London evolution animation

YouTube link.

Brought to you by the Museum of London -

We provided specialist Roman and Medieval archaeological datasets to assist with the mapping of London’s earliest history, as well as data from 17th and early 18th-century London. In the animation the data is combined with information from other sources to track road networks and therefore show the growth of the city. Information about London’s Listed Buildings and Scheduled Monuments was provided by English Heritage and enables viewers to see how habitation and construction developed through London’s history. 

Via Neatorama.

Teen pregnancies and abortions are rapidly disappearing

Data from this study show (or shows) a striking decline in teen pregnancies and abortions in the United States.  This information flies in the face of public misperceptions of teen sexuality:

Perhaps it seems like things are getting worse because there’s always a new trend that inspires moral panic about teens’ risky sexual behavior — like sexting, “raunchy” pop songs, the college “hook up culture,” and TV shows’ supposed “glamorization” of teen pregnancy. Social conservatives also often raise concerns about the fact that Americans are increasingly having sex and children outside of marriage, equating changing family structures with bad choices.

The geographic trend is also interesting...

I'll defer any commentary on that distribution.

Via The Dish.

Measles vs. myeloma. Measles wins.

Medical researchers have successfully treated a recalcitrant case of multiple myeloma by injecting the patient with a massive dose of the measles vaccine.

Stacy Erholtz was out of conventional treatment options for blood cancer last June when she underwent an experimental trial at the Mayo Clinic that injected her with enough measles vaccine to inoculate 10 million people...

The cancer, which had spread widely through her body, went into complete remission and was undetectable in Erholtz’s body after just one dose of the measles vaccine, which has an uncanny affinity for certain kinds of tumors.

Erholtz was one of just two subjects in the experiment and the only one to achieve complete remission. But the experiment provides the “proof of concept” that a single, massive dose of intravenous viral therapy can kill cancer by overwhelming its natural defenses...

The strain that Russell used was isolated in 1954 from the throat of an 11-year-old boy named David Edmonston and has been used to safely make all of the measles vaccines used in the West, he said. The virus treats multiple myeloma tumors as food and turns them into machines to make copies of itself.

Most people have been inoculated with the vaccine, rendering it vulnerable to their immune systems. But patients with multiple myeloma often have suppressed immune systems, which can allow the virus to do its work.

There is additional information in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

During natural infections, MV gains access to the bone marrow through infection of the reticuloendothelial system, thus making it an ideal agent to attack myeloma cells exactly where they hide. CD46, a cell surface antigen, is the receptor for MV and is highly overexpressed on the surface of myeloma cells, making them prime targets of infection...

Both patients in the report by Russell et al lacked detectable neutralizing antimeasles antibody at the beginning of their treatments, likely a critical factor for the virally mediated tumor responses they experienced...

Aside from MV-NIS, there are numerous other oncolytic viruses (OVs) currently under clinical development, including variants of herpes virus, poxvirus, picornavirus, rhabdovirus, reovirus, Newcastle Disease virus, parvovirus, and adenovirus. In rodent tumor models, each of these viruses has shown excellent systemic activity when infused intravenously, often resulting in long-lasting durable cures. So far, however, this intravenous antitumor activity has not translated into clinical use for any of these other OV agents. The general disconnect between mouse and human studies is multifaceted and likely reflects, in part, the limited number and scope of intravenous studies carried out with OVs to date...

Word for the day: "oncolytic viruses" - worth remembering.

Wobbly cat

YouTube link.

This kitten has congenital cerebellar hypoplasia.

These cats are known for their "drunken sailor" walk, which is why they're known endearingly as "wobbly cats."

Unless a CH cat has other health issues, their life expectancy is the same as a cat's without CH. Since the condition is non-progressive, it will never get worse — and in some cases, owners say that their cats become more capable over time. 

Via Nothing to do with Arbroath.

A boy and his gun

A couple weeks ago I was criticized by one reader for posting a photograph of a young girl brandishing her gun in her bedroom; the locale was said to be inappropriate and emotionally charged.  I trust this image of an Israeli child playing with a grenade launcher outdoors will be more acceptable. 

Photo credit Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images.

Marty Feldman at the veterinarian's office (2008)

YouTube link.

Circenses without panem isn't sufficient

An article at AlterNet notes that if you don't appease the public with both bread and circuses*, social unrest may develop.

From 2008 to 2014, insurrectionist activity has sequentially erupted across the globe, from Tunisia and Egypt to Syria and Yemen; from Greece, Spain, Turkey and Brazil to Thailand, Bosnia, Venezuela and the Ukraine...

...beneath what we’ve come to perceive as isolated and distinct events is a shared but neglected root cause of environmental crisis. What most people don’t realize is that outbreaks of social unrest are preceded, usually, by a single pattern — an unholy trinity of drought, low crop yield and soaring food prices.

So what do the Arab Spring, Syrian civil war, Occupy Gezi, and the recent conflicts in the Ukraine, Venezuela, Bosnia and Thailand all have in common? Expensive food… and not much of it.

Details at the link.

* "This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirist and poet Juvenal (circa A.D. 100). In context, the Latin metaphor panem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the only remaining cares of a new Roman populace which cares not for its historical birthright of political involvement. Here Juvenal displays his contempt for the declining heroism of his contemporary Romans. Roman politicians devised a plan in 140 B.C. to win the votes of these new citizens: giving out cheap food and entertainment, "bread and circuses", would be the most effective way to rise to power."

Conchita Wurst of Austria wins the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest

YouTube link.

"As well as being a singer and television personality, Conchita Wurst has become a fashion icon. Almost every Facebook photo includes a list of designers responsible for her outfits...

There have been petitions in Russia and Belarus to have the song blocked from the broadcast because it is ‘unnatural’. The view of most European nations however is that freedom of expression and freedom of speech are at the cornerstone of democracy and of the Eurovision Song Contest..."

Text from Metro, via The Dish, where Andrew Sullivan pondered how well Conchita Wurst would do on American Idol.

A museum of dog collars

Leeds Castle has a Dog Collar Museum.

Mrs. Gertrude Hunt most generously presented her collection of collars to the Leeds Castle Foundation in memory of her husband, John Hunt, the distinguished medievalist.  The collection of over 100 collars and related exhibits has since been added to and enhanced by the Foundation itself. Spanning five centuries, the collection contains examples of collars from fearsome fetters for the great hunting hounds of the past, to canine couture for 21st century pooches.

Photo by AMALY, via The Telegraph's photo essay on The World's Most Boring Museums (lawnmowers, pencils, soap, wallpaper, Spam, mustard and others).

Butterfly eggs

These are eggs of the Great Purple Hairstreak (Atlides halesus) on mistletoe.   The first butterflies have been seen in Wisconsin; it will be a few more weeks before we see eggs.

Photo credit: David Millard for the Nikon Small World photomicrography competition.

Benthic litter

Garbage created by humans ("anthropogenic litter") is now apparent even in the deepest parts of the ocean.  In the composite image above, the “Uncle Benn's Express Rice” packet was photographed at a depth of 967 m. (National Oceanography Centre, UK)

We found litter to be present in the deepest areas and at locations as remote from land as the Charlie-Gibbs Fracture Zone across the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The highest litter density occurs in submarine canyons, whilst the lowest density can be found on continental shelves and on ocean ridges. Plastic was the most prevalent litter item found on the seafloor...

Plastics are a source of toxic chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins that can be lethal to marine fauna. Furthermore, the degradation of plastics generates microplastics which, when ingested by organisms, can deliver contaminants across trophic levels... Contrary to a common notion that most plastic items float at the sea surface it has been estimated that 70% of the plastic sinks to the seafloor...

More discouraging details on the trashing of our oceans at PLOS ONE.

"SmartWater" explained

Yafet Askale, 28, denied breaking into the vehicle which had been fitted with a traceable liquid called SmartWater, which contains a dye that becomes visible under ultra violet light.    Photo: Reuters

From Wikipedia:

SmartWater is a proprietary forensic asset marking system that is applied to personal, commercial, and industrial items of value to deter theft and to identify culprits for prosecution. The non-hazardous liquid leaves a long-lasting and unique identifier that is invisible to the naked eye except under an ultraviolet black light.

Its use is described at The Telegraph:

Brent Police have recently been working with SmartWater using trap cars and houses equipped with technology to deter thieves from committing crime and to catch those that do.

Residents have also been provided with free kits to mark valuable property with the substance within their homes which has led to reductions in burglary and street robbery and 80 and 40 percent respectively. 

The company's website is here.

There is water in the earth's upper mantle

And it comes out from volcanos.  This is hard for me to grasp conceptually; I'll just transcribe an excerpt -

The journal Nature announced a diamond discovery that helped settle a dispute about the Earth’s composition. The dispute concerned whether there is water in the transition zone — the portion of the Earth’s mantle 250 to 410 miles underground. Skeptics have argued that water cannot exist at that depth...

At around 310 miles underground, wadsleyite is pressed into ringwoodite. Both substances can hold water. Now, geophysicists working in Brazil have uncovered a diamond containing ringwoodite that came steaming out of a volcano...

The paper emphasized the volume of water likely to be present in the transition zone — possibly more than all of the oceans combined. But it’s at least 250 miles underground, and we’ve never drilled deeper than seven.

The subject is covered in greater detail at Scientific American, where they indicate that the water in these minerals is carried to the mantle via plate tectonics:

Plate tectonics recycles Earth's crust by pushing and pulling slabs of oceanic crust into subduction zones, where it sinks into the mantle. This crust, soaked by the ocean, ferries water into the mantle. Many of these slabs end up stuck in the mantle transition zone. "We think that a significant portion of the water in the mantle transition zone is from the emplacement of these slabs," Pearson said. "The transition zone seems to be a graveyard of subducted slabs."

The Nature article is here.

"Knoblesse oblige"

I've shamelessly borrowed the title from an article in The Economist reporting that Vancouver is banning doorknobs in all new buildings.

The war on doorknobs is part of a broader campaign to make buildings more accessible to the elderly and disabled, many of whom find levered doorhandles easier to operate than fiddly knobs. Vancouver’s code adds private homes to rules already in place in most of Canada for large buildings, stipulating wider entry doors, lower thresholds and lever-operated taps in bathrooms and kitchens.

The rules have provoked grumbling about the nanny state, much of it from doorknob manufacturers... True, elderly and disabled people find it easier to operate doors with handles. But so do bears... One newspaper columnist in the pro-knob camp has noted that the velociraptors in “Jurassic Park” were able to open doors by their handles.

More at the link, and at Legal Insurrection (whence the image).

Would you help this man get out of prison? - updated

This petition is at Change.org:

Cornealious "Mike" Anderson is 36 years old, a married father of four, youth football coach, volunteer, homeowner and small business owner in St. Louis, Missouri.  In 1999, he was arrested and later convicted of participating in a robbery of a Burger King manager.  He was sentenced to 13 years in prison.  He was released on bail while his appeals were pending, and after he lost his appeals, the State of Missouri simply forgot about him.  They never told him to report to prison to serve his sentence.

When he was arrested, he was 22 years old, had no children, was not married, and did not own a home or a business.

From 1999 to 2013, he lived a law-abiding life, paid taxes, and worked to build a career as a carpenter. He never became a  fugitive, tried to change his identity, or flee from justice.  He had no further trouble with the law.  He stayed right in St. Louis.  He got married, had 4 children, built his own home in Missouri, and started several successful small businesses, including a contracting business.  He volunteered at his church and coached his son's youth football team.

In July, 2013, the State of Missouri suddenly realized, 13 years later, that Mike Anderson had never served the sentence, and that he was out on bail this entire time.  They raided his house with a SWAT team, and ripped him from his home without warning, hauled him off to prison, and told him he now had to serve 13 years in prison.

If he is required to serve the sentence, he will be 50 years old when he is released.  His kids will have grown up without a father, his wife will have had to raise 4 children alone, and they will lose their home and business - everything he had worked so hard to attain in the last 13 years of leading a normal life.

The victim of the robbery believes that Mike Anderson should not be forced to now serve a 13-year sentence, and believes the State of Missouri dropped the ball.  He has said that he believes it would serve no purpose in now incarcerating this man.

The full story, with extensive details, is at Riverfront Times.

I first heard the story as a podcast on This American Life.  It takes about 15 minutes, and I think is well worth a listen before you pass judgment.

I've signed the petition, as have 35,000 others.

Update:  He has been released.

Judge Terry Lynn Brown lauded Anderson's "exemplary" behavior during his 13 years of freedom before the arrest. "You've been a good father. You've been a good husband. You've been a good taxpaying citizen of the state of Missouri. "That leads me to believe that you are a good man and a changed man."

Anderson walked out of the courtroom with his wife and 3-year-old daughter on one arm and his mom on the other. Before being driven away to a freedom celebration at an undisclosed spot, Anderson told reporters he was "very happy. My faith has always been in God. I'm just so thankful. Thank God for everything."

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster said in a statement that the outcome was "appropriate."

The best place to follow the conclusion of the story is at the Riverfront Times (which was a favorite read of mine when I lived in St. Louis).

The podcast is still worth a listen; it's quite a story.