INTERESTING TIMES

We went to the Mission last night to hear about Viruses from Hell, and it turns out the speaker was a PhD professor who is into viruses that come from acidic hotsprings. He looks a lot like my friend Gordon who is also a brilliant academic--something about that jutting forehead must allow for extra brains. Ken Stedman is a professor at Portland State University who has made a career of viruses. His research has mostly involved examining the genomes of extremophile viruses and comparing them. It was faintly interesting to me--genetics is interesting, and yet I am so homocentric. I really want to know about bacteriophage therapy for healing horrible infections. I want to hear about the evolution of the flu. But his research wasn't about this and his talk was about the questions that will ensure that he gets grants and funding in the future. I couldn't help but to think of the right wing perspective that academics are parasites on society and perform no useful function other than keeping themselves in priuses. There is truth it that, though it is also true that there is nothing more important for our future than to keep investigating our world and what is in it. Scientists have specialized training that makes it possible for them to think of things that I don't have words or concepts for. There is so much more of the world to know about. I am learning this narrow fraction that is medicine, and it is more than I can ever take in. Within that sea I must pick a drop.

Circling back to VIRUSES, I did bring home a few interesting factoids. I call things factoids until they've been demonstrated beyond the shade of MY doubt. He defines viruses in several ways but my favorite was "a capsid encoding organism", also known as a phage. He told us that the major reservoir of viruses on the planet is in seawater, though they infect everything else that lives. Some 5% of the oxygen in our atmosphere is produced by bacteria that are infected with viruses. The viruses increase the oxygen-production of these microbes. I learned that 10% of the human genome is viral---and this is just the ones that have been demonstrated beyond a shade of HIS doubt. Professor Stedman said that up to 43% of the human genome could be viral, and that many of the genes we got from viruses are important ones, without which we would not be here. Apparently all placental mammals share one particular viral gene so it got in there a long time ago.

One of the main points that Professor Stedman made was how much of the world is made up of viruses, and how small they are. He said that if you put all the Earth's viruses end to end the lineup would reach to the Andromeda Galaxy. And they'd weigh more than some huge number of whales, and so on.

One nice thing about going to science pubs is being around people for whom evolution just is, instead of having to debate about it. It makes me realize how much energy I put into defending a basic scientific mindset. Too many groovy spiritual people and homeopaths in my life. They stress me out.

For today my mantra is "it is OK to do nothing" and I have been enjoying it. I need to take breaks more often. And journal. Just for me.

Here's Mercola's latest post on the subject.

We already knew we were getting a lot of mercury from fillings, but the dental profession and FDA continued to say they were "safe and effective"... safe and effective.. safe and effective.. safe and effective... It's the same mantra they use for vaccines containing lord knows what toxins... safe and effective... Now we know to be suspicious when that mantra comes out. Then somewhere along the line some dentists got real and decided they wanted to stop poisioning their patients, and suddenly had more business than they knew what to do with. The old-school dentists who still said fillings that were 50% mercury were safe and effective started losing ground. The FDA follows the money, like a dog follows a biscuit. I'm not a cynic, I'm a realist. =-] Too bad my brain is already frying/fried from the 20 mercury laden fillings that I got when I was a child.

I just learned yesterday that high dose N-acetyl-cysteine is dangerous for people with a high mercury load because it mobilizes it and is thought to transport it across the blood brain barrier and INTO the brain. I did not know this and took NAC along with detox protocols so I probably worsened my own problem. I wonder if taking NAC with a chelator is of any help in removing said toxin from the brain?

I think this is terrific. It's a song called "Dead dead dead" from the makers of South Park. The children's voices singing are so Christmassy. =-] Be careful, it can get stuck in your head. Dark humor aside, it does remind me to live in the moment.

I'm in the Reno airport. Last night I drove from Flagstaff down to Phoenix and stayed with friends. This morning I drove to the airport and made it through security and onto the airplane in the nick of time. Seems to work for me. I was again selected for additional screening--because I had a jar half full of powder in my bag. My usual breakfast smoothie powder: living fuel. But I made it.....traveling is stressful but it is less so when you aren't too worried about being delayed. It just doesn't matter.....I'm going to a wedding that isn't until tomorrow, I'm sure I'll make it to that.
( The ongoing tale )