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Thursday, September 26, 2002
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Anthony Flaccavento writes: Building an alternative regional economy—one that is more just, more ecologically sound and more self reliant—requires networks of relationships that are synergistic, and a means of capturing and accumulating knowledge and assets. We have come to call this an infrastructure for community sustainability. The foundation of this infrastructure is the ecosystem. Therefore, the strategy focuses on restoring ecological health, creating livelihoods and economic systems that are ecologically sustainable, and building the financial and physical capital needed to add value to the region’s natural resources and bridge the gapbetween producers and the marketplace. ... The growing market for local organic produce provided a viable option. In close consultation with consumers and the buyers at the grocery stores, we developed a growers’ network with a trademark label and brand name, Appalachian Harvest, which became the umbrella for an increasingly wide range of certified organic, locally raised crops. The network began to take off in 2001 with more farmers joining, larger farms involved, and more outlets. Three new, larger supermarket chains joined as partners. Two of them were family-owned, based right in Virginia. From 2000 to 2001, sales nearly tripled, and projections suggest another 200 to 300 percent growth in 2002. (09/26/02) | |
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Rod Brooks writes: What is it that makes something alive? ... We have all become computation-centric over the last few years. We've tended to think that computation explains everything. When I was a kid, I had a book which described the brain as a telephone-switching network. Earlier books described it as a hydrodynamic system or a steam engine. Then in the '60s it became a digital computer. In the '80s it became a massively parallel digital computer. I bet there's now a kid's book out there somewhere which says that the brain is just like the World Wide Web because of all of its associations. We're always taking the best technology that we have and using that as the metaphor for the most complex things—the brain and living systems. And we've done that with computation. But maybe there's more to us than computation. Maybe there's something beyond computation in the sense that we don't understand and we can't describe what's going on inside living systems using computation only. When we build computational models of living systems—such as a self-evolving system or an artificial immunology system—they're not as robust or rich as real living systems. Maybe we're missing something, but what could that something be? (09/26/02) | |
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The London Telegraph -- Sheikh Yamani, the former head of Opec who terrorised the West with threats over oil supplies in the 1970s, returned to the fray yesterday when he warned that the price of crude could triple to $100 a barrel if there is a war against Iraq. His comments contributed to another torrid day on financial markets, where shares tumbled. The FTSE 100 index closed down 68.3 at 3,671.1, a level unseen since December 1995. In an interview in a German magazine DM Euro, Sheikh Yamani - who is now retired as Saudi oil minister but still close to the ruling family - said Saddam Hussein could fire chemical weapons at his neighbours if he was attacked. "And if that's the case, you can expect a triple-digit oil price. It could rise to $100 if the flow of oil from Kuwait and Saudia Arabia is turned off." (09/26/02) | |
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New York Times: Science -- In a closetlike room at the "Leg Lab" here, salamanders stare blankly out of clear plastic drinking cups. The lab is so named because many of the animals have had, or will have, a leg cut off. But the salamanders recover, with perfect new limbs growing back in weeks. Salamanders are the superstars of regeneration. They can grow back not only limbs but also tails, parts of their hearts and the retinas and lenses in their eyes. Humans cannot do any of that. So scientists here hope that the salamander's tricks may one day be applied to people. "I really do believe it's just a matter of time before you're going to regenerate an arm or at least a finger," said Dr. David M. Gardiner, a biologist who runs the laboratory at the University of California at Irvine with Dr. Susan V. Bryant, the dean of biological sciences and his wife. "I'd like to see that in my lifetime." Regenerative medicine, regrowing or repairing damaged organs, has become a hot topic. Almost all the attention has focused on stem cells. The idea is to grow stem cells outside the body, turn them into particular types of tissue and transplant them into patients. But a few scientists theorize that a better approach is to induce the same regeneration in people that occurs in salamanders and some other animals. Natural regeneration, which might be accomplished with drugs or genes, would be easier than transplanting, they say. And the tissue would be the patient's own, doing away with the problem of rejection. Even if salamanders' feats cannot be reproduced in humans, those scientists say, studying regenerating animals will at least provide clues for stem cell scientists. (09/26/02) | |
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New York Times: Science -- When a hurricane ripped through the jungle of northern Guatemala a year ago, an uprooted tree at the base of temple ruins at Dos Pilas exposed stones bearing one of the longest texts of Maya hieroglyphs ever found. Part of a grand staircase leading up the side of a pyramid, the inscribed stones recorded the triumphs and defeats of one city caught in the middle of protracted warfare between two superpowers — the city-states of Tikal and Calakmul — that split much of the Maya civilization some 1,500 years ago. ... Dr. Demarest and other scholars said the translations supported a concept advanced by two Maya scholars, Dr. Simon Martin of University College, London, and Dr. Nikolai Grube of the University of Bonn. They contend that the turmoil of the seventh and eighth centuries resulted from the contest between the Tikal and Calakmul superpowers, along with their blocs of allied city-states, for complete dominance. "This didn't happen," Dr. Demarest said. "Instead, the giant war went back and forth. After Tikal was sacked, it eventually roared back and crushed Calakmul. And then the Maya world just broke up into regional powers, setting the stage for a period of intensive, petty warfare that finally led to the collapse of the Maya." Dos Pilas itself was abandoned in 760. (09/26/02) | |
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New York Times: Science -- Most people have around 100 billion nerve cells in their brain. But the roundworm, down at the other end of the scale of animal complexity, figures out everything it needs to know about life with exactly 302 neurons. Researchers have now gained what seems to be a major insight into how nature builds brains of such different capabilities. They have discovered a gene that apparently determines the brain's size. The gene has come to light through study of a disease known as microcephaly, in which people are born with a head and brain significantly smaller than usual. Patients are in general only mildly retarded but have far fewer neurons. ... Dr. C. Geoffrey Woods, a pediatrician at St. James's University Hospital in nearby Leeds, started to notice microcephalic children among his Pakistani patients. Working with Dr. Christopher A. Walsh, a neurogeneticist at the Harvard Medical School, he located a causative gene in 24 families with microcephaly. (09/26/02) | |
8:08:04 AM 
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© TrustMark
2002
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
10/1/2002; 6:08:29 AM.
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