Research & Rescue

GM's phony loan repayment | Video Cafe

via videocafe.crooksandliars.com

Bad News for Fliers - The Daily Beast

The merger of Continental and United shows size matters. Aviation expert Clive Irving on what it means for the industry and travelers—mainly, fewer flights and fewer empty seats.

They were a part of the infant airline industry. Continental Airlines was born in 1937 out of a small operation in remote areas of the southwest; United Airlines was created in 1927 out of a mail-carrying operation with the fledgling Boeing company. Next week the two will merge and become the world’s largest airline.

via www.thedailybeast.com

Research & Rescue's microblog

Research & Rescue now has a microblog, called The Holding Pen, up and running. None of the methods available for archiving tweets were really all they were cracked up to be, so this is a way that R&R can microblog all the tweeted links that go out. For the most part, there will be no commentary included but this also leaves room for attributing the original tweeter, if was a retweet or the Facebook poster if he or she has a blog that can be referred to.

Apologies, in advance, for not having the previous posts categorized. I'll do that as I have time.

You can get to the Holding Pen by going the navigation bar at the top of the page and clicking on the Microblog link or by bookmarking the URL for it: http://researchandrescue.typepad.com/holding_pen/

FRONTLINE: the vaccine war

In case you missed the PBS program on TV yesterday, it was well worth the watch. You can catch the whole thing online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/vaccines/view/#

Vaccines have changed the world, largely eradicating a series of terrible diseases, from smallpox to polio to diphtheria, and likely adding decades to most of our life spans. But despite the gains -- and numerous scientific studies indicating vaccine safety -- a growing movement of parents remains fearful of vaccines. And in some American communities, significant numbers of parents have been rejecting vaccines altogether, raising new concerns about the return of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough.

via www.pbs.org

States Where You Can Marry Your Cousin

Sometimes GOOD magazine just scares me. OTOH, the data geek in me thinks this is clever.

 

Get the details at www.good.is

Hampton Sides new book

This morning on my way up to town I caught a radio interview with author Hampton Sides on Fresh Air. I had the good fortune to hear him do a reading in Santa Fe when he released Blood and Thunder, a biography of Kit Carson. His new book, Hellhound on his Trail, is about the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the subsequent hunt for James Earl Ray. The book has just been released He is wonderful speaker and did not disappoint the NPR interview, which you can listen to here: www.npr.org

And, if you happen to be in Santa Fe on May 7th, Collected Works will be hosting a signing for the new release from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The details are here: http://www.collectedworksbookstore.com/event/hampton-sides-hellhound-his-trail-stalking-martin-luther-king-jr-and-international-hunt-his-as

Mining the Like Button

I'm not sure if this is cool or creepy. I felt a lot better after logging out of Facebook and then looking at it again to verify I couldn't see anything about myself or my Facebook friends. If you go to the site while you are logged into Facebook, you will see all kinds of things about what your friends like or posted.

 

This is actually how the Like button on this site works (beta from TypePad). You only see people on the left in the Like box, if you know them. Other people show up in the total but you can't see their names or avatars. Additionally, if you aren't logged in when you come to our site, you will only see the total number of persons who Like the site.

I'm darned close to uninstalling the Facebook Like button on this blog, just because there's too much experimental work being done on what we all signed on for as protected data. Just so you all know, I don't plan on collecting any data or looking at data if they exist. What I thought it might be good for was to automatically feed my posts to Facebook and give folks a choice instead of just broadcasting my posts. Frankly, though, it's not that big a deal for me to check the little box to share my individual posts (as I did here).

For the few of you who have already hit the Like button here, we won't be offended if you Unlike it. The newsfeed function in beta is not working at present, so these posts will be shared manually. If you care to stay, rest assured we will not be data mining these data.

Here is the disclaimer from the Like Button aggregator, should you decide to check it out.

Like Button is a collection of links shared by your Facebook friends from most popular sites. For you privacy concerned people: don't worry, like button has no access to your personal information. Think of each box as a very specific miniature Facebook page inside of this site. Like button makes a great home page. Got it? Hide this message

Try it out at Likebutton.me

Bet Against the American Dream

The folks who brought you Avenue Q came up with this wonderful little ditty. They are really good at turning everyday despair into musical comedy. Guess this is just another one of those times when we have to laugh or we'll cry.

Bet Against The American Dream from Planet Money on Vimeo.

National Network Of Bike Trails in the works

A quiet revolution is starting in the world of transportation.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently announced what he's calling a "sea change" in transportation policy: He wants to make biking as important as driving.

"We’re elevating it to the point where as we develop new road systems, as we develop communities where people can use light rail or street cars or buses, bike trails and walking paths will be equal partners, if you will, and equal components of those kinds of transportation opportunities in communities across America," LaHood tells NPR's Guy Raz.

Right now, about 90 percent of the country commutes to work by car.

Read the rest at www.npr.org

Guess I'll just go eat worms... Or not...

There was an article a couple of weeks ago in The New York Times about a study that uses hookworms as a treatment for allergies, such as hayfever. The general idea is that people with hookworms have T-cells that produce less of the chemicals associated with inflammatory response. 

While carrying out field work in Papua New Guinea in the late 1980s, he noticed that Papuans infected with the Necator americanus hookworm, a parasite that lives in the human gut, did not suffer much from an assortment of autoimmune-related illnesses, including hay fever and asthma. Over the years, Pritchard has developed a theory to explain the phenomenon.

"The allergic response evolved to help expel parasites, and we think the worms have found a way of switching off the immune system in order to survive," he said. "That's why infected people have fewer allergic symptoms."

via www.nytimes.com

A hookworm - yecch: 
 

The downside? According to the CDC, hookworm can lead to serious complications in pregnant women, children, and malnourished persons. This is not a course of action for allergy sufferers who could be so compromised - or for those those of us who are just plain grossed out by the whole concept.... Still there is a following for this remedy - just try googling "helminthic therapy".

And, since we're on the subject of parasitic worms here, success is being met to eradicate Guinea worm disease. As recently as the late 80s, there were more than 20 million persons infected by it. If you think hookworms are disgusting, this is from the Carter Center:

Guinea worm disease is contracted when a person drinks stagnant water that is contaminated with microscopic water fleas carrying infective larvae. Inside a person's body, the larvae grow for a year, becoming thin thread-like worms, up to 3-feet-long. These worms create agonizingly painful blisters in the skin, through which they slowly exit the body. People with emerging worms must not bathe or step in sources of drinking water, because a worm will release hundreds of thousands of eggs, or larvae, into the water. Water fleas then eat the larvae, and people who drink unfiltered water from the pond become infected -- continuing the life cycle of the parasite.

A guinea worm - higher degree of yecch: 
 

Today, only a few thousand cases remain, mostly in Sudan. You can read about the stunning success of the eradication efforts (largely due to The Carter Center) in this post, Eradicating the Guinea Worm, at PRI's The World.