The fungus now decimating frog populations around the world does its damage by impairing the animals' ability to absorb electrolytes through their skin. This discovery may eventually lead to treatments that make the disease less lethal. ... But now Jamie Voyles of James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and colleagues have an answer. In diseased frogs, the skin's ability to take up sodium and potassium ions from the water decreases by more than 50 per cent, they found. As a result, the concentration of these two ions in the frogs' blood fell by 20 and 50 per cent, respectively. This ion loss – similar to the hyponatraemia that a human athlete might experience from drinking too much water too fast – eventually leads to cardiac arrest and death.
The researchers found they could delay death by giving diseased frogs an oral electrolyte-replacement solution – a sort of froggy Gatorade.
This really does sound like a late night Christmas bargain bonanza. I'm talking about the midnight regulations -- actually more like deregulations -- that President Bush is zealously handing out at an accelerated pace as his reign comes to an end. Each new rule is a special gift tied in a bow for one of his friends:
To the coal companies: a new rule that makes it easier for companies that mine for coal buried under mountaintops to dump rock and sludge near rivers and streams.
To a British mining company: a permit allowing them to explore for uranium just outside Grand Canyon National Park, less than three miles from a popular lookout over the canyon’s southern rim.
To the oil companies: (considering that Bush already gave them the war in Iraq, this one is more like a stocking stuffer) new regulations to develop oil shale deposits straddling almost two million acres of public lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
To the industrial farms: new regulations to circumvent the Clean Water Act, leaving it up the the farms themselves to decide if animal waste discharges are harmful or not.
To big chemical companies: a decision to exempt perchlorate, a known toxin found in jet rocket fuel and our water supply, from federal regulation. Hey, if it ends up in our drinking water, just think of it as recycling... right?
To business: a new rule that makes it harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job.
To fundamentalist pharmacists: a new rule that says health care providers can refuse to assist, due to religious or moral reasons, in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity financed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Many believe this regulation might prevent some women from obtaining birth control.
And to the rest of us, he leaves debt, two wars/occupations, a shitty economy, an imperiled planet, and a government that spies on its citizens. They always say "it's the thought that counts," but be thankful for gift receipts...
I thought I read that it was easy to undo these midnight regulations, but the process is not simple. From a Rolling Stone article on Bush's Final FU, the Congressional Review Act (CRA) may be the best hope for overturning these rules, but it's not easy:
But even this option, it turns out, is fraught with obstacles. First, the CRA requires a separate vote on each individual regulation. Second, the act prohibits reviving any part of a rule that has been squelched. Since Bush's rules sometimes contain useful reforms — the move to limit the Family and Medical Leave Act also extends benefits for military families — spiking the rules under the CRA would leave Obama unable to restore or augment those benefits in the future. Whatever Obama does will require him to expend considerable political capital, at a time when America faces two wars and an economic crisis of historic proportions.
So what should the world give Bush for Christmas? An Iraqi journalist already gave him a gift with sole (if video doesn't show, click here):
I'm still pondering my Blogged to Death post from two days ago. The original New York Times article has been getting quite a bit of criticism. I never took it seriously, but I guess it really was a lousy piece of journalism. Slate rips it to shreds in Everything You Need to Know about the Dead Blogger Epidemic. They also find the link I wish I could have discovered myself: America's Most Dangerous Jobs. Blogging didn't make the list in case you were wondering.
So why did I title this post "My Butt"? Because bloggers (and everybody in the information technology field) sit on their butts a lot. I know mine hurts, so I was happy to stumble upon a list of tips on How to Stay Healthy While Sitting at Your Desk All Day. One piece of advice is don't keep junk food at your desk. I'm guilty of that one. I should probably also drink more water, but remember you do not need 8 glasses a day.
Water is necessary for life. Are you following me so far? Good. Dean Kamen is an inventor and the founder of Deka Research. I admire him because he makes stuff that actually helps people -- sick people, poor people, all people. Ok, so whole cities did not evolve around the Segway, but whole villages might prosper with his latest offering:
Although I don't understand how this amazing invention works, you can check out the patent application yourself. Equally impressive is the economic model Kamen hopes to use to get this invention to the people who need it most.