Except for your grubby arteries!

Meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring is as safe as the natural version, the Food and Drug Administration declared, clearing the way for such products to enter the food supply without special labeling.

“Meat and milk from clones of cattle, swine and goats and their offspring are as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals,” said Randall Lutter, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for policy…

Initially, only a small amount of steaks, pork and dairy products derived from clones will become available in grocery stores. But over the next three to five years — after ranchers have time to clone their most prized animals and those clones are able to breed — the products will become routine on store shelves, industry executives said…

The risk assessment noted that “cloning raises many ethical and economic concerns” that are important to the public but said the FDA’s task was to focus on the science.

I headlined this “again” because scientific study after study, governmental and private, reaches the same conclusion.

Click pic to start

For more indie games, read this story about the recent glut of exceptionally good, independently created, and generally free games out there on the Interwebitubes.

Professor Doris Taylor

We’ve all seen the 30-second sound bites on TV with trite Frankenstein jokes. I thought I’d offer up a bit more detail:

US scientists have coaxed recycled hearts taken from animal cadavers into beating in the laboratory after reseeding them with live cells…

The core procedure making this possible is called decellularisation.

In this process, all the cells from an organ — in this case the heart of a dead rat — are stripped away using powerful detergents, leaving only a bleached-white scaffolding composed of proteins secreted by the cells.

In the experiments, this matrix was then injected with a mixture of cells taken from newborn rat hearts and placed in a sterile lab setting, where the scientists hoped it would grow.

After only four days, contractions started, and on the eighth day, the hearts were pumping, according to the study…

“When we saw the first contractions, we were speechless,” said Harald Ott, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital.

More detail in the article, of course. Photos, more notes and a video from the University of Minnesota are here.

We readily give up our freedoms for safety. Just as Orwell and others predicted. FBI wants instant access to British identity data Senior British police officials are talking to the FBI about an international database to hunt for major criminals and terrorists.

The US-initiated programme, “Server in the Sky”, would take cooperation between the police forces way beyond the current faxing of fingerprints across the Atlantic. Allies in the “war against terror” – the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand – have formed a working group, the International Information Consortium, to plan their strategy. Biometric measurements, irises or palm prints as well as fingerprints, and other personal information are likely to be exchanged across the network. One section will feature the world’s most wanted suspects. The database could hold details of millions of criminals and suspects.

The FBI is keen for the police forces of American allies to sign up to improve international security. The Home Office yesterday confirmed it was aware of Server in the Sky, as did the Metropolitan police.

And then there’s this about how we’re training those who will administer the new watchful state where vote fraud is easy. BTW, the Brit cops are now beating up peace protesters. We here in the states, of course, would have been more civilized and Tased him to death, bro.

And this is what they’re waiting for.

I wonder if John was invited?

Forensic Anthropology Research Facility, Decomposing Corpse

The world’s primary research center for the study of corpse decomposition in Knoxville, Tennessee, is nicknamed “the body farm” and hosts up to 75 cadavers in various stages of decay. The skeletal analysis of human remains helps solve murder cases.

Simon said she was granted full access to shoot as she pleased, which, given the setting, was a bit disconcerting: “They gave me gloves, let me roam around and do whatever I wanted to do. I had a strange reaction to being there with bodies lying all around,” Simon said. “I was thinking a lot about how we handle and interpret and respect our dead.”

An interesting collection of photos you would not ordinarily see.

I get antsy and annoyed on a four hour flight, so I can’t imagine what being held hostage on one would be like for 10 hours that hasn’t even taken off. I’m leaning toward penalties of having management sit — middle seat in coach between a screaming, puking baby and an obese man with the flu — in one of their planes for the same amount of time as their plane did. Oops. Almost forgot: gotta have another kid kicking the seat from behind.

Passenger Rights

AIRLINE PASSENGERS going through New York now have something other put-upon travelers around the country don’t have: a bill of rights. The airline industry wants to kill this first-in-the-nation law. It has only itself to blame for being in this position.

The New York law sprang from the horrendous events of last Valentine’s Day. That’s when a freak ice storm wreaked havoc on New York-area airports, and some passengers were trapped on airplanes for up to 10 hours with no water, food or working bathrooms. Airlines canceled flights by the hundreds and stranded thousands of people. What made matters worse was the lack of information from the carriers.

Congress was indignant and promised action that has yet to come. Just before Thanksgiving, the White House called on the airlines “to adopt legally binding contingency plans for lengthy tarmac delays.” JetBlue, which failed miserably on that frosty February day, and some other airlines have done so. But not all of them have. Enter the Empire State.

“If this is first class, I wonder what coach is like?”

Want the public to like your product better? Raise the price.

That seems to be the lesson from a new study in which people were asked to taste wines marked with different prices. Researchers scanned the brains of the testers and found that the part of the brain that records pleasure lit up more for the more pricey vintages. And that was true even when _ unknown to the testers _ they were sipping a wine that they had liked less when it had a lower price tag. Antonio Rangel and colleagues at California Institute of Technology thought perceptions of higher price meaning higher quality could influence people, so they decided to test the idea.

They asked 20 people to sample wine while undergoing functional MRI’s of their brain activity. The subjects were told they were tasting five different Cabernet Sauvignons sold at different prices. However, there were actually only three wines sampled, two being offered twice, marked with different prices. A $90 wine was provided marked with its real price and again marked $10, while another was presented at its real price of $5 and also marked $45.

The testers’ brains showed more pleasure at the higher price than the lower one, even for the same wine, Rangel reports in this week’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In other words, changes in the price of the wine changed the actual pleasure experienced by the drinkers, the researchers reported. “Our results suggest that the brain might compute experienced pleasantness in a much more sophisticated manner that involves integrating the actual sensory properties of the substance being consumed with the expectations about how good it should be,” they reported.

I have often wondered about the psychological affect price has on perception. Studies have been done on bottled water vs. tap water, and there does seem to be some validity to this. Except when it comes to my brand of bourbon, in which case, I cannot be fooled.

About one-third of Japanese primary school students aged 7-12 years old use cellphones, by the time they get to high school that figure has shot up to 96 percent, according to a government survey released last month.

They are using their phones to read books, listen to music, chat with friends and surf the Internet — an average of 124 minutes a day for high school girls and 92 minutes for boys.

While the wired world they now inhabit holds enormous advantages for learning and communicating, it also brings a downside, say experts who point to a rise in cyberbullying and a growing inability among teenagers to deal with other people face to face.

“Kids say what’s most important to them, next to their own lives, is their cellphone,” said Masashi Yasukawa, head of the private National Web Counselling Council.

“They are moving their thumbs while eating or watching television,” he said.

Golly gee. I’m so glad we don’t have that problem here.

General Motors, eager to ensure a supply of fuel for the big fleet of flex-fuel ethanol-capable vehicles it is building, has joined the rush into alternative energy and invested in a company that intends to produce ethanol from crop wastes, wood chips, scrap plastic, rubber and even municipal garbage.

The company purchased an equity stake in Coskata, a start-up company in Warrenville, Ill., that plans to make ethanol without using corn. G.M. would not say how much it paid or how big a stake it took in the company…

Coskata is not the only company pursuing the gas-to-bacteria-to-fuel route, but claims its process gives more ethanol per ton of raw material — 100 gallons — and uses less water, less than one gallon for each gallon of ethanol.

William Roe, CEO, said that “at full production, Coskata ethanol should be 50 cents to $1 cheaper than gasoline at the pump,” and that the total production cost would be under $1 a gallon when the fuel begins flowing in 2010 or 2011. Mary Beth Stanek, G.M.’s director for energy and environment, said the process showed “near-term readiness” and that no scientific work was involved to commercialize it.

“It’s literally just physical building,” she said.

We’ve been commenting for a spell on alternatives to food crop-based alternative fuels. Costs and environmental impact are both reduced in the quotient.

Since the only remaining portion of this project is the physical plant and ramping-up, we should see how this works out in just a few years.

The next phase

Youths arming due to violence on streets

As cops prepare to launch a controversial program to seize guns from homes with parental permission instead of warrants, concerned youth workers claim scared kids are stockpiling weapons due to fear of being without protection on the city’s toughest streets.

“They would rather be caught with a gun by the police than get caught without one by their enemies,” said the Rev. Shaun O. Harrison, who has launched a new campaign to encourage youngsters to hand guns over to him, no questions asked.

“They (young people) are not as willing to hand in weapons, especially nowadays. They don’t feel safe. I have seen kids as young as 11 and 12 with guns. They’ve shown me them,” Jeremy said.

“They have told me that prison is like a club to them. They have a fascination with gangs and especially guns. It is ridiculous.”

All cabinet members. All running in municipal elections.

The justice minister wants to be a mayor. So does the finance minister. And the culture minister. And the government spokesman.

The races for France’s municipal elections in March have not even started, but nearly two-thirds of the 33 members of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s cabinet have already transformed themselves into part-time politicians, declaring that they deserve to be the next mayors and deputy mayors of France.

In a peculiarly French practice called “accumulation of mandates,” certain government officials are allowed to hold more than one elected office. The minister-mayor phenomenon largely was eliminated as unseemly during the era of President Jacques Chirac (who had served simultaneously as prime minister and mayor of Paris). But it has been proudly revived by Sarkozy as a way to expand his government’s influence.

It is also a way to keep power at the top. “You have to understand that France is still a sort of elected monarchy…”

Uh, OK.

But if you do learn to discriminate and understand how to figure out what is real and not, and how Google prioritizes and manipulates what you see first, it can be a very powerful tool. I know I, for one, want to be able to effectively sift through all the Britney stories to find the truth. And pr0n.

White bread for young minds, says university professor
Google is “white bread for the mind”, and the internet is producing a generation of students who survive on a diet of unreliable information, a professor of media studies will claim this week.

In her inaugural lecture at the University of Brighton, Tara Brabazon will urge teachers at all levels of the education system to equip students with the skills they need to interpret and sift through information gleaned from the internet.

She believes that easy access to information has dulled students’ sense of curiosity and is stifling debate. She claims that many undergraduates arrive at university unable to discriminate between anecdotal and unsubstantiated material posted on the internet.

“I call this type of education ‘the University of Google’.

From the club’s forum:

Avert your eyes! You’re violating Ford’s trademark by looking!

I got some more info from the folks at cafepress and according to them, a law firm representing Ford contacted them saying that our calendar pics (and our club’s event logos – anything with one of our cars in it) infringes on Ford’s trademarks which include the use of images of THEIR vehicles. Also, Ford claims that all the images, logos and designs OUR graphics team made for the BMC events using Danni are theirs as well. Funny, I thought Danni’s title had my name on it … and I thought you guys owned your cars.

I’m sorry, but at this point we will not be producing the 2008 BMC Calendar, featuring our 2007 Members of the Month, solely due to Ford Motor Company’s claim that THEY own all rights to the photos YOU take of YOUR car.

The publicity over this numskull action is taking off and pissing off Ford loyalists.

Ford is hurting; they have slipped to #4 in vehicles sold in the U.S.
My own informal research (browsing “The Web”) has pointed out that this action is costing them PLENTY in “Customer Loyalty”. In fact many staunch Ford supporters are now saying (paraphrasing), “If this is true and continues, I”m going to dump my (Mustang, F150 SuperCrew, 6.0 PSD, insert model name here) and buying a (Challenger, ’09 Camaro, Ram Quad-Cab, Tundra Crew-Cab, Cummins Turbo-Diesel, DuraMax Silverado HD, insert competing model name here) because they’re being @-holes!”

I repeat, Ford is now no longer part of “The Big Three”; having been supplanted by freakin’ Toyota and relegated to the #4 slot. They need to re-establish their position in order to not achieve “junk-stock” status. SOMEBODY at Ford has to figure this out – or at least listen to what their market is saying.

If not, well…..