>Foreclosures and the Right to Vote

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The foreclosure crisis could do considerable damage to the nation’s voting system. More than a million people have lost their homes in the past two years. And because voter registration is based on people’s residences, they could face politically motivated challenges at the polls.

The problem may be especially acute in the presidential battleground states. In Ohio, more than 5 percent of home mortgages are seriously delinquent or in the foreclosure process, and there were more than 67,000 foreclosure actions in the first half of 2008. Michigan and Florida have also been hard hit.

There are a large number of advocacy groups and other programs that work to ensure that minorities, the disabled and students are able to cast ballots. Because the foreclosure crisis is so recent, not much work has been done to ensure that people who lose their homes do not also lose their chance to vote.

Many of the hardest-hit neighborhoods are low- income and minority areas, which tend to vote Democratic. That means officials have to be extra vigilant to ensure that Republicans do not use foreclosure lists to challenge voters. There was a dust-up recently in Michigan, after a progressive Web site quoted the Republican chairman of Macomb County as saying that his party planned to do just that. He and the party insist there are no such plans, but the Barack Obama campaign has filed suit to block foreclosure-based challenges. – nytimes

>Do you want to live forever?

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>Slowing the Aging Process: Seven Biological Reasons we Grow Old

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To what should one dedicate one’s life? I get excited about the idea of hacking human biology to eliminate the effects of aging.  If I were to choose a new career path right now, working on one of these seven biological causes of aging would be worth at least the next 20 year’s effort. All of these are fixable, which means death by old age is curable!

The seven types of aging damage proposed by de Grey.

1. Cancer-causing nuclear mutations/epimutations:

   These are changes to the nuclear DNA (nDNA), the molecule that contains our genetic information, or to proteins which bind to the nDNA. Certain mutations can lead to cancer, and, according to de Grey, non-cancerous mutations and epimutations do not contribute to aging within a normal lifespan, so cancer is the only endpoint of these types of damage that must be addressed.

2. Mitochondrial mutations:

   Mitochondria are components in our cells that are important for energy production. They contain their own genetic material, and mutations to their DNA can affect a cell’s ability to function properly. Indirectly, these mutations may accelerate many aspects of aging.

3. Intracellular junk:

   Our cells are constantly breaking down proteins and other molecules that are no longer useful or which can be harmful. Those molecules which can’t be digested simply accumulate as junk inside our cells. Atherosclerosis, macular degeneration and all kinds of neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer’s disease) are associated with this problem.

4. Extracellular junk:

   Harmful junk protein can also accumulate outside of our cells. The amyloid plaque seen in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients is one example.

5. Cell loss:

   Some of the cells in our bodies cannot be replaced, or can only be replaced very slowly – more slowly than they die. This decrease in cell number causes the heart to become weaker with age, and it also causes Parkinson’s disease and impairs the immune system.

6. Cell senescence:

   This is a phenomenon where the cells are no longer able to divide, but also do not die and let others divide. They may also do other things that they’re not supposed to, like secreting proteins that could be harmful. Immune senescence and type 2 diabetes are caused by this.^{[citation needed]}

7. Extracellular crosslinks:

   Cells are held together by special linking proteins. When too many cross-links form between cells in a tissue, the tissue can lose its elasticity and cause problems including arteriosclerosis and presbyopia.^[7]

Aubrey de Grey, British researcher on aging, claims he has drawn a roadmap to defeat biological aging. He provocatively proposes that the first human beings who will live to 1,000 years old have already been born.

A true maverick, Aubrey de Grey challenges the most basic assumption underlying the human condition — that aging is inevitable. He argues instead that aging is a disease — one that can be cured if it’s approached as “an engineering problem.” His plan calls for identifying all the components that cause human tissue to age, and designing remedies for each of them — forestalling disease and eventually pushing back death. He calls the approach Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS).

With his astonishingly long beard, wiry frame and penchant for bold and cutting proclamations, de Grey is a magnet for controversy. A computer scientist, self-taught biogerontologist and researcher, he has co-authored journal articles with some of the most respected scientists in the field. – ted

>Top Psychiatrist Didn’t Report Drug Makers’ Pay

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One of the nation’s most influential psychiatrists earned more than $2.8 million in consulting arrangements with drug makers from 2000 to 2007, failed to report at least $1.2 million of that income to his university and violated federal research rules, according to documents provided to Congressional investigators.

The psychiatrist, Dr. Charles B. Nemeroff of Emory University, is the most prominent figure to date in a series of disclosures that is shaking the world of academic medicine and seems likely to force broad changes in the relationships between doctors and drug makers.

In one telling example, Dr. Nemeroff signed a letter dated July 15, 2004, promising Emory administrators that he would earn less than $10,000 a year from GlaxoSmithKline to comply with federal rules. But on that day, he was at the Four Seasons Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo., earning $3,000 of what would become $170,000 in income that year from that company — 17 times the figure he had agreed on.

The Congressional inquiry, led by Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, is systematically asking some of the nation’s leading researchers to provide their conflict-of-interest disclosures, and Mr. Grassley is comparing those documents with records of actual payments from drug companies. The records often conflict, sometimes starkly.

“After questioning about 20 doctors and research institutions, it looks like problems with transparency are everywhere,” Mr. Grassley said. “The current system for tracking financial relationships isn’t working.”

The findings suggest that universities are all but incapable of policing their faculty’s conflicts of interest. Almost every major medical school and medical society is now reassessing its relationships with drug and device makers. – nyt

Yet another conspiracy theory proven true. It all boils down to greed. Company profits are more important that human lives in too many cases.

>Selective inactivation of micro-organisms with near-infrared femtosecond laser pulses

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We demonstrate an unconventional and revolutionary method for selective inactivation of micro-organisms by using near-infrared femtosecond laser pulses. We show that if the wavelength and pulse width of the excitation femtosecond laser are appropriately selected, there exists a window in power density that enables us to achieve selective inactivation of target viruses and bacteria without causing cytotoxicity in mammalian cells. This strategy targets the mechanical (vibrational) properties of micro-organisms, and thus its antimicrobial efficacy is likely unaffected by genetic mutation in the micro-organisms. Such a method may be effective against a wide variety of drug resistant micro-organisms and has broad implications in disinfection as well as in the development of novel treatments for viral and bacterial pathogens. – iop

The above research was studied in part by a scientist from the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD.

Sounds a bit Raymond Royal Rife-ish to me.  Perhaps in the future we will be able to walk through a beam and have all harmful pathogens killed off.

>Spermicidal and AIDS virus killer: Coke?

>PSI: Don’t use Coke as birth control. According to snopes, you’ll get a yeast infection and by the time you try it, over 100,000 sperm are already swimming around in the uterus, already out of reach of the coke, even if you use the shake and fizz method. But yes, it does kill sperm.

A researcher who figured out that Coke explodes sperm and scientists who discovered that people will happily eat stale chips if they crunch loudly enough won alternative “Ig Nobel” prizes Thursday.

Other winners included physicists who found out that anything that can tangle, will tangle and a team of biologists who ascertained that dog fleas jump farther than cat fleas.

The Ig Nobels honor real research, but are meant as a funny alternative to next week’s deadly serious Nobel prizes for medicine, chemistry, physics, economics, literature and peace.

Awarded by the editors of the Annals of Improbable Research, a scientific humor magazine, the prizes are based on published research, some intended to be humorous but often not. Usually the “honored” researchers go along with the joke.

Deborah Anderson of Boston University Medical Center and colleagues were awarded the chemistry prize for a 1985 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that found Coca-Cola kills sperm. She said she was serious in testing the soft drink because women were using it in a douche as a contraceptive and, later, to try to protect themselves from the AIDS virus. “It definitely wouldn’t work as a contraceptive because sperm swims so fast,” Anderson said. But Coke made with sugar quickly kills sperm, she said, probably because sperm soak it up. “The sperm just kind of explode,” she said in a telephone interview. It kills the AIDS virus too, she said. … – reuters

Anderson, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Boston University’s School of Medicine, and her colleagues found that not only was Coca-Cola a spermicide, but that Diet Coke for some reason worked best. Their study appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1985. … she does not recommend using Coke for birth control purposes. A group of Taiwanese doctors were honored for a similar study that found Coca-Cola and other soft drinks were not effective contraceptives. Anderson said the studies used different methodology. – abcnews

See improbable.com. According to the FDA, nonoxynol 9 (N-9) spemicide causes inflammation and actually increases the odds of transmission of HIV.

Does coke kill AIDS? Sure, the acid does it. So does saliva, lemon juice, chlorine in swimming pools, coconut oil, infrared femtosecond lasers with carefully selected wavelengths, ozone, and crocodile blood.

As far as my current understanding: The difficulty is that the HIV virus’s RNA incorporates itself into your cells when it is spread by semen or blood. Once that happens, you can’t kill it on contact.

Blood contains the highest concentration of the virus, followed closely by semen, followed by vaginal fluids. …

Oral sex (mouth-penis, mouth-vagina): The risk from oral sex is very minimal as the mouth is an inhospitable environment for HIV, for several reasons. Saliva contains enzymes that break down the virus; also, the skin of the mouth is sturdier than in the anus or vagina. There are, however, a few documented cases where it appears that HIV was transmitted orally. These cases are all attributed to ejaculation in the mouth (i.e., exposure to semen, not exposure to vaginal fluid or pre-seminal fluid). Receiving oral sex is not risky because one is exposed only to saliva. – sfaf

>Russian Teen Kill Best Friend with Tweezers after insult

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Teenager stabbed best friend to death in Russia with a pair of TWEEZERS in a row over looks

A teenage girl has killed her best friend by stabbing her over 100 times with a pair of tweezers in a row over looks. Pretty Kristina Danilova, 18, murdered childhood pal Olga Samoilenko in a fit of rage after being told her she was ugly and would never get a boyfriend.  She pulled her eyebrow tweezers out of her make up bag and attacked her friend, who bled to death. … Danilova told detectives: ‘Olga remarked that I was ugly and would never ever find a boyfriend.   ‘How could I stay calm on hearing something like that from someone who I had always considered my best friend?’ … She said: ‘I didn’t mean to kill her, it happened accidentally.’ – dailymail

>US and India Nuke Deal

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The nuclear deal between the United States and India raises major questions about the spread of nuclear weapons as well as illustrating India’s new importance as a strategic American partner.

The deal was finally agreed by the US Senate on Wednesday, having previously been given approval by the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Under it, India is now able to receive supplies and technology for its growing nuclear power industry, ending a boycott imposed by nuclear supplier states (through the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group) because it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

India can keep and develop its nuclear weapons programme, but has to open up certain of its nuclear power plants to IAEA inspection. – bbc

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has arrived in India for talks on a civil nuclear co-operation deal.

The US Senate approved the deal on Wednesday, ending a three-decade ban on nuclear trade with Delhi… India says the deal is vital to meet civilian energy demands, but critics say it undermines efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons. – bbc

>Betting on horses first time

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Betting on horses first time, originally uploaded by xeno735.

>House approves bailout; Bush signs it; Ron Paul "You’re going to guarantee a depression"

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A $700 billion bailout package designed to ease the nation’s worsening economic crisis cleared Congress and was signed into law Friday after the House of Representatives approved a revised version of the bill that it had rejected days earlier.

Some 32 Democrats and 26 Republicans switched positions to vote for the Senate-passed bill, pushing it through the House by 263-171. President Bush quickly signed the measure, praising Congress for rallying behind the rescue package.

“By coming together on this legislation, we have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country,” Bush said during a five-minute statement in the White House Rose Garden. Later, he walked next door to the Treasury Department, where he thanked Secretary Henry Paulson and the building’s employees for their hard work during the financial crisis.

Stock prices slid on Wall Street despite the bill’s passage as new data from around the world made it clear that the economic outlook is darkening rapidly. U.S. employers shed 159,000 jobs in September, the highest monthly number in five years, for example. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped another 157.47 points to close at 10,325.38. … – mh

Hidden in this version of the bill is a tax break for makers of wooden arrows for children.

Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith introduced a bill in May to fix an item in the tax code under which the excise tax on inexpensive arrows for children is greater than the selling price of the arrows. Some nine manufacturers nationwide are affected. Wyden (D) voted No on the bill. Smith (R) voted Yes. – politicocomment

This is just a way of Wall Street forcing us to pay (by taxes) for worthless investments.  I agree with Ron Paul and many others: Let Wall Street eat it. Things will be difficult for a year, but then they will get better. With the bail out, we are just going down the same road again and another crash is inevitable.

PAUL: Well, I think [the bail out is] a mistake because we don’t have the money. But that doesn’t mean you have to do nothing. I mean, we could reform the system. We could return to sound money. We could balance our budget. We could change our foreign policy. We could take care of our people at home. We could lower taxes.

There’s a lot of things that we can do. But the worst thing that we can do is perpetuate the bad policies that gave us this trouble in the first place, and that is that we no longer, over the last quite a few decades, believed in free-market capitalism. Capital is supposed to come from savings. We’re supposed to work hard and save.

As a matter of fact, the Chinese work hard, right now, and they save, and they’re buying up the world. But we borrow and spend and consume, and now it’s caught up to us and it’s undermining our whole system. … So this $700 billion is not going to do it. – latimes