LONDON — For American parents looking for donor sperm to produce blond, blue-eyed Scandinavian babies, the search just got a little trickier. A ban on sperm from all European countries with exposure to mad cow disease means U.S. sperm banks are running low. The May 2005 decision by the Food and Drug Administration effectively blocked donors from Denmark to the United Kingdom. And while some sperm banks have had enough frozen stocks to cope with demand, they are now facing shortages. ‘We still have a little bit left, but not much,’ said Claus Rodgaard, manager of Cryos International, a Danish-based sperm bank with an office in New York. ‘We’re not here to promote people to have blond, blue-eyed babies, but if those are the kinds of characteristics you’re looking for, then Danish sperm is good for that,’ Rodgaard said. ‘That’s all we have in Denmark.’ Scientists say the ban is not justified. ‘The consensus in the United Kingdom is that this is a silly ban,’ said Dr. Allan Pacey, an andrology expert at the University of Sheffield and secretary of the British Fertility Society. ‘There’s no evidence to show that mad cow disease can be […]
My name is Jeremy Scahill. I am an investigative reporter for The Nation magazine and the author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. I have spent the better part of the past several years researching the phenomenon of privatized warfare and the increasing involvement of the private sector in the support and waging of US wars. During the course of my investigations, I have interviewed scores of sources, filed many Freedom of Information Act requests, obtained government contracts and private company documents of firms operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. When asked, I have attempted to share the results of my investigations, including documents obtained through FOIA and other processes, with members of Congress and other journalists. I would like to thank this committee for the opportunity to be here today and for taking on this very serious issue. Over the past six days, we have all been following very closely the developments out of Baghdad in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of as many as 20 Iraqis by operatives working for the private military company Blackwater USA. The Iraqi government is alleging that among the dead are a small child […]
BOSTON –For nearly 70 years scientists have known that caloric restriction prolongs life. In everything from yeast to primates, a significant decrease in calories can extend lifespan by as much as one-third. But getting under the hood of the molecular machinery that drives this longevity has remained elusive. Now, reporting in the September 21 issue of the journal Cell, researchers from Harvard Medical School, in collaboration with scientists from Cornell Medical School and the National Institutes of Health, have discovered two genes in mammalian cells that act as gatekeepers for cellular longevity. When cells experience certain kinds of stress, such as caloric restriction, these genes rev up and help protect cells from diseases of aging. ‘We’ve reason to believe now that these two genes may be potential drug targets for diseases associated with aging,’ says David Sinclair, associate professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and senior author on the paper. The new genes that Sinclair’s group have discovered, in collaboration with Anthony Sauve of Cornell Medical School and Rafael de Cabo of NIH, are called SIRT3 and SIRT4. They are members of a larger class of genes called sirtuins. (Another gene belonging to this family, SIRT1, […]
WINDSOR, Can — With city shelters filled and a surge of further refugee claimants expected to flood into Windsor, Mayor Eddie Francis is pleading for financial help from Ottawa. ‘When there is a possibility of adding thousands to the local social assistance system as a result of refugee claimants crossing the border into Windsor, we will become overwhelmed and our current resources will not suffice,’ Francis wrote in a letter sent Wednesday to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Over the past three weeks, 45 families and 31 individuals — approximately 200 people — entered Canada at the Detroit River crossings and applied in Windsor for shelter and social assistance after filing refugee claims with the Canada Border Services Agency. Municipal agencies dealing with the sudden influx of mainly Mexican refugee applicants are renting out hotel rooms and bracing for predicted thousands more to come. Concepcion Montiel and her daughter Perla, 2, arrived in Windsor Monday by bus with two other families. Montie said a lack of jobs in Florida, the fear of deportation and the perceived opportunities promised in Canada persuaded her to move her family north. Concepcion Montiel and her daughter Perla, 2, arrived in Windsor […]
TOKYO — The divine origins of Japan’s imperial family come under scrutiny as it allows limited access to two burial sites. Japan’s imperial household agency is to open the doors to some of the country’s mysterious imperial tombs early next year after decades of pressure from archaeologists, in a move expected to anger ultra-conservatives. Experts have long been denied access to the hundreds of imperial mausoleums and tombs, which the agency regards as not so much cultural relics as sacred religious sites. Some historians, however, put the agency’s reticence down to fears that close inspection of the burial mounds could unearth evidence that shatters commonly accepted theories about the origins of the Japanese imperial family. Members of archaeological and historical societies will be granted limited access to two tombs in February and March, the Kyodo news agency said, quoting imperial household sources. Excavation work will be prohibited and researchers will be permitted to enter only the tombs’ fringes. The mausoleums are those of the Meiji emperor (1852-1912) and Empress Jingu (170-269), wife of the Emperor Chuai, whose date of birth is unknown. While the move by the agency – the opaque bureaucracy that runs the […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
