A Space Oddity

This is the original 1969 version and 'video' (short film) for David Bowie's classic song A Space Oddity.

And I Quote

"A CNN poll finds 79% of Americans approve of Obama's performance
so far during transition, with just 18% disapproving. ."

~ Political Wire, Link

"An Obama job approval rating of 79% -- that's the sort of rating you see
when the public rallies around a leader after a national disaster.
To many Americans, the Bush administration was a national disaster."

~ CNN's Bill Schneider, Link

Leap second to be added to the official world time

On December 31, at 23:59:59 UTC, a leap second will be added to the official timekeeping clocks of the world. That's because the timescales of atomic clocks and the earth's rotation aren't perfectly in sync. The last leap second was added in 2005.

From Smithsonian:

Earth’s rotation is the traditional form of timekeeping. It is what defines a day. However, while we call a day 86,400 seconds, it is really 86,400.02 seconds. All those .02 seconds add up over time. In addition, the earth’s rotation is not constant (it has been slightly slowing, and 900 million years ago a day was only 18 of our hours). Time as we know it changes.

"Leap Second Added to Your Calendar"

Talk about stupid ...

His career in shreds, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich clung defiantly to power Wednesday, ignoring a call to step down from President Barack Obama and a warning that Senate Democrats will not let him appoint a new senator from the state.

UK TV station plans airing man's death

A British television channel plans to show a film about an American man who commits assisted suicide at a Swiss clinic, reigniting debate over an issue that strongly divides opinion in Britain.

Opponents called the broadcast a ratings-grabbing stunt.Feelings about the issue ran so high Wednesday that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was asked about the program in Parliament.

The 2006 suicide of 59-year-old Craig Ewert was to be shown Wednesday evening in a documentary on the Sky Real Lives digital channel.

Ewert had degenerative motor neuron disease and died at a clinic in Zurich run by the assisted suicide group Dignitas, with his wife Mary at his side.

Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland in some circumstances and organizations there provide suicide services.

*****

This is a wee bit too far. Showing this man's death for entertainment is not a 'cool' thing to do.

Defending cognition-enhancing drugs

A commentary in this week's issue of the journal Nature argues that cognitive performance-enhancing drugs should be made widely available, and sets out an ethical and legal framework for doing so in a way that maximizes the social good of being able to choose what state of mind you're in.

Contributors to the article include a Stanford law prof, a Cambridge research psychiatrist, a Harvard med-school prof, and other distinguished personages.

To wit:

Human ingenuity has given us means of enhancing our brains through inventions such as written language, printing and the Internet. Most authors of this Commentary are teachers and strive to enhance the minds of their students, both by adding substantive information and by showing them new and better ways to process that information. And we are all aware of the abilities to enhance our brains with adequate exercise, nutrition and sleep. The drugs just reviewed, along with newer technologies such as brain stimulation and prosthetic brain chips, should be viewed in the same general category as education, good health habits, and information technology — ways that our uniquely innovative species tries to improve itself.

Of course, no two enhancements are equivalent in every way, and some of the differences have moral relevance. For example, the benefits of education require some effort at self-improvement whereas the benefits of sleep do not. Enhancing by nutrition involves changing what we ingest and is therefore invasive in a way that reading is not. The opportunity to benefit from Internet access is less equitably distributed than the opportunity to benefit from exercise. Cognitive-enhancing drugs require relatively little effort, are invasive and for the time being are not equitably distributed, but none of these provides reasonable grounds for prohibition. Drugs may seem distinctive among enhancements in that they bring about their effects by altering brain function, but in reality so does any intervention that enhances cognition. Recent research has identified beneficial neural changes engendered by exercise10, nutrition11 and sleep12, as well as instruction13 and reading14. In short, cognitive-enhancing drugs seem morally equivalent to other, more familiar, enhancements.

Many people have doubts about the moral status of enhancement drugs for reasons ranging from the pragmatic to the philosophical, including concerns about short-circuiting personal agency and undermining the value of human effort15. Kass16, for example, has written of the subtle but, in his view, important differences between human enhancement through biotechnology and through more traditional means. Such arguments have been persuasively rejected (for example, ref. 17). Three arguments against the use of cognitive enhancement by the healthy quickly bubble to the surface in most discussions: that it is cheating, that it is unnatural and that it amounts to drug abuse.

Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy

Stem-cell trachea transplant was endangered by EasyJet: "your cell culture is a security risk"

"... your cell culture is a security risk ..."

Do you remember the woman who got a new trachea grown from her own stem cells?

Well, she almost didn't -- because the discount airline EasyJet decided that flying with stem cells presented a "security risk" and wouldn't let the scientists carrying them onto the plane.

"On arrival they said it couldn't go on because it would be a security risk - but I had been talking to people on a regular basis," he said.

"I was so furious, trying to explain months of work.

"The clock was ticking. We'd taken the cells out of their culture media an hour before.

"We thought about driving to Barcelona, but that would have taken too long..."

The professor paid the 14,000 pounds it cost to charter a private jet out of his own pocket, though the cost was later reimbursed by Bristol University.

A spokesman for EasyJet said: "We do not have any record of the passenger's request to carry medical materials on board the flight.

"However as a gesture of goodwill EasyJet has refunded the passenger for the cost of his flight."

Easyjet 'threatened to derail stem cell transplant'

Pakistanis confirm Mumbai arrests

Pakistan has detained a second alleged mastermind of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the prime minister said Wednesday, apparently making good on pledges to pursue the perpetrators.

The announcement of the arrest of Zarrar Shah - following Sunday's detention of another alleged Mumbai plotter, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and other alleged militants - could deflect intense U.S. and Indian pressure on Pakistan following the attack.

But much will now depend on whether Pakistan's young civilian government keeps up the pressure on the militant groups that are believed to have been fostered by the country's powerful security agencies.

Pakistan has targeted militants in the past, detaining some leaders only to quietly release them later, bolstering critics who claim Islamabad is not serious about fighting extremists.

Drowning, other accidents kill 800,000 kids a year

Simple things like seat belts, childproof medicine caps and fences around pools could help prevent up to half of the 2,000 accidental deaths of children that happen each day around the world, according to UN officials.

More than 800,000 children die each year from burns, drowning, car accidents, falls, poisoning and other accidents, with the vast majority of those deaths occurring in developing countries, according to experts and a report by the World Health Organization and UNICEF.

Tens of millions more suffer injuries that often leave them disabled for life, said the report which was launched at a meeting of global health experts in Hanoi.

The World Report on Child Injury Prevention 2008 does not include injuries caused by domestic violence.

The problem is most acute in Africa and Southeast Asia, but no country is immune, conference participants said, issuing an urgent call for action.

Officials arrest 23 in Las Vegas ID theft scheme

State and federal authorities said Tuesday they arrested nearly two dozen people, many with ties to Eastern Europe, in a credit card fraud and identity theft scheme that cost Las Vegas businesses and consumers about $1.5 million.

Greg Brower, U.S. attorney for Nevada, said 13 people were arrested on federal charges Monday in southern Nevada and Los Angeles.

Las Vegas police said 10 were arrested on state charges, including forgery, credit card fraud and weapons and drug possession.

The arrests were the first for a Eurasian organized crime task force based in Las Vegas.

The task force was formed two years ago in response to "the influx and influence and activity of Eurasian-based gang-type criminals" in southern Nevada, Brower said.

Workers win a big round in Chicago factory sit-in

The creditor of a Chicago plant where laid-off employees are conducting a sit-in to demand severance pay said Tuesday it would extend loans to the factory so it could resolve the dispute, but the workers declared their protest unfinished.

A resolution seemed nearer as Bank of America, which yanked the plant's financing last week, announced it sent a letter to Republic Windows and Doors offering "a limited amount of additional loans" to resolve its employee claims.

About 200 of the 240 laid-off workers had responded to their three days' notice of the plant closing by staging a sit-in and vowing to stay put until assurances they would get severance and accrued vacation pay.

Lawmakers have criticized Bank of America for cutting off money to the plant after it exhausted its credit line, even though the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank itself received $25 billion from the government's financial bailout package.