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Tuesday, December 17, 2002
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Donivan Bessinger writes: We live in a dangerous world, faced with many forces for life destruction and life denigration. The evening news telecast and the morning newspaper always carry the same litany, ritually reciting civilization's daily penance of totalitarianism, terrorism, political famine, religious wars, racial repression, nuclear threat. The people intone, Kyrie eleison. Lord, have mercy. Yet it is not in the nature of mankind, or the nature of nature that the world is so ordered. It is the nature of nature to seek to adapt and thrive. All of unconscious nature is directed toward will-to-live and toward the seeking of its balance. Nature's only barriers to a balancing force are to be found in the human conscious. It is there that the barriers to human wholeness must be breached. The solution to our dilemma, individually and collectively, is to bring into focus once again the ancient wisdom of creation, that the natural ethic is life ordered toward balance. We are not held hostage to impenetrable forces of evil. We are held hostage behind our own barricades which block ethical awareness. The solution to our dilemma lies in working together to expand ethical awareness, not only within ourselves but in the world at large. It is in inner awareness that we find a "great energy for mighty transformations." It is there that we find why heaven and earth are so great. It is in the ethics of reverence for life that we can find our adaptation and our opportunity. It is in its imperative for the affirmation of all life that we can find, individually and collectively, the counterbalancing forces for survival. It is a dangerous age, but it is an age of hope. (12/17/02) | |
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Boris Kagarlitsky writes: The strength of the Putin regime derives from society's utter lack of hope that anything will ever change for the better. Some already have it pretty good, and for everyone else things couldn't get any worse. Most people have more or less adapted to their new life. Under Brezhnev the country lived for 18 years without change, and at first life wasn't at all bad. The very lack of news was good news for people who still remembered the war and the Terror. The Russia that entered the 21st century was a country grown weary from unresolved problems and weakened by the sense of its own impotence. Tired of unsuccessful attempts to find a way out of the crisis, the country resigned itself to poverty, inequality, the systematic degradation of education and health care, the impossibility of winning or ending the war in Chechnya, the corruption and insolence of government officials. The chaos of the 1990s produced a desire for order. But "order" has only compounded our problems. The Kremlin, with all its repressive might and the full weight of its propaganda machine has guaranteed that our problems will never be solved. Society will no longer look for a way out of the crisis. It will live in a state of crisis and regard this as the normal state of affairs. Everything will stay just as it is. The current order is nothing more than frozen chaos. (12/17/02) | |
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New Scientist -- Silkworms have been genetically engineered to produce the valuable medical protein collagen in the fabric of their cocoons. Silk production is already a major industry in many countries, and there could be significant scope for producing other beneficial proteins in the cocoons, say the Japanese researchers. Collagen is a connective tissue protein used in reconstructive and cosmetic surgery. Katsutoshi Yoshizato's team at Hiroshima University made sure the collagen would only be produced in silk by linking the collagen gene to a switch which normally activates fibroin, a protein expressed exclusively in silk glands. They found that collagen was produced alongside the silk, accounting for up to 10 per cent of the protein by weight in the resulting cocoons. It was easy to extract, say the researchers. (12/17/02) | |
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Financial Times -- The leaders of some of Germany's biggest companies believe their country faces its worst crisis since the war amid deep scepticism about the ability of the government to solve Germany's problems. Their anger comes as the government of chancellor Gerhard Schröder this week prepares to unveil a unitary 25 per cent savings tax and an amnesty to encourage the repatriation of undeclared savings abroad. Business leaders, surveyed by the Financial Times and FT Deutschland, its sister paper, fear that rises in taxation and non-wage labour costs imposed by Mr Schröder since his re-election in September will stifle already weak growth. "Along with the majority of German citizens, I am shocked by the present conceptionless government," said Herbert Hainer, chairman of the Adidas sportswear group. "Even with the best of intentions, one cannot identify any strategy in the government's plans which could make our country fit for the challenges of the future. Nobody has a clue in this overall chaos." The business chiefs are also angry about constant changes in tax policy and the government's inability to tackle long-standing structural problems, such as a rule-bound labour market, overstretched pensions scheme and a healthcare system nearing financial collapse. "Not since the end of the war have conditions been as bad as today," said Alexander von Tippelskirch, head of the IKB Deutsche Industriebank, a business lender. (12/17/02) | |
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Science Daily -- Penn State: High-power ultrasound, currently used for cell disruption, particle size reduction, welding and vaporization, has been shown to be 99.99 percent effective in killing bacterial spores after only 30 seconds of non contact exposure in experiments conducted by researchers at Penn State and Ultran Labs, Boalsburg, Pa. In the experiments, bacterial spores contained in a paper envelope, were placed slightly (3mm) above the active area of a specially equipped source of inaudible, high frequency (70 to 200 kHz) sound waves and hit for 30 seconds. There was no contact medium, such as water or gel, between the ultrasound source and the spores as is typically used in low power medical diagnostic ultrasound. The experiments mark the first time that Non Contact Ultrasound (NCU) has been shown to inactivate bacterial spores. The researchers say the experiments demonstrate that NCU is a potentially safe, effective, non-radioactive way to decontaminate mail, including packages, since ultrasound waves potentially can penetrate cardboard and other wrappings just as they do layers of skin and tissue when used to image internal organs in the human body. They add that the technology could potentially sterilize medical and surgical equipment, food materials, the air duct systems of buildings, airplanes – even the space station. (12/17/02) | |
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Washington Post -- Despite global treaties, children are being recruited as soldiers by governments in the Congo, Burundi and Liberia and are prevalent among rebel groups in Colombia, the Philippines, Uganda and Sri Lanka, a new United Nations report said on Monday. Olara Otunnu, the U.N. special representative for children and armed conflict, said the report for the first time named governments and groups recruiting youths younger than 18 for military combat. "This shows the international community is serious and also that the community is watching," he told a news conference. According to UNICEF, the U.N. Children's Fund, an estimated 300,000 child soldiers were carrying arms, most of them in Africa and East Asia. While the governments of Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and Liberia were named as recruiters of child soldiers, Otunnu also listed myriad rebel groups in those nations that commit the practice. Armed groups were also using children as soldiers including factions in Colombia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sudan, Uganda, Sri Lanka as well as regional warlords and the remnants of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the report said. Otunnu said the report represented the "beginning of a systematic effort in a new era of monitoring and reporting on the conduct of parties and how they treat children during conflict." (12/17/02) | |
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New Scientist -- Minute worms produce an enzyme that could help prevent heart attacks in people, US work suggests. The enzyme, known as fat-1, converts Omega-6 fatty acids found in food like beef and margarine into Omega-3 acids - a group found in fish. Both types are essential for health, but Western diets are packed with Omega-6 and low in Omega-3, which reduces inflammation in the body. Heart disease starts when cholesterol is deposited on the lining of blood vessels. These deposits trigger an inflammatory immune response, and this inflammation makes blood vessel linings sticky, so more cells and debris become attached. Omega-3 acids slow this process, and cardiologists already recommend a diet high in the fats to protect against heart disease. Steffen Meiler at the Medical College of Georgia and colleagues used a virus to shuttle the gene for the nematode worm enzyme into human cells of the type that line blood vessels. The enzyme successfully converted Omega-6 acids into Omega-3s. It also halved the number of inflammatory white blood cells that stuck to those cells. (12/17/02) | |
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Sacramento Bee -- Interior Secretary Gale Norton threatened again Monday to cut California's share of the Colorado River if a dispute among water agencies isn't resolved by Dec. 31. Norton reissued her threat in a speech to the Colorado River Water Users Association as negotiators worked to resurrect a collapsed water-sharing arrangement among California agencies and the Imperial Irrigation District, a holdout rural water district east of San Diego. Norton likened the current negotiations to a game of high-stakes poker saying, it is "time for the Department of Interior to lay its cards on the table and show it's not bluffing." "The stakes are high," she said. Calling herself the "river master," Norton said she would withhold enough water to supply 1.6 million California households starting New Year's Day. "Cities in Southern California will bear an immediate shortfall," Norton said. (12/17/02) | |
10:31:16 PM 
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2003
Timothy Wilken.
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