Small-molecule Drug Drives Cancer Cells to Suicide

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This is a breakthrough using a failed protocol and a possible gamechanger for brain tumors in particular.
I wonder how it may work with a baking soda protocol happening aswell to block the ability of the cancer to respond to a direct attacklike this. These are simple ideas but we surely need the data and itis safe enough to push that envelop.
We continue to see a wide range of new therapeutic approaches comingon board and what is becoming badly needed is way more directinvolvement with patients and their doctors to produce a far largerempirical database to support this work.


Small-molecule drugdrives cancer cells to suicide
Studies in mice showtherapy is effective even in hard-to-treat brain tumours.
Zoe Cormier
07 February 2013
http://www.nature.com/news/small-molecule-drug-drives-cancer-cells-to-suicide-1.12385
Cancer researchershave pinned down a molecule that can kick-start the body’s owntumour-destroying systems, triggering cell death in cancerous but nothealthy tissue in mice.
The molecule, TIC10,activates the gene for a protein called TRAIL(tumour-necrosis-factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand), which haslong been a target for cancer researchers looking for drugs thatwould avoid the debilitating effects of conventional therapies.
“TRAILis a part of our immune system: all of us with functional immunesystems use this molecule to keep tumours from forming or spreading,so boosting this will not be as toxic as chemotherapy,” says WafikEl-Deiry, an oncologist at Pennsylvania State University in Hersheyand lead author of the study, which is published today in ScienceTranslational Medicine1.
Experimentsshowed that TIC10 had potent effects against a variety oftumours, including breast, lymphatic, colon and lung cancer. It wasespecially effective at triggering cell suicide in glioblastoma, akind of brain tumour that is notoriously difficult to treat2. Micewith glioblastomas that were treated with TIC10 in combination withbevacizumab — a drug used against diseases including brain tumours,and sold under the name Avastin — survived three times as long asuntreated mice. Even mice treated with TIC-10 alone still had bettersurvival rates (6% longer) than those treated with bevacizumab alone.
Quick andcollaborative
El-Deiry says thatTIC10 is so effective because it is much smaller than proteins thathave previously been tested as TRAIL-based drugs. The molecule is socompact that it can cross the blood–brain barrier, which separatesthe main circulatory system from the brain. This barrier normallyacts to prevent hazardous agents such as microbes from infecting thebrain, but can also thwart anti-cancer drugs by keeping them out. “Wedidn’t actually anticipate that this molecule would be able totreat brain tumours — that was a pleasant surprise,” saysEl-Deiry.
Furthermore, it seemsthat TIC10 activates the TRAIL gene not only in cancerous cells, butalso in healthy ones. This gives it enormous potential to create a'bystander effect', in which apoptosis — or cell death — isinduced in cancer cells immediately next to healthy ones. Healthycells are also stimulated to increase the amount of TRAIL receptorson their cell surface. These receptors can then bind to the adjacentcancerous cells, triggering their demise. “It’s almost likeTRAIL-plus — it does so much more,” says El-Deiry.
Tough TRAIL
This is by no meansthe only mechanism thought to trigger cell death in cancer. Inparticular, cancer researchers have been developing a number ofdrugs, including TRAIL-based therapeutics, that work by activatingthe cellular messenger tumour protein 53 (p53). But p53-based methodsare not always effective, says El-Deiry. "Most tumours havedysfunctional p53, so in order to develop new therapeutics forcancer, one needs them to be effective in tumours with mutated p53,”he explains. His team's approach bypasses p53 entirely.
Although the study waslimited to mice, the team is confident that a similar approach wouldwork in humans. Other researchers are sceptical, in part becauseTRAIL-based strategies have not lived up to past hype.
The potential for TRAIL to usher in a new age in cancer therapywas first identified in the mid-1990s3. However, although earlyclinical trials for TRAIL-based therapies showed little toxicity,they were not very successful at treating cancer, says AndrewThorburn, an oncologist at the University of Colorado Denver, whoco-authored a review on the subject last year4. “All the largeclinical trials found no significant survival benefit to addingTRAIL-based therapeutics to standard treatments,” he ads. Manylarge biomedical research groups have shelved their TRAIL-baseddrugs.

new Bone Repair Therapies on Nanoscale Surfaces

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 Step by step we are getting there. This approach opens the door toartificially mold absent bone and then use it as a scaffold toreplace that bone. It will no longer be necessary to build out thewhole organ or bone. We are entering the age of full scale tissueengineering and ultimately complete restoration of a human body.
At this point I see little to thwart us. What is in front of us aresolvable problems and what is behind us are formally dauntingunsolvable problems. What I find gratifying is that no one dares saynever anymore.
Even my dentist has got into the spirit of the times and I learnedrecently from him that an actual nerve is not necessary at all interms reconstructing the mouth. Here we have the technology forrebuilding a weakened jaw and adding an actual tooth bud cannot befar behind. That bit about the nerve is worth remembering as ournervous system manages the full build out of a human being. Nothaving to hook up a lot of mature nerves is a bonus. In the meantimeit is also taking little to now stimulate regrowth anyway.
As posted before, this is the penultimate decade for medical mastery. All the big problems are advancing to solution side by side.
Stem cellbreakthrough could lead to new bone repair therapies on nanoscalesurfaces
Ref: 13/2711 February 2013
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/mediacentre/news/2013/feb/13_27.shtml

Scientists at theUniversity of Southampton have created a new method to generate bonecells which could lead to revolutionary bone repair therapies forpeople with bone fractures or those who need hip replacement surgerydue to osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.

The research,carried out by Dr Emmajayne Kingham at the University of Southamptonin collaboration with the University of Glasgow and published in thejournal Small, cultured human embryonic stem cells on to the surfaceof plastic materials and assessed their ability to change.

Scientistswere able to use the nanotopographical patterns on the biomedicalplastic to manipulate human embryonic stem cells towards bone cells.This was done without any chemical enhancement. 

The materials,including the biomedical implantable material polycarbonate plastic,which is a versatile plastic used in things from bullet proof windowsto CDs, offer an accessible and cheaper way of culturing humanembryonic stem cells and presents new opportunities for futuremedical research in this area.

ProfessorRichard Oreffo, who led the University of Southampton team, explains:“To generate bone cells for regenerative medicine and furthermedical research remains a significant challenge. However we havefound that by harnessing surface technologies that allow thegeneration and ultimately scale up of human embryonic stem cells toskeletal cells, we can aid the tissue engineering process. Thisis very exciting.

“Ourresearch may offer a whole new approach to skeletal regenerativemedicine. The use of nanotopographical patterns could enable new cellculture designs, new device designs, and could herald the developmentof new bone repair therapies as well as further human stem cellresearch,” Professor Oreffo adds.

The study wasfunded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council(BBSRC).

This latestdiscovery expands on the close collaborative work previouslyundertaken by the University of Southampton and the University ofGlasgow. In 2011 the team successfully used plastic withembossed nanopatterns to grow and spread adult stem cells whilekeeping their stem cell characteristics; a process which is cheaperand easier to manufacture than previous ways of working.

Dr NikolajGadegaard, Institute of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology at theUniversity of Glasgow, says: "Our previous collaborativeresearch showed exciting new ways to control mesenchymal stem cell –stem cells from the bone marrow of adults – growth anddifferentiation on nanoscale patterns. 

“This newSouthampton-led discovery shows a totally different stem cell source,embryonic, also respond in a similar manner and this really starts toopen this new field of discovery up. With more research impetus, itgives us the hope that we can go on to target a wider variety ofdegenerative conditions than we originally aspired to. This result isof fundamental significance." 

Vietnam Lizard Being Encounter

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I have posted several reports now aboutthese lizard beings. They are all rather substantial in terms ofdetail and relay a tale of an evolved Terran race established onEarth for millions of years. This is a creditable proposition aseven the fossil record supports that possibility. Almost allencounters appear either underground or close to such access.
It is relayed to us that thesecreatures reside deep underground in large formed habitats with ampleaccess to the surface for rare intrusions. Again we are entering afuture in which our mastery of material strength will allow superiorunderground construction. We do fine at present, but it is clearalso that a lot better is plausible and desirable.
What we do get is rare close encountersand they will chase us off. In this case, they were surprised by thefire power and simply bugged out. That was the only rational thingto do.
Very important here is the descriptionof the cave itself. The sides are smooth, with precise grooving andare tapered toward the top to distribute pressure. It is clearly acorrect design model that we do not use at all because we still relyon blasting. This is completely new information.
Most certainly this entry was thenopen. The grooves would likely carry a blocking plug that was thenretracted. This is again advanced methodology meant to preventunnecessary discovery.
As an aside, way more data has been shared in a couple of separate reports than we have for any other oddity.  Most important though is that they claim to be non alien and as mankind could also move underground if it proved desirous as our culture advances, none of this is unreasonable.  My difficulty is that we have on hand several deeply detailed reports regarding several plausible scenarios that are best described as unique, unconfirmable (This one by way is confirmable and likely has been ) and way too good to be true.  They all could easily have been lifted out of 1930's pulp fiction.
In short, they are stories that are too well written and that i could have made up out of whole cloth myself.  you get the point.
LizardBeings: Encounter & Engagement
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2013
http://naturalplane.blogspot.ca/2013/02/lizard-beings-encounter-engagement.html
During the past months I have collected anecdotes from readerswho had personal experiences or were told of cryptids / anomalousencounters in Vietnam and other parts of Indochina. I received aparticular narrative that was much different than the others that hadbeen forwarded to me...so I decided to publish it separately. Thepost is a compilation of 3 emails, which included answers to a few ofmy questions. The man who provided this information was, at the timeof the incident, a U.S. Army corporal...who has since retired fromthe military after a lengthy career. He did not give me specifics asto his unit and mission...but feels strongly that his experienceshould be told. He provided two identification references, whichchecked out. Overall, this man served a distinguished military careerand his reputation is quite admirable from what I have seen. Some ofthe information has been edited at the request of the witness: [Lon]
In 1970 I was servingas a corporal in the U.S. Army – deployed to South Vietnam in anregion about 30 miles south of the DMZ. At the time I wassecond-in-command of a squad of soldiers. We had setup a bivouac in ajungle area that had a few steep hills. That evening my section wasordered to patrol one of the small valleys west of the encampment. Wemoved out led by our sergeant.

Not long afterentering one of the small valleys we detected movement ahead of us.It seemed to be scattered activity, so we doubted it was VC but weweren’t positive. We hunkered down for about 15 minutes gettingoccasional glimpses of something moving within the trees and brush.There wasn’t enough light to detect what we were observing eventhough the moonlight was bright that night.

After awhilethe activity halted, so we continued to move slowly through thevalley. As we approached a sheer wall on the hill it looked likesomeone or something had stacked large stones and boulders in thepass in front of us. There was also an opening in the hill sidethat looked like a cave entrance – approximately 5 foot highand 3 foot wide narrowing at the top. When observing thepassageway, it appeared to have been cut away by machinery – theedges were smooth with small even-spaced grooves.

We werepuzzled by this because we had never seen enemy caves like this –just underground tunnels. The sergeant suggested that it may be a VCsupply depot, so we started to assess how we were going toinvestigate the cave.

About thistime, things got very strange.

Webegan to notice a putrid odor emanating from the cave entrance –the only thing I can compare it to was rotting eggs and human decay.It was so revolting that a few of the soldiers were becoming ill andstarted to back away into the jungle – including the sergeant. Iwas directing a light into the entrance in order to observe anything,but there was a haze that was impossible to see through. We had noidea what was before us.

Theentire squad took a position in the heavy brush approximately 150feet from the entrance – far enough not to be detected but closeenough to observe the cave entrance. We quietly remained there forwhat seemed like forever. The jungle was strangely calm though weheard rumbling sounds coming from the distance. It was really eerie.The sergeant was sitting near me talking to himself - it was obviousthat he was frightened. I was looking at the rest of the squad –each had wide eyes and scanning the area. No one was going to dozeoff during this patrol.

After severalhours, dawn was approaching and it started to lighten up. I checkedmy watch – it was just before 0500 hours. Just then we noticedmovement in front of the cave. A being (I first thought it was a man)moved through the entrance into the clearing in front of the cave. Asit stood up from a crouch it stood at least 7 foot high and startedto look in our direction. At that time, another similar-lookingcreature was moving out of the cave. They were making hellish‘hissing’ sounds and looking directly at us.

The only way Ican describe these beings is that they looked like upright lizards.The scaly, shiny skin was very dark – almost black. Snake-likefaces with forward set eyes that were very large. They had arms andlegs like a human but with scaly skin. I didn’t notice a tail –though they wore long one-piece dark green robes along with a darkcap-like covering on their heads. I never noticed if they hadanything on their feet.

No one gavethe order – it seemed like the entire squad opened fire at once.Every piece of vegetation between us and them was quickly shearedaway. I yelled out a cease-fire order – at the same time I waslooking in the direction of the cave. There was nothing there. Weimmediately checked our flank in case these things circled around us– but there was nothing.

Aswe approached the cave, ready to resume action if needed, it becameapparent that the beings had escaped – most likely back into thecave. It was soon decided to set charges and close the cave entrance.

When wereturned to camp we all seemed to be in a daze. There was littlediscussion of the incident and we were never debriefed – so I knowthe sergeant never filed a report. Then again, if he did, it was keptquiet by the brass.

NOTE: Well...Itold you. None of the anecdotes or narratives I received match thisone. But then again, I never know what will turn up in my mailbox. Ilook forward to receiving your well-written sighting and incidentreports. Thanks...Lon

Giant Sloths of the Applachians

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Thisis all part of the Appalachians of course andwe actually have a number of plausible cryptids reported over the years.  Bigfoot is of course the most common  but we also have the Giant Sloth and a small hominid that is likely part of the Lucy lineage. These are the best suspects.  It Ihave taken a lesson from uncovering the Giant Sloth is that it is way too easyto misidentify such a creature in a glimpse. However if it is in the fossil record, do not discount its presence inthe modern era even if confined to a small range.
Here we have an excellent report of what I am suspect is the Giant Sloth.  The second report is likely something we knowand you have my guess of a tom cat.  Thisis also not the first time that horns have been associated with the Giant Sloth.  Otherwise the highly robust claws wereobserved and the visible fangs.  Generally i am seeing the huge claws reported as confirmation and without them we do not have a Giant Sloth.
Confrontingfarmers tells me that it may have established its range locally and was takingadvantage of the bounty.  Then itpossibly backed off or may simply know enough to avoid guns.  After this story got around it is a suretythat everyone began to pack.  It is evenpossible that it was simply passing through to a remote range and we got thereports of its foraging.
It is most likely that this confirms that males do grow goat like horns although their size is not described.  It alsoshows us that the creature can be opportunistic and must never be trusted.  It may also be more of a daytime hunter thanexpected.

For the moment, i am likely the only person out there looking for the Giant Sloth as a small subset of all reports.  We alraedy have enough good quality reports to confirm that the creature is out there.
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania - August1973 – various
http://naturalplane.blogspot.ca/2013/02/odd-sighting-in-york-county-pa.html
An ungodly looking creature created havoc amongthe local god-fearing Amish community. Witnesses described the creature asfollowing: The size of a good heifer, gray in color with a white mane. It hadtiger like fangs and curved horns like a Billy goat. It ran upright on longlegs, and had long grizzly claws. In one incident, the creature sent a team of horses and two brothers flying when it approached their hay wagon. The following day, a man was cutting weeds on his farm about five miles from the previous incident when he heard a fierce roar and turned to see a monster with three horns and a tail charging in his direction. He raised his scythe to defend himself, only to have the implement ripped from his hands. At that point, the man wisely decided to turn both cheeks to the monster and escaped as fast as he could run. A day later a woman was feeding poultry on a farm midway between the two earlier incidents when she heard a commotion and turned to see the creature in the act of snatching a goose in each of its hands. She bravely ran toward the thing, waving her apron. The woman managed to recover one of her geese when the creature threw it at her, knocking her to the ground in the process. The interloper then escaped with the remaining bird in hand.

Source: Phillip LRife, America'sNightmare Monsters
I found aninteresting account posted on Stephen Wagner's Paranormal About by Stacy L. Theincident took place recently in York, Pennsylvania...a location I amvery familiar with. I have received several odd cryptid sightings from in andaround York and Lancaster counties (which are in south-central Pennsylvania...where I grew up and just north of myresidence in Baltimore, MD). Was this a natural sighting...or a lostpet?


I wasjust relaxing in my house and watching some TV. We have double sliding doorswith windows facing our backyard, and I can see outside from where I waslounging on the couch.

That's when something began moving in the corner of my vision. When I glancedover, I noticed our 10-foot-high dogwood tree on the very end bordering ouryard from the neighbors was shaking violently. I couldn't figure out what kindof animal, aside from a human, could shake an entire tree like that. I stood upand walked over to the window to peer out.

There are also several extremely large pine trees bordering along the end ofthe backyard and I couldn't see anything through the thick foliage, even thoughthe sun was shining brightly in the sky. The dogwood continued to shake, andthen to my astonishment an enormous gray creature jumped from one of thedogwood's flimsy branches and into a huge pine nearby.

I only glimpsed it for about three seconds at most, but I definitely got a goodlook at it, and it was like nothing I have ever seen before. The creature wasrather large, perhaps around 4 feet in length and about the size of a fox. Itwas all gray except for its long skinny tail that had black and white stripesalong it, like those lemurs from Madagascar. Its front end wassomewhat slouched down, as if it had short front legs and large powerful backlegs, like how a kangaroo would look.

It was the weirdest creature I had ever seen. Unfortunately, I didn't get a look at its head as it quickly vanished into the pine. A few minutes later, I was outside rooting through the leaves and long grass at the end of the yard looking for footprints and maybe to catch a sighting of the creature, but I didn't find anything. Yet I know what I saw.
[ a ten foot dog wood is not a lot of tree somovement is very likely.  The stripes onthe tail suggest that we are dealing with a big old tom cat who for some reasonwas getting away from something.  Arclein ]

I live in York, Pennsylvania, and such creatures like thatdon't live in this area. If I absolutely had to call it a specific animal, Iwould say it was a lemur, but the tail wasn't bushy, but very slender and agilelike a cat's. Wish I had taken a picture.

I haven't seen it since that day, but there have been weird scratching noisesbelow my bedroom window at night ever since I saw the creature and I wonder ifthe two are related or if its another incident that coincidentally justhappened in the same time period. And I wonder if I should report the sighting.If I should, who do I report to?
So...I previously mentioned that I had receivedodd reports from York and Lancaster counties over the years.

Aging Boomer's Blog

To contact us Click HERE
Hey, a short entry today to plug my relatively new website where I'm blogging on a regular basis about getting older and all the trappings that come with it.

I named the site cleverly...

AgingBoomersBlog.com

Okay, so that's not so clever. But it was an available domain name that more-or-less reflected what it was going to be about.

Anyway, if you're an aging boomer, surf on over and bookmark my new site. Then spend some time there reading the many posts already up and then spending some more time commenting and moving the discussions forward.

I promise my AgingBoomersBlog.com will never be dull or boring or politically correct!

Chet "Aging Boomer" Day
Editor, The Natural Health Circus
http://chetday.com/blog

Green 'Space' Slime Baffles Nature Experts

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Here we go again. My conjectureregarding a stratospheric slime mold balloon as unreal as it seemscontinues to bear fruit. Such a balloon would contain methane andrise at night from our swamps into the stratosphere. Very likelythey naturally refract the sun's light to produce high altitudelights which I have seen and has also been called Brown lights aroundmountains were the rising uplifts would jostle them around a lot.
When a meteor strikes, a sharp shockwave is produced and this likely disrupts a large number of suchcreatures that then fall to earth to appear as blobs of slime. Wehave seen that phenomena world wide and often associated with arecent meteor event.
Up there we would never even see thesecreatures unless we had special viewing hardware. To do so we needobservation balloons able to reach the stratosphere and some speciallighting to create contrast. That should work.
Alternatively, we need to captureimages of these forming up and rising out of swamps and that may bemuch easier although I suspect foam making conditions must existwhich we still do not understand. I do not expect to be lucky onthis hunt. However lighting should not affect such a search.
Setting up on the banks of the ponds discussed here would be ideal.


Green 'Space' SlimeBaffles Nature Experts
An unexplainedjelly-like substance which is said to occur during meteor showers hasbeen found on a wildlife park in Somerset.
18 February 2013
http://news.sky.com/story/1053694/green-space-slime-baffles-nature-experts


A "weird"green slime said in folklore to appear at the same time as meteorshit Earth has been found in a birdlife park in Somerset.
The RSPB has appealedfor help in identifying the slime, which is said to be scattered ongrass banks close to pools and lakes around Ham Wall Nature Reservenear Glastonbury.
The jelly-likesubstance could be bacteria, fungus or toad innards, wildlife expertssaid.
Some believe it couldbe a substance that has been written about for centuries called staror astral jelly, which is said to appear in the wake of meteorshowers.
Its appearance hascoincided with a meteor strike in Russia and the harmless fly-by ofan asteroid at a record distance from Earth last week.
Steve Hughes, the RSPBsite manager at Ham Wall, said: "This past week we've beenfinding piles of this translucent jelly dotted around the reserve.
"(It is) alwayson grass banks away from the water's edge. They are usually about10cm (4in) in diameter.
"We've askedexperts what it might be, but as yet no one is really sure. Whateverit is, it's very weird."
Tony Whitehead, anRSPB spokesman for the South West, added: "Although we don'tknow what it actually is, similar substances have been describedpreviously.
"In recordsdating back to the 14th Century it's known variously as star jelly,astral jelly or astromyxin."In folklore itis said to be deposited in the wake of meteor showers."
One of the morefavoured explanations is that it is a form of cyanobacteria calledNostoc.
Others suggest that itis the remains of the regurgitated innards of amphibians such asfrogs and toads, and of their spawn.
Alternatively, it maybe related to the intriguingly named crystal brain fungus.
Mr Whitehead added:"We've read a few articles now, and much speculation.
"One suggested itwas neither animal nor plant, and another that it didn't contain DNA,although it does give the appearance of something 'living'.
"Our reserve teamwill be looking out for the slime over the next few days, but ifanyone can offer any explanations we'd be glad to hear."
The public are beingwarned not to touch the mystery substance, and to inform naturereserve staff if they spot any.

Primal Evil's Physical Basis

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There are two types of evil.  The type this addresses is the worst kind and we will simply label it primal evil and it is strongly associated with a physical flaw in the brain itself.  Evidence exists suggesting that Hitler suffered a war injury to the head and that effected his subsequent behavior.  Other specific cases also typically are associated with brain flaw and this work polices the obvious science.
The other type of evil is derivative evil and it is learned and impressed through the social environment.  This is both forgivable and also modifiable if not outright curable.  That is not necessarily easy as the victim has a whole sense of self bound up in abhorrent behavior.  Recall that it requires time and effort to bring a soldier back down into civilized behavior at best.
My own observations and readinghad come to the general conclusion that primal evil was expressing a physicalabnormality.  This indicates that we havefound at least one such source.  It mayeven be sufficient.  Obviously the nextstep is to diagnose this whenever indicated and if this work is an indication,operate to remove the problem which may be as simple as scaring.  An unlucky blow to the head can inducebleeding and derivative tissue damage and physical scaring.  The same holds true for difficult births.
We now know these people can beidentified and are themselves victims in need of corrective surgery to makethem safe to society.
We should be so lucky as to have an equally simple solution for obsessive learned bad behavior.  Pedophiles, kleptomaniacs and many other obsessives want to be cured.  So far our only avenue open appears to be shamanism and their curious drug therapy.


What evil lurks in the brain? German neurologist says he's found a'dark patch'
By JeremyA. Kaplan
Published February 07, 2013

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/07/is-there-dark-evil-spot-in-brain/#ixzz2KS7MGgbM
After studying the brains of violent killers, rapists and robbers,German neurologist Gerhard Roth claims to have found a “dark patch” in thecenter of the brain -- he calls it the evil spot, a genetic source of violentbehavior.
Roth, a professor at the University of Bremen, told Germany news site Bild.de that hehad shown short films to criminals and measured their brain activity. A smallsection at the front of their brains showed no reaction to violent scenes; itremained "dark" when shown dark scenes.
"Whenever there were brutal and squalid scenes, the subjectsshowed no emotions. In the areas of the brain where we create compassion andsorrow, nothing happened,” Roth said.
BioEdge, a blog dedicated to bioethics news, translated Roth's Germaninto English: “This is definitely the region of the brain where evil is formedand where it lurks.”
Not so fast. Human behavior, affect and emotion is likely a far more intricate thing, explained Dr. Steven Galetta, chairman of the neurology department at the NYUSchool of Medicine.
'It’s probably not as simple as X marks the spot for a particularbehavior.'- Dr. Steven Galetta, chairman of the neurology department at the NYU Schoolof Medicine
“People look at the blood flow to one area and they say, ‘aha, this is the evil patch.’ It’s probably a lot more complex than that,” Galetta told FoxNews.com.
“Certain areas are likely important for certain behaviors, certainattitudes. But it’s probably not as simple as X marks the spot for a particularbehavior.”
Roth’s study, according to Bild.de, was conducted for the Germangovernment on violent convicted offenders. He said the dark mass that he hasidentified appears in all CT scans of people with such records -- and takingit out ended their “evil” behavior.Roth did not respond to FoxNews.com requests for more details on hisstudy.
Terre Constantine, executive director of the Brain Research Foundation  andthe former director of the Jack Miller Center for Peripheral Neuropathy,expressed skepticism at the report, but agreed that brain abnormalities such astumors can affect behavior.
“It absolutely can affect the brain and your personality and how youcommunicate. And it can make you aggressive -- not all tumors, of course: itdepends where it is,” Constantinetold FoxNews.com.
Her foundation, which funds research into neuroscience seeking tounderstand the brain’s workings, has aided research similar to Roth's with moreadvanced imaging techniques.
One recent study from a University of Chicago researcher studied parenting behavior. It found activity in the amygdala -- a portion of the brain connected to the limbic system -- correlated to parenting style. It “lit up” in the brains of normal mothers, while “harsh parents” didn’t react to scenes of bad parenting.
“There’s clearly differences in the brain depending on what sort ofdisease or abnormality a person has,” she told FoxNews.com. And many things cancause abnormal behaviors. “They’re either wired differently or there might besome disease that’s causing the brain to atrophy.”
But Constantine agreed with Galetta: Complex topics and behaviors are likely linked to other areas of the brain, rather than concentrated in one “evil area.”
“I would argue it’s probably not the only “evil” spot,” she said.“There are other areas in the brain, there are lots of … empathy areas orviolent areas or just social reaction areas within the brain.”
“This may be one of the spots, but I’d be surprised if it’s the spot.”

Aging Boomer's Blog

To contact us Click HERE
Hey, a short entry today to plug my relatively new website where I'm blogging on a regular basis about getting older and all the trappings that come with it.

I named the site cleverly...

AgingBoomersBlog.com

Okay, so that's not so clever. But it was an available domain name that more-or-less reflected what it was going to be about.

Anyway, if you're an aging boomer, surf on over and bookmark my new site. Then spend some time there reading the many posts already up and then spending some more time commenting and moving the discussions forward.

I promise my AgingBoomersBlog.com will never be dull or boring or politically correct!

Chet "Aging Boomer" Day
Editor, The Natural Health Circus
http://chetday.com/blog

Green 'Space' Slime Baffles Nature Experts

To contact us Click HERE



Here we go again. My conjectureregarding a stratospheric slime mold balloon as unreal as it seemscontinues to bear fruit. Such a balloon would contain methane andrise at night from our swamps into the stratosphere. Very likelythey naturally refract the sun's light to produce high altitudelights which I have seen and has also been called Brown lights aroundmountains were the rising uplifts would jostle them around a lot.
When a meteor strikes, a sharp shockwave is produced and this likely disrupts a large number of suchcreatures that then fall to earth to appear as blobs of slime. Wehave seen that phenomena world wide and often associated with arecent meteor event.
Up there we would never even see thesecreatures unless we had special viewing hardware. To do so we needobservation balloons able to reach the stratosphere and some speciallighting to create contrast. That should work.
Alternatively, we need to captureimages of these forming up and rising out of swamps and that may bemuch easier although I suspect foam making conditions must existwhich we still do not understand. I do not expect to be lucky onthis hunt. However lighting should not affect such a search.
Setting up on the banks of the ponds discussed here would be ideal.


Green 'Space' SlimeBaffles Nature Experts
An unexplainedjelly-like substance which is said to occur during meteor showers hasbeen found on a wildlife park in Somerset.
18 February 2013
http://news.sky.com/story/1053694/green-space-slime-baffles-nature-experts


A "weird"green slime said in folklore to appear at the same time as meteorshit Earth has been found in a birdlife park in Somerset.
The RSPB has appealedfor help in identifying the slime, which is said to be scattered ongrass banks close to pools and lakes around Ham Wall Nature Reservenear Glastonbury.
The jelly-likesubstance could be bacteria, fungus or toad innards, wildlife expertssaid.
Some believe it couldbe a substance that has been written about for centuries called staror astral jelly, which is said to appear in the wake of meteorshowers.
Its appearance hascoincided with a meteor strike in Russia and the harmless fly-by ofan asteroid at a record distance from Earth last week.
Steve Hughes, the RSPBsite manager at Ham Wall, said: "This past week we've beenfinding piles of this translucent jelly dotted around the reserve.
"(It is) alwayson grass banks away from the water's edge. They are usually about10cm (4in) in diameter.
"We've askedexperts what it might be, but as yet no one is really sure. Whateverit is, it's very weird."
Tony Whitehead, anRSPB spokesman for the South West, added: "Although we don'tknow what it actually is, similar substances have been describedpreviously.
"In recordsdating back to the 14th Century it's known variously as star jelly,astral jelly or astromyxin."In folklore itis said to be deposited in the wake of meteor showers."
One of the morefavoured explanations is that it is a form of cyanobacteria calledNostoc.
Others suggest that itis the remains of the regurgitated innards of amphibians such asfrogs and toads, and of their spawn.
Alternatively, it maybe related to the intriguingly named crystal brain fungus.
Mr Whitehead added:"We've read a few articles now, and much speculation.
"One suggested itwas neither animal nor plant, and another that it didn't contain DNA,although it does give the appearance of something 'living'.
"Our reserve teamwill be looking out for the slime over the next few days, but ifanyone can offer any explanations we'd be glad to hear."
The public are beingwarned not to touch the mystery substance, and to inform naturereserve staff if they spot any.

Primal Evil's Physical Basis

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There are two types of evil.  The type this addresses is the worst kind and we will simply label it primal evil and it is strongly associated with a physical flaw in the brain itself.  Evidence exists suggesting that Hitler suffered a war injury to the head and that effected his subsequent behavior.  Other specific cases also typically are associated with brain flaw and this work polices the obvious science.
The other type of evil is derivative evil and it is learned and impressed through the social environment.  This is both forgivable and also modifiable if not outright curable.  That is not necessarily easy as the victim has a whole sense of self bound up in abhorrent behavior.  Recall that it requires time and effort to bring a soldier back down into civilized behavior at best.
My own observations and readinghad come to the general conclusion that primal evil was expressing a physicalabnormality.  This indicates that we havefound at least one such source.  It mayeven be sufficient.  Obviously the nextstep is to diagnose this whenever indicated and if this work is an indication,operate to remove the problem which may be as simple as scaring.  An unlucky blow to the head can inducebleeding and derivative tissue damage and physical scaring.  The same holds true for difficult births.
We now know these people can beidentified and are themselves victims in need of corrective surgery to makethem safe to society.
We should be so lucky as to have an equally simple solution for obsessive learned bad behavior.  Pedophiles, kleptomaniacs and many other obsessives want to be cured.  So far our only avenue open appears to be shamanism and their curious drug therapy.


What evil lurks in the brain? German neurologist says he's found a'dark patch'
By JeremyA. Kaplan
Published February 07, 2013

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/02/07/is-there-dark-evil-spot-in-brain/#ixzz2KS7MGgbM
After studying the brains of violent killers, rapists and robbers,German neurologist Gerhard Roth claims to have found a “dark patch” in thecenter of the brain -- he calls it the evil spot, a genetic source of violentbehavior.
Roth, a professor at the University of Bremen, told Germany news site Bild.de that hehad shown short films to criminals and measured their brain activity. A smallsection at the front of their brains showed no reaction to violent scenes; itremained "dark" when shown dark scenes.
"Whenever there were brutal and squalid scenes, the subjectsshowed no emotions. In the areas of the brain where we create compassion andsorrow, nothing happened,” Roth said.
BioEdge, a blog dedicated to bioethics news, translated Roth's Germaninto English: “This is definitely the region of the brain where evil is formedand where it lurks.”
Not so fast. Human behavior, affect and emotion is likely a far more intricate thing, explained Dr. Steven Galetta, chairman of the neurology department at the NYUSchool of Medicine.
'It’s probably not as simple as X marks the spot for a particularbehavior.'- Dr. Steven Galetta, chairman of the neurology department at the NYU Schoolof Medicine
“People look at the blood flow to one area and they say, ‘aha, this is the evil patch.’ It’s probably a lot more complex than that,” Galetta told FoxNews.com.
“Certain areas are likely important for certain behaviors, certainattitudes. But it’s probably not as simple as X marks the spot for a particularbehavior.”
Roth’s study, according to Bild.de, was conducted for the Germangovernment on violent convicted offenders. He said the dark mass that he hasidentified appears in all CT scans of people with such records -- and takingit out ended their “evil” behavior.Roth did not respond to FoxNews.com requests for more details on hisstudy.
Terre Constantine, executive director of the Brain Research Foundation  andthe former director of the Jack Miller Center for Peripheral Neuropathy,expressed skepticism at the report, but agreed that brain abnormalities such astumors can affect behavior.
“It absolutely can affect the brain and your personality and how youcommunicate. And it can make you aggressive -- not all tumors, of course: itdepends where it is,” Constantinetold FoxNews.com.
Her foundation, which funds research into neuroscience seeking tounderstand the brain’s workings, has aided research similar to Roth's with moreadvanced imaging techniques.
One recent study from a University of Chicago researcher studied parenting behavior. It found activity in the amygdala -- a portion of the brain connected to the limbic system -- correlated to parenting style. It “lit up” in the brains of normal mothers, while “harsh parents” didn’t react to scenes of bad parenting.
“There’s clearly differences in the brain depending on what sort ofdisease or abnormality a person has,” she told FoxNews.com. And many things cancause abnormal behaviors. “They’re either wired differently or there might besome disease that’s causing the brain to atrophy.”
But Constantine agreed with Galetta: Complex topics and behaviors are likely linked to other areas of the brain, rather than concentrated in one “evil area.”
“I would argue it’s probably not the only “evil” spot,” she said.“There are other areas in the brain, there are lots of … empathy areas orviolent areas or just social reaction areas within the brain.”
“This may be one of the spots, but I’d be surprised if it’s the spot.”

Picasso Used Common House Paint

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It let him get the look he wanted and it was the age of high quality house paints.  Thus it is no particular surprise. This merely improves analytic precision should we care.
Yet it allowed him to create a vastly more expansive style that shed the attention to the traditional stroke by stroke methodology of the past and approaches the styles of today were it is all computer assisted.    He truly led the way and was recognized forit.
It made great art.
Picasso's Genius Revealed: He Used Common House Paint
Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience senior writerDate: 08 February 2013 
http://www.livescience.com/26963-picasso-house-paint-x-rays.html
Pablo Picasso, famous for pushing the boundaries of art with cubism, also broke with convention when it came to paint, new research shows. X-ray analysis of some of the painter's masterworks solves a long-standing mystery about the type of paint the artist used on his canvases, revealing it to be basic house paint.
Art scholars had long suspected Picasso wasone of the first masterartists to employ house paint, rather than traditional artists' paint,to achieve a glossy style that hid brush marks. There was no absoluteconfirmation of this, however, until now.
Physicists at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont,Ill., trained their hard X-ray nanoprobe atPicasso's painting "The Red Armchair," completed in 1931, which theyborrowed from the Art Institute of Chicago.The nanoprobe instrument can "see" details down to the level ofindividual pigment particles, revealing the arrangement of particular chemicalelements in the paint.
The analysis showed that Picasso used enamel paint that matches the precise chemical composition of the first brand of commercial house paint, called Ripolin. The researchers were able to compare the painting's pigment with those of paints available at the time by analyzing decades-old paint samples bought on eBay.
What's more, the detailed study, which usedX-rays to probe the painting'spigment down to the scale of 30 nanometers (a sheet of copier paper is100,000 nanometers thick), was able to pinpoint the manufacturing region wherethe paint was made by studying its particular impurities.
"The nanoprobe at the [Advanced Photon Source X-ray facility and the Center for Nanoscale Materials] allowed unprecedented visualization of information about chemical composition within a singe grain of paint pigment, significantly reducing doubt that Picasso used common house paint in some of his most famous works," one of the research leaders, Argonne's Volker Rose, said in a statement.
Art scholars think Picasso experimented with Ripolin to achieve a different effect than would've been possible with traditional oil paints, which dry slowly and can be heavily blended. In contrast, house paint dries quickly and leaves effects like marbling, muted edges, and even drips of paint. Still, experts couldn't be sure house paint was the key to Picasso's look without proof.
"Appearances can deceive, so this is where art can benefit from scientific research," said Francesca Casadio, senior conservator scientist at the Art Institute of Chicago. "We needed to reverse-engineer the paint so that we could figure out if there was a fingerprint that we could then go look for in the pictures around the world that are suspected to be painted with Ripolin, the first commercial brand of house paint."
The scientists detailed their findings in a paper published last monthin the journal Applied Physics A: Materials Science & Processing.

Corn Yields Boosted

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 This will squeeze a significant gain in yield for corn likely on therange of perhaps another twenty percent. Corn is been subjected tomany other beneficial improvements that secures it position as theleading field crop. In time we will have a rich nutrient enhancedproduct that is welcome everywhere.
The conversion to corn culture worldwide continues to be rewardingand well rewarded and is handily providing us much of our foodsecurity. It will clearly continue to expand its range.
It is all good news for the long term as agriculture prepares toshift into organic methods.
Plant scientists atCSHL demonstrate new means of boosting maize yields
by Staff Writers
Cold Spring HarborNY (SPX) Feb 12, 2013
http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Plant_scientists_at_CSHL_demonstrate_new_means_of_boosting_maize_yields_999.html

A team of plantgeneticists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has successfullydemonstrated what it describes as a "simple hypothesis" formaking significant increases in yields for the maize plant.
Called corn by mostpeople in North America, modern variants of the Zea mays plant areamong the indispensable food crops that feed billions of the planet'speople. As global population soars beyond 6 billion and heads for anestimated 8 to 9 billion by mid-century, efforts to boost yields ofessential food crops takes on ever greater potential significance.
The new findingsobtained by CSHL Professor David Jackson and colleagues, publishedonline in Nature Genetics, represent the culmination of over a decadeof research and creative thinking on how to perform geneticmanipulations in maize that will have the effect of increasing thenumber of its seeds - which most of us call kernels.
Plant growth anddevelopment depend on structures called meristems - reservoirs inplants that consist of the plant version of stem cells. When promptedby genetic signals, cells in the meristem develop into the plant'sorgans - leaves and flowers, for instance. Jackson's team has takenan interest in how quantitative variation in the pathways thatregulate plant stem cells contribute to a plant's growth and yield.
"Our simplehypothesis was that an increase in the size of the inflorescencemeristem - the stem-cell reservoir that gives rise to flowers andultimately, after pollination, seeds - will provide more physicalspace for the development of the structures that mature intokernels."
Dr. Peter Bommert, aformer postdoctoral fellow in the Jackson lab, performed ananalytical technique on several maize variants that revealed whatscientists call quantitative trait loci (QTLs): places along thechromosomes that "map" to specific complex traits such asyield. The analysis pointed to a gene that Jackson has beeninterested in since 2001, when he was first to clone it: a maize genecalled FASCIATED EAR2 (FEA2).
Not long after cloningthe gene, Jackson had a group of gifted Long Island high schoolstudents, part of a program called Partners for the Future, performan analysis of literally thousands of maize ears. Their task was tometiculously count the number of rows of kernels on each ear. It waspart of a research project that won the youths honors in the IntelScience competition. Jackson, meantime, gained important data thatnow has come to full fruition.
The lab's currentresearch has now shown that by producing a weaker-than-normal versionof the FEA2 gene - one whose protein is mutated but still partlyfunctional -- it is possible, as Jackson postulated, to increasemeristem size, and in so doing, get a maize plant to produce earswith more rows and more kernels.
How many more? In twodifferent crops of maize variants that the Jackson team grew in twolocations with weakened versions of FEA2, the average ear had 18 to20 rows and up to 289 kernels - as compared with wild-type versionsof the same varieties, with 14 to 16 rows and 256 kernels. Comparedwith the latter figure, the successful FEA2 mutants had a kernelyield increase of some 13%.
"We were excitedto note this increase was accomplished without reducing the length ofthe ears or causing fasciation - a deformation that tends to flattenthe ears," Jackson says. Both of those characteristics, whichcan sharply lower yield, are prominent when FEA2 is completelymissing, as the team's experiments also demonstrated.
Teosinte, the humblewild weed that Mesoamericans began to modify about 7000 years ago,beginning a process that resulted in the domestication of maize,makes only 2 rows of kernels; elite modern varieties of the plant canproduce as many as 20.
A next step in theresearch is to cross-breed the "weak" FEA2 gene variant, orallele, associated with higher kernel yield with the best maize linesused in today's food crops to ask if it will produce a higher-yieldplant.
"Quantitativevariation in maize kernel row number is controlled by the FASCIATEDEAR2 locus" appears online in Nature Genetics on February 3,2013. The authors are: Peter Bommert, Namiko Satoh Nagasawa and DavidJackson. The paper can be viewed here

Zuckerberg and Brin Join Forces to Extend Life

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This is now happening mainly because it is becoming plausible. Recent work has blown open the problem sufficiently that pathways arenow worth investigating. I would not be surprised to discover thatthe solution even turns out to be easy. Keep that thought.
The ultimate human lifespan will not be earthly immortality but itcan be centuries for individuals who prepare themselves. Recent workhas already shown us that telomeres can be rebuilt and that impliesrestoration to one's prime is a viable proposition.
When I started this blog, interest was still modest, but has sincerapidly expanded. Researchers are beginning to believe.
Zuckerberg, Brinjoin forces to extend life
by Staff Writers
San Francisco(AFP) Feb 20, 2013
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Zuckerberg_Brin_join_forces_to_extend_life_999.html

Famed founders ofInternet rivals Google and Facebook joined forces on Wednesday toback big-money prizes for research aimed at extending human life.

Sergey Brin and MarkZuckerberg, along with their spouses, joined Russian venturecapitalist Yuri Milner to award 11 scientists $3 million each tolaunch the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
"Priscilla and Iare honored to be part of this," Zuckerberg said.
"We believe theBreakthrough Prize in Life Sciences has the potential to provide aplatform for other models of philanthropy, so people everywhere havean opportunity at a better future."
Art Levinson, whochairs boards at mobile device powerhouse Apple and biotechnologystar Genentech, will head the non-profit foundation created tosupport breakthrough research.
Levinson said hebelieves the prize will spotlight outstanding minds in medicine andhopes it will help enhance medical innovation.
Zuckerberg, Milner,and Brin's wife Anne Wojcicki will be on the foundation's board ofdirectors. They have agreed that going forward, five annualBreakthrough prizes of $3 million each will be awarded.
"We are thrilledto support scientists who think big, take risks and have made asignificant impact on our lives," said Wojcicki, co-founder ofstartup 23andMe, which provides personal DNA testing services.
"These scientistsshould be household names and heroes in society."
Brin remarked that"curing a disease should be worth more than a touchdown" inan apparent reference to riches heaped on professional athletes suchas those who play US football.
This year'sBreakthrough Prize winners, many of whom targeted cancer in theirresearch, agreed to serve on a committee to select future honorees.
"Solving theenormous complexity of human diseases calls for a much bigger effortcompared to fundamental physics and therefore requires multiplesponsors to reward outstanding achievements," Milner said of theSilicon Valley heavyweights teaming up to back the award.

Knights of Malta Confronts 900 Years

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 This is a delightful echo of history but also a sound idea that needs to be honored and seriously considered. It is obvious in the modern world that an invitation to actually join this order or any such like order is an invitation to conduct philanthropy. Yet it is also true that philanthropy is almost a recently popular idea amount the newly enriched of the present world.
Engaging the state in providing honors for this clearly beneficialbehavior is extremely attractive and should be encouraged andpoliced. Medieval honors are out of time and place but in a cashpoor system it was a currency that worked. A renewal of honors isclearly beneficial in this time and place in order to reward andstrongly encourage generosity.
And bye the bye, there is no surer way to gain status with money thanto be able to give it away. Hiding it in off shore bank accountsdoes not cut it.

Ancient order ofthe Knights of Malta confronts modern world as it marks 900 years
By NicoleWinfield
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/ancient-order-knights-malta-confronts-modern-world-marks-161604160.html

Prince and GrandMaster of the Knights of Malta — bounds into the sitting room ofhis magnificent Renaissance palazzo sweaty and somewhat disheveled,and asks an aide if he should take off his sweater to bephotographed.
Garrulous and self-effacing, Festing embodies some of the paradoxes of a fabled Catholic religious order that dates from the medieval Crusades: Steeped in European nobility and mystique, the order's mission is humility and charity — running hospitals, ambulance services and old folks' homes around the globe. It has many trappings of a country, printing its own stamps, coins, license plates and passports, and yet — a stateless state — it rules over no territory.
The Sovereign MilitaryOrder of Malta's world headquarters, down the block from the SpanishSteps and with an Hermes boutique on the corner, features receptionrooms draped in oil portraits of grand masters past and a gem of achapel where King Juan Carlos of Spain was baptized by the futurePope Pius XII. On the ground floor, it runs a health clinic that,while private, provides free services for anyone who can't pay.
"It is, I suppose, a series of contradictions," Festing told The Associated Press ahead of the order's 900th birthday this week. "I'm on the inside of it, so it doesn't seem to be contradictory to me, but maybe it is."
And as the SovereignMilitary and Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes andof Malta, as the group is officially called, celebrates theanniversary on Feb. 9 with a procession through St. Peter's Square, aMass in the basilica and an audience with Pope Benedict XVI, theancient order is confronting some very modern-day issues.
Once drawn exclusivelyfrom Europe's nobility, the order is trying to shed its image as apurely rich man's club while still tapping the world's wealthy tofund its charitable work. And though its military past is well behindit, the order is waging real legal battles to fend off what it saysare impostors seeking to piggyback on its name to con people out ofmoney.
Festing, a 63-year-old Briton and former Sotheby's auctioneer, is expansive about the unusual attributes of his organization of 13,500 Knights and Dames who make promises to be good Christians and fund the order's humanitarian work.
"On the one hand it's a sovereign entity. On the other hand it's a religious order. On the other hand it's a humanitarian organization. It's a complicated mixture of things," he says in an interview in the gold silk brocaded state drawing room between meetings with parting Vatican nuncios and visiting ministers, diplomatic receptions and silent prayer.
The order traces its history to the 11th century with the establishment of an infirmary in Jerusalem that cared for people of all faiths making pilgrimages to the Holy Land. It is the last of the great lay chivalrous military orders like the Knights Templars that combined religious fervour with fierce military might to protect and expand Christendom from Islam's advance during the Crusades.
In February 1113, Pope Paschal II issued a papal bull recognizing the order as independent from bishops or secular authorities. That "birth certificate," as Festing calls it, is the legal basis for asserting the order's sovereignty and the reason for Saturday's anniversary celebrations at the Vatican.Festing himself is a "Professed Knight" — the highest rank of members who take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The poverty vow seems a bit relative in this context: Knights on the order's governing council have their own private apartments inside the palace, complete with a valet and driver for cars that carry either diplomatic plates or the order's own SMOM plates. Wine from the order's own vineyards is often served.
Pope Benedict XVI isamong the professed knights, though he's an exception since professedknights aren't ordained priests and traditionally descend from nobleblood.
Festing, whose family traces their ancestry to 14th- and 16th-century knights, was elected grand master in 2008. It's a title he holds for life and is equivalent to the rank of cardinal, though he can't vote in a conclave to elect a pope.
Currently there areabout 60 professed knights and Festing hopes to increase theirnumbers as he seeks to expand the rank-and-file base to a youngergeneration of equally Catholic but not necessarily noble classesaround the globe.
"It's not exactlyout of date, but you can't maintain that in the 21st century,"he says. "In general terms, in the old countries of Europe, wemaintain the nobiliary requirement to an extent. But only to anextent. But in places like Australia, Central America, North America,Southeast Asia, it's all done on a different basis."
Members are still expected to chip in when natural disasters strike or wars erupt. Contributions in the tens of thousands of dollars are not unusual. Members also volunteer, bringing the sick to the shrine at Lourdes or pitching in at a one of the order's clinics, like the maternity hospital it runs in Bethlehem just a few steps from Jesus' traditional birthplace, where most of the patients are Muslim.
Even though it's aCatholic aid group — whose origins date from the Crusades — theorder works in several Muslim countries, including Pakistan andSyria. "We do not hide that we are Christian, but we do notproselytize. That is impossible," said the order's healthminister, Albrecht von Boeselager.
One perk of membershipin the top ranks, reserved for men only, is the fabulous uniform:bright-red military-style jacket, with sword, spurs and epaulettesfor official duties, a dark cloak with a white, eight-pointed MalteseCross on the front for religious services.
All told, 98,000members, employees and volunteers work in aid projects in 120countries; the overall annual operating budget can run to euro 200million, Festing says.
"We certainly don't want to be, and in fact we're not a sort of rich man's club," Festing insists. "To a sort of an extent you could say, 'Well maybe they are, slightly.' But that's not the basis of it. Otherwise I wouldn't have gotten in."
That elite reputation, however, combined with the order's neutral and apolitical relief work, has earned it a level of prestige that few organizations can match. Governments, the European Union and U.N. agencies finance the order's humanitarian operations; it has observer status at the United Nations and diplomatic relations with 104 countries — many in the developing world where such ties can help smooth the delivery of aid.
But the prestige hascome with a price: Copycat orders have sprung up claiming to be theKnights of Malta or an offshoot that may or may not legitimatelytrace its origins to the group. These "false orders" preyon people eager to contribute to a Catholic charity thinking it'ssanctioned by the Holy See.
The con jobs aresometimes so good that even the Vatican has been fooled. In October,the Vatican issued a public reminder that it recognizes only twoancient equestrian orders — the Order of Malta and the EquestrianOrder of the Holy See Sepulcher of Jerusalem — after a grouppurporting to be the knights obtained approval to host a ceremonywithin the Vatican walls, Festing said.
"It was entirelyinnocent," on the part of the Vatican, said Festing. "Butit wasn't actually us. It was somebody else."

China Rent a Boyfriend

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What is most delightful about theChinese experience is that it can be compared to our experience since1960.  Recall that our society was alsoprofoundly organized along traditional lines up to then.  It was never satisfactory but it was how itwas.  The same is also true elsewhere aroundthe world.
Most of it has to do with birthcontrol actually freeing women from biological necessity for the decade oftheir twenties.  This is a huge global sociological experiment that is sometimes disturbing, but also sometimes surprising and mostly welcome.
Thus in a pressing sexist societywe have this delightful solution. Definitely a wonderful source of comedy and farce.
China Rent a Boyfriend

http://newsterm.blogspot.ca/2013/02/china-rent-boyfriend.html
China rent a boyfriend, Chinarent a boyfriend is a new fad that is sweeping the country. Since many girlswill be going home to see their families for Chinese New Year celebrations,many are renting "boyfriends" just to get their nosy families offtheir backs. On Feb. 6, The Telegraph UK reported that 300 men are listed "for rent" on the shopping site TaoBao. The price is about $48 a day -- and a bit more if an "appropriate kiss" is required -- you know, to really convince the fam.

"It can be a particularly miserable experience for girls who don’t bringhome a boyfriend, leading to endless questions about why they’re not dating andwhere their life’s going. In this sexist society, ladies over 27 who aren’thitched are labelled 'leftover women,'" reports TheTelegraph.....examiner.

The China"rent a boyfriend" idea could pay off well. At this point, it isunclear how many girls/women are shopping for pseudo-boyfriends for theholidays. However, they will all have to be careful now -- and be ready foreven more questions -- since "news" of this new thing has gone viral.

There are many cultures that would not go for something like this at all.However, China tends to try things -- all kinds of things. Some of said things catch on and some don't (like that fake braces fad from December). Renting a boyfriend probably wouldn't fly in The States, would it?

In China,renting a boyfriend might not be that bad of an idea. Family questions can berelentless.

Dogs Understand Human Perspective

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Dogsof course do make a study of the family that they have become partof, or at least the smart ones do. In fact the whole subject of dogcleverness needs to be properly investigated. The best are notautomatons simply channeled.
Wehad an excellent farm dog who simply chose to not eat what we wouldnot eat ourselves or directly give him. He still hunted out thepests, but then brought them to us for disposal. And he always actedin an intelligent manner.
Knowingthis, the following item is unsurprising and is actually a niceexercise in experimental design to ferret out the actual details. Itstill needs to be applied against the population of dogs.
Dogs understandhuman perspective, say researchers
By Sean Coughlan 11February 2013
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21411249
Dogs are more capableof understanding situations from a human's point of view than haspreviously been recognised, according to researchers.
They found dogs werefour times more likely to steal food they had been forbidden, whenlights were turned off so humans in the room could not see.
This suggested thedogs were able to alter their behaviour when they knew their owners'perspective had changed.
The study, publishedin Animal Cognition, conducted tests on 84 dogs.
The experiments hadbeen trying to find whether dogs could adapt their behavior inresponse to the changed circumstances of their human owners.
It wanted to see ifdogs had a "flexible understanding" that could show theyunderstood the viewpoint of a human.
Dog's understanding
It found that when thelights were turned off, dogs in a room with their human owners weremuch more likely to disobey and steal forbidden food.
The study says it is"unlikely that the dogs simply forgot that the human was in theroom" when there was no light. Instead it seems as though thedogs were able to differentiate between when the human was unable orable to see them.
The experiments hadbeen designed with enough variations to avoid false associations -such as dogs beginning to associate sudden darkness with someonegiving them food, researchers said.
Dr Juliane Kaminski,from the University of Portsmouth's psychology department, said thestudy was "incredible because it implies dogsunderstand the human can't see them, meaning they mightunderstand the human perspective".
This could also beimportant in understanding the capacities of dogs that have tointeract closely with humans, such as guide dogs for the blind andsniffer dogs.
Previous studies havesuggested that although humans might think that they can recognisedifferent expressions on their dogs' faces, this is often inaccurateand a projection of human emotions.
"Humansconstantly attribute certain qualities and emotions to other livingthings. We know that our own dog is clever or sensitive, but that'sus thinking, not them," said Dr Kaminski.
"These resultssuggest humans might be right, where dogs are concerned, but we stillcan't be completely sure if the results mean dogs have a trulyflexible understanding of the mind and others' minds. It has alwaysbeen assumed only humans had this ability."

Big Sky Locavores

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In the past, demand for local food was undeveloped and farmers found themselves competing with truckers happy to often dump in order to not have to haul it home. The farmers advantage was that their product was fresh and gave the retailer days more to sell the product.
That demand is now developing and it does not take too much to make serious inroads in the local market share. Also the cost of local processing is now very competitive also. Just what does it take for a local farmer to can a field of tomatoes himself? Add in various other crops and local partners with their own fields and we suddenly have a local value added product good for year round sales.
None of this is too difficult and the locavore movement will naturally drive this market.
Another point to note here is that if we can make it work in remote Montana then just about anywhere is fine.


Big Sky’s the limit: How to make local food lucrative in Montana
By Claire Thompson
http://grist.org/food/big-skys-the-limit-how-to-make-local-food-lucrative-in-montana/
You wouldn’t think that a place like the Community Food Co-op in Bozeman, Mont., has much work to do when it comes to sustainability. Yelp reviews describe the place variously as “perhaps the nicest cooperative grocery in the country,” with “local, organic, down-to-earth options” and patrons that fit “the stereotypical Bozeman granola or hippie type.” In this college town of 38,000 people, the co-op boasts 20,000 members — a sign that it must be doing something right.
But even with that kind of green cred, there’s room for improvement. Despite its longstanding commitment to sourcing locally, the co-op still managed to double the amount of local food it purchased in 2012, and saw sales rise accordingly — joining the growing ranks of institutionsaround the country getting serious about connecting people with local farms and food.
The Community Food Co-op has two locations, both of which sell deli food that’s prepared at a large central kitchen in a separate building. Though the stores’ produce departments offer some local fare, until recently, the central kitchen relied mostly on a large out-of-state distributor to provide the ingredients for its soups, sandwiches, and hot meals (things like stir-fried veggies, mac ‘n’ cheese, sweet-and-sour tofu, and fried rice). The alternative — working directly with growers — is much more labor-intensive, not to mention risky. As central kitchen manager Christina Waller puts it, “It’s hard to know when you’re going to get a hailstorm.”
Waller, who’s 36 and hails from Atlanta originally, studied nutrition as an undergraduate and always valued good food, but her job at the co-op — she started in 2006 — was the “catalyst,” she says, that pushed her to get a master’s degree in sustainable food systems. Inspired to put what she’d learned into practice, Waller started volunteering at Bozeman’s Three Hearts Farm, where farmer Dean Williamson grows everything from spinach to fava beans and lemon cucumbers on his seven acres.
She saw the abundance of good food growing there — all without pesticides — and compared it to the produce trucked in to the co-op from Spokane, Wash. “After a week out [on the farm], I was like, ‘Why don’t we have more local produce?’”
Waller started asking other local farmers about buying wholesale produce. For small growers who typically sell to CSAs and farmers markets, bulk orders can require some scrambling. “It was a new thing for them, for us to suddenly be asking for hundreds of pounds of produce,” she says, so she made it clear that she was open to working with what the farmers had available. If a cool summer led to a paltry tomato crop, for example, she could supplement with inferior trucked-in versions; if a local grower had an abundance of squash, then butternut squash soup could become a daily staple instead of a weekly special.
“Making that commitment to buy the food and deal with all the unpredictables — it takes a leap of faith,” says Williamson, who’s only been farming for five years (but “it feels like a lifetime.”) “Until you see it work.”
And it did work, thanks in no small part to Waller’s gung-ho approach to the demanding task of building partnerships with, and balancing supply from, at least a half-dozen different small farmers. Such strong partnerships make the investment worth it: “I know [the co-op is] going to give me a fair price, so I’m going to give them great food,” Williamson explains.
Conventional wisdom has it that local food commands a prohibitively high price — for its superior taste, freshness, and market cache, as well as the labor that would be taken over by middlemen in a larger operation — but Waller found that to be the case for only some items. With others, like zucchini, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower — things easy to grow and harvest in Montana — “our prices were less than what we’d be paying for large distributors, and [the food was] honestly so much better.”
Plus, buying from local farmers means less waste. “Cisco is infamous for packing their greens in 20-pound bags,” Williamson says. “The bottom three or four pounds are useless when they show up. Because we’re close by, we can package in a way that everything shows up fresh.”
Waller made it a goal to spend an average of $2 per pound overall, and by the end of the season, she found that her costs had evened out to $1.98 per pound. And once customers caught on to the fact that the co-op’s prepared foods were now made with higher-quality local ingredients, sales soared. In one telling example, the co-op sold nearly $12,000 worth of pies made with local pumpkin this past Thanksgiving, compared to just $5,000 worth of non-local pumpkin pies over the same time period in 2011.
Now that she’s seen her investment in local food pay off, Waller is ready to take it to the next level. She plans to streamline her system with spreadsheets and a set ordering schedule. She’s also applied for a USDA grant to buy some large processing equipment, so that this year the co-op can purchase several times the amount of local, seasonal produce it bought last year and preserve it for year-round use in its prepared foods.
Waller tested out this idea by stocking up on produce at the end of last summer and seeing which preserved items would be popular. She tried pesto, then “killed it with kimchi,” according to Williamson. “It flew off the shelves.”
For farmers like Williamson, this system “essentially allows me to grow 10,000 pounds of kale, or whatever, and they flash-freeze it and have kale for salads and soups all year,” he says. And for customers, “Now you’ve got access to food that’s grown right down the street 365 days [a year]. That’s the game changer.”
The central kitchen’s operation closely mirrors the way larger institutions like schools and hospitals prepare food, offering a glimpse of how it might be possible for such organizations to shift their sourcing through a similar focus on processing and preserving. Of course, the co-op is an autonomous, member-owned body that has far more control over its budget than public schools do. Still, all over the country, school districts, corner stores, restaurants, government programs, farm shares, social-justice groups, and Native American tribes are finding ways to make local, sustainable food the rule — not the exception — for the populations they serve, despite lean budgets and small staffs. As a result, sales from farms directly to buyers havedoubled in the past 20 years.
For the co-op, part of this year’s goal is to spread the gospel to anyone interested in following its example. “Our plan is to take this model and knock on every door in town and say, ‘You need to do this; it works,’” Williamson says.
“Every school or institution that finally takes the chance and does this — it always seems to end up working out,” says Waller. “And the food is so much better. I knew it would be in theory, but it really has made a huge difference. And it’s definitely increased sales, no doubt about that.”