Fifteen Year Old Boy uses Genome to Locate Birth Father

 The take home is that it is possible to identify a person from his genome and soon to be cheaply available. The good news is that it is not a gold mine. The bad news is that genetic anonymity has ended when a fifteen year old boy can nail it and it starts been good enough for half the targets.

Our society can and will recognize parenthood only on the basis of the genome. This allows imposing child care obligations exclusively on the biological parents and to do this unilaterally. It may not be fair, but the alternative is also not fair. One can foresee mothers collecting contributing birth fathers just to spread the financial load.

One more delightful change in the social contract now coming up!

This also tells us that criminal behavior just became even more risky. If most DNA can be traced back to a surname with ease, it is as good as hot pursuit. It is almost impossible to not leave traces even in a simple robbery just in a fingerprint. Thus cheap DNA testing combined with huge databases will run most down.

Scientists Discover How to Identify People From ‘Anonymous’ Genomes

BY GREG MILLER
01.17.13

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/your-genome-could-reveal-your-identity/

Most people participate in genomic research because they hope the DNA they offer up will help scientists uncover the roots of human diversity and disease. They generally expect to remain anonymous. But they may not be.

Researchers armed with little more than an internet connection identified nearly 50 people who participated in a large genomic study based on some of the participants’ genomes and other publicly accessible information.

The researchers do not name these individuals, and they insist their intentions were good. “We are not trying to start a panic,” said Yaniv Erlich of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, who led the new study. “We are trying to illuminate some of the gaps in privacy we have right now and initiate a public discussion.”

Scientists and research subjects aren’t the only ones who have a stake in that conversation, says genomics pioneer George Church, of Harvard Medical School. Today, a genome can be sequenced for a few thousand dollars, and the cost continues to drop.

“Soon you’ll be sequencing yourself and your dog and your plants,” Church said.

The new study shows that those sequences can sometimes be traced back to the individuals they came from.

Erlich and his team started with the observation that Y-chromosomes and surnames tend to go together. That’s because sons always inherit their father’s Y-chromosome and typically inherit his surname.

Certain genetic stutters on the Y-chromosome, in which the letters of the genetic code repeat over and over, vary widely in the general population but tend to be shared by closely related men.

In a few highly publicized cases, people have exploited this to find their sperm donor father. In 2005, for example, a 15-year old boy reportedly found his biological father after having his own Y-chromosome tested and combing a commercial genealogy website for close matches. These matches pointed to a potential surname, which the boy combined with other clues — including the sperm donor’s birth place and date — to track him down.

What Erlich’s team did is conceptually similar, but far more technically sophisticated. Instead of starting with a DNA sample, they started with 10 entire genomes publicly available as part of the international 1000 Genomes Project. An algorithm the researchers developed mined these genomes, all from men, for telltale variations in the Y chromosome. Then they searched two commercial genealogy databases for close matches and identified potential surnames. Finally, using additional details from the research records, such as the participants’ age and state of residence, as well as obituaries and other public documents, the team identified five of the 10 research participants and their entire families, which were also part of the genome research project, they report today in Science.

“It’s the first I’m aware of that individuals have been identified from research data without any other DNA sample,” said Laura Lyman Rodriguez, who directs the Division of Policy, Communications, and Education at the National Human Genome Research Institute (a branch of the NIH). “The chances of this happening for most people are very small, but they’re not zero,” Rodriguez said.

In a separate analysis, Erlich and colleagues estimated that their approach could be used to identify the surname of roughly 12 percent of Caucasian males in the United States from their genomes. For that 12 percent, additional public records searches could narrow the identity of each individual down to about 12 people. In other words, Erlich says, it’s not like any given person could be identified from their genome. But a sizable minority could.

That minority might be even bigger in European countries that historically have experienced less immigration than the U.S. has, says Mark Jobling, a human geneticist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. Jobling notes that waves of immigration and the legacy of slavery in the U.S. would tend to weaken the association between Y-chromosome sequences and surnames, because many slaves were forced to take on the names of their owners, for example, and many immigrants Anglicized their names to avoid standing out.

“Anonymity is a myth if you’ve got richly detailed genetic information and access to a variety of databases,” said Hank Greely, a law professor at Stanford University who specializes in the ethical and legal implications of emerging biotechnology. Researchers need to ensure informed consent from participants, Greely says, even if that means telling them it may not be possible to protect their privacy.

Rodriguez says the National Institutes of Health have already taken steps in response to the study, which Science’s editors made available to them prior to its publication. For example, participants’ ages have been stripped from the open access webpages of several large genomic studies and will be made available only to researchers who request them and agree not to try to discover the participants’ identities.

“Probably that’s not going to work,” Church said. Rather than making it harder to access data, researchers should be telling people who get their genomes sequenced that there’s a strong possibility they could be identified, and informing them of the possible consequences. Consent forms for the Personal Genome Project, an effort run by Church that aims to sequence the genomes of 100,000 people from the general population, informs prospective participants that if their genetic information ends up in the wrong hands it could result in anything from discrimination by unscrupulous employers or insurance companies to their DNA being synthesized and planted at a crime scene. They also have to take a test to prove they understand all this.

Despite these disclosures, few people are scared off, Church says. “Plenty of people with a variety of medical conditions are willing to participate, and many of these seem very proud of passing the test and the other rites of passage,” he said.

Surrogate Mother to Neanderthal

This is unexpected and also establishes that just about any creature that has gone extinct during the last twenty thousand years is prospective at least. I consider the creatures wiped out over the past five centuries and preserved in museum collections as inevitable recovery prospects. Most will require habitat reconstruction first but even that is just beginning to get underway. Most are islands anyway so it is possible at least.

I suspect that the passenger pigeon will have difficulties with rodents though.

At least the prospect is been raised and it would allow a lot of questions to be answered.

Neanderthal to be born to surrogate mother?

Posted on Saturday, 19 January, 2013 

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/viewnews.php?id=241361

There have been indications that a cloning experiment to create a live Neanderthal may be on the cards.

While the idea of using DNA from frozen mammoth remains to clone a live specimen is nothing new, the concept that we could do something similar to bring back extinct species of human such as Neanderthals may prove quite a shock to most people. Despite the technical and ethical difficulties inherent in such an endeavor, there are signs that some scientists may be considering research leading up to such an achievement and that they may need a surrogate human mother to deliver the child.

Recently Harvard Medical School geneticist George Church was quoted as saying that eventually, an "adventurous female human" would be required to act as a surrogate mother in the birth of the first Neanderthal in 30,000 years. It's a topic that Church has talked about before, in 2009 he hinted at the possibility of cloning a "near-Neanderthal" when the Neanderthal genome was first reported.

While the idea of reviving Neanderthals may sound farfetched, take for example the work of biologists to clone endangered or extinct non-human animals.

The Current State of Medical Care – A Doctor’s Perspective

Read this and weep.

I add one caveat. Socialized medicine, if that is what you want to call it needs to be made competitive by been regulated on a State by State basis at least. There will still by national associations to use when appropriate.

Otherwise the present US system is disgusting. Today, all Canadians have medical care and most if not all Canadians are happy. The only twist needs to be the availability of private clinics for those who wish to jump queue for certain procedures.

In short, the Canadian system can be made somewhat better but presently costs half as much to deliver one hundred percent.

That same system flew my sister in law and attending family from Regina to Toronto for brain surgery with the best talent available. They do as much for an Eskimo having a difficult delivery above the Arctic Circle. It may not be paradise but it is certainly not the hell that the American system is for at least 100,000,000 Americans.

A legitimate comparison leaves an investigator in a rage.

The Current State of Medical Care – A Doctor’s Perspective

Dr. Shawn Tassone, Guest Writer

January 8, 2013

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/01/08/the-current-state-of-medical-care-a-doctors-perspective/

A recent study of over 1,000 family practitioners stated that close to 70% of primary care providers would be either retiring or leaving medical care within the next 5 years.  While this is disturbing, what I found more disturbing is the responses to this story on google.  Most, if not all of the responses were blasting the medical professionals for being whiners and for making too much money.  Is that what patients are truly upset about is that their doctor is making too much money.  Obviously, people are entitled to their belief systems, but what a horrible system in which to operate.

Doctors are whiners?  The real reason that I will see 44-50 patients per day is because people call my office and need to be seen; does this make the patient a whiner?  I would say no, this means that the patient feels the need to see a doctor and on our end, we try to work them in so that this service can be provided.  In a socialized format, this phone call to be seen on the same day will be a thing of the past, and with lower numbers of doctors practicing medicine, there will be less appointments.

I am not starving to death and I never have complained about my income.  I can tell you that I have spent 4 years in medical school, 4 years in residency, and 2 years in fellowship (all after college), to get where I am today, and yet, there seems to be a culture in this country that 10 years of postgraduate work should not be monetarily rewarded, or if one makes money then this makes them a greedy or bad person somehow.  I am always fascinated how people make money in this country.  I know many people that did not graduate from college that are making more than me, and I do not belabor them; I wonder how they did it.

Medical reimbursements have not increased substantially in the last 10+ years, while hard costs for running an office, employee payroll, medical malpractice, and cost of equipment have increased substantially.  The main cost at my office is payroll and employee benefits and this increases yearly.  The reason for this increase is that we have wonderful employees and we pay them in order to keep them.  My main postulate is that we take care of people.  We make money as physicians and we give money back.  The truth of the matter is that money seems to be how people are judged in our society, and I am not sure this is a true measure of a person’s worth.

Medical care in this country is beyond sick, it is in the throes of death and will not be recovering.  Who is to blame?

* The doctors for making too much money?  If that were the case then why would more than 70% of primary care physicians be leaving medicine in the next few years.  I would think that the promise of a lucrative income would keep them plugging away.  The truth is that the work loads and patient dissatisfaction with their own casts is pushing physicians out of medicine.  The volume of paperwork is a monster that has consumed many medical practices and this is worsening.  Money is not worth the paper it is printed on….literally.  Physicians don’t make too much money, they are burned out trying to get the payments from insurance and buried under mountains of paperwork.

* The patients for not taking better care of themselves?   Unfortunately, one of the reasons we are one of the least healthy countries in the world is not because of our medicine, it is because of our nutrition.  When drive through burgers are cheaper than fresh produce, this is a problem.  When the main portion of a diet are aspartame, corn syrup, and meat byproducts (whatever those are), then this is a problem.  We have expensive medical care, no doubt, but we use it too much.  Patients are plagued by rising medical insurance costs and many of them have no idea what their plans even cover.  Medical insurance is only good in this country if you don’t get sick.  Patients should be rewarded for being the right weight and for being healthy.  Health insurance should also be there for patients when they need it.

* Frivolous lawsuits.  While lawsuits are definitely warranted in cases of gross negligence, the amount of frivilous lawsuits yearly is laughable.  Similar to the woman that burned herself on coffee from McDonalds and won multiple millions of dollars (now we have warnings that our coffee is hot) for something that seemed common sense.  We want to blame someone when complications happen.  Unfortunately, medical care is not perfect, because the people giving the care are human.  We have a robot for surgery.  The robot is still run by a human being.

* Insurance companies.  You pay the premiums, they deny procedures.  You drive out of the state where you reside and your coverage stays behind (ridiculous).  Have you ever really sat down and read your policy?  Do you know what they pay for if you go to the emergency room?  Do you know what your copay is for a visit at the doctor’s office.  Did you know that copays and premiums have been skyrocketing for years and reimbursements for procedures and physician visits have not……..where is this money going?  If the insurance companies would spend more time paying for legitimate healthcare that you have subsidized with your premium payments, rather than spending money on trying to find a reason for denial, it would more than likely save money.

The main point of this essay, is to point out the fact that our medial system is ready to die and I think we need to let it go.  I might get raked over the coals by colleagues for this, but if Obama wants to socialize medicine, I say let it be.  I am very suspicious that socialized medicine will work and I am not for paying higher taxes, but I think the current system is disgusting.  If socialized medicine means that patients are happy, this in turn will truly help me sleep better at night.  I think consumers should be happy with the product they receive, and while I feel that physicians are doing the best we can, the patients are not happy.  Physicians let managed care take over in the 80′s and we should jump on the grenade created by the current state of affairs. Medicine is controlled by bureaucracies and socialized medicine would be the biggest bureaucracy of them all.

The question would be, once medicine is controlled by Uncle Sam, will we be a healthier nation?  Will we be able to regulate something that has been removed from the public sector.  How many jobs will be lost just in the private insurance sector?  These are questions that need to be evaluated.

This article is featured as part of a partnership with AllThingsHealing.com.

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DNA Data Storage Mastered

This has long been in the cards and now it is easily done.  This suggests that a living dynamic storage protocol could well make good sense and yes, it can be stuffed into a living organism for safe keeping perhaps.

It also begs another question.  Just when are we going to reverse transcribe the human genome to see if it contains plausible readable content.  With so much clearly unidentified it may have already been used to store data.

It would be an interesting project for cryptologists.   Because of our prior human emergence and the enhancement of our own humanity, it is safe to say that if the conjecture of plausible encoding is correct then it was in fact done.  Thus this suggestion is not unreasonable at all.

Researchers use DNA to store huge amounts of data

 JANUARY 24, 2013

Malcolm Ritter

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/science/Researchers+store+huge+amounts+data/7867880/story.html

It can store the information from a million CDs in a space no bigger than your little finger and could keep it safe for centuries.

Is this some new electronic gadget? Nope. It’s DNA.

The genetic material has long held all the information needed to make plants and animals, and now some scientists are saying it could help handle the growing storage needs of today’s information society.

Researchers reported Wednesday that they had stored all 154 Shakespeare sonnets, a photo, a scientific paper, and a 26-second sound clip from U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. That all fit in a barely visible bit of DNA in a test tube.

The process involved converting the ones and zeros of digital information into the four-letter alphabet of DNA code. That code was used to create stands of synthetic DNA. Then machines “read” the DNA molecules and recovered the encoded information.

That reading process took two weeks, but technological advances are driving that time down, said Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute in Hinxton, England. He’s an author of a report published online by the journal Nature.

DNA could be useful for keeping huge amounts of information that must be kept for a long time but not retrieved very often, the researchers said. Storing the DNA would be relatively simple, they said: Just put it in a cold, dry and dark place and leave it alone.

The technology might work in the near term for large archives that have to be kept safe for centuries, like national historical records or huge library holdings, said study co-author Nick Goldman of the institute.

Maybe in a decade it could become feasible for consumers to store information they want to have around in 50 years, like wedding photos or videos for future grandchildren, Goldman said in an email.

The researchers said they have no plans to put storage DNA into a living thing, and it couldn’t accidentally become part of a living thing.

Read more: 

http://www.canada.com/Researchers+store+huge+amounts+data/7867880/story.html#ixzz2J9JTC7tF

Trees and Human Health Linked

 It is still startling that the linkage should be so easily demonstrated. There are plenty of indirect reasons to promote tree culture and we have been out there cheer-leading. Yet to see a shift in statistics cleanly related to the removal of trees is a little unexpected. I would have expected a way more ambiguous signal.

The answer of course for cities everywhere is to build and plant as a matter of course as we generally experience in Vancouver. This also results in a huge bird population. It does not seem like much and the cost is modest against most urban expenditures, but the difference produced is literally night and day.

I recall flying into LA and looking at miles of backyards and streets devoid of trees and a compelling argument for apartment dwelling. I know it takes scarce water but the difference in living quality is palpable. Cover that same valley with trees and you will even have a restoration of rainfall at night.

Tree and human health may be linked

by Staff Writers

Portland OR (SPX) Jan 18, 2013

The emerald ash borer was first discovered near Detroit, Michigan, in 2002. The borer attacks all 22 species of North American ash and kills virtually all of the trees it infests.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Tree_and_human_health_may_be_linked_999.html

Evidence is increasing from multiple scientific fields that exposure to the natural environment can improve human health. In a new study by the U.S. Forest Service, the presence of trees was associated with human health.

For Geoffrey Donovan, a research forester at the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station, and his colleagues, the loss of 100 million trees in the eastern and midwestern United States was an unprecedented opportunity to study the impact of a major change in the natural environment on human health.

In an analysis of 18 years of data from 1,296 counties in 15 states, researchers found that Americans living in areas infested by the emerald ash borer, a beetle that kills ash trees, suffered from an additional 15,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease and 6,000 more deaths from lower respiratory disease when compared to uninfected areas. When emerald ash borer comes into a community, city streets lined with ash trees become treeless.

The researchers analyzed demographic, human mortality, and forest health data at the county level between 1990 and 2007. The data came from counties in states with at least one confirmed case of the emerald ash borer in 2010. The findings-which hold true after accounting for the influence of demographic differences, like income, race, and education-are published in the current issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

"There's a natural tendency to see our findings and conclude that, surely, the higher mortality rates are because of some confounding variable, like income or education, and not the loss of trees," said Donovan. "But we saw the same pattern repeated over and over in counties with very different demographic makeups."

Although the study shows the association between loss of trees and human mortality from cardiovascular and lower respiratory disease, it did not prove a causal link. The reason for the association is yet to be determined.

The emerald ash borer was first discovered near Detroit, Michigan, in 2002. The borer attacks all 22 species of North American ash and kills virtually all of the trees it infests.

The study was conducted in collaboration with David Butry, with the National Institute of Standards and Technology; Yvonne Michael, with Drexel University; and Jeffrey Prestemon, Andrew Liebhold, Demetrios Gatziolis, and Megan Mao, with the Forest Service's Southern, Northern, and Pacific Northwest Research Stations.

European Agency Declares Pesticide Too Dangerous for Bees

In 2007, I posted here that the linkage between this pesticide protocol and Colony Collapse Disorder was clear and obviously understood by the proponents merely by the way the studies were been obviously gamed.  Since then the Bee keeping industry is wise and has been assiduously avoiding the risk as much as they are able.

In the meantime the industry has continued to stonewall while they keep selling.  Major bans are in place in parts of Europe and this particular study makes the case as clear as possible while still remaining polite.  It should be obvious that any pesticides too dangerous for bees have no place in field agriculture were interacting with bees, both tame and wild becomes inevitable.

Yet were are the class action suits and the outrage?

We have already gone a full five years and anyone able to comment has stepped up and said as much.  This needs to be banned.

One thing that this blog has allowed me to do is pick up on obvious misdirected science at work and related industry stonewalling to cover up serious mistakes.  It is no longer even about the profits involved which are often slight enough but about tort avoidance.

European agency declares popular pesticide too dangerous for bees

By Susie Cagle

http://grist.org/news/european-agency-declares-popular-pesticide-too-dangerous-for-bees/

Are you sick of hearing about colony collapse? Hey, me too! But I’m guessing the bees are even more fed up at this point.

For the first time, Europe’s food safety agency this week officially labeled the world’s most popular insecticide, imidacloprid, as so dangerous as to be unacceptable for use on crops pollinated by bees, though the body lacks the power to ban the chemical. The report also called into question two other types of neonicotinoid pesticides. All three sound super-evil.

From The Guardian:

[Imidacloprid's] manufacturer, Bayer, claimed the report, released on Wednesday, did not alter existing risk assessments and warned against “over-interpretation of the precautionary principle”.

The report comes just months after the UK government dismissed a fast-growing body of evidence of harm to bees as insufficient to justify banning the chemicals. …

Scientists at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), together with experts from across Europe, concluded on Wednesday that for imidacloprid “only uses on crops not attractive to honeybees were considered acceptable” because of exposure through nectar and pollen. Such crops include oil seed rape, corn and sunflowers. EFSA was asked to consider the acute and chronic effects on bee larvae, bee behaviour and the colony as a whole, and the risks posed by sub-lethal doses. But it found a widespread lack of information in many areas and had stated previously that current “simplistic” regulations contained “major weaknesses”.

Bayer and other chemical giants published their own report this week, claiming that banning neonicotinoids would cost farmers hundreds of millions. But neonicotinoid manufacturers will still have to give the European Commission a response to the EFSA report by the end of this month, and the Commissioncould actually possibly maybe ban the pesticides.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculturehave expressed concern over the chemicals in the past, but pretty much stopped there — at concern. And then approval. And then widespread spraying on just about everything we and the bees eat!

The EFSA isn’t a regulatory board, just an advisory one, so the E.U. doesn’t have to listen to its warnings. But bee health seems to be EFSA’s jam, and it’s not likely to back down. Last summer, the organization put together this video on all the threats to our tiny, stingy, pollinatey pals. It’s as cute as it is horrifying.

The more we learn about exactly what’s killing all the bees, the more the problem seems fixable, at least in theory. If the E.U. really goes to war with big chemical companies over tiny bees, it could be a game-changer. Meanwhile, the U.S. will be over here, still spraying with abandon.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets forTwitter.

Stronghold Haywire Klamper Review

If you grew up with a roll of baling wire to hand as I did, you will really appreciate this tool. It allows proper tension to be applied consistently.

I personally depended on it for almost all temporary repairs or rigging of any kind. Having an actual tool besides my hammer claw and pliers is clearly welcome.

For the uninitiated, baling wire is strong yet soft enough to do almost anything except stand up forever. It will rust out rather quickly if exposed and only slower if protected. Yet it is ideal for all temporary solutions. The hammer shown in the video is a perfect example. A repair like that is likely to keep that hammer in service for years even if it is 'temporary'. I feel right at home. No need to pick up a new hammer without the right feel.

Gear Review: The Stronghold Haywire Klamper by Jackson

http://pantryparatus.com/blog/klamper/

I received this interesting little tool after Wilson contacted me about this product.  He was looking for someone to test it out for functionality, durability, usefulness and uses.  I never buy a tool or an item unless I can come up with multiple uses for it.  Granted I do have tools that only have one use but not every tool can be used for multiple tasks.  This little Haywire Klamper is one that has untold amounts of useful applications. 

I received the Haywire Klamper in the mail and excitedly pulled it out of the plastic bag and all I could do was gaze at it. I then said out loud, “What in the world is this thing?”  As I moved it between my hands turning it over and over trying to figure out how it was used my smarter side walked up and grabbed the instructions and began to read.  She quickly showed me how it was supposed to go.  If only I would have looked at the instructions I would have seen the pictures showing its proper use.  I like having pictures as that is the kind of guy I am.

The instructions are extremely clear and easy to understand, even for a simple guy like myself.  As mentioned though the pictures help for those more inclined towards that method of learning.  The instructions also include proper lengths of wire needed for the size of clamp you are making.  I pulled the rest of the items out of the bag which included a roll of 14 gauge wire and a pre-made 5/8 double strength clamp. 

Here is the tool itself.

Of course next on the agenda was to find my first klamping victim.  I grabbed my wooden hammer to just see how the tool worked.  It does not take a lot of force to tighten down the wire as I discovered as it sunk deeply into the wood.  Twisting the handle is very easy and you do not encounter a lot of resistance while doing it, yet the klamp is extremely tight, but with just the lifting of the wire ends the klamp becomes loose and can be removed. 

 The first step is to cut your wire to the proper length.  The instructions give you the length of wire needed for klamping ¾ inch all the way to 4 inch hose.  Here we are experimenting with klamping two metal pipes together.  Form a loop in your cut wire.

Now rotate the wire in a “x” pattern around the metal bars.

You can see the loop just sticking over the metal bars.

Insert your free ends into the loop and connect the Haywire Klamper.

Begin tightening by rotating the handle until it is as tight as you need it and then rotate the klamper (by pivoting on the notch) off of the wire and trim the ends. 

The final product should look something like this.

 It takes a little practice but once you have the hang of it, it proceeds very quickly and easy. 

I took this over to a friend who does a lot of work on cars and motorcycles.  He absolutely loved it because of all the clamping he does and the cost of wire versus buying clamps.  He attempted to distract me and get me to forget the tool as I was leaving.  No such luck.  

I also took it out to my uncle’s farm.  Showed it to him and he was amazed that he hadn’t thought of it first.  (Things tend to work that way.)   But he used it to mend one of his fences, lashed a bale of hay and banded a bundle of wood with a little loop on the free end side to be able to carry a lot easier. 

The applications for this tool are only limited by your imagination.  I am going to experiment with building a shelter in the woods and continue to look for “outside of the box” ideas.  This is a definite for your shop, emergency kit or bug out bag, its light, durable and extremely handy. 

Remember, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and keep looking up as our redemption draws near.

Jackson

Pantry Paratus Gear Reviewer

True Face of Sportsmanship

Yes it is time to recall the models of great sportsmanship and Stan Musial is up there. We have endured at least forty years of endemic doping throughout the sports industry. From 1970 onward we have had the rise of sports 'science' which once you get past the physically possible and associated training protocols is all about how to recover from training so as to repeat the process. Dope and other protocols solved that problem.

It was always possible in theory for Lance Armstrong to win seven Tour de France Races. It just was never possible in practice without rapid and perfect recovery. The body simply lacks the time to do this naturally.

I do not know if we are now seeing the end of the drug culture. I think so.

The tragedy of the past decades is that hundreds of fine athletes missed their turn in the sun and this was obvious. With Lance passing off the scene, the US is chastened and will bend its energy to ensure a level field. Canada faced the same cleansing a couple of decades ago and refocused on true excellence and with the sports industry cleaning up, has prospered.

A race to the ethical bottom traps everyone. Lance was as much a victim as everyone in cycling was a victim of this race to the bottom.

The true face of sportsmanship

Father Raymond J. de Souza Jan 24, 2013

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/01/24/father-raymond-j-de-souza-the-true-face-of-sportsmanship/

Some 15 years ago, Princess Diana died in a Paris car crash and the whole world, save for the Queen, apparently went mad, confusing the death of a celebrity princess with that of a historic figure of heroic sanctity. So when Mother Teresa, an actual saint, died a few days later, it was as if God sent a gentle reminder about what authentic holiness looks like.

Perhaps similar forces were at work in the death of baseball legend Stan Musial on Saturday. All last week, the filth of Lance Armstrong’s prodigious mendacity coursed through the cable television veins of our culture. Armstrong intimated that he had to be corrupt because everyone else was corrupt. It was the approach we would expect from teenage boys behaving badly, not from someone who has been a role model to so many. So when Musial died, we remembered that his was a life that showed us what authentic manliness looked like. He was nicknamed “The Man,” and he was, just that. The real man is the virtuous man.

Stan The Man was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. He played his last game 50 years ago this September, and spent the half-century that followed as the face of the St. Louis Cardinals, never putting a foot wrong, never bringing anything but honour to the Cardinals, to St. Louis and to baseball itself.

When the archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, was named a cardinal last year, he was asked whether, when he was growing up in St. Louis, he had ever wanted to be a cardinal.

“Yes,” he replied. “When I was six years old, I wanted to be Stan Musial.”

Last Sunday, no longer six but in his 60s, the cardinal preached about Stan Musial on the day after his death. He still desires to be like Musial, not the ballplayer, but the faithful Christian and a good man. Or perhaps, to put it better, he desires that men looking for role models might discover Musial anew. Upon being made a cardinal, Dolan received his red hat from Pope Benedict XVI. Stan Musial sent him an autographed Cardinals’ hat. It’s the latter that greets visitors to the cardinal’s residence.

As a ballplayer, Musial became a first-ballot hall of famer after a career that included three World Series championships, 24 straight All-Star appearances, seven batting titles and three National League MVP awards. In 1963, he ranked in the all-time top 10 for hits, runs, doubles, home runs, RBIs, walks, total bases and slugging percentage. His 6,134 total bases were then a record (only Hank Aaron has passed him since 1963). His 3,630 hits are still fourth most all-time, behind only Pete Rose, Ty Cobb and Aaron.

In 1957, Sports Illustrated named him Sportsman of the Year. The accompanying profile began with an extended discussion of the nature of sportsmanship. The consensus was that whatever the definition of sportsmanship, Musial was the face of it. Former Cardinals’ manager Marty Marion said of Musial then: “Take Stan—nobody will beat you worse, but I’ve never seen him do one thing any man would be ashamed of anywhere.”

In the age of Mickey Mantle, that was an extraordinary compliment, but in today’s world, where athletes are inclined to broadcast things about themselves they ought to be ashamed of, it seems unimaginable.

Upon retirement, Life magazine profiled his last day. It began with him going to Mass in the morning, for he was a lifetime daily communicant, and while it eventually got around to the ballpark, the article focused more on Musial being a great man, rather than a great player.

He married on his 19th birthday and remained a faithful husband for 72 years. His beloved wife Lil died last spring, and it was only fitting that he would follow soon after. In 2011, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and it was difficult to know whether it was for his baseball career, or for being The Man for so long.

Stan Musial matters, more so in the week of Lance Armstrong’s lies. The greatest lie Armstrong told was that because everybody cheats, it must be OK to cheat. Not everybody does. Stan Musial didn’t. He didn’t cheat at the game, he didn’t cheat on his wife, he didn’t cheat his fans, he didn’t cheat, period. It is possible to do that and still be among the best ever.

It is a great lie that virtue is not possible, or that it is not possible to be good if one wants to do well. The old man in the red blazer teaches us differently. He did well and he was good. It is possible. The Man did it.

National Post

Father Raymond J. de Souza: We should have known better about Lance Armstrong

This week, Oprah declared Lance Armstrong “certainly the biggest interview I’ve ever done.” It will air on her cable network tonight and tomorrow.

How soon she forgets. It was 20 years ago next month that Oprah actually had the biggest TV interview of all time. Broadcast live worldwide, it was Michael Jackson’s first interview in 14 years, watched by 90 million people. And while all Armstrong has to offer is cheating and 15 years of lies, Jackson discussed being beaten by his father (denied by the father), plastic surgery (denied by Michael), his rare skin disease, children’s parties at his ranch — and it was capped off with Oprah gushing over Michael doing the moonwalk. Has the queen of talk forgotten the king of pop?

Well, Jackson is deceased and so no longer available for a ratings boost. “I have a dream of OJ Simpson confessing to me,” Oprah declared in 2011 when she ended her daily show and launched her network. Alas, OJ is in a Nevada prison, so the dream will have to be deferred. In the meantime, Armstrong is the readily available crook of the moment, so: lights, camera, confession. Oprah’s network needs ratings and Armstrong needed a sympathetic ear. It’s a win-win.

The Armstrong confession is a decade late and millions of dollars short. I initially believed Armstrong’s protestations of innocence — he was never caught by the testing system, after all, as he never tired of repeating. Yet it became untenable to uphold his innocence as the years went on. So many believed the unbelievable for too long, including me, because we overlooked the importance of character.

As the evidence of widespread corruption in cycling mounted, to believe that Armstrong was clean required a belief that he was a man of heroic virtue. To win clean in a dirty era would have meant more than that Armstrong was superhumanly athletic; he would have had to be a man of superlative moral character. To compete clean when rivals are dirty is an act of moral courage and heroism, for it would mean that all of the training, all of the effort, all of the sacrifice would likely be for naught. Cheaters cheat because they are more likely to win. Only a man of preternatural integrity is able to be honest in the face of that. Few men are able to choose defeat with honour over victory by deceit, especially when worldwide fame and wealth are on offer.

Was it ever plausible that Lance Armstrong was such a man? His two autobiographies present to us a man of surpassing vanity, ruthless ambition, seething resentments, broken promises and marital inconstancy. In an honest era, surrounded by honest men, a morally weak man might be propped up by his fellows. In a dishonest era, there is no chance. A bad man might behave well under the good influence of others. Armstrong was a corrupting influence in the company of corrupt men.

The question for a dozen years has been: Did he cheat? We now know that he did. The question of character is one that would have given us an answer much earlier: Is this the kind of man who would cheat if he could get away with it? That is not sufficient for a court of law, but would have led to a more accurate public judgment.

One mark of the morally noble man is to accept criticism — especially baseless criticism — with grace and magnanimity. At the top of his game, Armstrong had neither. He was cool to his friends and vicious to his enemies. He rounded mercilessly on those who dared to tell the truth about him. He treated with contempt anyone who dared question the legend of Lance.

All is in tatters today, but not for long. Oprah will bask in the tawdry glow of it all, and then return to pining for OJ. Armstrong, having confessed to corrupting cycling, will prove a suitable government witness in the corrupt American criminal justice system. Having proved adept at telling lies for so long, he ought to be able to achieve a measure of penal leniency if he tells the lies that the prosecutors now want to hear. Lance may well prosper again, for a dishonest age honours its own.

China Pollution Anger Spills into State Media

This is significant. It is the one target that challenges authority indirectly and every reporter can sink his teeth into real reporting and obvious outrage when he does. It is an avenue for a free media to hone their talents and outright emerge.

The need for open debate and disclosure is clear to anyone but the focus has been diffuse. This can focus the natural outrage.

Morally the leadership is unable to stand up against this movement.

China pollution anger spills into state media

by Staff Writers

Beijing (AFP) Jan 14, 2013

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/China_pollution_anger_spills_into_state_media_999.html

Public anger in China at dangerous levels of air pollution, which blanketed Beijing in acrid smog, spread Monday as state media queried official transparency and the nation's breakneck development.

The media joined Internet users in calling for a re-evaluation of China's modernisation process, which has seen rapid urbanisation and dramatic economic development at the expense of the environment.

Dense smog shrouded large swathes of northern China at the weekend, cutting visibility to 100 metres (yards) in some areas and forcing flight cancellations. Reports said dozens of building sites and a car factory in the capital halted work as an anti-pollution measure.

Doctors at two of the city's major hospitals said the number of patients with respiratory problems had increased sharply in the past few days, state media reported.

"Now it has been dark with pollution for three days, at least people are starting to realise how important the environment is," said one posting on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

At the height of the smog Beijing authorities said readings for PM2.5 -- particles small enough deeply to penetrate the lungs -- hit 993 micrograms per cubic metre, almost 40 times the World Health Organisation's safe limit.

Experts quoted by state media blamed low winds, saying fog had mixed with pollutants from vehicles and factories and had been trapped by mountains north and west of Beijing. Coal burning in winter was also a factor, they added.

In an editorial Monday the state-run Global Times called for more transparent figures on pollution and urged the government to change its "previous method of covering up the problems and instead publish the facts".

Officials in China have a long history of covering up environmental and other problems.

Earlier this month a chemical spill into a river was only publicly disclosed five days after it happened, and authorities were widely criticised for initially denying the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003.

Official PM2.5 statistics have only been released for China's biggest conurbations since the beginning of last year, and expanded to cover 74 cities earlier this month.

The tightly-controlled media has previously raised concerns over health problems linked to industrialisation. Observers say the statistics' increasing availability has forced them to confront the issue more directly.

The Xinhua state news agency criticised the "pollutant belt" that had spread across the country and warned that the authorities' stated goal of building a "beautiful China" was in jeopardy.

"A country with a brown sky and hazardous air is obviously not beautiful," it said.

"The environmental situation facing the country will be increasingly challenging," it said. "There is no reason to be too optimistic."

On Monday the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced measures to tackle the problem.

It pledged to limit vehicle exhaust emissions and promote the use of clean energy as well as step up the development of public transport systems in urban areas, state news agency Xinhua said.

The environmental watchdog also asked local authorities to increase their analysis of air pollution and publicise the results quickly as part of an early warning system for air quality, Xinhua reported.

Smog levels eased in the capital Monday, with the national monitoring centre putting the PM2.5 AQI figure at 183, or "light pollution", in the evening -- although the US embassy gave it a "hazardous" 335.

Levels remained high in many parts of China, with PM 2.5 AQI standing at 405 in Zhengzhou south of Beijing and 342 in Xian to the southwest.

Share prices of environment-related companies surged, with face mask producer Shanghai Dragon soaring by its 10 percent daily limit.

The smog dominated discussion on Sina Weibo. "This pollution is making me so angry," said one user, posting a picture of herself wearing a face mask.

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

Without this material I have always found the whole provision regarding the bearing of arms rather odd. It failed to ring true as something that actually needed to be there in the first instance. It certainly exists no where else.

Now we can fully understand this amendment for the original travesty it was and for the ongoing travesty that it has become. Of course the South needed to protect its natural condition as a de facto police state and that meant local militias.

The second amendment was an instrument to sustain and preserve slavery and absolutely nothing else. It is now used to protect an open market for private arms of all kinds the like of which is tolerated no where else.

The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery

Tuesday, 15 January 2013 09:35By Thom Hartmann

http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery

The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote.  Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.

In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they were regulated by the states. 

In Georgia, for example, a generation before the American Revolution, laws were passed in 1755 and 1757 that required all plantation owners or their male white employees to be members of the Georgia Militia, and for those armed militia members to make monthly inspections of the quarters of all slaves in the state.  The law defined which counties had which armed militias and even required armed militia members to keep a keen eye out for slaves who may be planning uprisings. 

As Dr. Carl T. Bogus wrote for the University of California Law Review in 1998, "The Georgia statutes required patrols, under the direction of commissioned militia officers, to examine every plantation each month and authorized them to search 'all Negro Houses for offensive Weapons and Ammunition' and to apprehend and give twenty lashes to any slave found outside plantation grounds."

It's the answer to the question raised by the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Django Unchained when he asks, "Why don't they just rise up and kill the whites?"  If the movie were real, it would have been a purely rhetorical question, because every southerner of the era knew the simple answer: Well regulated militias kept the slaves in chains.

Sally E. Haden, in her book Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas, notes that, "Although eligibility for the Militia seemed all-encompassing, not every middle-aged white male Virginian or Carolinian became a slave patroller." There were exemptions so "men in critical professions" like judges, legislators and students could stay at their work.  Generally, though, she documents how most southern men between ages 18 and 45 - including physicians and ministers - had to serve on slave patrol in the militia at one time or another in their lives.

And slave rebellions were keeping the slave patrols busy. 

By the time the Constitution was ratified, hundreds of substantial slave uprisings had occurred across the South.  Blacks outnumbered whites in large areas, and the state militias were used to both prevent and to put down slave uprisings.  As Dr. Bogus points out, slavery can only exist in the context of a police state, and the enforcement of that police state was the explicit job of the militias.

If the anti-slavery folks in the North had figured out a way to disband - or even move out of the state - those southern militias, the police state of the South would collapse.  And, similarly, if the North were to invite into military service the slaves of the South, then they could be emancipated, which would collapse the institution of slavery, and the southern economic and social systems, altogether.

These two possibilities worried southerners like James Monroe, George Mason (who owned over 300 slaves) and the southern Christian evangelical, Patrick Henry (who opposed slavery on principle, but also opposed freeing slaves). 

Their main concern was that Article 1, Section 8 of the newly-proposed Constitution, which gave the federal government the power to raise and supervise a militia, could also allow that federal militia to subsume their state militias and change them from slavery-enforcing institutions into something that could even, one day, free the slaves. 

This was not an imagined threat.  Famously, 12 years earlier, during the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, Lord Dunsmore offered freedom to slaves who could escape and join his forces.  "Liberty to Slaves" was stitched onto their jacket pocket flaps.  During the War, British General Henry Clinton extended the practice in 1779.  And numerous freed slaves served in General Washington's army.

Thus, southern legislators and plantation owners lived not just in fear of their own slaves rebelling, but also in fear that their slaves could be emancipated through military service.

At the ratifying convention in Virginia in 1788, Henry laid it out:

"Let me here call your attention to that part [Article 1, Section 8 of the proposed Constitution] which gives the Congress power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States. . . .  

"By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the states can do neither . . . this power being exclusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous; so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory."

George Mason expressed a similar fear:

"The militia may be here destroyed by that method which has been practised in other parts of the world before; that is, by rendering them useless, by disarming them. Under various pretences, Congress may neglect to provide for arming and disciplining the militia; and the state governments cannot do it, for Congress has an exclusive right to arm them [under this proposed Constitution] . . . "

Henry then bluntly laid it out:

"If the country be invaded, a state may go to war, but cannot suppress [slave] insurrections [under this new Constitution]. If there should happen an insurrection of slaves, the country cannot be said to be invaded. They cannot, therefore, suppress it without the interposition of Congress . . . . Congress, and Congress only [under this new Constitution], can call forth the militia."

And why was that such a concern for Patrick Henry?

"In this state," he said, "there are two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in several other states. But there are few or none in the Northern States. . . . May Congress not say, that every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of Assembly passed that every slave who would go to the army should be free."

Patrick Henry was also convinced that the power over the various state militias given the federal government in the new Constitution could be used to strip the slave states of their slave-patrol militias.  He knew the majority attitude in the North opposed slavery, and he worried they'd use the Constitution to free the South's slaves (a process then called "Manumission"). 

The abolitionists would, he was certain, use that power (and, ironically, this is pretty much what Abraham Lincoln ended up doing):

"[T]hey will search that paper [the Constitution], and see if they have power of manumission," said Henry.  "And have they not, sir? Have they not power to provide for the general defence and welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of slavery? May they not pronounce all slaves free, and will they not be warranted by that power?

"This is no ambiguous implication or logical deduction. The paper speaks to the point: they have the power in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it."

He added: "This is a local matter, and I can see no propriety in subjecting it to Congress."

James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution" and a slaveholder himself, basically called Patrick Henry paranoid.

"I was struck with surprise," Madison said, "when I heard him express himself alarmed with respect to the emancipation of slaves. . . . There is no power to warrant it, in that paper [the Constitution]. If there be, I know it not."

But the southern fears wouldn't go away. 

Patrick Henry even argued that southerner's "property" (slaves) would be lost under the new Constitution, and the resulting slave uprising would be less than peaceful or tranquil:

"In this situation," Henry said to Madison, "I see a great deal of the property of the people of Virginia in jeopardy, and their peace and tranquility gone."

So Madison, who had (at Jefferson's insistence) already begun to prepare proposed amendments to the Constitution, changed his first draft of one that addressed the militia issue to make sure it was unambiguous that the southern states could maintain their slave patrol militias. 

His first draft for what became the Second Amendment had said: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country [emphasis mine]: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person."

But Henry, Mason and others wanted southern states to preserve their slave-patrol militias independent of the federal government.  So Madison changed the word "country" to the word "state," and redrafted the Second Amendment into today's form:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State[emphasis mine], the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Little did Madison realize that one day in the future weapons-manufacturing corporations, newly defined as "persons" by a Supreme Court some have called dysfunctional, would use his slave patrol militia amendment to protect their "right" to manufacture and sell assault weapons used to murder schoolchildren.

Quantum Gas Temperature Drops Below Absolute Zero

Quite reasonably, we will have different quantum states around the average we call absolute zero.  The point here is that we are successfully working at this and seeing interesting results.

It also reminds us that absolute zero is arbitrarily attached to atoms and not elementary particles who all like to beat about at a fraction of light speed.  There is a whole new concept of temperatures in these realms that is surely lower that absolute zero so we certainly have not seen the last of this or possibly even the beginning.

CONJECTURE:   Absolute zero for elementary particles can be described as the rest state of dark matter in the form of neutral neutrinos not reacting with other such particles and not retaining non bounded curvature (my definition in unpublished paper) and denoted usefully as ABSfp.

How to relate that to an atom containing thousands of such elementary particles buzzing about at fractional light speed I leave as a problem for the diligent student since I have not thought about it yet.

Quantum Gas Temperature Drops Below Absolute Zero

BY WIRED UK    01.04.13

By Philippa Warr, Wired UK

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/01/below-absolute-zero/

Physicists have created a quantum gas capable of reaching temperatures below absolute zero, paving the way for future quantum inventions.

The chilly substance was composed of potassium atoms which were held in a lattice arrangement using a combination of lasers and magnetic fields. According to a news report in the journal Nature, by tweaking the magnetic fields the research team were able to force the atoms to attract rather than repel one another and reveal the sub-absolute zero properties of the gas.

“This suddenly shifts the atoms from their most stable, lowest-energy state to the highest possible energy state, before they can react,” said Ulrich Schneider of the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich to Nature. “It’s like walking through a valley, then instantly finding yourself on the mountain peak.”

Schneider’s findings were published Jan. 3 in Science.

Previously absolute zero was considered to be the theoretical lower limit of temperature as temperature correlates with the average amount of energy of the substance’s particles. At absolute zero particles were thought to have zero energy.

Moving into the sub-absolute zero realm, matter begins to display odd properties. Clouds of atoms drift upwards instead of down, while the atomic matrix’s ability to resist collapsing in on itself echoes the forces causing the universe to expand outwards rather than contracting under the influence of gravity.

The ability to produce a relatively stable substance at several billionths of a Kelvin below absolute zero will allow physicists to better study and understand this curious state, possibly leading to other innovations.

“This may be a way to create new forms of matter in the laboratory,” said Wolfgang Ketterle, a Nobel laureate at MIT, commenting in Nature on the results.