What is a

gnathodynamometer?

Point out the pathology and give a possible cause.

Exxon Profit

$1318 dollars last quarter. Per second! Here.

Democrats vs Republicans

Republicans have a pretty low standing in the USA right now. Democrats aren't doing a whole lot better because they don't seem to stand for anything. Carville and Greenberg are saying get off your asses and stand for something. Here are some of their ideas:

1. No congressional pay raises for the next 2 yrs until the minimum wage is raised.

2. No more debates about gay marriage and abortion or protect the flag/pledge amendments until congress does something about health care and jobs.

3. Congress must reclaim its oversight role. Find out what happened to the 'missing' 9 billion dollars in Iraq.

4. Repeal the orgy of corporate tax breaks and wasteful spending projects (like bridges to nowhere).

5. Give Medicare the authority to negotiate drug prices for seniors.

6. Restore the cuts in college loan programs.

7. Repeal the Bush energy bill and get one that actually addresses our energy problems.

Republicans:
They work for the few.
Corporate special interests.
Corruption and greed.
No end in sight in Iraq

Democrats:
They are for me.
American jobs.
Relief on gas and healthcare, tax breaks for the middle class.
New course in Iraq.
A congress that works for everyone.
An America that works for everyone.

JEOPARDY

Maureen made the final cut and is on the list to be on Jeopardy. Now we wait for the call. Do you think we will make millions if she gets on? I do. She is a walking treasure trove of minutia, trivia, trifle and frippery.

Meet Henrietta Lacks or Helacyton gartleri

The recent discussions over the stem cell research bill in Congress got me to thinking about human cell lines. And, you can't think about human cell lines without thinking about HeLa cells. I was under the common misconception that these cells were derived from a cervical carcinoma removed from Helen Lane by George Gey. Wrong. The woman's name was Henrietta Lacks. Because this cell line is immortal and has a different number of chromosomes from normal human cells, Van Valen considers it a new species which he has named Helacyton gartleri (Van Valen, Leigh M. and Virginia C. Maiorana, 1991. HeLa, a new microbial species. Evolutionary Theory 10: 71-74.) These were the cells in which polio virus was grown and used to distinguish different strains of the virus.

Read more about Henrietta, George Gey and HeLa cells in this article in Johns Hopkins magazine. It's a really interesting human interest story.

To this day, members of the Lacks family feel they've been passed over in the story of the HeLa cells. They know their mother's cells started a medical revolution and are now bought and sold around the world. They're pretty sure that someone, somewhere, has profited from their mother's death. They know that someone wasn't related to Henrietta. And their experience is not well-known. In cases like these, Faden agrees, a good way to begin addressing this problem is through the telling of a story from which everyone can learn. This story starts with Henrietta and the origin of the HeLa cells: They were not from Helen Lane or Helen Larson, as many publications have mistakenly reported, they were from Henrietta Lacks, wife of David, mother of five.

Now That's A Religion!

Principles:

-The inherent worth and dignity of every person

-Justice, equity and compassion in human relations

-Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations

-A free and responsible search for truth and meaning

-The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large

-The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all

-Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part

Atheist Church

I guess this was on Mad TV so I don't feel too bad about posting it.

Science Is Hard

Congress has been 'investigating' why the college science 'pipeline' is drying up. InsideHighered has some ideas why this is the case. Science is hard. Science majors get lower grades than students in other majors.

Paul Romer, an economics professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, who has studied the issue, wrote in an article for Stanford Business that “the grades assigned in science courses are systematically lower than grades in other disciplines, and students rely heavily on grades as signals about the fields for which they are best suited.” Thus, he concluded, students usher themselves out of the science track.

Some think it has to do with the 'culture' of science.

“The culture of science says, ‘not everybody is good enough to cut it, and we’re going to make it hard for them, and the cream will rise to the top.’ ”

Others believe the fact that many introductory science courses are large and impersonal which makes the grading more coldly quantitative out of necessity, unlike in say intro english courses which require small class size to enable discussion. Also, science classes tend to be taught vertically;

” meaning students are often made to slog through two years of large, formulaic introductory courses that teach fundamentals before they get any taste of the hands-on work that makes a career in science attractive to most scientists. In the process, students seldom form any bond with the scientists teaching the course.

I think all of those things come into play, resulting in fewer science majors. However, if you think science is hard in the classroom, just wait til you get out into the real world. Maybe that message is starting to filter down to students as well.

Oh yeah, and Jon Stewart of the 'Daily Show' evidently made the observation that science majors actually have to 'know stuff' versus just winging it.

Political Junkie Site

If you are into following the 2006 mid-term elections. This site at the NYT is invaluable.

House Rabbit

All The President's Words

From the Colbert Report. Thanks to Lam(b. A short history of G.W. Bush and his war to make the world safer.

Ethanol Based Fuel

What do cows, biogas digesters and ethanol distillation plants have to do with each other? Go to E3 Biofuels and find out. Can ethanol be produced using only 3% input of fossil fuels? Of course it does take fuel to feed the cows but you also get dairy and meat out of the system.

Drug Riddled Mind?

The ADE hasn't had a letter from John Edelburg in a couple of years. Here is part of what he has to say in a letter the ADE calls "SLCS standards have fallen drastically":

Yet even an effort so surpassing can be hard for some youngsters to know. For in communities where the culture has slipped, little may be promotive to it. And where the culture has eroded entirely, down to the arrangements even of a scruffy, drug-riddled town, cultural literacy vanishes, and even the brightest youngsters await their destinies as persons never to know (still less to appreciate) the transcendent achievements holding company with the wondrous winning streak of Robert Fischer.

You can read the whole letter here.

But first a few definitions for you culturally illiterate unwashed masses:

mitigating = to make less intense or severe
concurrence = occurring at the same time
lancinated = tear or lacerate
propitious = favorably inclined
assiduity = unflagging effort
"curse the old man threw on Rigoletto" = reference to a Giuseppe Verdi opera
consummate = bring something to completion (unless he's talking about sex)
transcendent = going beyond some philosophical concept

Ok, go and enjoy the letter, but you gotta ask yourself....what drug is he using?

Ignorant About Stem Cells?

You can get information about stem cells here at NIH.

The Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research can be found here.

A very nice site from the University of Kansas Medical Center; Stem Cell Research 101 (Maybe there is hope for Kansas, actually 66% of people in Kansas support Stem Cell Research).

ALS Association primer on stem cells.

The stem cell research bill has the support of a majority of the American people and it has bipartisan support in Congress. More important it has Nancy Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger's support. Can't you just hear Arnold saying "Mr. President, I urge you not to make the first veto of your presidency one that turns America backwards on the path of scientific progress and limits the promise of medical miracles for generations to come."

If Bush vetos this bill he will have some s'plainin to do this Fall.

It's Not Rep. John Sweeney's Fault

Nope, it's the fault of everyone else. In todays WNBZ news:

SWEENEY WON’T TESTIFY IN ORDA EVENT PROBE

Congressman John Sweeney has declined to appear before a state committee investigating a Lake Placid ski weekend staged for members of Congress.

The annual “Congressional Winter Challenge,” intended to lobby members of Congress for aid to maintain Lake Placid's Olympic facilities, is being investigated by an Assembly committee. Subpoenaed documents have shown the event was attended mostly by corporate lobbyists, congressional staffers and officials from the New York Power Authority and their families, none of who make federal spending decisions.

Sweeney, a Republican from Clifton Park, was in charge of the list of invitees, along with the U.S. Olympic Committee, according to testimony last week from ORDA CEO Ted Blazer. The Olympic Regional Development Authority has hosted the annual event since 1998.

The state and national Democratic committees have said Sweeney’s involvement violated House Ethics rules. They called on the Congressman to testify before the committee.

But in a radio interview in Albany on Wednesday, Sweeney denied his Washington office was involved in assembling invitations to the event. “ORDA had their facts wrong,” he said.

ORDA then issued a statement saying the authority stands behind Blazer’s testimony.

State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Westchester County Democrat, had invited Sweeney to appear before the committee investigating the matter.

In a Saturday letter addressed to Brodsky, Sweeney declined to appear. His chief of staff Sean O'Neill wrote, “This bipartisan event highlights Lake Placid as both a world-renowned Olympic facility and stresses the need for federal support for this economically challenged region.”

The letter noted that Sweeney stands behind his efforts at the federal level, which the letter said has resulted in millions of dollars for the Lake Placid area.

In an article published in last weeks Adirondack Daily Enterprise Rep. Sweeney was blaming all his woes on Gov. Pataki (I'll have to find the article). In Sweeney's world, nothing is ever his fault.

Stem Cell Research Vote

Tomorrow is the big day for stem cell research. The Senate is expected to vote and pass H.R. 810. This will allow scientists to obtain embryonic stem cells from some of the 400,000 fertilized frozen embryos across the nation. Bush will veto the Bill on Wednesday. He doesn't believe in destroying human life. If this bill is vetoed I think half the frozen embryos should be sent to PA and half to KA. Let the holy duo (Santorum and Brownback) and their caring flock pay to keep the embryos safe.

They will also vote on two other stem cell research votes. One by Bishop Santorum encourages study on stem cells derived from sources other than embryos. Thanks Rick, but we can already do that, so what's the point? Oh yeah, so you can say you voted for some sort of stem cell research.

The other bill is by Bishop Santorum and Cardinal Brownback which will ban so-called "fetal farming." This is the possible development of fertilized embryos for scientific purposes. Why would anyone do that with 400,000 frozen embryos available? But it sure will make your holy base very happy.

In Case of Nuclear Attack

Go here for Homeland Security instructions.

Or, go here for the old stand-by civil defense instructions.

Bush's Real Agenda - NYT Editorial

Todays NYT editorial is a must read. In the view of the NYT editorial board, 9/11 was the perfect excuse to expand presidential power.

Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to get required approval from an ever-cooperative Congress, the president and his staff preferred to go it alone. While no one questions the determination of the White House to fight terrorism, the methods this administration has used to do it have been shaped by another, perverse determination: never to consult, never to ask and always to fight against any constraint on the executive branch.

And we, the citizens of the USA let him get away with it because we are a bunch of insecure cowards. We are afraid of the big bad terrorists. It's our fault that our country has become hated around the world. And, Bush's lack of a foreign policy has led to the ongoing conditions in the Middle East. N. Korea taunts us, Iran laughs at us, Hammas ignores us etc.

There is only one way to straighten this mess out. We need Congressional oversight and we need it now. Vote for Democrats. Maybe things will change or maybe not, but at a minimum, there will be some damn interesting Congressional hearings no matter what.