Typing Monkeys
Many people debate what is the most pointlessly long article about trivia on Wikipedia. This one about Sony PSP exploits may be a winner!
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Golf Mania
I saw an email asking if people wanted to attend a conference being organised by the American College of Physicians. When I checked the location, I decided to count how many golf courses were within a 15-minute walk. I lost count at 25 or so. It’s amusing to find that some clichés are, apparently, true.
Mitochondria Gone Wild
We had a clinical presentation today from Richard Hass, a mitochondrial disease expert with UCSD’s Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disease Center. It was tough. He presented case after case of doomed little children who basically all die within a few years of an acute metabolic crisis caused by their mutated mitochondria or electron transport chain enzymes. Basically, for some reason mutated mitochondria tend to out-reproduce wild type (“normal”) mitochondria and so a person with these mutations tends to develop a higher ratio of mutated to wild type within their cells… and especially within cells of tissues that exercise a lot or continually turn over.
And then he brought in a little toddler with Leigh’s Syndrome, which is basically a rapid, fatal degenerative disease. The kid had undergone several acute episodes, had major neurodegenerative damage, was weak, not independently mobile, and spasmodic. Yet he was happy as a pig in shit to be out of his convalescent room and performing in front of a room full of people. Although there are several highly experimental treatments for mitochondrial diseases that involve RNA silencing, gene splicing, and other speculative and risky treatments, none of them can help this nice little boy in time. Basically, he’s being treated with mostly over-the-counter vitamin and mineral supplements, like Co-Q and B Complex, all precursors to functional elements of the electron transport chain. Basically what they sell in the back pages of those dodgy life extension magazines. It’s like being a doctor in the 19th century, basically prescribing like a naturopath. His parents were there and sometimes looked like they were losing it, and at other times were humourous. This made me very sad.
And there was an older woman, who had developed a different kind of mitochondrial diease that manifested in her 40s. As we age, our mitochondria accumulate more and more mutations but she seems to have been dealt a raw deal from birth. Her symptoms manifested as unusual lethargy and trouble keeping up with her friends’ exercise routines. This worried me because, let’s face it, who hasn’t felt this? But she also had certain eyelid-related features (“Betty Davis Eyes”) throughout her life.
Haas then explained an interesting hypothesis of his. He sees many athletes in their 40s whose drop off in performance is much more rapid than normal aging. He thinks it’s possible that strenuous exercise and a fitness regimen has encouraged the proliferation of mitochondria in these people and, unfortunately, their diseased mitochondria tend to reproduce faster, crowding out the others. When they are functioning aerobically, channelling electrons, everything’s cool. But when they slow down, or rest,their’s not enough throughput for these hyper-overgrown mitochondria networks and free radicals are produced as the system chokes like a bad engine, producing DNA damage that proliferates. It’s an interesting theory.
No Last Words
WMD (Weapon of Mime Destruction) Marcel Marceau is dead. No last words, apparently. This will have to do.
Never Being Kissed
Villagers don’t kiss anymore in a corner of Democratic Republic of Congo hit by the deadly and highly contagious Ebola virus.People began falling ill in April in Kampungu, Western Kasai province, centre of an outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever that has no cure or treatment and kills 50-90 percent of its victims.
There have been 385 suspected cases of the disease, and 174 have died.
Shangri-Lame
Few Tibetans would welcome a return of the corrupt aristocratic clans that fled with [the Dalai Lama] in 1959 and that comprise the bulk of his advisers. Many Tibetan farmers, for example, have no interest in surrendering the land they gained during China’s land reform to the clans. Tibet’s former slaves say they, too, don’t want their former masters to return to power.“I’ve already lived that life once before,” said Wangchuk, a 67-year-old former slave who was wearing his best clothes for his yearly pilgrimage to Shigatse, one of the holiest sites of Tibetan Buddhism. He said he worshipped the Dalai Lama, but added, “I may not be free under Chinese communism, but I am better off than when I was a slave.”
Let Them Eat Pelagibacter
We are running out of fish to eat, so apparently we will have to begin harvesting other oceanic biomass sources. I suggest going right to the source and figuring out how to turn Pelagibacter ubique into chewy burger patties. Should go well with some gorgonzola topping. Anyway, this awesomely efficient creature is the most abundant organism on the planet and probably constitutes more biomass than all the oceanic eukaryotes combined. Its impressively stripped-down genetic sequence means that a minimum of nitrogen is required to facilitate its growth, thus reducing the need for fertiliser inputs.
Nifty!
Piclens, a browser plugin, turns any page of thumbnails (such as Google’s Image Search) into a full-screen slideshow with a Flickr style. This is easily the coolest thing I have seen for a browser in ages.
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