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They could just want all that anthrax strain, which is used for vaccinations, to do just that. Vaccinate all the armed forces people first and then the whole of the US population.

Bullshit. Real anthrax vaccine does NOT contain whole anthrax bacteria.
And it does not provide useful protection for the whole population.

The US gov says so themselves
http://www.niaid.nih.gov/Factsheets/anthrax.htm

The vaccine is currently used to protect members of the military and individuals most at risk for occupational exposure to the bacteria,... The vaccine contains no whole bacteria.

Health experts currently do not recommend the vaccine for general use by the public due to ... the potential for adverse side effects. ... In addition, ... the vaccine would likely offer little protection in response to a bioterrorist attack

I know how to deal with large nubmers of rows. In fact I regularly deal with this little file:

ftp://ftp.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gene/DATA/ASN_BINARY/Al l_Data.ags.gz

Oh sure, it's only 500Mb. But when you uncompress it and covert it to XML it clocks out at more than 800 MILLION lines. I know I am being snide, but I deal with files from 10 lines to 1 billion lines. What I am talking about is quick analyis of files that range from 10 lines to 100,000 lines. Microsoft and OO cut you off at 64K and 32K respectively. I am just asking for a spreedsheet that accomodates around 100,000 lines.

I think you'd be surprised at what researchers can consider interesting. If MMOG's exhibit unusual or emergent new uses of language, then linguists might very well be interested in players' experiences. Games are common human activities after all, and countless monographs have been written on physiological and social aspects of sports, chess, NASCAR, and yes, video games.

Extensive facial disfigurement cannot be corrected by one skin graft. It must be done in many small pieces with current technology. Do you have any idea how severely an automobile collision or a fire can damage a person's tissue?

Paragraphs 32, 33

Please note the risks, complications, and expected recovery times for each full skin graft.

Although this article clearly opposes facial transplants, it supports the assertation that current grafting methodologies are slow, painful, and dangerous; and new procedures are needed to reconstruct facial tissue in larger pieces with fewer surgeries. Dr Thomas Stevenson, president of the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation and a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, said:

The difficulty with previous techniques was harvesting a thick, uniform piece of skin and closing the wound where the incision was made, to minimise scarring. Through this combination of surgical techniques, a burn patient has only one operation rather than multiple procedures, reducing pain and recovery time.

That Hexus site is one of the most anoying I've ever seen. Every other word is highlighted with a sponsored link that's often not related at all to the subject at hand. It seems to me that the whole point of that site is to have mildly-useful content simply as click fodder.

You insensitive clod!

It sounds like you missed the Alan Sokal affair a few years back.

He basically pulled together a bunch of philosophical jargon, made some stuff up relating it to quantum mechanics, loaded it with red flags for anybody with a minimal knowledge of physics and had no trouble getting it published in the journal Social Text. He even wrote a book critical of philosophers misusing physics, and did it in french because he thought the worst culprits were francophone. You can read all about it here: Sokal affair

Of course, there are also scientists who could use a little refresher in math, too. One of my favorite papers is some psychiatrists who were inadvertantly testing the equivalence principle in a study on clozapine and weight gain. It was reported that clozapine causes weight gain, and they proposed that it might also cause an increase in body mass index (BMI). BMI is defined as: m/h^2, where m is weight in kilograms and h is height in meters. If you read the paper they weren't suggesting that clozapine affects your height. Abstract available here: Clozapine and Body Mass Change.

The amazing thing is that the reviewers didn't at least make them change the first two lines of the abstract.

>we can't even be certain that fleas were the actual means of transmission for the plague back then.

back then, possibly true. Now? Mostly little furry critters and their fleas:

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/publications/dateline/099 6/page9.htm

Currently, some 2,000 cases of plague worldwide are reported to the World Health Organization annually. Outbreaks may occur in scattered areas of Africa, Asia, and South America. From 1984-1993, an average of 12 plague cases were reported each year in the United States. The last U.S. epidemic to include human-to-human transmission occurred in Los Angeles in 1924-5. Since then, most U.S. human plague cases have been acquired from wild rodents, including squirrels and prairie dogs, or their fleas

The plague causes a blockage in the flea's digestive tract making it impossible for it to feed (but still bite, spreading the disease).

Centuries after the peak of its destruction, scientists at NIAID's Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, Mont., have identified a critical genetic link to its transmission. As reported recently in Science, they found that three genes in Y. pestis change it from a harmless, long-term inhabitant in the flea midgut to one that amasses in its foregut. As a result of this obstruction, the flea begins to starve, leading to a blood-feeding frenzy during which it regurgitates the mass of bacteria and thereby efficiently transmits the plague.

The Mass. Nurses Association has the best take I've read.

where is the soma?

Check your spam folder. I'm sure a lot of scambags that want to sell you Vi@G`R4 and ><3N1CA|_ would like to sell you some S0|V|A too.

Learn more about Soma® (carisoprodol)

I think all the scientists at the NIH and the NSF would beg to differ.

The funny thing is that until 1998-99 these small molecules (20-40 nucleotide long) were simply dismissed as junk...

Well according to the article, it's only happening in the UK correct.

Good thing North America is a Net Carbon Sink
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9774264&dopt=Abstract

http://www.climatechangedebate.org/pdf/FanPaper.pd f

And before someone says it's warmer since 1998, no it's not. Thanks the El Nino of 1998 we saw a tremendous spike, and tempreatures are cooler today than then.

You're looking at it backwards, I think. Mothers who have kids LATER in life result in children with lower IQs. I'm not sure what the gp was talking about, but Down syndrome could account for the differences he's describing. Did you know that a child born to a 42 year old woman has a 1 in 60 chance of having down syndrome? By age 49, there's a 1 in 12 chance. Under age 30, there's only a 1 in 1,000 chance. (http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/downsy ndrome/down.htm)

Most of the world's population can't digest lactose (milk sugar) after the age of about 4. The ability to digest lactose appears to have evolved along with dairy farming. Those parts of the world which did not practice dairy farming remain lactose intolerant.

There are similar patterns with respect to alcohol metabolism, based on whether populations boiled water or used diluted alcohol in order to kill bacteria. This also occurs for other drugs, such as warfarin (a common anticoagulant drug).

"So how do those young earthers explain fossils?"

The record of destruction of the flood. The regularized sequence is explained by three causes: ecological zonation, hydrodynamic sorting, and differential escape. The mechanism for producing the flood is catastrophic plate techtonics.

For a good overview of the young-earth view, two good books are Origins: Linking Science and Scripture and Understanding the Pattern of Life (links are using my Amazon referral link because I'm a selfish, greedy bastard). A description of the current theory of the flood is contained at globalflood.org. All of these are by practicing scientists, although the author of "Origins" has not been publishing in the secular world for a while. Todd Wood, coauthor of "Understanding the Pattern of Life" is well-published secularly (you can search for "Wood TC" on medline). Likewise, the author of the global flood website is well-published (the first few publications listed are creationist, the rest are secular), and is a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

More detail about the fossil sorting of the flood is available in the book Flood Geology, though I think some of the articles there are a bit dated, and I have not personally read through it all.

If you're interested in a good young-earth website, see Northwest Creation Network's Wiki, or the more comprehensive but not always as good Answers in Genesis website.

As Ken Ham would say -- "what would you expect from a global flood? Billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth."

Personally, I lean young-earth but have not done enough study both biblically and scientifically to make a decisive stand on the topic.

Publications lists on academic sites are sometimes obsolete. Nobody has bothered tu update this one.

P.S. The other guy's link is to a wrong article.

Riedl developed his "systems theory" of evolution, which emphasizes the role of functional and developmental integration in limiting and enabling adaptive evolution by natural selection. The main objective of this theory is to account for the observed patterns of morphological evolution, such as the conservation of body plans. In contrast to other "alternative" theories of evolution, Riedl never denied the importance of natural selection as the driving force of evolution, but thought it necessary to contextualize natural selection with the organismal boundary conditions of adaptation. In Riedl's view development is the most important factor besides natural selection in shaping the pattern and processes of morphological evolution

Wrong. We're in the age of genome sequencing, and this means evolution now is overwhelmingly backed by proof.

See what is a pseudogene, for example. Analysis of human chromosome 21, for example, reveals we host a lot of no-more-working but still recognizable genes that encoded olfactory receptors. This seems to imply that we descend from an ancestor that had more olfactory receptors than us, and that relied on smell more than us. Guess what? Rodents are the probable ancestors of primates, and rodents have much more smell receptors than us. Vestiges of ancient genes that mutated and became useless are exactly what we expect to find in an evolving genome. What's the sense of pseudogenes in a creationist theory?

Comparison of genome sequences can be used to create trees that often match quite well paleontological evidence (although sometimes there are surprises). And they directly show evolution in action. For example, mammals derived a fundamental gene for placental development from a virus. Our genome -and the genome of every living creature- is full of the watermarks of evolution. It is odd that this fundamental evidence is rarely shown in debates about evolution theory.

It was published in Nature, last year. Nature. 2004 Nov 25;432(7016):461-5.
-Mark

Title says it all. The following publication is but one by the main researcher concerning regeneration in MRL mice: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1529380 6&query_hl=2

As the work doesn't appear to have been published yet, my guess is that it will turn out to be a bit less remarkable than it currently sounds.

The article claims that the program can correlate protein sequence to function. I don't doubt that it can find small regions of contiguous amino-acid sequences that are common between a few proteins of the same function, but I highly doubt that it can predict function from from a protein sequence. Predicting a protein structure is already a very difficult problem for computational biophysicists , which is a prerequisite for studying function. For example, the CASP4 competition compares various structure predicition programs from an amino-acid sequence. Understanding function from a structure is even more difficult because it involves identifying the active site or functional regions as well as protein dynamics.

Comparative sequence searching, known as homology alignment, is not fool proof either. See the PSI-BLAST tool for homology alignments. This is a very difficult problem for biophysicists because of insertion mutations, functional mutations, and many other reasons. Two sequences with low homology may or may not have similar structures (folds) and/or function. Likewise, homologous sequences may have very different functions.

Protein structure prediction, which precedes function prediction, is already quite a difficult problem for biophysicists to tackle.

Have you actually looked through hundreds of corpora of parent-child interaction, or are you just parroting something you heard, and embellishing it in the process?

Sure, there is definitely such a thing as "motherese." And it's a commonplace Chomskian claim that children are exposed to many ungrammatical utterances. But I think you've said a third, blended thing that nobody actually claims: that motherese utterances are, in general, ungrammatical.

I'll point out that there's a few of the commonplace, parroted claims about child language that are actually wrong.

In analyzing proteins, for example, the algorithm was able to extract from amino acid sequences patterns that were highly correlated with the functional properties of the proteins.

NCBI BlastP already does this for proteins. Similarities and rules for things can be found but if the meaning of the sequence is not known then what good is it? In the end you need to do experiments involving biology/biochemistry/structural biology to determine the function of a protein or nucleotide sequence. Furthermore in language as well as in biology/chemistry things which have similar vocabulary (chemical formula) may in the end be structurally very different (enantiomers), which leads to vastly different functionality.

You are having it wrong. The properties of the coating are different because of the small scale of the particles it is consisting of, hence nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology involves research and technology development at the atomic, molecular, or macromolecular levels in the dimension range of approximately 1-100 nanometers to provide fundamental understanding of phenomena and materials at the nanoscale and to create and use structures, devices, and systems that have novel properties and functions because of their small and/or intermediate size. The novel and differentiating properties and functions are developed at a critical length scale of matter typically under l00 nm. Nanotechnology research and development includes control at the nanoscale and integration of nanoscale structures into larger material components, systems, and architectures. Within these larger scale assemblies, the control and construction of their structures and components remains at the nanometer scale.

Coffee reduces risk of liver cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1609175 8&query_hl=1

Coffee increases risk of lung cancer, while decaf decreases it:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1609099 9&query_hl=1

Coffee reduces risk of breast cancer in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers (they didn't test decaf)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1603270 2&query_hl=1

Decaf reduces risk of rectal cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1571396 3&query_hl=1

Coffee reduces risk of liver cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1609175 8&query_hl=1

Coffee increases risk of lung cancer, while decaf decreases it:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1609099 9&query_hl=1

Coffee reduces risk of breast cancer in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers (they didn't test decaf)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1603270 2&query_hl=1

Decaf reduces risk of rectal cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1571396 3&query_hl=1

Coffee reduces risk of liver cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1609175 8&query_hl=1

Coffee increases risk of lung cancer, while decaf decreases it:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1609099 9&query_hl=1

Coffee reduces risk of breast cancer in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers (they didn't test decaf)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1603270 2&query_hl=1

Decaf reduces risk of rectal cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1571396 3&query_hl=1

Coffee reduces risk of liver cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1609175 8&query_hl=1

Coffee increases risk of lung cancer, while decaf decreases it:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1609099 9&query_hl=1

Coffee reduces risk of breast cancer in BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers (they didn't test decaf)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1603270 2&query_hl=1

Decaf reduces risk of rectal cancer:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1571396 3&query_hl=1

The actual evidence of *any* health benefit from dosing people with anti-oxidants (as opposed to fruits and vegetebles, which contain many other things besides anti-oxidants, for example fiber) is non-existent.

In fact, it essentially proves that anti-oxidants either provide no benefit, or are bad for you.

Vitamin E and beta-carotene are both quite potent anti-oxidants (free radical scavengers.) Others are more or less potent, but Vitamin E and BC are both potent enough that you would see an effect if there is one.

Vitamin E has demonstrably no benefit in fighting heart disease. But thanks for playing!

Beta Carotene actually makes lung cancer appreciably *more* lethal - there is a good chance that this is because it is an anti-oxidant, and that pro-oxidants fight cancer.

READ THIS REVIEW BEFORE YOU ARGUE WITH ME:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1603028 0&query_hl=5

The evidence that bleeding yourself with leeches is actually good for you is *far* more compelling than anything that has ever been delivered for anti-oxidants.

The actual evidence of *any* health benefit from dosing people with anti-oxidants (as opposed to fruits and vegetebles, which contain many other things besides anti-oxidants, for example fiber) is non-existent.

In fact, it essentially proves that anti-oxidants either provide no benefit, or are bad for you.

Vitamin E and beta-carotene are both quite potent anti-oxidants (free radical scavengers.) Others are more or less potent, but Vitamin E and BC are both potent enough that you would see an effect if there is one.

Vitamin E has demonstrably no benefit in fighting heart disease. But thanks for playing!

Beta Carotene actually makes lung cancer appreciably *more* lethal - there is a good chance that this is because it is an anti-oxidant, and that pro-oxidants fight cancer.

READ THIS REVIEW BEFORE YOU ARGUE WITH ME:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1603028 0&query_hl=5

The evidence that bleeding yourself with leeches is actually good for you is *far* more compelling than anything that has ever been delivered for anti-oxidants.

whoa dude, you are horribly misinformed. First of all, vitamin E does not decrease your lifespan! Vitamin E is an antioxidant that works synergistically with other antioxidants like Vitamin C, selenium, and glutathione to reduce your oxidative stress. Oxidative stress is thought to be one of the main causative factors in aging and antioxidants help to neutralize this stress. Heres some links to catch you up... Linux Pauling Institute: Linus Pauling was a known advocate of Vitamin C and vitamins in general. The site is pretty informative on the role of nutrients, minerals, and vitamins, in our health as well as in our physiology. if your feeling brave then here are some link so some pertinent research aticles. The role of mitochondrial oxidative stress in aging Ive also compiled quite a few relevant articles here I suggest you get to reading! ;) marquis

It would be logical, then, if evolution had produced a direct link between aging and fertility. This does not mean it has, only that such a link would be entirely reasonable. We also know, from other work in genetics, that direct links exist in countless places between all sorts of characteristics - even ones you wouldn't necessarily expect.

Sexual reproduction evolved quite late on and different species have very different numbers of X and Y chromosomes. The Duck-Billed Platypus has 5 X chromosomes, 5 Y chromosomes and a determination system that simply isn't understood at all. It would seem likely, then, that this is a product or extension of aging. Again, this would make a lot of sense, as there is really nothing else that would make sense.

I would imagine there to be multiple links, too. Genetic material is damaged over time, so a later adaptation would presumably have been to put the energy and effort into a timeframe where damage is within acceptable limits. It is also possible that, in species with simple-enough genetic material, this might even be leveraged - a small amount of damage would maximize diversity through subtle mis-copies of the genetic code. The genes would need to be fantastically fault-tolerent for this to work, but it is certainly within the realms of the imaginable.

The upshot of all this is simple enough - tweak one parameter and it WILL impact people in other ways. Rather than regarding this as a problem, it may prove very helpful, as not all parameters are going to be directly or easily controllable. There may be other ways to tweak them, if you exploit these kinds of side-effects.

Of course, they still have to find a way to alter genetic material safely. Existing mechanisms use modified retroviruses that embed desired sequences into the infected person. This method has a moderate-to-high risk of a rare form of leukemia. It is also unclear what impact (if any) the old code remaining present will have.

The problems are not well-understood and the complexity of human genetic code is still too great to be subject to detailed analysis. However, the fact that results are being obtained at all shows that these are very bright people with a good understanding of their subject. It'll be interesting to see how far this goes, over time.

One final note - this might be a way to help revive long-lived species on the edge of extinction. If increasing longevity decreases fertility for the reasons I've suggested, then decreasing longevity should increase fertility. It may be possible to use this (in conjunction with other fertility treatments, if any are usable) to help rebuild populations where the genetics would normally work against them.

The studies on combination opiods/analgesics have been around for over 20 years, and suggest that combination agents (combining more than one mechanism of action) are more effective than single agents alone, even when those single agents are used in higher doses.

Pubmed, courtesy of the NIH, is your friend.

The day I meet someone who understands the science and the ethics as well as I do, and is still opposed to it going forward, then I'll shut up and listen to them. As it happens, I meet people who understand the many sides of the issue as well as or better than I all the time, and they're universally for continuing just a little bit more, just until we understand things a little bit better and the real issues become clearer. So that's my answer. We just don't know enough to be able to say, "Here is OK, but here is not, and this is why." Here: What your tax dollars are paying for.

I noticed that you used the term "obvious" several times. It's not to me.

Fertilization (also known as conception, fecundation and syngamy) is fusion of gametes to form a new organism

Heck, I haven't even seen any living thing with an rotary parts.

You mean like this?

..and so I'll provide an answer

There is actually a lot of evidence backing my point...

This is hardly "insider" stuff--it is "popular science" material my friend. Hormones affect sleep, sleep affects hormones and so on...it is all linked and involves more than cognitive abilities are physical alertness. Sleep deprivation (especially long-term/chronic) can affect growth, metabolism, aging, sex drive...everything. There is no way a single drug that merely keeps you physically and mentally alert without sleep would be healthy if used chronically.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=1462046 8&query_hl=4

While they argue that this drug is different because of possibly less abuse potential (yet have no data to back that assertation up with, such as self-reinforcing studies in animals), I think the real reason is because pharmaceutical patents only last 20 years. As far as abuse potential goes, addiction is usually characterized by increased dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens, of which amphetamine activates indirectly; I have seen no evidence as to whether or not CX717 will indirectly raise dopamine levels in that region of the brain as well.

They may claim they're not stimulants, but the action is that of binding to receptors and releasing a neurotransmitter called glutamate. Is that really so different than stimulants binding to a receptor and releasing norepinephrine, another neurotransmitter?

From the journal article, revealed increased activity in prefrontal cortex, dorsal striatum, and medial temporal lobe (including hippocampus) that was significantly enhanced over normal alert conditions following administration of CX717. You would see similar increases in brain activity following the administration of amphetamine as well.

Furthermore, high levels of glutamate have neurotoxic properties: In excess, glutamate causes neuronal damage and eventual cell death, particularly when NMDA receptors are activated.

Somehow though, I think the combination of a pharmaceutical company making $2.00 in profit per pill combined with possibly less of an abuse potential or political incorrectness of usage will make this drug preferred in spite of whatever risks it carries.

Of course, maybe I'm just bitter and skeptical in my old age.

For starters, I don't think anyone has proposed any use of stem cells to fight cancer.

Healthcare Questions

1. Why are doctors and scientists so excited about human embryonic stem cells?

Stem cells have potential in many different areas of health and medical research. To start with, studying stem cells will help us to understand how they transform into the dazzling array of specialized cells that make us what we are. Some of the most serious medical conditions, such as cancer and birth defects, are due to problems that occur somewhere in this process.
...

2. Have human embryonic stem cells been used successfully to treat any human diseases yet?

... HSCs (hematopoietic stem cells) are now used in order to treat leukemia, lymphoma and several inherited blood disorders.

Ok, so after looking at the NIH's website, I may not be 100% correct. I found a FAQ dealing with stem cells that are allowed to be federally funded vs stem cells that can't be federally funded, and as long as the proper accounting takes place to show where the money came from, you can still receive funding.

Link to the FAQ

However, this doesn't apply to the situation I originally proposed... other research grants, and stem cell research that can't be federally funded. Couldn't find anything on that.

Actually the treatment described in the paper (the use of non-mitogenic anti-CD3) is showing some remarkable results in clinical trials. There was even a recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Although it isn't a cure for everyone, it is a start. I think that was the point of this article about the MRI technique. It lets them actually see the inflammation so that it will be easier to test new therapies.

The function of most genes that code for proteins is not known. This is a fact. Surf GenBank and see how many genes are annotated as "putative" this or "hypothetical" that. On top of this, there are very few functions that are controlled by just one gene; most functions have whole operons (strings of genes) that must act in complex feedback loops to make something biologically viable.

There's simply not enough knowledge about the genes we have sequenced right now for this "new approach" to be anything more than firing shots in the dark. This is truly arrogant and inane.

At this point, taking a known, culturable organism and dropping new genes in it is more likely to get you to your goal than starting from scratch. Maybe 100 years from now, well, who knows, maybe we'll actually know a little bit about biosystematics, but for now, no. Stop wasting my taxpayer money and give the grants to researchers who understand the limits of today's knowledge and are thus better qualified to extend those limits.

This is like trying to recreate the Linux kernel from scratch, except that we don't even know what 90% of the drivers are supposed to do!

Sounds awful. Those folks will probably need lots of therapy to get over this, even if they claim that they're "just fine".

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/reliving.cfm:
"Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. [...] Many people with PTSD repeatedly re-experience the ordeal in the form of flashback episodes, memories, nightmares, or frightening thoughts, especially when they are exposed to events or objects reminiscent of the trauma. [...] Physical symptoms [...] are common in people with PTSD."

http://survive.org.uk/PTSD.html
"Inability to recall important aspects of the trauma, is another of the ways avoidance and numbing may work. This means the person cannot remember exactly what happened. Many trauma survivors forget in order to survive. Survivors may also have learned to dissociate, to literally not be there, to survive. They automatically "switch off" during a stressful situation because it is too painful to deal with."

The above quotes suggest that the temporarily blinded man might have either voluntarily or involuntarily chose "not to see" horrors during the incident. It's possible that re-living the experience caused the "not to see" command to reactivate.

Another possible explanation is that the body dumps an incredible number of chemicals into the bloodstream during these situations, and again when the person re-lives them. These hormones profoundly effect the way the mind works.

I hope this man and the others find a way to cope with their terrible experiences.

I would suggest you arent too familar with the healthcare sector... A major law been enacted in the last two years that revolutionized how privacy issues are handled in the healthcare industry. The HIPPAA law has created quite frankly an almost overwhelming weight of regulations regarding patient and information privacy issues that are difficult to wade through as a healthcare worker. Nonetheless, i assure you nothing like this would even be considered for practical use unless very stringent requirements of privacy were considered.

I apologize if I'm being redundant, but as of the time I'm writing this, there are 442 comments when browsing at -1, so I can't guarantee that I haven't missed something.

In any event, I thought it might be helpful to post a link on PubMed to the abstract of the journal article to which the author of the Reuters article seems to be referring. At least, it's coming from the same lab and institution with which Dr. Britton (on his site) mentions having a collaboration. Any other references would be greatly appreciated.

Here's the full text for those who are interested:

1: Antiviral Res. 2005 Apr;66(1):35-8.

Antiviral activity of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis).

Merchant ME, Pallansch M, Paulman RL, Wells JB, Nalca A, Ptak R.

Department of Chemistry, McNeese State University, Box 90455, Lake Charles, LA 70609, USA. mmerchan@mcneese.edu

Serum from wild alligators was collected and tested for antibiotic activity against three enveloped viruses using cell-based assays. Alligator serum demonstrated antiviral activities against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1; IC50=0.9%), West Nile virus (WNV; IC50=4.3%), and Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1; IC50=3.4%). The inhibitory concentration (IC50) is defined as the concentration of serum that inhibits 50% of viral activity. The antiviral effects of the alligator serum were difficult to evaluate at high concentrations due to the inherent toxicity to the mammalian cells used to assay viral activities. The TC50 (serum concentration that reduces cell viability to 50%) values for the serum in the HIV-1, WNV, and HSV-1 assays were 32.8, 36.3 and 39.1%, respectively. Heat-treated serum (56 degrees C, 30 min) displayed IC50 values of >50, 9.8 and 14.9% for HIV-1, WNV and HSV-1 viruses, respectively. In addition, the TC50 values using heat-treated serum were substantially elevated for all three assays, relative to untreated serum (47.3 to >50%). Alligator serum complement activity has been shown to be heat labile under these conditions. HIV-1 antiviral action was heat-sensitive, and thus possibly due to the action of serum complement, while the anti-WNV and anti-HSV-1 activities were not heat labile and thus probably not complement mediated.

PMID: 15781130 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

I apologize if I'm being redundant, but as of the time I'm writing this, there are 442 comments when browsing at -1, so I can't guarantee that I haven't missed something.

In any event, I thought it might be helpful to post a link on PubMed to the abstract of the journal article to which the author of the Reuters article seems to be referring. At least, it's coming from the same lab and institution with which Dr. Britton (on his site) mentions having a collaboration. Any other references would be greatly appreciated.

Here's the full text for those who are interested:

1: Antiviral Res. 2005 Apr;66(1):35-8.

Antiviral activity of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis).

Merchant ME, Pallansch M, Paulman RL, Wells JB, Nalca A, Ptak R.

Department of Chemistry, McNeese State University, Box 90455, Lake Charles, LA 70609, USA. mmerchan@mcneese.edu

Serum from wild alligators was collected and tested for antibiotic activity against three enveloped viruses using cell-based assays. Alligator serum demonstrated antiviral activities against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1; IC50=0.9%), West Nile virus (WNV; IC50=4.3%), and Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1; IC50=3.4%). The inhibitory concentration (IC50) is defined as the concentration of serum that inhibits 50% of viral activity. The antiviral effects of the alligator serum were difficult to evaluate at high concentrations due to the inherent toxicity to the mammalian cells used to assay viral activities. The TC50 (serum concentration that reduces cell viability to 50%) values for the serum in the HIV-1, WNV, and HSV-1 assays were 32.8, 36.3 and 39.1%, respectively. Heat-treated serum (56 degrees C, 30 min) displayed IC50 values of >50, 9.8 and 14.9% for HIV-1, WNV and HSV-1 viruses, respectively. In addition, the TC50 values using heat-treated serum were substantially elevated for all three assays, relative to untreated serum (47.3 to >50%). Alligator serum complement activity has been shown to be heat labile under these conditions. HIV-1 antiviral action was heat-sensitive, and thus possibly due to the action of serum complement, while the anti-WNV and anti-HSV-1 activities were not heat labile and thus probably not complement mediated.

PMID: 15781130 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Seriously, what Slashdot needs is a -1, Factually Incorrect moderation. Take a look at the National Institute of Health page on the issue. The "HIV doesn't cause AIDS" myth is possibly the stupid belief most directly harmful to its adherents. Even Scientology doesn't say "Trust us, arsenic is good for you."

The genetics of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and the case of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad are discussed at length in one chapter of a recent book, Human Genome Epidemiology (HuGE). This chapter is freely available on the CDC's website. The chapter addresses the issues: "...are genetic risks likely to be important in these cases of CTS; and is there a scientific rationale for testing these workers?" The authors of the article conclude that... "There is no information indicating that equally exposed workers, with and without various genotypes, are at different risks of CTS. What data are available suggest that genetic factors play a very minor role, if any in male railroad track workers. Ultimately, some genetic factors may be found that contribute along with occupational factors to CTS but such information is not available at this time." More literature for the ambitious at PubMed.