November 2004 Archives

There are several articles on msnbc.com with more news on stem cell uses and research. As a matter of fact, there is so much stem cell news now that they have a Stem Cell Research Front Page.
Apparently, they have now found that "Urinary incontinence in women can be corrected by transplanting the patient’s own muscle-derived stem cells into the urethra to strengthen it". (more...) Since the vast majority of moral objections to stem cell research are about embryonic stem cells, it is encouraging to hear news about stems cells that come right from the patients own body.
California has passed a bill to spend $300 million dollars a year for ten years on stem cell research. (more...) Wisconsin has plans to invest $750 million in stem cell research. So while the Federal Government is restricting federally funded research sites, the states are throwing their money into the pot at a much greater rate than anything the Federal Government was spending anyway.
Will stem cells, maybe even ones taken right from our own bodies, turn out to be the miracle "cure all"???

This past weekend I had an occasion to try out the Gelstat. It is kind of odd to try and hold a liquid under your tongue for 60 seconds without swallowing. It did seem to help though. I have a lot of pressure from my sinuses right now which made it difficult to really tell the results, but the pressure subsided and the headache that usually follows the aura didn't materialize. I'll report again AFTER my sinus issues get solved.

I stumbled across a blog on Migraines. It is http://www.migrainedaily.com/. It contains a lot of information on things people are trying and links to interesting articles.

Mens Health magazine (Dec 04 issue) reports:

Mayo clinic researchers say the people with migraines often think they have sinus headaches, which prevents them from receiving the best treatment. When 100 patients who said they suffered from sinus headaches received neurological evaluations, 86 percent actually were found to have migraines, says study author Eric Eross, M.D. If you're plagues by headaches, visit a neurologist, who can give you a more accurate diagnosis than a family doctor or allergist.

The next time you think your job sucks, check out some of the jobs listed in Popluar Sciences worst jobs in science list. You could be an Anal Wart researcher or a tick dragger. Maybe instead of your "lousy" job you'd like to be a tampon squeezer? I think NOT! So just remember, maybe your job isn't so bad after all!!

It appears that scientists are starting to make some amazing breakthroughs using stem cells. A story in the Australian Herald Sun reports:

A SOUTH Korean woman paralyzed for 20 years is walking again after scientists say they repaired her damaged spine using stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood

RIO DE JANEIRO, November 23, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Brazilian scientists have successfully transplanted adult stem cells into a woman's brain, facilitating her recovery from a brain hemorrhage that left her paralyzed and unable to talk.

Maria da Graca Pomeceno, 54, had bone marrow stem cells taken from her pelvis and injected into her damaged brain. Local television broadcasts showed her walking up stairs and talking.

If these reports are true, then medical science is indeed taking some great strides forward. It would be wonderful if we could cure spinal cord and even brain injuries!
There is another story, however, that I find disturbing. It talks about injecting human stem cells into animals. This allows them to grow human organs, a liver or kidney for example, in an animal such as a sheep. This is all well and good for organ transplants. It is the injection of human stem cells into the brains of mice to grow mice with brains consisting of mostly "human" brain cells, along with other statements in this article that I find rather disturbing. A bioethicist, Joseph Fletcher, even "suggested that it would be ethical to create parahumans, e.g., human/animal hybrids to do dangerous and demeaning jobs." Do we REALLY need to do these kinds of things just because we CAN? Who gets to decide which actions are right and which are wrong? There are so many different countries in this world that have different views and ideals. One country may ban an action while another supports it.
The future excites me and scares me at the same time.

I received my first Christmas card today. As always, my first card came from Lynn. I find it amazing that she can have cards delivered before I've even gotten around to buying any. What makes it all worse is the fact that I know she's been done with her Christmas shopping for MONTHS!!!

My friend Joe forwarded me a link that I found hilarious! It's called the Dialectizer at http://rinkworks.com/dialect/. You give it any URL and it converts it into one a few different dialects such as "Redneck","Jive","Elmer Fudd" and more. Here is a piece of my blog converted to Elmer Fudd.

twip to the Awwewgist
Fow those of you who have nevew been to the Awwewgist, wet me expwain what happens. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit! Dey put a whowe bunch of awwewgens on the skin of youw foweawm.

Too Funny!!

And of course, leave it to someone from my home state of NH to come up with this!

"RinkWorks is a privately owned entertainment web site based in New Hampshire. "

For those of you who have never been to the Allergist, let me explain what happens. They put a whole bunch of allergens on the skin of your forearm. They leave that on for 15 minutes and then check to see if anything reacted. For all of those things that do not react, they shoot some of the allergen under the skin. Then they let that sit for 15 minutes to see what reacts. Well, NONE of them reacted on my skin. That meant I had the joy of getting 24 shots today. Of those 24, only 1 showed any indications. So, I have a mild allergy to mold. The Doc gave me a nasal spray to try out and a follow up appointment in a month. He said if this doesn't help then the next step is to talk to an Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) doctor. We'll see how it goes.

My friend Julie called me this weekend and invited me to the White House Christmas party. I figured if I'm going to be partying with the President, I should probably have a new suit. I don't think my ONE suit which is about 8 years old and getting a little...ummm...tight...is the right thing to wear to a party like this. So I planned on going and buying a new suit after work today. I just couldn't do it though. My sinuses are killing me! I would normally take something to help that, but I have an appointment with the Allergist tomorrow and I'm not allowed to take anything for 72 hours prior to that appointment. Hopefully they will figure out my problem and give me some miracle drug to stop the sinus pressure. I've been fighting this problem for a year or two now. I went to the doctor and they sent me for a CT scan of my sinuses. That came back "Normal with indications of allergies". So this is the next step I guess.
Thankfully, I have a couple weeks before I REALLY need that suit!

Well, in case you couldn't have guessed, I spent the majority of my afternoon watching the final NASCAR Nextel Cup race of the season. It was a great race! Mayhem started before the first lap was even completed. Almost all of the top 5 points contenders were at the back of the pack AND the front of the pack at some point in the day. At one point, I believe there was a total of an 11 point difference between them. Greg Biffle, who drives for Roush, won the race. Kurt Busch, who also drives for Roush, won the Championship. My favorite driver, Mark Martin (ALSO a Roush team driver) took 4th for the year. So, all in all, I'd say Jack Roush has a lot of celebrating to do!!
Now I guess I have to find something constructive to do with my Sunday's until Feb. 20th 2005 when then Daytona 500 kicks off next season.

I decided to do a little test of a few of the search engines to see what was returned from my website. Now everyone knows that Google is king of the hill right now, right? hmmm.... my search was "mustang site:mjonesweb.com" (without the quotes of course).

Google - 0 results returned (and yes, it has indexed my site)
MSN - 1 result returned
Altavista - 2 results returned (the correct answer)
Lycos - 2 results returned, after scrolling through MANY paid results
Yahoo - 2 results returned
AllTheWeb - 2 results returned

This kind of surprised me, especially since Google just started touting that it has doubled the size of it's index to over 8 billion web pages. The "My Cars" page existed at the time that Google first indexed my site, so why doesn't it have it in it's index? Google is supposed to be the best at relevance. It has my home page in it's index (search on alienware site:mjonesweb.com and it shows up), but it doesn't return it when you search on the word car. The word car IS on that first page. This is definitely an indicator that you just might be missing the boat if you limit yourself to just ONE search engine.

In all fairness, my blog does PING Yahoo every time I update it.

I started grid computing with the SETI project. Then I switched over to something that hits a little closer to home. I have now donated over 3 years of CPU time to Grid.org. I originally signed on for their cancer research project and then allowed for all non-profit research. My CPU has worked on Cancer, Anthrax, Smallpox and now the Human Proteome Folding Project. While the app allows you to run it only when the screen saver kicks on, I allow it to run all the time and it rarely affects anything I'm doing. I highly recommend that you stop wasting all those spare CPU cycles. Put them to good use in helping the world cure disease (or find alien life). You can read about it at Grid.org. Then just download the app and let it run!

Would you know it. I forgot to bring in some gelstat to work with me today and I ended up with a Migraine. Thankfully it was minor and didn't last long. I REALLY hate the aura... That's what I get for saying yesterday that the migraines had been few and far between lately...

I bought "GelStat Migraine" at CVS today. You would think that it being in this big red box would have made it easy to find. It was on the bottom shelf near the aspirin section and took me about 15 minutes to find. It was $6.99 for 4 doses. It takes 2 doses spread 5 minutes apart which means it should be about $3.50 per migraine. That's cheap if it works. I'll try it out the next time I get a migraine and report on how it works. Thankfully, the migraines have been few and far between lately so, it could be a while.

I received my December 2004 issue of Popular Science and it has an article about the Charite Artificial disc. It is a medical implant to replace a spinal disc and is an option to the spinal fusion surgery. Since back problems run in my family and I've already been diagnosed with some spinal and disc problems, I'm happy to see advances in this area. It's been in use for many years in Europe, but just received FDA approval here in October 2004.

It was great to see Mark Martin take second place today. Another five laps and I think he could have won the race. The final race is at Homestead next Sunday. The top five are all STILL in it which should make this final race quite exciting! It's still anyone’s championship to win!

I found out today that there is a new migraine medicine on the market. It is called gelstat. It is basically feverfew and ginger in a gel that gets placed under the tongue for quick absorbtion. Since it is homeopathic, it's non-prescription. I'll try anything once if there's a chance it will get rid of a migraine. If you've tried it, I'd love to hear from you...

As many of you already know, I'm a big Ford Mustang fan. I own a 1997 Mustang GT. Well, just a few months ago, I bought a new 2004 F150 FX4 due to the fact that the Mustang can't carry anything bigger than a bread box and is horrible in the snow. Now, I have a new love. The 2005 Ford Mustang GT.
While I was searching the web, I came across the TV commercials on TheMustangSource. I love the Corn Field commercial and they way the brought back Steve McQueen for the history of Bullitt. But the video I fell in love with is called Performance Trilogy. It just Kicks Ass! It has the 2005 Mustang, the new GT and the new concept Shelby Cobra. I find it interesting to watch the one corner where the GT and Mustang go through and the Mustang is sideways and the GT is just stuck to the road. I guess that's what an extra $120,000 can get you!

Well, I have finally setup a blog. I guess that means I have to think about what I actually have to say. There will be some changes coming. I'm learning about templates, categories, trackback pings and the like. As I get it all figured out I'll be changing the look and feel of this site and hopefully make it a little more functional too.