Monthly Archives: June 2006

Bacteria Chit Chat

This entry was posted in Biology Health Care on by

This may be common knowledge to you biologists but I, and I suspect many others, had no idea that those nifty and sometimes nasty little prokaryots could communicate amongst themselves and sometimes between species:

…the ability bacteria have to communicate across species using a small molecule called autoinducer-2 (AI-2). This simple sugar, produced by scores of microbes including Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Vibrio cholera, and several species of bioluminescent marine bacteria, allows bugs to assess the density of the local prokaryotic population and to adjust their behavior accordingly: throwing off light, spewing out toxins, or forming slimy biofilms.

Bonnie Bassler who is the expert on this stuff is working toward developing a broad-spectrum antibiotic based on these systems.

Cool!

Child Abuse: Training US Martyrs

This entry was posted in Religion on by

Well, that is certainly the way this reads:

The star of the film is Pastor Becky Fischer, who explains the startling mission of her “Kids on Fire” camp: “I want young people to be as committed to laying down their lives for the Gospel as they are in Pakistan.” At the camp, the children are asked: “How many of you want to be those who will give up your life for Jesus?” Little hands shoot up from every direction. They are told: “We have to break the power of the enemy over the government.” At one point, Becky yells: “This means war! Are you a part of it or not?” More little hands.

If you are not one of Fischer’s Pentecostal believers you might want to be a bit worried that these kids will be coming after you when they strap on the dynamite.

Via Truthdig

Punishing Sex Offendors: A Modest Proposal

This entry was posted in Law on by

Five states now have laws that allow the death penalty for perpetrators of multiple sex crimes agains children. The age limit of the children varies from 11 to 14. The death penalty has been determined to be unconstitutional in the case of mutlple rapes of adult women.
According to this NYT article there does not appear to be a strong consensus on the potential value of the death penalty in these cases. Here are some examples:

Mark Sanford, a Republican, said in a statement that the law would “be an incredibly powerful deterrent to offenders that have already been released.”

But Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a research group that opposes capital punishment, said the new laws were largely symbolic, would impose disproportionate punishment and were probably unconstitutional.

There are more arguments both ways in the article.
As heinous as these crimes are the disproportionality argument seems correct. But what to do? We do not want repeat offendors and I’m not partial to paying to keep them locked up forever though this may be required if there is not something that will help assure a significantly reduced recidivism.
Which there is. A straight forward part of the solution should be castration. I do not mean chemical castration I mean snip off their testicals! This seems reasonably proportional and given the nature of the crimes there is nothing cruel about it and if done regularly it won’t be unusual. Oh yea, no reason to allow these perps to store sperm.

It isn’t 100% perfect and some effects can be overcome with testosterone treatments but as part of a comprehensive program for dealing with repeat sex offenders it seems like a reasonable part of the minimum package.

Functional Design

This entry was posted in Engineering Humor on by

Taking a lesson from nature Des Moines city engineers and consultants designed and built an efficient detention system:

The nearly four-acre basin was constructed about two years ago and “took some of the load off of the pipe downstream” and helps prevent flooding…

You decide for yourself if this is a functional design.
Some may consider this NWS or in poor taste.

Via Maru.