[Non-political] News that makes you Laugh/Cry/Both...

[Jilocasin]

PI Stuff

Thanks, I hadn't seen that. Man, I love my city. That fills me with a deep perverse joy.

[Maj]

I sent it to my dad (Mercer Island). I'm interested in seeing what/if he has to say about it.

[Jilocasin]

One of my martial arts students is a King County prosecutor (he used to be a US prosecutor, retired, then went back to work for the county). I'll have to ask him what his opinion is next time I see him.

[mean_liar]

After watching Kick-Ass, I have to say that the stabbity scene in the beginning more-or-less summed up why superheroic vigilantism is a bad idea.

[Jilocasin]

Eh, from the article it sounds like the situations are only tangentially similar. I stand by my perverse joy.

[Koumei]

mean_liar: but Kick-Ass also teaches us that vigilante justice is fine if served with heavy machine guns.

[mean_liar]

Isn't that what cops are for?

[Cynic]

[url=http://www.wpix.com/news/wpix-samurai-s ... 0069.story]The path of the righteous man/url] is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.

--

Nothing says English telenovella like a deranged man, bible quotes, and matricide.

[Calibron]

Isn't that what cops are for?

If heavy machine guns are being used I think that means it's started being a military matter.

[Maxus]

RIP, Leslie Nielson.

I liked that guy. I mean, sure, the Naked Gun movies weren't profoundly deep, but they've always been a favorite of mine. That and his other movies in the same vein--Airplane, Wrongfully Accused, Spy Hard, and Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

[Sir Neil]

Isn't that what cops are for?

If heavy machine guns are being used I think that means it's started being a military matter.

Military Police FTW!

[The Vigilante]

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/3 ... ser-ticker

Theft Is Bad, but when you steal from a widow it is a little worse. And then when you steal stuff that was supposed to be auctioned for charity...

[Maj]

ASM International[/url] {OK, Science, Medicine, Blood, Potential Angst Mollification}]Scientists turn skin into blood

In an important breakthrough, scientists at McMaster University have discovered how to make human blood from adult human skin.

The discovery, published in the prestigious science journal Nature today, could mean that in the foreseeable future people needing blood for surgery, cancer treatment or treatment of other blood conditions like anemia will be able to have blood created from a patch of their own skin to provide transfusions. Clinical trials could begin as soon as 2012.

Mick Bhatia, scientific director of McMaster's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, and his team of researchers have also shown that the conversion is direct. Making blood from skin does not require the middle step of changing a skin stem cell into a pluripotent stem cell that could make many other types of human cells, then turning it into a blood stem cell.

"We have shown this works using human skin. We know how it works and believe we can even improve on the process," said Bhatia. "We'll now go on to work on developing other types of human cell types from skin, as we already have encouraging evidence."

The discovery was replicated several times over two years using human skin from both young and old people to prove it works for any age of person.

This research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, the Stem Cell Network and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation.

John Kelton, hematologist and dean and vice-president of health sciences for McMaster University said: “I find this discovery personally gratifying for professional reasons.

"During my 30 years as a practicing blood specialist, my colleagues and I have been pleased to help care for cancer patients whose lives were saved by bone marrow transplants. For all physicians, but especially for the patients and their families, the illness became more frustrating when we were prevented from giving a bone marrow transplant because we could not find a perfect donor match in the family or the community.

"Dr. Bhatia's discovery could permit us to help this important group of patients."

More information:
McMaster University

[Username17]

Alien Life discovered on Earth. I don't mean "looks weird", I mean "has arsenic based genetic material."

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Alien Life discovered on Earth. I don't mean "looks weird", I mean "has arsenic based genetic material."

-Username17

Nope.

It's completely phosphorous based genetic material bacteria that lives in high arsenic levels, and, if artificially placed in an environment with exactly zero phosphate, and incredibly high levels of arsenate, will grow much more slowly, and will incorporate arsenate in place of phosphate in some places.

It is not naturally arsenic based whatsoever, and the arsenate only subs in if there is literally no phosphate, and it subs in only moderately well, which shouldn't be that surprising, because arsenic is very similar to phosphate.

Interesting biological research? Yes. Alien life? No.

[Maj]

It's also not news - I saw this months ago. I think it was on Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.

[Username17]

It's also not news - I saw this months ago. I think it was on Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.

Uh... no. It's totally news.

Back in February, a team of chemists showed that it might be possible. The press conference where NASA announced that they had actually found an organism that really does survive and grow with an Arsenate backbone to its DNA and thus has fundamentally different building blocks from all other organisms from archeabacteria to blue whales - was yesterday. Yes, it's a really fucking big deal. DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleic Acid. These creatures can survive using a different acid part.

-Username17

[Maj]

Uh... no. It's totally news.

Uh... no. It might be important but this "announcement" was part of a pop science program that aired at the beginning of July.

Through the Wormhole: How Did We Get Here? {OK, Science, Speculation, Mono, Arsenic}

The section starts around 3:45 and goes for about three minutes.

[Username17]

Uh... no. It's totally news.

Uh... no. It might be important but this "announcement" was part of a pop science program that aired at the beginning of July.

Through the Wormhole: How Did We Get Here? {OK, Science, Speculation, Mono, Arsenic}

The section starts around 3:45 and goes for about three minutes.

...

I just totally watched that from 3:40. They totally said that all life was made from the same atoms - carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, etc. and parroted the heretofore common knowedge that aliens might look very different but would be built out of the same atoms and use the same biochemistry. So... unless you linked to the wrong episode or something, you're totally wrong. The NASA announcement was about finding a microbe whose basic biochemistry was based on a different set of atoms. Exactly the opposite kind of difference that program was discussing as possible.

The program made a big noise about the discovery of building blocks that could make terrestrial life in a meteorite. These bacteria are made out of different building blocks.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

The NASA announcement was about finding a microbe whose basic biochemistry was based on a different set of atoms.

Frank, I'm going to keep pointing this out till you acknowledge it:

The Nasa announcement is about finding a microbe whose basic biochemistry is based off the exact same set of atoms as every other species on earth, but, which can, in limited conditions, incorporate other atoms into it's process that we can't.

It's still based on phosphate, it just can, if phosphate doesn't exist, use arsenate.

[Username17]

The NASA announcement was about finding a microbe whose basic biochemistry was based on a different set of atoms.

Frank, I'm going to keep pointing this out till you acknowledge it:

The Nasa announcement is about finding a microbe whose basic biochemistry is based off the exact same set of atoms as every other species on earth, but, which can, in limited conditions, incorporate other atoms into it's process that we can't.

It's still based on phosphate, it just can, if phosphate doesn't exist, use arsenate.

That makes it based on a different set of atoms. Yes, it shares common descent with us. But it has fundamentally different biochemistry. Of the five elements that all life is made out of, it can be made out of four of them plus another one that is otherwise almost universally toxic.

Four the same and one different is still a different set.

-Username17

[Maj]

Holy crap. I literally have no clue how that link goes to where it goes. It's not even the right episode at all.

Here's the right link.

Sorry about that.

[Kaelik]

That makes it based on a different set of atoms. Yes, it shares common descent with us. But it has fundamentally different biochemistry. Of the five elements that all life is made out of, it can be made out of four of them plus another one that is otherwise almost universally toxic.

Four the same and one different is still a different set.

-Username17

No, Frank. Five of the same. It's just a microbe that uses Phosphate unless we artificially take away all the phosphate and jack up arsenate levels to 30 times their occurrence in it's actual habitat, and then, it's still an inferior specimen that grows less quickly than when it has phosphate around, and if you introduce any phosphate, it goes back to using that.

It's not arsenic based any more than someone with screws in their arm has bones made of titanium (or whatever). You have to artificially remove the original part, and then artificially replace it with the foreign part.

That's not based on different molecules, it's based on the same molecules with the ability to be replaced if you do it on purpose.

[Username17]

Holy crap. I literally have no clue how that link goes to where it goes. It's not even the right episode at all.

Here's the right link.

Sorry about that.

OK, that's more like it. But it's also base speculation, and it is wrong. She was looking at microbes that were able to survive with very high levels of Arsenic and was speculating wildly about their contents - thinking that they might be a separate life tree. They aren't. They are a part of our tree of life that has managed to be able to completely replace one of the basic atoms of its DNA, ATP, and NADH with another one. And this isn't wild speculation and fancy computer graphics, this is actual fact.

No, Frank. Five of the same. It's just a microbe that uses Phosphate unless we artificially take away all the phosphate and jack up arsenate levels to 30 times their occurrence in it's actual habitat, and then, it's still an inferior specimen that grows less quickly than when it has phosphate around, and if you introduce any phosphate, it goes back to using that.

It's not arsenic based any more than someone with screws in their arm has bones made of titanium (or whatever). You have to artificially remove the original part, and then artificially replace it with the foreign part.

What the fuck? What you just said is tautologically wrong.

If the microbe grows in an area with no phosphorous and available arsenic, it continues to grow - using arsenic completely to form new genetic material and store and transfer energy. That makes that microbe, the one sitting right there that is totally alive, have 4 out of 5 of the basic elements of life. Plus an additional essential element that is normally not part of that set.

The fact that if you took that microbe and put it into an area with available phosphorous that it would make new offspring that used phosphorous in the normal way does not mean that the actual microbe that is living and crawling around and making additional copies of itself in a pool of arsenic water is not doing so without any phosphorous.

Your point about cybernetics is a complete nonsequitur. That literally makes no sense at all. This organism is entirely capable of growing and reproducing itself biologically without any fucking phosphorous. The organism does this regardless of why the phosphorous is missing, and human activities are not required.

The question was "Is it possible for a living organism to exist that does not contain the five basic elements of life?" and now the answer to that question is a resounding "Yes."

-Username17

[Kaelik]

Frank, every existing microbe has phosphate in it.

Literally every single one.

None of them have zero phosphate. They all have phosphate in it's usual place. Not a single living organism yet has no phosphate in it's DNA. Maybe, maybe, if you keep it going long enough, some might come up that have only arsenate. But we don't know that is possible yet. All we know is that some arsenate is used in place, it's possible that a microbe with no phosphate would be incapable of mitosis for some reason. I don't think that will be the case, but it's something that might be the case, and we don't know, because all of them have primarily phosphate as of right now.

Yes, it matters that the level of arsenate concentration required to allow it to use it is greater than it is even possible to obtain without human intervention, and it matters that you have to keep the organism in a sterile environmental to prevent trace phosphate from coming in and replacing it.

Great, it's possible for one specific organism to use arsenate in place of phosphate in small amounts, and possibly in large amounts.

But... that's not life that is based on another base pair. It's one step closer, and a fucking huge step, but it's not that yet.