CETP, Jewish Centenarians and Alzheimers

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2005, I am at a lecture in a small conference room in the Annenberg building at Mount Sinai. You know the building, the huge black imposing tower at 101st and Madison Ave.


The speaker, Nir Barzilai. The topic: Living to 100. The take away, people that live to 100 have better defenses against the toxic exposure we ingest daily.

The biggest molecule I learned about CETP. Yup, CETP. So naturally when I learn about something I do a pretty big deep dive. Which is why I went out and bought huge amounts of Pfizer stock when I found out they were making a CETP inhibitor.....what a flop that was......goes to show, not all pleiomorphic effects or unexpected adverse effects are good.......

So imagine my surprise when @lindaavey @dgmacarthur mention that JAMA has a study on it....I listen.

But what do I find? Well, basically what the alzheimer association finds

This relatively small study suggests that variations in this particular gene - linked with long life and lower risk of heart disease - could also be associated with lower risk of dementia. More research is needed to fully understand this link. The government currently invests eight times less in dementia research than cancer research. This needs to change.'

I think this may be too much attention towards a subject in an attempt to hype a genetic finding. I remain skeptical. Since after all, I was burned by torcetrapib......

The Sherpa Says: Much ado right now, but certainly would be neat if we had some hard core modifier genes involved in APOE alzheimers....

Maybe Chefs Should Design Anti-Terrorism Tactics

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It seems that professional chefs are better than terrorists at getting things past airport security:

The Christmas Day underwear-bombing attempt won't just slow airport-security lines. It probably will also disrupt efforts to provide U.S. carnivores with quality salami, prosciutto and headcheese.

Last week, a federal grand jury indicted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who allegedly tried to set off a bomb hidden in his underpants on a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit. The bomb didn't explode, but it spurred demand for pat-down searches, body scans and more-meticulous baggage examinations for airline passengers headed for the U.S.

Such measures might discourage terrorists, but they are also likely to catch chefs smuggling meat from Europe. Chefs such as Rey Knight, who once flew from Italy to Miami with a pork shoulder and fennel-pollen salami vacuum-sealed and hidden inside a stainless-steel water bottle. Another time, he says, he hid a 4-pound goose-liver torchon from France inside the belly of a salmon.
 
Increased scrutiny of international travelers means "I'll have to come up with more creative ways" to get charcuterie into the U.S., says Mr. Knight, whose Knight Salumi Co. sells cured meats to San Diego-area restaurants.

Motorola Spites Google, Promises Multitouch For All [Phones]

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Google may not be too interested in giving their US market native app multitouch in the Nexus One, but Motorola aims to please, with CEO Sanjay Jha promising to "deliver multitouch in the majority of our devices."

Going on, he told Laptop Mag "There's a complex set of factors, not all of them technical," which makes us wonder is he's referring to Google's thoughts on multitouch Androids. Google's motto may be "don't be evil," but giving European Nexus One owners native multitouch and ignoring other countries is frankly baffling. [Laptop Mag via Phone Arena via Engadget]



Home School proponents win overwhelming victory in New Hampshire against new regs

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Democrat leaders wanted massive new interventions in private schooling

From a press release, Jan. 13, by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA):

Purcellville, VA—Today, the New Hampshire House of Representatives resoundingly rejected a draconian homeschool proposal by voting 324–34 to maintain the current law. “Winning by such a significant margin is welcome relief for New Hampshire homeschool families,” said Mike Donnelly, staff attorney for HSLDA.

“It was a real surprise when Democratic leaders collaborated to bring these major changes to the floor for a vote, especially since the very same proposal had already been soundly rejected by their own committee,” said Donnelly.

It was pure old-fashioned grass roots activism that led to the resounding defeat. Continuing:

The victory was made possible by thousands of homeschool families from all over New Hampshire working diligently alongside HSLDA and Christian Home Educators of New Hampshire to educate their representatives about the threat to homeschool freedom.

Homeschool families participated in rallies, called their legislators, wrote letters, as well as walked the corridors of the state house to show their opposition.

Todd Donovan, a home school advocate from Andover, wrote in the Concord Monitor:

In an era when home-schoolers are significantly outperforming their public school counterparts the last thing home-schoolers and taxpayers need is another bureaucracy wasting their time and money.

The Plain Truth blog noted that this was a purely Democrat bill calling it a"Democrat assault on homeschoolers":

The homeschool community is reacting with alarm... The proposal to create the new state requirements is being pushed by Democratic leaders in the legislature

All Republicans in the House voted against the resolution.

Note - New Hampshire has a number of libertarian Republican legislators, including fmr. Republican Liberty Caucus State Chair Carol McGuire (photo left), David Bettencourt, Davie Itse, Al Badarraso and Jenn Coffey (photo right). Rep. Coffey of Andover was recently the guest speaker at a NH RLC state meeting.(List and photos at RLC.org). Also, sometimes Libertarian Party member, Rep. Steve Vallaincourt caucuses with the House GOP.

More info: RLCNH.org

STS-129 Crew Meets With Members of Congress

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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, the STS-129 space shuttle crew and members of the Congressional Black Caucus pose for a group photo at the Capitol Building, Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010, in Washington. Back row from left to right: U.S. Rep Donna Edwards (D-MD), U.S. Rep Diane Watson (D-CA), NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, astronauts Leland Melvin, Mike Forman, Robert Satcher, Barry Wilmore, Randy Breznik, and U.S. Rep Mel Watt (D-NC). Front row from left to right: U.S. Rep Robert Scott (D-VA), U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla), U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), U.S. Rep. Donna Christensen (D-VI) and U.S. Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ). The crew of STS-129 presented the CBC with a montage commemorating the shuttle mission.

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President Honors Outstanding Early-Career Scientists

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Today at the White House, President Obama will honor more than 100 outstanding early career scientists–the latest winners of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, including NASA scientists Benjamin Smith and Joshua K. Willis. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. Annually, nine federal departments and agencies nominate the most meritorious young scientists and engineers--researchers whose early accomplishments show the greatest promise for strengthening America’s leadership in science and technology and contributing to the awarding agencies' missions.

"You have been selected for this honor not only because of your innovative research, but also for your demonstrated commitment to community service and public outreach," President Obama said in a letter to the winners. "Your achievements as scientists, engineers and engaged citizens are exemplary, and the value of your work is amplified by the inspiration you provide to others."

The awards, established by President Clinton in February 1996, are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President. Awardees are selected on the basis of two criteria: Pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and a commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education or community outreach. Winning scientists and engineers receive up to a five-year research grant to further their study in support of critical government missions.

NASA recipient Joshua K. Willis' research focuses on the system of ocean currents called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The AMOC helps to regulate the climate across much of Europe and throughout the North Atlantic. It has been theorized that this circulation could play a role in rapid climate change, causing cooling in some regions even as the planet warms overall. AMOC’s exact role in global warming, however, remains a mystery. Using data from several NASA satellites along with observations taken by thousands of Argo floats, which autonomously measure ocean properties and currents, Willis has developed a novel technique for estimating the strength of the AMOC and how it changes over time.

Benjamin Smith’s research is in the area of understanding changes in the Earth’s ice sheets and their contributions to sea level using satellite remote sensing. In particular, he has been a leader in the analysis of ICESat data and has been a key figure in the science definition activities of ICESat-ll. He has been instrumental in extracting elevation change information from ICESat in its compromised operations scenario (as a result of the premature failure of two of ICESat’s three lasers) and has published some of the most significant ICESat-based ice sheet change assessments to date.

Read the White House press release for more information.

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Two quick 2010 AL30 updates | Bad Astronomy

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Two quick things about 2010 AL30, the small object that passed the Earth earlier today:

1) I wrote that it looks to be natural and not some booster, but now an ESA scientist says it might be a booster from Venus Express. His argument is a good one, but it’s difficult to prove.

2) Universe Today has a very cool animation of the object as it slid past us, created using 30 still images. It’s fun to watch, if a little dizzying.


460.8kbps 422 to tll conversion

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can anyone help suggest a 422 to TTL convertor full duplex chip. the data to be transmitted is 460.8kbps.

i have googled alot but found no such chip.

kindly suggest a highly effecient alternate.

is that possible to convert 422 to usb and then usb to ttl, how would that be?

How many minutes until Doomsday? | Cosmic Variance

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Doomsday clockAre we getting closer to our catastrophic annihilation?

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has kept track of our impending doom for over 60 years. They use a clock to represent our current time, where midnight is complete catastrophe. Back in the good old days, this meant something prosaic like global nuclear conflagration. Nowadays, there are plenty of other things to add to the list, including global climatic collapse, avian swine ebola, and grey goo. The current time is 11:55pm. Uncomfortably late.

There’s no real metric with which to judge the “time”. The clock has an hour and minute hand, but no am/pm indicator, so in principle it can represent a total of twelve hours of unique settings. [For the sticklers, the clock in some sense lacks a unit of time; we need some other information to interpret what one of its minutes represents.] If we assume noon is “zero risk of annihilation”, and midnight is 100%, one approach would be to assume each advancing minute brings us 1/720 closer to our doom. This would mean that we presently have just under a 1% chance of ending it all. If we were to run through the last decade 200 times in a row, would we completely screw ourselves at least one time? This doesn’t sound all that unreasonable to me. Surely the odds were comparable to this during the Cuban missile crisis? (Although then the clock was at 11:53pm; it reacts to events on a relatively long timescale). The closest we’ve ever come to midnight was in the period 1953–1960, when both the US and the USSR were busy testing Hydrogen bombs. It was 11:58 pm. You might think we’re easily ten minutes earlier now, but the clock presently stands at 11:55pm. We’ve made some progress, but not nearly enough. In all likelihood, the clock was meant to be symbolic, and really only the minute hand matters. And the main message is that we are minutes away from catastrophe, so let’s all shape it up.

Tomorrow (1/14) at 10am EST the minute hand will move. You can watch it live. The big question is: which way will it go? On the one hand, the cold war seems reasonably contained, Obama has articulated a vision of a nuclear-free world (the first time a sitting US President has done so), and the world seems relatively peaceful at present. On the other hand, Pakistan and India are relatively unfriendly neighbors, North Korea is not a paragon of stability and good governance, and all three now have nuclear weapons. Furthermore, Iran seems hell bent on joining the nuclear club, and the Middle East is the usual quagmire. Perhaps even worse, global warming continues to be debated and questioned, while we continue to dump greenhouse gases into our atmosphere and change our planet.

Over the last two years, has our catastrophic demise approached or receded? We’ll find out what our friendly Atomic Scientists think in a few hours. But I’m curious to know what our readers think.