Monday, November 1st, 2010
, - Bloomberg Businessweek - HealthDay
Stephan: This is the latest in what I believe is going to be one of the major trends of the last half of this century. Mastering the growing of organs will ultimately result in the diminution of Big Pharma, and assist in the rise of Homo Superiorus.
SATURDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) — Scientists who created functioning miniature livers say their success is an early, but important, advance in the quest to grow replacement human livers in the laboratory.
‘We are excited about the possibilities this research represents, but must stress that we’re at an early stage and many technical hurdles must be overcome before it could benefit patients,’ project director Shay Soker, a professor of regenerative medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, said in a facility news release.
In the study, the researchers used mild detergent to remove all the cells from animal livers, leaving only the collagen ‘skeleton’ or support structure. Then, the original cells were replaced with two types of human cells: progenitors, which are immature liver cells, and endothelial cells, which line blood vessels.
The liver skeleton with the new cells was placed in a bioreactor, a piece of equipment that provides a constant flow of nutrients and oxygen to the organ. Within a week, there was progressive formation of human liver tissue and liver-associated function.
According to the scientists, the next step in the research is to find out if these bioengineered livers will continue to function after they’re transplanted into an animal.
The research […]
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Monday, November 1st, 2010
, - The Press Association (UK)
Stephan: The evidence is overwhelming that our drug policies are entirely cultural, and there is no correlation between harm and criminality. Here is the latest and, I think, definitive assessment of this subject. This is clear evidence that ideology and theology have trumped science in the formulation of policy
Alcohol is more dangerous than illegal drugs like heroin, ecstasy and crack cocaine, a new study has said.
Researchers rated alcohol the most dangerous substance based on the overall dangers to the individual and society as a whole.
The work was led by Professor David Nutt, the former government drugs adviser who was sacked for criticising the then Labour government’s decision to upgrade cannabis from class C to class B.
His team analysed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body as well as other factors like environmental and socio-economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.
They found heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, to be the most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social effects, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the most dangerous. But overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.
Marking substances from zero to 100 based on their criteria, alcohol scored 72 overall, compared to 55 for heroin and 54 for crack. Other drugs examined included: crystal meth (33), cocaine (27), tobacco (26), amphetamine/speed (23), cannabis (20), GHB (18), ketamine (15), methadone (13), ecstasy (9), anabolic steroids (9), LSD […]
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Monday, November 1st, 2010
Stephan: The obscenity of this makes me have to get up and walk around. A small group of contractors are making so much money it seems like a novel. And they are doing so under conditions of drunken looseness. It is so over the top that they don't even know where it went. Or who ended up with it. Billions. Meanwhile one in eight Americans are on some kind of food assistance.
The US government has spent about $55bn on rebuilding in Afghanistan since 2001 but cannot easily show how the money was spent, a government watchdog says.
The special inspector general’s office for Afghanistan reconstruction talked of a ‘confusing labyrinth’ of spending.
It said some 7,000 contractors received $17.7bn from 2007-09 but data prior to 2007 was too poor to be analysed.
It is the first comprehensive audit of US spending in Afghanistan since US-led troops ousted the Taliban in 2001.
According to the report, US government agencies are not tracking Afghan contracts in a shared database and cannot easily show where the money went.
The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says record-keeping has been so poor that most of the money has not been properly recorded.
The Pentagon, state department and USAID ‘are unable to readily report on how much money they spend on contracting for reconstruction activities in Afghanistan’, said the report from the special inspector general’s office, which was set up by Congress.
It was also not clear who had received money disbursed by the three agencies, which are the biggest US spenders on Afghan reconstruction.
‘Oversight impossible’
Pentagon contracts worth $11.5bn for construction, supplies and logistics in Afghanistan went to more than 6,615 contractors between 2007 […]
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Monday, November 1st, 2010
MATTHEW FISHER, - The Gazette (Montreal, Canada)
Stephan: Given that thousands of young Americans have their lives on the line in Afghanistan, why did I have to find this in a Canadian newspaper.
KANDAHAR CITY, Afghanistan - Canada has come closer to working out an effective relationship between soldiers and civilians in Afghanistan than any other country in the world, according to a U.S. diplomat.
Bill Harris, the top U.S. diplomat in southern Afghanistan, believes that ‘people will write dissertations’ one day about a Canadian-led Provincial Reconstruction Team he describes as a ‘wildly successful … irregular warfare unit.’
‘We honestly could not have grown as fast or as easily and come up to the level of effectiveness we currently perform at (if it had been) with any other country than Canada,’ said Harris, a U.S. diplomat with three decades of experience who is a close associate of Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan
‘General Petraeus loves this PRT,
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