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Growing Your Own Replacement Parts
This is simply incredible. Watch the video about Claudia Castillo growing a replacement to part of her windpipe with her own stem cells. She didn’t grow the complete tube, but nevertheless…
Ms Castillo, who was born in Colombia, had suffered a tuberculosis infection that ravaged her airways, leaving her unable to do simple domestic tasks. Disease had caused her windpipe, or trachea, to collapse just at the point where it entered her lung. Without the pioneering operation in June, the lung would have been removed. Today she again has a normal life and is able to look after her two children. She can walk up stairs without getting breathless and has even been dancing.
Oh, my. Can you believe this? What the future holds for all the folks with damaged parts…
And does this mean as we age, we’ll be able to swap out the old for new? How will that affect aging? This is simply incredible.
Buffett’s Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders on 2008
I got my masters degree in accounting and information systems. While going to school I started an investment club and learned about a man named Warren Buffett.Warren Buffett is humble, full of folksy humor, and trades places with Bill Gates as the richest man in the world, depending on the year you’re counting. His annual letters to his shareholders are a delight to read. This year’s is full of wisdom about the current financial crisis. Moreover, within a few minutes of reading you will be able to get some key insights that can help as you evaluate the plans being hatched in Washington and how to prevent this particular type of crisis from happening again.
If you’re not that into finance, I recommend reading:
- The introduction starting on page 2 and ending on page 3
- The “Finance and Financial Products” section starting on page 10 and running through page 12
Once you’ve read those, if you want to laugh and see Buffet’s humor, skip to page 21 where Buffett talks about the annual meeting of shareholders. Tell me you wouldn’t want to attend.
The Berkshire Hathaway homepage
This year’s letter to shareholders (you will click on 2008 because he’s discussing the results of that year)
The Snake that Could Eat a Cow
Titanoboa. 43′ long. Weighs more than a ton. Could eat Bessie. Literally.
The picture below is of a python slithering over the vertebra of a titanoboa.
More here in Times Online article, USA Today, and LA Times.
Mitt Romney’s Body Man
There’s going to be a novel and movie about a presidential candidate’s Body Man. I can feel it. The topic is too rich.
I’m not talking about his body guard. Or some wardrobe guy. Or, please, some sexual thing (good grief, people). I’m talking about the dude whose task it is to free up the candidate so he can focus on meeting, talking, etc. instead of rousting about for a pen or cell phone.
Check out this NY Times video on Romney’s body man.
One of my favorite stories of all time featured two characters in just such a relationship. That would be Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien writes in his letters that he based their relationship on his observations during his military service in World War 1 of the relationship between a batman and his officer. “Batman” being, not a Bruce Wayne wannabe with a utility belt, but a Soldier-Servant assigned to an officer in the British army of the time.
I want a story about a body man. Or a body woman. It feels so delicious.
Crow Journal, day 2
The deer came through this morning and ate the peanuts and cheese.
The good news is it appears the crows actually heard the weird call mix yesterday and had been scoping the place out for some time. My oldest saw them on the east. I saw them on the west. Then yesterday evening after writing the last post the pair of crows returned and did some acrobatics down the hill maybe 50 yards from the house.
Today I found some calls from the Crow Busters site. I created a new playlist using the Rally, Attention, and Look Here calls. I set out a pie tin, a bit further from the house with a few Sun Chips and a handful of large bird seed (dried corn, sunflower, etc.) in it. Then I played the calls for about 20 minutes.
Results: Nellie said she wanted to throw herself off the balcony. I’m telling you, these birds would not get the golden ticket on Avian Idol.
Some people must think I’m nuts. It appears crows can cause quite a bit of damage and have in other parts of the country. The folks at Crow Busters have listed their litany of reasons for hunting the birds. But they’re scarce where I live, so I’m not too worried.
Results of today’s efforts: nothing.
The Afghan Refugee
One of the most amazing pictures I’ve ever sceen. It’s of a 12 year-old girl who fled Afghanistan to Pakistan in 1983 during their war with the Soviets. Here’s the article that goes with it. Of course, this is yesterday’s news. But some things are worth revisiting.
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This is really interesting. I’m a bit surprised English isn’t a little more common, considering the country’s founding and all. But kind of interesting how Utah ends up one of the only England states–perhaps goes back to how most of the pioneers that settled there were converts from Britain.
I’m curious though what the ancestry marked “American” refers to exactly (which fills in a lot of counties in Kentucky, Tennessee, etc).
Yeah, it doesn’t show the diversity of any given area. And it’s self-reported, hence the “American” ancestry. But it’s still interesting to see the groupings.