To Lighten The Darkness

I have decided that, from now on, I will follow every horrible story I post about with one about someone that is inspiring, someone that every so slightly raises my hopes for humanity. I don't want this blog to become tragedy-porn, and either way it is always important that there are people in this world we can aspire to be more like, not just people we can revile.

Today I am also going to focus on someone who is no longer with us, but is still a truly inspirational and amazing human being. Her name was Rachel, and at nine years old she was already totally awesome.

Rachel was your average nine-year-old. She loved Taylor Swift and had a secret crush on Justin Bieber, although she’d never admit it. She had a loving family and a heart that wanted to solve every problem she saw in this world. Once, she cut off all her hair and donated it to make wigs for kids who had cancer. So when she sat in church one day and heard Scott Harrison from charity: water give a talk about how kids her age in Africa didn’t have clean water to drink, she immediately decided to help. 

With her mom’s encouragement, she created a fundraising page on mycharitywater.org, telling her family and friends that she didn’t want presents for her ninth birthday. Instead, she asked them to donate $9, as she was turning 9. Rachel wanted kids like her to have clean water to drink.

She had a big goal: to raise $300 and give 15 people clean drinking water. She fell a little short, raising $220, and told her mom that she’d try harder next year.

A month later, Rachel was in a tragic car accident on highway I-90 near Seattle, Washington. A trailer had jack-knifed into a logging truck, sending logs tumbling down the freeway. More than a dozen cars were caught in the pile-up, and the trailer smashed into the back of Rachel’s car.

When the news spread about Rachel’s story and her birthday wish, people all around the world began to donate on her page. Some gave $9, some $19, leaving comments like “This is the rest of my month’s salary…..” A month later, 30,000 people had given more than $1.2 million.

Not only did she display more empathy and altruism at the age of nine that many people do in their entire adult lives, she also happened to pick a great charity. This is what I look for in a charity, and this is what makes this also a post about supporting them:

When we started charity: water, we made a bold promise to the general public — 100% of their donations would go directly to the field to fund water projects. We'd find another way to cover our operating expenses. And we'd even reimburse credit card fees when donations were made online.

We depend on private donors, foundations and sponsors to cover everything from staff salaries to basic office systems to office rent and supplies. These donors are some of our most dedicated: their investment fuels our long-term mission, our ability to scale as an organization and our mission to continue using 100% of public donations for water projects. 

Great girl, great cause. Feel your spirits rising ever so slightly. 

Forcing The Discussion

And here I am to prostrate myself at your virtual feet for by prolonged and undue absence. I was going through a writer's block, a "crap I have nothing to say, and no one cares what I have to say anyway" phase, from which I have been shocked out of in light of recent viral stories that I want to add my two cents to. 

By now, I'm sure you have all heard about Savita Halappanavar, the most recent face put on the victims of the Catholic Church's meddlings in societies to which they do not contribute.

Savita Halappanavar (31), a dentist, presented with back pain at the hospital on October 21st, was found to be miscarrying, and died of septicaemia a week later.

Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar (34), an engineer at Boston Scientific in Galway, says she asked several times over a three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated. He says that, having been told she was miscarrying, and after one day in severe pain, Ms Halappanavar asked for a medical termination.

This was refused, he says, because the foetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, “this is a Catholic country”.

She spent a further 2½ days “in agony” until the foetal heartbeat stopped.

The dead foetus was removed and Savita was taken to the high dependency unit and then the intensive care unit, where she died of septicaemia on the 28th.

There was no chance, none whatsoever that her foetus would survive. Despite this, they chose to put the life of its mother at risk, by choosing the arbitrary standard of a foetal heartbeat as proof it was still alive, thereby directly causing her death.

I wonder, are heart transplants illegal in Ireland as well? The person's heart is still beating when it is removed for transplant, it must be in order to still be viable, but by their own logic isn't that directly killing their patient and therefore illegal?

So why am I deciding to weigh in at this point? Why is this one case so important?

I hope that this is what will finally precipitate a real discussion that we need to have regarding the liberties we give Catholic hospitals. 

Even if it is discovered that this was an isolated case, one in which her doctor was negligent and solely at fault, even if it is discovered that his actions were not in accordance with proceedure at the Catholic hospital in question, even if the administration of said hospital is absolved of any responsibility beyond any doubt, we still need to have this conversation.

This is not the first time that we are faced with the disgusting proceedures in Catholic hospitals. Take ectopic pregnancies, which have 0% chance of survival, since the foetus will burst the fallopian tube and kill the mother once it reaches a certain size. We have heard of Catholic hospitals which refuse to remove the embryo in question because of their "morals", opting instead to remove the woman's entire fallopian tube, greatly reducing her fertility and turning a simple operation into a far more dangerous one. Where was the global outcry then?

What about the sawing of women's pelvises to make them into supreme baby-making machines? 

The problem is the lack of a face, a victim, someone that the whole world rallies around. Now there is one, and with enough people paying attention we need to address the real issue: how much are we going to allow hospitals to get away with?

We need laws, real laws, limiting in explicit words what religious hospitals are allowed to do and still operate as hospitals. If Jehovah's Witnesses decide their going to open up a hospital but refuse to give blood transfusions to any of their patients, even to save their lives? Guess what, you don't get to be a hospital, you don't get a cent of govnerment money and you sure as shit aren't going to be served by ambulences that might bring an unwitting patient to your doors. If a Catholic Church refuses to save a woman's life because she has some foreign DNA inside her? Fuck you, you don't get to be a hospital anymore, end of story. 

Now, when people are really looking and really paying attention, now is the time to act.

What Happened to Book Reviews?

Here I used to be reading three books in a weekend given the three hour train ride I have to take whenever I go back to Rome, now it's been twice that I've gone down and I'm still bringing along the same book that I haven't even opened yet. Yeesh, what's going on? Where has the reading bug gone? Well, it's easy, I've gotten hooked on audiobooks. More specifically, I cannot go anywhere without being plugged into the Harry Potter series, read by Stephen Fry.

I adored the books, and I was the perfect age for them to "grow with me" as I was reading them. Now, I have to say, I think I like hearing Stephen Fry reading them to be even better. They keep me company as I walk back and forth to work (since they have now stole my bike for the third time, horray), on the train, as I dissect larvae at the microscope or as I go about my solitary business. They're also so long that by the time I reach the end of the last book, very little time needs to go by before I start on the first again. They're that good. He's that good.

I have found that when it comes to audiobooks, they need to be books you have read and/or books that do not require an enormous amount of attention. If it's your first time reading them, or it is a book that needs careful consideration paid to every word, you need to be able to hold it in your hand and fix it with your eye, or you wont be able to follow it and you certainly wont be able to multitask. To this effect, I have downloaded the following audiobook series that will follow Harry Potter:

Discworld - Terry Pratchet
The Dark Tower - Stephen King
The Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman
Dune - Frank Herbert

I am a little giddy, though I highly doubt that any of them will be as good as the Stephen Fry readings. He's just... so... I suppose you have to listen for yourself to get it. I just hope I wont get too hooked that I wont open up any paperbacks again.

Fuck You Libertarians!!

I'm so very sorry that I have been neglecting you. I have been finding very little to say and even less time to say it, and I was wondering whether or not to acknowledge the fact that the United States just, finally managed to re-elect their president. It's not like it was a shock, the math was pretty clear on that before the actual election, so it wasn't exactly a nailbiter. Of course there are the hilariously uninformed that actually were flabbergasted about it (including the Mitt Romney campaign itself), and I suppose it is only because of them that I have decided to talk about this at all. This video just tipped me over the edge in its absolute hilarity, so I figured why not.

Yes, Obama won, and apparently there are some very drunk and incidentally very funny people that are just stinking MAD about it!!!




It's OK, you can admit it, it's pretty funny. Actually, I'm more interested right now in getting follow up interviews with those people that were sure that Romney would wim because God was going to make sure of it, because God was never wrong. My question would be this: Did the absolute creaming of Romney in this case make you

A. Question your belief in God
B. Question your belief that God prefers Romney to Obama
C. Think that Satan might currently be stronger than God?

My guess, it'll be D. Non of the above. There's no reasoning with some people.

Another Awesome Lady

I'm back from my little holiday everyone, even though I didn't get to leave the country I still managed to have a fabulous time to make up for my incredibly shitty birthday, hooray for belated birthday celebrations! Since I am still in a good mood, I want to open up November with another female boss. Today we meet Tracey Spicer, an Australian newscaster, who had this awesome dose of snark to dole out to the oh-so-deserving. I'm sure you know that I am quite partial to snark myself, and this lady has just wiped the floor with the targets of her ire:


DEAR Mr Misogynist,

I'd like to thank you for everything you've taught me over the past 25 years.

Why, I had no idea I was so fat, ugly and stupid. I thought being a size 12 was perfectly acceptable.

But when you yelled across the newsroom, ''I want two inches off your hair and two inches off your arse'', suddenly, a light went on.

Of course! The size of my posterior is directly related to the content and credibility of the stories I'm reporting on for this network. Silly me. You're right. I'll never make it as a TV journalist.

Those wise words of yours from 1986 are still ringing in my ears: ''That's why you don't see blonde newsreaders,'' you explained patiently. ''People don't take them seriously.''

It reminded me of another sage piece of advice, from a radio boss during a job interview some years ago.

He put it simply yet eloquently: ''There's a reason why you don't hear women on commercial talkback radio,'' he said. ''No one wants to hear the whiny sound of a female voice. Us blokes get enough nagging at home!''

Really, in retrospect, it was foolish to think I was worthy of such a role.

Like all women, I only have two areas of specialisation: shoes and handbags. We all know high heels are a patriarchal construct to disempower us by constricting movement. (Oh dear. Must stop having thoughts like that. Sorry, I have no idea where that came from.)

Anyway, through some quirk of fate, I managed to land a newsreading job.
I know what you're thinking. I finally decided to speak into that flesh-coloured microphone you were always pointing in my direction.

Oddly enough, I was offered the job by a woman. Who would have thought? Initially, I was wary. You always said you'd never work for a female boss because, ''You can't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die''.

Hilarious! It's a good thing I was wearing a corset or my sides would have split.

Fortunately, there were enough blokes around to keep me on the straight and narrow.

On my first night, the station manager came down and said, ''You need to stick your tits out more''. Once again, my brain wasn't working properly.

In between the raging bushfires, the political crises and savage cuts to welfare, I'd forgotten to flirt with the camera.

A couple of years later - I'm ashamed to say this - I ''porked up'', according to one of the producers.

My new boss quickly raced out and arranged sponsorship from the local gym.

Frankly, I was unsightly. I stood out like a bull in a china shop, around those fragile lollipop ladies with their skinny bodies and massive heads.

Speaking of heads, I got a nasty shock when I looked in the mirror one day. Wrinkles around my eyes and on my forehead. Too much thinking? Surely not.

I remember you reviewing a video tape of one of my colleagues - clever girl, Walkley Award winner as I recall - and saying, ''The problems seem to be here and here,'' pointing to her ghastly crow's feet.

As it turns out, wrinkles were the least of my worries. I'd gotten myself knocked up.

I wanted to go back to work when bubby was three months old but, once again, it took a man to show me the error of my ways.

''Women should be at home with their children,'' my news director said. ''Or the fabric of society will be rent asunder.

''Anyway Trace. You're getting a bit long in the tooth. Why don't you give some of the younger girls an opportunity?''

Suddenly, all the lights went on. And it was so bright - it made your light look like a limp insipid flicker.

This is difficult for me to put into words but if I had to, it would sound a bit like this: F--- you.

F--- you, you misogynist bully with your archaic beliefs, intellect of a pygmy, and tiny dick.

The reason I am writing this letter is to thank you.

Among others - too many to mention - you lit a fire in my belly that's become an inferno and these days, I don't cop shit from anyone. When I was sacked by email after the birth of my second baby, I fought the lot of them.

I do hope you receive this correspondence. I had trouble finding a forwarding address after you lost your house due to that unfortunate sexual harassment case.

(I'm sure the bitch was asking for it.)

Yours in emancipation,
Tracey.

What has gotten into Australian women these days? Whatever it is, I approve.

Thoughts On: Body Farms, Autopsies and Anatomy Museums

This one has been swirling around in my head for a while, but it also just so happens to be an appropriate topic for Halloween, don’t you think?

This is one of those cases in which for a long time I had to think to death why I felt the way I feel about a certain thing. So here’s the deal: I am not opposed to art exhibits or museums which display human bodies, I was brought to an anatomy museum as a freshman in high school, and while it was a little disturbing for a 13-14 year old (particularly the severely malformed fetuses and the poster book of a sliced pregnant woman), I do not oppose their existence. Of course I am also fully aware that body farms and autopsies performed for medical training are invaluable to our society and even if I were opposed to the former, the latter is undeniably essential. Here’s my one caveat though: the people who are used have to have consented to this while they were alive. I am firm in this, and I did not go to one of the exhibits in Dublin because I was told that the majority of the bodies used were unclaimed as opposed to voluntarily donated. Why, though, do I feel this way?

I obviously am not religious or superstitious in any way. I do not believe that the “souls” of those people will “know” what is being done to their bodies and upset them. I do not believe that they will become angry ghosts for the way that their bodies are being treated. I do not believe that any of them will be denied access to heaven because they were not buried in a certain way. Why, then, am I so adamant about consent, when they would never know any better anyway?

The answer came to me when I was talking to a friend of mine who is considering visiting the Human Body Exhibition in Milan. She has never been to one of these before nor has she ever seen an autopsy, so while she is very curious she is unsure how she will react. Discussing it, she said that she would probably be very sad, because she will be thinking about how these bodies were real live people once. To which I responded that that would not make me sad in the slightest, so long as I knew that those people had wanted their bodies to be displayed in such a way. And that is when it clicked.

Respecting their last wishes is my way of preserving their humanity. I will always remember that those bodies were people, I cannot disassociate what they are now with what they were. However, knowing that this is what they wanted for themselves and their bodies would make me happy to participate, not sad. I do not fear death the way that many others do and I accept it, however I feel that respecting someone’s wishes is respecting their humanity. I would find it incredibly sad if I knew that the exhibit was filled with unclaimed bodies, that just because those people had outlived their family or perhaps died in the wrong place at the wrong time that somehow made them less human, less worthy of respect, less deserving of choosing the fate of their bodies. I would feel for those people, I would wonder what their lives were like, what they would have wanted, why they died alone and unwanted. On the other hand, to know that the last wish of the person I am looking at was to be looked at by me and the thousands of others that walk through the exhibit makes me feel happy to oblige. I would not think on their past life with sadness but with curiosity and a smile on my face. Finally, I feel that there is an inherent hypocrisy in giving some people the right to do with their body as they choose but deny that right to others.

I may not have really explained myself that clearly, so feel free to ask or bring up another tangent. I am also aware that this is very subjective, so what are your thoughts on the subject?

Have you ever been, or would you ever go to a body exhibit or a human anatomy museum?

Journal Club: No Smoking Allowed

We haven’t done a journal club in a while, so I figured I couldn’t resist delving into the science behind another one of those scientific newspaper articles that love tohype it up. It all started with one of those articles that people share on Facebook, the title of which translates to:

“Peptidediscovered to stop smoking definitively and without relapse!” Wow, that’s some discovery! This article linked me to a statement released from the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, which of course actually had a far more toned down title: “CAMH discovery may lead to new treatment to prevent smoking relapse”. O.K., we’re digging down past the layers of hype.

Of course both of these articles committed my worst pet peeve ever: they didn’t cite the actual article, and it took me forever to find it. It’s not on Science Direct or Google Scholar yet, PubMed only has the abstract, I finally managed to find it on the webiste of the Journal of Experimental Biology, also because the actual title they landed on was:

“The α7nACh–NMDA receptor complex isinvolved in cue-induced reinstatement of nicotine seeking”

Yeesh, good thing they accompanied this article with a press release, cause that’s a pretty specific and boring title that would not have led me to open that article and read on, nor does it make it easy to find in a search engine. Anyway, this is the part where I read the actual article and digest it into easier morsels for you, like a mother bird barfing up her dinner. So let’s see, what did they actually conclusively find?

Let’s start with what we know: we know that there are receptors in our brains called nicotine acetylcholine receptors, or nAChRs. These receptors are activated by nicotine, which in turn cause the yummy feelings in our brains, which is what makes smoking additive and hard to give up, especially over long periods of time (don’t I know it). What remains fuzzy is exactly what these receptors do on a molecular level after they receive the nicotine fix, therefore the molecular source of what exactly makes smoking so hard to give up.

Here, they found that one particular receptor of the nAChR family, called α7nAChR, forms a complex with another kind of receptor called NMDAR, under chronic exposure to nicotine. This means that the formation of this complex could be a key component to understanding what makes it hard to quit. Therefore, theoretically, if you stop this complex from forming, you could prevent the downstream warm-and-fuzzy effects on the brain that this complex induces, and thus making it easier to give up the cigs. With me so far?

In order to test this hypothesis, the researchers got rats addicted to nicotine, teaching them that if they pressed down on a lever, they got a shot of nicotine. Once they were well addicted and their self-administration of nicotine became relatively stable, they were given a shot of a peptide that the researchers showed interferes with the formation of this complex. After this shot, the rats no longer looked to self-administer nicotine. They also made sure that this was not because the peptide simply made the rats loopy, therefore making them less likely to press down on the nicotine bar for different reasons, but they demonstrated that the rats injected with the peptide moved around just as much as normal rats.

This sounds quite promising, so what are the ups and the downs?

One big problem I have with this paper is the lack of focus on the aspect that they focused on in their press release. I understand that the molecular part of the paper is extremely labor-intensive and important, the fact that they conclusively demonstrated the protein complex formation (which is not easy) and found a peptide that inhibits it is a paper all on its own. However, rightly so, they knew that the part of this experiment that would get the most attention is the part about actually testing this peptide to see if it works. However, despite being the only focus of the press release, they completely gloss over it in the paper. There is not a single graph, not a single statistical analysis of the behaviour of the rats.

ICV injection of 12 or 40 nmol TAT- α 7pep2[L336-M345] blocked reinstatement of nicotine seeking, they say. OK, completely? Significantly? That’s it, that’s all the information I get?

TAT- α 7pep2[L336-M345] peptide did not affect locomotor activity (not depicted) why is it not depicted? Did you not run a statistical analysis to demonstrate that the locomotor activity was not affected? If you did, let’s see it! If you’re not going to pay any attention to the behavioural aspect of the experiment then just don’t do it, and you definitely don’t get to make it the sole focus of your press release.

Putting aside my wariness about the nicotine-seeking results of the rats, it is a promising experiment and certainly the first of its kind. Of course there is a very long way to go in applying it to humans: seeing if this complex also forms in humans (tough to do, since in this case they demonstrated it by taking neurons from the rats), and definitely doing a very in-depth analysis of this peptide to make sure that it doesn’t interfere with anything else in the body which is important.

It is a good start, but I still give them a tut tut for their handling of some of the data.