It is the RAF who now suffer the largest casualties in this area

As Captain B.J. Smethwick wrote:

As a naval officer I abhor the implication that the Royal Navy is a haven for cannibalism. It is well known that we now have the problem relatively under control, and that it is the RAF who now suffer the largest casualties in this area.

Perhaps only 1 in 60 to 1 in 20 in the Royal Navy are cannibals. 1.5% to 5%. Plus those Admirals, Captains and Commanders that cover for them. And the problem is a lot worse in the RAF.

Of course that is the comedy of the absurd.

This isn't though.

From the Grauniad:

The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its paedophilia crisis by saying the Catholic church was "busy cleaning its own house" and that the problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger.
...
The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that "available research" showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

One in twenty. One in TWENTY??? That they admit to?

I knew there was a problem - who couldn't? But this figure stunned me.

From an earlier article in the Grauniad:

The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.

The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'.

The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and threatens those who speak out with excommunication.

The original Latin document Crimen Sollicitationis is available online as a PDF. It was originally sent out sub secretum to all bishops.

There are many translations on the web, some of them distressingly imperfect. I believe this apologia issued by Catholic canon lawyers is truthful - as far as it goes.

A 1962 Vatican document ordering secrecy in cases of sexual misconduct by priests is not, according to canon lawyers, a "smoking gun" providing evidence of a cover-up of sex abuse orchestrated by Rome.

Civil attorneys handling lawsuits against the Catholic church have pointed to the document as evidence of obstruction of justice.

For one thing, canon lawyers say, the document was so obscure that few bishops had ever heard of it. For another, they say, secrecy in canonical procedures should not be confused with refusal to cooperate with civil authorities. The 1962 document would not have tied the hands of a bishop, or anyone else, who wanted to report a crime by a priest to the police.

The 39-page document, titled in Latin Crimen Sollicitationis, was issued in March 1962 by the Holy Office (today the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). It established a procedure for canonical cases in which priests were accused of abusing the confessional to sexually proposition penitents. Four concluding paragraphs extend the procedure to the crimen pessimum, or "worst crime," meaning homosexual acts contrary to a priest's celibate commitment. The document was not designed to address sexual abuse of minors, but would include many such violations.

Paragraph 11 of the document stipulates that such cases are covered by the "secret of the Holy Office," today known as pontifical secrecy, the strictest form of secrecy in church law. Excommunication is prescribed for anyone who violates this secrecy.

The document was itself to be kept secret. Instructions on Page One direct that it be stored in the secret archives of each diocese, and that it not be published or commented upon. Msgr. Thomas Green, canon law expert at The Catholic University of America, told NCR Aug. 4 that unlike most church legislation, Crimen Sollicitationis was never published in the official Vatican bulletin Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

The document recently came to light because it was referenced in a footnote to a May 18, 2002, letter from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation, to the bishops of the world regarding new procedures for sex abuse cases.

The intent appears to be to wash the Church's dirty laundry in private; to protect those found innocent as the result of diligent inquiry; to protect the privacy of the victims; and last but not least, to prevent damage to the Church as an institution from a "few bad apples".

Canon lawyers told NCR that secrecy in canonical cases serves three purposes. First, it is designed to allow witnesses and other parties to speak freely, knowing that their responses will be confidential. Second, it allows the accused party to protect his good name until guilt is established. Third, it allows victims to come forward without exposing themselves to publicity. The high degree of secrecy in Crimen Sollicitationis was also related to the fact that it dealt with the confessional.

Those motives for confidentiality, experts say, must be distinguished from a widespread "mentality" that sought to protect the church from scandal by not reporting sexual abuse by priests to the police. As a matter of canon law, the obligation of secrecy in canonical cases does not prohibit a bishop or other church officials from reporting crimes to the proper authorities.

Conflicts may arise, however, if civil authorities seek access to the secret acts of canonical procedures.

That Crimen Sollicitationis was not designed to "cover up" sex abuse, canonists say, is clear in paragraph 15, which obligates anyone with knowledge of a priest abusing the confessional for that purpose to come forward, under pain of excommunication for failing to do so. This penalty is stipulated, the document says, "lest [the offense] remain occult and unpunished and always with inestimable detriment to souls."

That may have been the intent. I think it genuinely was. The reality though was quite different.

Rev Thomas Doyle, a US Air Force chaplain in Germany and a specialist in Church law, has studied the document. He told The Observer: 'It is certainly an indication of the pathological obsession with secrecy in the Catholic Church, but in itself it is not a smoking gun.

'If, however, this document actually has been the foundation of a continuous policy to cover clergy crimes at all costs, then we have quite another issue. There are too many authenticated reports of victims having been seriously intimidated into silence by Church authorities to assert that such intimidation is the exception and not the norm.

'If this document has been used as a justification for this intimidation then we possibly have what some commentators have alleged, namely, a blueprint for a cover-up. This is obviously a big "if" which requires concrete proof.'

Concrete proof we have aplenty. This document has been (mis)interpreted by many Bishops to silence victims with the threat of Excommunication; to obstruct all investigations by secular authorities; to merely "move on" pedophiles to where they have new opportunities to rape children; and generally to cover-up, conceal, deny, obfuscate, and deny victims justice. All to protect the Church's good name.

And now the defence is that the "problem is far worse in the RAF". Returning to the original article:

He also quoted statistics from the Christian Scientist Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.

He added that sexual abuse was far more likely to be committed by family members, babysitters, friends, relatives or neighbours, and male children were quite often guilty of sexual molestation of other children.

The statement said that rather than paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

The statement concluded: "As the Catholic church has been busy cleaning its own house, it would be good if other institutions and authorities, where the major part of abuses are reported, could do the same and inform the media about it."

The Holy See launched its counter–attack after an international representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, Keith Porteous Wood, accused it of covering up child abuse and being in breach of several articles under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Porteous Wood said the Holy See had not contradicted any of his accusations. "The many thousands of victims of abuse deserve the international community to hold the Vatican to account, something it has been unwilling to do, so far. Both states and children's organisations must unite to pressurise the Vatican to open its files, change its procedures worldwide, and report suspected abusers to civil authorities."

It's about homosexuality you see. And sex with an 11 year old boy isn't really pedophilia. And, um, facts are stubborn things. And such conduct was looked at... differently... from the way it is today.

Diocesan attorney Thomas McCormick told the jury that church officials followed the advise of doctors and psychologists when they hired and then retained Paquette despite knowledge he had a history of sexually abused altar boys.

McCormick said the diocese does not deny that Paquette molested the former altar boy whose case against the diocese is the fifth to go to trial, or that then-Bishop John Marshall made a mistake in hiring Paquette.

But McCormick said the decision to employ Paquette was made during a time 35 years ago when conduct like Paquette's was looked at differently than today.

"Facts are stubborn things," McCormick told the jury.

The trial is the fifth priest molestation case to go before the jury in three years at the Burlington court.

With the best will in the world, giving the benefit of the doubt, being charitable to the greatest extent... forgiveness requires acknowledgement of the sin, and true repentance, freely and gladly given. The Church of all organisations should be aware of that.

I see no evidence of repentance, they're just sorry they got caught before they could deal with it internally - by sweeping it under the carpet, as they'd always done before. When such conduct was looked at quite differently from the way it is today.

Very Fishy

From the Abstract of Widespread occurrence of intersex in black basses (Micropterus spp.) from U.S. rivers, 1995–2004 by Hinck et al, Aquatic Toxology 2009.08.001

Intersex occurrence in freshwater fishes was evaluated for nine river basins in the United States. Testicular oocytes (predominantly male testes containing female germ cells) were the most pervasive form of intersex observed, even though similar numbers of male (n = 1477) and female (n = 1633) fish were examined. Intersex was found in 3% of the fish collected. The intersex condition was observed in four of the 16 species examined (25%) and in fish from 34 of 111 sites (31%). Intersex was not found in multiple species from the same site but was most prevalent in largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides; 18% of males) and smallmouth bass (M. dolomieu; 33% of males). The percentage of intersex fish per site was 8–91% for largemouth bass and 14–73% for smallmouth bass.
...
Intersex was not found in largemouth bass older than five years and was most common in 1–3-year-old male largemouth bass. The cause(s) of intersex in these species is also unknown, and it remains to be determined whether the intersex we observed in largemouth and smallmouth bass developed during sex differentiation in early life stages, during exposure to environmental factors during adult life stages, or both.

The fact that no IS largemouth bass were found suggests two alternative possibilities: the first, that the IS condition reduces lifespan in this species; the second, that something new has happened in the last 5 years.

From Jacksonville.com

Signs of jumbled hormones that trouble creatures from turtles to alligators have now turned up in a superstar of sportfishing - the largemouth bass.

Almost one in five male largemouths from rivers around the country had microscopic egg cells inside their testes, said Jo Ellen Hinck, a biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey who worked on a nine-year project to test fish from more than 100 locations.

Bass were among just a few kinds of fish where the study found those characteristics, which researchers labeled as intersex features.

And though she doesn't know why, Hinck said bass in the Southeast were especially affected.
...
The Apalachicola River was the only Florida waterway checked. Sixty percent of the bass tested at Blountstown were intersex.
...
While other scientists have tested obviously polluted rivers for damaged wildlife, this was the most comprehensive fish research yet, said Hinck.

His last research was published last month in the journal Aquatic Toxicology.

And it raised new questions, because bass in remote areas that seemed to have little pollution had the same issues as fish caught in cities.

The rates differ markedly geographically, suggesting a variable common to these IS "hotspots". But pollution per se doesn't appear to be responsible. A particular chemical may be. Or some other common environmental factor. And the causal mechanism is unknown, but appears species-specific.

Science is like that sometimes, more questions than answers.

Scooter and Cowboy Hat, circa 1962

I think it was on my third birthday that I got the Cowboy hat.

One of the few photos that exist of me. As I grew older, I became more and more self-conscious about my body. Not that anyone realised that, least of all me. I just didn't like having my picture taken, for some reason.

Google Maps shows that where the shed used to be is now the boundary of another house - it was a large block, and the new owners sold some - and the fields in the background, with the large tree in the middle, that's now the suburb of New Earley, with medium-density townhouses crammed cheek-by-jowl, and housing a quarter of a million people.

The past is another country. We are all immigrants from there, and can never go back.

Putting the Nazi in FemiNazi

Playing the victim too.

We separatists are to tolerate Jew children, ex-Yid converts, “good” Jews, and the Aryans who would lay their lives down for them in our spaces – and in return for what? Are these Jew-lovers going to be as tolerant of our objections as we’re supposed to be of their Jew kith and kin? Or are we going to be called bullies and “police” the second we point out that their jew-spawn aren’t any better than the rest of them, that their marriages aren’t any better than anyone else’s, and that their christianised Yid friend is still just as Jewish as he was the day he was born? See, not only are separatists to tolerate the presence of these Jews – both in the flesh, and, unceasingly it seems, in the discourse of the Aryans who love them – but we’re then to stifle any opinions we might have on the matter, so as to spare the feelings of Aryans who give more of a shit about Jews than they do about the feelings of Aryans who’d rather not deal with them.

That is a close quote from AROOO. Not a Nazi site as such, but close enough. What was actually said - I swapped 2 linguistic tokens - was this:

We separatists are to tolerate male children, tranny males, “good” men, and the women who would lay their lives down for them in our spaces – and in return for what? Are these man-lovers going to be as tolerant of our objections as we’re supposed to be of their male kith and kin? Or are we going to be called bullies and “police” the second we point out that their boys aren’t any better than the rest of them, that their marriages aren’t any better than anyone else’s, and that their surgically mutilated tranny friend is still just as male as he was the day he was born? See, not only are separatists to tolerate the presence of these males – both in the flesh, and, unceasingly it seems, in the discourse of the women who love them – but we’re then to stifle any opinions we might have on the matter, so as to spare the feelings of women who give more of a shit about males than they do about the feelings of women who’d rather not deal with them.

This is a branch of Radical Feminism that is malignant. The degree of the malignity is illustrated by my first quote. I could have substituted other tokens, "White" and "Black" for example. Which tokens are used doesn't matter, and neither does the order: what matters is the underlying malignancy.

And rather than "stifling" such opinions, I think they should be exposed, and widely publicised. Along with the names of those that espouse them. "People" who object to "tolerating" male children.

The Effects of Hormones on the Brain

Two for the reference library:

Changing your sex changes your brain: influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure by Pol et al, Europ Jnl Endocrinology, Vol 155, suppl_1, S107-S114 2006

Abstract

Objective: Sex hormones are not only involved in the formation of reproductive organs, but also induce sexually-dimorphic brain development and organization. Cross-sex hormone administration to transsexuals provides a unique possibility to study the effects of sex steroids on brain morphology in young adulthood.

Methods: Magnetic resonance brain images were made prior to, and during, cross-sex hormone treatment to study the influence of anti-androgen + estrogen treatment on brain morphology in eight young adult male-to-female transsexual human subjects and of androgen treatment in six female-to-male transsexuals.

Results: Compared with controls, anti-androgen + estrogen treatment decreased brain volumes of male-to-female subjects towards female proportions, while androgen treatment in female-to-male subjects increased total brain and hypothalamus volumes towards male proportions.


Conclusions: The findings suggest that, throughout life, gonadal hormones remain essential for maintaining aspects of sex-specific differences in the human brain.

In other words, sex hormones cause gross changes in volume in some brain structures.

However....

Neuroimaging Differences in Spatial Cognition between Men and Male-to-Female Transsexuals Before and During Hormone Therapy by Scoening et al J Sex Med. 2009 Sep 14.

ABSTRACT

Introduction. Neuropsychological abnormalities in transsexual patients have been reported in comparison with subjects without gender identity disorder (GID), suggesting differences in underlying neurobiological processes. However, these results have not consistently been confirmed. Furthermore, studies on cognitive effects of cross-sex hormone therapy also yield heterogeneous results.

Aim. We hypothesized that untreated transsexual patients differ from men without GID in activation pattern associated with a mental rotation task and that these differences may further increase after commencing of hormonal treatment.

Method. The present study investigated 11 male-to-female transsexual (MFTS) patients prior to cross-sex hormone therapy and 11 MFTS patients during hormone therapy in comparison with healthy men without GID. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging at 3-Tesla, a mental rotation paradigm with proven sexual dimorphism was applied to all subjects. Data were analyzed with SPM5.

Main Outcome Measures. Patterns of brain activation associated with a mental rotation task. Results. The classical mental rotation network was activated in all three groups, but significant differences within this network were observed. Men without GID exhibited significantly greater activation of the left parietal cortex (BA 40), a key region for mental rotation processes. Both transsexual groups revealed stronger activation of temporo-occipital regions in comparison with men without GID.

Conclusions. Our results confirmed previously reported deviances of brain activation patterns in transsexual men from men without GID and also corroborated these findings in a group of transsexual patients receiving cross-sex hormone therapy. The present study indicates that there are a priori differences between men and transsexual patients caused by different neurobiological processes or task-solving strategies and that these differences remain stable over the course of hormonal treatment.

Some things change, some things don't. The brain's plasticity is limited, and trans women don't have the neuroanatomy men do, regardless of whether they are on Hormone Replacement Therapy or not.

And another thing that doesn't change: the labelling of trans women as "transsexual men" even when reporting clear evidence that they're no such thing. *SIGH*

Dune Buggy

Dune Buggy on Flash-Game.net - Andrew's new favourite game. He's gotten to level 8 already - can you?

The Face of the Persecuted

Testimony before a US Congressional committee on whether an employment non-discrimination act is necessary or not.



It doesn't get more blatant than that, does it?

Porcine Intersex

I've blogged about Equine Intersex before. Intersex conditions are found in all mammals though - reptiles and birds too for that matter. Amphibians. Fish. In some species, those which are dichogamous, they get a natural and complete sex-change.

Here's one genetic Intersex condition I wasn't aware of though:
Investigations into the relative abundance of Intersexual pigs (Sus sp.) in the Republic of Vanuatu.

The existence and great abundance of a unique form of pig intersexuality was verified on the northernmost islands of Vanuatu.

Morphological examinations were conducted on 54 pigs from the islands of Malo, Ambae, and Aore. Through blood analysis, estradiol and testosterone levels were derived. Subsequent comparisons of the estradiol/testosterone ratio yielded results consistent with "maleness". Fifty-one dental and mandibular measurements of the Vanuatu Sus. sp. specimens plotted within the feral swine target group.

Behaviorally, the Vanuatu intersex pig exhibits periods of aggressiveness that generally coincide with a sow in heat. When encountered in the "bush", the naravé (local name for the intersexual pig) is a stronger and more aggressive adversary than the "normal" native wild pig. Six gross dissections yielded totally male internal sex organs. Four separate graduations or phases of the intersexual condition are described according to their external genitalia. The phases of intersexuality appeared to be an inherited trait. Certain sows (called falé-ravé) are known intersex producers and 20% of their offspring will be intersexual.

...
A similar account is given by the Sakau people, but their interesting classification of the Naravé separates them into 7 groups according to their external genitalia. They are as follows(4):

1. Ndré-rasa - The "feminine" intersex - The external appearance is essentially that of the female, except for the presence, in adults, of tusks. The testes are situated within the abdomen. 2. Ndré-runedh - "sprouting coconut" intersex - Small projection by the vulva, with testicles sometimes descended into scrotum. 3. Ndré-narsogh - "sewn up" intersex - occasionally the urinary projection is situated in the scrotal region but the urinary external orifice is occluded. Soon after birth locals would make a small incision to allow normal urination. 4. Ndré-ghara - "fruit bat" intersex - the urinary projection is long and situated at the back of the testicles resembling the genitalia of the local bat. 5. Ndré-nau - "rat" intersex - Genitalia resemble those of the rat. 6. Ndré-ghor-ghor - "hidden" intersex - The urinary projection is smaller like that of the Ndré-nau, but it is not visible when viewed from behind. 7. Ndré-selet - "worm" intersex - There is a further enlargement of the corpus cavernosum moving the projection yet further on the abdomen with a resultant "worm-like" extrusion from the end.

These, as with the Authors classifications, commonly overlapped each other and at times were difficult to categorize. There does, however, seem to be a genetic influence involved in the inheritance of these conditions as certain families of animals in specific localities show there is clearly an inherited tendency to certain phases of this abnormality.

As with Intersex conditions generally, there are huge gaps in our knowledge here. It would seem that this is an ideal area to experiment in, a relatively small genetic pool, ethical considerations only appropriate to highly intelligent animals rather than people.... I hope the Southwest Pacific Research Foundation gets additional funding to follow this up.

88, Not Out

Here's a finely crafted short film that touches the heart. Nothing of any great worth and moment in the grand scheme of things, just another ordinary, everyday heroine.

The kind of people you see every day. The kind of people whose lives should be celebrated, rather than many of the "celebrities".



It's pieces of art like this - for such cinematography is an art form - that makes me marvel at the diversity and talent of the human species. The editing, the camerawork, they are areas I know nothing about yet can appreciate good work when I see it, even if I lack both training and talent to do anything nearly as good. My talents lie in other areas.

Oh yes - I've been in contact with Ms Russell. The lump was benign.

For a Friend of Mine

From Spider Robinson:

HELP JEANNE STAY HEALTHY

Earlier his year a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Andresz Busczowski, helped Jeanne Robinson beat back a rare and virulent form of biliary cancer. But it’s so rare even he can’t say how much time he‘s bought her, how soon it might recur—and her latest blood tests have been so discouraging they’ve now decided she needs to start chemotherapy as soon as possible. Besides the prescription drugs to counteract the chemotherapy, she needs special therapies and supplements, counseling, and extensive diet and lifestyle changes, to reduce her stress level and the strain on her liver to as close to zero as possible. All those things are expensive...and like many artists today the Robinsons were already running on fumes financially.

But Jeanne, a Soto Zen monk, has been spreading love and kindness in all directions for a long time. So her Buddhist sangha in Vancouver, her neighbors on Bowen Island, and friends as far away as Florida have all spontaneously come together to raise funds to help keep her around as long as possible. Your participation is welcomed.

Another way to help would be to buy their books from Amazon by clicking-through from the site http://www.spiderrobinson.com/books.html, so Jeanne and Spider can get the affiliate commission. All three of us promise you an entertaining read.

A number of people have donated things - it's too late to get a Dinner with Harlan Ellison, but not too late to get rare, signed first editions from major SF authors, and all manner of unique memorabilia over at the Jeanne Robinson Benefit Auction at e-bay.

You can read Jeanne’s recent blog entry, The Third Act, to get a sense of how she’s feeling at http://stardancemovie.blogspot.com/.

Checks made to 'Jeanne Robinson' can be sent to

First Credit Union,

Box 190

101-475 Trunk Road,

Bowen Island, BC

V0N 1G0

Donate by PayPal

Jeanne's Paypal account is here. Send via paypal to jeannedream@gmail.com

Just click on the button if you have a PayPal account or a Credit Card.

Spider got one bit slightly wrong. It's not as far away as Florida. It's from as far away as Australia now.

Gender Testing of Female Athletes - An Interactive Guide

From the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Biointeractive Teaching Aids

A Comment so good.....

I wish I'd made it myself.

Regarding your contention Semenya "did cheat" because she and her trainers/handlers were allegedly aware of her IS condition, internal testes, etc., this is the crux of the issue- if rules are rules, then what are the applicable rules?

From the IAAF's own website-

6. Conditions that should be allowed:

(a) Those conditions that accord no advantage over other females:

- Androgen insensitivity syndrome (Complete or almost complete - previously called testicular feminization);

- Gonadal dysgenesis (gonads should be removed surgically to avoid malignancy);

- Turner’s syndrome.

(b) Those conditions that may accord some advantages but nevertheless acceptable:

- Congenital adrenal hyperplasia;
- Androgen producing tumors;
- Anovulatory androgen excess (polycystic ovary syndrome).

http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/imported/36983.pdf.

As I read the above, the *only* bit of wiggle room that might make the cheating accusation stick in Semenya's case is the part about "Complete or almost complete" AIS...it would all fall to the question of whether or not her AIS is complete enough...and the rules don't define that.

Besides that, there's this-

B.Current IAAF Policy
In 1992,the Medical Committee recommended and the Council adopted the current policy on gender verification,which states:

1.The general “health check ” is strongly recommended,but no longer required.

2.Visual examination of the genitalia during the delivery of a urine specimen in the women ’s doping control station is a sufficient method of determining whether the athlete is male or female.The risk of a male being discovered during the doping control procedure is sufficient deterrent to prevent males from attempting to compete as females.

http://www.iaaf.org/mm/Document/imported/42028.pdf

Seems to me that she did everything according to IAAF rules, so I fail to understand why she is being demonized rather than those who wrote those rules...?

Credit and Kudos to Tina.

Curiouser and Curiouser

A Brain post from The Medical News :

Scientists from the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto have discovered a molecular link between intelligence and curiosity, which may lead to the development of drugs to improve learning.

In a paper, published in Neuron, Dr. John Roder, Senior Investigator at the Lunenfeld, and Bechara Saab, Ph.D candidate at the Lunenfeld, studied the interaction of two proteins in a small region of the brain called the dentate gyrus (part of the hippocampus, which plays a role in long-term memory and spatial navigation).

For the study, the neuronal calcium sensor-1 (NCS-1), a protein which is known to affect the memory of worms and is linked to bipolar and schizophrenia in people, was increased by one-and-a-half fold specifically in the dentate gyrus of mouse models. This modest overexpression increased the ability of brain cells to change how they communicate with each other and gave the mice superior memory in complex tasks and a significant increase in exploratory behaviour (curiosity). Because the exploratory behaviour was only altered in safe environments, Dr. Roder and Saab believe they have discovered a region of the brain that generates curiosity and a model for how brain activity leads to curiosity.

Another part of the puzzle of how we think.

For Medicinal Purposes Only, of course.

From the New York Times :

In a study that will provide comfort to chocoholics everywhere, researchers in Sweden have found evidence that people who eat chocolate have increased survival rates after a heart attack — and it may be that the more they eat, the better.
...
Compared with people who ate none, those who had chocolate less than once a month had a 27 percent reduction in their risk for cardiac death, those who ate it up to once a week had a 44 percent reduction and those who indulged twice or more a week had a 66 percent reduced risk of dying from a subsequent heart event. The beneficial effect remained after controlling for intake of other kinds of sweets.

Make mine Lindt 80% cocoa mass dark chocolate please, three times a week. For medicinal purposes only, of course.

It's not just humans

From the AFP :

The future of a female Australian racing horse was thrown into doubt Tuesday after its trainer revealed it was a hermaphrodite with internal testes and high testosterone levels, reports said.
...
Trainer Les Kosklin told Fairfax newspapers that officials raided his stables after the race, suspecting doping, and a swab revealed the pacer's testosterone levels were "through the roof".

An examination showed Tuscan Abbe had internal testes which were producing large amounts of the hormone, and she was found to have a male Y chromosome, Kosklin said.

The discovery put her future in question, he added, as it was unlikely she would be allowed to compete in mares and fillies events such as the Ladyship Mile.

"We might have to change that to the Miracle Mile (stallions event) now," Kosklin joked.

Fairfax said the case was not unique with Canada's Arizona Helen found to have male and female features this year, while Australian horse What Am I is also intersex.

I'll quote something I wrote about the other cases of Equine Intersex:

Oh Jeez, they can't even get the sex right for horses. She's a mare. You could pump her full of testosterone and her cells would just ignore it. She has nothing of a stallion's strength, and probably doesn't even match the masculinisation of a gelding.

*SIGH*

Ignorance of the biology amongst sporting officials - and too often their medical advisors - is not confined to professional athletics.

But at least we don't have Bible-Thumpers denying the existence of Intersex conditions in animals. We don't have "GOD made you either male or female, end of story" or blaming it on "Man's Fall". We don't have ignorant Irish journalists shedding copious crocodile tears and writing "Sorry, Tuscan, saying you're a girl doesn't make it true". Because contrary to Mr Ed ¹, horses can't talk.

1. Played by a gelding, Bamboo Harvester, BTW.

The Next Step in Sports Testing?

Having read through literally thousands of comments in newspapers throughout the world... it really does feel like that.

Segregation, Sex, Science and Sport

One of the most educated discussions on the segregation of the Sexes is over at Science and Sport.

While I don't agree with some of the premises, nor the conclusions, at least the discussion is rational and educated, based on science (mostly) and facts (most of which are accurate), rather than opinion, superstition, and misconception.

How at least some Intersexed people see the situation is elucidated in An Intersex Perspective on Caster Semanya. A sample (and you should really read the whole thing):

The main thing that saddens me about this story is the emotional tone of the commentaries. Other athletes, people on the street, and low media blogs are full of sneers and winks and nosewrinkled disgust. The major media bring in scientists and voice patronizing sympathy for how humiliating this must be for Caster, meanwhile capitalizing on the prurient interest in the story to gather viewer attention. Underneath it all is a widespread impulse to yank down Caster's pants and let everyone have a good look. It's a freakshow, with an intersex person the object of millions of prying eyes.

Some basic themes that will be familiar to anyone intersex arise over and over in the news coverage. There's ignorance of the very existence of intersex people, evinced in frequent speculation by laypeople that Caster must have had a sex change or engaged in doping. There's confusion of physical sex with gender identity, with detractors, including some of Caster's competitors, referring to her with male pronouns and speaking disparagingly of her butch appearance. There's racist scientific hubris, with Western sports scientists asserting that they can determine Caster's "true" dyadic sex after doing an exhaustive investigation of her chromosomes, hormone levels, anatomy, gonadal tissue, and psychology, while speaking derisively of the ASA's investigation as being unsophisticated. And most of all, there's the overwhelming belief in the myth of dyadic sex. Caster must be female or male; intersex cannot exist as a sex category.

One depressing sideline of this insistence that Caster must have a definitive dyadic sex is the regularity with which the term "pseudohermaphrodite" is raised by detractors. I've posted on how this term emerged in Western medical science to try to define away the existence of intersexuality ( see here.) Basically, in trying to erase the challenge intersex people place to the medical ideology of sex dyadism, doctors in the 20th century decided to call all intersex individuals who did not have ovotestes as their gonads "pseudohermaphrodites," no matter what their anatomy or experience. Somebody can be raised female, with average-looking genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics such as breasts, living a typical valorized heterosexual life, femme as can be (housewife, reader of romance novels, cookie-baker), yet all unaware, have internal testes and androgen insensitivity syndrome. If she goes to a doctor for treatment of infertility, suddenly she'll find herself labeled a "male pseudohermaphrodite." The medical term defines her as "really a man," not even intersex, let alone a woman. Anyone with testes is "really a man" according to this scheme of classification--which reveals the sex politics and semantics in supposedly "objective" science.

Those same politics emerge from the mouths of Caster's detractors. She is a "pseudohermaphrodite," they claim--not a woman, not even intersex, but a man trying to cheat honest female competitors.

Here's an irony for you. According to Western medical practice, the majority of infants discovered to be intersex are assigned female. This is done for surgical convenience (it being considered easier to remove an "inappropriate" penis than create an "appropriate" one), and due to a covert assumption about gender psychology, that women can deal better with gender ambiguity than can men. So we're assigned female, told we are "really women," subjected to mutilating infant surgery, expected to identify as female, not intersex, told to keep our medical history, if we know it, a secret, and sent out to live dyadic female lives. Many of us carefully live by the rules. But it turns out that if we do as we are told, we are still subject to being outed, discredited, mocked, and returned unceremoniously to the status of intersex oddity, as Caster's life illustrates--accused of breaking the rules.

A quick aside: the words "Hermaphrodite" and "Pseudohermaphrodite" are deprecated, just as are the words "Negro" and "Half-caste".

They can still be used as specific technical terms for a small number of IS conditions; "Hermaphrodite" meaning that both ovarian and testicular tissue is present, and "pseudohermaphrodite" meaning a person with cross-gendered fertility - a biological male capable only of female reproduction, or the reverse. And the latter term is not in general use.

Anyway... yes, this is how Intersexed people are treated, in general. The binary gender model is a good approximation, but it's treated as Revealed Truth, and anyone not fitting neatly and squarely into one or the other of the two recognised categories is anathematised. Even if that's very obviously the biological reality, with no question of "lifestyle choice".

Regarding the biology, and the mass ignorance thereof... in the comments section of the previous post, commenter "Sidney" wrote:

Hi Zoe,
After reading the Daily Telegraph of London, I read some of the 299 comments and per usual everybody has an opinion about something they know nothing about. All speculative! As a Urologist, who lectures on this very subject to medical doctors, let me tell you what I think I know from reading the AP from Pretoria, SA. Caster Semenya has a probable genetic Disorder of Sexual Development known as Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, probably Grade 5 or 6, where the external genitalia are female-like and the internal genitalia are vestigial testes, which produce Testosterone and Estrogen. I say probable because we cannot know if she has any ovarian tissue mixed with the testis tissue until these vestigial organs are examined under the microscope by a pathologist. This will probably never happen, unless it is presented to her as a condition for receiving female hormones. At this moment everyone is assuming she is an XY woman. Now somebody said she had three times the normal female Testosterone level, which according to this one lab gives her less than their normal male values. Now every lab has its own normal values and we have not seen any numbers. So here are the values from just one lab, not her testing lab.

http://www.bloodindex.org/normal_laboratory_values.php

Determination Normal Reference Value
Testosterone: Conventional units SI units
Female 6–86 ng/dl 0.21–3 nmol/L
Male 270–1070 ng/dl 9.3–37 nmol/L

But it doesn't matter what her serum Total or Free Testosterone is because the definition of PAIS implies that the cells which receive T cannot utilize it because their Androgen Receptors will not bind the T effectively. That's why she has female external genitalia at birth. Interestingly the research in this area is so complete that the Chromosomal mutation on the Androgen Receptor can be identified. Usually these women and I say women, because that is how they have been raised and gender identify as female, are diagnosed in their teens because they cannot menstruate or conceive. Now in truth I know no more about her physical condition than what I read in the newspapers. Is the London Daily Telegraph a tabloid or the cousin to the New York Daily News? Poor Girl !!!!

I'd put the UK Daily Telegraph at about the level of the LA Times. Not quite the WSJ, but not the late unlamented National Inquirer either. As is the Australian Daily Telegraph (which is the one with 299 comments).

To explain the grades of PAIS - partial androgen insensitivity syndrome - from the AIS Support Group :

Grades of Partial AIS

In AIS Grades 5 and 4, the clitoris is enlarged. In Grade 5, there may be partial fusion of the labia majora (outer vaginal lips), in which the posterior (back) portion of the labia form a web of tissue across the back part of the vaginal outlet. In Grade 4, this fusion extends further forward, covering both the vaginal opening and the true urethral opening. The cavity formed by the fused labia, through which urine exits, is called a urogenital sinus.

The labial fusion can be surgically divided, making the vaginal opening accessible for pressure dilation (a non-surgical way of lengthening the vagina). This division is a relatively minor operation, and is unlikely to adversely affect erotic sensitivity, but it should be performed by a physician familiar with this type of surgery. Vaginal dilation can be successful in Grade 4 AIS, and should always be attempted before surgical vaginoplasty is planned.

In Grade 3 and the more masculinized form of Grade 4, the labia are completely fused, so that the urethral opening is at the base of the clitoris/penis. The fused labia may have a rugose, or wrinkled appearance and form a bifid, or double, scrotum. The fusion is then more properly called 'labio-scrotal fusion'. The phallus has the appearance of a large clitoris, or a small, bent, penis, bound down in structures called chordee. The chordee is formed from the same tissues that form the labia minora in the female and the frenulum of the penis and the tissues surrounding the urethra (corpus spongiosum) on the underside of the penis in the male. It is not true that the presence of chordee makes erections painful.

In Grade 2, the genital appearance is that of a male with hypospadias, that is, with a urethral opening located somewhere on the underside of the penis. There may be an open gutter running from the urethral opening to the glans of the penis.

To say that Alice Dreger is a controversial character amongst IS and TS circles is like saying that the inside of the Sun is moderately warm. Certainly her spirited defence of Dr Bailey, her mentor, is, well, full of it.

Not so her article on Intersex generally. In fact, it's difficult to believe that it's been written by the same person. Another example of how opinions can differ between reasonable people, and that demonisation of one's opponents just because they obtusely differ from your own Perfect Opinion is almost always a mistake. One she's been guilty of too, I might add.

Anyway, her article is a polished summary of Intersex, one I'm going to keep as a reference for the layperson. One that's worth reading in toto¹. And apart from going into the biology, she has something else to say too:

Why do you sound so grumpy about this sometimes?

Because honestly, this is not the first time these issues have come up. Why is Caster Semenya having her life tossed about in the international media like this? There’s no good excuse at this late date in history for sporting officials to still not have a clear policy about how they’re going to manage sex anomalies among athletes competing as women.

I’m also annoyed because the treatment of Semenya in a lot of the media has carried the message that “real” women are not powerful. It frustrates me that Semenya has had to get a pretty hair-do to compete as a woman in the court of public opinion.

Finally, I’m tired of seeing all my friends born with atypical sex have to face so much fear and stigma every time these issues hit the news. I wish that the media would realize, every time they cover these stories, they are impacting the psyches of every one out there who has a sex anomaly or who loves someone born with one. That includes lots of parents of wonderful little girls and boys who deserve to have their parents not worry so much about stupid public reactions to known conditions.

Which is to say: Please stop calling these people hermaphrodites! They’re our friends, neighbors, children, lovers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, military personnel, florists, counselors, bus drivers, and priests.

Not forgetting the odd (and sometimes very odd) Rocket Scientist.

Support for people with AIS:
AISSG - AIS Support Group
OII (Organisation Intersex International) Australia
Intersexnews Blog
Sophia Seidelberg (OII)
AISSG - Australia

1) For all fans of the Wizard of Oz, remember this: Outside of a Dog, a Book is Man's best friend. And inside a Dog, it's too dark to read.

UPDATE: Segregation, Sex, Science, Sport... and Suicide.

Lawmaker Butana Komphela, chair of South Africa's sports committee, was quoted as saying: "She is like a raped person. She is afraid of herself and does not want anyone near her. If she commits suicide, itwill be on all our heads. The best we can do is protect her and look out for her during this trying time."

ENOUGH! Even the strongest material has a breaking point.

In re Caster Semanya

A post I've been cutting and pasting in various places, where ignorance and malice are equally mixed.

If the reports are correct, Ms Semanya has PAIS-6. Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome grade 6, where grade 7 is Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS).

What this means is that she's almost completely immune to testosterone and other androgens. "Almost", but not quite completely. If she'd had CAIS, she'd be ultra-feminine, more so than standard factory model women. It's an open secret that most of the supermodels who don't have children have CAIS, as did Miss Teen USA 1991.

From the Internation Amateur Atletics Association rules on the subject :
---

(The crux of the matter is that the athlete should not be enjoying the benefits of natural testosterone predominance normally seen in a male)

6. Conditions that should be allowed:- Androgen insensitivity syndrome (Complete or almost complete - previously called testicular feminization);- Gonadal dysgenesis (gonads should be removed surgically to avoid malignancy);- Turner’s syndrome.

(b) Those conditions that may accord some advantages but nevertheless acceptable:- Congenital adrenal hyperplasia;- Androgen producing tumors;- Anovulatory androgen excess (polycystic ovary syndrome).

Unlike other women, she cannot get the full performance benefits of testosterone, since she's almost immune to the stuff. Having three times the female average could well be less effective when it comes to building muscle mass than a normal amount in an average women. Many female athletes have high natural levels of testosterone anyway - though still a third or less of an average male, and a tenth of a male athlete.

As regards the "dangerous condition" of internal testes, the danger isn't exactly immediate. There's a tenfold normal risk of cancer, and it would be wise to have 6-monthly checks, and gonadectomy if any pre-cancerous lesions are found, but that's it. At worst, 1 in 50, and the estrogen, the female sex hormone also produced by the testes, is useful for preventing oteopyrosis and other conditions, so it's swings and roundabouts. The real reason for gonadectomy is to stop other people from being upset about the idea of a woman with testes in her body.

I've stated the IAAA's policy - but that policy is not always followed. The Indian athlete Santhi Soundarajan had CAIS, but was stripped of her medals by Indian authorities, not because she had an advantage, but purely for being Intersexed, a sub-human. She attempted suicide shortly thereafter, as Ms Semanya may do.

She's an 18 year old girl from a backwoods African rural village who has given her all to become a world-class athlete. Now she's had the double blow of being told she'll never be able to have children, and having her life and ambitions shattered by a global surge of ignorant bigotry.

Some of which is apparent in these comments.

Oh yes, I'm Intersexed too. I'm also 51, a middle-aged woman old enough to be a grandma, and used to this kind of thing. She's only a teenage girl. Some here forget that.

For the depths of pig-ignorance and blind malice shown by some, go no further than the comments at the NY Daily News.

I've been contacted by a TV producer (in another context) about a programme on Intersexed people. She's having difficulty finding people willing to place themselves in the spotlight. Have a look at the many articles and comments all around the world, and you can see why.

At the risk of being tediously repetitive, I've had it easier than most, and I know it. It's only because of that that I don't worry about keeping a low profile. I live in a relatively well-educated and tolerant society, and although I'm not proud of my unusual medical situation, I'm not ashamed of it either. It's the way I was born, as some are born left-handed or colour-blind.

Some people have difficulty with that. Not the medical situation, but the fact that I neither advertise nor keep secret. That I refuse to feel ashamed, just because in their view, I should do. They don't know how to handle that. Someone who's honest, unashamed, but not, it has to be said, unafraid.

But if I don't speak out, who will? To those who have been given much, much is to be expected. I'm not even sure that I'm doing my part, I feel I could and should do more. Life - bringing up my son, and my PhD - gets in the way though, and there's only so many hours in the day.

More on AIS at the excellent site Second Type Woman.

The Hybrots are Coming!

Further to my post about Laminated Mouse Brains... progress on this front continue.

From the New Scientist:

A robot controlled by human brain cells could soon be trundling around a British lab, New Scientist has learned.
...
To make the system a better model of human disease, a culture of human neurons will be connected to the robot once the current work with rat cells is completed. This will be the first instance of human cells being used to control a robot.

One aim is to investigate any differences in the behaviour of robots controlled by rat and human neurons. "We'll be trying to find out if the learning aspects and memory appear to be similar," says Warwick.

Warwick and colleagues can proceed as soon as they are ready, as they won't need specific ethical approval to use a human neuron cell line. That's because the cultures are available to buy and "the ethical side of sourcing is done by the company from whom they are purchased", Whalley says.

I'm not convinced. Oh sure, at this point, there are no ethical issues, no question of consciousness. But to say that "Oh, it's the supplier's problem" concerns me deeply.

No it's not. It's not just the supplier's problem, it's what they're used for that's important too.

Progress will continue, you see. We need the ethical foundations laid now both to allow ethical experimentation to the absolute limit, but to absolutely prevent what will be a particularly hideous form of slavery. One that has until now remained within the realms of Science Fiction, in Saberhagen's Starsong.

Hell, a mass of fortified metal miles in diameter, received him and his racer through its main entrance. He got out of his ship and found himself able to breathe and walk and see where he was going; the physical environment in Hell was for the most part mild and pleasant, because prisoners did not as a rule survive very long, and the computer-brains of the berserker did not want to impose unnecessary stresses upon them.

The berserker devices having immediate control over the routine operations in Hell were themselves in large part organic, containing culture-brains grown for the purpose and some reeducated captured brains as well. These were all examples of the berserker's highest achievements in its attempts at reverse cybernation.

But at least the Berserkers didn't say "Oh, the source takes care of the ethical issues". It takes people to do that.

A Pet Hate

Norton products.

I de-installed their anti-virus system using their recommended procedure as the pre-installed free trial period was about to expire. But it left behind some nasty stuff that protected me very thoroughly. Protecting me from being able to use FTP, or to use a new version of a browser, for example. For my own good, of course.

Because FTP was disabled, I couldn't access Norton's special removal tool to get rid of the cruft, as that had to be downloaded by, you guessed it, FTP.

Good that they provided such a thing, bad that the problem is so common that they had to. Very bad that they've known about the problem for ages, they just haven't bothered fixing it.

So manual surgery was needed on C:\windows\system32\drivers\. The first attempt disabled my Internet connection completely. I eventually got it working though, 6 hours of my time wasted on a piece of used food. But in the process of re-installing Firefox, I lost all my bookmarks, user names, cookies and passwords.

The picture is of Hallucigenia, an extinct animal of the Middle Cambrian. But I prefer to think of it as a Pet Hate.

Milton Diamond's latest

Clinical implications of the organizational and activational effects of hormones.

Horm Behav. 2009 May;55(5):621-32

Debate on the relative contributions of nature and nurture to an individual's gender patterns, sexual orientation and gender identity are reviewed as they appeared to this observer starting from the middle of the last century. Particular attention is given to the organization-activation theory in comparison to what might be called a theory of psychosexual neutrality at birth or rearing consistency theory. The organization-activation theory posits that the nervous system of a developing fetus responds to prenatal androgens so that, at a postnatal time, it will determine how sexual behavior is manifest. How organization-activation was or was not considered among different groups and under which circumstances it is considered is basically understood from the research and comments of different investigators and clinicians. The preponderance of evidence seems to indicate that the theory of organization-activation for the development of sexual behavior is certain for non-human mammals and almost certain for humans. This article also follows up on previous clinical critiques and recommendations and makes some new suggestions.

Full article as a PDF via TS-SI

A Diamond in Hawaii

Professor Milton Diamond - also myself, and my G/F Katie, another protandrous dichogamous pseudohermaphrodite.

It's no exaggeration to say that Professor Diamond is to the science of Gender and Sex as Albert Einstein is to Physics. Hopefully he learned something about us, he certainly taught me quite a bit.

He's also a really charming man, and his wife is equally gracious, as well as being a very, very impressive psychologist in her own right. Lovely people.

I've said it before, but the best thing about my change is the wonderful people I've had the chance to meet. People who I never would have met, or even heard of, if my metabolism hadn't staged a palace revolt.

IAAF Policy on Gender Verification

The International Association of Athletics Federation's 2006 policy on Gender Verification is available online as a PDF file.

Points of interest:

5. Reconstructive surgery and sex reassignment

- if sex change operations as well as appropriate hormone replacement
therapy are performed before puberty then the athlete is allowed to
compete as a female
- if the sex change and hormone therapy is done after puberty then the
athlete has to wait two years after gonadectomy before a physical and
endocrinological evaluation is conducted
(The crux of the matter is that the athlete should not be enjoying the
benefits of natural testosterone predominance normally seen in a male)

6. Conditions that should be allowed:

(a) Those conditions that accord no advantage over other females:
- Androgen insensitivity syndrome (Complete or almost complete -
previously called testicular feminization);
- Gonadal dysgenesis (gonads should be removed surgically to avoid
malignancy);
- Turner’s syndrome.

(b) Those conditions that may accord some advantages but nevertheless
acceptable:
- Congenital adrenal hyperplasia;
- Androgen producing tumors;
- Anovulatory androgen excess (polycystic ovary syndrome).

What is not covered in detail are the genetic Intersex conditions other than Turner's syndrome (45x). What if someone is a mosaic or chimera, 46xy/46xx? Hopefully, common sense will prevail, and the principle of The crux of the matter is that the athlete should not be enjoying the benefits of natural testosterone predominance normally seen in a male will be followed, regardless of exact cause. Conditions such as PCOS - polycystic ovarian syndrome - can easily cause a doubling or tripling of "normal" female testosterone levels, but not the 8-10 times seen in most men.

Male athletes often have natural values even higher, just as they tend to be larger than most other men. There are no skeletally ectomorphic (skinny) weight-lifters, regardless of how muscular they are, and no skeletally endomorphic (squat) sprinters, regardless of musculature, and athletes other than shooters etc tend to have more testosterone and human growth hormone than the average non-athlete. That's because when you get to the highest levels of competitive sport, you need a natural genetic advantage in addition to rigorous training.

I said "hopefully", because the treatment of some intersexed athletes who have "failed a gender test" has not always been in accordance with these principles. Moreover, they are guidelines, with no "bright line" saying "X amount of testosterone is OK, but X plus a smidgin is not". One has to take into account the natural variations over time too, a relatively smaller absolute amount, if constant, over a long period could be greatly more advantageous than a series of much higher peaks matched by troughs.

It's not simple.

Luau

Some More Spectacular than others

From the BBC:

Each of us has at least 100 new mutations in our DNA, according to research published in the journal Current Biology.

Scientists have been trying to get an accurate estimate of the mutation rate for over 70 years.

However, only now has it been possible to get a reliable estimate, thanks to "next generation" technology for genetic sequencing.

Amongst other things, this means that "identical twins", those who were originally genetically identical before the embryonic clump of cells split into two individual foetuses, are unlikely to be completely genetically identical. In fact, it's likely that everyone has some cells of one genotype, and others of others, due to transcription errors during cell turnover.

Genetically, we are all unique. It's just that some of us have that uniqueness reflected more spectacularly than others.

Subs

I was amazed at how roomy the USS Bowfin was inside.

Aloha from Oahu

Coincidence

I'm in Honolulu now, with my son and partner. So blogging will be sporadic for the next two weeks.

Billions

(Click to enlarge)

Curtsey to longtime reader Scottie McG

Defecate or Extricate

Clark Lindsay over at Hobbyspace has been reporting on the public meeting that is assessing the US Space program, the Augustine Commission.
Key Finding:

/-- The program of record (i.e. Ares I/V/Orion/Altair), which exceeds the expected budget substantially, will no longer be in the options table but kept separately just as a reference.

It can't be done. Not with the current budget. The expressed goal of getting a US crew to the Moon and back back 2025, let alone 2020, is not feasible with the financing available.

Other crewed options, and missions, are available and useful, that work within the budget. Building infrastructure so that some day, access to space beyond Earth Orbit will be economically feasible. But the current plan of returning to the Moon won't work without a massive and sustained increase in funds. And even if the funds are available, the planned way of doing it is a clunker, and has to be scrapped.

From the Wall Street Journal :

Current budget constraints confronting the National Aeronautics and Space Administration make it virtually impossible to sustain manned missions to the Moon, Mars or further into space in coming decades, a blue-ribbon study group is expected to tell the White House.

The findings mean the Obama administration, which created the commission, faces a stark test of its commitment to pursue expensive human space exploration efforts despite ballooning federal deficits.

The advisory group, headed by former Lockheed Martin Corp. Chairman Norman Augustine, concluded at its final public meeting Wednesday that NASA's existing manned exploration plans are "not executable" under today's budget guidance from the White House. That makes it unlikely for NASA to continue an $80 billion-plus program to develop a new manned capsule, a family of next-generation rockets and a lunar lander intended to carry astronauts back to the Moon.

But it isn't clear what alternatives the White House is likely to embrace. The commission, among other things, laid out an array of manned exploration programs it considers more viable. They include using versions of existing military rockets to access space, relying on derivatives of the space shuttle to boost cargo and astronauts past low-earth orbit, and creating fuel depots in space to help power missions to explore asteroids and other parts of deep space.
...
All of the options recognize the importance of commercial cargo and crew delivery to the future of the International Space Station, said former astronaut Sally Ride, a member of the commission. "We need to get NASA out of the business of getting crew" to low-earth orbit, she added.

Ms. Ride said manned "exploration doesn't look viable" without significantly larger NASA budgets. The panel seeks to eventually boost NASA's manned exploration budget -- currently projected at roughly $9 billion annually -- between 25% and 50% over the next few years.

As Mark Whittington says in Cumudgeon's Corner says:

Obama is going to have to step up, in the middle of all the other problems he has brought upon himself, and either cough up more money (and sell it to the Congress and the American people) or be the President who--again--deferred American space exploration for perhaps another generation.

Or in other words, time to defecate or extricate. Sh1t or get off the pot. As Sally Ryde said, and I again emphasise, manned exploration doesn't look viable without significantly larger NASA budgets.

Somehow, I don't think a $3Bn a year increase in NASA's budget is going to be popular with Obama. Nor with Congress.

Wednesdays in Pictures

But seriously... as my GP said the other day before using a scalpel to slice open my tush to insert a pellet, "You thrive on stress, don't you Zoe? Admit it, you wouldn't miss doing a PhD for the world!"

Darnit, he's right. I'm just thriving a bit too much at the moment. Never mind, on Saturday I leave for Hawaii with my family for a 2-week vacation. We arrive 10 hours before we leave.

And hopefully I'll be seeing Milton Diamond there over dinner a week later.

It's the first time I've actually paid for a trip overseas, and the first time we've had a vacation longer than a week off since our honeymoon. That was delayed a few years, we both were too busy to take time off at the time we were married. We had four weeks driving around the UK (I'd been posted to the Netherlands at the time, and the boat train was cheap). We got a little irradiated by the Chernobyl fallout in Scotland when the cloud did a U-turn over the Atlantic. *SIGH*.

That was.. 1986. 23 years ago. Time for another one, I think. This time with three of us.

Artificial Brains Within 10 Years

As I've blogged about before, there are two approaches to AI - analytic and synthetic.

Here's some news on the progress made in the Analytic approach, where instead of trying to "grow" and AI, we analyse what happens at the cellular level of existing intelligences, and try building a brain out of simulated cells. From RedOrbit :

A leading scientist has claimed that a detailed, functional artificial human brain could be built within the next 10 years, BBC News reported.

Henry Markram, director of the Blue Brain Project, has already simulated elements of a rat brain.

A synthetic human brain would be of particular use finding treatments for mental illnesses, Markram told the TED Global conference in Oxford.

He said some two billion people are thought to suffer some kind of brain impairment and that it is not impossible to build a human brain within 10 years time.

Launched in 2005, the Blue Brain project aims to reverse engineer the mammalian brain from laboratory data, particularly focusing on the neocortical column – the repetitive units of the mammalian brain known as the neocortex.
...
He likened it to cataloguing a bit of the rainforest, as in how may trees does it have, what shape are the trees, how many of each type of tree do we have, what is the position of the trees.

"But it is a bit more than cataloguing because you have to describe and discover all the rules of communication, the rules of connectivity," he added.

His team has been able to digitally construct an artificial neocortical column with a software model of "tens of thousands" of neurons - each one of which is different.

They have found that the patterns of circuitry in different brains have common patterns even though each neuron is unique.

Markram said we do actually share the same fabric even though each brain may be smaller, bigger, or may have different morphologies of neurons.

"And we think this is species specific, which could explain why we can't communicate across species.

The team feeds the models and a few algorithms into a supercomputer to make the model come alive and Markram said since you need one laptop to do all the calculations for one neuron, they would need ten thousand laptops.

But instead they use an IBM Blue Gene machine with 10,000 processors and the simulations have started to give the researchers clues about how the brain works.

For example, they can show the brain a picture of a flower and then follow the electrical activity in the machine, where it creates its own representation.

He said the ultimate goal is to extract that representation and project it so that researchers could see directly how a brain perceives the world.

One thing - the Human brain cas about 100 Billion neurons. However, today's average desktops can simulate maybe a dozen each.

I don't know whether to be amazed at how complex the human brain is, or how simple. Because we'll soon have 10 Billion people on the planet. And if each one had an average desktop of the time, each communication with the 20 or so in the local area... yes, there would exist a network capable of modelling at a fine-scale a human brain. With about the same reaction times too.

A Brain the size of a planet.

I wonder...



More in this at the Blue Brain project. How appropriate.

The Incidence of Transsexuality

Over at Pam's House Blend, the irrepressible Autumn Sandeen crunches some of the numbers regarding genital reconstruction surgery (usually, but inaccurately called Sex Reassignment Surgery, SRS) for transsexual people. RTWT as they say. Read The Whole Thing.

The prime source she uses for the incidence of surgery is The Incidence and Prevalence of SRS among US Residents(PDF) by Dr Mary Ann Horton. She used a simple technique - she determined that most such procedures are performed by a comparative handful of specialist surgeons. It's not exactly a common form of surgery, nor is it simple. Getting it wrong, even in a minor way.... let's just say that trans people take very great care indeed in choosing which surgeon to go to. As should anyone contemplating surgery on their "naughty bits". And in order to qualify for surgery, one of the hoops that must be jumped through is convincing the gatekeeper psychs that you've done the research in this area, and know the Pros and Cons of different surgical techniques.

The number of US residents undergoing primary SRS in the year 2001 (run rate) was 1170 (740 Male to Female or MTF and 430 Female to Male or FTM.)
...
Persons desiring irreversible surgical procedures who value the quality of the result usually go to a surgeon who has performed the procedure many times previously. It is known within the American transgender community that the vast majority of transsexuals seeking surgery go to one of a relatively short list of surgeons for their final surgery. By reputation, the vast majority of US transsexuals went to one of 15 surgeons. (Eight of these surgeons are in the US, and seven of them are not.) This study refers to these 15 surgeons as major surgeons. It is believed that the major surgeons account for nearly all the primary surgeries performed on US residents.
...
...12 of 15 major surgeons, or 80%, provided usable data for this project. Two surveys were returned by surgeons who were not on the list of major surgeons. One of these provided MTF data for the study; one provided both MTF and FTM data.
The 14 valid surveys (a 25% usable response rate) represented 866 MTF primary surgeries performed by 10 surgeons, and 336 primary FTM surgeries (top surgery) performed by 10 surgeons. 7 of the 14 surgeons performed both MTF and FTM surgeries, 3 MTF only, and 4 FTM only. (Of the 12 major surgeons with usable surveys, 3 did MTF, 3 did FTM, and 6 did both.) Missing data was reconstructed and extrapolated, as described above, to arrive at a total annual run rate of extrapolated total primary surgeries.

Some extra work is needed to take into account "re-do"s of surgeries which would decrease the number, then add some more to take into account the lack of response.

Call it 1,000 per year. I would have estimated more than that, but those are the figures.

World Net Daily

August 2nd

WND was able to obtain other birth certificates from Kenya for purposes of comparison, and the form of the documents appear to be identical.

August 6th (after the forgery became obvious to even the most credulous)

WND obtained several samples of Kenyan birth certificates in use around Aug. 4, 1961, the date of Obama's birth, showing differences from the Taitz document.

They Lie. A lot. All the time, in fact. They make the late, lamented National Inquirer look like a model of veracity.

Not all of what they say is false - but anything that supports a right wing political position is far less likely to be true than anything that undermines it.

In my innocence, I had thought that they were imperfect, letting their bias get the better of their judgement, but not in the same league as Green Left Weekly for example.

But I was wrong. They deliberately lie.

Electrons, Spinons and Honons

This is interesting.

The paper title "Probing Spin-Charge Separation in a Tomonaga-Luttinger Liquid" by Jompol et al in Science 31 July 2009:
Vol. 325. no. 5940, pp. 597 - 601 sounds almost as interesting as watching paint dry. But if you get beyond the impenetrability of some of the exact, but dense scientific jargon, you find some really neat things happening.

The electron is a fundamental building block of nature and is indivisible in isolation, yet a new experiment has shown that electrons, if crowded into narrow wires, are seen to split apart.

The electron is responsible for carrying electricity in wires and for making magnets. These two properties of magnetism and electric charge are carried by electrons which seem to have no size or shape and are impossible to break apart.

However, what is true about the properties of a single electron does not seem to be the case when electrons are brought together. Instead the like-charged electrons repel each other and need to modify the way they move to avoid getting too close to each other. In ordinary metals this does not usually make much difference to their behaviour. However, if the electrons are put in a very narrow wire the effects are exacerbated as they find it much harder to move past each other.

In 1981, physicist Duncan Haldane conjectured theoretically that under these circumstances and at the lowest temperatures the electrons would always modify the way they behaved so that their magnetism and their charge would separate into two new types of particle called spinons and holons.
...
The Cambridge physicists, Yodchay Jompol and Chris Ford, clearly saw the distinct signatures of the two new particles as the Birmingham theorists, Tim Silk and Andy Schofield, had predicted.

Neat! Another one of Nature's secrets revealed. OK, now some will say "So what? Of what use is it? Well, read on...

Here's what Dr Chris Ford from the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory said:

'Quantum wires are widely used to connect up quantum "dots", which may in the future form the basis of a new type of computer, called a quantum computer. Thus understanding their properties may be important for such quantum technologies, as well as helping to develop more complete theories of superconductivity and conduction in solids in general. This could lead to a new computer revolution.'

And from Professor Andy Schofield of the University of Birmingham's School of Physics and Astronomy:

Our ability to control the behaviour of a single electron is responsible for the semiconductor revolution which has led to cheaper computers, iPods and more. Whether we will be able to control these new particles as successfully as we have the single electron remains to be seen. What it does reveal is that bringing electrons together can lead to new properties and even new particles.'

So it's no bigger than the theoretical work that led to computer chips. And how much have electronics affected our lives, after all? Only... completely.

Today's Battle

Over at the Canada Free Press.:

When asked by Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT) whether President Obama’s proposed socialized healthcare plan will mandate taxpayer funded abortion, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) admitted that it will require “any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate.” It now appears that the plan’s “medically appropriate” umbrella is far more expansive than most Americans could have imagined.

In addition to abortion on demand, the weight of the evidence indicates that cosmetic “gender reassignment” surgeries for both U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants who suffer from APA recognized “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID) may also be provided – free of charge – courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. The current price tag for such a procedure can exceed $50,000.

Page 972 of the House version of the bill (H.R. 3200) provides for “standards, as appropriate, for the collection of accurate data on health and health care” based on “sex, sexual orientation [and] gender identity.” The Senate draft indicates that the government will “detect and monitor trends in health disparities,” requiring the Department of Health and Human Services to “develop standards for the measurement of gender.” (i.e., officially recognize subjectively self-determined “transgender” or “transsexual” gender identities). It further mandates ‘‘participation in the institutions’ programs of individuals and groups from…different genders and sexual orientations.”

Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action commented: “There’s a gulf of difference between what Obama and liberals in Congress, and the American people deem ‘medically appropriate;’ especially when it’s ‘we the people’ footing the bill. To force Americans, against their conscience, to fund abortion on demand and to facilitate gender confusion by subsidizing the elective practice of genital ‘sex-change’ mutilation is unconscionable.

“After hearing Sen. Mikulski’s ‘any service deemed…medically appropriate’ admission, I was prompted to dig a little deeper. I contacted the offices of Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Charlie Rangel, Rep. Barney Frank and the House Subcommittee on Health. I asked, very simply, for ‘an assurance that the proposed healthcare plan will not allow taxpayer funded gender reassignment surgeries or hormone therapies.’ When faced with the bill’s relevant language, every staffer I spoke with either declined to answer or would neither confirm nor deny that such procedures would be covered.

Here's my reply:

I doubt sex reassignment will be included, too controversial.

It would make financial sense of course, we have the figures to prove it, but too many people find it all too icky.

Yes, it makes far more sense for taxpayers to not pay the 2c per year once for sex reassignment surgery, and to continue to pay 0.3-0.5c per year for 20, 30, or 50 years for all the drugs and psychotherapy to deal with the misery caused by not having it. Not financial sense, mind you, but it's a cost many are willing to pay.

Oh yes, and foregoing the additional tax revenue from having a functional, productive citizen, rather than a miserable, dysfunctional and desperately unhappy one. That's far more significant from a financial viewpoint, if we're talking about government-run healthcare.

OK, so it costs the taxpayer or insurance policy holder more over 5 years just in direct costs, and far more in foregone revenue. But there are significant savings in aged care, as so many die before they reach old age if they don't have it. It doesn't cost that much to ensure that trans people die, and many consider it a bargain at a few dollars a year in taxes, and a few cents in health insurance.

Every medical condition, from heart disease to hangnails, has a "Standard of Care", a "Best practice". Here's what the SOC for transsexuality says about genital reconstruction:

"Such a therapeutic regimen, when prescribed or recommended by qualified practitioners, is medically indicated and medically necessary. Sex reassignment is not "experimental," "investigational," "elective," "cosmetic," or optional in any meaningful sense.

Medically necessary. Not cosmetic. Not elective. Not optional.
But they're just medical specialists, what do they know?

Autoreproduction

Go FSCK yourself!

The trouble is... for some people intersexed in peculiar ways... although no actual intercourse is involved... yes, it's possible for them to make themselves pregnant. Involuntarily.

I know of no case where a foetus has been successfully carried to term. I know of several cases where teratomae have been found. I know of one case where, in the course of genital reconstruction surgery, a partially-reabsorbed foetus was found.

But in theory, yes, it's possible.

From "Autoreproduction in Hermaphrodites by Joseph D.Schulman and Richard J.Sherins Hum Reprod. 1995 Mar;10(3):500-1.:

True hermaphroditism is a relatively rare 'experiment of
nature' in which, by definition, both ovarian and testicular
tissue are present in the same individual, and sometimes in
the same gonad. There have been several extensive surveys
of the diverse experience with human true hermaphrodites,
including a review of 283 cases published since 1980 by
Krob et al. (1994). The surveys and individual case reports
document wide variability in phenotypic expression and karyo-
type patterns. However, it is clear that many hermaphrodites
have oocytes and relatively normal uterine anatomy, about half
menstruate, and there have been at least 22 pregnancies
reported in 11 such individuals (Verp et al., 1992; Krob et al.,
1994). The external genital phenotype has been normal female
in many of these cases, although some females display variable
degrees of clitoral hypertrophy (Krob et al., 1994).
...
Regardless of the genetic cause of a particular case of
hermaphroditism, meiosis in such individuals would be
expected to produce a wide variety of genetically different
gametes; hence any offspring resulting from autoreplication
either of a mosaic or a chimaera through gamete formation
and gamete fusion would be a genetically distinct as well as
potentially normal child.
Thus, it can be speculated that autoreplication by certain
human hermaphrodites is not biologically impossible. In prin-
ciple, ICSI could be applied to facilitate spermatozoa—egg
fusion in those cases where only spermatids or small numbers
of spermatozoa are available on gonadal biopsy; in the very
rare hermaphrodites in which oocytes and spermatozoa produc-
tion are abundant, standard IVF could be employed.

If it is indeed true that in some hermaphrodites autoreproduc-
tion could be possible with medical intervention, another
question may be asked: 'Is it possible that such autoreproduc-
tion could, with the greatest rarity, occur without such an
intervention?' Indications exist in the mythology of various
cultures which mention hermaphroditic reproduction, and there
are references to virgin births in the historical documents of
several different societies.

Should such a baby come to term, there are certain theological aspects that would arise. At least though, the same glitches that cause such an unusual physiology also cause enough genetic variation during meiosis that the baby won't be, for want of a better term, the product of incest. Some people have bodies composed of very variable cell-lines. Some people, really nice ones, people I know who are good and kind, really are entitled to say "I am legion". It is perhaps fortunate that none have taken up a life of crime, the DNA evidence would give a forensic scientist a nervous breakdown.

From a biological viewpoint, a scientific one, this is all very interesting. But we're dealing with human beings here. People. People who are in fact more usual and common than my own rare situation. Compared with them, it is I who am the "lusus naturae", the freak of nature. While I can and do shrug about that myself (always knew I was an... individual... and rather like the idea), I can't help but feel some empathy for such people. And perhaps, just possibly, such children.

My thanks once more to Professor Italiano for bringing this piece of data to my attention.

One Reason for not going alone

For Surgery, that is.

Trinidad, Colorado is (not very accurately) described as the "sex change capital of the US". Certainly one particularly well known surgeon, Marci Bowers operates there, and does perhaps 200 surgeries per year.

Many people face this surgery alone. They've lost friends and family. But it might be an idea for them to consider that there might be safety in numbers.

From the Pueblo Chieftain:

Police are investigating the alleged rape and attempted murder of a transsexual man visiting Trinidad for a sex-change pre-operation procedure.
...
District Attorney Frank Ruybalid said, as of Friday, there had not been an arrest. According to a police report, on July 16 the police department received a 911 call regarding a female party that was found in a room at the Trinidad Motor Inn bound at the feet and hands with a telephone cord, not clothed and injured.

Upon arrival detectives discovered that the victim, who was hearing impaired, also had been sexually assaulted with a wooden coat hanger.

The victim, who according to reports, was from California but had spent some time in Washington state, had been residing at the hotel during a stay in Trinidad.

The report stated that the victim, 25, had an appointment with a local doctor about a transgender surgery on July 15.

The victim had gone to the motel's lobby at about 9 p.m. on July 15 to use one of its computers. According to the report, it was there that the suspect entered the scene.
...
According to the report, police, using a sign-language interpreter, gathered statements from the victim.

According to the report, the suspect attempted to talk to the victim in the hotel lobby. After leaving to go back to her room, the victim said that the man from the lobby knocked on her door.

The report stated that the suspect was very adamant about wanting to come into the room and was "eyeballing" the victim’s body, up and down. The victim refused to allow him in and said that the suspect left. The victim then went to bed.

A short time later, the victim said, the suspect knocked at the door again before forcing his way in. He then allegedly forced the victim onto the bed.

The report stated that the suspect directed pejorative terms for homosexuals at the victim, forced the performance of sexual acts upon him and sexually assaulted the victim with a coat hanger.

The report stated that the suspect then dragged the victim into the bathroom, filled up the bathtub and attempted to drown the victim. The suspect also allegedly grabbed a hair dryer in the bathroom and plunged it into the bathtub with the victim, in an apparent attempt at electrocution.

The electrical breaker, however, dislodged from the wall plug and foiled the attempt.

According to the report, the victim was then was allegedly dragged back to the bed where the suspect bound the victim's feet and hands together with a telephone cord. Before leaving, the suspect allegedly slapped the victim, using more epithets and said people like that should not come to Trinidad.

The victim was discovered late the following morning, still tied up, and was taken by ambulance to Mount San Rafael Hospital.

So for any of you considering surgery anywhere in the US - be careful out there. Canada and Thailand are far safer - and you'll have people around you who understand.

Lights, Camera, Action!

Also available at YouTube.