Song of the Day - The Strokes

The Strokes - The End Has No End
One by one, ticking time bombs won
It's not the secrets of the government
That's keeping you dumb
Oh, it's the other way around - wait...
What's that sound?
One by one, baby, here they come

Palin Kowtows to Alaskan Secessionists

In the spirit of Halloween, I offer yet another frightening Sarah Palin story.

The video footage below features the "whack job" Alaskan Governor (the words of McCain aides, not mine) addressing the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party 2008 Convention.

2008?!

The sentiments of Joe Volger, the Party's founder, are openly displayed on the group's homepage: "I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions." Here is more information about the secessionist views of the Alaskan Independence Party.

The fact that Sarah Palin kowtows to such radicals and then preaches "Country First" while campaigning is beyond disturbing. Talk about the death of straight talk....



(photo credit: J.D. Pooley/Getty Images North America)

LHC Update

When something goes wrong with the largest science experiment ever conducted, the fixes take more than duct tape (which is not to diminish duct tape). The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) should be back working next May or June. In the meantime, you can read some of our articles on the LHC here, here and here.

(image credit: CERN)

Anniversary: The Power of Myth

Joseph Campbell died 21 years ago yesterday. Shortly before he passed, he filmed The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers. Part 1 is below:

ABC and DNA

The Phoenicians, perhaps best known for establishing the modern alphabet, were also prolific progenitors. A new study demonstrates their exceptional lineage: "as many as 1 in 17 men living today on the coasts of North Africa and southern Europe may have a Phoenician direct male-line ancestor." Advances in genetic analysis are revealing new insights into human history and migration.

Perhaps new analysis will raise a challenger to Genghis Khan's supremacy as history's greatest progenitor. The fearsome Mongol ruler is thought to have roughly 16 million modern descendants. The current challenger, 12th century Celtic hero Somerled, is thought to have a relatively puny 500,000 descendants (the author likely among them). As if that wasn't bad enough, Somerled, historically credited with pushing the invading Vikings out of Scotland, was recently demonstrated to have possessed a Norse Y-chromosome.

(image credit: an ancient Phoenician coin, wikipedia.org)

A Shout in the Street

An intriguing new blog from Super Collide contributor Madison Brookshire:

The title, A SHOUT IN THE STREET, refers to pg. 34 of James Joyce's Ulysses, when Stephen briefly describes his theories on history and the Almighty in response to his Hegelian headmaster, Mr Deasy:

--History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal. What if the nightmare gave you a back kick?
--The ways of the creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God.
Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying:
--That is God.
Hooray! Ay. Whrrwhee!
--What? Mr Deasy asked.
--A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders.

Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee!

Nanobots

Researchers can steer microscopic machines using magnetic resonance. New nanobots may eventually be able to deliver targeted medication by traversing the body's intricate blood vessels. Researchers in Canada have joined engineered beads to inherently magnetic bacteria, allowing the bacteria to be driven via MRI machines to the desired location in the body. This could represent a breakthrough in targeted delivery of anti-cancer drugs. It is a hint of the possibilities of nanotechnology in medicine.

(image credit: The NanoRobotics Laboratory, Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal (EPM), technologyreview.com)

The Loud Whisper Campaign

The political discourse sinks lower still as "you know what I'm talking about" becomes an acceptable argument. This is the most base idiocy. It's embarrassing, disgraceful stuff. Michael Goldfarb should be a national joke.

Die Hard Soviets Oblivious to Fictional Nature of Bond

Communists have always taken art very seriously. But this is farcical.

The TimesOnline (thanks for the picture) is reporting that the latest Bond Girl, Ukrainian Olga Kurylenko has been called a traitor, guilty of an act of "intellectual and moral betryal" for, ahem, consorting with James Bond, "the killer of hundreds of Soviet people and their allies," by the Communist Party of St. Petersburg.

Though the novels were written by Ian Fleming, the statement claims that James Bond took orders from "Thatcher and Reagan." An examination of the Internet Movie Database does not yield any screenplay or production credits for the cold war politicians, either. Perhaps they were controlling Bond from behind the scenes, if you will.

Similar outrage over the portrayal of Soviet forces in the latest Indiana Jones movie compelled the same body to call Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett "capitalist puppets." The condemnation failed to prevent the film from setting records in Russian cinemas.

Major Zeus

Our military now has Zeus at its disposal. Zeus is the military's directed-energy weapon (a ray gun) used to remotely detonate roadside bombs. In the future, laser weapons could be used to neutralize large fire like rocket attacks. The Economist has more.
 

Swing State: Arizona?

Is John McCain's home state of Arizona actually in play? Recent polling seems to suggest that this is a very real possibility. NBC/Mason-Dixon polling from October 27-28 shows McCain only up by 4 points and an Arizona State poll from October 23-26 has McCain up by 5.

New pessimism from the other Arizona senator, Jon Kyl, certainly doesn't help the McCain campaign's standing in the Grand Canyon State. The junior senator from Arizona and current number 2 Republican in the Senate was quoted the other day as saying "I think John McCain might be added to that long list of Arizonans who ran for president but never were elected....Maybe, we'll be able to say, well, Arizona's the only state where your child can't grow up to be president."

The Singularity

We've posted about inventor/futurist Ray Kurzweil before (his chart demonstrating the exponential nature of paradigm shifts is shown). He and an eclectic group of science, tech and business thinkers recently convened for the third annual Singularity Summit in San Jose, CA. The summit addresses the possibilities, time frame and hazards of a future singularity, a union of technology and evolution, of brains and smart machines. We'll have more from the summit as videos become available.

(image credit: Ray Kurzweil, Kurzweil Technologies, Inc, wikipedia.org)

Say It Ain't So, Joaquin

Joaquin Phoenix, having just turned 34, is apparently retiring from acting to pursue a music career. The announcement was, um, sobering to his fans and E!'s smarmy reporter. You really should watch the video, I just hope the guy is all right. In addition to Joaquin's startling announcement, it seems Casey Affleck is now British, at least at the beginning of his sentences.

I thought Phoenix should have won the Academy Award for his portrayal of Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. And while I'm at it, how did Daniel Day-Lewis not win for Gangs of New York? That was an outrage. Glad I got that off my chest.

I'm not sure what Phoenix's announcement means for my theory that he kicks for the Arizona (formerly Phoenix) Cardinals under the name Neil Rackers. But I may change kickers on my fantasy team just to be safe.

(image credit: Daniela Catelli, wikipedia.org)

Shrinkage

Unsurprising but unpleasant news as the economy is officially contracting. More bad news is likely on the way. Here is Martin Wolf in the Financial Times, discussing Nouriel Roubini's warnings and the danger of not taking sufficient action:

Yet the idea that a quick recession would purge the world of past excesses is ludicrous. The danger is, instead, of a slump, as a mountain of private debt – in the US, equal to three times GDP – topples over into mass bankruptcy. The downward spiral would begin with further decay of financial systems and proceed via pervasive mistrust, the vanishing of credit, closure of vast numbers of businesses, soaring unemployment, tumbling commodity prices, cascading declines in asset prices and soaring repossessions. Globalisation would spread the catastrophe everywhere.

Many of the victims would be innocent of past excesses, while many of the most guilty would retain their ill-gotten gains. This would be a recipe not for a revival of 19th-century laisser faire, but for xenophobia, nationalism and revolution. As it is, such outcomes are conceivable. Choosing to risk such an outcome would be like deciding to let a city burn in order to punish someone who smoked in bed. Risking huge damage now in the hope of lowering moral hazard later is mad.

Everything possible must be done to prevent the inescapable recession from turning into something worse.

Here is a discussion from Bloomberg with Roubini, Arthur Levitt and Al Hunt.

(image credit: illustration by Ingram Pinn, Financial Times)

Static Magic

Fairly amazing new toy from ThinkGeek using a miniature Van de Graff generator. (h/t DJ from Gizmodo).

Art of Brain Science

Neuroimaging is improving all the time, providing better ways of understanding brain function and pathology. Technology Review has a nice series of images and videos demonstrating diffusion spectrum imaging, derived from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. The incredible brain image to the left looks almost like a painting. As my radiologist/artist sister can attest, in many ways medical imaging blends science and art. Great video demonstration here.

(image credit: technologyreview.com)

Song of the Day - Shady Lane

This is one of my favorite songs. I can say that now because I have been listening to it for almost ten years, and I am still deeply affected by it. Sometimes I'm comforted, I'm sometimes saddened, but I always feel reminded that there is more to life -- both bigger problems and smaller joys -- than I can keep in mind all at once.

Steve Malkmus gets most of the press, and his brilliant lyrics are never better than in this song, which I think are about how thoughtful young men of our generation, who were assured by our shoddy info-tainment culture only that there were no rules left to break, nonetheless come to a realization that the finest moments of our life are contemplative, personal, monogamous and often tinged with the bittersweet realization that time is taking pieces of us with it as it passes through us. It is best to find someone to love, and that process has nothing to do with the bright lights and loud noises of the fast lane. But Mark Ibold's rich, melancholy bass guitar with its tones like rails on an old wooden bannister, is equally beautiful.

The Spike Jonze video is a fine piece of work, on its own.

That Pitbull is Whack

Bitter infighting within the Republican presidential campaign has gone public. Multiple anonymous sources are now telling the press that Senator McCain and Governor Palin might not be very fond of each other behind closed doors. Top McCain aides have allegedly called Palin a "diva" and a "whack job." One report has even claimed that McCain snubbed Palin while the two were on a long bus trip together.

Some pundits have commented that the feuding might stem from Palin's probable manipulation of the McCain campaign to increase her chances for a successful run at the presidency in 2012.

Perhaps.

More likely is the possibility that McCain advisors have come to the painful realization that Palin will never be the Holy Grail that the campaign envisioned her as back in August. For John McCain and the future of Straight Talk, the famous words of the Grail Knight at the conclusion of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade now loom larger than ever:

"He chose poorly."

(photo credit: Jeff Medkeff)

A Better Artificial Heart

A good approximation of the human heart has proven frustratingly difficult. Thousands of people worldwide die every year waiting for heart transplants. Over 5 million Americans have heart failure. Much can be done to mitigate heart failure but our options are ultimately limited with regard to a dying heart. Two artificial hearts have been invented in the United States, including the Jarvik artificial heart of Dr. Robert Jarvik, made famous and somewhat infamous by Pfizer. Both models have practical limitations.

A new artificial heart (h/t DJ) has been developed by renowned French cardiac surgeon Alain Carpentier and engineers from aircraft manufacturer Airbus that promises better continuity with the heart's recipient. Advances include a "pseudo-skin" for the heart to reduce clots and better synchronization of the heart with the body's metabolic needs.

(image credit: timesonline.co.uk)

Global Electoral College

Checking in with pinko commie rag The Economist's wish for anarchy, the global electoral college. Barack Obama is the overwhelming choice with notable exceptions of some African countries, Cuba and Iraq. For what it's worth, despite Nicolas Sarkozy's reported private ruminations, Obama is winning France (92%) and Israel (71%) decisively. McCain's final effort to win this fake election must include a late, all-out pander to China's 1,900 fake electoral college votes. Maybe he should accuse Obama of being a democratic capitalist.

(image credit: economist.com)

Does Sarkozy Have Something He Wants to Say?

Haaretz is reporting that the French intelligence services believe that Iran will have enough Enriched Uranium for a bomb by late 2009, and that Sarkozy is worried about Obama's stance. He has not said any of this publicly, but privately the French President has described Obama's positions on Iran as "utterly immature" and has expressed growing fears he may behave "arrogantly" and break ranks with European allies in a bid to unilaterally end the crises.

It is difficult to know how much weight to give to unnamed French sources, or, for that matter, how much to trust Sarkozy's assessment of Obama, or of the situation in Iran at all. I think we would all like for the next president to be a multilateralist, except when going it alone would get the job done, which is to say, we want the next president to be wise.

But the article does attribute two very interesting quotes to Sarkozy: first, that Obama's positions on Iran are made up of "formulations devoid of all content," and second, that they "are not crystalized, and therefore many issues remain open." This, in a nut shell, describes the enigma of Barak Obama: is he so smart that he keeps all options open, or is he lost in the middle of a landscape so flattened by equivocations that he is no longer paying attention to the terrain the rest of us see?

If anything is true of Barack Obama's campaign it is that 'Change' is indeed the best word to describe his transformation from a liberal junior senator with boutique activist stances to a nimble and substantial center-leaning-left candidate.

At every point that he could have been nailed down to an ideological identity that would have closed off his way forward, he has sloughed off the old skin and emerged stronger, forgiven by people in places high and low who want to see a leader in Washington that can cut the Gordian knots of culture war at home and actual war abroad with exactly that kind of dexterity. I know I have. As Lincoln wrote to Horace Greely, we need someone who can change their views so quickly that they will seem to be the true views.

I for one was very happy when Obama backed away from the precipitous troops withdrawals hard core anti-war protest groups called for -- that would have been a disaster. He outgrew the issue that spawned him. I was impressed when he stiff-armed Reverend Wright, less so when he equated his grandmother's table-talk to the Reverend's cock-eyed conspiracy theories preached to enthusiastic politically active crowds, but once again, nobody's perfect.

The difficulty comes in when Obama needs to appear to have always been right. Haaretz (in quite the little media blitz) is reporting McCain's accusation that The Los Angeles Times is essentially supressing video of Obama from 2003 speaking about Rashid Khalidi, an Orientalist at Columbia University whose uses the language of "occupation" when describing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Employment of the terms may seem to be a rhetorical matter, but when Khalidi uses them there are historico-legal ramifications that make many politicians uncomfortable, especially in its potential for de-criminalization of almost any form of resistance the Palestinians might choose to pursue, and the criminalization of any action the Israelis take.

Obama has since stated -- perhaps even overstated -- his unwavering support for the Jewish state. We don't know what's on the tape. But even if he describes outrage at the criminal occupation of Palestine by Zionist aggressors, we would simply have one more transformation to reconcile within a relatively brief career of breathtaking complexity, which has seen this man emerge from one chrysalis after another. In a political world that has been fixated on displays of "authenticity" and getting ever more hyperbolic stagecraft as a result, perhaps we are being treated to a man authentically changing his mind. Perhaps.

As far as Sarkozy's doubts, (Thanks to the NY Daily News for the Picture) what ever he may be worried about in private, he has already gone on record as being a big Obama supporter.

Novus Ordo Seculorum?

Gordon Brown is leading the move in Europe to ask Middle Eastern and East Asian Nations for historic loans. The European Union is doing the math, and with the economies of Hungary and the Ukraine facing total collapse, there is fear that the IMF may itself need replenishment from the untapped reserves of the world's biggest savers, chief among them, China.

Of course, this would mean much more than simply a historic loan. Before Japan, China, or any other country agrees to contribute to the International Monetary Fund, there will be a harrowing reorganization of the institution. Domination of the high offices, so long in American and European hands, will be over.

Out with the bathwater will also go the econo-moral instruction offered -- gratis -- by American and European officials, who will forever be humbler when dealing with their counterparts from more-solvent regions of the world.

(Thanks to Speak Truth 2 Power for the image)

Study Finds Women In Red More Attractive To Men

The University of Rochester in Rochester, New York has released a study which reinforces the notion that we still share many instincts with our fellow great apes.

Heterosexual Men with normal color-vision were more likely to indicate desire for women dressed in red articles of clothing or whose photographs were bordered with red. In one part of the study the subjects even expressed a willingness to spend more money from a hypothetical budget on women in red.

Researchers have been quick to point out that while there is a cultural basis for intellectually linking red with love and sexual desire, Human males share this biological association with Chimpanzees and Baboons, who respond powerfully to red coloration in females during mating.

No word yet from Chris DeBurgh.

(image credit: "A Lady in Red", Fyodor Shapayev, 1957, thank you to artandfaith blog)

Will The War in Central Africa Ever End?

Rebels have seized "the key town of Goma" in eastern Congo, deep in the heart of Africa. Refugees by the thousands are fleeing the fighting, which is described as "intense." The Guardian's article says that in the past two months as many as 200,000 people may have been displaced as fears of a "full-scale" war grow. The war officially ended in 2003, but -- as is painfully obvious -- peace has never taken hold.

Well armed Tutsi rebels have driven the government soldiers out of their base near Goma, where UN peacekeepers are already stationed. In fact, there are 17,000 peacekeepers in the country -- it is the largest such mission on the planet. Nonetheless, frustrated Congolese non-combatants have attacked the local UN mission, which is powerless to stop fighting, protect the population at large, or even distribute food to hungry refugees. Because the situation in the countryside is so fluid, aid missions are bottled up in Goma itself.

Citing personal reasons, the top commander of UN forces has recently resigned.

In every story I have read about the war in the Congo, whether it be a journalist reprising Conrad, an academic attempting to impose a conceptual framework on the chaos, or a wire service news report just stating the facts, the author seems to be at a loss to contextualize the violence. It is a fair problem: where does one start to explain the chain of events that have brought us here? Colonialism? Patrice Lumumba's assassination? That would begin to explain how post-colonial Western governments in Belgium and the U.S. fought proxy wars with the Soviets which stirred up animosities that have yet to settle. Or is it more to the point to begin with Mobutu's overthrow, in which tribalism itself was the source of conflict? A new BBC overview draws the line at the Rwandan Genocide.

But there seems to be a peculiarly intractable character to the violence that name-and-date history is at a loss to explain.

Thank you to The Mwamba Family Foundation for this incredible image of a Child Soldier in Bunia.

The End of Ted Stevens?

Is Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the Senate, finished? John Ensign (R-NV) certainly thinks so. As head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senator Ensign had some harsh words yesterday for Washington's newest felon.

"Ted Stevens served his constituents for over 40 years and I am disappointed to see his career end in disgrace," Ensign said in a statement. "Sen. Stevens had his day in court and the jury found he violated the public’s trust - as a result he is properly being held accountable. This is a reminder that no one is above the law."

Now it is up to Alaskan voters. Senator Stevens had been in an extremely tight race with his Democrat opponent, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, even before Monday's conviction on seven felony charges. The key is whether Alaskans will ignore the ruling and extend the career of a man who has secured more federal taxpayer funds for Alaskan projects than anyone in the history of the state. With such a record of pork, Stevens can never really be counted out regardless of how unlikely a victory might now seem.

(photo credit: senate.gov)

Nearby Solar System May Have Earth-like Planet

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed a second asteroid belt in the planetary system surrounding the nearby star Epsilon Eridani. Asteroid belts are residue from the collisions and coalescence that form planets. A second, more interior asteroid belt in this system suggests the possibility of a rocky planet like Earth in Epsilon Eridani's inner orbits. Dana Backman, astronomer at the SETI Institute and lead author of the upcoming research paper says, "This system probably looks a lot like ours did when life first took root on Earth.... The main difference we know of so far is that it has an additional ring of leftover planet construction material."

Epsilon Eridani has long been the subject of scientific and popular fascination (it's featured in Asimov and Star Trek). The star is pretty close to us (10 light years away) and is similar to our sun, but younger and smaller. Attributable to its youth, Epsilon Eridani demonstrates more magnetic activity and increased stellar winds relative to our sun. It's difficult to know how this might affect the sun's ego.

(image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Anniversary: Literate Ape

On this day in 1980, Kanzi, the world's most literate non-human, was born in Atlanta, Georgia at Emory University. Kanzi is a male Bonobo (the species was formerly known as the pygmy chimpanzee). Bonobos are endangered and exist in the wild only in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bonobos are largely unknown but extraordinary creatures - they recognize themselves in mirrors, make and use tools, and have learned to communicate with symbols. Scientists disagree on the degree to which bonobos appreciate language fundamentals.

Kanzi is perhaps the most studied of bonobos. Kanzi means "treasure" in Swahili and he has certainly lived up to his name. He understands an extensive catalog of symbols and he does some extraordinary things. Primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh has studied Kanzi throughout his life and gave the below TED talk in 2004 that features him prominently. I don't want to give too much away, but roasted marshmallows and golf carts are involved. It's pretty remarkable stuff. Happy 28th Kanzi. (back)

Hitchens on Palin

Christopher Hitchens weighs in on the McCain/Palin campaign against science. Tell us how you really feel:

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

(image credit: observer.com)

Eudaimonics

A short, accessible talk on neuro-existentialism and eudaimonics from Owen Flanagan, Professor of Philosophy at Duke University (my alma mater). The talk was at the Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark conference. You want to flourish, don't you? So there you go:

The Campaign Against Science, continued

On Friday, as part of her first policy speech, Governor Palin took another swipe at science, choosing fruit fly research as illustration of wasteful, nonsensical earmark spending. Previously, John McCain has derided planetarium "overhead projectors" as wastes of public money. It seems that the combination of fruit flies and France was irresistible to Sarah Palin: "...sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not."

Presumably Governor Palin was talking about research into the olive fruit fly requested by California to better understand and combat damage the flies are doing to its crops. I will go out on a limb and suggest Sarah Palin was reciting a line and doesn't know much about olive fruit fly research or its relevance. And I offer the regular caveat that any spending of public money should be subject to honest debate, certainly debate better than that provided by the earmark system.

If Governor Palin is happy to disparage fruit fly research that has overtly practical aims, what must she think of basic research into fruit flies? I'm guessing she doesn't think about it at all. Fruit fly research has been essential in understanding genetics and molecular biology. I have spent some time in the building at Columbia University where Thomas Hunt Morgan conducted his famous fruit fly experiments and demonstrated that genes are carried on chromosomes, for which he won the Nobel Prize. His research is the foundation for modern genetics, all from the humble fruit fly. Since Morgan, fruit flies have continued as an indispensable scientific model. The suddenly famous UNC School of Medicine study demonstrated the relevance of fruit fly study in understanding autism (ironically, one of Palin's declared important issues).

It's also worth noting again that we share genes with fruit flies because of our common evolutionary ancestors. Because fruit flies are easy to study, they are an important model for fundamental processes. Of course, you have to believe in evolution to understand this. In short, fruit fly research has proven enormously important and productive, and is likely to be so in the future.

(back)

(photo credit: Thomas Hunt Morgan in his fly room, the-scientist.com)

New Lunar Vehicle

NASA revealed a new lunar rover on October 24 that would not require astronauts to wear spacesuits while traveling inside the vehicle. "You are only in a spacesuit when you need to be on the surface picking up rocks," astronaut Mike Gernhardt told Reuters.

The Small Pressurized Rover Concept vehicle was designed for extended exploration of the moon's surface when man returns by 2020. Astronauts can now look forward to joyriding at 6 mph for two weeks at a time, covering distances up to 625 miles.

(photo credit: Reuters)

Nader Attempts World Record

Tired of all the campaign stump speeches yet? Ralph Nader certainly isn't. On October 25 in Massachusetts, Nader attempted to set the world record for most campaign speeches given in one day. The Independent presidential candidate is claiming that he gave 255 minutes worth in speeches. If true he would have shattered the old record of 150 minutes. More details on the Massachusetts Marathon can be found on the Nader campaign website.

Unfortunately for Mr. Nader few voters are likely to follow the advice on the t-shirt above, even with the new speech record. Although you probably haven't heard much about the third party candidates this election cycle, there are some familiar names running for president. Click here for an earlier analysis of the five most prominent ones.

(photo credit: zazzle.com)

Health Beer and Purple Tomatoes

In the future, beer and tomatoes may fight cancer. One recent study demonstrates the efficacy of genetically modified, antioxidant laden (so rendered purple) tomatoes in delaying cancer onset in vulnerable mice. Separate research (h/t Andrew Sullivan) centers on the addition of resveratrol (the famed red wine constituent, thought (not confirmed) to have anti-cancer, anti-heart disease properties) to beer via genetic alteration of yeast. The future gets more ridiculous and wonderful all the time.

(image credit: purple tomato, timeforstrength.com)

Missile Strike Kills Mullah Omar in Pakistan

News services around the world are reporting that the most recent drone-fired missile strike has killed 20 suspected militants in Pakistan's South Waziristan province.

The BBC is reporting that Mullah Omar, the premier figure in the Taleban insurgency in Afghanistan, is among the dead.

If true, the strike's significance is difficult to overstate. On the one hand, it is possible that the resurgent Taleban may be reeling, especially in the context of recent gains by the Pakistani military in Bajaur, in conjunction with rumors that the "Awakening" movement that has led to cooperation between coalition forces and conservative Sunnis in Iraq is being replicated in the tribal borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On the other hand, the strike -- sucessful or not -- would represent yet another violation of Pakistani Sovereignty despite our steady but obviously meaningless promises to respect their territorial integrity. It will certainly be argued that opportunities to hit targets such as Mullah Omar are too special to be missed.

All of these developments come at a critical juncture in the war with new government in Pakistan, elections looming in the U.S., corruption charges threatening Hamid Karzai's regime in Kabul, and NATO allies publicly divided over the future of the mission, with Europeans insisting on negotiation and American Presidential candidates uniformly promising some kind of military victory over the Taleban and Al Qaeda.

(Thank you to GlobalSecurity.org for the image of Mullah Omar)

Waterloo

John McCain appeared on Meet the Press today with Tom Brokaw and declared that he was not yet finished and that this race was going to be very close and that he would emerge the victor. Certainly that's possible and surely the race will tighten over the last days. But I couldn't help but notice the place from which McCain mounted his most recent last stand - Waterloo. Iowa, not Belgium, but sometimes this campaign feels like an elaborate joke.


(image credit: "Napolean abdicated in Fontainebleau", Paul Delaroche, 1845, The Royal Collection, London)

Livni Fails to Build Coalition

Tzipi Livni, leader of Israel's Kadima Party and recently positioned to become the country's second ever female prime minister, announced her failure to form a coalition government tonight. This means that early parliamentary elections are likely for February 2009. The vote has tremendous implications for the future of Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians.

If President Shimon Peres opts for an election, then Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu has a good chance of becoming the next prime minister according to Israeli polls. This result would take the post-Annapolis Conference peace process in a much different direction or even end it altogether. Unlike Kadima, the Likud Party is resistant to handing over the West Bank to Palestinian control under current conditions and it strongly opposes the creation of any Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In giving up on a coalition, the former Mossad agent is hopeful that she will be victorious in the probable elections. A lot could happen until that time; February is still over 3 months away. However, it might be difficult for Livni to overcome the disastrous reputation of Ehud Olmert, her Kadima predecessor, who badly mishandled a 2006 war with Hezbollah and had to resign last month in the face of a corruption scandal.

Livni's coalition broke down when the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party walked away from negotiations over the weekend. The move left her alliance with the Labor Party short of a majority in the 120 seat Israeli Knesset. Kadima holds 29 seats in the seventeenth Knesset, Labor has 19, and Shas and Likud each have 12.

(photo credit: jpost.com)

Krugman Calls For Two Stimulus Packages

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, speaking on Charlie Rose, suggests that not one, but two economic stimulus packages should be rolled out in the coming months to try and revive the economy. Palin recently "went off the reservation" to suggest that any such package would be irresponsible.

Tehran Increasingly Aggressive

Hostility between Iran and the West over the Iranian nuclear proliferation question is rapidly escalating as the November 4 United States presidential election approaches. In recent weeks senior Iranian officials have called for preemptive strikes against Israel and the United Kingdom.

Many familiar with the issue have characterized the period between November 5, 2008 and January 20, 2009 (Inauguration Day) as critical. Will President Bush finally give Israel the green light to preemptively target Iranian nuclear facilities before his administration leaves office? (one report by intelligence experts now claims that this option wouldn't even work). Will Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei make good on recent Iranian threats? Suffice it to say that the next U.S. president will face an extraordinarily difficult challenge.

I attended a panel discussion on Iran's nuclear enrichment program at the United Nations on October 20. The event was sponsored by the newly formed United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) organization and featured Dr. Gary Samore and Henry Sokolski, two non-proliferation and nuclear policy experts. Here is the transcript. With the exception of comments from one audience member at the conclusion regarding biblical prophecy and nuclear holocaust, (isn't there a way to restrict these people to their compounds?), the conversation was a valuable one. While pointing out the multiple policy mistakes of the past 5 years and stressing the Iranian regime's dedication to the development of a nuclear weapons option, the panelists also made the case for continued and realistic diplomacy.

The coming months might destroy such optimism forever.

(photo credit: Getty Images)

Cave Mysteries

The Makauwahi Cave on the island of Kauai is a time capsule of the Hawaiian Islands. Discovered in 1992, the cave contains an astonishing array of fossils and artifacts that have yielded insights into everything from the turtle-jawed moa nalo to the arrival of Captain Cook. All of which would make it the most extraordinary cave in Hawaii, if this hadn't happened.

(image credit: Alec Burney)

Rove on the Run

Yet another civilian attempted to arrest Karl Rove the other day. The most recent episode occurred on October 21 in San Francisco. This is at least the fourth attempted citizens' arrest of the former Bush political advisor this year. Here is the footage of the strange event:




(photo credit: David Woo/Dallas Morning News/Corbis)

Football Picks

A decidedly average 7-7 last week, with a couple of tough covers. Dan Orlovsky and his smelling salts are killing me. If he covers again, I'm going to start using smelling salts before making the picks.

Check out that picture of former Cowboys defensive end Ed "Too Tall" Jones. It seems the era of straightforward nicknames ended with "Too Tall". Based on this photograph and without looking it up, I will guess "Too Tall" Jones is nine and a half feet tall.

Oakland (+7.5) at Baltimore
San Diego (-3) at New Orleans (in London)
Kansas City (+14) at NYJ
Buffalo (-1.5) at Miami
Tampa Bay (+2) at Dallas
Atlanta (+9) at Philadelphia
St. Louis (+8) at New England
Arizona (+4) at Carolina
Washington (-7.5) at Detroit
Cleveland (+7) at Jacksonville
Cincy (+9) at Houston
NYG (+3) at Pittsburgh
Seattle (+5.5) at San Francisco
Indy (+4) at Tennessee

season: 16-12

(image credit: trunkbunker.com)

Hypnosis, Synesthesia

The writer Vladimir Nabokov is perhaps history's most famous synesthete, people who experience unusual blending or crossing of sensory pathways. Nabokov experienced the best known form of synesthesia, so called color-graphemic synesthesia, in which letters or numbers are experienced as colored or as sensations of colors. Of note, Nabokov maintained that his wife and son were also synesthetes. He was also a well-known lepidopterist (student of butterflies), one of his drawings is to the left. And he was obsessed with composing chess problems. I've always related those curiosities of his life, perhaps without merit.

In any case, you too may be able to see like Nabokov, no promise that you'll write like him. A new study in Psychological Science suggests that synesthesia may utilize common but latent neural pathways. People were hypnotized to perceive numbers as colors and began to demonstrate synesthetic qualities such as seeing black numbers blend against colored backgrounds. Frankly, I don't know much about hypnosis, let alone the rigor of scientific studies premised on it. But it's a very interesting subject and synesthesia is a real phenomomen.

Daniel Tammet, like Nabokov, is a color-graphemic synesthete but he is also an autistic savant. In Britain he's known as "Brain Man". Because he is able to articulate his condition, some consider him a Rosetta Stone for understanding autistic savantism. He wrote a very interesting memoir called Born on a Blue Day. His unique experience of numbers has allowed him to perform remarkable feats like reciting the number pi to 20,000+ digits for over 5 consecutive hours (that's a European record, I assume rarely challenged). "The Boy With the Incredible Brain" is a documentary on Tammet, part 1 here:



(image credit: Nabokov drawing, theatlantic.com)

Obama and the Fantasy Football Vote

Obama moves closer to securing the fantasy sports vote. Normally politicians talking sports is painful stumbling. But Obama comes off authentic, and more informed than Rick Reilly (a low bar apparently, Carson Palmer?).

He seems like a genuine sports fan. In the photo he is shown narrowly avoiding what would have been the first block of Tyler Hansbrough's career.

(image credit: AP/Jae C. Hong, espn.com)

World's Largest Sandwich Attempt Fails

Iranians have failed in a daring attempt to create the world's largest sandwich. The 1,500 meter-long chicken and ostrich meat sandwich was to encourage consumption of healthier ostrich meat in addition to setting a world record. The attempt was foiled when hungry onlookers prematurely ate the sandwich, before proper measurements could be taken.

It's hard to know exactly what this means for Iran-U.S. relations. In an encouraging sign, political rivals John McCain and Barrack Obama have chosen solidarity. Today they outlined an intricate policy of deterrence from the grill room of Denny's Beer Barrel Pub, home of the world's largest cheeseburger.

(image credit: AP)

Prostate Glands Grown in Mice

Researchers have been able to use stem cells to grow a prostate gland, from scratch, in mice.

This is significant in a number of ways, including a further triumph for stem cell research, still in its infancy.

It is hoped that this will lead to breakthroughs in treating prostate cancer, responsible for a quarter of all new cancers found in men.

(Thanks to National Geographic for the incredible, but, ultimately, unrelated image.)

Gay Genes

Lots of discussion recently on the genetics and possible evolutionary advantages of homosexuality. A new paper suggests that "gay genes" might offer a direct reproductive advantage, quoting The Economist:

genes which cause men to be more feminine in appearance, outlook and behaviour and those that make women more masculine in those attributes, confer reproductive advantages as long as they do not push the individual possessing them all the way to homosexuality.

There may be some validity to this idea. But the inane debate about the genetic versus learned origins of homosexuality is discriminatory in its assumptions. Human studies and animal observations suggest that, just as with masculine/feminine characteristics and behaviors, there is some continuum of sexual attractions and preferences across a population. The characterization of genes as on/off switches for outcomes/behaviors is almost always wrong. Like most things, sexuality is complex behavior with manifold contributors, genetic and otherwise. It would be nice to see more studies on the learned pathology of homophobia.

Curious Ways to Lower Your Blood Pressure

Farts may save lives. Hydrogen sulfide, the smelly gas in flatulence, helps reduce blood pressure in mice and almost certainly in humans. I'm sure that it's very important research but the whole thing reads like an Onion parody.

Anniversary: John Heisman

On this day in 1869, John Heisman was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Heisman was a celebrated football player and coach. His achievements include a 222-0 victory over Cumberland College as the coach at Georgia Tech. Heisman pioneered line shifts, helped develop the hiked ball and advocated legalization of the forward pass.

Of course Heisman is best known as the namesake of the Heisman Trophy, given annually to college football's most outstanding player. In 1935, the Downtown Athletic Club in Manhattan established an award for the best college football player east of the Mississippi. When Heisman, the club's former athletics director, died in 1936 the award was renamed the Heisman Memorial Trophy. The scope of the award was later enlarged to include the entire country. The name Heisman has become synonymous with athletic greatness. The trophy, it should be noted, is not modeled on Heisman but on 1930's New York University player Ed Smith.

The front runner for this year's Heisman Trophy is the phenomenally named Texas quarterback Colt McCoy.

"Measuring the Drapes"

A piece on the origins of the favorite political misstatement "measuring the drapes". Since no real conclusions are reached, I will continue to assume it's a euphemism. Richard Nixon and Bob Hope are shown measuring the drapes in the Oval Office.

(image credit: AP / Washington Post)

Stone Age Cribs

A Greek Stone Age dwelling has been found roughly intact. The Greek Culture Ministry commented, "This is a rare case where the antiquities remained undisturbed by farming or other activities for around 6,000 years."

(image credit: Greek Culture Ministry)

Beyond Belief: Sam Harris

The always cogent, provocative and brave Sam Harris at the latest Beyond Belief conference called Candles in the Dark. His talk is on brain science and human morality. Harris is a neuroscience researcher and has been much attacked and celebrated for his books The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. A panel discussion is here.

(image credit: Beyond Belief poster, featuring William Blake's The Ancient of Days)

 
 
 

Nouriel Roubini: "A Situation of Sheer Panic"

Stern School economist Nouriel Roubini now sees a very serious run on hedge funds that may necessitate closing markets for some period. Roubini, "The usual saying is when the U.S. sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. Unfortunately, this time around the U.S. is not just sneezing, it has a severe case of chronic and persistent pneumonia. It's becoming a mess in emerging markets." Video is here.

Song of the Day - R.E.M.

R.E.M. - "Hollow Man"
You have placed your trust in me
I went upside down
I emptied out the room in thirty seconds flat
I can't believe you held your ground

Scotch Tape Radiation

We are bathed in background cosmic radiation. If you fly cross country, you are exposed to roughly the radiation of dental x-rays. But now, with news that Scotch tape gives off x-rays, should present wrappers everywhere be concerned? The answer, for now, is no. Peeling Scotch tape has produced x-rays only in a vacuum, though the radiation was enough to x-ray a finger (see image). Despite this finding, you will continue to lose the end of the tape roll.

(image credit: AP / UCLA Laboratory of Low Temperatures and Acoustics, Carlos Camara, Juan V. Escobar and Seth J. Putterman)

Mind Erasers

Researchers have devised chemical signaling that can erase specific memories in mice. This could lead to better treatment for difficult-to-treat ailments like post-traumatic stress disorder. It may also lead to some strange conversations between mice.

(image credit: TechnologyReview.com)

 
 

The Inane Campaign

We'll have more on the socialism (or communism, thanks Mel Martinez) claim later. In the meantime, this video from 2000 is worth watching as the farcical campaign rolls on. Wouldn't a real debate on progressive taxation be interesting? (h/t Matthew Yglesias) (back to SuperCollide)

The Atheist Ethicist

Not excited about Obama's prospects on secularism:

I would like somebody to ask Obama the question – while there is still a chance to do so – "President Bush said that we need common-sense judges who believe that our rights come from God, and declared that these were the types of judges he would appoint. Do you share his view that a person who does not believe in God is, by that fact alone, unqualified to be a judge?"

W. Has No Exit Strategy

The great filmmaker and critic Thom Andersen has often opined that a film should either be 90 minutes or over 3 hours. While at one time I thought that this was a merely polemical assertion, a year full of Hollywood movies that could have trimmed the fat has made me see the light. No Country For Old Men’s extra half-hour transforms what could have been one of the best genre movies ever made into a mere “prestige picture.” 3:10 to Yuma wears out its welcome after the ninety minute mark. At 152 minutes, The Dark Knight trades narrative arc for an episodic defense of the Project for the New American Century; just like the global war on terror, it never ends. Narrative cinema is, in some ways, a symphonic art form and the best symphonies keep it under ninety.

Of course, the only rule in art is that there are no rules; some of the greatest films ever made are two hours plus. Maybe that’s even part of the problem. Sitting through a film class, watching only the “greats,” you get the sense that it’s got to be two hours to really mean anything. Well kids, Duck Soup is only 68 minutes long and speaks more directly and more deeply to our current political debacle than Oliver Stone’s new opus. Weighing in at 129 minutes doesn’t make W. a heavyweight, just overweight.

While watching a fictionalized instant replay of the past seven years is not without interest, one gets the feeling that even a little bit of hind-sight would have made this a better film. Not only have the facts not sorted themselves out into something like a coherent narrative, but there is something inherently disconcerting about watching a biopic of the people who currently run the country. I’m not a terribly conservative person and have never been a lover of President Bush, but even I was scandalized at how much screen time the Bushs spend in their underwear. And a scene that features Bush coming to a political epiphany while “taking a Cheney” gives a whole new meaning to the term “sitting president.”

In terms of technique, Stone has somewhat tamed his signature super-montage for a more restrained version of rhythmic cutting with well-timed inserts. (Apparently belt buckles play for a lot of laughs in Los Feliz, where I watched the film). The film flashes forwards and backwards from pre-born to re-born Bush, with a corresponding camera/editing technique for each version of the future decider. Now, I am a great admirer of Ken Jacobs’ camerawork, but seeing Bush’s wilder years described by a wide-angle lens doing handheld acrobatics in cinemascope made even me a little woozy.

Even so, Stone is an able filmmaker with a command of the form. We know the story, but the slow, musical build to the world-wide-protests-that-would-be-ignored moved me to tears. This is also the first time the film cuts to television footage and what comes across as a gimmick in other films is a powerful intrusion of fact upon fiction in this one.

While this is, for me, the highlight of the movie, it also points to its greatest flaw. To return once more to the ideas of Thom Andersen, “cinema is a continuation of the novel by other means.” It shows us the world, not as it is, but as already processed through an intentional consciousness. This presents us with an illusion of the omnipotence of thought, an illusion that, Andersen asserts, is at the core of our perception. By turning Bush into Don Quixote, W. doesn’t present us with a picture of how we arrived at this historical moment, but an “I once was lost and now I’m found” story about a bad boy trying to do right by his dad. The world as processed through Bush’s interior consciousness isn’t a picture we need to be presented with; it’s a reality we’re trying to change.

(Thanks to The Trade Mark Blog for the Image of Bush)

Posted By Madison Brookshire

Say It Ain't So, Sumo

And you thought mixed martial arts (MMA) had integrity problems. Sumo wrestling, Japan's national sport, has fallen on hard times amid drug, hazing and match-fixing scandals.

Sumo derives from the Shinto religion and its practice is ancient. Professional tournaments have been going since at least 1684. Sumo continues as Japan's national sport yet it has suffered declining popularity, in part because of the scandals. It is having trouble attracting high-level Japanese wrestlers as foreign wrestlers now comprise nearly a third of the ranks.

The Japan Sumo Association (JMA), sumo's governing body, is notoriously reluctant to admit problems in the sport or make changes. Recently its chairman had to resign following a drug scandal (marijuana) involving one of his wrestlers. There have been damaging claims (and denials) of corruption including match-fixing in the sport. Sumo's future, despite its extraordinary past, is very much in question.

Incidentally, sumo wrestlers have not fared well in MMA contests. Here, yokozuna (highest ranking in sumo) Akebono is quickly dispatched by Brazilian jiu-jitsu legend Royce Gracie, despite perhaps a 400 pound weight advantage.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

TED talk on Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson and baseball and her father. Worth watching.

Sad Guys On Trading Floors

A sign of the times. Every story about the economic crises from Reuters to the Post comes splashed with images of disconsolate traders. Now a bitterly clever blog is assembling a rapidly expanding database of these pictures.

The Site is here.


 
 
 
 
 

Newsreel of the Day - Newspaper Cars and Lingerie!

"The Gathering Storm"

Here's an excerpt from Norman Augustine's recent editorial in Science, titled "Scilence" (you can register for free). He is responding to the efforts since the U.S. National Academies committee that he headed issued the 2005 report "Rising Above The Gathering Storm" on our need to invest in basic science research and education.

Much has been accomplished since The Gathering Storm was published. A new research university was established, with an opening endowment equal to what the Massachusetts Institute of Technology amassed after 142 years. Next year, over 200,000 students will study abroad, mostly pursing science or engineering degrees, often under government scholarships. Government investment in R&D is set to increase by 25%. An initiative is under way to create a global nanotechnology hub. An additional $10 billion dollars is being devoted to K-12 education, with emphasis on math and science. And a $3 billion dollar add-on to the nation's research budget is in process. Of course, these actions are taking place in Saudi Arabia, China, the United Kingdom, India, Brazil, and Russia, respectively.

... Of the 535 members of the U.S. Congress, only 8 list themselves as engineers or scientists. Of the 9 senior leaders in China, 8 hold such degrees. How can America's political leaders be expected to make sound policy decisions in a world of increasingly complex science and technology if the most qualified individuals in those fields remain absent from the field of play? If current trends persist, the United States may well be on its way to becoming "America, the land of the free and the home of the unemployed.

Full text here.

Copyright 2008 American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Science 19 September 2008
321. no. 5896, p. 1605
10.1126/science.1162924

Say It Ain't So, Kimbo

More from the world of mixed martial arts (MMA). The Elite XC, home to internet fighting sensation Kimbo Slice, has submitted, folding under the weight of huge debts. The fledgling MMA league lost $55 million in its rollercoaster 2 years and will likely declare bankruptcy. When and where Kimbo Slice will fight next is an open question.

This on the heels of an investigation by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulations into whether fighter Seth Petruzelli was incentivized to fight Kimbo on his feet and not take the fight to the ground. Petruzelli had made suggestive remarks on the fight, "They didn't want me to take him down, let's just put it that way. It was worth my while to try and stand up and punch with him." He later clarified that he was referring to a "knockout bonus", which is legal, and not to inappropriate influence from promoters.

We have previously discussed the difficulties in competing with the UFC and the reasons for the UFC's stunning success.

(image credit: cagepotato.com)