substances to expand our arsenal of effective weapons against the disease,' Dr. Esther Vogt of the Immunological Out-Patient Service of Bonn University Clinic adds. 'It remains to be seen, however, whether they will prove to be as effective in clinical practice as they seem to be at present.'

DCQA occurs in the artichoke and wild chicory, though in extremely small doses. The market price is therefore currently €1,000 per milligram. 'We want to attempt to cultivate sunflower cells or other plant cells in a nutrient solution together with the mould sclerotinia sclerotiorum and then obtain the enzyme from the liquid,' CEMBIO researcher Ralf Theisen says. 'If things go according to plan, we could produce DCQA at a substantially reduced cost.'

From the ceiling of Ralf Theisen's office hangs the model of a Maxus rocket. As a botanist he is actually doing research on how plants react to gravity, and therefore recently sent some of his test objects into space in a rocket like that. 'We are investigating which genes plants switch on and off under particular gravity conditions,' he explains. 'However, with the methods we use we can also, for example, find out which genes the sunflowers activate when they produce DCQA in reaction to a fungus infection.'

This knowledge would make mass production of DCQA a distinct possibility. Even now chemists can 'copy' the substance, albeit only with great difficulty. 'The tricky bit is transferring the caffeoyl groups to the quinic acid,' Ralf Theisen says. 'The plants probably only have one enzyme, which acts as a catalyst for this transfer. If we can find the construction manual for this enzyme, i.e. the corresponding gene, and can smuggle it into the bacteria, the latter can produce the enzyme in large quantities. The critical step of synthesis would then be child's play and could be carried out on an industrial basis by using the fermentation technology available in Jülich.'
----
I have been working on a story for awhile called Broken Sunflowers about medical care. This is a great complement to some of the leaps I take in it.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Cells that Read Minds
Time:	5:32 am.

On a hot summer day 15 years ago in Parma, Italy, a monkey sat in a special laboratory chair waiting for researchers to return from lunch. Thin wires had been implanted in the region of its brain involved in planning and carrying out movements.

Every time the monkey grasped and moved an object, some cells in that brain region would fire, and a monitor would register a sound: brrrrrip, brrrrrip, brrrrrip.

A graduate student entered the lab with an ice cream cone in his hand. The monkey stared at him. Then, something amazing happened: when the student raised the cone to his lips, the monitor sounded - brrrrrip, brrrrrip, brrrrrip - even though the monkey had not moved but had simply observed the student grasping the cone and moving it to his mouth.

The researchers, led by Giacomo Rizzolatti, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma, had earlier noticed the same strange phenomenon with peanuts. The same brain cells fired when the monkey watched humans or other monkeys bring peanuts to their mouths as when the monkey itself brought a peanut to its mouth.

Later, the scientists found cells that fired when the monkey broke open a peanut or heard someone break a peanut. The same thing happened with bananas, raisins and all kinds of other objects.

"It took us several years to believe what we were seeing," Dr. Rizzolatti said in a recent interview. The monkey brain contains a special class of cells, called mirror neurons, that fire when the animal sees or hears an action and when the animal carries out the same action on its own.

But if the findings, published in 1996, surprised most scientists, recent research has left them flabbergasted. Humans, it turns out, have mirror neurons that are far smarter, more flexible and more highly evolved than any of those found in monkeys, a fact that scientists say reflects the evolution of humans' sophisticated social abilities.

The human brain has multiple mirror neuron systems that specialize in carrying out and understanding not just the actions of others but their intentions, the social meaning of their behavior and their emotions.

"We are exquisitely social creatures," Dr. Rizzolatti said. "Our survival depends on understanding the actions, intentions and emotions of others."

He continued, "Mirror neurons allow us to grasp the minds of others not through conceptual reasoning but through direct simulation. By feeling, not by thinking."

The discovery is shaking up numerous scientific disciplines, shifting the understanding of culture, empathy, philosophy, language, imitation, autism and psychotherapy.

Everyday experiences are also being viewed in a new light. Mirror neurons reveal how children learn, why people respond to certain types of sports, dance, music and art, why watching media violence may be harmful and why many men like pornography.

How can a single mirror neuron or system of mirror neurons be so incredibly smart?

Most nerve cells in the brain are comparatively pedestrian. Many specialize in detecting ordinary features of the outside world. Some fire when they encounter a horizontal line while others are dedicated to vertical lines. Others detect a single frequency of sound or a direction of movement.

Moving to higher levels of the brain, scientists find groups of neurons that detect far more complex features like faces, hands or expressive body language. Still other neurons help the body plan movements and assume complex postures.

Mirror neurons make these complex cells look like numbskulls. Found in several areas of the brain - including the premotor cortex, the posterior parietal lobe, the superior temporal sulcus and the insula - they fire in response to chains of actions linked to intentions.

Studies show that some mirror neurons fire when a person reaches for a glass or watches someone else reach for a glass; others fire when the person puts the glass down and still others fire when the person reaches for a toothbrush and so on. They respond when someone kicks a ball, sees a ball being kicked, hears a ball being kicked and says or hears the word "kick."

"When you see me perform an action - such as picking up a baseball - you automatically simulate the action in your own brain," said Dr. Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies mirror neurons. "Circuits in your brain, which we do not yet entirely understand, inhibit you from moving while you simulate," he said. "But you understand my action because you have in your brain a template for that action based on your own movements.

"When you see me pull my arm back, as if to throw the ball, you also have in your brain a copy of what I am doing and it helps you understand my goal. Because of mirror neurons, you can read my intentions. You know what I am going to do next."

He continued: "And if you see me choke up, in emotional distress from striking out at home plate, mirror neurons in your brain simulate my distress. You automatically have empathy for me. You know how I feel because you literally feel what I am feeling."

Mirror neurons seem to analyzed scenes and to read minds. If you see someone reach toward a bookshelf and his hand is out of sight, you have little doubt that he is going to pick up a book because your mirror neurons tell you so.

In a study published in March 2005 in Public Library of Science, Dr. Iacoboni and his colleagues reported that mirror neurons could discern if another person who was picking up a cup of tea planned to drink from it or clear it from the table. "Mirror neurons provide a powerful biological foundation for the evolution of culture," said Patricia Greenfield, a psychologist at the U.C.L.A. who studies human development.

Until now, scholars have treated culture as fundamentally separate from biology, she said. "But now we see that mirror neurons absorb culture directly, with each generation teaching the next by social sharing, imitation and observation."

Other animals - monkeys, probably apes and possibly elephants, dolphins and dogs - have rudimentary mirror neurons, several mirror neuron experts said. But humans, with their huge working memory, carry out far more sophisticated imitations.

Language is based on mirror neurons, according to Michael Arbib, a neuroscientist at the University of Southern California. One such system, found in the front of the brain, contains overlapping circuitry for spoken language and sign language.

In an article published in Trends in Neuroscience in March 1998, Dr. Arbib described how complex hand gestures and the complex tongue and lip movements used in making sentences use the same machinery. Autism, some researchers believe, may involve broken mirror neurons. A study published in the Jan. 6 issue of Nature Neuroscience by Mirella Dapretto, a neuroscientist at U.C.L.A., found that while many people with autism can identify an emotional expression, like sadness, on another person's face, or imitate sad looks with their own faces, they do not feel the emotional significance of the imitated emotion. From observing other people, they do not know what it feels like to be sad, angry, disgusted or surprised.

Mirror neurons provide clues to how children learn: they kick in at birth. Dr. Andrew Meltzoff at the University of Washington has published studies showing that infants a few minutes old will stick out their tongues at adults doing the same thing. More than other primates, human children are hard-wired for imitation, he said, their mirror neurons involved in observing what others do and practicing doing the same things.

Still, there is one caveat, Dr. Iacoboni said. Mirror neurons work best in real life, when people are face to face. Virtual reality and videos are shadowy substitutes.

Nevertheless, a study in the January 2006 issue of Media Psychology found that when children watched violent television programs, mirror neurons, as well as several brain regions involved in aggression were activated, increasing the probability that the children would behave violently.

The ability to share the emotions of others appears to be intimately linked to the functioning of mirror neurons, said Dr. Christian Keysers, who studies the neural basis of empathy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and who has published several recent articles on the topic in Neuron.

When you see someone touched in a painful way, your own pain areas are activated, he said. When you see a spider crawl up someone's leg, you feel a creepy sensation because your mirror neurons are firing.

People who rank high on a scale measuring empathy have particularly active mirror neurons systems, Dr. Keysers said.

Social emotions like guilt, shame, pride, embarrassment, disgust and lust are based on a uniquely human mirror neuron system found in a part of the brain called the insula, Dr. Keysers said. In a study not yet published, he found that when people watched a hand go forward to caress someone and then saw another hand push it away rudely, the insula registered the social pain of rejection. Humiliation appears to be mapped in the brain by the same mechanisms that encode real physical pain, he said.

Psychotherapists are understandably enthralled by the discovery of mirror neurons, said Dr. Daniel Siegel, the director of the Center for Human Development in Los Angeles and the author of "Parenting From the Inside Out," because they provide a possible neurobiological basis for the psychological mechanisms known as transference and countertransference.

In transference, clients "transfer" feelings about important figures in their lives onto a therapist. Similarly, in countertransference, a therapist's reactions to a client are shaped by the therapist's own earlier relationships.

Therapists can use their own mirror system to understand a client's problems and to generate empathy, he said. And they can help clients understand that many of their experiences stem from what other people have said or done to them in the past.

Art exploits mirror neurons, said Dr. Vittorio Gallese, a neuroscientist at Parma University. When you see the Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini's hand of divinity grasping marble, you see the hand as if it were grasping flesh, he said. Experiments show that when you read a novel, you memorize positions of objects from the narrator's point of view.

Professional athletes and coaches, who often use mental practice and imagery, have long exploited the brain's mirror properties perhaps without knowing their biological basis, Dr. Iacoboni said. Observation directly improves muscle performance via mirror neurons.

Similarly, millions of fans who watch their favorite sports on television are hooked by mirror neuron activation. In someone who has never played a sport - say tennis - the mirror neurons involved in running, swaying and swinging the arms will be activated, Dr. Iacoboni said.

But in someone who plays tennis, the mirror systems will be highly activated when an overhead smash is observed. Watching a game, that person will be better able to predict what will happen next, he said.

In yet another realm, mirror neurons are powerfully activated by pornography, several scientists said. For example, when a man watches another man have sexual intercourse with a woman, the observer's mirror neurons spring into action. The vicarious thrill of watching sex, it turns out, is not so vicarious after all.
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Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Bi? Asexual? Gay? Who Cares?
Time:	2:06 am.

Inside the debate over sexual orientation
By Brian Alexander MSNBC contributor

Sex and politics have become the peanut butter and jelly of our overheated, hate-filled culture wars. But they’re not always teamed up in the ways you might think, with humorless Christian zealots in beehive hairdos duking it out with men dressed as nuns.

I was reminded of this recently when Sexploration received some reader mail asking what it meant to be bisexual and asexual. “Does this make me bisexual?” one asked of an experience he had. “Is there such a thing as asexual? Could I be asexual?” asked another who had seemingly lost all interest in sex.

The thing is, nobody knows for sure just what it means to be bisexual or asexual.

“There is no definitive definition [of asexuality] yet,” psychologist Tony Bogaert of Brock University of St. Catherines in Canada told me, noting that there isn’t even a firm definition of sexual orientation, period.

But the letters, and others like them, display the strange habit we have inherited from medicine, social science and George Gallup of labeling ourselves.

'Gay, straight or lying'
About a year ago, Bogaert released a study that analyzed data from a survey done in the United Kingdom. He concluded that about 1 percent of all the people in the survey were asexual. They had no sexual attraction for members of either gender, men or women. This may or may not translate to other countries or other surveys, but there was a lot of media coverage, much of it trying to figure out what asexual meant, exactly.

Then, last summer, another research project by Gerulf Rieger, a doctoral student at Northwestern University in Chicago, studied the reactions of people, including self-described bisexual men, to erotic movies. Seems the bisexual men did not react equally to the films. They said they did, but their penises told another story. Most bisexual men had a stronger response to gay porn than to heterosexual porn. “It remains to be shown that male bisexuality exists,” concluded the study.

J. Michael Bailey, a research psychologist at Northwestern, and the author of the book "The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender Bending and Transexualism," put it bluntly by quoting an old saying among homosexuals: “You’re either gay, straight or lying.”

Both these papers, especially the bisexual paper, raised a very big ruckus. Bailey, who was a senior author of Rieger’s paper, was already the subject of a hysterical hate campaign by a small number of male-to-female transsexuals who have compared him to the Nazi organizers of the Holocaust for his past writings and research. His part in questioning the existence of male bisexuality was a big load of new ammo. Meanwhile, Bogaert’s research spurred the popularity of a so-called “asexual movement.”

Why? When was the last time the army denied entry to an asexual? Has the Southern Baptist Convention preached against the idea?

But judging from a Web site set up by asexuals, called the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network, asexuals have beefs.

Don't box me in
One item, written by somebody named “Bard” complains that asexuals are often asked questions like “Do you masturbate?" and “Have you ever had sex?” That’s nobody’s business, Bard says.

Umm, OK, but what’s with the name of the organization? “Visibility”? “Education”? Kinda tough to be visible and educate anybody about your sexuality without answering a few basic sex questions.

The site’s operators argue that questioning “the validity of their asexuality” is verboten: “We are here to figure ourselves out, not to put each other in boxes.”

Actually, until you brought it up, I didn’t much care what you called yourself. But now that you’ve created your own glass box, and asked me to look inside, you’re saying I can’t question what I’m seeing? Sorry. I asked Bogaert.

“It’s possible that some, many, ‘asexuals’ do indeed have medical issues that contribute to their lack of attraction," he says. "So one perspective might be that this group of ‘asexuals’ do not have a ‘unique’ sexual orientation distinct from the traditional categories of homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual.” On the other hand, he says, if, for whatever reason, a person has never had “subjective” attraction for people, “then an asexual orientation designation is reasonable from my perspective.”

When it comes to sexual orientation, Bogaert says, what you do is less important than what you feel. “A person may be ‘bisexual’ from a sexual ‘behavior’ perspective, but I, and others, would argue that he/she is less ‘bisexual’ from a sexual orientation perspective because the attraction component may be missing.”

This is the sort of thing that got Rieger and Bailey in such hot water. They argued that a pattern of arousal response rather than self-identification is a better way to detect orientation.

'Research can be wrong'
But both Bailey and Bogaert say that a lot of this sort of thing is still up in the air. “We all need to be aware that research can be wrong,” Bailey cautioned me.

Remember Freud? Maybe future researchers will decide Bailey’s work is a crock. Maybe not. The science of this is still crude. We’re strapping guys in lab chairs, putting electric devices on their weenies and asking them to watch porn. It’s not exactly champagne, 400-thread-count sheets and Penelope Cruz.

And anyway, they are trying to describe, not prescribe. So why mass behind little Maginot Lines, stamp our feet, shake our fists and say, “I’m bi, bi, bi!” or “I’m straight, straight straight!”? That makes it so much easier for those who see any variation from their own preferences to demonize others as alien.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement

If you say you’re an asexual, are perfectly happy being an asexual, why do you care what a psychologist thinks or I think or Pat Robertson thinks? If you’re bi, if you are ethical and tell potential partners (whose business it really is) you are bi, if you are happy being bi, why worry about what “bi” means?

Besides, I just don’t care if the barbershop has a big rainbow flag out front. I want to know if they can cut hair.

A few years ago, I was researching a story and spent several days in a store owned by a gay man. One of his clerks was partially transsexual from male to female. She dated another partial transsexual, also male to female, who had undergone some surgery but not the full Monty. A helper in the store was also a gay male who had sometimes worked as a transvestite prostitute.

As Daffy Duck might say, this caused some pronoun trouble.

Lucky for me all these people had a sense of humor. Half the time, they joked, they weren’t sure what pronoun to use either. They told me to relax. Over succeeding days I grew to like all these people very much. They were, among other things, hilariously funny, and I admired the way they had carved out a family for themselves from what were very complex and often painful histories.

That’s all I needed to know. I never thought to ask them for definitions.
----

"I'm trisexual, I try everything. I'm omnisexual, I swing every which way." I've used these lines for years. I think I'm going to say "I follow my heart" from now on. The rest is no one's business.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Pharmas: No Vaccine Incentive
Time:	12:19 am.

Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- In an unusually candid admission, the federal chief of AIDS research says he believes drug companies don't have an incentive to create a vaccine for the HIV virus and are likely to wait to profit from it after the government develops one. And that means the government has had to spend more time focusing on the processes that drug companies ordinarily follow in developing new medicines and bringing them to market.

"We had to spend some time and energy paying attention to those aspects of development because the private side isn't picking it up," Dr. Edmund Tramont testified in a deposition in a recent employment lawsuit obtained by The Associated Press.

Tramont is head of the AIDS research division of the National Institutes of Health, and he predicted in his testimony that the government will eventually create a vaccine. He testified in July in the whistleblower case of Dr. Jonathan Fishbein.

"If we look at the vaccine, HIV vaccine, we're going to have an HIV vaccine. It's not going to be made by a company," Tramont said. "They're dropping out like flies because there's no real incentive for them to do it. We have to do it."

"They will eventually -- if it works, they won't have to make that big investment. And they can make it and sell it and make a profit," he said.

An official of the group representing the country's major drug companies took sharp exception to Tramont's comments. "That is simply not true. America's pharmaceutical research companies are firmly committed to HIV/AIDS vaccine research and development with 15 potential vaccines in development today," said Ken Johnson, senior vice president of PhRMA, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

"Vaccine research is crucial to controlling the AIDS pandemic and our companies are well aware of the need to succeed in this vital area of science," Johnson said.

In an e-mail response for comment, Tramont said the HIV vaccine mirrors the history of other vaccines. "It is not just a HIV vaccine -- it's all vaccines -- that is why there was/is a shortage of flu vaccines," Tramont wrote.

The quest for an AIDS vaccine has been one of science's biggest disappointments despite billions of dollars and years of research. Part of the dilemma is that such a vaccine must work through the very immune system that AIDS compromises.

The failure in the last couple years of one of the more promising vaccine candidates has bred some frustration. The United Nations' top HIV/AIDS official acknowledged earlier this year at a conference that it was no longer realistic to hope that the world will meet its goal of halting and reversing the spread of the pandemic by 2015. A British delegate to that conference predicted it might take 20 years before such a vaccine is created.

The International AIDS Vaccines Initiative, a not-for-profit group that is pushing for an AIDS vaccine, said there are more than 30 vaccine candidates being tested mostly on a small scale in 19 counties, but it acknowledges many are pursuing a similar theory of science that may prove futile.

"If the hypothesis is proven incorrect, the pipeline of candidates now in trials will be rendered mostly irrelevant. Strong alternative hypotheses have been largely neglected," the group said.

IAVI estimates total annual spending on an AIDS vaccine is $682 million. "This represents less than 1 percent of total spending on all health product development," IAVI said. "Private sector efforts amount to just $100 million annually. This is mainly due to the lack of incentives for the private sector to invest in an AIDS vaccine -- the science is difficult, and the developing countries that need a vaccine most are least able to pay."
--

The politicians barely admit they have gay kids. I'd be willing to bet more than a few (of the kids overall, not specifically gay one) are HIV+ and the parents are hiding it for image-sake.

AIDS is beyond creeping over the borders. In some cities, it is a full on *gasp* epidemic. But since most people who get AIDS are not politically and/or financially connected, why bother? The "good" ones can get the life-preserving strong drugs. The rest are not 'worth it'.

This reminds me of something I've received a few times in email forwards (forwards are a no-no, but thats a rant for another time).

TWO TOUGH QUESTIONS

Question 1:

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Read the next question before looking at the answer for this one.

Question 2:

It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates.

Candidate A -

Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologists. He had two Mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B -

He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C -

He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.

Which of these candidates would be your choice?
Decide first, no peeking, then scroll down for the answer.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Candidate B is Winston Churchill.

Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

And, by the way, the answer to the abortion question: If you said yes, you just killed Beethoven.

Pretty interesting isn't it? Makes a person think before judging someone.

Remember: Amateurs built the ark; Professionals built the Titanic

Moral? Sometimes it not who you save, but who you let die. Pharmacutical companies are not gods, so why are they being allowed to act like it?

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Study: Laughter Can be Genuine, Strategic
Time:	7:54 am.

Discovery News — Laughter is either genuine or consciously feigned, according to a new analysis that details how laughter has evolved over the past seven million years.

The study, published in the current Quarterly Review of Biology, is the first to emphasize that two types of laughter exist. The first type is spontaneous and stimulus-driven, while the second, with the rather sinister nickname "the dark side of laughter," is strategic and, at times, downright cruel.

Matthew Gervais, lead author of the study, described the two types to Discovery News.

"One type of laughter arises spontaneously from the perception of a certain class of events, while the other is used strategically in interaction to influence others or modulate one's own physiology," said Gervais, who is a researcher in the Evolutionary Studies Program at Binghamton University in New York.

Analyzing past studies that contained data on ape features, such as oral-facial muscle control, as well as using theory and data on brain neurons, evolutionary psychology and other disciplines, Gervais and colleague David Sloan Wilson determined that genuine laughter is innate and mirrors ape play-panting, which arose around seven million years ago.

In fact, they believe human laughter sounds more like a wild primate call than language.

Between four and two million years ago, this laughter evolved as a reaction to non-serious social incongruity, such as when one human ancestor would hear another loudly pass gas while the individuals felt safe and were playing.

Around two million years ago, according to the researchers, our ancestors evolved the ability to willfully control facial expressions.

It was not long before fake smiles led to fake laughter, which can be used for emphasis in conversations, to relieve fear, to shame others — as when a clique of friends laughs with derision at an outsider — and for many other purposes.

Genuine laughter first emerges involuntarily in babies from the middle part of the brain and brainstem areas. Fake laughter originates toward the front of the brain, and seems to develop more as a person ages.

"One of the hallmarks of the human brain is the extent to which cortical, cognitive, namely prefrontal areas can influence and control behavior, and these areas are the last to develop and perhaps never cease doing so," said Gervais.

He indicated that control over laughter may not be such a bad thing, since it could prevent someone from laughing out loud at inappropriate times, which may vary depending on the culture.

"These areas can definitely be used to inhibit laughter in accord with norms, such as those of the church or business meeting, and this likely plays a large role in cultural variation in laughter," he said.

The researchers do not rule out the possibility that people who spontaneously laugh more are genetically superior to those who hardly ever chuckle. Gervais said frequent genuine laughers could be "healthier, happier, more attractive or more cooperative."

Politicians, television personalities, and other individuals might even manipulate our perception of such laughing fitness by punctuating their words with what laughter expert Robert Provine calls "laugh-speak."

"What I call 'laugh-speak,' a hybrid of speaking and laughing, is under more voluntary control, and is used by talk-show hosts and others to buffer an uncomfortable point," said Provine, who is a psychology professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the author of the book "Laughter: A Scientific Investigation."

Provine said he agreed with the new study, but told Discovery News that laughter, for the most part, is an "honest signal," because it is hard to fake a good laugh. He indicated that phony smiles are harder to identify.

All of the researchers did agree that laughter and humor are separate, yet linked, phenomena.

"We will learn more about the origin of humor from studying laughter than vice-versa," said Provine. "And tickle is at the root of it all. My candidate for the first joke? The feigned tickling of the 'I'm going to get you game,' popular with babies and young children worldwide."
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I have this image from the movie "The Road to Wellville" where all the people at the 'San' are standing around in their underwear (think 1900s bathing suits-with caps) trying to HA HA HA ha ha ha in rhythm.

But I do feel better when I start the day with laughing at something silly/stupid/cute/all that my furballs have done. Particularly when they turn tail and huff off. Because you know they meant to do that.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	'Santa' Leaves Jet Trail Across Sun
Time:	3:04 am.
Mood:	chipper.
Music:	Under The Sea.

Discovery News— Solar scientists in New Mexico have accidentally photographed Santa Claus crossing the face of the sun.

The image, from the National Solar Observatory, seems to reveal that Santa might be experimenting with some sort of jet propulsion system. The image was taken by a telescope on Sacramento Peak in southern New Mexico as part of an automated observing program that looks at the sun in a variety of wavelengths.

"Actually it is jet propulsion — the hot exhaust from the jet engines — that causes the wake" seen behind conventional jet aircraft, said Dave Dooling, education and public outreach officer for the National Solar Telescope in Sunspot, N.M. In the case of Santa and his sleigh, there may be another cause, he said.

"It's really a wake, a line of air disturbed by Santa's passage," said Dooling.

In other words, jet engines may not be necessary to alter how the air in Santa's wake can momentarily distort sunlight, like a long uneven lens in mid-air ruining the telescope's focus on the sun's surface.

Only four transits of the sun by aircraft have been captured by the new Improved Solar Optical Observing Network (ISOON) telescope at the National Solar Observatory. The three others were caught on Nov. 14, 15 and 16.

ISOON is a semi-automatic, remotely operated telescope designed to help space weather forecasters monitor the sun. It observes the sun in what's called "hydrogen-alpha light," which is especially good for detecting ribbons of relatively cool gas standing above the hotter chromosphere, the sun's middle atmosphere.

Normally, the ribbons, which are also called filaments, snake between regions of opposite magnetic polarity on the face of the sun. When previous unusually straight ribbons have been detected before, they have proven to be jet aircraft crossing the line of sight of the telescope, probably planes departing El Paso, Texas.

Catching Santa flying by ISOON is seen as a bit of spectacular luck by Dooling.

Official word from the North Pole, however, reveals that the image was no accident.

"Mr. Kringle wanted the solar scientists to know that he's been impressed with the work they are doing," said Santa spokes-elf Ilbereth in an exclusive interview with Discovery News. "It was just his way of sending them a personal season greetings."

As for the question of whether Santa might be using some sort of new-fangled jet propulsion, which might lead to the phasing out of reindeer, Ilbereth said it was a matter of "holiday security" and he could not comment.
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Yeah, even scientists can have fun with the big jolly dude.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Happy New Year!

NGC 6559 is part of a star-forming region in the constellation Sagittarius.
The dark, dragon-shaped cloud is made up of cool dust backlit by bright, nearby stars.

Happy New Year!

NGC 6559 is part of a star-forming region in the constellation Sagittarius. The dark, dragon-shaped cloud is made up of cool dust backlit by bright, nearby stars.

NGC 6559 is part of a star-forming region in the constellation Sagittarius.
The dark, dragon-shaped cloud is made up of cool dust backlit by bright, nearby stars.