Conservation fails
Reduction is the only hope
The individual rails
But exceptions are a slippery slope

Demi-Lee Brennan had a liver transplant after she suffered liver failure. Nine months later, doctors at Sydney’s Westmead Children’s Hospital were amazed to find the teenager’s blood group had changed to the donor’s blood type.

Further tests revealed the stem cells from the donor liver had penetrated her bone marrow.

Dr Michael Stormon says he and his colleagues were even more surprised when they found the girl’s immune system had almost totally been replaced by that of the donor, meaning she no longer had to take anti-rejection drugs.

abc.net.au

I guess it really hadn’t occured to me that people would starting heavily searching for “Assassinate Obama“. Kinda sad really, but meme evolution is kinda brutal.

I sure hope 2008 is better than 2007 (We’re gonna miss you Bob Jacoby)

Let’s do that by not nominating any candidate before the start of the Republicant and Democrap Conventions.  At least it will make for good TV.

Trying stuff is cheaper than deciding whether to try it. (Compare the cost of paying and feeding someone to do a few weeks of P* hacking to the full cost of the meetings that went into a big company decision.)

Don’t overplan something. Just do it half-assed to start with, then throw more people at it to fix it if it works.

From linuxworld

Elon Musk has been busy.

Elon is a rich techie who is spending his money the way I like to think I would spend it, if I were a rich techie. I’m merely a dealing-with-it dilettante, so I “spend” by virtue of deferring the larger monetary compensations, while flogging my curiosity as a scholar-in-training.

John Harris and his blog:

REWIRING NEUROSCIENCE

This blog explores the impact of a “smarter” neuron on vision, human memory and the brain. It argues that this hypothetical neuron is precisely the neuron we already have.

“A team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Milan has discovered some unexpected forms of liquid crystals of ultrashort DNA molecules immersed in water, providing a new scenario for a key step in the emergence of life on Earth.

CU-Boulder physics Professor Noel Clark said the team found that surprisingly short segments of DNA, life’s molecular carrier of genetic information, could assemble into several distinct liquid crystal phases that “self-orient” parallel to one another and stack into columns when placed in a water solution.”

A nice short video demonstrating Moebius transformations.

Well, I was just skimming this. I do like my red meat, though.

“Student researchers…spent much of October observing 3,120 New York City drivers at 50 intersections and, according to their study, 1 in 3 were using cellphones, smoking, eating, drinking or grooming while operating their vehicles.

The study…found that more than 1 in 5 of the drivers were observed talking on their cellphones — half of them on hand-held phones, which has been illegal in New York State since 2001. In addition, about 1 in 10 drivers were engaged in other distractions like eating hamburgers and French fries, drinking coffee or soda, applying makeup, and smoking cigarettes….” Full Slice

Study in PDF

…engineers turn out to be by far the most religious group of all academics – 66.5 per cent, followed again by 61.7 in economics [emphasis added by TC], 49.9 in sciences, 48.8 per cent of social scientists, 46.3 of doctors and 44.1 per cent of lawyers, the most sceptical of the lot. Engineers and economists are also those who oppose religion least (3.7% and 3.0%), and, together with the humanities, those who more strongly embrace it…

So, since I’ve had my Saturn SL2, I’ve driven it 110,000 miles. I’ve probably burned about 350 gallons of gas a year. All told, I’m at about 75% of the “Average American.” Still an egregiously high car-sootprint. These numbers include three trips cross-country, so my “non-exceptional” car-sootprint is even slightly lower.

I would guess that Finnegan’s car-sootprint is even smaller. My work-sootprint must be way out there.

What is the area code for “last century, so”?

“Shit! Biobots! Run for your f**king life!”

“She cooks, she cleans, she lets me do what I want, and I can trade her in every 3 years.”

“He cooks, he cleans, he’s just as happy to snuggle, he always leaves the toilet seat down, and I can rent him out while I’m at work.”