AIDS-related virus spreads through kissing. “A form

of the herpes virus that causes an

AIDS-related skin cancer appears to

spread through kissing. Herpes virus 8 was discovered six years

ago and causes a skin cancer called

Kaposi’s sarcoma. In the United States,

the cancer occurs almost exclusively in

people with AIDS.” Researchers from the University of Washington have demonstrated that gay men infected with herpes 8 shed the virus far more often and at much higher concentrations in saliva than in anal or genital secretions. The implication, that oral-to-oral contact can be the route of transmission, needs further research confirmation. The obvious public health concern is that kissing is largely ignored in “safe sex” protocols. Transmission via the oral route makes sense when you realize the similarity between herpes 8 and the Epstein Barr virus, another herpes virus whose oral spread causes mononucleosis (“the kissing disease”) and which has been implicated in a malignancy of its own, Burkitt’s lymphoma. AP

His parents despaired of ever curing his rare phobia until they appealed for help in the local newspaper. A hypnotherapist came to the aid of this 8-year-old Gloucestershire (UK) boy and cured him of his fear of ketchup.

“Researchers in Iceland claimed yesterday to have pinpointed a gene for schizophrenia, stirring hope and anxiety among millions

of sufferers of what has been called ‘the worst disease affecting

mankind’.

The discovery is one of the first fruits of the controversial effort

by Icelandic entrepreneur Kari Stefansson’s firm deCODE to use

the medical records of the entire nation to ferret out disease

genes.’ You will recall that deCODE has given the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche the rights to commercial exploitation of its findings in return for financial backing. deCODE is applying for patent rights to the discovery and, for the moment, there is no scientific publication forthcoming; neither Roche nor deCODE is willing to even say on what chromosome the genetic locus resides. While it is implausible that one genetic defect can cause all the manifestations of this disease, it is well established that there is a heritable component. This discovery might lead to an understanding of just what the inherited vulnerability is, to ways of identifying vulnerable individuals before they develop symptoms, and perhaps to new drug strategies for treatment or even prevention. Guardian

Surf like a Bushman. Foraging theory, developed to understand animal hunting behavior and the strategies of hunter-gatherer humans, can be used to understand modern data foraging on the web. Two Xerox PARC researchers have been doing field studies of information-hunting-and-gathering and applying their observations about optimal foraging theory to search engine design. New Scientist This analogy between food and information appears to be a fruitful one for web designers as well — so eat your fill here!

A reason why some women can wrap men around their little

fingers has been suggested by a language expert: they use five

different tones when communicating verbally and men can

understand only three.

“Men only have 10 per cent of women’s speaking ability,” says

Alan

Pease, author of the book Why Men Don’t Listen and Women

Can’t Read Maps. ‘He says that women use 60 to

80 per cent of their brains to communicate, which is why they

excel in the area. Such verbal dexterity means that they are better

placed than ever to compete for new “knowledge economy” jobs.’ The Times of London

Wag the Human. Review of Stephen Budiansky’s The Truth About Dogs. Did we domesticate the dog or vice versa? ”If biologists weren’t victim to the

same blindness that afflicts us all, they probably wouldn’t

hesitate to classify dogs as social parasites.” The reviewer has a sentimental complaint that “when Budiansky deconstructs the

so-called love and loyalty that dogs have for their owners,

he reduces it all to selfish biology.” New York Times And Britannica.com has this interesting review article considering the range of animal intellect and emotion from the vantage point of several recent books. We do seem to be seeing a reawakening of interest in ethology, a generation after Conrad Lorenz. “Through

evolutionary theory, genetics, neurophysiology, and

experimental procedures, many scientists are providing

strong evidence that animals feel and think in ways akin

to humans.” The controversial Peter Singer perhaps takes this furthest. His Great Ape Project seeks to “include the nonhuman great apes within the community of equals by

granting them the basic moral and legal protection that only human beings currently enjoy, … to work for the removal of the

nonhuman great apes from the category of property, and for their immediate inclusion within the

category of persons.

Our long-term goal is a United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Great Apes.”

Are We All Aliens? The new case for panspermia.

Alcoholic by Nature: The attraction of ethanol may have evolutionary origins in the selective advantage it conferred on our frugivorous primate ancestors. But it appears to be an evolutionary trait gone wrong. Biologist Robert Dudley of the University of Texas speculates on this. The Times of London I was reminded of the thinking of Andrew Weil several decades ago in The Marriage of the Sun and Moon. Proposing that the attraction of mind-altering substances is innate, he said that the natural psychoactives our ancestors used were healthier than modern purified and extracted ones. The impurities acted to self-limit consumption to manageable amounts, because one would get sick from ingesting too much. Consider the contrast between chewing a coca leaf and freebasing cocaine. (Here‘s a less-than-laudatory 1998 essay on Weil’s reasoning by the former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Arnold Relman MD.) [One of the best things in Marriage…, IMHO, was the essay on the ‘right’ way to settle into the euphoric buzz you get from hot peppers such as jalapenos.]

A chance observation of an analogy to the physical world may mean that someone is closing in on the solution to the Riemann hypothesis, one of the world’s greatest unsolved mathematical problems, which relates to the distribution of prime numbers. New Scientist

‘Happy’ Kristallnacht: Hate e-mails bombard Jewish group. The emails were sent via a server in the US. Nando Times

Most Promiscuous Species Have The Highest WBC Counts.’A new study indicates that evolution of the immune system may be directly

linked to the sexual activity of a species. A comparative analysis of 41

primate species demonstrates that the most promiscuous species have

naturally higher white blood cell (WBC) counts — the first line of defense

against infectious disease — than more monogamous species.

The findings are reported in today’s issue of the journal Science.

“Our findings strongly suggest that the most sexually active species of

primates may have evolved elevated immune systems as a defense

mechanism against disease,” says (the) principal investigator.’ UniSci [via Robot Wisdom]

Happy 40th, Caffe Lena

Lions Maul Man Offering Alms. ‘A Sri Lankan man was seriously injured

when he jumped naked into a lions’ den at the national zoo,

apparently offering himself up as a feast for the big cats,

officials said Monday.

“The man…had written a letter before jumping into the enclosure saying he wanted to

give ‘alms’ to the lions,” said (the director) of the National Zoological Gardens…’

31 Eyewitnesses See Mile Long Aerial Craft in Yukon. “There are only

30,000 residents in the entire Yukon and at least thirty-one eyewitnesses near Pelling Crossing saw an aerial craft

estimated to have been nearly a mile long hovering silently about 300 feet above the ground.” A summary report with drawings by the eyewitnesses has just ben assembled by a UFO investigator, and a transcript of an interview with one of the witnesses is published here. Earthfiles

Astronomers find planet around Spock’s “home star”. “According to some Star Trek lore, the

planet Vulcan, homeworld of Mr. Spock, is

a rocky, arid planet orbiting the nearby

star Epsilon Eridani. Now, astronomers

say they’ve found a planet orbiting the

star – but it doesn’t exactly match the

description of Vulcan.” exn.ca

Gut reactions: Scientists discover ‘second brain’ in the stomach. “Scientists are claiming to have discovered a second

brain – in the human stomach.

The breakthrough, involving experts in the US and

Germany, is believed to play a major part in the way

people behave.

This ‘second brain’ is made up of a knot of brain nerves

in the digestive tract. It is thought to involve around 100

billion nerve cells – more than held in the spinal cord.

Researchers believe this belly brain may save

information on physical reactions to mental processes

and give out signals to influence later decisions. It may

also be responsible in the creation of reactions such as

joy or sadness.” Ananova

Poland: Committee Warns against Revival of UFO Sect. ‘A national sect-monitoring

committee has issued a warning about the revival of an “apocalyptic

Polish sect” called Antrovis. It sees salvation in the landing of UFOs

on a southern Polish mountain and has been linked to the alleged

disappearances of individuals.’ The sect allows as how, when the saucers land, all terrestrials who are not sect members will be exterminated. Central Europe Online

Retailers’ Siren Song. “…your buying habits are being

mapped almost as closely as the human genome,

manipulated like Pavlov’s dog, and seduced like the

American electorate every fourth November.” Why not know what they know? Training about their insidious uses of consumer psychology may help stop you from being ‘had.’ Kiplinger’s

Bush is behaving like the U.S. version of

Milosevic, ‘telling Al Gore

“to hurry up and concede before the people find out I

really lost the election.” ‘

The man who says he wants to be “a uniter, not a divider”

and that he “trusts the people,” doesn’t give a damn that

some 20,000 voters in Florida were disenfranchised one

way or another – and the numbers keep rising. Or is it that

he figures if the country’s and world’s eyes are diverted

away from Florida, he can somehow save his baby

brother [Florida Governor] Jeb’s hide?

Jeb seemed mighty uncomfortable as he stood before the

cameras at a press conference Wednesday, rolling his

lower lip over his upper, his beady eyes darting about as

he announced he was recusing himself from the election

certification commission. State Attorney General Bob

Butterworth, a Democrat, was visibly shaken.

Does Butterworth know something we don’t? As the

state’s chief law enforcement officer, could he be

wrestling with bringing charges against Jeb and all the

constitutional officers engaged in this debacle?

Jeb promised George W. that he would deliver Florida to

him. What he left out of that statement was how he

planned to accomplish that. An investigation and a reform

of Florida’s election law are surely in order.

Florida has a long history of election fraud. So it takes a

grand stretch of the imagination to believe that so many

Florida voters and election officials are bumbling idiots,

when the funny business stretched from north to south and

east to west.

Perhaps Floridians and the nation should have paid more

attention to the 1997 election fraud in Miami. That ended

when Mayor Xavier Suarez’s election was overturned

because of fraud involving absentee ballots. City

Commissioner Humerto Hernandez, along with 13 other

elected officials and volunteers, were convicted and

sentenced to 364 days in prison for their roles in helping

to steal the election for Hernandez.

Now we learn that Suarez sits on the executive committee

of the Miami-Dade Republican Party and, in this year’s

election, was specifically involved in recruiting absentee

voters and helping to fill out absentee ballot forms. Do

you smell something rotten here?

Two breaking scandals drive Bush’s rush to

claim presidency. “Thursday afternoon the Bush

campaign scrambled frantically to seize the presidency as

it came closer to slipping out of its hands. Cabinet

appointments were announced, plans for a victory

celebration were underway, and old Bush associates were

called in to lend an air of authority.

The rush was necessary because of two breaking scandals

now nipping at Bush’s heels that could ultimately render

him ineligible for the office or heavily damaged as

president.

Bush has been accused of a deception in a Texas jury

questionnaire that has been characterized as perjury. He is

also under fire for refusing to release his military records,

despite numerous requests from the press and from

veterans groups who have provided documentation that

Bush deserted his National Guard post duty from May

1972 to May 1973.” Online Journal