Jon Carroll considers
Mesopotamian
ceramics, tigers on the savannah, and the way freedom can create space for
a civilization. From some angles, he's right that "Human behavior is
not that much of a mystery."
ISSN 1534-0236
Technology and ideology alike are exercises in applied imagination.
Jon Carroll considers
Mesopotamian
ceramics, tigers on the savannah, and the way freedom can create space for
a civilization. From some angles, he's right that "Human behavior is
not that much of a mystery."
About time: Wake Forest University has bred a colony of
cancer-proof
mice. The first was found by accident, and after seven generations of
breeding, they have 700 mice whose bodies destroy injected cancer cells.
In previous experiments, mice that resisted cancer developed autoimmune diseases, but these mice don't have that problem, perhaps because they fight cancer using neutrophils and macrophages, not T-cells.
Magic is cheaper than
decent housing, schools, and hospitals: the Los Angeles City Council
has officially
eliminated South
Central from the map. The new maps and stationery will say "South Los
Angeles."
While the City Council vote was unanimous, many of the people who live and work in the area are unhappy:
"It's almost like, now they're hiding the inner city again," added Donald Barnett, who works as a postman in the area."They're saying now it's no longer an inner city, it's a new community. It's a new community without anything changing."
Mr Barnett said he resented the authority's attempt to give the area a fresh identity.
"I've been living here all my life and the inner city is not totally bad. And the fact that they come up with these symbolic things all the time, people will continue to think that."
Stem cells
taken from baby teeth
can form tooth, bone, and nerve cells in the lab. They seem less flexible than
embryonic stem cells, but the ability to grow new nerves would be very useful
clinically.
Gamma-ray bursts
may be part of
supernova explosions. If so, they're brighter than anything the explosions
do in visible light.
Meanwhile, Jon Carroll
has appointed himself the Chronicle's
Brooklyn
correspondent.
The next
Mars mission has its landing
sites: Meridiani Planum and Gusev Crater. The choice was based on a balance between
scientific interest--notably "might there have been water here?"--and the need to find
a safe landing spot.
Here's something remarkably cheerful:
Mike Stanfill has
animated
Tom Lehrer's "The Elements" (to a tune by Arthur Sullivan, of course).
Coots
can count, and they use this skill to protect themselves from freeloaders.
Coots lay eggs in each others' nests, which improves the breeding success of the
freeloader at the expense of the host. Many coots can tell their own eggs
from those of other parents, and respond by rejecting the foreign eggs.
Females usually stop laying when their overall clutch reaches a certain size, but those that discriminate against parasitic eggs keep on going. This suggests they can tell how many eggs they have laid themselves.Coots probably aren't the only birds that can count their eggs and decide when to stop, just the first to have been identified. [via BoingBoing]"I found that birds that are unable to distinguish parasitic eggs lay one fewer egg for each parasitic egg received," Lyon explained. "In contrast, birds that ultimately reject parasitic eggs do not reduce their clutch sizes. It's the comparison of these two different responses that really indicates counting."
Scientists say it's an important discovery. Although some animals have been observed counting under laboratory conditions, examples from the wild are almost non-existent.
Call it the
"colossal squid:"
the first intact specimen of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni was caught
in the Ross Sea a few weeks ago. It has a larger beak than the
giant squid, and hooks on the ends of its tentacles. This specimen has a
mantle length of 2.5 meters (the giant squid comes in at 2.25) and is believed
to be immature.
The type specimen, named in 1925, was two arms found in a sperm whale's stomach. While several have been found in whale stomachs, the researchers who are looking at this one think that the adult colossal squid may prey on sperm whales. [Thanks to SBisson for this link.]
Something weird and probably criminal is going on at the
NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority, but it's not at all clear
what:
the MTA
has suspended its top two security officers, accusing them of
hindering a corruption investigation. Two days earlier, they publicly
accused MTA officials of impeding their investigations into
corruption at the agency.
In a report released yesterday by Matthew D. Sansverie, the inspector general, Mr. Anemone and Mr. Casale were accused of lying about the existence of a confidential informant who they said had tipped them off earlier this year to a potential corruption case involving a railroad contractor and a top M.T.A. official.[NY Times link, annoying/annoying should work as a login if you don't want to register]
Relief, Dubya style: the US military wants the
desperate people of Umm Qasr to
pay for water.
An army spokesman claims that the plan--under which men who own trucks are given
water free, and allowed to sell it--"provides them with an incentive to
hustle." It's the Bush approach to markets: give things to the better-off, and make
the poor pay.
A British military spokesman angrily objected to the water deal. The British control the city of Umm Qasr while the Americans are in charge of the port."We're not going to have any charging for water. What kind of an aid plan would that be? These people don't even have shoes," the spokesman said.
What was that about being there to help the Iraqi people?
Marie Cocco has an update on
conditions
in Afghanistan: most of the country is in the hands of warlords and bandits,
schools are closed because nobody is paying teachers, and many women are still imprisoned
in their homes.
"This is the condition of the Afghan nation," said Dr. Zieba Shorish-Shamley of the Womens' Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan.It is not what we promised the Afghan people, nor what we say we'll bring the Iraqis....
"The U.S. has promised, over and over, that we will not be abandoned," she said. "There is no money going in, there is no reconstruction, the warlords are ruling. What are the Afghans to think?"
And what of the Iraqis?
We tell them the United States is to be a magnanimous liberator and generous occupier, intent on molding a nation of regional factions now yoked together by tyranny into a democratic state of great promise. And when they look for a template, what do they see?
"If the Iraqis look at Afghanistan as an example of how they are going to be liberated and reconstructed, I think they won't like it," Shorish-Shamley said.
And that's with a broad alliance involved in Afghanistan--how is the Bush administration, which budgeted exactly nothing for Afghan nation-building for the coming year, going to handle Iraq without France and Canada and the rest of the world to stay the course when it's no longer photogenic to have US Marines on the road to Baghdad?
Another from the Department of
Artificial Stupidity: a friend who works in a state government office informs me that
the proxy at her office will not let her look at this Weblog, blocking it on the grounds
of "sex".
Whatever you think of the merits of having such rules on office computers, I cannot even guess why the machine thinks this sexually arousing, titillating, or disturbing. Answers on a postcard, please.
Lore Sjöberg
rates wart remedies:
These cures work on the principle of "sympathetic magic," which is where you do something so disagreeable that even if you aren't cured, at least anyone who hears about it will be sympathetic.
Micah Ian Wright has produced
some excellent anti-war, pro-civil-liberties
propaganda posters, modeled
on World War II material. The Web page also discusses his political positions and
how he came to hold them.
