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 Thursday, August 22, 2002
When Food Attacks! "A gourmet chef in Vietnam died after being bitten by a venomous sea snake that he was to cook as the nightly special." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson]
Sea snakes have really potent venom. I love the fact that even after the guy was bitten, as he was dying, they retrieved the snake and served it to the customer. I guess that a man-killing snake is even a greater aphrodisiac. 7:53:05 AM 
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I've been reading the History of the telephone, as written in 1910 by Herberst Casson. It has been very refreshing to read how hard it was for Bell to get anyone to notice, look ar listen to his new device. In fact, it wasn't until he sent a 'news story' at a distance of 16 miles, that he received the attention he needed: the press. Seems they only react when their own business affected.
So much of this story is analogous to weblogs. Their invention, mis(understanding) and application all pretty much went through the same stages. Here's one you'll recognize:
"There were hundreds of shrewd capitalists in American cities in 1876, looking with sharp eyes in all directions for business chances; but not one of them came to Bell with an offer to buy his patent. Not one came running for a State contract. And neither did any legislature, or city council, come forward to the task of giving the people a cheap and efficient telephone service."
It gets better: " ......it was a most unpropitious time for the setting afloat of a new enterprise. It was a period of turmoil and suspicion. What with the Jay Cooke failure, the Hayes-Tilden deadlock, and the bursting of a hundred railroad bubbles, there was very little in the news of the day to encourage investors." [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]
And what is so great is that you can go right out and read this book on the web. Fascinating reading. Some people take a long time to get it. 7:51:07 AM
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Mac OS X Switcher Stories. After a visit to Microsoft, Tim O'Reilly began to wonder where the switchers to Mac OS X were really coming from. Were they migrating from Windows as portrayed in the ad campaigns, or was there something more curious under foot? Here's what he discovered. [O'Reilly Network Articles]
Another in Tim's long line of great and interesting articles. I observed a similar shift in Linux users at the O'Reily Bioinformatics conference. From about 80% PCs running Linux just a year begore, I would say it was 80% running OS X. 7:20:01 AM
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Potential cause of arthritis discovered. Certain types of naturally occurring carbohydrates in the body may cause rheumatoid arthritis, a debilitating, painful disease affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide according to research being presented at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Boston. It's the first time researchers have associated carbohydrates present naturally in the body with this disease. [EurekAlert - Medicine & Health]
Now this could be interesting. Finding the proximate cause of the inflammatory response that leads to rheumatiod arthritis would be wonderful. The idea that carbohydrates on the cells could be a cause leads to interesting questions. Let's hope they are productive questions and not another blind alley. 7:02:39 AM
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New cancer drug possible from compound found in common food. A compound found in many foods and drinks could form the basis for new drugs to defeat cancer and heart disease, scientists at UCL claimed today. University College London [EurekAlert - Medicine & Health]
Almost ANYTHING is a possible cancer drug! This report finds that a couple of chemicals, such as caffeine, can affect an enzyme that is involved in cellular growth and maybe cancer. This is quite a long, long way from any kind of cancer drug. And drinking coffee will not be a way to accomplish any cancer cure. I hate these reports because they hype the research. There does not appear to be any hard evidence that these compounds will have any specific effect in humans concerning cancer or heart disease. They made the enzyme in insect cells and showed in a test tube that adding caffeine to the enzyme inhibited it This work is interesting in and of itself, as most basic research is. Hyping it with the words cancer and heart disease only serves to confuse real progress in these areas. It will be a long long time before this ever produces any kind of useful drug. Drugs with a much better track record in the lab (such as EGF receptor antagonists) have failed in human clinical trials. Just explain the reseach in interesting ways. Don't get lazy. 6:59:24 AM
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