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Category: Geeky Tech Science

Rainy Night in Georgia

Rainy Night in Georgia

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It’s been raining for more than 24 hours. I’ve just been out walking in the back yard, and found big mushrooms growing under the oak trees. Last week, I saw others of the same type out in the woods; those were even more gigantic – three times as big.

Does anyone know what kind of mushrooms these are?

Georgia Mushrooms

The ones in our yard are usually very tiny, and grayish, and they carpet whole areas. Perhaps they are a springtime mushroom – I don’t remember. Anyway, this is the first time I’ve seen these here.

Microwaving Unruly Crowds?

Microwaving Unruly Crowds?

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Normally I would be pleased to see the Air Force express concern for world opinion, but somehow the thought of microwaved protesters does not appeal to me.

Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Secretary Michael Wynne.

“If we’re not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation,” said Wynne. “(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.”

How about if we don’t microwave anybody? Isn’t it pretty clear that this isn’t a good idea?

Aboutus.org – What Do You Think?

Aboutus.org – What Do You Think?

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I’ve just noticed the “aboutus.org” wiki. It looks as though they are trying to put together information on every domain.

AboutUs is a fully editable wiki, a type of Web site, that has been prepopulated with information about several million websites. Enter a domain name in the search box (for example: “Yahoo.com” or “AboutUs.org”) and see what comes up!

I discovered I was already listed, so I did fix a couple of things on the virushead page.

http://www.aboutus.org/VirusHead.net

However, it’s competely open and anyone could add whatever they want. It could become a destination spot for spammers, trolls, and stalkers. They do log the IP of the person who changes an entry, but no registration or login is required.

What do you think? Free advertising or soft surveillance? Information being free or future source of manipulation? Comments, criticisms?

Spray-on Viruses

Spray-on Viruses

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The FDA has approved a spray-on cocktail of six viruses for ready-to-eat meat (they say “meat and poultry,” but last time I checked, meat from chickens and turkeys was still meat).

The purified bacteriophages are designed to eat up the Listeria monocytogenes bacterium.

The bacterium can cause a serious infection called listeriosis, primarily in pregnant women, newborns and adults with weakened immune systems. In the United States, an estimated 2,500 people become seriously ill with listeriosis each year, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 500 die.

Perhaps newborns and pregnant women and people with compomised immune systems should simply avoid Oscar Weiners? Or is that too much to expect? I remember being careful about this kind of thing when I was pregnant. Hey, wasn’t listeriosis the reason my hubby was supposed to clean out the kitty litter box? Are you telling me that cat feces are in those slices of bologna?

Consumers will not be aware which meat and poultry products have been treated with the spray, Mr. Zajac said. The Department of Agriculture will regulate the actual use of the product.

Oh, that gives me so much confidence, that does. I think I would still prefer a label saying so, so that people could make a choice. And regulation by the current Department of Agriculture is a joke. Maybe if they were doing their job for American consumers, we wouldn’t actually need spray-on viral coated food?

Intralytix, based in Baltimore, first petitioned the food agency in 2002 to allow the viruses to be used as an additive. It has since licensed the product to a multinational company, which intends to market it worldwide, Mr. Vazzana said.

They name the developer, but not the distributor. Not good. This “multi-national” company – who is it? Where is HQ?

Well, I’ve been waiting to see viruses used for good. I just wasn’t expecting to see the food supply as an early application. It’s probably a good idea in some ways, but there is some potential for things to go wrong. Seems like an easy target for bioterrorism to me. Also, I’m not sure why they would need six different kinds of viral bacteriophages. Why not just have one? Which viruses are they using, and what side effects might there be? What if the viruses themselves are contaminated, or what if conditions promote mutations? Then what?

Treatments that use bacteriophages to attack harmful bacteria have been a part of folk medicine for hundreds of years in India and for decades in the former Soviet Union.

I somehow don’t see folk medicine practitioners spraying viruses on food, do you?
What exactly were they doing in India and the former USSR? It would be good to know.

Returning Soldiers Facing Radiation Effects

Returning Soldiers Facing Radiation Effects

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These soldiers are sick of it. Literally.

Eight sick soliders from the 442nd Military Police put the pieces together.

A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The United States has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.

Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he’d never experienced in his previously healthy life.

At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.

“We all had migraines. We all felt sick,” Reed says. “The doctors said, ‘It’s all in your head.’ “

Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area.

But the medic knew something the others didn’t. Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They’d brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins.

“We got on the Internet,” Reed said, “and we started researching depleted uranium.”

Read the rest of the Wired article.

There’s a lot of depleted uranium out there – affecting everyone who comes near it. Remember Agent Orange? This is probably worse. I blog on this every once in a while. It’s still not a topic that’s getting picked up in the public realm very much. I suspect we’ll be talking about it at some point, though. The use of weapons with depleted uranium may well be considered a war crime.

According to military guidelines, our soliders should have been made aware of the dangers of working with and around depleted uranium, and trained on ways to avoid prolonged exposure to its toxicity and radioactivity. The soldiers in this article say they got nothing of the kind. It’s not even clear whether their unit ever tested for radiation in the area.

The use of depleted uranium transcends the general ugliness of this administration – so nothing’s stopping Republicans from standing up on this issue, right? Support the troops – right? Right? … right?