Chickens may fight Cancer

(This article was first published at www.newswise.com via JPost) The common barnyard chicken could provide some very un-common clues for fighting off diseases and might even offer new ways to attack cancer, according to a team of international researchers that includes a Texas A&M University professor.

James Womack, Distinguished Professor of Veterinary Pathobiology in the College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, is co-author of a paper detailing the team’s work that appears in the current issue of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists). Womack was a leader in the international effort to sequence the cattle genome in 2004.
Womack and the team, comprised mostly of scientists from the Seoul National University in Korea, examined 62 White Leghorn and 53 Cornish chickens for diversity in NK-lysin, an antibacterial substance that occurs naturally in animals and is used as a method of fighting off diseases.
They were able to obtain two genetic variations of NK-lysin and the results offered two unexpected shockers: both showed abilities to fight off bacterial infections and other diseases, while one showed it could successfully fight cancer cells as well.
“It took all of us by surprise,” Womack says of the findings.
“One of the genetic variations shows it has the ability to fight against cancer cells much more aggressively than the other variation. We certainly were not looking at the cancer side of this, but there it was.”
Womack says the team selected the two breeds because Cornish and White Leghorn chickens, found throughout most of the world, have relatively diverse genetic origins.
After conducting a DNA sequence of the chickens, the team found two variations of the genes that offered clues as to their protective ability to ward off infections.
“One form appears to be more potent in killing off cancer cells than the other, and that’s the one that naturally caught our eye,” Womack adds.
“This could lead to other steps to fight cancer or in developing ways to prevent certain infections or even diseases. It’s another door that has been opened up. We are looking at similar studies right now to see if this is possible with cattle.
“The next step is to work with other animals and see if similar variants exist. We need to look for any genetic similarities to the chicken variants and then determine if these variants affect the health of the animal, but this is an exciting first step in this direction.”

bok bok bok bok bok bok bok bok

Obama Administration Broadens Gender Quotas in Higher Ed

Last week, the Obama Administration issued new regulations broadening Title IX of the Higher Education Act—the part of law barring sex-based discrimination in education programs typically associated with high school and college sports—to explicitly include science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.

As many commentators have noted, this new policy could effectively create science quotas and once again shows that the Administration is focused on equality of outcomes, not equality of opportunity. As Charlotte Allen notes over at Minding the Campus:

When college women study science, they tend to gravitate toward biology—about 58 percent of all bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in biology go to women. In contrast, women earn some 17 percent of bachelor’s degrees in engineering and computer science and just over 40 percent of bachelor’s degrees in physical sciences and mathematics. The likely reason for this, found in the study “The Mathematics of Sex” (2009) by Cornell psychologists Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, is that women tend to be drawn to “organic” fields involving people and living things, whereas men are more interested in the objects and abstractions that are the focus of STEM majors.

Yet the Obama administration sticks closely to the hard-line feminist argument that the problem is bias: women are somehow being denied access to STEM courses.

As Hans Bader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes, existing Title IX regulations have restricted the number of men participating in sports to the overall percentage of men that make up the student body, which has limited sports options for men at universities. Carrie Lukas of the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) echoes that analysis:

As a result, while Title IX succeeded in creating opportunities for women, it has also robbed men of similar opportunities.…

Title IX has contributed to the elimination of scores of men’s athletic teams (commonly baseball, wrestling, gymnastics, track and field, swimming, and crew) and the near extinction of some sports (like gymnastics) for men at the college level.

While women are underrepresented in some academic areas, they are also overrepresented in others. And if the Administration’s new Title IX guidance were applied evenly, opportunities for women in other fields would be limited. But as education researcher Joanne Jacobs notes, “don’t hold your breath waiting for Title IX enforcers to crack down on college English departments.”

Could there be any worse way to ensure access to science education? Pulling down men to alleviate a nonexistent problem plaguing women is surely no way to improve academic opportunity for everyone.

As Allen concludes: “The use of Title IX to force universities to restructure their curricula and alter the composition of their hard-science and engineering departments in order to achieve a supposed gender equity that matches neither the aptitudes nor the interests of many women isn’t just heavy-handed and totalitarian. As study after study indicates, it’s bad science as well.” And as IWF’s Sabrina Schaeffer writes:

Before we look to broaden the parameters of Title IX, we ought to give serious thought to the question: Is gender parity in the sciences really necessary in order to have gender equality? Can we accept that men and women see the world differently and choose to engage in different disciplines? Perhaps then we can finally value the differences men and women each bring to the table.

Fifty-seven percent of students enrolling in college in 2010 were women, the same year that women surpassed men for the first time in doctoral degrees earned. Moreover, the coming higher education revolution, which is harnessing the power of online options to bring down costs and improve access, will have a far greater impact on ensuring that everyone has access to educational opportunity than the Administration’s top-down regulations ever will.

via blog.heritage.org

So when can we expect Obama to establish quotas in any English Departments? It'd be nice to throw out a few twats. What was it that Lawrence Summers said... wait... now I remember.... oh yeaH... ladies suck at MATH!

Updated: Bulgarian press names bomber: Mehdi Ghezali

(challahhuakbar) in January, Bulgaria tried to hush reports that suggested that Jews and Israelis were being targeted in the country. According to Haaretz, “Several internet sites in Bulgaria reports that government authorities ignored warnings and alerts by Israeli and Russian sources over a possible attack.”

note: we don't know is Ghezali was the killer yet. There is a lot of disinfo right now

(timesofisrael.com)Terrorist said to have been a Swedish citizen with a history of Muslim extremist activities. Ghezali was reportedly a Swedish citizen, with Algerian and Finnish origins. He had been held at the US’s Guantanamo Bay detainment camp on Cuba from 2002 to 2004, having previously studied at a Muslim religious school and mosque in Britain, and traveled to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. He was also reportedly among 12 foreigners captured trying to cross into Afghanistan in 2009.(weeklystandard.com)In late 2001, Ghezali, a Swedish national, had been detained during the battle at Tora Bora, Afghanistan, handed over to the American military, and sent to the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. According to his lawyers, he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although he spoke none of the local languages, Ghezali told his captors, in the midst of the Taliban's retreat into the mountainous hinterlands of Afghanistan, he had crossed that country's border with Pakistan to study Islam.After an intense lobbying effort by Swedish prime minister Göran Persson--and a vague promise that the country's intelligence services would keep a watchful eye on him--Ghezali was delivered to Sweden (on the government's private Gulfstream jet). The Swedish daily (Dagens Nyhete) noted that Ghezali had achieved "rock star status" upon returning to his homeland, a native victim of America's rapacious imperialism. And after two-plus years in isolation, the emotionally fragile former prisoner would be happy to discover "that a majority of Swedes were glad that he was home."

RT @cerenomri: Flashback: Amnesty Intl blasts United States based on testimony from #burgas bomber Ghezali, bc he's reliable t.co ...
— Elizabeth (@ElizabetAmichai) July 19, 2012

In 2004, Sweden provided govt money to help #Burgas bomber to sue the US, something rarely done against outside govts. dn.se/nyheter/sverig…
— elderofziyon (@elderofziyon) July 19, 2012

RT @cerenomri: RT @joe86pw: Watch Mehdi Ghezali on Youtube at 01:09:45 and shiver. youtu.be/Z6AhmbRqSgU @michaeldweiss #burgas #israel
— Elizabeth (@ElizabetAmichai) July 19, 2012

The five Israelis killed in Wednesday’s terror attack are Amir Menashe, 27; Itzik Kolengi, 27; Maor Harush, 26; Elior Priess, 26 and Kochava Shriki, 42, Israel announced Thursday evening.
The five fatalities from the attack were set to be flown home on Thursday evening. A ceremony was being planned for their arrival, with Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov set to represent the government.
(Israel releases the names of the five victims of the Burgas terror attack | The Times of Israel)

Innocence lost. The faces of the 5 #Israelis whose lives were mercilessly taken in the #Bulgaria #terror attack. twitter.com/ArsenOstrovsky…
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@ArsenOstrovsky) July 19, 2012

Now Bulgarian terrorist attack is a false flag operation by Mossad. Thank you, Haaretz.

There is nothing new in this conspiracy idea. Every time a Jew somewhere in the world falls victim to a terrorist attack, the usual crowd comes out with the "discovery" of another Mossad "false flag" operation. The same happened less than 24 hours after the bomb went of in Burgas: the Internet is full of this oldest conspiracy theory: Mossad done it: just browse for "burgas airport false flag mossad" and count the hits.
But even a conspiracy theorist - not the brightest bulb on Earth - usually provides a reason for the Mossad atrocity. This time even the dimmest of the dim were able to do so - with courteous assistance from... an Israeli newspaper. Yes, Haaretz, whose scribe, Amir Oren, hastily produced the following:

There is really no need to read the article, 99.9% of its contents appears in that snapshot. Notice also the deft replacement of a "terrorist act" (or similar) by "Israeli intelligence failure". A certain contribution to the newspapermen's lexicon, for sure.
Vermin...

via simplyjews.blogspot.com

This is just obscene, but it helps one keep objective about how serious to consider the media when they slur Israel for protecting itself