Diamond trade fuels bloody wars. “It is the poorest country in the world and it is
conceivable that the diamond ring being enjoyed by a young woman in the
richest part of the world could have resulted in the dismemberment of a young
woman in Sierra Leone.” CNN [via Medley]

Lower Pneumonia Risk in Some With AIDS. “Researchers
are offering additional evidence
that people infected with the AIDS
virus can safely stop taking drugs
designed to prevent a deadly
pneumonia as long as their immune
systems are relatively healthy.” The risk of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, an opportunistic infection that was one of the early causes of devastation in HIV-infected patients, has consigned a generation of AIDS sufferers to preventive therapy. This new finding is important both because of the possibility they do not have to take pneumocystis-preventing meds but also as a paradigm. If the immune system with modern AIDS treatment can be kept vigorous enough to prevent this infection, patients may be at lower risk than commonly thought from other infections that prey on immune-compromised hosts. New York Times

Britney Spears guide to Semiconductor Physics:

“It is a little known fact, that Ms Spears is an
expert in semiconductor physics. Not
content with just singing, in the following
pages, she will guide you in the
fundamentals of the vital laser components
that have made it possible to hear her super
music in a digital format.”

“It’s really remarkable. The 21st Century comes to a Vermont boy!”
Parkinson’s Sufferer Improves After Surgery. The procedure implanted a pacemaker-like device in the 37 year-old man’s chest, to electrically stimulate parts of the brain and block the impulses causing his tremors. WCVB Boston

Kumbh Mela update: devotee photo gallery. Reuters [via Robot Wisdom] Recent news stories from the festival. Yahoo News

A collection of articles in the latest issue of New Scientist takes a look at what the illegitimate son is likely to do as commander-in-chief of the world’s largest scientific research budget:

Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars Project is Back

<a href=”http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns22747
“>Environmentalists Fear the Worst

<a href=”http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns22748
“>Big Science Gets the Silent Treatment

Will Embryonic Stem Cell Research Grind to a Halt?

Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way New York Times

California in State of Emergency Over Power, Hundreds of thousands of people in a swath from the Oregon border to Bakersfield had their power cut temporarily in rolling blackouts; frantic efforts to buy power from the Northwest grid were unsuccessful as other utility companies refused to sell, citing the near-bankruptcy of California’s two largest utility companies. Traffic lights and ATM machines stopped functioning.

When I read Samuel Delaney’s Dhalgren — which someone has neatly described as the first novel of “ambiguous heterotopia” — several decades ago, it burned itself into my consciousness as an archetype — chaotic life in the ruins of the metropolis after some vague, unnamed apocalypse. Nothing as specific as those (often clumsy) novels explicitly posing the aftermath of nuclear war, which was the only apocalyptic referent I had in those days, so it never seemed possible we’d actually live it during my lifetime. But if I were living in California right now, I might think I was on the doorstep… “…not with a bang but a whimper”?