late_breaking_news werewolf on one hand we live in one of the most exciting times in history. more is happening now than ever. on the other hand, it's harder than ever to tell, or to be excited, because we are so abstracted, the burdens and rewards of such changes are spread (necessarily so) out over so many people in such marginalized ways that we do not realize what we are a part of. it is as beyond us as a colony is to an ant. it does not utilize all of our humanity, it wants us to separate and deevolve ourselves from the traditional human exploits, where our investments involve our emotions directly, where our emotions are tied to our investments to make them that much stronger, where family and industry are similar concepts. the inevitable progression seems to go beyond that. i wish i could say. 020819 ... birdmad there is the old chinese curse which seems to have fallen upon the whole world at once "may you live in interesting times" this, our restless_world 020819 ... squint waking_life 020819 ... werewolf can't watch the news, they'd have you thinking america is a nonstop orgy of plane crashes, murders and shark attacks. And when there's a real tragic anomaly, no one can tell. No one knows what normal is even when they're steeped in it. It's how we're made complacent. They probably drop sharks out of helicopters onto people so they can call them shark attacks. You'll be hearing about shark attacks in Iowa next week. 020829 ... squint I read that book interesting_times by terry pratchet. and it made me laugh. 020829 ... rubydee the WHO said today that sars has a death rate of 14-15% not the 3-4% previously reported sars must be eradicated this summer to prevent future spreading, culminating in a worldwide pandemic in a spring to come health_care_workers beware. 030508 ... DannyH SARS killed 200 people last week. Malaria kills 4000 people a day in Africa. And that's treatable. Check your priorities and report back. 030508 ... niska but don't you think africa has more to spare? check the numbers. i'm sure per capita, it's just as catastrophic. 030508 ... critic Someone's a conservative.... 030508 ... rubydee my priorities have nothing to do with it. malaria itself is an interesting case. we currently have the capability to erradicate the mosquito, thus eliminating malaria. so should we? why hasn't the technology been made available to those regions that need it? um, same case with AIDS drugs and just about any other disease currently prevalent in africa. all i'm saying with sars is that it's an interesting study in epidemiology and the current global situation. this is china, not africa. although china can't be considered an "ally," i assume, we at least have a vested interest in the ups and downs of their economy. silicon valley is freaking out because a lot of their microprocessors come from china, and our economy is tied in countless other ways. it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. remember all the hype from ebola? well it had a death rate of only 1-2% and was trumped up in the media to no end. so, dannyH sir, i hear your point and encourage you to put that sassy mouth in action questioning our international policies. and our "leaders" priorities. 030509 ... minnesota_chris I agree that we have to eradicate SARS... if it becomes as prevalent as its cousin, the common cold, it will kill millions of people in America (as well as less important people like Canadians haha!) But you're talking out your ass when you say we can eradicate the mosquito... 030509 ... birdmad taking a wild shot in the dark i think she may have meant irradiate, but that sounds just as dangerous 030509 ... rubydee introducing a lethal gene into the mosquito population could wipe out the species in 12 generations Austin Burt, an evolutionary biologist at the Imperial College in London, has been doing some interesting research on the "selfish genes," homing endonuclease genes (HEGS)...um here it helps to have some knowledge of heredity and if anyone is interested i'll continue... but as a summary, if you introduce a HEG into 1% of the mosquito population that gets into 95% of its carriers' sperm and eggs, four-fifths of the population would be killed off in 36 short weeks. eradication is possible. but should we? 030509 ... minnesota_chris Ack, you've made me research! That homing endonuclease gene thingy works only in single celled organisms, and in starfish. Also, think about it... how could you possibly get defective mosquitoes to have future generations? Doesn't such a theory run in the face of everything you know about biology, namely, the will to survive and reproduce? Although you did already mention the ecosystem horror that it would be. (Interesting stuff, though, Ruby! And hey, blatherskites, check it out, two yeasts having sex, it's pretty cool!) 030509 ... cube Picture that - Rubydee with her head into a Popular_Science magazine (June, page 41) waiting for somebody's headlights to clear the fog as their car crosses the creek to her place. High tech in the back woods :-) ... 030509 ... rubydee actually, NewScientist, 22 march 2003 i have access to the archives where you can read the info, minnesota_chris (or anyone else), you can borrow my login info if you email me. you are correct in your statement about HEGs to date being found in single celled organisms and starfish. but an HEG shaped by deliberate design, not evolution, could have nasty results if the HEG can recognize DNA sequences in the middle of a gene and destroy it's function. in the case of a mosquito that gene could be the one that is necessary for a fertilized egg to grow into an adult mosquito. without a copy of the gene, the fertilized egg dies. HEGs engineered to target this gene would orginally be on one copy of the gene. As the cells start to divide the HEG would copy itself onto the other chromosome. all the eggs and sperm, which carry a single set of chromosomes, will now have a copy of the HEG and no fuctioning gene to trigger the transition from egg to adult. so, if you release a mosquito containing such an HEG into the environment, nothing much happens at first. the mosquito reproduces and the offspring are healthy thanks to the non-defective gene they received from the non-HEG parent. but when the next generation starts breeding the HEGs are at work again. it doesn't take many population cycles before the chance of two HEG carrying breeders reproduce, resulting in no offspring... so you might conclude from biology class that natural selection will start to work. after all, carrying the HEG will be a selective disadvantage. but with such a high number of populations produced by mosquito reproductions, the HEG will have buckshot too many individuals, there will simply be too many carriers for the species to recover. anyway, i'm paraphrasing here and the original work says it better, i'm sure. but it is possible. 030511 ... User24 you can't wipe out a species unless that species is highly evolved (ie overspecialised and generally useless) if the species can adapt, it will, add to this the fact that 'we' have tried to control nature and failed so many times (there are now types of bacteria that we cannot kill, because 'we' tried to kill them) and you realise that natural selection is there for a reason. now sit down and get selected, dammit. 030511 ... User24 we tend to have an annoying habit of thinking of ourselves as the dominant species. we are wrong. germs, bacteria, ants, bees, and hive community can, and IMHO will, wipe us out one day. So you'd think, well, not if wipe them out first. and why not. Well, because of the food chain, the inherent systems put in place to keep all species down in numbers, to avoid total destruction of the earth. But we don't care about all that crap, it's much more important to save a few generations of humanity than ensure that in a million years time we'll still be here, after all the voters will all be dead by then, right? 030511 ... minnesota_chris ruby would you email me the article? 030511 ... rubydee yes i will it will take me a couple of days as i am away from the home office 030514 ... niska i'm no conservative... today's late breaking news is mad cow disease. considering all the meat in the market is tested, (sobey's doesn't want any lawsuits...), the sale on eye-of-the-round steak couldn't come at a better time. i love that so many people are so ignorant and paranoid that all the beef must be sold at rock-bottom prices to make up for the scare - i mean it's BBQ season! could the timing be any better, or what? YEAH! 030523 ... DannyH You've got that shit now? Lucky you. Can you send some back over here to the Uk. I haven't been able to afford sirloin steak for years. Sassy mouth? I like that Rubydee. I use it to harangue politicians whenever I get the chance but I tend to try and take the long view. Never nail something to the mast when the fog's still too thick to see what colour it is... 030604 ... niska well, the scare is over, so beef is back up. but sars and west nile still have a place our hearts. and the enquirer, too. it seems china has been planning this all along in a conspiracy devised to kill the whole planet and... TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!! ...whatever. 030604 ... sirflaccid the "you going back to Corydon" meant more than I realized it had. 050312 what's it to you? who go blather from