"...the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like the fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."
- Jack Kerouac
Free Starbucks Coffee Recipe E-Book
Topic: Miscellaneous
3:17 pm EDT, Oct 4, 2008
Oooohhhh yeah....I can't wait to make some of these tasty treats:)
PETA Urges Ben & Jerry's To Use Human Milk - News Story - WPTZ Plattsburgh
Topic: Miscellaneous
9:46 pm EDT, Sep 23, 2008
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.
JoVE Browse:Global Search for: Marie Cross Maureen Powers
Topic: Miscellaneous
4:59 pm EDT, Sep 3, 2008
Just in case anyone is interested in learning a bit about what I do at work, here are some video journal articles I did for JOVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments). Its kind of a neat concept - JOVE has teamed up with Current Protocols in Cell Biology to film complex protocols. This is helpful for people in the scientific field who need to pick up a new technique for their research. With these movies, a person who is unfamiliar with a certain technique (for example, Xenopus egg extract) can watch these films while reading the protocols to learn how to do certain things.
I love 5 seasons...I have been going to this restaurant for years, and I have many fond memories from this place. I sincerely hope that they do not go out of business, for then I would have to drive all the way up 400 to their north location (which is good...but far).
RE: Cannibalism & the shaking death: A new form of the disease & a possible epidemic
Topic: Miscellaneous
11:24 am EDT, Aug 15, 2008
janelane wrote:
This silent film clip shows several victims of a disease called kuru. They are - or rather were - members of the South Fore, a tribe of approximately 8,000 people who inhabit the Okapa subdistrict of the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. In the 1950s and '60s, a kuru epidemic swept through the South Fore, claiming the lives of more than 1,000 members of the tribe. Later it was established that the disease was transmitted by the tribe's practice of ritualistic mortuary cannibalism.
Yuck!
The word kuru means "shaking death" in the Fore language, and describes the characteristic symptoms of the disease. Because it affects mainly the cerebellum, a part of the brain involved in the co-ordination of movement, the first symptoms to manifest themselves in those infected with the disease would typically be an unsteady gait and tremors. As the disease progresses, victims become unable to stand or eat, and eventually die between 6-12 months after the symptoms first appear.
Kuru belongs to a class of progressive neurodegenerative diseases called the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), which also includes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, more popularly known as "Mad Cow Disease"). TSEs are fatal and infectious; in humans, they are relatively rare, and can arise sporadically, by infection, or because of genetic mutations. They are unusual in that the infectious agent which transmits the diseases is believed to a misfolded protein. (Hence, the TSEs are also referred to as the prion diseases, "prion" being a shortened form of the term "proteinaceous infectious particle"). ... Following the outbreak of kuru among the Fore in the 1950s, cultural anthropologists quickly established that the disease was transmitted by the practice of mortuary cannibalism. When an individual died, the female relatives were responsible for dismembering the body. They would remove the brain, arms and feet, strip the muscle from the limbs and open the chest and abdomen to remove the internal organs. Those that died of kuru were highly regarded as sources of food, because they had layers of fat which resembled pork. It was primarily the Fore women who took part in this ritual. Often they would feed morsels of brain to young children and elderly relatives. Among the tribe, it was, therefore, women, children and the elderly who most often became infected.
Double Yuck! Seriously, I know that it's a time-honored ritual and all, but some dude in your family dies of something obvious like shaking accompanied by dementia, perhaps you might think there's something in their body causing the symptoms and just bury them. Could they have been so starved for protein? Or just mindlessly bent on following a ritual despite obvious risks? Or afraid of the consequences of not abiding?
-janelane, using commonsense
Update: Even granting this analysis, could they not have wanted to protect themselves? Or, will we be just as flabbergasted at ourselves in 50 years?
You should really read deadly feasts - its a very interesting read...I agree though...just say no to ritualistic mortuary cannibalism....or any other sort of cannibalism.
Truck carrying 43,000 pounds of beer overturns | ajc.com
Topic: Miscellaneous
5:08 pm EDT, Jul 14, 2008
A truck carrying 43,000 pounds of beer caught fire late Monday morning after overturning on eastbound Interstate 20, according to Department of Transportation officials.
