boring old corn dna, new york mist, fear good pleasure bad
October 31, 2008 at 4:37 pm | In culture, graphic art, movies, photography, photoshop, science | Leave a CommentFruit flys and corn DNA, why would anyone want to study such silly things, Corn researchers discover novel gene shut-off mechanisms
University of Delaware scientists, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Arizona and South Dakota State University, have identified unusual differences in the natural mechanisms that turn off, or “silence,” genes in corn. The discovery, which was made by comparing the impact of inactivating a gene that occurs in both corn and in the much-studied laboratory plant Arabidopsis, provides new insight into how one of the world’s most important crops protects itself from mutation-causing mobile DNA elements and viruses.
Corn is America’s largest farm crop. We use it to feed people and what was once that hamburger you had for lunch. We get most of our sugar ( sweeteners) from corn, not the environmental catastrophe known as sugar cane – cola drinks are sweetened with corn syrup. Pet food has or can have lots of nasty meat by products, but its mostly composed of corn – America spends about $40 billion dollars a year on pet food. America doesn’t just produce enough corn for us, but produce over 40% of the world’s corn. All corn varieties are descended from the corn crops cultivated by native Americans over 5000 years ago. If you know how to turn a corn gene – specifically RNA that repress repetitive sequences in this case – on and off you’re a little closer to being able to turn off disease causing genes in animals.
Socialists: Obama no socialist
John Bachtell, the Illinois organizer for Communist Party USA, sees attempts by Sen. John McCain’s campaign to label Obama a socialist as both offensive to socialists and a desperate ploy to tap into fears of voters who haven’t forgotten their Cold War rhetoric.
[ ]…”Obama is about as far from being a socialist as Joe The Plumber is from being a rocket scientist,” said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. “I think it’s hard for McCain to call Obama a socialist when George Bush is nationalizing banks.”
And this from Bruce Carruthers, a sociology professor at Northwestern University: “Obama is like a center-liberal Democrat, and he is certainly not looking to overthrow capitalism. My goodness, he wouldn’t have the support of someone like The Wizard of Omaha, Warren Buffet, if he truly was going to overthrow capitalism.”
There’s the school of thought that when you’re a victim of freakish accusations to respond rationally with facts. In a way you don’t have much choice, but the accusations are not about facts , they’re about what people want to believe.
Curious use of local censorship, ‘Zack and Miri’ Banned in Utah
Utah Jazz and Megaplex Theaters owner Larry Miller has refused to book the film. The chain’s spokesman Cal Gunderson expressed concerns about the film with The New York Post, citing the film’s “graphic nudity and graphic sex” and that it was “too close to an NC-17.”
The company’s standards seem a little odd considering that the chain had no problems screening ultra-violent fare like “Saw V,” which features beheadings and explicit self-mutilation.
Not a big fan of torture porn like Saw, but banning it would have little benefit for society. ‘Zack and Miri’ have flashes of nudity with ’strong’ language’. The combination of which will turn your eyes into burning coals and your ears to dust. Most humans, just esthetically speaking look better clothed, but even the plainest nude person has more visual appeal then a beheading. Maybe that’s the key, feeling fear and revulsion are seen as good, but feeling pleasure from light entertainment is seen as unhealthy. Fear good, pleasure bad. In a thousand years, if we still have cultural anthropologists, they’ll get a kick out our cultural norms.
thin cerebral line between love and hate, the presidential, hide your keys
October 30, 2008 at 4:42 pm | In photography, photoshop, science, tech culture | Leave a Comment
Brain’s ‘Hate Circuit’ Identified
The ‘hate circuit’ includes structures in the cortex and in the sub-cortex and has components that are important in generating aggressive behaviour, and translating this into action through motor planning, as if the brain becomes mobilised to take some action. It also involves a part of the frontal cortex that has been considered critical in predicting the actions of others, probably an important feature when one is confronted by a hated person.
The subcortical activity involves two distinct structures, the putamen and insula. The former, which has been implicated in the perception of contempt and disgust,
Hate, the polar opposite of love, must have its own discreet circuit. People don’t date, have friendships with, marry or make love to someone that registers on the hate circuit?
“Significantly, the putamen and insula are also both activated by romantic love. This is not surprising. The putamen could also be involved in the preparation of aggressive acts in a romantic context, as in situations when a rival presents a danger. Previous studies have suggested that the insula may be involved in responses to distressing stimuli, and the viewing of both a loved and a hated face may constitute such a distressing signal.
I used to know a couple that started as a professional relationship. Except that she acted as though and told just about everyone that she hated him. Some late night overtime on a project forced them together which also happened to be around a holiday. He didn’t hate her, but knew by way of gossip how she felt. Most of the time if one knows that someone hates them, they at least dislike the hater. In an odd way he didn’t mind it, the hate took some of the sexual tension out of their working relationship. So being the end of the night and the season to be merry and all he offered her a drink. They lived together for almost a year.
In the future we may think twice about leaving our keys lying around, Keys Can be Copied From Afar, Jacobs School Computer Scientists Show
UC San Diego computer scientists have built a software program that can perform key duplication without having the key. Instead, the computer scientists only need a photograph of the key.
There is a photograph at the link of a set of keys made from 195ft away and the working key they made from the photo. They claim that locksmiths have been aware that a good resolution photo could be used to make a copy of a key for some time now. This new software and the ability of computers to extract information previously known only to locksmiths will give amateurs that same ability. They mention that many people at social networking sites will blur out credit card numbers from personal photos, but leave keys in view – que the ominous organ music.
the best photos to find a missing child, river ice, high school the end product of evolution
October 29, 2008 at 4:15 pm | In culture, photography, photoshop, sociology | Leave a CommentAbducted Children: Conventional Photos Alone Don’t Aid The Search
People’s ability to recognise abducted children is impaired when they view a photo of a smiling, clean child, but come into contact with the same child whose appearance is very different because he or she is upset, crying, dishevelled or unkempt. This is the key finding of a study published today in Applied Cognitive Psychology.
What a strange new burden for parents. Taking pictures every eight months or so that include your child in turns being angry, dirty, tired and crying. Almost like compiling a negligent parent file against themselves. Though in the rare chance that one’s child is lost o kidnapped, certainly worth the trouble.
“Once we’re angry, irritated, we become prosecutors, and our reasoning gets hijacked by our need to build our own case,” he says. So he suggests we can stop the prosecution by making even a small gesture of conciliation. We don’t have to acknowledge we are wholly in the wrong, but changing our tone, conceding we shouldn’t have said something, or said it in such a way, can trigger the reciprocity impulse in our opponent.
If you ever have any authority over someone as a teacher or manager, guaranteed this will happen to you. Except for those times in theaters, sporting events and celebrations at the pub. So, OK everyone eventually will, ever so politely of course, point out an error or boorish behavior and suddenly find they have found someone who’s ego is so fragile that you must suffer the worse of rhetorical tongue lashings, if not an invitation to the parking lot. They’re the one that cut in line, took a phone call during the lecture or made a math error that could cost the company thousands, but you’re the bad guy. The conciliation method can work in a more formal situation, but outside of those its a judgment call.
You could say our lives as social beings are ruled by the three R’s: respect—the sense that proper deference has been paid to our status, reputation—the carefully maintained perception of our qualities, and reciprocity—the belief that our actions are responded to fairly. In other words, high school may be the most perfect recapitulation of the evolutionary pressures that shaped us as a species.
I have pretty much accepted that life is like high school, except with crows feet and an aching back, but I don’t think I’ll ever get over the disappointment at finding that it is.
This behavior is right out of junior high, Ooooooh, Barracuda!
But that said, all I can tell you is that some McCain allies are now quite suspect of Palin and worried that Sen. McCain is going to become just the latest Palin ally whom she uses – and then discards — in her rapid ascendance to power.
The “used” list are all fellow travelers in la-la land, and I mean that ideologically, not geographically.
zoom, mad men and missile crisis, aging is so unsmooth, is fox on drugs
October 28, 2008 at 5:37 pm | In culture, media, photography, photoshop, science | Leave a Comment
Heather Havrilesky over at Salon and I may never agree on Hank Moody of Californication, but she captures Don Draper and the rest of the Mad Men characters in a way that almost makes me believe in ESP, Finale wrap-up: “Mad Men”
Of course, Betty’s revelation to Don about her pregnancy, however subdued, may be the ultimate reckoning moment of the finale. Don has successfully wriggled back into his home by apologizing to Betty in a heartfelt letter, but now neither of them can share in the romantic notion that Don’s big gesture made a bit of difference. Whether or not they want a baby is beside the point; Don and Betty are stuck together, and no sweet sentiments can sugarcoat their captivity. Don’s stricken look in the wake of Betty’s news doesn’t reflect his reluctance to have another child so much as his disappointment in realizing that he’s being welcomed back not as a flawed, hurt person trying to make a connection, but as a provider. Don and Betty’s only chance at a real connection — total honesty — is made impossible by their circumstances.
After all he’s done why do we still like, or maybe the better word is root for Don. Betty is the far more sympathetic of the two and while I can understand her desire to have a payback affair, I don’t get the logic. In order for it to be an effective revenge she has to tell Don.
Coincidence or clever planning by the Mad Men producers that today coincides with the theme of the finale. The Cuban Missile Crisis ended on this day in 1962.
We’re obsessed with aging. The irony is that with good genes, diet, exercise and decent health-care we can be active and in good shape into ages that would have been unthinkable in 1962. With the ironic exception of human skin, which loses its elasticity as we age no matter how many vitamins or laps we take, Red LEDs could make anti-ageing device
Previous studies have suggested that red light with a wavelength of around 670 nanometres can make water molecules close to hydrophilic substances more mobile. So Sommer and Zhu aimed powerful red LEDs at the skin around the eyes for 90 seconds daily for 10 months, and found that it significantly reduced wrinkles
The sun comes up, Fox tells another lie, Fox Echoing Drudge, Fox News on-screen text flat wrong about Obama’s Redistribution comments on Supreme Court
“What the critics are missing is that the term ‘redistribution’ didn’t man in the Constitutional context equalized wealth or anything like that. It meant some positive rights, most prominently the right to education, and also the right to a lawyer,” Sunstein said. “What he’s saying – this is the irony of it – he’s basically taking the side of the conservatives then and now against the liberals.”
I disagree with that interpretation. Obama’s take was a combination of the practical fiscal obstacles that go along with seeking relief through the courts. In classical liberal tradition he thought in the long run it would be better to form cultural consensuses related to resolving issues of inequality through the legislative branch. Doing so would involve the citizenry, thus minimizing resentment and avoiding the awkward involvement of the courts in the costs of changing things as in school integration. A Lincolnesque Republican, an endangered species, would be comforted by that school of legal thought, but there are few of those in modern Conservatism.
I’m just greatful I don’t live next door, I hate bickering, McCain adviser calls Palin ‘a whack job.’
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