neurotopia | July 5, 2006This is very strange. Convicted Enron exec Ken Lay has apparently died. I can't get to the article because it is behind the NY Times firewall but the link is here.
Enron Founder Kenneth Lay Reported to Be Dead
By REUTERS
Published: July 5, 2006
Kenneth L. Lay, who was convicted of fraud and conspiracy for his part in Enron's collapse, has died of a heart attack, a Houston television station reported.
Not to be a conspirasy theorist but this just a little too convenient. 20 bucks sez he was to cooperate for a reduced sentence. Not that he wouldn't have gotten a presidential pardon...
neurotopia | July 4, 2006HOLY FUCK.
Italy scores TWICE at the end of a 0-0 overtime!!!!!!!!
This game is amazing!!!!! To top it off, the refs actually did their damn jobs correctly for once!!!
Hats off to Germany for an excellent Cup. I hate to see you guys lose after such an effort.
I expected a dynamite game but wow, this was something else. Both teams played an intense first half, trading off control of the midfield. By 70 minutes, you could tell that everybody was starting to wear down. The second half did drag a bit. The substitutions picked things up a little and both teams played excellent defense…
neurotopia | July 4, 2006I've decided that as much as I want to see Germany win on their home turf, I'm still rooting for Italy. I want a France/Italy rematch/revenge for 1998.
Hear that, LeBleu-sers? You're going down!!!!
Good post here by The Daily Transcript.
neurotopia | July 3, 2006Ever wonder how people can be impaired drivers when their blood alcohol content is under the legal limit? This group shows us why. And who can resist an experiment involving a woman in a gorilla suit?
The question the researchers wanted to answer was whether a single drink could impair one's ability to notice something completely out of place. They gave participants a drink in a bar-like setting, then watch a video clip of a basketball game. The oddity was that partway through the clip, a woman in a gorilla suit wanders out to the middle of the screen, beats her chest, and walks off.…
neurotopia | July 3, 2006According to a new computer model that accurately reproduces the dynamics of the ozone layer over Antarctica for the last 27 years, the ozone hole is predicted to close, albeit later than expected.
Following adoption of the Montreal Protocol which banned chlorofluorocarbons and other compounds that accumulate and attack the ozone layer, it now appears that we will be able to visualize reductions in the size of the hole by around 2018, with recovery occurring around 2068, almost 20 years later than originally predicted.
While the additional two decades is a bummer, it is important to remember…
neurotopia | July 1, 2006Interesting story on the AP about a Vermont dairy that uses the methane from cow manure to help generate revenue for their farm.
For the Audets, the electricity has created an important new income stream at a time when low wholesale milk prices have squeezed their margin. The utility pays 95 percent of the going New England wholesale power price for electricity from the Audets' generator.
In addition, the utility charges customers willing to pay it a 4-cents-per-kilowatt-hour premium for renewable energy and then turns the money over to the Audets. So far, more than 3,000 CVPS customers have…
neurotopia | June 29, 2006There is one simple reason why a pharmacist's personal beliefs should not factor into the dispensing of medication that, to me, takes precedence over all others.
Medications rarely, if ever, have one use. A single medication can be prescribed for a variety of reasons. This causes a problem: a pharmacist might refuse to dispense birth control pills on the religious grounds that the pill prevents conception and therefore prevents life. But what if the pill was not prescribed for prevention of pregnancy?
This is not an uncommon occurrence. There is a range of therapeutic value for birth…
neurotopia | June 29, 2006Just a couple comments on Tara's situation. Firstly, check that the pharmacist doesn't have a little Vicodin habit of his or her own. Probably not, but I've lost all faith in humanity.
Secondly, this situation is deplorable. If a veterinarian at an academic research facility intentionally withheld post-op painkillers from animal subjects larger than a rat-- especially a dog, cat, or monkey-- without a justifiable experimental purpose**, I have little doubt that said veterinarian just set in motion a series of events that would result in termination of his or her employment. I find it…
neurotopia | June 27, 2006Mrs. Evil Monkey and I went to visit Fallingwater for our 8th anniversary, and got some interesting surprises along the way. Lots of photos involved.
First off, we got this really swanky hotel called Log Cabin Motel. The accommodations were clean and the staff was friendly, and we got a room with a jacuzzi tub. The decor, on the other hand, was rather hilarious.
Surprisingly, there was a walk-through outdoor animal park adjacent to the hotel. Even more amazing, it was relatively clean and the animals seemed to be in good health. And they had a rather interesting assortment of animals!…
neurotopia | June 27, 2006So wait a minute... what was Rush doing with a bottle of Viagra in the DR? Was his wife with him at the airport? No mention is made of her in the article, it appears that he could have been traveling alone. He is married, right? Hmmm.
Hat tip to Rev. BigDumbChimp for stating the obvious.
neurotopia | June 26, 2006I'm not doing too hot on raising money for low income school districts and kids that need books because theirs were destroyed in hurricanes. Please visit my Donor Challenge by clicking on the icon below my profile and, well.... donate!!!
neurotopia | June 26, 2006Inspired by Rush Limbaugh's apparent erectile dysfunction, I decided that today's Evil Journal Club should address the "other" potential uses of PDE-5 inhibitors, the most (in)famous of which is Viagra.
Phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE-5) is an enzyme that breaks down cyclic GMP. We've known for a while that cGMP is important for signal transduction and ultimately for learning and memory processes, and that nitric oxide (NO) can stimulate production of cGMP. Interestingly, changes in this NO-cGMP signaling pathway have been implicated in aging, providing a potential link to deteriorating…
neurotopia | June 26, 2006Turns out Rush's Viagra was purposefully mislabeled as being prescribed to his physician for protection of Rush's privacy, which is what tipped off the Customs guys.
Darn. There goes my first SchadenFriday material on the SEED blogs... although I do wish Rushie could take a cue from me and correct his mistakes in a timely fashion. Or at all.
neurotopia | June 26, 2006Somebody tell me why Rush Limbaugh got a free pass on this the first time around? This time it wasn't just suspected illegal possession of prescription narcotics.
Limbaugh was returning on a flight from the Dominican Republic when officials found the drugs, among them Viagra.
Yes, we can finally confirm the source of all his angst.
neurotopia | June 25, 2006No shortage of them lately, it seems, and not just regarding the state of global climate change.
US administration officials chose to ignore a CIA officer's warnings that an Iraqi defector's claims of purported biological labs made by Iraq for germ warfare were unproven.
The article is a bit more descriptive, of course. Go read the whole thing. Here's a snippet.
Sunday's edition of The Washington Post quoted veteran CIA officer Tyler Drumheller who, it said, "recognized the source, an Iraqi defector suspected of being mentally unstable and a liar.
"The CIA officer took his pen," he…
neurotopia | June 25, 2006Despite the United State's disappointing loss to Ghana, I remain a stalwart Cup Addict. While rooting for the home team is fun, the US is not really my favorite team. In fact, I have many favorites...
Italy is tops, then whoever is playing Brazil comes next. Don't get me wrong, I love watching Brazil, I'm just sick to death of seeing them win so I cheer for the opposing team. Unless that team is France. Can you tell I'm still bitter about the 1998 Cup?
England is always enjoyable to watch, and they're currently playing in their first elimination match against Ecuador, the team I…
neurotopia | June 25, 2006Just a reminder that the first edition of The Synapse should be up and running soon!
neurotopia | June 24, 2006Live in the DC Metro area? Support evolution education? Come to a public meeting of the Alliance for Science on Wednesday!!!
neurotopia | June 24, 2006If I had to decide what makes a good science teacher, it would be the ability to demonstrate how experiments fit into the proverbial "scheme of things". Nothing kills interest in science faster than 1. not being able to accurately relay the structure of the big picture and 2. just tossing a bunch of apparently random experiments at the students and expecting them to figure out how the pieces fit together. You wouldn't attempt to put a jigsaw puzzle together in the dark, would you?
A second skill that can make a science teacher go from great to outstanding is the ability to motivate…
neurotopia | June 24, 2006I did my Ph.D. using monkeys as a model system, and as such I have quite an affinity for the little buggers. They may not be cute, they may not smell good, and they're definitely not cuddly, but they're completely endearing due to their penchant for outsmarting their H. sapiens bretheren. Unfortunately, not even an irascible, crusty old primate is immune from pseudoscientific nonsense. The Hundredth Monkey is one example.
The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon is often referred to by pop psych weirdos and New Age crazies. If you hang around any internet forums, eventually some incense-burning…