j7uy5 | April 13, 2008Forget to water your tomato plants? Try using ollas
(pronounced oy-ya).
href="http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/2008/03/24/using-ollas/"
rel="tag">Olla is Spanish for pot,
as in clay pot.
What you do is to get
unglazed clay pots, bury them near the plants, and put water in them.
The water leaks out very slowly, because the unglazed clay is
permeable. This creates a water plume underground.
What you see here are ollas, each made from two unglazed clay pots.
These pots cost $1.03 at K-Mart,on sale. Two are
bonded together using caulk. I used caulk that is intended
for…
j7uy5 | April 7, 2008I wasn't sure whether to put the quotes around "Ruthlessness Gene," or
"Discovered." I suppose I could have just left them out
entirely, but I have this urge to spice things up a bit with
punctuation marks. Don't blame me...it's genetic.
Now, there is yet another correlation between a snippet of DNA, and a
behavioral trait:
href="http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080404/full/news.2008.738.html">'Ruthlessness
gene' discovered
Dictatorial behaviour may be partly genetic, study suggests.
Published online 4 April 2008 |
Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.738
Michael Hopkin
Selfish…
j7uy5 | April 6, 2008A new world record has been set:
The previous record for hanging spoons on a human face was 15.
Joe Allison "smashed" the record
with 16. He's only 16 years old. He thinks that
when his forehead is a little bigger, he'll be able to do 17.
(
href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/05/content_7923147.htm">link)
j7uy5 | April 4, 2008
href="http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/healthday/080403/more-than-90000-us-infants-are-victims-of-abuse-or-neglect.htm">More
than 90,000 u.s. infants are victims of abuse or neglect.
My question: what is
href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/chertoff-bio.html">Michael
Chertoff gong to do about it?
Homeland security begins at home. Nothing new there.
It was true before 9/11, and it is true now.
j7uy5 | April 4, 2008Medscape has one of their brief 0.25 CME articles on the subject of
methylphenidate (Ritalin, et. al.) and the effect
it has on sleep. (You have to register to read it, but
registration is free.)
This is interesting because it illustrates nicely how
psychopharmacology can be confusing. In this post, I try to
show some of the ways in which this confusion can occur.
href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/571987">Stimulant
Improves Sleep in Adults With ADHD
News Author: Pauline Anderson
CME Author: Charles Vega, MD
March 26, 2008 — A study suggests that the central nervous
system…
j7uy5 | April 2, 2008From Think Progress:
href="http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/01/cheney-swore-off-moderate-campaign-promises-a-month-after-2000-election/"
rel="bookmark"
title="Permanent link to 'Cheney swore off ‘moderate’ campaign promises a month after 2000 election.'">Cheney
swore off ‘moderate’ campaign promises a month
after 2000 election.
class="storyexpander">
In
his new book, former Rhode Island Republican senator Lincoln Chafee
reveals that even before President Bush was sworn into office after the
2000 elections, Cheney had
href="http://www.rollcall.com/issues/53_112/hill_bookshelf/…
j7uy5 | April 1, 2008This is something that has been brewing for a while. I
noticed a trend among medical students, over the years, with increasing
numbers of them expressing support for universal health care in the USA.
Now it is official. A study published in the Annals of
Internal Medicine today (1 April 2008) indicates that, for the first
time, a majority of US physicians now express support for universal
health care coverage.
It isn't even particularly close. In 2002, 49 percent of
physicians supported national health insurance; 40 percent opposed it.
But in six years, the numbers have changed a lot…
j7uy5 | March 26, 2008On 26 March 1874, the great poet
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost" rel="tag">Robert
Frost was born.
Perhaps it is not so notable, but 26 March 2008 is the first
href="http://documentfreedom.org/News/20080220" rel="tag">Document
Freedom Day.
Early in the development of computer technology, the world decided to
take the well-traveled road: the road of proprietary document formats.
This path led to endless headaches, unnecessary costs, and
the
inability of people to use their machines to their full potential.
It created obscure vectors for the spread of viruses…
j7uy5 | March 24, 2008GrrlScientist wrote
href="http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2008/02/diagnosing_bipolar_disorder_wi.php">a
post last month about a potential genetic test for bipolar
disorder. Read that first to get some background.
Now, it turns out that a company is selling a testing kit that you can
use yourself, in the privacy of your own home, to see if you have genes
that increase the risk of bipolar disorder.
href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/23/health/main3960929.shtml">At-Home
Psychiatric Gene Tests Stir Debate
New Methods Of Testing Patients' Risk May Lead To More…
j7uy5 | March 24, 2008This item just appeared on the news tubes, and I thought I'd pass it
along.
href="http://news.monstersandcritics.com/health/news/article_1396601.php/Distinguishing_signs_of_early_dementia_from_depression_is_tricky">Distinguishing
signs of early dementia from depression is tricky
Mar 24, 2008, 3:07 GMT
Berlin - It's often difficult to differentiate between early stages of
dementia and depression, but a precise psychiatric examination can
help, said the German society for psychiatry, psychotherapy and
neurology in Berlin.
'An Alzheimer dementia usually begins with creeping…
j7uy5 | March 20, 2008A reader pointed me to this article, by Miriam Axel-Lute, about the
Nonsensical Gyrations that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield (of New
Jersey) is going through to try to avoid paying for health care:
href="http://www.metroland.net/back_issues/vol31_no10/looking_up.html">What’s
Healthy?
If you were an insurance company trying to cut your costs, how would
you do it? Emphasize prevention over cure? Cover birth control? Allow
coverage of cheaper alternatives, like in-home care over nursing homes
or examine ways to encourage use of primary care providers over the
emergency room?
Or…
j7uy5 | March 19, 2008This month
href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-18-ccc75th_N.htm">marks
the 75th anniversary of the
href="http://www.cccalumni.org/history1.html">Civilian
Conservation Corps. This item caught my attention,
because I had an uncle who was part of the CCC. He did
forestry work in the
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Peninsula_of_Michigan">U.P.
This helped my father's family eat during the
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression">Great
Depression.
Currently the world economy is teetering on the brink of a recession.
The triple threat of…
j7uy5 | March 17, 2008When generic drugs started to become popular, many people were
skeptical. Many people got switched from brand name to
generic products, and complained that the generic did not work as well.
These complaints often were treated with skepticism. After
all, generic drugs contain the same active ingredient(s) as the
brand-name product, but cost less. Plus, the FDA assured us
that they were bioequivalent.
Over the past decade or so, public acceptance of generics has
increased. Many people want to get the generic equivalent.
But now there are questions about the validity of the testing
done…
j7uy5 | March 17, 2008There is a new website,
rel="tag">Encyclopedia of Life.
It is an online resource that aims "to document all species
of life on Earth." One featured species is Pissodes
strobi (Peck), the White pine weevil.
src="http://scienceblogs.com/corpuscallosum/image%0As/beetle.jpeg"
class="inset" height="231" width="460">
The site currently contains:
About 25
href="http://www.eol.org/content/exemplars">exemplar species
pages.
These pages show the kind of rich environment, with extensive
information, to which all the species pages will eventually grow. These
pages have been…
j7uy5 | March 16, 2008This is a nice bit of Scandinavian design.
But take another look. Notice the ST segment?
HT:
href="http://www.neatorama.com/2008/03/15/heartbeat-bookshelf/">Neatorama.
j7uy5 | March 12, 2008XP13512 is an experimental new drug currently
href="http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=XP13512">in
phase III trials for the treatment of
href="http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec16/ch215/ch215f.html"
rel="tag">restless legs syndrome. I was
reminded about this after seeing a post at
href="http://sleepdoctor.blogspot.com/2008/03/restless-legs-syndrome-and.html">sleepdoctor,
and following the link to Sleep Expert, and browsing from there.
The author, Dr. Poceta, wrote about
href="http://www.revolutionhealth.com/blogs/stevepocetamd/new-medicine-for-rls--12134"
rel="tag">…
j7uy5 | March 11, 2008It amused me today to see two blog posts, both about users switching
from Gentoo
to *buntu.
rel="bookmark"
title="Permanent Link: Why I am making the switch from Gentoo to Kubuntu">Why
I Am Making The Switch From Gentoo To Kubuntu
href="http://fxjr.blogspot.com/2008/03/bye-gentoo-welcome-ubuntu.html">
Bye Gentoo... Welcome Ubuntu
Gentoo is the most complicated version of Linux, but also the most
customizable. It enables the user to squeeze the greatest
performance out of their machines.
Like the authors of the two posts, I recently switched. I had
been using Sabayon,
a…
j7uy5 | March 7, 2008This is interesting. Banks think they have found a way to
make money no matter what happens.
href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601010&sid=axksyBiC6q78&refer=news">As
Houston Auctions Fail, JPMorgan Exploits Taxpayers
By Darrell Preston
March 6 (Bloomberg) -- The collapse of the auction-rate bond market may
cost borrowers from New York to California at least $1 billion in fees,
enriching JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and
the rest of Wall Street that let the market fall apart.
The firms that pulled their support of the market where states…
j7uy5 | March 7, 2008The LA Times has a story about the author's own
struggle with
href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000923.htm">panic
disorder and agoraphobia.
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-hew-panic3mar03,0,2971333.story">
href="http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-hew-panic3mar03,0,2971333.story">For
a Paxil-free life, she'll take the long route
It takes some time, but this student learns there's no quick
fix for panic attacks.
By Summer Beretsky, Special to The Times
March 3, 2008
Some people can't stand the word "irregardless…
j7uy5 | March 6, 2008In late winter, 1979, I knew an architecture student at the University
of Michigan. She wanted some pictures of buildings, in
downtown Chicago, for a presentation she had to do. She was
from Chicago, but did not have a car and did not have a camera.
I, on the other hand, had a Mazda Rx-3 and a Minolta SRT-202.
So off we went. Little did I know, they were having
record snowfalls that year. It was awfully treacherous
driving in that Mazda.
The snow piles on the street outside of her house were taller than my
little car. In fact, it was impossible to see the house.
Now, Chicago is…