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13 June 2004
Habit is the assassin of experience.
A one-point program for lifelong growth and spiritual enlightenment: Eschew thy comfort zone.
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12 June 2004 Warning of a Coming Epidemic Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to inner peace and it is possible that people everywhere could come down with it in epidemic proportions. This could pose a serious threat to what has, up to now, been a fairly stable condition of conflict in the world.
WARNING: If you have some or all of the above symptoms, please be advised that your condition of inner peace may be so far advanced as to not be curable. If you are exposed to anyone exhibiting any of these symptoms, remain exposed only at your own risk. - Saskia Davis |
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11 June 2004 Do you enjoy interlocking-ring puzzles? Presented with a structure like this one, how would you pull it apart? Or, how could you assemble it out of 3 separate rings? Study the picture for a moment, and it's clear that it can't be done. The 3 rings are essentially interlocked, though no 2 of them are interlocked in the absence of the third.
This structure was in the news this week, as chemists reported success in creating it out of atoms! The structure self-assembles out of 12 cleverly designed chains of C, H, N and O atoms. (Nineteen years ago, chemists first reported the discovery of a molecule shaped like a geodesic dome. It is a form of C60 , affectionately named a "buckyball", for the late Buckminster Fuller. Since then, they've learned to build these molecules around an un-bonded atom, which is locked inside the sphere.)
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10 June 2004
Colonel Stanislav Petrov had his finger on the button. His orders were to watch the radar over Siberia, and to launch a full nuclear retaliation against the United States should there ever be a confirmation of missiles entering Soviet air space. There were five blips on the radar screen. All available information confirmed that this was the real thing. If Col Petrov didn’t launch his missiles now, it might be too late in 15 minutes. It was 1983, and tensions between the Soviet Union and the US were as high as they could be. But Col Petrov made a lonely decision to disobey orders. He would not be responsible for starting World War III. Much later, the signals indicating the presence of US missiles were determined to be a computer glitch. Awesome responsibility in the hands of one man, who did the right thing. Col Petrov was finally honored last month.
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9 June 2004
And if I drink oblivion of a day, So shorten I the stature of my soul.
- George Meredith
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8June 2004
Easy gene therapy Gene therapy holds great promise to correct birth defects and genetically-based diseases, and possibly to improve our health in ways that go beyond this. Medical researchers have known this for decades, but the prospect of adding a gene to every cell in the body has been considered a major obstacle. The standard idea is to infect the body with genetically engineered viruses, designed not to create disease but to cure it. The technique is fraught with dangers. Last week, Jon Wolf of the Med School at U of Wisconsin announced that it’s easier than anyone imagined to add functional genes to the body. He has had remarkable success with mice simply introducing DNA into the bloodstream with a standard intravenous injection. If this is borne out, it’s a medical bonanza for all of us. How does it work? The technique involves making miniature loops of active DNA called plasmids, that lack the usual protective protein jacket. Without the protein jacket, plasmids slip right into muscle cells. In Dr Wolff’s experiments with mice, the genes persist in the target cells up to six months, and have been shown to be translated into proteins just as if they were in the mouse genome.
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| 7 June 2004
Then indecision brings its own delays, |
