An anti-abortion rights organization is withdrawing an award it planned to present Rep. Bart Stupak, after the Michigan Democrat announced Sunday he would support health care reform legislation.
The Susan B. Anthony List had chosen Stupak to receive the “Defender of Life” award at the “Campaign for Life Gala” Wednesday here in the nation’s capital.
Because we all know Susan B. Anthony was pro-life.
From Yglesias. Emphasis mine.
We should also, however, spare a thought for the unsung hero of comprehensive reform, McConnell and his GOP colleagues, who pushed their “no compromise” strategy to the breaking point and beyond. The theory was that non-cooperation would stress the Democratic coalition and cause the public to begin to question the enterprise. And it largely worked. But at crucial times when wavering Democrats were eager for a lifeline, the Republicans absolutely refused to throw one. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other key players at various points wanted to scale aspirations down to a few regulatory tweaks and some expansion of health care for children. This idea had a lot of appeal to many in the party. But it always suffered from a fatal flaw—the Republicans’ attitude made it seem that a smaller bill was no more feasible than a big bill. Consequently, even though Scott Brown’s victory blew the Democrats off track, the basic logic of the situation pushed them back on course to universal health care.
Today, conservative anger at the Democrats is running higher than ever, and for the first time in years the GOP leadership’s blanket opposition has won them the esteem of their fanatics. But in more sober moments in the weeks and months to come, my guess is that the brighter minds on the right will recognize that their determination to turn health reform into Obama’s Waterloo sowed the seeds of their own destruction. Universal health care has been attempted many times in the past and always failed. The prospects for success were never all that bright. Many of us, myself included, at one point or another wanted to try something more moderate. But the right wing, by invariably indicating that it would settle for nothing less than total victory, inspired progressive forces to march on and win their greatest legislative victory in decades.
Paul Krugman
Instead, I want you to consider the contrast: on one side, the closing argument was an appeal to our better angels, urging politicians to do what is right, even if it hurts their careers; on the other side, callous cynicism. Think about what it means to condemn health reform by comparing it to the Civil Rights Act. Who in modern America would say that L.B.J. did the wrong thing by pushing for racial equality? (Actually, we know who: the people at the Tea Party protest who hurled racial epithets at Democratic members of Congress on the eve of the vote.)
And a word of my own on “death panels.” Now that healthcare reform has passed (barring something catastrophic in the Senate), I predict the same people who whipped their followers into a froth over the government using death panels to put granny down, I predict that these same people will start to talk about the burden of keeping the poor and illegal immigrants alive. They are costing us money in insurance. Why should they get a life-saving transplant, they will say. I’ve done everything right all my life so why should I be punished.
Predators. I predict they’ll say child predators can get health insurance and it will cost insurance money to keep them alive. Those costs will be passed on to us. In short, that they very people who fear mongered are now going to be the ones who want to go back to the old system where they can choose who is worthy of life-saving treatment.
Webicina.com is getting closer to the 50th collection and the newest addition is Pediatrics and Web 2.0 that focuses on selected mobile apps, blogs, podcasts, Twitterers, communities, slideshows and many more social media tools dedicated to pediatrics.
The number of websites created for pediatricians is constantly growing and it is getting harder to find relevant, reliable resources, but with PeRSSonalized Pediatrics it will be a piece of cake for You.
A 50-year-old man presented with a 1-month history of mild, generalized pruritus. A total-body examination of the patient's skin revealed small, yellowish-brown flecks in the hair of the upper arm, chest, and axilla on the left side and in the pubic area.
Dermoscopy showed pubic lice (Phthirus pubis), colloquially termed “crabs”. The pubic louse is classically a sexually transmitted pediculus and is aptly named, since it is most commonly found in pubic hair. In heavy infestations, the trunk, limbs, and eyelashes can be colonized.
Dermoscopy revealed the typical broad body of the crab and the large middle and hind legs, which have thick claws for grasping hairs.
The patient was treated with two total-body applications of topical permethrin 5% cream, which were applied 1 week apart. Household members were also treated. Complete resolution was achieved without recurrence.
Source
_______________________________________________
According to emedicinehealth, the possible causes are:
The source of infection for pubic lice is intimate contact with an infected person. Therefore, pubic lice are often transmitted during sex.
Since transmission occurs during intimate contact, actual sexual intercourse is not necessary for the spread of pubic lice.
Pubic lice can also be transmitted by contact with contaminated belongings such as towels, bed sheets, or clothing.
Crabs are transmitted through any intimate contact. Lice do not jump or fly, so actual contact is necessary for transmission. An individual may acquire an infection by sharing bedding or towels.
Cats, dogs, and other pets are not involved in the spread of human lice. Your pet cannot become infested with human lice and transmit the lice to another person.
For more information click here.
According to MedicineNet, there are three stages in the life of a pubic louse: the nit, the nymph, and the adult.
Nit: Nits are pubic lice eggs. They are hard to see and are found firmly attached to the hair shaft.
They are about the size of the mark at the end of this arrow . They are oval and usually yellow to white. Nits take about 1 week to hatch.
Nymph: The nit hatches into a baby louse called a nymph. It looks like an adult pubic louse, but is smaller. Nymphs mature into adults about 7 days after hatching. To live, the nymph must feed on blood.
Adult: The adult pubic louse is about this size and resembles a miniature crab when viewed through a strong magnifying glass. Pubic lice have six legs, but their two front legs are very large and look like the pincher claws of a crab; this how they got the nickname “crabs.” Pubic lice are tan to greyish-white in color. Females lay nits; they are usually larger than males. To live, adult lice need to feed on blood. If the louse falls off a person, it dies within 1-2 days.
DNA nanotechnology breakthrough offers promising applications in medicine
McGill researchers create DNA nanotubes able to carry and selectively release materials
This release is available in French.
A team of McGill Chemistry Department researchers led by Dr. Hanadi Sleiman has achieved a major breakthrough in the development of nanotubes – tiny “magic bullets” that could one day deliver drugs to specific diseased cells. Sleiman explains that the research involves taking DNA out of its biological context. So rather than being used as the genetic code for life, it becomes a kind of building block for tiny nanometre-scale objects.
Using this method, the team created the first examples of DNA nanotubes that encapsulate and load cargo, and then release it rapidly and completely when a specific external DNA strand is added. One of these DNA structures is only a few nanometres wide but can be extremely long, about 20,000 nanometres. (A nanometre is one-10,000th the diameter of a human hair.)
Until now, DNA nanotubes could only be constructed by rolling a two-dimensional sheet of DNA into a cylinder. Sleiman’s method allows nanotubes of any shape to be formed and they can either be closed to hold materials or porous to release them. Materials such as drugs could then be released when a particular molecule is present.
One of the possible future applications for this discovery is cancer treatment. However, Sleiman cautions, “we are still far from being able to treat diseases using this technology; this is only a step in that direction. Researchers need to learn how to take these DNA nanostructures, such as the nanotubes here, and bring them back to biology to solve problems in nanomedicine, from drug delivery, to tissue engineering to sensors,” she said.
The team’s discovery was published on March 14, 2010 in Nature Chemistry. The research was made possible with funding from the National Science and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
Milton R Wolf, MD, Obama Health Care Bill, Primum nil nocere, First do no harm
Dr Milton R Wolf, a cousin of Barack Obama, was on the Sean Hannity Show on Fox, March 16, 2010. I was very impressed with Dr. Wolf. He stayed consistent with his earlier statements that he was against Obamacare and that the Health Care Bill will hurt our health care system and likely prevent some people from getting care.
Reported here March 12, 2010.
“Dr Milton R Wolf, Obama cousin, Obama Health Care Bill”
“Primum nil nocere.”First, do no harm. This guiding principle is a bedrock of medical care. Sadly, those politicians who would rewrite our health care laws do not live in the same universe as do the doctors and health care professionals who must practice it.
“Imagine if, like physicians, politicians were personally held to the incredibly high level of scrutiny that includes civil and financial liability for any unintended consequence of their decisions. Imagine if they were forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars each year on malpractice insurance and still faced the threat of multimillion-dollar lawsuits with every single decision they made. If so, a government takeover of health care would be the furthest thing from their minds.
Obamacare proponents would have us believe that we will add 30 million patients to the system without adding providers, we will see no decline in the quality of care for the millions of Americans currently happy with the system, and -if you act now!- we will save money in the process. But why stop there? Why not promise it will no longer rain on weekends and every day will be a great hair day?
America has the finest health care delivery system in the world. Let’s not forget that and put it at risk in the name of reform. Desperate souls across the globe flock to our shores and cross our borders every day to seek our care. Why? Our system provides cures while the government-run systems from which they flee do not. Compare Europe’s common cancer mortality rates to America’s: breast cancer – 52 percent higher in Germany and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom; prostate cancer – a staggering 604 percent higher in the United Kingdom and 457 percent higher in Norway; colon cancer – 40 percent higher in the United Kingdom.
Look closer at the United Kingdom. Britain’s higher cancer mortality rate results in 25,000 more cancer deaths per year compared to a similar population size in the United States. But because the U.S. population is roughly five times larger than the United Kingdom’s, that would translate into 125,000 unnecessary American cancer deaths every year. This is more than all the mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, cousins and children in Topeka, Kan. And keep in mind, these numbers are for cancer alone. America also has better survival rates for other major killers, such as heart attacks and strokes. Whatever we do, let us not surrender the great gains we have made. First, do no harm. Lives are at stake.””
A person should not have to learn the most important lessons about life from experience. Most of them can be taught, if we know enough to teach them to our children.
Not knowing those lessons, not knowing how to cope with the adversities that life throws at every one of us, means we must suffer pain. Not just the pain of each tragedy, but also the pain associated with the stress of having a severe problem (or a bunch of them) and not knowing what to do about it.
My sister didn’t know. She smoked herself to death from cancer at age 54, never understanding why she had to live alone, on welfare, never having anyone she could trust or depend on. Never having a friend in her life. Never having any happiness in her marriage because she didn’t know how. Never being able to hold a job because she didn’t realize employers need skills and employees who can get along with each other.
Her children don’t know. Her daughter, my niece, at one time displeased with me because I told her about lies her mother had told about her and about me, suggested that I should kill myself. Her son, my nephew, joined an extreme religious cult where he feels loved and respected.
No doubt my father chose a remote rural area to rent the apartment above a general store when I was a baby because he didn’t want his family to suffer the indignities he had suffered as a child. He and my mother didn’t know that children learn from each other by playing together. I rarely saw any other children and never played with one until I was nearly six years old.
My parents understood that parenting consisted of providing food, shelter and clothing to their children. And punishing them when they did something wrong. It never occurred to them to teach a child what the child needs to know to avoid getting into trouble. My parents didn’t teach their children anything. Except how to eat with a knife and fork and how to use toilet paper.
My mother, who never worked a day after she got pregnant with me, eventually needed to hire a cleaning lady once a week because she couldn’t keep up with dusting, cleaning and laundry. No one knew why. Chronic fatigue syndrome, now recognized as a widespread problem, was just called laziness in those days. My mother never talked about it.
The same way she never talked about why she chased me around our house at couple of times when I was 10, brandishing a broom and threatening to kill me if she caught me. I hadn’t a clue about why she was angry. But I didn’t let her catch me either. I couldn’t spell “menopause” let alone understand what it meant. All I knew was her words.
My father, a naturally clever man who never managed to pass grade nine, found considerable success in business. He became an alcoholic because he had no idea how to cope with the stresses associated with his business success.
He adopted the advice of someone he worked with as a young man. It was: Never learn how to do something if you don’t want to do that thing. My father disliked working with his hands. One of his employees, a mechanic, bought him a simple screwdriver one day because he thought my father should be able to tighten a screw himself. My father never taught me any skills. He didn’t have any mechanical skills or interest in learning to do things with his hands. He never used the screwdriver either.
My father’s father had a thriving florist business until the First World War destroyed it. My father was five years old when his father committed suicide.
Suicide is not genetic, but it tends to run in families. I didn’t want to become an alcoholic or to kill myself, though I knew no coping skills because I had never been taught any. By anyone. Lacking coping skills, I now know, is the leading cause of alcoholism, suicide and many other severe problems.
As I knew nothing about being a father, in fact I was afraid of little children, I avoided having much to do with my own children when they were young. Their mother raised them through those first few critically important years of their lives. She taught them everything they knew. They became everything she was.
She believed that success at work was more important that success as a parent. She believed that money was the sign of success. That’s what the society we lived in taught. She left our kids with me when they were about ten years old and went out to be successful as a school principal and a savvy investor. She had money, a great car and an impressive house. She had taught those values to our children.
She died of cancer at age 44, having spent her last year alone, at home, rarely receiving a visitor. Neither her children nor her business friends had anything more to gain from her, so they abandoned her. When she died, our daughter didn’t even hold a funeral because she thought no one would come.
After their mother died, our children decided they wanted nothing more to do with me. They wanted money and I didn’t have much. I didn’t believe that money was the most important thing in life. They thought I was stupid. My daughter told her children–whom I was never allowed to see–that all their grandparents were dead. Only one was.
Sitting on a loading dock on a break from my first summer job at age 15, I overheard two men talking. One said to the other, “I never have conversations with young people under age 25. They never know enough to talk about.” As I thought about that, I realized that he was right.
I had no skills or hobbies. I had learned nothing from books or newspapers. In fact, I could barely read. I didn’t have friends I could learn from. My teachers repeatedly told my parents I was lazy. It never occurred to them that I couldn’t read. It never occurred to them that I had a learning problem caused by restriction of blood flow to my brain at birth–I was born breech. I can think as well as anyone, but I do it slower and my capacity to learn at any one time is more limited than most.
I have a very mild form of cerebral palsy, undiagnosed until recently, as a result of that birth problem. When I went to school, every kid was either good, a trouble maker or lazy. My teachers had little trouble placing me in that third category. In reality, life in schools is little better for kids with problems today. “Special needs” is a category for kids with severe and fairly easily recognized problems.
I passed through high school without ever reading a book all the way through. I received a certificate after a three year course at college without ever having read a book all the way through. I passed through teachers college without having read a book all the way through.
I went to York University, in Toronto, and received my B.A. without ever reading a book all the way through. I received a Master of Education degree from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, at the University of Toronto, without ever having read a book all the way through.
That’s survival. That shows how a person can learn to cope with challenges and problems if they learn how in time.
I also taught elementary school for 17 years, around the same period I was taking university courses. A few times the children I taught were reading books for reading assignments that I had not read myself. I was functionally illiterate. I didn’t know that because no one had told me.
In fact, I was functionally illiterate until after I left teaching and had started my own business with my wife.
Although I had written long papers in my university and post graduate courses, most of what I wrote had come straight out of my head, not from books. I discovered how to snatch quotes from relevant texts without actually reading those books. I only started to learn how to write something that people other than professors would find interesting in the late 1990s.
In 2005, my book Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems was published. A social problem is any problem that is experienced by enough people in a community that it becomes a community problem. Like drugs, violence, addictions and so on.
I found solutions to problems most people believe are unsolvable, consequences of the way life is in the 21st Century. How? Because I wasn’t tied to what others had written in books. Books by so-called experts who told how tragic social problems are but offered nothing in the way of solutions.
The solutions begin at home. They begin when each child is born. They begin when a child is taught what he or she needs to know, when they need to know it.
That begins when young adults know about children and how they develop. It begins when adolescents and young adults learn the skills of parenting.
That’s the message I want to take to the world.
Here’s one comment written a few days ago by a member of one of my internet groups, directed to me:
“During all these years as, member of the group had the I privilege evidence that you are extremely cultured and have an excellent text.
With you I learned an enormity of things. And reading your mensages I know sail that for all the areas of the knowledge.”
That was written by a friend in Brazil, one I know as Maita. “Maita” in Portuguese, means “little mother.”
Maita’s real name is Maria Alice Baptista de Oliveira. That’s Dr. Oliveira, a pediatrician with decades of experience at bringing babies into the world and teaching mothers how to look after them.
Maita is one of many people, some of whom are medical doctors, some professors, people in every field of life including factory workers, who live on six continents, who believe that there is a better way to raise children than most of us have been using over the past few thousands of generations.
It’s a complex world we live in. A complex world creates complex problems. Those complex problems require solutions so complex they are unmanageable.
The only way to change anything is to prevent the problems from arising in the first place.
That’s what Turning It Around is all about.
Until recently I have been experiencing stress–not at a controllable level but at a primal level beyond the control of my conscious brain–stress that has taken me to the edge of sanity and suicide. I have stepped back from that edge. I survived. Again.
Stress can be the cause of many physical diseases and organ failures. But it’s also an effect. Stress results when a person lacks the emotional resources to cope with problems in their life. Knowledge about stress and the coping skills needed to avoid it are teachable. Teaching them is easy, cheap and would not meet any resistance because it helps whole communities.
I want to teach people the skills they need to cope with problems that seem insurmountable, that seem beyond their control. That begins with teaching children, right after they are born.
That’s who I am. That’s what I do. If you want to help spread the word, you are welcome to join us. It doesn’t cost anything. All you have to do is talk to people. It’s that easy. But nothing will change until we get enough people talking to each other about this.
Lots of people are talking about this, but it’s a big world with lots of problems.
As adults we don’t necessarily always learn from our experience. Some of us make the same mistakes over and over, causing ourselves and others around us a great deal of grief. However, life lessons we learned as children usually stay with us and shape our lives.
Teaching children what they need to know about life and coping with it are as important as learning to read and do arithmetic. We need to teach the children. They want to learn. They want to know about life.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for teachers and parents who want to know what children need and when they need it, rather than what adults believe children should be forced to learn.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Coming in this morning, I heard an ad on AM from Consumers Union (the people who do Consumers Reports), supporting fixing health care NOW. OK, granted, they didn’t say HOW to fix it. But in the current climate, the ad could only be interpreted as a call to pass the laws now in Congress.
This ad identified CU as a non-profit. Now, what I don’t know about nonprofit law could fill a book (in spite of me having been President of one), but I’m pretty clear that political lobbying is not permitted, and this is pretty clearly lobbying. They brag about it here.
Hey, Jim Guest, how does it feel to have just flushed your organization’s credibility down the toilet?
As part of his ongoing media blitz to promote his book, Courage and Consequences, Karl Rove appeared Thursday on the BBC program Newsnight, where he told his host that he takes pride in the Bush administration’s so-called “enhanced interrogation” program. “I’m proud that we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists and gave us [...]
Karl Rove “Proud” of U.S. Waterboarding Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:22:00 GMT
It’s an interesting enigmatic condition. Whereby Christian conservatives are actually showing pride in treatment of other people that borderlines on outright murder. It’s just another example that the Christian conservatives who claim to be pro-life continually support all sorts of forms of behavior that are not only anti-Jesus Christ and anti-God. But are totally and completely anti-life as well.
The Christian conservatives and the Catholics don’t ever want to be responsible for the fact that since 78% of the United States is pro-life Christian that basically means that 78% of all the women and children murdered in the United States are killed by pro-life Christians and Catholics. It also means that Christians in United States are demanding that the world understand that to them being pro-life means killing, because while the Christian conservatives and Catholics are demanding that everyone understand they are pro-life. They are with their own actions, supporting a number of forms of killing, which means that they are NOT pro-life..
78% of all the women murdered in the United States are killed by pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of all the children abused in the United States are abused by pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of all the children murdered in the United States are murdered by pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of all the murders that take place in the United States are committed by pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of all the soldiers in the United States, who go out and kill are pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of the membership of the National Rifle Association, which support GUNS THAT KILL are pro-life Christians and Catholics .
Every single white supremacist group in the history of United States has always been white fundamentalist pro-life Christian. And these white supremacist groups are dedicated to killing anyone who is not white and Christian.
The Army of God is a white fundamentalist Christian group who is dedicated to murdering and killing every single nonwhite Christian in the United States.
78% of all the people who favor and support the death penalty meaning killing people for committing crimes are pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the ministers in the United States who carry firearms to church and are threatening to kill anyone who comes near the church was not white and Christian are pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of all the crimes against gay people in the United States are done by pro-life Christians and Catholics .
Every month between one and two transgendered females are murdered and every single one of these killings is done by pro-life Christian.
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who demand the right to own black Americans and to kill them whenever they wanted to during the signing of the Declaration of Independence .
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who took over the Republican Party during the battle of Washington and try to overthrow the United States government under president Hoover at the battle of Washington in 1932.
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who took over the Republican Party on the evening before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War . And who then used the Republican Party to hire John Wilkes Booth to murder Pres. Abraham Lincoln .
When you have all these forms of killing being supported by pro-life Christians and Catholics it’s easy to understand that the pro-life Christians and Catholics are demanding that everyone else be responsible for their own actions. But the white fundamentalist Christians and Catholics under no circumstances want to be responsible for anything they do because they are demanding that the entire world understand that to them being pro-life means killing, because that’s what they support killing. That’s why that those who claim to be pro-life are now becoming known as nothing more than, “Killers For Christ”. And of course it the white fundamentalist Christians and Catholics don’t like what I’m saying or want to take exception to what I’m saying they need to disprove every single item in this journal entry and my see also section below. See Also:
Jesus Christ
The Sermon On The Mount
God
The Bible
The Ten Commandments
John The Baptist
The Burning Times
The Crusades
Joan Of Arc
The Children Of Lourdes
The Children of Fatima
The Spanish Inquisition
The American Civil War
Slavery
The Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln
John Wilkes Booth
The Christian Conservatives
World War I
Prohibition
The Great Depression
The Battle of Washington
World War II
The Korean War
The Vietnam War
Richard Nixon
Oliver North
The Iran-Contra Affair
The Gulf War
The Savings-And-Loan Crisis
Bill Clinton
The Balanced Budget Amendment
The Iraq War
The Kondratieff Wave
Profitability Analysis
Financial Analysis
Vance Packard
Laissez-Faire
Capital Punishment
Homophobia
Xenophobia
Racism
Prejudice
Bigotry
Fascism
Eugenics
White Supremacy
Mein Kampf
Adolf Hitler
The Ku Klux Klan
The Army of God
US Domestic Violence Statistics
US Child Abuse Statistics
US Child Mortality Statistics
US Religious Demographic Statistics
Gay-Rights
Transgenderism
Women’s Rights
Pro-Choice
NRA
Oliver Wendell Holmes
The US Constitution
The Bill Of Rights
Recording Telephone Conversations
Treason
Sedition
How The Republicans Use The Constitution To Lie (article 1, section 6, subsection b) of The US Constitution
My Biographical Profile
My Philosophy Of Life
24 Hour Suicide And Crisis Help Center
How to stop a suicide
Entries And Articles of Significance…
For Those Who Said I Never Knew Ronald Reagan, They Lied
My Encounter With Joan Baez
My Time Studying The Anasazi Indians
My 250 Million Variable Characteristic Hieroglyphic Language
My Tribute To Jim Varney
The Pebble And The Penguin
A Diamond On A Sea Of Glass
Regarding Me And My Journal
My Spinal Fusion And Me Doing 250 Situps
An Installment Notation of The Maschke Family History and Legacy
It’s A Crime
Hey God! You There? I’m Tired… Ok?
In The Midst Of Darkness The Smallest Spark Lights My Way…
I Wrote Something A Long Time Ago…
Kmart To Close Five More Ohio Stores
The Vanishing Of America
A Place Called Earth
How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down On The Farm
Sounds
Reality …
Second Gear
My Financial Analysis Of The Global Economic System
Adventures In Technocracy
An Explanation Of Vernacular Dynamics and Sequencing Regarding Various Forms of Advocacy
The Tortoise and the Hare
The Silent Seconds…
Quantum Mechanics And Newtonian Metaphysics
My Global Warming Research
For the record, I am pro-life. I do not support violence against, or the killing of any human being under any circumstances! And the only way that I ever deviate from that stand is that I do not believe that God has ever given any human the right to dictate to any woman how she is to arbitrate her life with the Almighty, and/or God. Therefore, I believe that all women deserve the right to choose for themselves the fate of their own bodies, pursuant to their relationship with the Almighty, and/or God. For an expanded explanation please see my article entitled: "Second Gear"
Everyone is more or less familiar with the various forms of creationism today, Christianity, Islam, and Intelligent Design, despite the fact that most advocators of Intelligent Design claim it to be a scientific theory just like evolution (although, it’s far from it). However, what most people are not familiar with is how fragile, and imperfect, albeit complex, we actually are.
Now, I don’t mean to attack religion or faith. They had their place in society, culture, and history, and maybe they still do, that is a topic for another post. No, I merely wish to shed some light on the subject of human design.
Working on my second year of medical school, and having scratched the tip of the iceberg with regards to human anatomy and physiology, especially now studying neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, I’ve come to realize, even moreso, how imperfect we are built, and not only that, but how many unconscience mechanisms are in place controlling our thoughts and actions. Makes you wonder if there really is such a thing as free will.
Countless examples in human anatomy show how poorly we really are built. Maybe the first example that pops into my mind when thinking about this is hernias, or in other words, when things in your body end up someplace else, where they normally wouldn’t or shouldn’t be. Hernias can happen almost anywhere, especially between the cavities of the thorax and abdomen, through the diaphragm. What about the blind spot of the eye? Or the lousy back support we have (as a result of evolving from animals that walk on four legs, to animals that walk on two)? The list goes on.
Looking at human physiology, especially neurophysiology, also opened my eyes to this topic. The brain alone is highly complex, and still somewhat of a mystery. But, we know there are several parts which control how we think, act, and live, that we are not even conscience of. One example that really stuck in my head is the chotomic and non-chotomic mechanisms of eye fixation. When we look with our eyes, the chotomic mechanism controls the way our eyes look for a subject to focus on, while non-chotomic fixation allows our eyes to focus on a subject once found. A problem in one of these mechanisms, and you lose the ability to either focus on a subject, or to look away after focusing on a subject (this person has to literally cover their eyes to break the focus,).
Don’t get me wrong, the body is an incredible machine, its structure and physiology are highly complex, and truly amazing. All of the structures and mechanisms are not even fully understood yet. But, just like anything else, there are flaws, and it is not something to forget.
And don’t take my word for it either, search the internet, or library, and find several articles, books, and posts on this very topic.
Nanotechnology was the technologies of the future. Now the future is looking more and more like the present as Cornell researchers have attached antibodies to nanoparticles to attack colorectal cancer cells.
ITHACA, N.Y. – Another weapon in the arsenal against cancer: Nanoparticles that identify, target and kill specific cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.
Led by Carl Batt, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Food Science, the researchers synthesized nanoparticles – shaped something like a dumbbell – made of gold sandwiched between two pieces of iron oxide. They then attached antibodies, which target a molecule found only in colorectal cancer cells, to the particles. Once bound, the nanoparticles are engulfed by the cancer cells.
To kill the cells, the researchers use a near-infrared laser, which is a wavelength that doesn’t harm normal tissue at the levels used, but the radiation is absorbed by the gold in the nanoparticles. This causes the cancer cells to heat up and die.
“This is a so-called ’smart’ therapy,” Batt said. “To be a smart therapy, it should be targeted, and it should have some ability to be activated only when it’s there and then kills just the cancer cells.”
One can imagine a variety of ways to activate toxins once those toxins have entered cancer cells. The challenge is that to just come up with antibodies that will target all the cancer in a body is a major challenge.
I am wondering whether cancer will ultimately be stopped by precisely delivered poisons or by pieces of RNA delivered into cancer cells to suppress and activate selected genes in the DNA. It is like the difference between bombs and software. Blow up the cells up or regain control over them?
Tip # 5: Be Different. Stand out in the application process!
There are far too many “cookie cutter” applicants who all look the same on paper and in black interview suits. You need to set yourself apart from all of the other applicants.
Figure out what is special about you and what you have to offer the field of medicine that is different from all of the other applicants. Get involved in a variety of activities and when you find something that you love, stick with it.
Participate in activities because you really want to do them and enjoy them, not because they will look good on your resume.
Nanotechnology is proving to have many medical applications, and the bulk of those apps are in cancer research. Here’s the latest from Cornell.
The release:
Like little golden assassins, ’smart’ nanoparticles identify, target and kill cancer cells
ITHACA, N.Y. – Another weapon in the arsenal against cancer: Nanoparticles that identify, target and kill specific cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.
Led by Carl Batt, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Food Science, the researchers synthesized nanoparticles – shaped something like a dumbbell – made of gold sandwiched between two pieces of iron oxide. They then attached antibodies, which target a molecule found only in colorectal cancer cells, to the particles. Once bound, the nanoparticles are engulfed by the cancer cells.
To kill the cells, the researchers use a near-infrared laser, which is a wavelength that doesn’t harm normal tissue at the levels used, but the radiation is absorbed by the gold in the nanoparticles. This causes the cancer cells to heat up and die.
“This is a so-called ’smart’ therapy,” Batt said. “To be a smart therapy, it should be targeted, and it should have some ability to be activated only when it’s there and then kills just the cancer cells.”
The goal, said lead author and biomedical graduate student Dickson Kirui, is to improve the technology and make it suitable for testing in a human clinical trial. The researchers are now working on a similar experiment targeting prostate cancer cells.
“If, down the line, you could clinically just target the cancer cells, you could then spare the health surrounding cells from being harmed – that is the critical thing,” Kirui said.
Gold has potential as a material key to fighting cancer in future smart therapies. It is biocompatible, inert and relatively easy to tweak chemically. By changing the size and shape of the gold particle, Kirui and colleagues can tune them to respond to different wavelengths of energy.
Once taken up by the researchers’ gold particles, the cancer cells are destroyed by heat – just a few degrees above normal body temperature – while the surrounding tissue is left unharmed. Such a low-power laser does not have any effect on surrounding cells because that particular wavelength does not heat up cells if they are not loaded up with nanoparticles, the researchers explained.
Using iron oxide – which is basically rust – as the other parts of the particles might one day allow scientists to also track the progress of cancer treatments using magnetic resonance imaging, Kirui said, by taking advantage of the particles’ magnetic properties.
###
The research was funded by the Sloan Foundation and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, which has been a partner with Cornell since 1999 to bring laboratory work to clinical testing. The research is reported in the Feb. 15 online edition of the journal Nanotechnology.
I went here again. After vowing I wouldn’t. But this time it was awesome. Probably because I was one of the more, um, enthusiastic campers this year. Maybe it was the anticipation of a night of inebriation. A night that I thought of surprisingly often during the week leading up to it, thinking “Yes, right now you are lugging three bags full of notes, a computer, your lunch AND dinner and don’t look like coming home before 9pm but…there is a alcohol-induced relaxation in four sleeps.”
I am now that someone who looks longingly forward to getting drunk. Having just looked at treating alcohol-dependance I’m aware that’s one big step in an interesting direction. I now understand my friend,who, when he started med 6 six ago, tried to explain that when you work so hard, you have to play hard. And fast. To get the maximum out of that allocated night.
My study routine has been more serious this year. More midnight oil. More caffeine. More stationary involved. There are scissors, glue sticks, coloured pens, sticky tab things and multiple books. I’m just barely keeping my head above the surface of the information tidal wave by grasping onto this ridiculous amount of stationary. It’s keeping me afloat.
I am slightly behind but I know I can make it up if I study all this weekend. Something I wouldn’t even contemplate last year, but now is just a given. The work has to be done. So it will be done. The end.
My bachelor-of-arts-habits just won’t cut it with Med. The long afternoon reading sessions curled up with a novel and a tea. Weekends of recipes that came with cooking times of days, not minutes. Ringing friends to go do something, anything, anywhere because “I’m bored”. Whole “days off”. These concepts just won’t fit inside this new year. They didn’t fit last year, no matter how hard I tried to make them.
Reading blogs for 10 minutes. Sitting on the sun-drenched balcony for a quick breakfast. Tea in the library. Meals of dip + bread + fruit. Packets in my locker. Supplements. Calling a neglected friend whilst walking to or from uni, or waiting for lunch to heat up in the common room microwave. Afternoons off. Sleeping.
One of my favorite electronic collections is the Credo Reference collection. It includes well over 400 reference works, and what makes it amazing is that you can search them all at the same time. These items have just been added to the collection:
(Want to access databases from off-campus? Read this.)
Psychology:
Sun, Ron, ed. The Cambridge handbook of computational psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. (Publisher’s description)
Twol, Graham J., et al., eds. Dictionary of forensic psychology. Cullompton, Devon, UK: Willan, 2008. (Publisher’s description)
Nadel, Lynn, ed. Encyclopedia of cognitive science. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley, 2005. (Publisher’s description)
Social sciences:
Flannery, Daniel J., Alexander T. Vazsonyi, Irwin D. Waldman, eds. The Cambridge handbook of violent behavior and aggression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. (Publisher’s description)
Rowley, Charles K., and Friedrich Schneider, eds. The encyclopedia of public choice. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004. (Publisher’s description)
Science:
Porteous, Andrew, ed. Dictionary of environmental science and technology. Chichester, West Sussex, England: Wiley, 2008. (Publisher’s description)
Cooper, David N., ed. Encyclopedia of the human genome. Chichester: Wiley, 2005. (Publisher’s description)
Medicine:
Ramachandran, V.S., ed. Encyclopedia of the human brain. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2002. (Publisher’s description)
History:
Wilson, Katharina M., and Nadia Margolis, eds. Women in the Middle Ages: an encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. (Publisher’s description)
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has a very high heritability (0.8), suggesting that about 80% of phenotypic variance is due to genetic factors. This study used the integration of statistical and functional approaches to discover a novel gene that contributes to ADHD. For the statistical approach, the researchers started with a linkage study based on large multigenerational families in a population isolate, followed by fine mapping of targeted regions using a family-based design. Family- and population-based association studies in five samples from disparate regions of the world were used for replication. Brain imaging studies were performed to evaluate gene function. The linkage study discovered a genome region harbored in the Latrophilin 3 gene (LPHN3).
In the world-wide samples (total n=6360, with 2627 ADHD cases and 2531 controls) statistical association of LPHN3 and ADHD was confirmed. Functional studies revealed that LPHN3 variants are expressed in key brain regions related to attention and activity, affect metabolism in neural circuits implicated in ADHD, and are associated with response to stimulant medication. Linkage and replicated association of ADHD with a novel non-candidate gene (LPHN3) provide new insights into the genetics, neurobiology, and treatment of ADHD.
Authors: M Arcos-Burgos, M Jain, M T Acosta et. al.
National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Published in: Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication 16 February 2010;doi: 10.1038/mp.2010.6
Online video viewing accelerates – where is Pharma? (Pharma Strategy Blog)
The number of videos viewed grew almost 150%, from 14.3 billion to 33.2 billion, while the duration of the average video viewed grew 28%, from 3.2 to 4.1 minutes.
The top-10 words doctor writers should ban (The Doctor Writer): Really valid suggestions including benign or acute.
Medicine 2.0 in a historical perspective (Biomedicine on Display)
Google Buzz “antisocial networking” exposed details of “estranged spouses, current lovers, attorneys and doctors” (Clinical Cases and Images): “Doctors should be very cautious when using social media to communicate with patients. In general, “friending” patients on Facebook, Buzz and Twitter is not a good idea at the current level of social network services, and is best avoided.”
Is Self-Guided Research Dangerous to Your Health? (The Decision Tree)
The Connected Physician (Pharma 2.0): Bunny Ellerin discusses the recent Manhattan Research Report focusing on physicians.
Researcher Creates ‘Facebook for Scientists’ (New York Times):
Enter ResearchGATE, which its founder Dr. Ijad Madisch (pictured) fairly describes as “Facebook for scientists.” In close to two years of operation, ResearchGate has built a social network of more than 250,000 researchers from 196 countries. Over 1,000 subgroups have been formed for specific disciplines, and 60,000 research documents have been uploaded for sharing with others on the site. These guys aren’t pretending they’re farmers.
. They are oval and usually yellow to white. Nits take about 1 week to hatch.
and resembles a miniature crab when viewed through a strong magnifying glass. Pubic lice have six legs, but their two front legs are very large and look like the pincher claws of a crab; this how they got the nickname “crabs.” Pubic lice are tan to greyish-white in color. Females lay nits; they are usually larger than males. To live, adult lice need to feed on blood. If the louse falls off a person, it dies within 1-2 days.
Tip # 5: Be Different. Stand out in the application process!
I went here again. After vowing I wouldn’t. But this time it was awesome. Probably because I was one of the more, um, enthusiastic campers this year. Maybe it was the anticipation of a night of inebriation. A night that I thought of surprisingly often during the week leading up to it, thinking “Yes, right now you are lugging three bags full of notes, a computer, your lunch AND dinner and don’t look like coming home before 9pm but…there is a alcohol-induced relaxation in four sleeps.”