anciendaze
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Recent financial news has followed a very predictable course. As a result, three governments in southern Europe have fallen, and been replaced with new leaders, in Greece, Italy and Spain. All have pledged to implement austerity measures to staunch the hemorrhage of red ink in those countries...
Economics can be the study of how people have outwitted each other, often outwitting themselves in the process. We have an example in recent settlements of cases characterized as either fraud or misleading representations. Deutsche Bank has settled a case brought by the National Credit Union...
What is the normal course of events leading to endogenous retroviral sequences in most mammals? It starts with infection by an exogenous retrovirus, naturally. While endogenous retroviral sequences may be recombined, there is no reason to believe they appear by spontaneous generation...
In 1907 the first evidence that warts were caused by a virus was found by Guiseppi Ciuffo in Italy, who showed transmission via cell-free filtrate, indicating this could not be a bacterial infection. This can be taken as an important milestone marking discovery of the first human virus. It...
We are either approaching a summit which will resolve the global financial crisis, or sliding into an economic sinkhole, depending on who is talking. Frankly, I've lost track of some of the financial legerdemain, and would not hazard a guess on which shell, if any, hides the pea.
My...
One principle I picked up over several careers was that if a group of intelligent and reasonably hard-working people have failed to solve a problem, after a sustained effort at finding a solution over a considerable length of time, finding a solution might very well require systematically...
I am indebted to the late Douglas Adams for the idea that a device which radiates emissions causing people to perceive "somebody else's problem" would enable one Increasing medical and scientific specialization has expanded the scope of this technique astoundingly. I'm sure many readers will...
The title word may not be familiar. Indeed, for those speaking languages other than English, it is difficult to translate. It can be traced to a Persian tale, "The Three Princes of Serendip", and was coined in English by Horace Walpole. The princes in the story have a series of adventures...
This post is not tagged as humor, however dark. It is intended to be a serious discussion of how people deal with ignorance and uncertainty. The title is taken from inscriptions added to make blank areas of old maps somewhat less naked.
Those dragons would naturally explain an absence of...
At this time of crisis I want to make it clear I do not support some extreme criticisms of the CDC. Should the shocking charges against one administrator be proved in court, which remains to be decided, I think all reasonable people will agree she violated CDC policy in several serious ways...
Hierarchiology, the study of hierarchies, is essential to modern science, in which hierarchies play a dominant role. Let me discuss a few fundamental principles of this subject.
First, the purpose of any hierarchy is to separate authority from responsibility. This, for example, allows...
This is a departure from my recent biological posts and a temporary return to topical economic issues. Two things have prompted this: 1) news of further problems with European debt; 2) a recent announcement by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The news of a downgrade in...
Public health officials live a life of short-term excitements, bouncing from one crisis of confidence to another, constantly reassuring the public that everything will be under control so long as doctors and patients follow instructions, and the public keeps funding flowing. Historical...
So far, I've covered several stages in the life cycle of a retrovirus infecting mammals. Transmission via body fluids, blood, saliva, semen in horizontal transmission, milk in vertical transmission are typical. This could apply to a beta or gamma retrovirus. As it happens, both groups are...
While I started out to write a topical piece on current controversies, biomedical or economic, I decided others were doing a more than adequate job of venting hot air without me. Instead, one fallacy which consumes a great deal of scientific effort stands out as in need of explanation. It is...
This is hardly a unique event. For perspective on the current controversy over retroviruses in ME/CFS, which continues to generate more heat than light, I want to describe research on human breast cancer in relation to mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV). You can find surveys of the possible role...
Just in case anyone is confused by this perspective, I want to emphasize that a virus is unlikely to have mental processes of any kind. We don't normally even call things living if they can be crystallized and stored like salt. My approach is a literary device to help us view the problem from...
What kind of virus should we expect to cause chronic infectious diseases? Will it resemble the virus that causes measles? If not, how will it differ? Perhaps we can get a better idea by viewing things from the perspective of a virus.
While we often believe pathogens are out to kill us, the...
With a new-found reputation for financial expertise, I thought it appropriate to offer my distilled wisdom to those innocents looking to invest. There are three laws, paralleling the laws of thermodynamics:
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't get out of the game...
Humans are the only known species which will not simply guard members who are injured or sick, but actively feed and care for them. Likewise, we have an apparently unique ability to subordinate individual differences during struggles with forces of nature which endanger all. We forget these...