My World of “Ought to Be”

UnCommon Sense - Understanding Life

Timothy Wilken, MD writes: Let us begin our journey towards understanding the human condition by examining life. Modern biology uses a number of different terms to represent living entities. These terms include life forms, living organisms, and more recently living systems. We humans are a form of life. This is a fact of reality paramount to understanding ourselves. And, yet this fact is so pervasive and constant that it rarely enters our consciousness. Our clear and distant superiority to all other forms of life have made it easy for us to neglect our biological basis. As we have seen ourselves different and superior to all other forms of life, we have missed the point . While we differ from plants and animals, we share their aliveness – we are still forms of life – we are still living organisms –we are still living systems . When we examine ourselves scientifically, we discover that humans are living systems, and it follows therefore that our powers and our problems will be those of life. If we are to create a safe and comfortable future for ourselves and our children, we must understand our connection to life. Our life connection is not only relevant, it is the crucial factor in determining a safe passage through the current human crisis. (01/27/03)

Lessons from China, Korea & Japan

F. H. King, D. Sc. writing in 1911: A word of introduction is needed to place the reader at the best view point from which to consider what is said in the following pages regarding the agricultural practices and customs of China, Korea and Japan. It should be borne in mind that the great factors which today characterize, dominate and determine the agricultural and other industrial operations of western nations were physical impossibilities to them one hundred years ago, and until then had been so to all people. It should be observed, too, that the United States as yet is a nation of but few people widely scattered over a broad virgin land with more than twenty acres to the support of every man, woman and child, while the people whose practices are to be considered are toiling in fields tilled more than three thousand years and who have scarcely more than two acres per capita, more than one-half of which is uncultivable mountain land. Again, the great movement of cargoes of feeding stuffs and mineral fertilizers to western Europe and to the eastern United States began less than a century ago and has never been possible as a means of maintaining soil fertility in China, Korea or Japan, nor can it be continued indefinitely in either Europe or America. These importations are for the time making tolerable the waste of plant food materials through our modern systems of sewage disposal and other faulty practices; but the Mongolian races have held all such wastes, both urban and rural, and many others which we ignore, sacred to agriculture, applying them to their fields. We are to consider some of the practices of a virile race of some five hundred millions of people who have an unimpaired inheritance moving with the momentum acquired through four thousand years; a people morally and intellectually strong, mechanically capable, who are awakening to a utilization of all the possibilities which science and invention during recent years have brought to western nations; and a people who have long dearly loved peace but who can and will fight in self defense if compelled to do so. (01/27/03)

Davos is Different Place in 2003

Lynn Berry writes: A year ago the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the world's business and political elite, had moved to New York to show solidarity with the United States after the attacks of Sept. 11. This year, with the WEF back in Davos and the world a different place, the United States has been the target of attacks. No matter what the planned agendas, in so many of the sessions and debates the discussion has turned to Iraq. The overwhelming majority of people here, including many Americans, are worried not only about what many fear will be a unilateral U.S. decision to go to war against Iraq but more broadly about whether the sole remaining superpower can, as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell put it in his address Sunday, "be trusted to use its power wisely and fairly." ... Much of the criticism of the United States has been over the way it has pursued the campaign against terrorism, its perceived willingness to compromise democracy and curtail civil liberties at home and forgive human rights violations by allied countries. (01/27/03)

Internet Worm Attack could return Today!

BBC Technology -- Experts are warning that a malicious computer code which disrupted the internet may resume its attacks on Monday. In South Korea, which was badly affected by the attack, systems engineers are racing to repair internet networks amid fears Monday would bring new outbreaks as businesses switch on their computers for the new working week. (01/27/03)

The Death of Modern Medicine

Associated Press — Nearly one in five Georgia doctors are abandoning high-risk medical procedures, including delivering babies, and hundreds more are leaving the state or retiring because of high medical malpractice insurance rates, according to a study released Saturday. ``Medical liability insurance is a serious problem in Georgia,'' said Bruce Deighton, executive director of the Georgia Board for Physician Workforce, which released the study. ``We're not saying we have an answer to correct that, but it does have an impact on the physician supply in Georgia and it does reduce access to medical care in Georgia.'' Doctors in several states have complained about rising malpractice insurance rates, driven at least in part by large jury awards. Some surgeons in West Virginia and Mississippi temporarily walked off the job in protest earlier this month, and New Jersey doctors are considering a walkout in February. The board, an advisory body to the Legislature, surveyed 2,200 Georgia doctors for the study. It projected that about 2,800 Georgia doctors — or nearly 18 percent — were expected to stop providing high-risk procedures to limit their liability. Nearly one in three obstetrician/gynecologists surveyed said they will abandon high-risk procedures, such as delivering babies. (01/27/03)

Noise Pollution Injures Children

Discover Magazine -- Background noise is such a regular part of urban life that many city dwellers never give it a second thought. But a constant din could be harming children growing up in areas with high levels of noise. Staffan Hygge of the University of Gavle in Sweden and his colleagues measured the long-term memory and reading skills of kids who lived close to two large German airports. The subjects showed distinct impairment in these tests, but their abilities rebounded to normal when the source of the noise was removed. Such sound-related learning disabilities may be widespread: On a daily basis, the noise volume in many cities generally exceeds the level that the study indicated as damaging. (01/27/03)

A Cure for Huntington's Chorea?

BBC Science -- A simple dye has suggested a way to stop an abnormal process in the brain which leads to a devastating disease. Huntington's chorea is a genetic condition in which cells incorrectly construct a particular protein, Huntingtin. Over time, the abnormal proteins clump together and appear to poison cells in certain regions of the brain, particularly those connected with muscle control. Scientists have shown in the laboratory that the dye molecule can impede this aggregation process and may therefore open up a novel avenue to tackle the disease. ... Professor Junying Yuan, from Harvard, told BBC News Online: "Obviously we can't use Congo red in humans as a treatment, because the dye cannot get past the blood-brain barrier. "Companies are now working to produce a smaller version which can do this." She said that medicines made from the dye could have broader applications than just Huntington's. Congo red is also good at marking the protein clumps that characterise Alzheimer's disease, and the abnormal protein prions found in CJD. (01/27/03)

Goodbye to the Dolphins

BBC Science -- Dolphins off the South West coast of Britain are in danger of being wiped out, environmentalists have warned. They say increasing numbers are being killed, after getting caught in huge fishing nets used by trawlers. Since the beginning of this year the bodies of more than 40 dolphins have washed up on Devon and Cornwall beaches. Last year, 180 dolphins were found washed up on the coast. In December alone, 32 were found. (01/27/03)

Four Winged Dinos from China

BBC Science -- Recently discovered fossils of feathered dinosaurs with four wings are raising new questions about the origins of flight. The turkey-sized creatures probably lived in the trees about 130 million years ago and used their wings and long tail to glide from branch-to-branch. The six specimens belong to a new dinosaur family that may have played a key role in the evolution of birds. They were unearthed in Liaoning, China - a place that has yielded many spectacular fossils of bird-like dinosaurs. The find is exciting because it backs an older theory that birds evolved from gliding four-winged tree-dwellers. (01/27/03)