Parasite Rex, by Carl Zimmer, looks at the role parasites play in the game of life. Starting with the history of parasitology, and moving through the prevalence and treatment of different parasite-related diseases, Zimmer opened my eyes to how much of the world is dependent on parasites.

Along the way I learned lots of interesting stuff, such as the fact that chimpanzees self-medicate. I knew they use tools and hunt in packs, but never realised that not only do they eat unusual foods to help fight infections, but that they seem to be able to determine what it is that is causing a particular set of symptoms and eat the appropriate leaves or bark which contains the chemicals to fight off the parasites.

Zimmer also discusses issues such as introducing parasites to control pest species, using the example of the parasitic wasp which keeps the population of cassava mealybugs in check. When the bugs, natives of South America, made it to Africa, they devastated the cassava crop until the relevant wasp was introduced.

One of the most interesting ideas is that the presence of parasites is an entirely natural occurence throughout the spectrum of life, and can actually be a good thing, citing the example of Crohn’s disease which originally started as a disease exclusive to rich, New York Jews back in the 1930s. It turned out that rich New Yorkers had been amongst the first to be cleared of tapeworms as public health systems took effect, and that deliberately re-infecting sufferer’s of Crohn’s disease with tapeworms from animals (which therefore wouldn’t themselves cause a disease) cured them of Crohn’s in 80+% of cases.

This is definitely a book which will give you a whole different perspective on the world.

Ali Khamenie, the Supreme Jurisprudence of Iran, gave a speech yesterday in Iran. The U.S. Governement’s Open Source Centre has provided an english translation of the Persian, and Juan Cole has placed a section on his site, in which Khamenei addressed the issue of Iran trying to acquire nuclear weapons:

"Their other issue is [their assertion] that Iran seeks [a] nuclear bomb. It is an irrelevant and wrong statement, it is a sheer lie. We do not need a nuclear bomb. We do not have any objectives or aspirations for which we will need to use a nuclear bomb. We consider using nuclear weapons against Islamic rules. We have announced this openly. We think imposing the costs of building and maintaining nuclear weapons on our nation is unnecessary. Building such weapons and their maintenance are costly. By no means we deem it right to impose these costs on the people. We do not need those weapons. Unlike the Americans who want to rule the world with force, we do not claim to control the world and therefore do not need a nuclear bomb. Our nuclear bomb and our explosive powers are our faith, our youth and our people who have been present on the most difficult scenes with utmost power and faith and will continue to do so. (Chants of slogan, God is great).

I just finished Richard Dawkins’s The Ancestor’s Tale a few weeks ago and have to recommend it. Subtitled ‘A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life’, it examines the history of life, travelling backwards in time, from humankind’s position on the tip of one branch of the tree of life towards the trunk.

As we travel along our branch, other branches join up with us at places Dawkins calls rendezvouses. Since each branch represents another species, or collection of species on the tree of life, each rendezvous indicates the point at which our ancestors diverged from the ancestors of those species joining us, i.e. our last common ancestor, or ‘concestor’, with those species.

In a similar style to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, as we meet each concestor, Dawkins tells a tale about our fellow travellers and it is these tales which make up the story. He also gives us an approximate date for each rendezvous based on today’s best knowledge, and makes an attempt to imagine what that concestor might look like, though as we get further back in time he freely admits that discussion of dates and appearance is mere guesswork.

Each tale illustrates a particular aspect of science relevant to the study of evolution, such as how species are classified and grouped within the tree of life, the various methods of dating fossils, how hox genes control the layout of body of body parts and much more. By the time we’ve met Concestor 40 Dawkins has given us a good appreciation of the current state of evolutionary biology, as well as an insight into the science behind things like DNA, mitochindria and all the little processes which go on inside our body to keep us alive.

It’s a long read, and while very interesting, it’s certainly not a page turner. If you’re at all interested in biology, evolution or just plain science, it’s well worth a read.

Rolling Stone presents an article titled Was The 2004 Election Stolen? which looks at the discrepancies in the US Presidential election. There are a number of discrepancies in any process as large as an election in a nation of almost 300 million people, but when almost all of those discrepancies favour one candidate over the other, there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark. In one instance “Kerry should have received sixty-seven percent of the vote in this precinct. Yet the certified tally gave him only thirty-eight percent.”,1),
(

What’s more, Freeman found, the greatest disparities between exit polls and the official vote count came in Republican strongholds. In precincts where Bush received at least eighty percent of the vote, the exit polls were off by an average of ten percent. By contrast, in precincts where Kerry dominated by eighty percent or more, the exit polls were accurate to within three tenths of one percent — a pattern that suggests Republican election officials stuffed the ballot box in Bush country.(39)

‘’When you look at the numbers, there is a tremendous amount of data that supports the supposition of election fraud,’’ concludes Freeman. ‘’The discrepancies are higher in battleground states, higher where there were Republican governors, higher in states with greater proportions of African-American communities and higher in states where there were the most Election Day complaints. All these are strong indicators of fraud — and yet this supposition has been utterly ignored by the press and, oddly, by the Democratic Party.’‘

Sure, the article is written by Robert F. Kennedy, so there’ll be accusations of partisan bias, but all his sources are listed at the bottom of the article and there’s just too much evidence for it all to be easily explained away.

Knowing what we now know about the insecurity of the Diebold election machines and the fact that the company refuses to allow independent analysis of the machines’s software, it’s easy to see how the result could be suspect. When the owner of the company, who’s a major Republican donor, comes out with a quote like the following it’s even more suspect. [link]

David Bear, a spokesman for Diebold Election Systems, said the potential risk existed because the company’s technicians had intentionally built the machines in such a way that election officials would be able to update their systems in years ahead.

“For there to be a problem here, you’re basically assuming a premise where you have some evil and nefarious election officials who would sneak in and introduce a piece of software,” he said. “I don’t believe these evil elections people exist.”

This idiot doesn’t believe corrupt election officials exist?? What planet is he living on?

It’s a long article, but definitely worth a read.

How fucked up is this? Brad and Angelina had their sprog in Namibia and were able to get the Namibian government to refuse certain journalists entry to the country, provide armed security around where they were staying and enforce a no-fly zone over the area! Tossers!

[ link ]

The Boston Review has a long article by Helena Cobban titled Hamas’s Next Steps in which she interviews the new Palestinian Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister on what their plans are now that they are in power.

Coggan touches on the reluctance of Fateh to accept Hamas’s victory, the difficulties in ruling the West Bank given Israeli travel restrictions, and the refusal to recognise Israel:

Dr. Mahmoud Ramahi, Hamas’s chief whip in the PLC, made a similar statement when I interviewed him a few days earlier in the PLC’s main seat in Ramallah:

“We have said clearly that Israel is a state that exists and is recognized by many countries in the world. But the side that needs recognition is Palestine! And the Israelis should recognize our right to have our state in all the land occupied in 1967. After that it should be easy to reach agreement. They ask us to recognize Israel without telling us what borders they’re talking about! First let us discuss borders, and then we will discuss recognition.”,1),
(

Haniyeh made clear in our short interview that his government would be putting domestic rather than international affairs at the top of its agenda. “We are confident we can succeed in this new challenge of organizing the Palestinian house,” he said. “Our people want internal security now.”

She also touches on Hamas’s relationship with the Arab League, and how the League will be encouraging Hamas to adopt their line on conditional recognition of Israel, their plans to buildup economic ties independent of Israel and their views on the rights of women.

What are the prospects for Palestinian women, Christians, and secular Muslims if Hamas extends its power? Hamas is different from al Qaeda and the Taliban in many important ways—just as Palestinian society is very different from those of the rugged, underdeveloped areas of Afghanistan and Waziristan that spawned and incubated the two other movements. To understand this, it helps to meet a woman like Jamila Shanty, a longtime professor at the Gaza Islamic University and one of six Hamas women elected to the PLC in January.

Shanty clearly relishes her new role in the parliament, where, she told me, she hoped to sit on the political and legal-affairs committees. She said she was inspired mainly by the Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. “Sheikh Yassin always paid such a lot of attention to women’s affairs.” she said. “He made sure the mosques all provided enough space for the women to pray in, and that they offered lectures and other activities for women. He told us that the work we do in our homes is important because it has real political value. But he also strongly encouraged women to become engaged in causes outside the home. Whenever he visited a mosque he would make sure to have a meeting with the women there, and he would urge all the women to finish their education and contribute what they could to society. He was an example not just to Palestinians but all Muslims.”

It’s a very interesting read, especially since the usual crap you read in other newspapers just parrots the “Hamas are terrorists” line without providing any background or making any effort to educate readers about the ins and outs of Palestinian politics. While there’s no doubt that Hamas does have a military wing known for attacks on Israel, it’s also a fact that the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, no slouches themselves on the suicide-bombings front, was an integral part of Fateh, the party which held power in Palestine for twelve years prior to Hamas’s victory. Foreign aid still flowed in to Palestine while they were in charge, so why is there suddenly all this talk of cutting off the flow now that Hamas are in their place, especially since Hamas decided to unilaterally enforce a ceasefire in 2005, which they have stuck to? It would seem that now is the good time to engage with the official representatives of the Palestinian people, who, let’s not forget, were democratically elected, not to shun them.

After a week off, I got back out for a run last night. Straight away it was immediately obvious that I should have done a lot more stretching after the race… ok, I should have done some stretching. I had planned to cruise around for 5km, but decided to call it a day at just under 4km. No need to rush back in to these things.

R: 3.7km

It seems that back in 2003, Iran sent a document to the U.S. in which they proposed to recognise Israel and stop funding anti-Israel organisations such as Hamas, and even Hezbollah.

The March 2002 Beirut declaration represented the Arab League’s first official acceptance of the land-for-peace principle as well as a comprehensive peace with Israel in return for Israel’s withdrawal to the territory it had controlled before the 1967 war. Iran’s proposed concession on the issue would have aligned its policy with that of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, among others with whom the United States enjoyed intimate relations.

Another concession in the document was a “stop of any material support to Palestinian opposition groups (Hamas, Jihad, etc.) from Iranian territory” along with “pressure on these organizations to stop violent actions against civilians within borders of 1967.”,1),
(

Even more surprising, given the extremely close relationship between Iran and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah Shi’ite organization, the proposal offered to take “action on Hezbollah to become a mere political organization within Lebanon.”

The Americans rejected it out of hand, and even went so far as to complain to the Swiss ambassador that he would even consider forwarding the proposal to them. Something to bear in mind while listening to all the sabre-rattling about Iran now.

[ link ]

Just checked the offical results from the half marathon and I’m down (Bib# 371) as doing a 1:51:59, so I cracked the 1:52 mark after all.

My legs are slowly getting back to normal after the race. My quads are still a bit sore, as are my calves, but the rest is OK. I’m going to head over to Rozelle at the weekend to visit the Running Science store. It’s a shoe shop staffed by podiatrists and physios where a free video & treadmill analysis is provided. They’ll then analyse the way I run and recommend the correct shoe for me. I don’t have any issues with my current shoes, but hey, why turn down free video analysis, and it’s a good preventive measure as I start running more.

I want to start running around 40km per week consistently, and then maybe have another go at a half marathon in September. If I stick with the plan, which is usually a big if where I’m concerned (consistency isn’t my strong point), I think a sub-1:40 could be on the cards. That call will probably be a bit ambitious once the race gets closer and I get more of an idea of just what is involved, but I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.

Walter Tschinkel of the Department of Biological Science at Florida University has published a paper on the nest architecture of the Florida harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex badius. Not particularly interesting you say, but I like the way he took casts of the nests: by pouring orthodontic plaster into the nest entrance, allowing it to harden, and then excavating the result.

Check out this 12-metre cast!