Bat out of Hell? How a flying fox virus might help cure Ebola, HIV and other deadly plagues...

It seems germ warfare is about to introduce a new kind of WMD...

Lee is an expert on the viral envelope, the dynamic outside surface of a virus that latches onto a cell, then changes its shape to let the virus enter and infect the cell. This work began as part of a biodefense grant from the National Institutes of Health, screening a library of 30,000 compounds for activity against the envelope of Nipah virus, an emerging infection first identified in 1999 in Malaysia.

Nipah is so deadly that work with the virus itself can only be done in biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) labs where researchers wear tightly sealed hazmat suits with internal oxygen supplies. The labs themselves are strongly secured. There are only four in the U.S.

Lee got around that by creating a hybrid virus. He striped off the envelope covering the relatively benign vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) and added the Nipah envelope to that core. This allowed him to screen the compounds in his lab at the university using much lower BLS-2 safety standards, to see if they inhibited viral entry into the cell.

"One compound (LJ001) looked really good, it had an IC50 of one micromolar [meaning that it inhibited the pathogen at a low concentration], which for an initial read is okay. Most importantly, it wasn't toxic" to cell cultures, Lee explained.

Mike Wolf, a grad student in the lab, wanted to make sure the compound was specific to Nipah, so he screened it against VSV. When the inhibition curves came back identical, he originally was disappointed because the study's funding was based on exploring potential therapeutics for Nipah.

Lee, however, encouraged him to be more persistent, and curious. After a series of studies confirmed the activity and lack of toxicity, Lee sent double-blinded samples of the compound and control to a colleague at the BSL-4 lab at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston who tested it against Nipah, Ebola and other viruses. They were shocked when LJ001 inhibited viral entry to all of them.

Bob Roehr @'ScientificAmerican'

Tea Party activism is not about political dissent - It's about vile, storm trooper sound bites

We are 100 yards, no more than that, from the front entrance to the school. There is a stop sign here, and underneath the word "Stop" someone has spray-painted "Obama."

Stop Obama.
Why has somebody done it? Because in the current climate, people have been convinced they can. Or, more likely, that they should.
My son is in the seat next to me in the car. He says, "This isn't the only one. There are others in different parts of town."
At least here it is only vandalism about this President and the country's new health care bill, not phone threats left for some members of Congress. It is not an honorable old hero of the civil rights movement like Rep. John Lewis hearing the kind of racial insults he heard nearly 50 years ago in America. Or other congressmen being spat upon, all in the name of democracy at work.
At least here it is not Rep. Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan, being called a "baby killer," or a brick through a lawmaker's window. It is not Sarah Palin on her Twitter page - this woman who officially puts the twit in Twitter - posting the following message:
"Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD."
As always, you wonder where this patriotism and righteousness and Tea Party activism was during Bush-Cheney. You wonder if all the people who want to take to the streets - and to the television cameras now - decided they weren't needed for eight years because they thought the country was going so good. Or maybe they have just convinced themselves that the Obama who must now be stopped didn't just inherit this America, he created it.
This is no longer about political dissent. It is about storm trooper sound bites, and hate. This isn't the kind of honest debate on which our system of government has been built. It is vile, back-alley fighting, getting worse by the day, with no end in sight. People say that opposition to all Presidents, even the most unpopular white ones, sounds like this. No, it doesn't.
"It's so good to be here for the showdown in Searchlight [Nev.]," Palin says on Saturday. "So proud to be with all you who are proud to be Americans."
Palin is in Nevada because Sen. Harry Reid is a Democratic candidate she and other lovers of America are "targeting" this November. Of course, the implication, as always, is that anybody on the other side of the debate - about health care or anything else - isn't nearly as good an American as she is.
Palin is such a fighter and great American that she quit on her stool as governor of Alaska because there was more money to be made in the other 49 states, shouting about death panels and health care and "European socialism" and writing unreadable books. In so many ways, she is a perfect media darling for our times. She doesn't scrawl graffiti, she thinks in it.
If you even think that this President ought to be given a chance, that he might have some good in him, that he doesn't hate America the way the radio idiots say he does, then you must be someone just like him and she will help shout you down. You are another lousy, lefty Socialist who doesn't understand the new health care bill is unconstitutional. Why? Because the screamers say so, that's why. They learned it online.
"The country does not like this [health care] bill," Republican strategist Mike Murphy says on television Sunday.
The country. Another guy speaking for the whole country, coast to coast, Washington Heights to Starbuck, Wash. Is America divided over health care right now? Sure it is, the way it was divided over Social Security under FDR and Medicare under LBJ and just about every important social program in the country's history.
Will a bill be presented to my children and their children on this bill someday? It likely will be. And economists say that Iraq will eventually be a $3 trillion war for this country. But all those who have taken to the streets because of the bill that Obama signed the other day must think that Iraq has paid for itself, no matter how much money it continues to cost this country, how many dead or broken bodies.
But Obama is the one who must be stopped, on health care and everything else. Stop Obama. Sometimes you wonder what that really means. Sometimes you probably find yourself wondering just how much you have to hate this President before you love America enough.

Mike Lupica @'NY Daily News'

Grey's Unethical Anatomy

The moral to this story is: never trust your TV! But I'm sure you knew that.

A medical student and faculty directors from the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics analyzed depictions of bioethical issues and professionalism over a full season of two popular medical dramas -- "Grey's Anatomy" and "House, M.D." -- and found that the shows were "rife" with ethical dilemmas and actions that often ran afoul of professional codes of conduct.

The authors of the review, available in the April issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics, say they were well aware that their findings would end up stating the obvious. But they nonetheless wanted to provide data that would shed light on the relationship of these depictions on the perceptions of viewers, both health professionals and the general public.

... 

Informed consent was the most frequently observed bioethical issue. Of 49 total incidents, 43 percent involved "exemplary" consent discussions, while the remaining instances were "inadequate." In general, exemplary depictions portrayed "compassionate, knowledgeable physicians participating in a balanced discussion with a patient about possible treatment options."

Conversely, inadequate depictions were "marked by hurried and one-sided discussions, refusal by physicians to answer questions" and "even an entire lack of informed consent for risky procedures," the authors state.

They also tallied 22 incidents of "ethically questionable departures from standard practice," most of them depicting doctors endangering patients unnecessarily in their pursuit of a favorable outcome. "In almost all of these incidents (18 out of 22), the implicated physician is not penalized," the authors note.

@'ScienceBlog'

Lou Reed - Metal Machine Music (Part I)

    (Thanx Capt!)

davidhepworth Miss Ultimo sack Peaches Geldof because recent allegations mean she's no longer a "positive role model". Did I miss her saintly phase?

Anger in China over web censorship

The Green Dam

Smoking # 54

nside GCHQ: 'Caution: Here comes the BBC'

One of the signs that greeted the BBC team

"Don't take it personally," said the woman behind the reception desk. But it was hard not to. People were avoiding us and there were signs all over the building warning of our presence .
"Caution. BBC Radio 4 recording here. Keep all conversations to 'Unclassified'."
It was hardly surprising. We were being allowed to record inside one of Britain's most secret establishments - GCHQ, the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Their job is to listen in on others, record their conversations and pick up their e-mails. But for the first time in its history we were turning the microphones on them.
We didn't exactly walk right in.
Negotiations for access to this highly secretive operation lasted several weeks. Could we, they enquired, assure them that the microphones we were going to use were as "low sensitivity as possible"? And would we, they asked, allow their sound engineers to listen back to the recordings we made in open areas to check that we hadn't picked up any conversations that we shouldn't have?
'The Doughnut'
And then, when we got there, there was layer upon layer of security checks. We got past the first two before my recording equipment was taken away to be examined. I left it with three men in a room who were standing round a table with all sorts of weird looking devices.

FIND OUT MORE... GCHQ: Cracking the Code , written and presented by the BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera It will be broadcast on Radio 4 at 2000 BST on Tuesday, 30 March Or hear it later on the iPlayer

"Please look after my baby," I said, before being escorted outside. (Producers can, understandably, be very protective about their recording machines).
I have no idea what went on in that room but it obviously included the electronic equivalent of a full body search. I had to piece everything back together afterwards. Even the batteries were treated with suspicion - if I needed any more over the next 48 hours, I was told, they would supply them.
There were more checks to come. We hadn't, at this stage, even got past main reception. A rather forbidding looking receptionist asked for identification before pointing to a sign which expressly forbade anyone taking cameras, mobile phones and - rather bizarrely, given the reason we were there - recording equipment or similar electronic devices into the main building.
Somehow we got through and there we were, strolling with our minders, round what is known at GCHQ as The Street, a circular walkway which runs throughout the building nicknamed affectionately, The Doughnut.
Visitors to Cheltenham have to wear a red badge to mark them out, but you couldn't miss me. I was the one wearing headphones and carrying a large microphone. People gave us a wide berth. It felt like I had a communicable disease.
Shutters down
Secrecy at Cheltenham is ingrained. A decision had been made to allow a glimpse into their world but there were some who weren't entirely happy about it. As if to hammer the point home, there was an announcement over the public address system within minutes of our appearance.

Exhibited Soviet radio - found in a field, but no one knows who buried it

"Blinds facing the street between blocks A and B should be lowered and closed immediately. End of message."
It turned out that a member of staff was worried about us being able to see through the windows into the open plan offices facing onto the street. They didn't want us to be able to read what was on their computer screens and had alerted security. There was a low whirring, grumbling noise and the shutters came down.
There were reminders of past "transgressors" - people who had betrayed their secrets - all around us. Dotted around the building were glass cases with exhibits from GCHQ's history including two radio sets.
The first was a radio used by the Portland Spy Ring to send messages back to Russia in the 50s and 60s. Next to it was a radio set which had been discovered by a farmer ploughing his field near Aberystwyth. It had been cached there by someone working for the Soviets but, to this day, no-one has any idea who it was.
Still, there was an upside to being avoided if not altogether shunned. We had no trouble getting a table in the staff restaurant when it came to lunchtime. You had only to announce that we were from the BBC and diners would obligingly move away to make room for us. It's not something you could count on when booking a table at a high class restaurant like Quaglinos but then GCHQ is an altogether different world.

Mark Savage @'BBC'

Video of Tea Party racists spitting on Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver

Ever since stories about anti-healthcare reform campaigners calling black and gay lawmakers 'nigger' and 'faggot' and spitting on them, conservatives have been sneering that they haven't seen any evidence and implying it's a media conspiracy. Here's video of one incident.

Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver of Missouri (in the tan suit in the video) had released a statement last week confirming the racism and that he'd been spat on. Here's video, via the Huffington Post, in which it looks like he's been spat on.

Luminaries like Andrew Breitbart and Sean Hannity had questioned all the lawmakers' claims, preferring to believe the disgusting racists who make up their flocks. A tea party group even offered $15,000 for video proof of the spitting incident. Although they may now claim, like some blogs, that "the good congressman just walked a little too close to a protestor with his hands cupped." Yeah, that must be it. Silly old us in the 'mainstream media'.

@'Gawker'

Just remember where...

...you read it first!

The Libertines reunite for Reading and Leeds

SVT Font by Vier5

Beautiful...

Designer: Vier5
Release: March 2010

When Vier5 turn their gimlet eye to the subtitles used in cinema, the result is SVT, a spectacularly subtle font originally designed for the Centre d'art Contemporain de Brétigny in France. Boxy and light, this no-frills typeface is about communication in its clearest form.

Grounded on the classical notion of design, Paris-based Vier5 focuses on applying new, up-to-date fonts. They aim to replace visual empty phrases with individual creative statements tailored specifically for the client and medium used. "Design is the possibility of drafting and creating new, forward-looking images in the field of visual communication," Achim Reichert, one-half of the design collective, says of his work. Read more in this (very brief) interview with the artist below.

www.vier5.de

Interview with the Designer Vier5

A short description about the font:
There is no description from needed. The character is visible. It was originally designed for different posters for Centre d'art Contemporain de Brétigny/France.

What was the main idea behind designing the font?
The lettering for subtitles in cinema, i.e. English or Armenian films.

How would you characterize your style?
No Style.

How did you come up with the name of the font?
SVT stands for S.V.T., an incorrectly-remembered name of a Parisian company for subtitling.

What inspires you?
Nothing.

Which is the bigger challenge: working on your own personal project or for a client with a strict briefing?
These opposite realities do not exist.

What is the ideal usage of your font?
Ideal use will always take place in future projects.

How would you describe the state your handwriting is in?
It works in a certain way. 

Where does the font end, where does the image begin? Is there a line to draw?
It depends on how the viewing takes place. Texts in smaller caps are already seen and processed from images to content, big headlines with uncommon silhouettes have to be read letter by letter before understanding.

Your future plans/projects?
Are in the future.

Man - I wish that I had bought this...

Cubesails to drag spacejunk from orbit

One of the biggest modern threats to spaceflight -- apart from politics  -- is space junk. For each satellite, rocket, capsule, space station,  missile, booster, observatory, dog or monkey we put into space, we  litter Earth orbit with 5 percent more junk every year.
So it seems we are doomed to failure. There's currently an estimated  5,500 tons of debris up there, and it's getting worse. The more active  we become in space, the more junk we shed, and it is a hyper-velocity  hazard, putting future astronauts and our multi-billion dollar satellite  industry at risk. What's more, space debris can interrupt satellite communications,  possibly even satellite TV signals -- we can't be having that!
SATELLITES:  Keep track of all the news from satellites orbiting not only Earth, but  other planetary bodies too.
Fortunately, various agencies around the world have accurate means of  tracking the larger bits of debris, providing some kind of warning  should a speeding bit of shrapnel get too close to our orbital real  estate. We might not be able to do anything (yet) about the smaller  stuff, but UK scientists have come up with a novel idea about how to  remove the larger stuff from orbit.
Enter the CubeSail, a modified solar sail designed to bring  dead satellites and rockets down to Earth.
HOWSTUFFWORKS:  Space junk is a growing issue, but what are the risks to astronauts?



Life's a Drag for Satellites.
The nanosatellite concept, designed by scientists  at the University of Surrey and funded by the European space  company Astrium, will be launched for space trials in 2011. Inspired by  the solar sail -- a spacecraft  propulsion system that uses the pressure of sunlight to get around space  -- the CubeSail uses air resistance to slow down its motion.
Unfolding into a 5×5 meter sheet of plastic, the CubeSail is designed  to "drag" defunct satellites from orbit, making use of the thin wisps  of atmospheric gases at orbital altitudes. Although the density of air  molecules is low, it's enough to make the sail act like a parachute,  slowing it down, dragging the dead satellite to a fiery reentry much  sooner than it would have done otherwise.
"Protecting our planet and environment is key for sustainable  growth," said Vaios Lappas, lead researcher on the project. "CubeSail is  a novel, low cost space mission which will demonstrate for the first  time space debris/satellite deorbiting using an ultra light 5 x 5 sail  stowed and supported on a 3 kg nanosatellite."
Seek and Destroy CubeSails?

Although this system is intended to be attached to future missions  that require a safe (and cheap) means of being removed from orbit, I can  imagine this kind of system being attached to some kind of "seek and  destroy" robot, taking out old orbital debris.
The CubeSail could be launched alone and under its own power and  guided to orbital debris being tracked from the surface. Once the robot  "docks" with the debris, it opens its sail, pulling the junk from space. Like with many space technologies, I also wonder if such a sci-fi  concept could have a military application.
Both the USA and China have demonstrated that they  can "shoot down" satellites with ground-launched missiles, filling  low-Earth orbit with millions of pieces of smaller bits of debris,  ultimately making Earth orbit impassible (there's no military advantage  in filling space with junk after all). Perhaps anti-satellite weaponry  could be more passive, sending ground-controlled CubeSails into orbit,  seeking out, attaching to, and ultimately destroying enemy satellites  but without the mess?

Images: The space junk problem (NASA) and the the CubeSail  concept (ESA/Univ. of Surrey/Astrium).
Sources: University  of Surrey, Physorg.com,  BBC

Ian O'Neill @'Discovery News' 

(Thanx BillT!)

Once upon a time...

Fairytale generator

(Thanx Walter!)

Rare Bill Laswell production...

...of Korean percussion ensemble 'Samulnori'

Get it 

HERE
(Google alert work for you Dave? LOL!)

Shame on John McCain

 
I am not sure who must have felt worse—John or Cindy McCain—when Sarah Palin bounded onstage in Tucson last Friday, wearing that fetching black leather dominatrix jacket to deliver a hair-swinging, wink-winking pep talk, and revving up the Tea-baggers who came to see her not him. It was a sweet moment for Sarah. McCain’s 2008 election team—those “old school” losers, as she doubtless thinks of them—have trashed her ever since they lost.
Cindy McCain was glacially self-contained in a trim, chic suit, at her husband’s side. When will high-def pick up the grinding of teeth? She introduced Palin as “a breath of fresh air” when in fact, as far as the McCains are concerned, Palin was a tornado wreaking havoc on the senator’s campaign for president with a personal reality show that enthralled the public but appalled the voters. She has since used the celebrity he bestowed on her to become the La Pasionaria of the No Spin Zone crowd, who now want only to unseat him and install his cocky challenger J.D Hayworth.

It's like the Hanoi Hilton in reverse: He held out under physical torture, but under political torture it seems he’ll say and do just about anything.

No doubt for Cindy McCain the thought of having her husband back in town and hanging around the house if he loses his Senate seat is worth the indignity of once again appearing next to him to pretend that the current pin-up of violent populism stands for the same things as a principled war hero.
But for John McCain himself, and the people who have so long admired him, surely this moment in Tucson was a killer moment of moral degradation. McCain’s whole deal has been that he’s his own man, a maverick, a courageous loner. He defied the Bushies by speaking vehemently against torture. He stuck his neck out for the Iraq surge. He denounced the corrupting influence of money in politics. He was the scourge of pork. Whatever he really thought about Palin as his campaign went down in flames and his team threw her under the bus, he gallantly kept his counsel.
That bit, at least, paid off, I guess. It meant he could call on Palin to get him out of a hole in his fight against a meretricious former talk-show host riding anti-incumbent fervor to within seven points of upending him. By using Palin to pander to the Tea Party, however, McCain showed his willingness to repudiate everything that made him special, just so he can hold on to a Senate seat. It’s like the Hanoi Hilton in reverse: He held out under physical torture, but under political torture it seems he’ll say and do just about anything. That character change seems to date from the strange reversal of magic that occurred when he succumbed to political opportunism in 2004 in Pensacola and embraced George W. Bush, the man who allowed the disgraceful smear campaign against him in South Carolina four years earlier.
As for Palin, her political heart, if she had one, would of course be with McCain’s challenger, who purportedly stands for everything she does. But being consistent politically is no longer as important to Sarah Palin as being a star. The McCain gig in Tucson was a big booking; images of being embraced anew by a legend provided resonant media far more valuable than backing the other guy in the race, who merely furthered the Tea Party cause. When she’s out at their fervid rallies, Palin pretends to be talking to True Believers in a political movement. But she’s really only talking to consumers. Buy my book. Watch my show. Hype my brand. She has chosen celebrity over politics, and who can blame her, given what hell it is to try and serve your country in Washington these days.
If McCain wins this last race he knows it will be because of her. It’s not impossible that Palin will turn out to be his most enduring legacy. Disinterested public service has become, just so… what’s the phrase, “old school.”

Tina Brown @'Daily Beast'