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 Monday, January 20, 2003
Astroturfing in our time. Paul Boutin breaks an interesting story: Someone’s astroturfing local newspaper editorial pages on behalf of the President’s economic growth package. Dozens of newspapers “from Boston to Honolulu,” different names (the list of papers is here). The astroturfing was turned up by Google. Same text every time: When it comes to the economy, President Bush is demonstrating genuine leadership. The economic growth package he recently proposed takes us in the right direction by accelerating the successful tax cuts of 2001, providing marriage penalty relief, and providing incentives for individuals and small businesses to save and invest. Contrary to the class warfare rhetoric attacking the President’s plan, the proposal helps everyone who pays taxes, and especially the middle class. This year alone, 92 million taxpayers will receive an immediate tax cut averaging $1,083 - and 46 million married couples will get back an average of $1,714. That’s not pocket change for a family struggling through uncertain economic times. Combined with the President’s new initiatives to help the unemployed, this plan gets people back to work and helps every sector of our economy. What were they thinking? There are no secrets in the blogosphere. How are the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chicago Tribune, and Boston Globe going to feel about being astroturfed? How seriously are they going to take statements from any official source who’s behind the Bush economic plan as a result? Here’s a big clue: stop lying to us. [Jarrett House North]
This is how transparency fosters accountability. When a fake grass-roots ('astroturf', get it?) letter gets published, they ALL get published and a newspaper can easily see how it is duped, as can we all. This might have worked 10 years ago but as long as so much of the content is online, it is easy to check. Why do they think it will work? Because they usually do not get caight. 10:20:13 PM 
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Letter from Birmingham Jail. It's MLK Day. Martin Luther King - Letter from Birmingham Jail AUTHOR'S NOTE: This response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat constricting circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I... [Semi-Daily Journal]
A very important document. It also includes this paragraph that I find very relevant even today: Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds. 9:47:36 PM
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Fickle Evolution: Winged, to Wingless, to Winged. Researchers have reported evidence that wingless stick insects have re-evolved wings at least four times in the history of the group. By Carol Kaesuk Yoon. [New York Times: Science]
More about walking sticks. A little more information. I like the mention that developmental biologists are not surprised. They know pretty much the sorts of things I mentioned earlier. Flies have only 2 wings. Four wings is more primordial than 2 so you can say that once a fly loses 2 wings it should be impossible to regain them. Yet a simple mutation results in flies that again have 4 wings. Evo-Devo (the intersection of development and evolution) is one of the most fascinating areas today and it is being revolutionized by genetic engineering. 9:29:53 PM
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3-D RNA Folds and Molds Like a Key for a Specialized Work. It turns out that RNA can fold into three-dimensional shapes that can bind to something like a protein by shape, as a key fits in a lock. By Andrew Pollack. [New York Times: Science]
A neat little article about creating RNA molecules that act like proteins. Another reason why an RNA world holds a lot of attraction for initial life forms. Additionally, my wife worked for Larry Gold back when I was doing my post-doc in Colorado. A very interesting guy. 9:25:30 PM
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Chemistry guides evolution, claims theory [New Scientist]
First, this does nothing to explain how the first cells really got going. It essentially says that life had to figure out a way to deal with its waste products. In a reducing atmosphere, oxgen would be bad. By figuring out a way to deal with oxygen, you can other items. Where I disagree with this description is that there is not some straight-forward path from primordial cells to humans. How do you know that the thiongs done here to deal with these waste products are the only or even best choice? In my view, the presence of these waste products simply sets up a new ecological niche that organisms can exploit. If their scenario is right, why are there still prokarytotes around? 9:08:31 PM
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InfoWorld: Blogs refine enterprise focus.. via Oliver Wrede:
Building on the success of Weblogs for personal Web publishing, enterprises are starting to tap into blogs to streamline specific business processes such as intelligence gathering or to augment traditional content-and knowledge-management technologies. more... [a klog apart]
But you still need to have a corporate culture that rewards spending the time using weblog software. Many companies are a long way away from thinking this way. 12:29:08 PM
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Public Release: 17-Jan-2003
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Evolving slower gets you the bigger piece of the pie
Evolutionary biologists have long believed that evolving faster, adapting better, and learning more quickly should always be beneficial for a species. In a recent paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig/Germany and from the University of Washington/USA reveal that this is not always the case (PNAS online, 13 January 2003).
Contact: Michael Lachmann
lachmann@mis.mpg.de
49-341-995-9854
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
[Eurekalert - Biology]
While this is based on mathematical simulations, it is an insightful conclusion. Much has been written about the red queens race, a sort of arms war between species, where the faster you evolve, the better you chance of surviving. Think predator-prey. In this current instance, they are looking at mutually beneficial interactions. In this case, it appears the the more slowly the species evolves the better, since the other species in the mutual group will need to adapt. It will be interesting to see how well this plays out in nature. 12:25:43 PM
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Medical Panel Has Doubts About Plan for Smallpox. The government's plan for smallpox vaccinations is too rushed and lacks adequate safeguards, according to a panel of independent medical experts. By Denise Grady. [New York Times: Science]
Doctors Are Ironing Out Details for Giving the Smallpox Vaccine. Doctors advising the government were still ironing out details on Tuesday of who should avoid the vaccine and how it should be given. By Denise Grady. [New York Times: Science]
In some ways this reminds me of the swine flu fiasco. The government is planning on inoculating millions of people for smallpox. The problem arises from the fact that these people will shed vacinnia virus that can infect others. So there are a growing list of people who should not be innoculated but there is not much provision for those they may infect. And the government has already said that there will be NO compensation for any medical problems that arise. We seem to be making medical decisions purely for politcal reasons with little real discussion of the consequences. Both of these articles discuss some of the problems. That is one reason that a growing number of health centers are not going to inoculate their care-givers. This will be interesting to see how it plays out, since the political need to do something will probably outweight much of the medical concerns.
This is worrisome since wartime metality allows medical procedures to be done that would never be contyemplated otherwise. During OPeration Desert Storm, soldiers were required to receive not only mass innoculation in combinations that had never been done before, they were also given experimental drugs that had not been fully vetted by the FDA. One consequence of all of this would be to weaken a person's immune system while it tried to deal with all this. Then the soldiers were sent overseas where they were then exposed to a multitude of antigenssurprise to me that many reported medical problems upon returning. My worry is that we will travel down this path but with civilians as the guinea pigs. 12:05:16 PM
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PARASITOLOGY:
A Game of Cat and Mouth
Sarah K. Volkman and Daniel L. Hartl
Science Jan 17 2003: 353-354.
[Summary] [Full Text]
[PDF] [Science]
More about the Toxoplasma parasite. You may need a subscription to Science to read but I love the title! 1:41:23 AM
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Public Release: 15-Jan-2003
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Growing human antibodies in algae
A group of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have used algae to express an antibody that targets herpes virus. This antibody could potentially be an ingredient in an anti-herpes topical cream or other anti-herpes treatments, but more importantly the algae expression technology that the TSRI team used could facilitate production of any number of human antibodies and other proteins on a massive scale.
Sea Grant, National Institutes of Health, Syngenta Corporation
Contact: Jason Bardi
jasonb@scripps.edu
858-784-9254
Scripps Research Institute
[Eurekalert - Biology
Public Release: 19-Jan-2003
Nature Biotechnology
New antibody library speeds search for new detection tools
Scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have extracted part of the human immune system and reconstituted it in brewer's yeast in a fashion that enables powerful machines to quickly identify new antibodies. The advance could have major repercussions for fundamental biological science as well as industries that use antibodies for sensors, biodetectors, diagnostic tools and therapeutic agents.
Contact: Staci Maloof
staci.maloof@pnl.gov
509-372-6313
DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
[Eurekalert - Biology]]
Oaky, one report makes antibodies in algae, by inserting the appropriate gene into the chloroplasts. Finding easier ways to make large amounts of recombinant human protein is an active area of research. People are trying to make them in algae, yeast , cows, and even plants. Each system has its drawbacks, especially when it comes to immungenecity. The last thing you want to do if you give someone an antibody therapeutic is to raise an immune response to the anitbody. This is one reason that most therapeutic antibodies are made in mammalian cell culture - they are less likely to cause an immune response. 1:01:28 AM
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Public Release: 19-Jan-2003
Nature Structural Biology
Researchers achieve germline transmission of 'gene knockdown' in mice
RNA interference (RNAi) has emerged as a powerful tool in biomedical research. A new study published in the
February issue of Nature Structural Biology reports the creation of
transgenic mice in which inherited RNAi lowers or silences the expression
of a target gene, producing a stable "gene knockdown." This finding
extends the power of RNAi to genetic studies in live animals, and has
far-reaching implications for the study and treatment of many human
diseases.
National Institutes of Health, Rita Allen Foundation, US Army breast Cancer Research Program
Contact: Peter Sherwood
sherwood@cshl.edu
516-367-6947
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
[Eurekalert - Biology]
Very nice work, although it took a lot of work to get there. RNAi are small segments of RNA that can bind to the RNAs produced by normal genes. The cell recognizes this complex and will degrade it, effectively removing the normal RNA from the cell. This greatly reduces the amount of protein made from the normal RNA. This work required them to get the segment coding for the appropriate RNAi, with a promoter to transcribe the gene into RNAi, into embryonic stem cells, to then mix them with mouse embryos, take these to term, identify chimeric mouse (i.e. mice that carried normal cells and cells with the gene coding for the RNAi, cross these mice, hoping that some of the chimeras crossed into the reproductive cells, eventually finding mice that were completely made up of RNAi cells. Then they could actually do the work they wanted to do. This is not something that can be done in a weekend. But, if it gives us the ability to selectively turn a gene off, which it may, it will be worth the large amount of work. 12:41:18 AM
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