Category: Uncategorized

Lipoid proteinosis is a relatively rare disorder that is relatively common in parts of South Africa due to an odd accident of history — a single man with the genetic defect that causes the disease emigrated to South Africa in 1650 and the disease is present in dozens of families in South Africa today. The disease causes chicken pox-like scars at first, but eventually progresses to causing epilepsy and even brain disorders.

Researchers at St. John’s Institute of Dermatology at King’s College in London claim they have identified the specific gene mutation that causes the disease. If confirmed, this would make it possible to screen for the disease as well as work on better treatments. And for the rest of us, it could lead to advanced in treating the aging of skin.

The mutation occurs on a gene that codes for the creation of extracellular matrix protein (ECM). Researchers believe that ECM is the “glue” that holds together the various chemicals that are necessary to produce skin. Find a way to maintain or even boost ECM levels could offer a viable treatment for making skin healthier and stronger for far longer in life.

Source:

Skin gene could fight ageing. The BBC, April 1, 2002.

The Independent (UK) published excerpts from a lecture given by professor of environmental sciences Andrew Watson about the possibility of ever encountering alien life forms. Watson argues that for all intents and purposes, human beings are probably alone in the universe.

Watson notes that the best evidence is that life began about 3 billion years ago on this planet, and it took 2 billion years after that for complex life to arise. Life on Earth has only about 1 billion years left before changes in the sun and environment lead to a runaway greenhouse effect that will render life impossible. So, assuming other planets where life develops are similar to Earth, sentient life has a very narrow (by the universe’s standards, at least) window in which to evolve.

According to Watson,

Out beyond our own special planet, complex life is rare, and sentient life (aliens) rare still. That a large number of planets probably exist does not make it reasonable to assume that sentient life is inevitable on at least some planets if the chances of it arising are infinitesimally low. Our evolution at a late stage of our planet’s history is consistent with beings like us being so rare that we are very unlikely to contact any other. Whether we like it or not, therefore, we are probably, in effect, alone in the universe, and this planet the only place we will ever know where the universe has come into self-awareness.

Well, hopefully we will expand onto other planets, but don’t expect any visitors to come knocking anytime soon.

Source:

Forget about aliens: we’re all alone in the universe. Andrew Watson, The Independent (UK), March 28, 2002.

Road Rage is a very cool web site dedicated to tabletop games of automotive destruction such as Car Wars, Dark Future, and the site maintainers own Road Rage rules (downloadable in PDF format).

I don’t own a bike at the moment, but I’m going to have to go out and buy one now just to put Hokey Spokes on it.

I saw a similar technology toy that did the same thing with a frisbee — you could program a message and when it was thrown the message would be visible on LEDs installed on the outer edge of the frisbee.

But this is way cooler than that.

Inevitably it takes just a few minutes of debating free speech when some interloper will interject that there have to be limits on speech because, “You can’t, after all, yell ‘Fire’ in a crowded theater.” The Associated Press has a report about two people caught up by that sort of thinking and arrested simply because their speech was considered to incendiary to be tolerated.

To be sure, the men involved in these cases said things that the average person is likely to find reprehensible. Reggie Upshaw was charged with disorderly conduct and inciting a riot when he went to Times Square a few days after the Sept. 11 attack saying, among other things,

It’s good that the World Trade Center was bombed. More cops and firemen should have died. More bombs should have been dropped and more people should have been killed.

Police reported that a crowd had gathered around Upshaw and some in that crowd made threats against his life.

William Harvey, meanwhile, was arrested on October 4 near the ruins of the World Trade Center dressed in military fatigues and holding a sign featuring Osama bin Laden. Harvey told a crowd of about 60 who gathered that the terrorist attacks were revenge on the United States for the way it treats Muslim countries.

Now in both cases, police are certainly correct that allowing the speech to continue could have caused a riot or other public disturbance, and were wise given the circumstances to take these gentlemen into custody if only for their own protection.

But should they then be charged and prosecuted for trying to incite a riot? Judges separately in each case have ruled that their words are not subject to the First Amendment protection since they knew or should have known that their speech would be likely to incite a riot.

First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, on the other hand, told the AP that the two men’s statements were,

. . . political advocacy, detestable to almost all of us, but protected nonetheless. . . . I find disturbing the notion that people can be jailed for reasons that bear on the content of what they are saying.

I concur. Prosecuting these two nitwits seems unlikely to serve much purpose.

Source:

Judges Rule Against 2 Accused of Praising Sept. 11 Attacks. Associated Press, March 30, 2002.