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 Tuesday, July 30, 2002
Dwight D. Eisenhower. "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." [Quotes of the Day]
John Tudor. "A rumor without a leg to stand on will get around some other way." [Quotes of the Day]
How does Quotes of the Day know just the ones that I really want to hear? These are great. 11:54:40 PM 
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Jon Udell has another great article. I want to be in a space where I can write these sorts of things from a biological perspective instead of a computational, although there is lots of room for overlap. Maybe I should contact O'Reilly. 11:43:43 PM
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How Big Is the Acrylamide Risk?. A disclosure in April that starchy foods cooked at high temperatures contain acrylamide, a potential carcinogen, has produced strange bedfellows. By Marian Burros. [New York Times: Science]
I guess this is another reason to stay away from starches. I'm for the Atkin's diet ;-). I would be surprised if this was a significant risk. Epidemiology found the link between smoking and cigarettes long before there was any definitive proof. If acrylamide was a widespread carcinogen, we probably would have seen it sooner. What I would be more worried about are the neurotoxic effects. Acrylamide is something we took care around when using in the lab. Always wear gloves and a mask when weighing it out. But this was to make gels that were 5-20% acrylamide, huge amounts compared to what they are reposrting in foods. 11:15:03 PM
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Some sports linked to unhealthy eating behaviors in girls. Girls involved in sports that emphasize staying at a certain weight are more likely than their peers to practice unhealthy eating behaviors to achieve their desired weight, a new large-scale study confirms. [EurekAlert - Medicine & Health]
This is not a surprise. Boys who were in such sports (like wrestling) took very unhealthy approaches to maintaining weight. And it was encouraged. However, the thing to take from this report is that a huge majority, like 90%, of the participants do not have unhealthy eating habits. The media may portray it differently, since it helps to sell papers. 11:10:13 PM
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Doubts over UK smallpox vaccine dismissed [New Scientist]
What an awful title! What doubts and who dismissed them. I guess it makes you want to read the article, which actually has more real data than many New Scientist articles. A smallpox outbreak could be nasty, do not forget that, but I think many articles do more to spread false impressions that can also do damage. We just do not know a lot about what will happen with weaponized smallpox. We have some information from various outbreaks, though, that variola-based vaccines are extraordinarily good at preventing death from smallpox, even 50 years after an infection. You may not display circulating antibodies that react to the virus (the classic way to determine whether you are immune or not) but the body still has certain mysteries. Exposure to a vaccine may very well prevent you from dying of smallpox, although you could still contract it. Scientists being scientists, as well as human beings, have to make do with the epidemiology that is there, since it is unethical and impossible to check things out on humans. 11:02:41 PM
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Lots of e-mails to send today. I went back to Immunex for lunch with Anne Aumell and saw several people (and got several leads and ideas). See networking can work;-) Now if I can just find a job. Well, I worked a lot on my cv. I'm stopping by Lee Hecht Harrison (the outplacement company) tomorrow for them to critique it. Should be fun. LHH has been really good and much more useful than I would have thought. 10:53:21 PM
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