`A group of researchers claim that they are patenting a possible cure for cancer involving nothing more than sugar and short-chain fatty acid combination.
The Johns Hopkins researchers cautioned that their double-punch molecule, described in the December issue of the journal Chemistry & Biology, has not yet been tested on animals or humans. [..]
The researchers focused on a sugar called N-acetyl-D-mannosamine, or ManNAc, for short, and created a hybrid molecule by linking ManNAc with butyrate.
The hybrid easily penetrates a cell’s surface, then is split apart by enzymes inside the cell.’
‘This is an amazing video of a group of firefighters attempting to put out a building fire when an incredible backdraft occurs pushing them all down. Thankfully nobody was seriously injured in this accident.’
(2.5meg Windows media)
see it here »
`President Bush quietly has claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans’ mail without a judge’s warrant.
Bush asserted the new authority Dec. 20 after signing legislation that overhauls some postal regulations. He then issued a “signing statement” that declared his right to open mail under emergency conditions, contrary to existing law and contradicting the bill he had just signed, according to experts who have reviewed it.
A White House spokeswoman disputed claims that the move gives Bush any new powers, saying the Constitution allows such searches.’
`Could there be forbidden sequences in the genome – ones so harmful that they are not compatible with life? One group of researchers thinks so. Unlike most genome sequencing projects which set out to search for genes that are conserved within and between species, their goal is to identify “primes”: DNA sequences and chains of amino acids so dangerous to life that they do not exist.
“It’s like looking for a needle that’s not actually in the haystack,” says Greg Hampikian, professor of genetics at Boise State University in Idaho, who is leading the project. [..]’
‘A Brazilian court has ordered YouTube to be shut down until it removes a celebrity sex video from its site, a judicial clerk said today.
Brazilian model, TV host and ex-fiancee of football great Ronaldo, Daniella Cicarelli, sued YouTube after a video of her apparently having sex in shallow water on a beach with her boyfriend was posted to the site.
For days it was the most viewed video in Brazil.’
see it here »
`On New Year’s Eve, the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq passed 3,000. By Tuesday, the death toll had reached 3,004 — 31 more than died in the Sep. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
But the number of injured has far outstripped the dead, with the Veterans Administration reporting that more than 150,000 veterans of the Iraq war are receiving disability benefits.
Advances in military technology are keeping the death rate much lower than during the Vietnam War and World War Two, Dr. Col. Vito Imbascini, an urologist and state surgeon with the California Army National Guard, told IPS, but soldiers who survive attacks are often severely disabled for life.’
`With the sleeve patch on his black shirt, the 9mm gun on his hip and the blue light on his patrol car, he looked like an ordinary police officer as he stopped the car on a Friday night last month. Watt works, though, for a business called Capitol Special Police. It is one of dozens of private security companies given police powers by the state of North Carolina — and part of a pattern across the United States in which public safety is shifting into private hands.
Private firms with outright police powers have been proliferating in some places — and trying to expand their terrain. The “company police agencies,” as businesses such as Capitol Special Police are called here, are lobbying the state legislature to broaden their jurisdiction, currently limited to the private property of those who hire them, to adjacent streets. Elsewhere — including wealthy gated communities in South Florida and the Tri-Rail commuter trains between Miami and West Palm Beach — private security patrols without police authority carry weapons, sometimes dress like SWAT teams and make citizen’s arrests.’
I should learn to play the oboe with my nutsack. Ha. :)
(4.4meg Flash video)
see it here »
`”Jackass Number Two,” the wildly raunchy movie featuring stupid-human tricks, opens with a don’t-try-this-at-home disclaimer.
Tragically, 11-year-old Wallison Costa didn’t heed the warning.
The Philadelphia boy was hospitalized in critical condition day after he leapt from a second-story window and fell 10 feet, landing on his head.
The boy got the idea after watching the 2006 movie in which “Jackass” prankster Bam Margera hurls himself through a window to avoid being gored by a horde of angry bulls, police and friends said.’
‘Three children have hanged themselves after seeing footage of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s execution on television.
10-year-old Sergio Pelico, who hanged himself in Texas, had seen the video of Saddam’s execution and had asked about it before his death, police said today.
“We’re theorising he tried to experiment or mimic the behaviour and it got out of control,” said police captain Thomas Claunch.
Police said the boy apparently went to his room, attached a piece of clothing to a bunk bed and tied it around his neck.’
Followup to Full Saddam Execution Video.
‘During a New Years Eve concert this weekend some dude jumped on stage with the Rolling Stones and Keith Richards nails him with his guitar.’
(957kB Windows media)
see it here »
`New research supports growing concerns that herpes plays a role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia.
The latest work, announced today, shows a link between a gene and herpes simplex 1, or HSV. The form of the ApoE gene called ApoE-4 is the leading known risk factor for Alzheimer’s. And HSV is the form of herpes that causes cold sores around the mouth. More than 80 percent of Americans are infected with HSV.
The researchers, at the University of Rochester Medical Center, found that ApoE-4 effectively puts out a welcome mat for the herpes virus, allowing it to be more active in the brain.’
`Assuming you find the idea of some errant myspace numbnut faced with a gaping ass entertaining, then you will become first giggly, and then fall aside laughing to know that within an hour I had “goatse’d” 400 people.
Within two days it was 25,000. Twenty five thousand.
We are now up to nearly a hundred thousand viewings of this file in its new ass-o-rama version. I am sure that through libraries, schools, colleges, cubicles, offices, warehouses, the sound of someone’s throat reflexively making a sound not unlike “Uuuuaaaaaghhhghh” has filled the air. The amount of time lost in horrified stares and frantic jabs at the keyboard and mouse to get away, far away must be into the realm of hours by now. Maybe days! Days of slack-jawed horrified faces staring into a big square eyeball. I don’t know, that gets a chortle out of me. I’m easily entertained.’
Pornstar’s opinion on the Klu Klux Klan and al-Qaeda.
see it here »
`The Pentagon plans no action as a result of a newly released FBI report on detainee abuse at the Guantanamo Bay military prison, a spokesman said today, asserting there is nothing new in the report.
“The idea that this is new is misguided and misleading,” said Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman.
“These are things the department has thoroughly investigated and where allegations have been substantiated, disciplinary action has been taken,” he said.’
Followup to: FBI: Workers saw prisoner abuse at Guantanamo
`A 12-year-old special education student in Montour County was charged with disorderly conduct after authorities said she deliberately wet her pants at school.
Her mother told the Press Enterprise it happened because her daughter was frightened by the principal. [..]
Her mother said the girl is terrified of Duckwork and has wet herself during previous confrontations with him. But Danville Police Chief Eric Gill said school officials are at their “wit’s end” with the girl, and they believe her actions were deliberate.’
A working mirror seems to be back online. Hooray for goatse. :)
The making of goatse image series is worth a chuckle too.
Update: the mirror has gone down again. In the meantime, there’s this:
see it here »
‘Iraq’s national security adviser told NBC News on Wednesday that three individuals have been arrested in connection with a video of Saddam Hussein’s execution that was leaked.
“I can officially now confirm the arrest of three individuals in the case of the execution of Saddam Hussein,” said Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie.
The arrests came after the announcement that officials were interrogating the person suspected of recording Saddam’s hanging via a mobile phone.’
Followup to Full Saddam Execution Video.
`ExxonMobil Corp. gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in a coordinated effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday.
The report by the science-based nonprofit advocacy group mirrors similar claims by Britain’s leading scientific academy. Last September, The Royal Society wrote the oil company asking it to halt support for groups that “misrepresented the science of climate change.”
ExxonMobil did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the scientific advocacy group’s report.’
`A couple in eastern India have been arrested for allegedly sacrificing their young sons to please the gods.
“It seems like a case of child sacrifice attached to tantric rituals,” police superintendent Ravi Kant said in eastern Orissa state, where the incident happened.
Police said it had collected evidence of occult practices from the couple’s house.
Residents of the area told police that the couple had been advised by a tantric practitioner that they should offer their sons, aged 7 and 9, to please the gods for luck and prosperity.
The couple denied the charges on local television, saying the boys died of illness and their bodies were kept in the house in the hope that they would come alive.’
`While 99% of our readers might be scratching their heads wondering why release a product with so much power, George Ali from Ultra can answer that for you. “It’s not so much that we believe personal computers today need as much as 2000W of power,” explains George Ali, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Ultra Products. “In fact, most household circuits can’t even provide the AC power this unit would require in order to put out 2000W of DC power. But there’s the always-inevitable questions of ‘Do I have enough power?’ or ‘Does my power supply have enough juice where my high end components need it.’ That is why we have put together this 2000W unit [..]’
‘If the husband wants to use beatings to treat his wife, he must never ever do it in front of the children. It must remain between him and her.’
see it here »
`A man upset about a Cyclone Larry insurance payout threatened staff at an Innisfail bank with a piece of fibro that contained asbestos.
The man, wearing a respiratory mask, marched into the Commonwealth Bank branch carrying a piece of fibro and a bottle of water yesterday afternoon.
He shouted at staff, splashed water onto the ceiling and threw the fibro onto the floor, shattering it.
Tests later confirmed the fibro contained asbestos.’
`Her name is Ashley X, and she is the little girl who will never grow up.
Until New Year’s Day, not even her first name was known. Ashley was a faceless case study, cited in a paper by two doctors at Seattle Children’s Hospital as they outlined a treatment so radical that it brought with it allegations of “eugenics”, of creating a 21st-century Frankenstein’s monster, of maiming a child for the sake of convenience.
The reason for the controversy is this: three years ago, when Ashley began to display early signs of puberty, her parents instructed doctors to remove her uterus, appendix and still-forming breasts, then treat her with high doses of oestrogen to stunt her growth.
In other words, Ashley was sterilised and frozen in time, for ever to remain a child. She was only 6.’
Followup to: Young disabled girl ‘kept small’
