Squiggler

I support Stem Cell Research and I don't give a damn if the President vetoes stem cell research

THERE IS NO BAN ON EMBRYONIC OR ADULT STEM CELL RESEARCH

Bush Vetoes Stem Cell Bill As Promised

By MARY DALRYMPLE
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON
President Bush used the first veto of his presidency Wednesday to stop legislation easing limits on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research.

The president spoke about the issue this afternoon in the White House East Room, surrounded by 18 families who "adopted" frozen embryos that were not used by other couples, and then used those leftover embryos to have children.

While both the GOP-run House and Senate defied Bush in passing the measure to expand federally funded embryonic stem research, supporters do not appear to have the two-thirds vote margin needed to override such a veto.

Pleadings from celebrities, a former first lady and fellow Republicans did not move Bush from his determination to reject the bill. However, lawmakers planned to try as soon as Bush issues the veto.

Bush's latest statement was following two days of emotional debate in Congress, punctuated by stories of personal and family suffering, that cast lawmakers into the intersection of politics, morality and science.

Strong majorities in the House and Senate joined sentiments with most Americans and passed a bill that lifts restriction currently limiting federally funded research to stem cell lines created before Aug. 9, 2001.

"I expect that the House will sustain the president's veto," said House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Disappointed lawmakers said they intended to keep pushing to lift the restrictions.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in advance of the veto that the move "sets back embryonic stem cell research another year or so."

The Senate voted 63-37 on Tuesday, four votes short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a veto. The House last year fell 50 votes short of a veto-proof margin when it passed the same bill, 238-194.

Bush has made 141 veto threats during his time in office, and the Republicans controlling Congress typically respond by changing bills to his liking.

Bush's stand against stem cells is popular among conservative Republicans that the party will rely on in the congressional elections this fall. Those opponents are the same voters who have felt alienated by Bush's actions to increase legal immigration, and the veto could bring them back into the fold.

All kinds of articles on stem cell research are circulating in the last few days. Questions arise as to whether President's Bush vetoing the bill will drive Republicans to vote against their party. Well, I support stem cell research. I think it has enormous potential and I don't give a rat's a$$ if the President vetoes a bill allowing government funds and government labs to do stem cell research. I don't care because I don't think the government needs to be or should be in this business. The President isn't against private funding or any research being carried out by private companies. And he is not against adult stem cell research, even for the government. There is no ban on stem cell research. This is the reddest of red herrings.

Bush adamant on stem cell research veto

Michael Gawenda Herald Correspondent in Washington

July 20, 2006

DESPITE emotional appeals from members of his own party, President George Bush is due to veto legislation passed by Congress that would allow US Government funding of expanded stem cell research.

The legislation, which had already been approved by the House of Representatives, passed the Senate by 63 votes to 37, a clear majority, but four votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to overturn Mr Bush's veto.

The legislation lifts the ban on federal funding for stem cell research using some of the hundreds of thousands of stored embryos discarded by couples undergoing in vitro fertilisation procedures. Most stem cell researchers are adamant that the funding ban is severely restricting the development of stem cell use for a variety of diseases including several forms of cancer including Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.

In the Senate, there were emotional and very personal pleas from his fellow Republicans for Mr Bush not to veto the legislation and to resist the pressure to do so from party supporters who argue that human life begins at conception and that using embryos for stem cell research means killing humans for medical research purposes.

But a significant number of anti-abortion Republicans in the Senate, including the majority leader, Bill Frist, supported the bill, some saying that if Mr Bush does veto it, research that would save many lives would be stopped.

Polls have consistently shown that more than 60 per cent of Americans support federal funding for expanded stem cell research. The actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, has been travelling the country, sometimes with his fellow Parkinson's sufferer Muhammad Ali, urging Mr Bush not to veto the legislation.

And Nancy Reagan, an iconic figure for many Republicans, has lobbied members of Congress to support the legislation and has spoken to Mr Bush about it several times.

Former president Ronald Reagan developed Alzheimer's disease after he left office in 1992 and was not seen in public again before his death in 2004.

But the White House press secretary, Tony Snow, said that Mr Bush was adamant that he would veto the legislation and that the US Government should not finance research on human embryos, even if those embryos would inevitably be discarded.

Democrat and Republican party officials believe that the stem cell issue will have a considerable impact on a number of Senate and House races this November, but Mr Bush is not going to change his mind on using the veto, which means that the ban on stem cell research will remain in place at least until a new president comes to office in 2009.

Related:

Setting the Record Straight: President Bush's  Stem Cell Policy Is Working

Where do you go when you have climbed to the top of the Ecosystem?

To space, of course. Who knew?

Some 60 years ago humans first began transmitting television signals powerful enough to reach beyond our earth's atmosphere. Since then the media has continued to broadcast messages from I Love Lucy to the five o'clock news into space, potentially reaching intelligent alien life forms beyond our solar system. Blogs In Space is the first entity to allow everyday bloggers to transmit the news and thoughts of an everyday person into space. Simply put we take your feed and transmit it out on a powerful deep space transmission dish.

Check it out! Sounds like the perfect gift for that egotistical blogger who has everything.

First Day of Summer ...

Today is the first day of Summer according to the calendar and astronomy. When I was growing up, we always thought of the first day of Summer as Memorial Day, but that was more likely because Memorial Day signaled the last day of school and the start of the long-awaited Summer vacation.

We didn't know about the science:

In the northern hemisphere, the longest day of the year (near June 22) when the Sun is farthest north. In the southern hemisphere, winter and summer solstices are exchanged. The summer solstice marks the first day of the season of summer. The declination of the Sun on the (northern) summer solstice is known as the tropic of cancer (23° 27'). 

The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, respectively, in the sense that the length of time elapsed between sunrise and sunset on this day is a maximum for the year.  Of course, daylight saving time means that the first Sunday in April has 23 hours and the last Sunday in October has 25 hours, but these human meddlings with the calendar and do not correspond to the actual number of daylight hours. In Chicago, there are 15:02 hours of daylight on the summer solstice of June 21, 1999.

Summer was the time of going off to camp or to our summer cottage at Conneaut Lake, of vaction travel. It was the time of playing outdoors, of bike riding, water skiing, of hanging out at the local pool or going to the drive-in (hopefully with a boyfriend who drove a convertible). It was the time of meeting friends at the Dairy Queen and neighborhood block parties. Summer meant fun. It was a time of picnics, slurping big slices of watermellon and then having seed spitting contests, it was hot dogs, corn on the cob, and wearing shorts.

Now I live in California, where it is Summer 11 months of the year. The kids barely differentiate between Summer and Winter. I love the modern age, the age of technology, but when it comes to Summer, I admit, I'm nostalgic for that gentler time in a small town in Pennsylvania.

Related:

Solstice sun clouded over at Stonehenge

SALISBURY, England, June 21 (UPI) --

About 17,000 people attended the summer solstice celebration at Stonehenge in Britain as bad weather kept additional thousands away from the annual gathering.

Wiltshire police prepared for at least 20,000 visitors for the nightlong party that leads into the sun rising on the longest day of the year. Only four people were arrested and police said it was a fairly quiet night.

The Mirror reports people flock to the ancient site for the optical illusions as the sun peeks over the Heel Stone of Stonehenge.

Although the rain stopped falling by sunrise, the clouds lingered and blocked the view.

© UPI, Headline News Powered by Bravenet.com        

       

   WARNING! Moonbat Alert!

   On First Day of Summer, ABC Asks Audience for Global Warming Anecdotes

It may be nature after all

"It's in your blood," Mr. Dallas said. "You hear people say that kind of thing, but now you know it really is."

A growing understanding of human genetics is prompting fresh consideration of how much control people have over who they are and how they act. The recent discoveries include genes that seem to influence whether an individual is fat, has a gift for dance or will be addicted to cigarettes. Pronouncements about the power of genes seem to be in the news almost daily, and are changing the way some Americans feel about themselves, their flaws and their talents, as well as the decisions they make.

For some people, the idea that they may not be entirely at fault for some of their less desirable qualities is liberating, conferring a scientifically backed reprieve from guilt and self-doubt. Others feel doomed by their own DNA, which seems less changeable than the more traditional culprits for personal failings, like a lack of discipline or bad childhoods. And many find it simply depressing to think that their accomplishments might not be the result of their own efforts.

Parents, too, are rethinking their contributions. Perhaps they have not scarred their wayward children so much as given them bad genes. Maybe it was not their superior parenting skills that produced that Nobel laureate.

Whether a new emphasis on genes will breed tolerance or bigotry for inborn differences remains an open question. If a trait like being overweight comes to be seen as largely the result of genetic influence rather than lack of discipline, the social stigma connected to it could dissipate, for instance. Or fat people could start being viewed as genetically inferior. [READ IT ALL HERE]

This seems so obvious, it is a wonder it is even in question and yet through most of my lifetime, traits were considered the result of environment (nurture) rather than genes (nature) unless it had to do with your blue eyes or red hair. And yet, there were more times than I can count or remember when not only my Mother, but outsiders, would say, "you are just like your father when it comes to __x, y, or z__".  My Dad died when I was barely thirteen, so how much influence did he have on my adult personality? And why is my son exactly like his Grandmother, who he spent very little time around until he was well into his thirties? I cannot climb a ladder, I suffer from vertigo, and like Richard Gere in "Pretty Woman," I find going out near the ledge to be a very frightening undertaking, yet my daughter, my adopted daughter, is a sky diver, loves crazy roller coasters, and seriously gets off on high risk ventures. Her birth father was the same way and yet he had no direct influence on her whatsoever.

My Grandmother was a concert pianist, her daughter was also a concert pianist, my Mother was a symphony-quality violinist, her first cousin was the chorale director for a well-known choir, his children are all accomplished musicians. Although I have had a bare minimum of formal musical training, I was tested and told I have what is called "a perfect ear" musically. This, to me, is a curse. Unlike those with perfect pitch who can reproduce any note perfectly, I hear all the missess, all the sharps and flats that shouldn't be there. It makes it hard for me to enjoy most commercial music available today. Is this my family's musical gene gone awry?

Alzheimer's vaccine?

New Scientist

A DNA vaccine has successfully reduced the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in mice. The result could signal the first preventative and restorative treatment vaccine for Alzheimer’s without serious side effects.

Alzheimer’s disease progresses as small proteins called amyloid beta (Ab) peptides are overproduced, forming plaques in the brain that interfere with its function. Memory loss and mental deterioration follow.

A vaccination approach – getting the immune system to clean up the plaques – has been considered the most promising way to tackle the disease, but its success has been limited, until now. In 2002, for example, the US pharmaceutical company Elan halted trials of a vaccine that raised antibodies against Ab peptides, after some patients suffered brain inflammation (see Key Alzheimer's vaccine trial abandoned).

The new vaccine is different because instead of using the Ab peptide itself to stimulate antibody production, it uses a stretch of DNA that codes for the Ab peptide, says Yoh Matsumoto, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience, Japan, who led the research.    

Into the brain

Since DNA vaccination stimulates the immune system more gently than peptide vaccination, it should also avoid the brain swelling seen in the Elan trial.

The researchers use mice engineered to develop Alzheimer’s-like symptoms by producing Ab peptides in the brain, which in turn form the plaques that lead to cognitive impairment.                        

Matusmoto’s team injected the mice with the DNA vaccine before Ab peptides had started to build up. The DNA is read by the muscle cells into which it is injected, and Ab peptide is produced. Antibodies to it are then raised by the immune system and cross into the brain.      

Mice treated preventatively, at 7 or 18 months of age, developed 15.5% or 38.5% fewer Ab peptides, respectively, than did untreated mice. This suggests that the vaccine was having a protective effect on the mice.

Human trials   

When the DNA vaccine was used as a treatment in mice that had already started producing the Ab peptides, their Ab peptide burden was reduced by about 50%. “Ab peptide reduction to 50% that of unvaccinated mice is sufficient [for the return of normal cognitive function]," says Matsumoto.
If these results are replicated in monkeys, he hopes that clinical trials in humans could start within 3 years.

Nick Fox, of the Institute of Neurology at University College, London, UK, says that DNA vaccination is an extremely promising way of slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s. “The key will be what happens in humans,” he says.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (vol 103, p 9619)

My Mother's half sister and my Great Grandfather died from complications of Alzheimer's and in reading my Grandmother's journal about her father's last years, it was a terrible time for the family. He was a doctor who at the young age of 58 began to show signs of dementia. With my Aunt, she was in her early sixties when her "forgetfulness" began to be noticed as something more than the ordinary. The last time I saw my Aunt, she was curled up in a fetal position on a hospital bed in a nursing home, totally unresponsive. Those images are forever burned into my mind. So, a scientific breakthrough in this disease would be very welcome.

A birthday we could do without ...

AIDS, at 25, Offers No Easy Answers

 

Instinctively, the first thing we want to know about a disease is whether it is going to kill us. As the Talmud says, pretty much all the rest is commentary. Twenty-five years ago, this was the only question about AIDS we could answer with any certainty; how disorienting it is that now, vast quantities of commentary later, it is the only question we really cannot answer well at all.

  [READ IT ALL HERE]

I admit I don't often follow the HIV/Aids stories. This one caught my attention and, although I'm not entirely surprised, I found much of the story very disturbing with information like, "Not everyone who is infected gets sick. Not everyone who is treated gets well," followed by:

I gave one of them his diagnosis on a hospital ward last year. "Try not to worry too much," I told him as he stared blankly at his computer screen; it turned out he was more concerned by his weak wireless connection than his new status as a person with advanced AIDS.

He was scrawny, spotted purple, with AIDS-related cancer all over his mouth and lungs, a flash from the grim past. We gave him all the magic drugs; he died five months later, age 23.

When HIV/Aids was first discovered, my kids were teenagers. I worried constantly because I knew that as a Mom all I could do is arm them with good sense, a certain value system, and good information about this new disease. I also knew that if they wanted to have sex or unsafe sex, they would, and there wasn't going to be a whole lot of what Mom wanted being given consideration. As to the information side of things, there wasn't much to give. But today, there is so much known and yet kids seem even less likely to consider the consequences of indiscriminate and unsafe sex. Afterall, they've heard about the life-saving drugs, that HIV/Aids is now treatable and therefore, in their immature logic, they are safe. The doctors don't know:

But even there, things are getting stranger. That skeletal fellow reading a magazine, skin pulled taut over his skull, folds of denim covering his wasted legs, is actually one of our big successes. He is perfectly well, at least as far as his H.I.V. infection goes. Ten years ago he was dying of AIDS; now he is living with it — or, more accurately, living almost without it, his immune system normal, no trace of virus detectable in his blood. It is the lifesaving drugs that have transformed his appearance like this, leaching the fat from his body even as they clear the virus from his blood.

He is another memento mori, for it is impossible to look at him and not see fatal illness, and yet as far as we know he will live a full life, untroubled by AIDS. Except, of course, that he now has other problems. The drugs have knocked his metabolism all out of whack: his body may be skeletal but his bloodstream is full of sugar and fat damaging his heart, liver and kidneys.

In 25 years, we have learned so much, made so many advances, been subjected to endless public messages and constant publicity. Yet as the article concludes:

You can win big, and why shouldn't you, with the usual fail-safe combination of luck and money (and lots of it). You have our very best hopes, so step right up: we peddle big miracles but, alas, offer no guarantees.

They still don't know if you'll survive ... it's a crap shoot.

Today's chuckle ... (tomorrow's too, since we've updated)

I've told you this before, but just in case you are new here ... I love the blog "Planet Moron." I have to restrain myself from quoting and linking to it every day. Here is a taste, give yourself a treat and a good chuckle, and read the whole thing:

ambition + hysteria = published!

By Jon on Current Affairs

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, released a groundbreaking study last month regarding the consumption of alcohol.

We know the CASA study is “groundbreaking” because that’s what CASA wrote in the press release CASA issued about the CASA study (much in the way MySpace profiles often note that the author is a “superstud”).

However, the appellation was unnecessary to anyone who truly understood the implications of the study’s startling conclusion:

The alcohol industry gets a lot of money from its best customers.

How can this be so, you ask? Consider this: They buy a lot of alcohol. (Oh sure, it’s obvious now.) ... more

Aaaaaah, I just couldn't resist. Here is one more from Planet Moron. Have a good chuckle ...

don’t make me angry. you wouldn’t like me when i’m… hey, is that prozac?

By Jon on Current Affairs

Let’s say, purely for argument’s sake, that you are sitting in your den watching your favorite college football team play a hated rival and that you lose in the very last second of the game. Shortly thereafter you find you’ve put your fist through the ceiling. Which of the following two choices best explains this behavior:

1. You are an idiot.
2. You are, through no personal moral failing of your own whatsoever, mentally ill and in need of expensive psychotherapy and a variety of costly medications many of which are still on patent.

If you chose “2” you just might have a career in advanced psychiatric research.

It’s called, “Intermittent Explosive Disorder” (IED) and is being used to explain various forms of anger such as “Road Rage.”  Also, Howard Dean. The only known treatment is to hand over large bags of cash to psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies. ... more

 

Would you rather be smart or thin? Just asking ...

This article speaks for itself ... news that is "chocolate" to my ears (or is it eyes in this case.) Aaaaah, maybe it should be my hips.

Brain Boost NEW YORK (Reuters)  -- Chocolate lovers rejoice. A new study hints that eating milk chocolate may boost brain function.

This is an eye roller ...

I cannot help myself. I'm laughing so hard over this story, I can barely type. Leave it to the guys to come up with a fix. I guess we gals can't complain too much since we can go to the "plastic man" and get new boobs, a new butt, stitch and tuck away any evidence of those progeny we gave our bodies over to produce ... why shouldn't the guys get a new penis? ROFL. Me, if I had the money, I'd get the whole nine yards, less the penis thingy, of course.

Scientists Grow Artificial Penis in Lab
_{Tuesday, May 23, 2006}

ATLANTA (FOX NEWS)—It’s now possible to replace a defective, damaged, or diseased penis with a penis grown in a laboratory—in rabbits. But the finding promises an amazing new treatment for infants, boys, and men who suffer penis disfigurement. The replacement organ would be grown on a penis-shaped matrix seeded with cells from the patient’s own body.

Researcher Anthony Atala, MD, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, reported the findings at this week’s annual meeting of the American Urological Association in Atlanta.

“Our goal is eventually to treat infants and adults with birth defects, penis trauma, or penis cancer,” Atala tells WebMD. “But this is a future goal. We are now deciding which animal model to explore next.”

While human trials are still far off, the Atala team’s recent accomplishments make their goal highly credible. Atala and colleagues recently reported successfully using much the same technique to replace defective bladders in human children with spina bifida.

In the rabbit study, Atala’s team removed the penises from rabbits and entirely replaced the organs with penises grown from the animal’s own cells.

Atala says the new penises have blood vessels and nerves that allow them to become fully functional. Indeed, the replacement penises worked like a charm. The rabbits were able to get erections, mate with females, and get females pregnant with normal, healthy pups.

A laughing matter or not -- yeah it is!

I'm sorry, I know this is a serious science story, but you have to admit it is funny, even if it is more than you ever wanted to know about a dead guy's "family jewels."

Found! King Tut's penis

Rossella Lorenzi Discovery News

Thursday, 4 May 2006

King Tutenkhamen's penis was there all along, scientists say. It wasn't stolen and sold, as rumours suggested (Image: Reuters/Aladin Abdel Naby)

King Tutankhamen's rediscovered penis could make the pharaoh stand out in the shrunken world of male mummies, scientists say.

They've taken a close look at old pictures of the 3300-year-old mummified king.

His sexual organ has been just another puzzle in the story of the best-known pharaoh of ancient Egypt.

Harry Burton (1879-1940) photographed the royal penis intact during Howard Carter's excavation of King Tut's tomb in 1922.

But it was reported missing in 1968, when UK scientist Professor Ronald Harrison took a series of x-rays of the mummy.

There was speculation that the penis had been stolen and sold.

"Instead, it has always been there. I found it during the CT scan last year, when the mummy was lifted. It lay loose in the sand around the king's body. It was mummified," says Professor Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

At first look, Burton's pictures may seem to indicate that King Tut could have been a little better endowed.

But according to mummy expert Dr Eduard Egarter Vigl, the pharaoh was built normally.

Egarter is caretaker of Ötzi the Iceman, the world's oldest and best-preserved mummy, and was also a member of the Egyptian-led research team that examined King Tut's CT scan images.

"The pharaoh's sex organ is clearly visible in Burton's pictures. All was normal in King Tut. The penis is a highly vascularised organ and shrinks when it is mummified. Actually, King Tut has been flattered by the embalmers' work. There is no comparison with Ötzi's penis," says Egarter.

Mummifying the penis

Ötzi's natural mummification and dehydration in an Alpine glacier produced a "collapse of the genitalia", which left the Iceman with an almost invisible member.

"He would not make a bella figura today," Egarter says.

According to the mummy expert, it is not possible to see if King Tut was circumcised.

Eugene Cruz-Uribe, professor of history at Northern Arizona University and an expert on Tutankhamen, says that some earlier documents mention circumcision at King Tut's time.

"It was probably done for hygienic reasons, but some ritual issues may have occurred as well," Cruz-Uribe says.

Boy as king

Tut.ankh.Amun, "the living image of Amun", ascended the throne in 1333 BC at the age of nine, and reigned until his death in 1325 BC, aged 19.

He married 13-year-old Ankhesenpaaten, who was probably his stepsister, on his accession to the throne.

During their marriage, Ankhesenpaaten, who had changed her name to Ankhesenamun, gave birth to two stillborn girls.

Related Stories

Egyptians ate lettuce to boost sex drive, News in Science 29 Jun 2005

Tutankhamen murder mystery solved, News in Science 9 Mar 2005

The oldest penis in the world? News in Science 18 Sep 2002