Synergy! Ooblog leads me to a spectacular painting of carnotaurs mating (did they always get a flight of pterosaurs at the climax?), and then by way of The Two Percent Company, I found this enlightening poster of mammals mating (hey, how many of the first 20 have you done?)…with the unfortunate consequence of death by STD. Put two and two together, and what conclusion do we arrive at?
Dinosaurs didn’t use condoms.
A reader has asked me to comment on this interesting and controversial technique for generating stem cells. Investigators in the UK are requesting permission to do this:
Collect ova from cows. This is routine, done-all-the-time stuff. The cows can’t complain.
Extract the nuclei from the eggs and throw them away, so that all you have is a lovely membrane-bound sack of cytoplasm and other organelles. People who eat hamburgers don’t get to complain about destroying potential life, so this is OK, too.
Extract nuclei from human cells and throw the cytoplasm away. These can be taken from non-reproductive tissues—epithelia, for instance, or some blood cells. This is not controversial either—you throw away human cells and nuclei every time you sneeze or brush your hair.
You can see where this is going, can’t you? Combine the cow cytoplasm from step 2 with the human nuclei from step 3, and by various finagling (and this part is actually the hardest step) reset the nucleus to a state which allows further development. Let the cell develop into a blastocyst, from which you can harvest stem cells for research. (Promise not to let it develop any further than that, though.)
Watch fundamentalists die of apoplexy. (This might be the most morally dicey part of the experiment.)
Now I’m asked what I think of this whole procedure. I can answer with one word:
Don’t ever claim that the little people can’t influence the course of government. Don’t assume that you need “credentials” or “knowledge” in order to make a difference. Read the inspiring story of the Unruhs and the South Dakota abortion ban.
Leslee Unruh, a person with no legislative or medical qualifications, drafts a law governing the medical care of female patients in South Dakota. She is also the the chief of the pro-ban campaign.
Alan Unruh, Leslee Unruh’s husband, a chiropractor, sits on the South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortions, and is tasked with studying and evaluating medical evidence, reporting the findings, and making recommendations on the need for any additional legislation governing ob/gyn medical procedures.
See? This little family of unqualified, ignorant people possessing nothing but zeal and faith were able to make an entire state a laughing stock and put thousands of women at risk. Follow your dream, people! It doesn’t matter if it’s crazy or vile or requires you to misrepresent your abilities—just do it!
Of course, it also helps if you wangle one of those incestuous little deals where lazy legislators let proponents write the laws and stock the review committees with ideologues rather than competent experts, but you know what? That’s incredibly common nowadays.
If it was before the age of 30, you are a bad, bad person and the government wants you to stop it.
Does anyone else get the impression that these conservative Republican wankers are all virgins living in their parents’ basements?
Strange things are found in the sea, like this mysterious gelatinous blob bobbing about in the Norwegian fjords.
On Oct. 1 Rudolf and his brother Erling were diving when he spotted the unusual object.
“It was 50-70 centimeters (19.5-27.5 inches) in diameter and looked like a huge beach ball. It was transparent but had a kind of thick, red cord in the middle. It was a bit science-fiction,” Svensen told newspaper Bergens Tidende’s web site.
It’s something cool: a large squid egg sac. Mmmmm…two-foot diameter ball of squid eggs.
More information is always good, so I have to endorse this brand new initiative from our government.
It doesn’t go quite far enough, though. Evolution has screwed mankind over by making women’s fertility cryptic—many primates express overt signals as they become receptive, such as swelling and reddening of the vulva, and we don’t get any visible signs at all. Let’s use technology to return to those halcyon days, and imbed women with LH monitors that change color: from gray on infertile days, to pink as hormone levels rise, to flashing red to announce, “She’s ovulating, boys!” I wouldn’t suggest anything as crude as mounting the device on her vulva, though: on the forehead would be fine.
The device should also have some ports to enable coupling it to fashion accessories. Wouldn’t a police siren hat plugged into the fertility monitor be attractive?
I better patent this idea, quick.
Carl Zimmer is one kinky dude—he has a new article on sexual cannibalism in the NY Times, and his expansion on the topic in his blog is also darned interesting, focusing on the scientific duels fought over adaptationism and exaptations in explaining the phenomenon.
Have you ever browsed a sperm bank catalog? It’s a real meat market. You get lists of men by height, weight, profession, ethnic background, etc., and if you like that 6’1″ red-haired Lithuanian stockbroker, click, and he’s in your shopping cart. They ship direct to your doctor (residential delivery costs extra), and they even have a return policy.
Of course, if you’re anything like me, you look at the list and can’t help but think, “What a bunch of wankers.”
Still, it’s a tragedy when you learn that they’ve been wiped out in a tragic refrigerator accident. Oh, my dear Scots-Irish ski instructor with type A+ blood! Alas, poor Asian medical intern with a fondness for reading! Say it isn’t so, O+ African American lawyer and theater fan! So much potential life lost…when’s the memorial service?
P.S. There is a real tragedy here: men undergoing cancer treatments with risk of infertility also lost deposits. That part isn’t funny at all, and I imagine there is some emotional trauma involved.
I never thought I’d say this, but…coffee must be evil. Look at Starbucks, for example. I could stop there, I suppose, and everyone would understand my point, but to give a little more detail, PunkAssBlog highlights one of the quotes they are printing on their cups.
This Newsweek article on the latest innovation in stem cell research is infuriating. The author, Michael Gerson, is a Republican hack with no competence in biology, which seems to qualify him to be a serious judge of science to this administration.
The issue of stem cells was the first test of the infant Bush administration, pitting the promise of medical discovery against the protection of developing life and prompting the president’s first speech to the nation. His solution–funding research on existing stem-cell lines, but not the destruction of embryos to create new ones–was seen as a smart political compromise. In fact, the president was drawing a bright ethical line. He argued that no human life should be risked or destroyed for the medical benefit of another. This was an intentional rejection of the chilly creed of utilitarianism–the greatest good for the greatest number–because the greatest number would gain the unrestricted right to extend their lives by ending or exploiting the lives of the weak.
