THE REAL COST OF WAR

Now that the number of deaths of American soldiers in Iraq has reached 2000, you might want to look at this photo essay. You can ignore the anti-Bush rhetoric and just look at the pictures. It's painful to watch it all, but I found it very moving:
http://www.magnuminmotion.com/bitterfruit/intro.html

GOOD MEDICAL NEWS

I just got back from the doctor, and before I got the experimental drug (Avastin) which isn’t even approved for lung cancer yet. the cancer had spread to my lymph glands, and one doctor guy gave me two years at most. I got back the results of the latest PET scan today, and the cancer has disappeared from my lymph glands totally (!), the main tumor has stayed the same or maybe shrunk a little. There’s a little something on an adrenal gland, but that’s always been there and may be nothing. So the short version is I’m getting better, and this opens up options down the road for surgery or radiation if things continue to get better.
I read a study recently that said PET scans of the lymph nodes have a 50% false positive rate so I may never have had any cancer there. But in any case, I'm pleased. It means they can consider procedures that may lead to a cure. Now I'm looking forward to old age!

INCREDIBLY COOL M.I.T. EXPERIMENT

Is the old tale that Archimedes was able to set ships on fire with mirrors true? Most people say it isn't, and the TV show Mythbusters claimed it was a myth as well. But then a professor at M.I.T. tried to test it. The results are here and they are pretty damn cool:
http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/lectures/10_ArchimedesResult.html

WHY I NEVER SHOP AT WAL-MART

This little video says it all: Click on "movies" then "big box mart"
http://jibjab.com/Home.aspx

A GRUELING DAY

Yesterday was not fun. After a morning devoted to a PET scan, in which I got radioactive anti-matter into my poor veins and waited around, I spent the afternoon getting more needles and two bags of chemo. The whole process took all day, and was painful, boring, and depressing. The odd thing is that, except for some persistent chest pain, and fatigue because my red blood cell counts are low, I feel pretty good---better than before. And my oxygen levels have gone up to 99%, which is, I think, a good thing, too. I won't know for a few weeks what the PET scan says, but I'm hoping. Until then I'm free of needles and chemo--- a bit of a break. The world of the sick is not a great place, but the nurses are very nice. And Sandy is, of course, wonderful.

THE LATEST RESEARCH

Went to the IG NOBEL lectures today and it was terrific. The talks were hilarious, and the experiments great—like the one where they filled a swimming pool with “mucus like” syrup to see if you could swim faster in syrup or in water, or the experiment that showed locusts scenes from Star Wars to test their reaction to stimuli. The interesting part was that all the experiments were in fact not only funny, but useful. The glob of tar that has dropped nine drops since 1927 was shown (longest running experiment in history). Lots of the stuff was illustrated with films and powerpoint. The story of the homosexual necrophiliac duck and the blackbird that has been banging against a glass window every day since June 2004 was the grand finale . Here’s the program--- all of it can be found on the website of the ignobels: improbable.com/

AGRICULTURAL HISTORY: James Watson of Massey University, New Zealand, for his scholarly study, "The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers." REFERENCE: "The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers: Reflections on an Aspect of Technological Change in New Zealand Dairy-Farming between the World Wars," James Watson, Agricultural History, vol. 78, no. 3, Summer 2004, pp. 346-60.

PHYSICS: John Mainstone and the late Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland, for patiently conducting an experiment that began in the year 1927 -- in which a glob of congealed black tar has been slowly, slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years. REFERENCE: "The Pitch Drop Experiment," B.J. Dalton and T. Parnell, European Journal of Physics, 1984, pp. 198-200.

MEDICINE: Gregg A. Miller of Oak Grove, Missouri, for inventing Neuticles -- artificial replacement testicles for dogs, which are available in three sizes, and three degrees of firmness. REFERENCES: US Patent #5868140,

PEACE: Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of Newcastle University, in the U.K., for monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie "Star Wars." REFERENCE: "Orthopteran DCMD Neuron: A Reevaluation of Responses to Moving Objects. I. Selective Responses to Approaching Objects," F.C. Rind and P.J. Simmons, Journal of Neurophysiology, vol. 68, no. 5, November 1992,

CHEMISTRY: Edward Cussler and Brian Gettelfinger of the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin, for conducting a careful experiment to settle the longstanding scientific question: can people swim faster in syrup or in water? REFERENCE: "Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup?" American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, Brian Gettelfinger and E. L. Cussler, vol. 50, no. 11, October 2004,

NUTRITION: Dr. Yoshiro Nakamats of Tokyo, Japan, for photographing and retrospectively analyzing every meal he has consumed during a period of 34 years (and counting).

FLUID DYNAMICS: Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow of International University Bremen, Germany and the University of Oulu , Finland; and Jozsef Gal of Loránd Eötvös University, Hungary, for using basic principles of physics to calculate the pressure that builds up inside a penguin, as detailed in their report "Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh -- Calculations on Avian Defaecation." PUBLISHED IN: Polar Biology, vol. 27, 2003, pp. 56-8.

QUICK MEDICAL UPDATE

Went for chemo Monday. My vitals were remarkably good, but the session knocked me out for a day and a half. After that, I felt really good--no chest pain, more energy. Except I'm losing my voice for some reason. Tuesday is the PET scan, which should clarify what's happening.

FOR THE DRUNK WHO HAS EVERYTHING

Set up one of these in your backyard--a real product!
http://www.airquee.co.uk/pub/
And, if you need a wine to go with it, try one of these:
http://www.bumwine.com/

THE GOOD OLD DAYS?

A true, forgotten story from the past can be found on this interesting website. Check out the Bath school disaster. Columbine was nothing new:
http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/bath/index.html
The research behind the story can be found HERE:
http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~bauerle/disaster.htm