Feel-good story of the day

I'm a sucker for feel-good stories, particularly when they happen to older folks who might be struggling with physical ailments, poverty, and the like. When one of them strikes it lucky and becomes a success, it's always a heart-warming thing for me - like the lady in this report from the Daily Mail.

When Christine Munroe revived her grandmother’s jam-making recipes, she simply hoped the results would prove popular with family and friends.

They turned out to be much more than that.

The recipes have been such a runaway success they have turned the 72-year-old into an accidental entrepreneur inundated with requests for her creations – including chilli jam and orange and malt whisky marmalade.




Based on 100-year-old recipes handed down from her mother and grandmother, her range of jams, marmalades, pickles, relishes and mustards have won a string of awards from the Guild of Fine Food and are being sold by the National Trust.

They are so popular that Mrs Munroe, a retired personal assistant, now spends 15 hours a day making 200 jars of condiments for her business.

Last night she said she owed her success to her mother, Dorothy, and grandmother, Ellen, who taught her how to make jam as a young girl.

‘I’m absolutely delighted these jams are a big hit, but I’m only using the old recipes my mother and grandmother used all those years ago,’ she said.

‘My mother learnt how to make the jam from her mother and it’s likely she learnt it from her mother before that.

Mrs Munroe began making jam again as a hobby following her retirement 12 years ago.

But it wasn’t until last year, when she was asked to make a batch of orange marmalade for a local farmer’s market, that her jam came to the attention of food lovers nationwide.

The 17 jars sold so fast, and she was inundated with so many requests for more, that she decided to set up Christine’s Cheshire Preserves, in February 2009.

. . .

Now her son, Hugh, 40, has given up his job as a maths teacher to help his mother run the business.

‘You don’t really have a day off. At the weekend it’s the farmer’s markets and during the week it’s the jam - making it and delivering it, but it’s good fun,’ Mrs Munroe added.

‘I would just be bored stiff putting my feet up. I love it and just enjoy meeting different people.'

There's more at the link.

It's nice when good things happen to good people, isn't it? I see from her Web site that mail order is available, although I don't know whether the company will ship to the USA. If they do, I must get a jar of her orange marmalade with malt whisky. I've had one jar like that in my lifetime, and it was gooooood. I want another!

Peter

Are antibiotics becoming ineffective?

A very thought-provoking article in the Guardian suggests they may be. Here's a short extract.

The era of antibiotics is coming to a close. In just a couple of generations, what once appeared to be miracle medicines have been beaten into ineffectiveness by the bacteria they were designed to knock out. Once, scientists hailed the end of infectious diseases. Now, the post-antibiotic apocalypse is within sight.

Hyperbole? Unfortunately not. The highly serious journal Lancet Infectious Diseases yesterday posed the question itself over a paper revealing the rapid spread of multi-drug-resistant bacteria. "Is this the end of antibiotics?" it asked.

Doctors and scientists have not been complacent, but the paper by Professor Tim Walsh and colleagues takes the anxiety to a new level. Last September, Walsh published details of a gene he had discovered, called NDM 1, which passes easily between types of bacteria called enterobacteriaceae such as E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae and makes them resistant to almost all of the powerful, last-line group of antibiotics called carbapenems. Yesterday's paper revealed that NDM 1 is widespread in India and has arrived here as a result of global travel and medical tourism for, among other things, transplants, pregnancy care and cosmetic surgery.

"In many ways, this is it," Walsh tells me. "This is potentially the end. There are no antibiotics in the pipeline that have activity against NDM 1-producing enterobacteriaceae. We have a bleak window of maybe 10 years, where we are going to have to use the antibiotics we have very wisely, but also grapple with the reality that we have nothing to treat these infections with."

And this is the optimistic view – based on the assumption that drug companies can and will get moving on discovering new antibiotics to throw at the bacterial enemy. Since the 1990s, when pharma found itself twisting and turning down blind alleys, it has not shown a great deal of enthusiasm for difficult antibiotic research. And besides, because, unlike with heart medicines, people take the drugs for a week rather than life, and because resistance means the drugs become useless after a while, there is just not much money in it.

. . .

After antibiotics: what happens when the drugs don't work

• Transplant surgery becomes virtually impossible. Organ recipients have to take immune-suppressing drugs for life to stop rejection of a new heart or kidney. Their immune systems cannot fight off life-threatening infections without antibiotics.

• Removing a burst appendix becomes a dangerous operation once again. Patients are routinely given antibiotics after surgery to prevent the wound becoming infected by bacteria. If bacteria get into the bloodstream, they can cause life-threatening septicaemia.

• Pneumonia becomes once more "the old man's friend". Antibiotics have stopped it being the mass-killer it once was, particularly among the old and frail, who would lapse into unconsciousness and often slip away in their sleep. Other diseases of old age, such as cancer, have taken over.

• Gonorrhea becomes hard to treat. Resistant strains are already on the rise. Without treatment, the sexually transmitted disease causes pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility and ectopic pregnancies.

• Tuberculosis becomes incurable – first we had TB, then multi-drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) and now there is XDR-TB (extremely drug resistant TB). TB requires very long courses (six months or more) of antibiotics. The very human tendency to stop taking or forget to take the drugs has contributed to the spread of resistance.

There's more at the link.

I've seen the beginnings of this problem in the Third World. Many medical facilities there are bush clinics, without the staff or facilities to keep an eye on their patients and ensure that they complete their course of medication. As a result, many patients (particularly those with tuberculosis or other infectious diseases) take only part of their course, feel better, and stop taking the pills. Inevitably, of course, the disease returns: but it's now had an opportunity to develop a resistance to the drugs, and is that much harder to treat. Furthermore, insects bite the victims, pick up the now drug-resistant infection, and transmit it to others. It's a vicious circle.

I hope the article is unduly alarmist, and that things aren't that bad . . . but I fear I'm being over-optimistic.

Peter

The inbred Jedi???

Via Buzzfeed we learn of a Web site set up to develop (or express) a fanfic perspective on Star Wars that was, I'm sure, never part of George Lucas' vision! Here's the first fruits of their efforts.

They invite participation:

Want to be a part of the next Gree-Morr adventure? Mike and Mike are currently looking for volunteers to help complete the next chapter(s). Artists, animators, Flash experts, even a good Yoda and C3PO impression are all welcome and needed.

If you have a love/hate relationship with Star Wars as deep as we do, send us an email.

Why don’t you come with us? You’re pretty good in a fight. We could use you.

Sounds like it might be fun . . . provided George Lucas doesn't sue the heinie off them!



Peter

History in color

The Denver Post has published a series of 70 photographs of America in the early 1940's. All are sourced from the Library of Congress, so they are, by definition, in the public domain. I've chosen only five to reproduce here, in smaller scale, to whet your appetite to go and look at the collection as a whole.

Boys fishing in a bayou, Schriever, Louisiana, June 1940.

Dugout home, Pie Town, New Mexico, September 1940

Farm auction, Derby, Connecticut, September 1940

Mill at the Camp Bird Mine, Ouray County, Colorado, October 1940

P-51 Mustang in flight, Inglewood, California, October 1942.
This is the original Allison-engined version, ordered by Britain as the Mustang 1A.
Note the 4 x 20mm. Hispano cannon armament.

There are many more at the link, all larger than those reproduced here. They're a fascinating look at this country in the early years of World War II, with the added benefit of color, which is lacking in so many photographs of the period. Highly recommended for anyone interested in living history.

Peter

Talk about speeding in style!

A Swedish motorist bought a new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG in Germany - a snip at a mere $220,000 or so.

Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

He decided to drive it home via Switzerland . . . at a hell of a speed! The Daily Mail reports:

A speeding Swedish driver is facing the world‘s biggest ever motoring fine of 650,000 euros - around £538,000 [about US $837,200] - after being clocked at 180 mph while driving through Switzerland.

. . .

Benoît Dumas, a police officer in the area where the SLS six-litre-engine car was impounded, said: 'He needed over half-a-kilometre of road to come to a halt.'

The driver had previously escaped being clocked by numerous speed cameras on his journey simply because he was going too fast and the instruments were incapable of clocking any speed beyond 200 kph [about 137 mph].

It was a new generation of radar machines that finally caught him zooming along at close to 300 kph [about 186 mph].

'I think the speedo on the car, which is new, is faulty,' the driver told police.

He is unlikely to go to prison but is expected to be hit with the landmark fine because of the way speeding fines are adminitsered in Switzerland.

When his case is judged by a magistrate the fine will be based on his income and the 'extraordinary speed' at which he was travelling.

He is threatened with the highest possible penalty of 300 days of fines at 3,600 Swiss francs a day which comes out to close to 650,000 euros.

In Switzerland and Germany it is common for fines to be levied in such a way. In Switzerland the level of the fine is always dependant on a person‘s income - and clearly the suspect in this speeding affair is very rich indeed.

There's more at the link.

*Sigh*

It must be nice to be so wealthy that one doesn't have to worry about paying that sort of speeding fine . . . but I'm damned if I'd like to have that attitude towards my fellow road users. I've driven on European roads, where the 'lords of the autobahn' roar past at mind-boggling speeds in their high-powered (and high-priced) cars, kicking up a hell of a fuss if you don't get out of the way (even if you're in the right, according to the rules of the road), and generally behaving as if they own the road. It doesn't displease me to see one such driver get his rather expensive come-uppance.

The car itself, though . . . I must admit, this one makes my mouth water! Here's a video clip from 2009, describing it.

Peter

DNA testing not so infallible after all?

New Scientist has a very interesting article claiming that DNA testing isn't so clear-cut and definitive as it's made out to be. Here are a couple of excerpts.

... much of the DNA analysis now conducted in crime labs can suffer from worrying subjectivity and bias. We asked forensic analysts to interpret a sample of real DNA evidence and found that they reached opposing conclusions about whether the suspect matched it or not. Our subsequent survey of labs around the world also shows that there are significant inconsistencies in the guidelines on how to interpret a sample. The findings suggest that the difference between prison and freedom could often rest on the opinions of a single individual.

. . .

We took a mixed sample of DNA evidence from an actual crime scene- a gang rape committed in Georgia, US- which helped to convict a man called Kerry Robinson, who is currently in prison. We presented it, and Robinson's DNA profile, to 17 experienced analysts working in the same accredited government lab in the US, without any contextual information that might bias their judgement.

In the original case, two analysts from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation concluded that Robinson "could not be excluded" from the crime scene sample, based on his DNA profile. (A second man convicted of the same crime also testified that Robinson was an assailant, in return for a lesser jail term.) Each of our 17 analysts independently examined the profiles from the DNA mixture, the victim's profile and those of two other suspects and was asked to judge whether the suspects' profiles could be "excluded", "cannot be excluded" or whether the results were "inconclusive".

If DNA analysis were totally objective, then all 17 analysts should reach the same conclusion. However, we found that just one agreed with the original judgement that Robinson "cannot be excluded". Four analysts said the evidence was inconclusive and 12 said he could be excluded.

"Fingerprinting and other forensic disciplines have now accepted that subjectivity and context may affect their judgement and decisions," says Dror. "It is now time that DNA analysts accept that under certain conditions, subjectivity and even bias may affect their work." Dror presented the results at the Green Mountain DNA conference in Burlington, Vermont, last month.

Christine Funk, an attorney in the Office of the Public Defender for the State of Minnesota, says the results of New Scientist's survey have profound implications for criminal justice. "The difference between prison and freedom rests in the hands of the scientist assigned the case," she says.

. . .

So what can be done? This year, the Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods (SWGDAM), which issues guidance to US labs performing forensic DNA analysis, published new recommendations regarding the interpretation of forensic DNA.

. . .

It seems lab managers would welcome consistent rules. Forensic lab directors at the 19 labs we surveyed also provided their views about how their analysis is currently done: 15 either agreed or strongly agreed that interpretation procedures should be based on national standards, and 11 agreed or strongly agreed that decisions over alleles should not be based on analyst opinion.

Labs must also take steps to avoid bias. Butler says that some labs continue to insist upon seeing suspect profiles before analysing evidence from the crime scene, which could lead to biased decision-making (see "Crime Scene Investigation: Impartiality"). Analysts also often know too much about a suspect and other evidence to be impartial, and public labs often have close ties to police. "Crime labs, including DNA labs, should not be under the control of a law enforcement agency," says one US analyst, who wished to remain anonymous. "We are scientists, not cops or prosecutors."

There's much more at the link. Interesting and thought-provoking reading.

Peter

Dog vs. Car - dog wins!

This made me laugh out loud.

Peter

Weird wheels!

Buzzfeed has posted a collection of pictures of weird and wonderful motorcycles. Here are a few examples to whet your appetite.

This first one's for Phlegmmy - who else?




And this one had better be for my buddy Ambulance Driver, in memory of a certain incident a couple of years ago.




The next three are all variations on a bovine theme. The first is reminiscent of Wall Street at its worst.




This one would be suitable to ride to Blogorado (the annual gathering of gun bloggers in Colorado) next week, as our shooting range will be set up on a cattle farm.




And this one would be to drive home from Blogorado after we've eaten all the good beef that'll be served up! Yes, that's an entire cow skeleton on there . . .




There are many more at the link. Interesting and recommended reading.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #382

Today's winner (?) is from Dallas, Texas.

Nathan Pugh, a career criminal with 30 years experience in the field, demonstrated that he hasn't learned very much during that time.

His effort to rob Wells Fargo Bank began when he entered carrying a Whataburger bag, which he alleged contained a 'bom' (sic). He instructed the teller to put money in an envelope. Thinking fast, the teller indicated she'd need some ID to give him money - whereupon our resident genius handed over his Wells Fargo debit card. Continuing her good work, the teller asked how much money he wanted. When he asked for $2,000, she said she'd need more ID to give him that much. Yes, you guessed it: this time Einstein Mr Pugh handed over his State of Texas ID card!

I can't imagine how the teller managed to avoid exploding with laughter at this stage, but she kept her cool, and indicated she'd have to go to the back to get more money. Mr. Pugh decided he didn't want to wait, and settled for the $900 she had on hand. While putting that into an envelope for him, she activated her silent alarm.

Turning to leave, Mr. Pugh noticed cops arriving from all points of the compass, and made his final mistake of the day. He tried to take a woman client hostage to ensure his getaway. Unfortunately for him, he's only about 5' 6" tall, and slightly built. The lady he chose as a 'hostage' turned out to be rather stronger than he was, and wrestled him to the ground as the cops rushed in to rescue him from her attentions. He was led away to durance vile, minus his money, his ID, his bank card and his 'bom'.

With crooks that dumb, it's almost a pity to lock them up . . . it leaves room for someone smarter!

(You can read all about the fun and games in this news report.)





Peter

The lighter side of the mosque at Ground Zero

I'm sure readers are familiar with plans to build Cordoba House, an Islamic cultural center and mosque, near the site of the former World Trade Center in New York City, destroyed by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists on September 11th, 2001.

I'm neutral on the subject of Islam, having numerous friends of that faith, but also having seen (at first hand) the effects of fundamentalism on certain of its followers. I can respect the good it entails while recognizing and rejecting the bad. Even so, I think the proposed location of Cordoba House is insensitive and likely to be counter-productive. As far as I'm concerned, if it's genuinely needed by the Muslim community (and there's considerable debate about that), let it be built further away from a place that is and will forever be associated with the worst excesses of fundamentalist Islam.

That said, there's a funny side to the ongoing debate. The inimitable Iowahawk has this take on the matter:

Charges of racism, sexism, and religious discrimination filled the air this afternoon outside the just-completed Cordoba House, the gleaming new $100 million 15 story mosque and Islamic cultural center near the ruins of New York's World Trade Center, following a tense 5-hour standoff prompted by the mosque's refusal to host a wedding between a lesbian African-American woman and her blind white transgendered partner.

Over 200 NYPD officers and multicultural crisis counselors were bused to the site to quell the simmering 17-way tensions between Muslim, Black, LGBT, immigrant, disabled, and lawsuit community activists. The scene was punctuated by outbursts of pushing and shoving, including a brief confused intramural scuffle among members of Reverend Louis Farrakan's Nation of Islam, but the only serious injuries reported was a hernia suffered by a legal aide distributing plaintiff's briefs. The incident resulted in one arrest, a 7-year old girl who was seen operating a lemonade stand without a permit.

There's more at the link. Go read the whole thing for a good laugh.

Not to be outdone, Greg Gutfeld has a proposal that he thinks is bound to produce meaningful dialog between Islamic and US 'values'.

As an American, I believe they have every right to build the mosque - after all, if they buy the land and they follow the law - who can stop them?

Which is, why, in the spirit of outreach, I've decided to do the same thing.

I'm announcing tonight, that I am planning to build and open the first gay bar that caters not only to the west, but also Islamic gay men. To best express my sincere desire for dialogue, the bar will be situated next to the mosque Park51, in an available commercial space.

Again, there's more at the link - also giggleworthy.



Peter

It's enough to make a Marine giggle . . .

One doesn't typically think of a Marine Gunnery Sergeant as a sensitive, caring, delicate sort of fellow . . . but appearances can deceive, as this Geico advertisement, featuring the inimitable R. Lee Ermey, shows us.

Score one for the Gunny!



Peter

Obesity epidemic? What obesity epidemic?

Via Dustbury, we learn of what must be one of the most calorie-rich desserts ever created.

The Cherpumple is the dessert version of the Turducken. It’s a three-layer cake with a pie stuffed in each layer. YUM! Cherpumple is short for CHERry, PUMpkin and apPLE pie. The apple pie is baked in spice cake, the pumpkin in yellow and the cherry in white.




The inspiration for the Cherpumple came from the typical desert table selection you would find at one of my family’s holiday celebrations. Seems there’s always cherry, pumpkin, and apple pie and a cake that’s a family tradition. It has a layer of spice and a layer of yellow. Since I always want to have a piece of each of the pies and the cake I figured why not make that waaaaaaaay more convenient. So I baked them all together as one and the Cherpumple was born.

There's more at the link, including a recipe for those adventurous (and skinny) enough to want to try it! There's also a video showing how it's done.

I'm long past the stage where I could afford to try something like that, I'm afraid. Even watching the video of its creation was enough to add ten pounds to my waistline!





Peter

An adventurer for the ages!

I'm astonished and very respectful to hear of the completion of an almost three-year epic journey of discovery.

After an incredible 859 days and 6,000 miles British explorer Ed Stafford has become the first man to walk the entire length of the Amazon.

The former Army captain reached the Atlantic in Brazil – two and a half years after he started his epic adventure in the jungles of Peru.

. . .

Mr Stafford, 33, from Hallaton, Leicestershire, who suffered an estimated 50,000 mosquito bites, said: ‘It’s been an incredible journey with some amazing highs, but also some pretty horrendous lows as well. But I just couldn’t consider giving up.’

Although the Amazon measures 4,000 miles, he estimates he had to walk an extra 2,000 miles up and down mountains and through jungle to conquer it.

He began on April 2, 2008, with walking partner Luke Collyer, 37, an outdoor activities instructor. But less than three months in, the pair fell out over an iPod and Mr Collyer returned to the UK. Mr Stafford advertised for a new walking partner and was joined by Mr Sanchez Rivera.

Living off piranha and rice, the pair made their way through Peru, Colombia and Brazil.

At one point, in Peru, local tribesmen imprisoned Mr Stafford and his partner on suspicion of murder. They were released after 48 hours.

But then the sponsors pulled out due to the recession, their GPS system failed and their medical insurance lapsed.

Mr Stafford said on Monday: ‘All I want now is a portion of fish and chips and a nice cold beer.’

There's more at the link, along with more very interesting photographs. Recommended reading.

That's one hell of an accomplishment! I can't even begin to imagine the strength of will and determination it took for Mr. Stafford and his partner to complete so arduous a journey. My hat's off to them.

Peter

A singer of whom you've probably never heard

I was surprised to find out today that the music of Sixto Rodriguez is virtually unknown in the USA, even though he's an American artist. He was a major star in South Africa during my formative years, particularly amongst those doing their military National Service. He had much the same impact on them as Jimi Hendrix had on the 1960's US servicemen in Vietnam.

I did a bit of investigating, and found that Rodriguez was a bit like the biblical prophet: 'not without honor, except in his own country'. A 2005 article in the Guardian helped explain the background.

Now 63, Rodriguez was working on a Detroit building site when he discovered he was a star in, of all places, South Africa: a fact that, understandably, "blew my mind". Despite its undoubted qualities - its stream-of-consciousness protest songs, heavy with drug references, are pitched somewhere between Bob Dylan and Love, tricked out with bursts of sinister electronics and luscious string arrangements - [his 1970 debut album] Cold Fact had vanished without a trace in the US: a state of affairs not helped when Rodriguez's record label Sussex, also home to Bill Withers, went bust. Bizarrely, however, Cold Fact not only secured a release in South Africa but became a platinum-selling hit. The effect of the album on national service conscripts under the apartheid regime is frequently compared to that of Jimi Hendrix or the Doors on US servicemen in Vietnam.

"South Africa in the early 1970s was a very restrictive society," says Stephen Segerman, a former Johannesburg jeweller who made it his mission to track down Rodriguez. "Cold Fact was never banned, but it never received any radio play, except on pirate stations like Swazi Radio, which weren't under the censor board. The song I Wonder had this line, 'I wonder how many times you had sex', which for South Africa in those days was about as controversial as it could get. For kids, it was like a joke song, they were like 'listen to this!'. Then they heard the album, and realised there was a lot more in it, it was trippy, it was beautiful, it had a lot of social content. It affected a lot of people in a lot of different ways. The commercial success was unbelievable. If you took a family from South Africa, a normal, middle-class family, and looked through their record collection, you'd find Abbey Road, Neil Young's Harvest and Cold Fact. It was a word-of-mouth success."

The word of mouth did not reach Detroit, where Rodriguez had given up his recording career after a second album, 1972's Coming From Reality, vanished in much the same fashion as his debut. He tried an unsuccessful career in politics, studied for a BA in philosophy, worked in a petrol station and apparently "took part in Indian pow-wows throughout Michigan", before becoming a self-employed labourer. In South Africa, meanwhile, his record company seemed to have no idea of his whereabouts. In place of any concrete information, rumours spread. It was variously assumed he was dead from a heroin overdose, had been burned to death onstage, had been committed to a mental hospital, or was serving a prison sentence for murdering his lover: "Who or what Rodriguez is remains a mystery," claimed the sleeve notes to a reissued CD.

Segerman and journalist Craig Bartholomew began their search after the former discovered to his amazement that Rodriguez was unknown in his home country. After several months chasing false leads, they received a startled email from his daughter: "Do you really want to know about my father?" A series of rapturously received South African tours, two documentaries and a platinum disc followed, a fairly remarkable turn of events for an artist who had never played live in America. "Oh gee, it blew me away when I found out, it was so good," says Rodriguez.

There's more at the link.

It must have been quite a shock for Rodriguez (albeit a very pleasant one) to find that years - decades! - after he'd given up on his musical ambitions, he was remembered as a top-ranked musician on the other side of the world! His music career revived after the news reached him, and he's toured Australia and South Africa, as well as several European cities, and has finally begun to get some live gigs here in the USA as well.

For those (I presume most of you) who don't know his music, here are three tracks from his first and still most successful album, Cold Fact. (There are many more on YouTube - click the link for a listing.) The first is 'Crucify Your Mind'.

Next is 'Establishment Blues' - in which I find eerie parallels to US politics today, forty years after it was first recorded!

Finally, here's a live recording from Seattle in June 2009 of 'I Wonder'.

It's good to see that at the age of 69, Rodriguez is still in fine musical form!

Peter

Aviation history on the wing!

Here's a wonderful video clip of a replica Sopwith Camel from World War I flying alongside a Supermarine Spitfire from World War II.

That's enough to warm the cockles of aviation enthusiasts' hearts!

Peter

A new and novel pain relief drug?

I'm among the many people condemned to daily use of pain-killing drugs to control the remaining symptoms of a nerve injury. It's often very hard to find a balance between retaining one's mental faculties, and being dosed so heavily that one's no longer quite oneself any more. I prefer to operate on the more-pain, less-drugs end of the spectrum, as I hate the 'zonked' feeling that too many painkillers give me; but I can understand those who choose to tolerate the latter, rather than be subjected to never-ending, unendurable pain.

I'm therefore intensely interested in research in this field. My eye was caught by a report in the Daily Mail last week.

Scientists have developed a new pain-relief pill from a chemical used by sea snails to catch their prey.

It was found to be as effective as morphine for relieving the most severe forms of pain but without the added risk of addiction.

Marine cone snails produce a saliva that contains a deadly dose of peptide toxins to help the slow-moving creatures catch prey. They inject passing victims with needle-like teeth that shoot out of their mouths.

Conus Victoriae (the cone snail species used in the research)

Scientists have already transformed one of the chemicals into a pain-reliever for humans. However, it has to be injected directly into the spinal cord which limits how much it can be used.

Now researchers in Australia, led by David Craik of the University of Queensland, have developed a form of the painkiller that can be taken orally.

The modified chemical was found to reduce severe pain in rats at a much lower dose than existing medications, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News.

. . .

The drug could potentially revolutionise the treatment of the most severe forms of pain and Professor Craik is keen to take his research further.

'The most challenging aspect has been just raising the money to get it commercialised,' he told Chemical & Engineering News.

There's more at the link.

Intrigued, I went to the source article (mentioned by the Daily Mail) in the Chemical & Engineering News. There, amongst the scientific language, I read this:

In tests with rats, the cyclized peptide proved to be as potent a painkiller as gabapentin, the most popular drug for neuropathic pain, even though the conotoxin-based peptide was administered at a dose that is less than 1% of the dose typically given for gabapentin.

“For years people have been saying that peptides make fantastic drug leads because they’re very potent,” Craik explains. “The problem is that they’re generally regarded as poor drugs because they’re not stable and they’re not orally available, so the pharmaceutical industry has kind of shied away from peptides in the past.”

There are, in fact, very few peptide drugs that can be taken orally. The immunosuppressant cyclosporine, a cyclic peptide made of 11 amino acids, is one example, but it’s relatively small compared with most potential protein therapeutics.

Craik’s group has shown that cyclizing larger peptides can make them orally available.

Again, there's more at the link.

That's wonderful news for me, because Gabapentin is the narcotic prescribed for my nerve damage. If this new drug can produce similar or better results at minimal dosages, with minimal side-effects, I - and many other people in my position - will be lining up for it, yesterday if not sooner! Here's hoping . . .

Peter

The Antarctic whisky saga continues

Back in November last year, I wrote about an expedition to recover some crates of whisky left in Antarctica by Shackleton in 1909. The original distillers, Whyte & Mackay, hope to duplicate the blend and re-market it. In February this year, I reported that the recovery team had achieved success.




The deep-frozen whisky has been taken to Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. A careful and highly scientific project is now under way to thaw the whisky and analyze it.




The Museum team is blogging about the process on an ongoing basis, including posting video clips now and then. The latest blog entry, from August 4th, reads in part:

Over the past 48 hours the ice in the crate has receded significantly, allowing closer investigation of the straw bottle covers. In and around the bottles and straw are penguin feathers and volcanic scoria, blown in under the lid over the last 102 years. As the scoria dries out it is helpful to remove it to allow air to circulate to the still frozen layers beneath. The straw is delicate, and the scoria is abrasive, so removing it is done through a combination of brushing, scooping and vacuum lifting depending on where the scoria is.

There's a video clip too, which you'll find at the link.

Hundred-plus-year-old single malt scotch! Hmm . . . I wonder how many members of the museum staff are lining up to volunteer for the taste test once it's defrosted?



Peter

If this is real, hanging's too good for them!

I'm astonished (and infuriated) to read what appears to be an official solicitation for prostitutes, allegedly issued by the administration of the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad, Iran.

Imam Reza Shrine (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

The translation provided reads as follows:

Bismellah al rahman a rahim

Temporary Marriage (Marriage is among the traditions of the Prophet Mohammad)

In order to elevate the spiritual atmosphere, create proper psychological conditions and tranquility of mind, the Province of the Quds’eh-Razavi of Khorassan has created centers for temporary marriage (just next door to the shrine) for those brothers who are on pilgrimage to the shrine of our eighth Imam, Imam Reza, and who are far away from their spouses.

To that end, we call on all our sisters who are virgins, who are between the ages of 12 and 35 to cooperate with us. Each of our sisters who signs up will be bound by a two year contract with the province of the Quds’eh-Razavi of Khorassan and will be required to spend at least 25 days of each month temporarily married to those brothers who are on pilgrimage. The period of the contract will be considered as a part of the employment experience of the applicant. The period of each temporary marriage can be anywhere between 5 hours to 10 days. The prices are as follows:

* 5 hour temporary marriage – 50,000 Tomans ($50 US)
* One day temporary marriage – 75,000 Tomans ($75 US)
* Two day temporary marriage – 100,000 Tomans ($100 US)
* Three day temporary marriage – 150,000 Tomans ($150 US)
* Between 4 and 10 day temporary marriage – 300,000 Tomans ($300 US)

Our sisters who are virgins will receive a bonus of 100,000 Tomans ($100 US) for the removal of their hymen .

After the expiration of the two year contract, should our sisters still be under 35 years of age and should they be so inclined, they can be added to the waiting list of those who are seeking long-term temporary marriage. The employed sisters are obligated to donate 5% of their earnings to the Shrine of Imam Reza. We ask that all the sisters who are interested in applying, to furnish two full-length photographs (fully hijabed and properly veiled), their academic diplomas, proof of their virginity and a certificate of good physical and psychological health which they can obtain through the health and human services of the township of their residence. Please forward all compiled material and send to the below address by the 31st of the month of Ordibehesht, 1389 (May 21st, 2010).

Attention: For sisters who are below 14 years of age, a written consent from their fathers or male guardian is required.

Address: Mash’had, Shrine of Imam Reza, Shaheed Navab-Safavi, Kossar passage, Bureau of Temporary Marriages

or call Haji Mahmood Momtaz : 98/511/222-5790

For further information, please refer to the Quds’eh Razavi website.

The original document (in Farsi) is reproduced at the link.

I know that different cultures are to be respected, and all that sort of thing . . . but to baldly state that applicants under fourteen must have the written approval of their father or male guardian??? What normal female child would even consider going into a life of prostitution, with all its dangers? This is as good as an open invitation to fathers and male guardians to pressure their relatives into doing so!

If this is real (and I remain open to the possibility that it's a hoax perpetrated by some anti-Iranian group; hopefully further facts will emerge from other sources to confirm or deny it) then I can't think of any punishment harsh enough for those responsible for this offer - or those who pressure their female relatives into 'accepting' it. One can only hope and pray that the God they purport to honor at the Imam Reza Shrine will speedily bring His justice to bear upon them. Since they honor Jesus Christ as a prophet, albeit not as the Son of God, they might want to reflect upon his words in Matthew 18:2-6;

Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

I do most sincerely pray that Jesus' words may come true for those responsible for this abomination.

Peter

Has the Bermuda Triangle mystery been solved?

A recent report in Salem News suggests that it has.

Natural gas — the kind that heats ovens and boils water — specifically methane, is the culprit behind the mysterious disappearances and loss of water and air craft.

The evidence for this astounding new insight into a mystery that's bedeviled the world is laid out in a research paper published in the American Journal of Physics.

Professor Joseph Monaghan researched the hypothesis with honor student David May at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

The two hypothesized that large methane bubbles rising from the ocean floor might account for many, if not all, of the mysterious disappearances of ships and aircraft at specific locales around the world.

Researcher Ivan T. Sanderson identified these mystery areas during the 1960s. Sanderson described the actual shape of these regions as more like a lozenge rather than a triangle. Some of the more famous spots include an area in the Sea of Japan, the North Sea, and of course the infamous "Bermuda (or Devil's) Triangle".

The Bermuda Triangle (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

Oceanographic surveyors of the sea floor in the area of the Bermuda Triangle and the North Sea region between continental Europe and Great Britain have discovered significant quantities of methane hydrates and older eruption sites.

Because of the correlations and existing data, the two envisioned what would happen when gigantic methane bubbles explode from natural fissures on the seafloor.

The methane — normally frozen at great pressure as gas hydrates embedded within subterranean rock — can become dislodged and transform into gaseous bubbles expanding geometrically as they explode upwards. When these bubbles reach the surface of the water they soar into the air, still expanding upwards and outwards.

Any ships caught within the methane mega-bubble immediately lose all buoyancy and sink to the bottom of the ocean. If the bubbles are big enough and possess a high enough density they can also knock aircraft out of the sky with little or no warning.

There's more at the link.

I'm a little confused as to when the link between methane gas and the Bermuda Triangle was made. The article by Monaghan and May referenced above was published in the American Journal of Physics back in September 2003. I've not been able to trace a more recent article by those authors in the Journal, but the Salem News article is dated August 6th, 2010. I don't know whether someone only recently linked the two topics, or whether further research has been completed. Still, it's an interesting theory.

Peter

Weirdly creative!

I recently discovered the video 'art' of YouTube user cyriak. Here are a couple of examples.

There are several more videos on cyriak's Youtube channel. Interesting - if sometimes bizarre - viewing.

Peter

DNA and cartoons - THE HORROR!

I'm horrified to learn of the latest advance in scientific research.

Genetic sequencing of sea sponges from the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef showed the ancient marine animal shared many of its genes with humans, including a large number typically associated with disease and cancer.

Lead researcher Bernard Degnan, of the University of Queensland, said the findings "would shed light on a whole range of different things," and could lay the foundation for breakthroughs in cancer and stem cell research.

"Sponges have what's (considered) the 'Holy Grail' of stem cells," Degnan told AFP.

Exploring the genetic function of sponge stem cells could provide "deep and important connections" to the genes that influenced human stem cell biology, he said.

"(It) might actually inform the way we think about our own stem cells and how we might be able to use them in future medical applications," he said.

There's more at the link.

You know what this means, don't you? DON'T YOU???




He's one of US! And he's infecting our children!





Peter

Laugh of the day

Courtesy of I Can Has Cheezburger?:






Peter

A perfume-ance car???

I'm almost (!) dumbstruck by this advertisement for Kumho car tires in England. The English is extraordinary - almost as extraordinary as the product! (A tip o' the hat to S. Weasel for the link.)

The Korean ultra-high performance tyre manufacturer Kumho presented with the scent tyres another sensational new development.The Kumho KH 31 is in the four fragrances orange blossom, rosemary, lavender and jasmine. The tyres are not well known to smell is one thing that is not only with a car and thicknesses much hp under the hood can specify, is the other thing. How about times with the opposite sex instead of roses, with beguiling smells of jasmine or orange on points. Let simply Kumho KH 31 and assemble a balance of fresh scent.

More details at the link.

Let me get this straight. Kumho is marketing scented tires??? Is this so that one can cut a better-smelling donut, or cause fellow drivers to smile, sniff and say "Ah, yes, how nice!" when one smokes one's tires on a fast take-off from a red light? And as for telling the "opposite sex" that you bought her scented tires instead of roses . . . I think we can all guess where that relationship is going - not to mention how fast it'll get there!

Hmm . . . I wonder what this means for the retread market? "I'm tired of jasmine. How about putting on something in the sandalwood line - and with a good grip, please!"





Peter

A musical challenge for my readers

The song "The House Of The Rising Sun" was made famous by The Animals in their 1964 recording, but it's far older than that. It may date from 16th-century England, before being taken across the Atlantic and 'Americanized' during the 18th century. The Animals' recording has been described as "arguably the first folk rock tune", adapting an old folk song to modern rock rhythms and instruments. Dozens of artists have recorded the song - far too many to list here. YouTube has literally thousands of references to the title, including many recordings.

I like it very much, and I have my own favorite recording. It occurred to me: since so many artists have covered it, how about a little interactive music appreciation session? I'll link to my favorite recording, then ask you, my readers, to respond with yours.

Here's my favorite version, by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, in heavy rock style.

What did you think of it? What's your favorite version of this classic piece? Please let us know in Comments, and include a link to a YouTube clip of your chosen version if you can find it there.

Peter

Are social networks jeopardizing criminal trials?

A report from England suggests they are.

Facebook is wrecking criminal trials, according to detectives.

Victims and witnesses using the social networking site to identify a suspect are jeopardising justice, police have warned.

The National Detectives Forum, a specialist unit which advises the Police Federation, has revealed that a number of trials have collapsed after victims and witnesses played detective, browsing Facebook and Twitter to find a suspect.

In one case, a victim who was attacked outside a house party looked on Facebook to find the man who attacked him after searching the friends of the person holding the party.

The suspect was arrested for the assault.

But evidence from the identity parade which the victim picked him out from was ruled inadmissible when it emerged that both the victim and witnesses had viewed the suspect's Facebook photograph numerous times.

The case collapsed and no further action was taken against the suspect.

Now detectives are calling for legislation to prevent victims carrying out their own inquiries on the web to track down offenders.

. . .

The warning comes just weeks after Britain's top judge ordered that jurors be given formal warnings about using the internet to find information about defendants whose cases they are considering.

The Lord Chief Justice said that if this information was allowed in any way to influence a verdict, it could lead to the quashing of a conviction.

Lord Judge issued new guidance at the Court of Appeal that jurors needed to understand that 'although the internet is part of their daily lives, the case must not be researched there'.

Appeals are starting to reach the courts where defendants claim their trials were jeopardised by jurors resorting to information from personal computers, mobile phones and social networking sites.

There's more at the link.

I hadn't thought of the reality of living in an online world as affecting criminal investigations and trials, but it makes sense. If potential witnesses have seen (or been shown) pictures of the person against whom they're to testify, before they do so, it calls the accuracy of their testimony into question; and if jurors are judging a defendant on material they've looked up themselves, rather than what's been presented as evidence, it makes a mockery of the trial process. This could get tricky . . .

Peter

A cure for scanner-phobia?

A couple of days ago I posted an article about the retention of images of travelers who'd passed through body scanners set up to provide security at US buildings and airports. It seems others have thought about the problem of invasion of privacy, and one company's come up with what it clearly hopes will 'take off' (you should pardon the expression) as a solution.

Flying Pasties™ are meant to obscure your private parts when entering a typical airport scanner.




Available in four designs so you can keep your dignity in style. "Generic" Design now in stock - other styles arriving daily! (Have a suggestion for a design? E-mail us!)

You can find more information at the company's Web site. They're not paying me to promote their product, nor are they offering any 'freebies' - I just thought it was worth mentioning in the light of my earlier article.

Here's a brief video clip from the Wendy Williams Show last month about 'Flying Pasties'.

I'm not sure I'd buy them myself - although I'll certainly refuse to be scanned, and insist on a manual search - but for someone who doesn't want to be patted down either, these might offer an alternative . . . at least until the TSA bans them!

Peter

Hiroshima, 65 years ago

On August 6th, 1945, the first nuclear weapon used in combat was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Something like 70,000-80,000 people were killed instantly, and a similar number injured. Many of the latter would die in the months and years to come, due to the longer-term effects of radiation, which were little understood at the time.




Today a US representative attended the anniversary commemoration in Hiroshima, the first time this country has been represented there. Despite comments from some who found that distasteful, I think it was appropriate. Our enemy of 65 years ago has become our ally and partner. It's only respectful to join in such a commemoration.

Something of which few Americans are aware is how much international co-operation went into making the Manhattan Project a success. Probably more than half the physicists and other scientists who worked on the Bomb and in related projects were not US citizens. Many, ironically, were refugees from Nazi Germany, driven out by that country's anti-Semitic policies. Britain and her Commonwealth contributed more than a few as well.

To illustrate the international nature of the Manhattan Project, I thought it might be appropriate to reproduce the press release crafted by Winston Churchill after the bomb was dropped. He'd already been replaced as Prime Minister of Great Britain, but had prepared this statement for release at the appropriate time. It illustrates how Britain was fully involved in the research that led up to the Hiroshima attack.

By the year 1939 it had become widely recognised among scientists of many nations that the release of energy by 'atomic fission' was a possibility. The problems which remained to be solved before this possibility could be turned into practical achievement were, however, manifold and immense; and few scientists would at that time have ventured to predict that an atomic bomb could be ready for use by 1945. Nevertheless, the potentialities of the project were so great that His Majesty's Government thought it right that research should be carried on in spite of the many competing claims on our scientific manpower.

At this stage the research was carried out mainly in our Universities, principally Oxford, Cambridge, London (Imperial College), Liverpool and Birmingham. At the time of the formation of the Coalition Government, responsibility for co-ordinating the work and pressing it forward lay in the Ministry of Aircraft Production, advised by a Committee of leading scientists presided over by Sir George Thomson. At the same time, under the general arrangements then in force for the pooling of scientific information, there was a full interchange of ideas between the scientists carrying out this work in the United Kingdom and those in the United States.

Four Years Ago

Such progress was made that by the summer of 1941 Sir George Thomson's Committee was able to report that, in their view, there was a reasonable chance that an atomic bomb could be produced before the end of the war. At the end of August, 1941, Lord Cherwell, whose duty it was to keep me informed on all these and other technical developments, reported the substantial progress which was being made. The general responsibility for the scientific research carried on under the various technical committees, lay with the then Lord President of the Council, Sir John Anderson. In these circumstances (having in mind also the effect of ordinary high-explosive which we had recently experienced), I referred the matter on August 30th, 1941, to the Chiefs of Staff Committee in the following minute : —


"General Ismay for Chiefs of Staff Committee.

"Although personally I am quite content with the existing explosives, I feel we must not stand' in the path of improvement, and I therefore think that action should be taken in the sense proposed by Lord Cherwell, and that the Cabinet Minister responsible should be Sir John Anderson.

"I shall be glad to know what the Chiefs of the Staff Committee think."


The Chiefs of the Staff recommended immediate action with the maximum priority.

It was then decided to set up within the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research a special division to direct the work, and Imperial Chemical Industries, Limited, agreed to release Mr. W. A. Akers to take charge of this Directorate, which we called, for purposes of secrecy, the Directorate of "Tube Alloys". After Sir John Anderson had ceased to be Lord President and became Chancellor of the Exchequer, I asked him to continue to supervise this work, for which he has special qualifications. To advise him, there was set up under his chairmanship a Consultative Council composed of the President of the Royal Society, the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Cabinet, the Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and Lord Cherwell. The Minister of Aircraft Production, at that time Lord Brabazon, also served on this Committee. Under the Chairmanship of Mr. Akers there was also a Technical Committee on which sat the scientists who were directing the different sections of the work, and some others. This Committee was originally composed of Sir James Chadwick, Professor Peierls, and Drs. Halban, Simon and Slade. Later it was joined by Sir Charles Darwin and Professors Cockcroft, Oliphant and Feather. Full use was also made of University and industrial laboratories.

Anglo-American Co-ordination

On October 11th , 1941, President Roosevelt sent me a letter suggesting that any extended efforts on this important matter might usefully be co-ordinated or even jointly conducted. Accordingly all British and American efforts were joined and a number of British scientists concerned proceeded to the United States. Apart from these contacts, complete secrecy guarded all these activities and no single person was informed whose work was not indispensable to progress.

By the summer of 1942 this expanded programme of research had confirmed with surer and broader foundations the promising forecasts which had been made a year earlier, and the time bad come when a decision must be made whether or not to proceed with the construction of large-scale production plants. Meanwhile, it had become apparent from the preliminary experiments that these plants would have to be on something like the vast scale described in the American statements which have been published to-day.

Great Britain at this period was fully extended in war production and we could not afford such grave interference with the current munitions programmes on which our warlike operations depended. Moreover, Great Britain was within easy range of German bombers, and the risk of raiders from the sea or air could not be ignored. The United States, however, where parallel or similar progress had been made, was free from these dangers. The decision was therefore taken to build the full-scale production plants in America.

In the United States the erection of the immense plants was placed under the responsibility of Mr. Stimson, United States Secretary of War, and the American Army administration, whose wonderful work and marvellous secrecy cannot be sufficiently admired. The main practical effort and virtually the whole of its prodigious cost now fell upon the United States authorities, who were assisted by a number of British scientists. The relationship of the British and American contributions was regulated by discussion between the late President Roosevelt and myself, and a Combined Policy Committee was set up.

The Canadian Government, whose contribution was most valuable, provided both indispensable raw material for the project as a whole and also necessary facilities for the work on one section of the project which has been carried out in Canada by the three Governments in partnership.

The smoothness with which the arrangements for cooperation which were made in 1943 have been carried into effect is a happy augury for our future relations and reflects great credit on all concerned — on the members of the Combined Policy Committee which we set up; on the enthusiasm with which our scientists and technicians gave of their best — particularly Sir James Chadwick, who gave up his work at Liverpool to serve as technical adviser to the United Kingdom members of the Policy Committee and spared no effort; and not least, on the generous spirit with which the whole United States organisation welcomed our men and made it possible for them to make their contribution.

By God's mercy British and American science outpaced all German efforts. These were on a considerable scale, but far behind. The possession of these powers by the Germans at any time might have altered the result of the war, and profound anxiety was felt by those who were informed. Every effort was made by our intelligence service and by the Air Force to locate in Germany anything resembling the plants which were being created in the United States. In the winter of 1942-1943 most gallant attacks were made in Norway on two occasions by small parties of volunteers from the British Commandoes and Norwegian forces, at very heavy loss of life, upon stores of what is called "heavy water", an element in one of the possible processes. The second of these two attacks was completely successful.

The whole burden of execution including the setting-up of the plants, and many technical processes connected therewith in the practical sphere, constitutes one of the greatest triumphs of American — or indeed human — genius of which there is record.

Moreover, the decision to make these enormous expenditures upon a project which, however hopefully established by American and British research, remained nevertheless a heartshaking risk, stands to the everlasting honour of President Roosevelt and his advisers.

It is now for Japan to realise in the glare of the first atomic bomb which has smitten her, what the consequences will be of an indefinite continuance of this terrible means of maintaining a rule of law in the world.

This revelation of the secrets of nature, long mercifully withheld from man, should arouse the most solemn reflections in the mind and conscience of every human being capable of comprehension. We must indeed pray that these awful agencies will be made to conduce to peace among the nations, and that instead of wreaking measureless havoc upon the entire globe they may become a perennial fountain of world prosperity.

An interesting article about the British Mission to the Manhattan Project is preserved in the archives of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (link is to an Adobe Acrobat document in .PDF format).

Today was a day for sober remembrance, prayers for the dead, and even more prayers that we may be spared any repetition!

Peter