New pornography laws ‘could make comic books illegal’

… The comic book campaigners claim that if the new rules are interpreted harshly, their hobby could be criminalised.

In a statement, comicshopvoice.co.uk, a comic fans’ website, said of the rules outlawing sexual violence: “Isn’t that how Batman, Punisher, Judge Dredd get anything done?

“A kick in the balls or a— would constitute this, and a kick in the balls is a well trodden part of humour.”

It added that the new law on images of children would make owning some comic books, and “particularly some forms of Manga” – the Japanese form often featuring young-looking cartoon characters – illegal.

The statement added: “Because this is a minefield for the law it then falls on the Police to enforce it, and it is their judgement that could lead to a prosecution.

Calling on comic book fans to lobby their MPs, the group added: “What is frightening about this law is that it gives [the Government] carte blanche to invade our lives, to shut down our comic shops and ultimately it could lead to censorship of books and films as well.”

“We COULD get to a point where the police could legitimately visit your home or workplace, and sanctioned by an un-elected magistrate or judge go through your collection and if they find any comic book that they feel will cause sexual arousal or displays extreme violence then they could arrest you.”

via New pornography laws ‘could make comic books illegal’, claim campaigners – Telegraph.

Und next, ve outlaw ze suggestively shaped rocks, tree branches, und mountains!

Estimated 1.3 million homes & businesses without power after ice storm

Hundreds of thousands of ice storm victims hunkered down in frigid homes and shelters Thursday, expecting to spend at least a week without power and waiting in long lines to buy generators, firewood, groceries and bottled water.

Utility companies in Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, Arkansas and West Virginia warned that many of the estimated 1.3 million homes and businesses left without electricity wouldn’t have power back before Saturday at the earliest, and at worst, as late as mid-February.

Utilities typically count 3 or 4 people per home so the outage in terms of people is significantly greater than 1.3 million homes and businesses. …

via Long lines, wait for power after ice storm – Weather- msnbc.com.

MS stem-cell treatment ‘success’

Stem-cell transplants may control and even reverse multiple sclerosis symptoms if done early enough, a small study has suggested.

Not one of 21 adults with relapsing-remitting MS who had stem cells transplanted from their own bone marrow deteriorated over three years.

And 81% improved by at least one point on a scale of neurological disability, The Lancet Neurology reported.

Further tests are now planned, and a UK expert called the work “encouraging”.

MS is an autoimmune disease which affects about 85,000 people in the UK.

It is caused by a defect in the body’s immune system, which turns in on itself, causing damage to the nerves which can lead to symptoms including blurred vision, loss of balance and paralysis. …

via BBC NEWS | Health | MS stem-cell treatment ‘success’.

Man dies in fetish accident

Ralph Santiago was discovered collapsed in the men’s lavatory following a seedy sex session that involved watching internet porn and sniffing toxic vapours.

Shocked colleagues raised the alarm after turning up for work early in the morning and finding the lifeless guard dressed in the tight latex suit and diving mask.

Police analysis of his laptop showed the oddball had been surfing fetish-themed websites alone in the toilets while he was supposed to be on duty.

Speaking at the inquest in Reading, Berks, Mr Santiago’s girlfriend, Hannele Vaher, said she knew about his weird sexual habits.

She said: “He had fetishes. I knew about these but didn’t participate. I know he inhaled poppers but do not know what kind.”

She also said her partner had no suicidal tendencies but did like to dress in latex while inhaling drugs. Mr Santiago, from Surbiton, Surrey, was found at Aquis House, in Reading, Berks, at 7am on July 22 last year.

He had started work at 6.30pm the previous evening. No drugs were detected in the security worker’s body but toxicologists confirmed he had inhaled a vapour which made him suffocate.

The coroner recorded a verdict of misadventure. – thesun, getreading

Win Something Random When This Blog Hits 1/2 Million Visitors…

I see from the Blog Stats (right side bar) that this site is about to reach 1/2 million visitors.

When it does reach 500,000, be the first to email me and win a prize.

What will it be? A piano? A postage stamp? An alien in a jar?

I don’t know yet.

UPDATE:  2/1/2009  The prize will be mailed today. Congratulations to Kevin in Waltham, MA who won a free Xenophilia (the Band) CD and a 50 million year old shark tooth.  Kevin writes:

I found your blog a few months ago and it’s turning into one of the first I check when I fire up my reader.  Keep it up!

Scientists Zero In on Earth’s Original Animal

By Robin Lloyd, LiveScience Senior Editor

Sea sponges have been thought by some scientists to be the most primitive living animals, the closest living things to approximate Earth’s original animal, down at the base of the tree of life for the animal kingdom.

But the squishy things are now being pushed aside by a group of amoeba-shaped creatures called Placozoans, according to a new analysis which shows the fairly simple but still multi-cellular animals are closer to the base of the tree, researchers say.

A weirder result follows from the fact that the analysis finds that corals, jellyfish, sponges, comb jellies and Placozoans (aka the “lower” animals) evolved in parallel to “higher” animals including flatworms, insects, mollusks and chordates (which includes all animals with backbones, ranging from frogs to apes and humans).

Nervous systems are found in both groups (among the lower animals, jellyfish have nervous systems), so the new arrangement means that these systems must have evolved twice in the history of animal evolution, said Rob DeSalle, a biologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York who did the analysis along with Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, also at the museum.

DeSalle said the finding is unsurprising to him.

“Things in organisms that look alike a lot of times aren’t really derived from a common ancestor,” he said. “The nervous system of cnidarians [a lower animal group that includes corals, jellyfish and hydras], and Bilateria [the higher animals group that includes humans] are constructed with the same molecules and often times using the same genes. But it is possible that the cnidarians’ nervous system really is not the same nervous system found in Bilaterians.”

Many lower animals other than jellyfish lack nervous systems, DeSalle said, but they could have the rudiments of a nervous system and we just haven’t seen them. “Placozoans and sponges both have genes for nervous systems in their genomes,” he said. “They just don’t do it. They don’t make it.”

… Most of us have little experience with Placozoans. They form into sheets on rocks and corals in temperate seas and “are really cool to watch and they move by undulating. There are no muscles,” DeSalle said.

Placozoans were discovered about 100 years ago growing on side of a laboratory aquarium in Germany, DeSalle said, and have subsequently been discovered living in the wild.

… A number of other recent studies, using cluster computers to crunch big matrices of data to arrive at the best explanation for animal evolution, have tackled the question of the details of the ancestry of all animals and also found Placozoans at the base of the animal tree of life. But DeSalle said the new tree is strong because it included some key species that other analyses omitted, as well as considering a large number of traits and finding very strong support.

… The new tree also underscores the fact that evolution does not proceed along a straight line, counter to many cartoons. And it’s pretty common to find things evolving more than once, DeSalle said. … – livesci

Longevity from Calorie-Restriction Diet Questioned

Those of you on the anti-aging caloric-restriction diet hoping to add a few years onto your life might want to put down your fork before reading further, lest you choke on your six-pea-and-lettuce-leaf lunch.

Research published this month in the Journal of Nutrition found that naturally chubby mice lived longer on a reduced-calorie diet, but naturally lean mice did not, demonstrating for the first time that that calorie restriction effects vary greatly not only between species but also within species.

The study implies that a caloric-restricted diet could be pointless and even harmful for humans who are naturally on the lean side.

Big payoff for critters

With the majority of Americans overweight or obese, it’s not clear exactly who is following this ascetic diet. But when studies over the past 30 years revealed that worms, fruit flies and mice were living up to twice as long on diets with 30 percent or more fewer calories, a significant number of our own species decided to turn themselves into guinea pigs and reduce their caloric intake to about 1,500 kilocalories a day, about 500 kcal fewer than the recommended intake for a non-active adult.

Studies performed on our pioneering brethren have shown significant gains in lowering blood pressure and metabolism rates and cholesterol and triglycerides levels, all positive signs. Studies on monkeys possibly living longer also gave them strength to continue with the diet in ways that their celery stalk snacks could not.

Yet all along there have been cracks in this longevity theory. Yes, many species of animals in the laboratory live longer when on a caloric-restricted diet. The big exception, though, is the housefly, which dies faster when starved. So one question to ask is whether you are more like a fruit fly or a housefly?

Also, while some laboratory mice can live longer on a restricted diet, the progeny of wild-caught mice reap little to no benefit from fewer calories. This led scientists to think that maybe the animals gaining the most extra years from calorie restriction are those animals bred to study calorie restriction.

A team led by Raj Sohal of the University of Southern California’s School of Pharmacy tested the diet on two types of mice: mice bred to be fat on a normal diet and mice bred to be lean. Only the chubby variety of mice, albeit lean in this study, lived longer on the caloric-restricted diet. The naturally lean mice forwent all that delicious cheese for naught.

Among human it is clear that some of us are naturally chubbier or leaner given the same amount of caloric intake and energy expenditure. Thus those of us who don’t pack on pounds easily—perhaps the very type of person attracted to the caloric-restricted diet—might starve themselves in vain.

The most significant finding from this study, however, is that the diet lowered the metabolic rates of both types of mice. The leading theory has been that a slower metabolic rate—and the subsequent lower rate of oxygen consumption and lower rate of free-radical production—was the cause for the increased longevity. This theory is now up in the air. -livesci

Druids in row over boy’s skeleton

A decision is due to be made over the future of a skeleton found near an ancient stone circle 80 years ago.

Druids have called for the remains of the three-year-old child to be reburied at Avebury, Wiltshire, out of respect.

But archaeologists insist the skeleton – currently on display at the Alexander Keiller museum – should be kept available for research and testing.

Public consultation on whether the remains should reburied ends this weekend.

English Heritage and the National Trust are due to make the decision on whether to rebury the skeleton later this year. …

via BBC NEWS | UK | England | Wiltshire | Druids in row over boy’s skeleton.

Honey Bees Can Tell The Difference Between Different Numbers At A Glance

The remarkable honey bee can tell the difference between different numbers at a glance. A fresh, astonishing revelation about the ‘numeracy’ of insects has emerged from new research by an international team of scientists from The Vision Centre, in Australia.In an exquisitely designed experiment, researchers led by Dr. Shaowu Zhang, Chief Investigator of The Vision Centre and Australian National University and Professor Hans Gross and Professor Juergen Tautz of Wurzburg University in Germany, have shown that bees can discriminate between patterns containing two and three dots – without having to count the dots.

And, with a bit of schooling, they can learn to tell the difference between three and four dots.

However at four, bee maths seems to run out: the team found their honeybees couldn’t reliably tell the difference between four dots and five or six. …

via Honey Bees Can Tell The Difference Between Different Numbers At A Glance.

Liberia worms swarm ‘emergency’

Liberia’s president has declared a state of emergency in response to a plague of crop-destroying army worms.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said all possible resources would be used to fight the insects, which have spread to next-door Guinea and are nearing Sierra Leone.

Some 400,000 residents in 80 villages had been affected, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said.

The “worms” – which are actually caterpillars – are among the world’s most destructive agricultural pests.

Guinea has started spraying, and Sierra Leone has announced it will mobilise chemicals and personnel to its border.

Worst in decades

Liberia has already appealed for international help to carry out aerial spraying against tens of millions of the invading insects.

It is the West African country’s worst infestation of armyworm in three decades.

via BBC NEWS | Africa | Liberia worms swarm ‘emergency’.