Out of tragedy, discovery?

Bacteria survived Columbia explosion, sparking scientific leap

Researcher finds evidence to support ancient theory.

By Miguel Liscano
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, February 22, 2006

SAN MARCOS — When the space shuttle Columbia broke apart over East Texas in 2003, killing all seven astronauts aboard, Texas State University biology professor Robert McLean thought his bacterial experiment package on board had been destroyed. Then it was found mostly intact in a Nacogdoches convenience store parking lot and returned to him.

Now he says it's evidence that furthers a theory called panspermia: the hypothesis that life can travel through space by hitchhiking from one world to another on meteorites.

After the accident, when McLean inspected his experiment, he found that a strain of bacteria called Microbispora had survived the fiery descent through Earth's atmosphere.

...

"This organism appears to have survived an atmospheric passage, with the heat and the force of impact," McLean said in a written statement. "This is important for panspermia, because if something survives space travel, it eventually has to get down to the Earth and survive passage through the atmosphere and impact."

McLean says his findings do not prove panspermia because the bacteria traveled about a fifth of the speed that a meteorite would travel. But, he said, it was at least six times faster than anything tested before.

Other scientists are skeptical, however, and say McLean has to answer two key questions:

1) Where did this life-from-the-stars supposedly originate from?

And, more importantly,

2) why does "re-entry-surviving bacteria" found in the convenience store parking lot so closely resemble nachos with hot pepperjack cheese and a cherry slushee?

Thanks to SWOOD.

Posted by: Ace at 05:52 PM | Comments (6)
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I've gone from never linking these time-wasters to linking three in three weeks.

What philosophy do you believe in/follow?

Eh. Not really. Some of those questions were loaded. I'm actually more of a utilitarian.

I had a tie-breaker choice of going with hedonism or justice, and, hey, I went with the answer I knew would swing it to hedonism, because "have fun!" sounds a lot more enjoyable than "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

Thanks to Crosblog.

Posted by: Ace at 04:45 PM | Comments (22)
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Well, you'd have this douche.

Italian Baron Cody Franchetti walks around Manhattan dropping quotes like this:

• “I am an elitist. I believe in an elite, I believe that people want an elite … because there’s always been one, whether it be an oligarchy or a dictatorship.”

• “I’m reading a book and I’m thinking about a pussy, but I find when I get the pussy, I’m thinking about the book.”

Cody, your monthly statement about your trust-fund management is not, technically, "a book."

• On Lisa Loeb: “She is very—how should I put it?—petit bourgeois.”

Cody Franchetti is -- how you say? -- only a fucking Baron. This is, how should I put it, the petit nobility, non?

Baron. Big deal. The guy who trims my hedges is a baron from Oxaca.

• On pursuing his own reality show: “Yes, absolutely, [it’s] cheap, trashy—I’m well aware of that. But we live in the age of Paris Hilton, my dear, so what am I going to do—a show where I discuss Flaubert with people that call in? No, I don’t think so.”

Just because you can name Flaubert is not evidence you've actually read him.

• He would [like] to be “hated correctly.”

Well, halfway there, champ!

Hmmmm...

Compare:

“I’m reading a book and I’m thinking about a pussy, but I find when I get the pussy, I’m thinking about the book.”

with:

I can't say I'm precisely shocked to learn that when he's "get[ting] pussy" he's actually thinking about Flaubert.

Just sayin'.

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

Belated Credit: Via Ari Goes Down, who apparently sat down at a poker table with this, erm, dude.

Posted by: Ace at 04:37 PM | Comments (38)
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Via Scott's tip:

TV 8 News has learned FBI agents and local law enforcement authorities are conducting a raid of service stations and businesses owned by Middle Easterners in Northeast Louisiana. Agents executed search warrants today at 10 businesses in Tallulah, Delhi, Monroe and Ruston. The FBI says the raids are part of "an ongoing criminal investigation." Police sources tell TV 8 News the raids target possible money laundering and counterfeiting in connection with suspected domestic terrorist activity.

Yeah... okay. So, I'm sorry, if we can't trust them with a Wa-Wa or Circle K, how are we supposed to trust them with the ports of New York and Miami?

Shouldn't you prove you won't use the Slurpee machine to fund terrorism before we hand you over the keys to the Bayonne oiler-docks?

Posted by: Ace at 03:44 PM | Comments (6)
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Just lookin' out for the folks:

The Emirates, along with Jordan, is AmericaÂ’s best Arab ally in the war on terror, so letÂ’s cut through all the bull and grandstanding.

If the Bush administration fires the Emirates company without cause, it spits in the eye of a strong Mideast ally. Talking Points believes we will actually lose the terror war unless we build alliances in the Middle East. ThereÂ’s nothing Bin Laden would like more than for the US to alienate the United Arab Emirates. We have to give the new company a chance to work in our ports, but with strict oversight. As for the demagogues insisting we kick the Arabs out of the ports, one question: is that smart? The answer is no, that is not smart. It would hurt us dramatically in the war on terror.

California Conservative, after initially lambasting the Bush Administration for the decision, now reverses, confesses error, and supports the decision.

California Conservative now believes this entire controversy was cooked up by Democrats, served up by a compliant liberal media, and then devoured by convervative commentators and bloggers who didn't seem to question the ingredients in the feast.

I don't know. A lot of people are claiming the UAE is one of our best Muslim allies in the war on terror. I didn't know that. (I guess I still don't "know" it' I just read it a lot.) If that's true, it would be uncouth to spit in the eye of an ally in the Muslim world. It's not like we have an overabundance of them.

I guess my current position is "apprehensive, but open to persuasion."

Posted by: Ace at 03:26 PM | Comments (29)
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400%? That's pretty specific, isn't it? But there's science behind it.

Following orgasm, the hormone prolactin is released into the bloodstream in both men and women. The hormone makes us feel satiated by countering the effect of dopamine, which is released during sexual arousal.

...

Surprisingly, after orgasm from sexual intercourse, the increase in blood prolactin levels is 400 per cent higher in both sexes compared with after orgasm from masturbation (Biological Psychology, vol 71, p 312).

On the other hand, the British journal Biology Review claims the disparity between the pleasure of sex versus the pleasure of self-satisfaction comes entirely from the ordering of Chinese food after the former, versus snacking on some Pizza-Cheese Combos after the other. "Fried pork dumplings stimulate 400% of the release of prolactin that cheese and pretzel combination snacks do," the study finds.

There are hints that this is perhaps why China has harbored one quarter of the world's population for the past 1000 years, but that will require additional study.

Thanks to Dex in Tex.

Posted by: Ace at 03:20 PM | Comments (37)
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Then again, they're doing the Dick Cheney shooting, which I think even the most ardent Bush Administration defenders have to admit is kinda funny.

White House Had Prior Knowledge Of Cheney Threat

Aug. 2005 Briefing Warned, 'Cheney Determined To Shoot Old Man In Face'

WASHINGTON, DC—Government documents declassified today reveal that President Bush was briefed last summer of "a substantial risk" that Vice President Dick Cheney would shoot an elderly male in the face sometime in the next several months.

In a Presidential Daily Briefing given to Bush in August 2005, the CIA warned that the vice president was a potent threat to the senior population at large, and in particular "possessed the capabilities and intentions to spray a senior citizen with projectiles fired from a shotgun or other weapon." A second brief identified the population at risk as those "between 70 and 80 years of age," and warned that the vice president posed the greatest threat to "seniors in close proximity to the vice president when he is armed."

Thanks to Dave From Garfield Ridge.

Posted by: Ace at 03:12 PM | Comments (3)
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And, gee whiz, it seems there were such reactions. A warning of likely consequences? Or a naked threat? And-- is there really much of a distinction anymore, when those doing the warning are also the same doing the incitement to violence?

Nice civilization you have here. It'd be a shame if anything were to happen to it.

That was the sinister subtext of a letter addressed to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, asking him to “take all those responsible to task under law” for the infamous Mohammed cartoons. The letter is remarkable for when it was sent and for who sent it.

The letter was signed by the eleven ambassadors of Islamic or heavily-Islamic countries. Libya, Algeria, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Palestine, Indonesia, Morocco, and Bosnia-Herzegovina complained about the Jyllands-Posten cartoons on October 12, long before the current round of protests.

...

The surprise is the implied extortion at the end of this paragraph:

We strongly feel that casting aspersions on Islam as a religion and publishing demeaning caricatures of the Holy Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) goes against the spirit of Danish values of tolerance and civil society. This is on the whole a very discriminatory tendency and does not bode well with [sic] the high human rights standards of Denmark. We may underline that it can also cause reactions in Muslim countries and among Muslim communities in Europe.

“Reactions?” Whatever could they mean by that?

Probably some strongly-worded letters to the editor, I'm certain.

Posted by: Ace at 11:30 AM | Comments (40)
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Which actually has more impact on the world?

But of course that's not the question the MSM subconsciously asks. They ask, "Which embarrasses Bush more? Which story helps the Democrats more?"

It was the month of February in 2006, they'll say in the future. That's when the sickness became inescapably evident. As they shovel the last spadeful of dirt on the mainstream media outlets that once received the most attention and respect, they will tell us the symptom was there for all to see: an embarrassing confusion about which of two stories about a vice president of the United States was worthy of major coverage.

...

The increasing partisanship of important segments of the press has been no secret, but these vice presidential stories and the dramatically different press attention that came their way is next to startling in what it tells us about leftist bias. It takes the unhinged imaginings of a Michael Moore mentality to justify it, and I don't think the public is buying. The demise of the high and mighty draws closer.

Posted by: Ace at 11:25 AM | Comments (17)
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Which is harder to apply for?

Earmark application form (3 pages).

Application to join Cub Scouts (7 pages).

In related news, Senator Ted Stevens just got a merit badge in Bilking The Public Fisc.

Thanks to Deep Stoat.

Posted by: Ace at 10:30 AM | Comments (6)
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