AllTheseThings

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

This article seems to state the impossible:  global warming might be 'on hold'--for decades nonetheless  (read: "we might be wrong about the media-scientific-indused hysteria, but we'll never type that".)  Hopefully Congress can get a nice, big 'carbon tax' passed and signed into law (to further devastate the economy by increasing energy costs)--before all this junk science gets thoroughly disproved.  I'm already looking foreward to the next Hollywood-based "scientific" fad.

Burr (Aaron), Burr,

Thomas More

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Pay More For Food: Or Die

This one kind of speaks for itself, so I'll start you with a long quotation from the article, and encourage you to read the whole thing. Great stuff from Australia's 'Herald Sun':

PSYCHIATRISTS have detected the first case of "climate change delusion" - and they haven't even yet got to Kevin Rudd and his global warming guru.

Writing in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Joshua Wolf and Robert Salo of our Royal Children's Hospital say this delusion was a "previously unreported phenomenon".

"A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient psychiatric unit at Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . . . He also . . . had visions of apocalyptic events."

(So have Alarmist of the Year Tim Flannery, Profit of Doom Al Gore and Sir Richard Brazen, but I digress.)

"The patient had also developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through exhaustion of water supplies."

But never mind the poor boy, who became too terrified even to drink. What's scarier is that people in charge of our Government seem to suffer from this "climate change delusion", too.

Here is Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday, with his own apocalyptic vision: "If we do not begin reducing the nation's levels of carbon pollution, Australia's economy will face more frequent and severe droughts, less water, reduced food production and devastation of areas such as the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu wetlands."

And here is a senior Sydney Morning Herald journalist aghast at the horrors described in the report on global warming released on Friday by Rudd's guru, Professor Ross Garnaut: "Australians must pay more for petrol, food and energy or ultimately face a rising death toll . . ."

Wow. Pay more for food or die. Is that Rudd's next campaign slogan?

You should finish the article, which gets into the science and politics of the issue.  Particularly, it looks at India and China's emissions and their unwillingness--based, in part, on their own scientific research--to reduce carbon emissions, thus negating the economy-threatening reductions the West wants to make.  Read the whole thing here.

I'll huff, and puff, and blow...

Thomas More

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Forming, Not Managing

Brain research is showing that from 0-3 years old, children need input. Then their brains start making the connections that exist, stronger. A little later, they start pruning connections which are not used. It strikes me that the saints have always known this. Over and again in reading the wise counsel of Elder Cleopa (Romania), St. John Chrysostom (Constantinople),  and St. Theophan's "Path to Salvation", the early training in righteousness is emphasized.

In being around children whose mothers work outside the home, I am seeing a lot of managing, but not forming of children. Managed children seem to be telling their parents what they want to watch, read, do; formed children seem to get to make certain decisions within a defined area - not any book, but from a set of acceptable books, etc.

Children need the time, energy and thought of parents - it really is a full time job.

Beth

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Don't Worry About It

My kids and my friends' kids probably aren't old enough for me to have noticed this trend on my own.  But, according to a new study, girls, 3-6, worry more than boys do.  Are they born that way or do we teach them to worry more?  By the way, this trend also exists in grown women worrying more than men.

From what I've seen, I think that's probably right for grown ups.  I don't know exactly why, maybe it's a mothering instinct, that needs to protect the brood.  But guys (should at least) have their own helping of anxiety-inducing concerns:  providing food for the brood, protecting it against intruders, etc.  I find it interesting in these science-related items to find how an evolutionary explanation often matches up nicely with a biblical reality, command, or simple statement.

I don't know that such a connection exists here, as the evolutionary components to this trend aren't discussed.  Plus, I believe the command to men and women is 'be anxious for nothing'.  Maybe this study shows that following this command is 'naturally' a bit more difficult for young girls and women.  Why it would be that way is an interesting topic, but I don't have an answer on it.

From a parenting standpoint, what is the result?  Maybe just that we work even harder with our girls to remind them to be anxious for nothing, to have no fear, as they are wonderfully made and protected by their God.  Giving confidence in their Creator, not their innate abilities does seem like the best way to prepare them for a lifetime of not worrying.  Having confidence that "Your kingdom come, Your will be done" is the best way to not stumble through a lifetime of fears about this world, and our place in it.

Don't worry, be happy...

Thomas More

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Nature v. Nature v. Nature

All These Things friend MBMc sent over this incredible YouTube link.  Talk about having a bad day--if you are a buffalo.  If you get queezy about nature hunting/battle scenes, this is not for you.  If you can stomach it though, this is an amazing and wild sequence.  You need to stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion.  State of nature indeed!  Click on the arrow in the picture to see the battle.

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All's fair in animal war,

Thomas More

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The Lazarus Drug

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is a formidable opponent. One of the strongest weapons in its arsenal is its amazing ability to mutate while it grows, allowing it to dodge and weave it’s way around any single drug we throw at it. For that reason, pharmaceutical companies have been working hard to develop better, stronger drugs to knock the virus down. The best approach, it turns out, has been to use a “cocktail” of powerful drugs so that if the virus mutates it’s way around one, there will be several more in the mix to keep it under control.

Another trick has been to mix drugs which attack the virus at different points in its growth cycle. Some drugs stop it getting into the cell. Others allow it into the cell, but stop it making more copies of itself once it gets in there. A third kind allow the virus to get into the cell, make more copies of itself and even exit the cell, but without its full coat of armour, making it to weak to spread any further. Put all these drugs together and…..POW! BAM! ZAP! The virus isn’t gone but it’s pretty incapacitated.

“So”, you ask, “if these drugs are so powerful, why haven’t we stopped the AIDS epidemic?” (we haven’t stopped the epidemic, by the way).  Many reasons: the drugs are very expensive, they must be taken several times a day without fail, and they are so powerful that they have some pretty unpleasant side effects. And, believe it or not, sometimes the virus can STILL mutate its way around all of them. A formidable opponent indeed.

It’s been a while since the drug companies have come up with anything to significantly improve the potent drug cocktails first developed in the late 90’s. But that might change pretty soon. The company Merck has developed a new drug “raltegravir”, which attacks HIV from yet another angle. They’ve tested this drug on patients who have tried every other drug cocktail and exhausted their options (candidates for “salvage therapy” with experimental drugs). The results have been so impressive, that raltegravir is being called “the Lazarus drug”. It’s been so effective on the patients tested so far that it has literally raised them from their deathbeds.

That’s good news. There are still more tests to be done on individuals with different stages of HIV infection, but there is hope that we have one more weapon in our war against HIV. Let’s hope that as many people as possible get a chance at new life.

Philomena

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Clean Water For Africa?

I've posted before that I am a skeptic not just of "global warming" but also, and more importantly, of the debate behind the topic.  Now, two Canadian scientists are trying to shed more light on both problems.  At its core, you have disingenuous people pushing theories that are not fact.  The media finds a drama to sell and pushes it.  Politicians see a way to get ahead, and we are off. 

One technique of the pro-warming group is to assert that "all credible scientists agree" on global warming and its source.  This paints dissenters as fringe wackos.  But, it is not true.  Also, what if there is a scientific explanation for the warming, such as a change in the sun?  If that is true, then the planet is warming but it is not by human hands.  That is, essentially, what the scientists in this article are explaining.  It is worth a look.

Why does any of this matter?  Well, two reasons.  First, we cannot base public policy--which has serious economic and behavioral ramifications--on the same grounds as choosing the prom queen:  popularity with the 'in' crowd.  Second, combating global warming by shutting down cars and factories costs society wealth--either in lost production (and therefore real people's jobs) or in clean up costs.  That wealth could be used to combat actual--not theoretical--problems in this world:  AIDS, malaria, or cancer.  For a sense of the cost of Kyoto versus the cost of malaria, look at this page (Kyoto) and this page (malaria).  What a tragedy.  As Tim Patterson, of Carleton University in Ottawa, notes: 

All the money wasted on Kyoto in a year could provide clean drinking water for Africa...We're into a new era of science with the discussion of solar forces. Eventually, Kyoto is going to fall by the wayside. In the meantime, I'm worried we're going to spend millions that could have been spent on something better like air pollution.

Dr. Patterson does not simply bury his head in the sand--either by blindly agreeing to the man-made-warming argument, or by denying statistically verifiable warming.  But he asserts that the most up-to-date research is showing warming over the last century is directly tied to changes in the sun's brightness.  I don't think my SUV, Rosie's toilet paper, or your hybrid is going to change that.

Maybe we should then refocus on the science, not the popularity or political correctness of the issue, and see if our money would not be better spent getting clean water in Africa.

Thomas More

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Tough Crowd

The big news in the medical world this week is a report announcing the isolation of stem cells from amniotic fluid. Why is this important? Well, the major ethical concern regarding stem cell research so far (and the reason Federal funding is severely restricted) is that these cells are generated from embryos ‘left-over” from in vitro fertilisation. Should we create life and then destroy it to possibly prolong life down the line? The government says no, or at least they cannot financially support that effort. The prevailing conclusion drawn by the scientific community has been “Bush hates progress” and “Bush hates science”. Well, as a refreshing article in the Daily Telegraph puts it:
“Many people, including US president George W. Bush, have opposed the destruction of embryos for scientific research, and Mr Bush’s administration has drastically restricted funding for embryo research since 2001, leading scientists to search for alternative sources of stem cells”.

Yes, sometimes restrictions in one direction can promote progress in another. Scientists have found that amniotic fluid, the fluid surrounding the baby during pregnancy, contains stem cells. Even better, this fluid  is withdrawn routinely by amniocentesis to check the health of the baby before delivery and the extra fluid that’s not used for testing is normally thrown away. If it’s kept to collect stem cells, there’s no harm done to the baby, avoiding the ethical problem associated with destroying embryos. Since the amniotic cells are genetically matched to the baby, they can even be stored and used to treat the child if it is unfortunate enough to develop a genetic illness in later life.

The media has been pretty keen to report this breakthrough. Any advance in medical science with the potential to treat things like Parkinson’s disease and Altzeimers has to be exciting, right? Strangely enough, the stem cell scientists I’ve spoken to are very guarded about this new development. The official reason for withholding their applause is that they are sceptical that cells from amniotic fluid are really as useful as embryonic cells (i.e can they be manipulated as easily and form blood cells, liver cells, bone cells, etc?). Some of this is valid-the work is preliminary and there are certainly more questions to be answered about what the new cells can do. But there’s also the question of time and money. Yes, Federal funding for amniotic fluid-derived stem cells (AFS) is unlikely to be restricted in the way that embryonic stem cell research is. But any potential opening of the funding flood-gates is offset by the time and money already invested in embryonic stem cells. It’s not straightforward (practically or emotionally) for scientists to drop one experimental system and all the information that’s been collected and switch to another. 

I suspect that man-on-the-street doesn’t care. Man-on-the-street just wants scientists to get on with their experiments and develop stem cell therapies ASAP. Let’s just hope that the stem cell scientists don’t restrict their own progress by their reluctance to move on.

Philomena

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Knowing our limits (part 1b)

Buried in the comments of my post "Knowing our limits (part 1) was a question too loaded to include in the original post. That was, if there are moral and ethical issues associated with embryonic stem cells, why has there not been equal concern about in vitro fertilisation, which also involves creating embryos in vitro (i.e. outside of the body, in a petri dish) and inevitably destroying those which aren’t needed. These "left-overs" are most likely going to be the source of embryonic stem cells for research.

This thought came back to me on Tuesday, as I was watching a TV interview with a 59 year old new mother of twins now the oldest woman to give birth in the US. My first reaction was to talk to the TV screen (always therapeutic), telling this woman to stop being selfish and recognise that her child-bearing years should’ve been over a long time ago. As I said in my last post, just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. But I changed my mind (almost) when she told the interviewer that her decision to have more children was the result of a dilemma over what to do with the spare embryos created from her first round of IVF. She was uncomfortable with the idea that these embryos would be discarded and thought it better that they should have a chance to become siblings to her 18 month old. If that was really her motivation, that’s a decision I admire, although she undoubtedly has some tough years ahead of her.

On a completely different note, today the United Kingdom remembers the terrorist bombings on the London Underground, 1 year ago. 52 people were killed and 700 injured. It’s a reminder to me that the War on Terror is not only "Bush’s war on terror" or even "America’s war on terror". It’s a war fought by, and on behalf of, every nation that values democracy and freedom.

Philomena

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Accepting our limits (part 1?)

I’ve had several things on my mind recently, all of them blog-able. Then I realised they were all connected by a single theme and considered writing one mega-blog. However, I am reluctant to post anything (or in fact read anything) which requires “scrolling down” so I’ll start with part 1 and see how things go…..

Issue number 1 is embryonic stem cell research. I know-a heavy subject right off the bat. This issue has been bombarding me for months now, in the form of a colleague who is determined to convince me that there should be no federal restrictions on the use of stem cells and I should support this research wholeheartedly. He makes many, many good points. Embryonic stem cells have tremendous potential to treat incurable diseases, due to their unique capacity to form all kinds of other cells which can then be used to replace cells damaged by, for example, Alzheimers or spinal cord injury. They may in the future be used to regenerate organs for transplantation without the need for a donor. They are even thought to hold the key to understanding cancer, since both cancer cells and stem cells continue to grow when most normal cells have stopped. However, what my enthusiastic colleague hasn’t realised is, no matter how much potential there is in these cells, if life begins at conception then generating embryos for research involves creating and destroying life. And if we believe, from a biblical perspective, that this is wrong then there’s no amount of potential medical benefits that can tip the balance in favour of this practice. In fact, thinking of the issue as a “balance” is part of the problem. One side cannot outweigh the other on a scale because they are not on the same scale. But, wow, what an unpopular opinion. How can those of us who are wary of stem cell research watch Christopher Reeve or Michael J. Fox on TV, (or in fact anyone we know who has suffered from debilitating illness), and deny them the chance to be physically healed? Isn’t that cruel? How can we call ourselves Christians?

What Christians know is that God responds to human suffering and they are called to do the same. So if we call for restrictions or even a complete ban on embryonic stem cell research, it isn’t from a lack of compassion. I hope it’s from a desire to see life from God’s perspective and to value all life the same way He does (i.e. with the utmost value). We also know and understand that we as humans have limitations and that is what makes us human (not gods). We cannot prolong life on earth indefinitely, nor do we want to. I’m not saying medical research is a waste of time-far from it. Relieving suffering is what we should always be focused on. However, there will never be a world where every disease can be cured or even prevented. If there was, can you imagine how little compassion would be demonstrated?

Recognising and living with limitations is not very popular in our world, and is unheard of in the scientific community. If we have the ability and the money and the resources to do something, why on earth would we stop? That would require super-human amounts of self-control. And therein lies the problem. My personal fear for the future of embryonic stem cell research is that it’s being driven, not by a desire to relieve suffering (which it may do), but by a desire to see what we as human beings can do in the area of medical science, with all the personal glory that goes along with it.   

Philomena

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