Past Lessons, Future Theories
Friday, October 26, 2007
  Comet 17P/Holmes
I observed Comet 17P/Holmes two nights ago, only visually. Compared to the previous night, I think it has brightened. On the 24th it was a little brighter than delta Per, which is magnitude 3.01. On the 25th it seemed brighter than gamma Per, which is magnitude 2.91, so I would say it is around 2.5-2.7.

It has a way to go before it can beat the brightest star in Perseus, Mirfak, at magnitude 1.79.

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Thursday, October 25, 2007
  Housewatch - Episode 4.4
This week on House, the girl was unfortunate enough to have ergotism, a historically common, but now rare, disease.

Ergotism is a result of poisoning by ergot, a fungus (Claviceps purpurea) that grows in rye, and other cereals. In this episode, the patient was baking her own organic rye bread at home. So, she ate it, and the toxins produced by the fungus caused the illness.

The mold can continue to grow in the rye, and secrete a toxin that causes a variety of neurological effects, which can lead to seizures and hallucinations, both of which the patient had. It's also possible to have vascular effects, such as the bleeding the patient had. In worse cases, limbs can fall off.

There isn't a specific antidote, but it can be controlled with drugs that help the blood flow and sedatives for cases of hallucination.

Recently (OK, 1976), ergotism has been as a suggested cause of the Salem Witch Trials (original scientific journal article here). (I was just in Salem.) Briefly, in 1692 a bunch of girls accused people of being witches. Twenty people (men and women) died, 19 by hanging, and 1 by crushing.

Ergot poisoning has been a suggested cause, which largely, but not completely, accounts for the symptoms demonstrated by the girls. Others think they were just evil bitches.

And now, some speculation on what doctors will remain. Amber (blonde doctor) will survive, because she's been given a lot of lines, seems about as amoral as House, and is very ambitious, all traits that House will like. (Or perhaps she could be too similar, and get turfed like the old guy did this week.) The Indian guy will survive, because I've seen him in other shows, or movies. I don't remember. He's not a nobody. The black guy will probably end up part of the team too, because House can pick on him for religion, and therefore have a few religious dilemmas this season. And they wouldn't want to have a team of all-white doctors. That begs the question, where are the Asian doctors? (I can't recall ever seeing an Asian doctor on the show), who tend to have the highest marks on entering and leaving medical school.

The white guy disappears, because he's hardly said a word. The brunette doctor disappears because there can't be two women on the team, though I could see her staying on because she's the most attractive of the group. And the surgeon goes, because he's already a doctor and can simply return to practice.

Another moment of hilarity: Chase suddenly being a accomplished surgeon. Fine for tv, but in the real world, I don't think people realize just how far apart surgery and medicine are. Surgery is carpentry and sewing, medicine is pills, IVs and tests.

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  Comet 17P/Holmes

Comet 17P/Holmes has undergone a huge outburst, from magnitude 17 to 2.5, which means it's gone from being visible with only the largest telescopes to easy naked-eye visibility. I took this picture last night in my backyard.

More pictures and maps at www.spaceweather.com.

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Tuesday, October 16, 2007
  Swoon 208 - October 15, 2007
Tom Middleton – Larynx (Big Chill)
Supermayer – Two Of Us (Kompakt)
Lee van Dowski – The Strike Pandemonium (Soma)
Cobblestone Jazz – Saturday Night (Wagon Repair)
Junior Boys – Like A Child (Carl Craig mix) (Domino)
Diagoro – Etch (Touchin Bass)
Boards of Canada – Satellite Anthem Icarus (Warp)
Sabres of Paradise – Ano Electro (Warp)
Legion of Green Men – Kiqbaq (Post Contemporary)
Feist – My Moon My Man (Boyz Noize mix) (Last Gang)
DVAS – Le Tino (Xxxtended mix) (Pop Echo)
Mathew Jonson – Real Dreams (Wagon Repair)
Chromeo – My Girl Is Calling Me (A Liar) (Last Gang)
Robin Judge – Track 7 (Noise Factory)
Mike Shannon – Ghost Writer Blues (Cynosure)
Kabale und Liebe – Simpossible (Pheek mix) (Meerestief)
Troy Pierce, Heartthrob – Horse Nation Amended (M_nus)
Minilogue – The Leopard (Extrawelt remix) (Traum)
Burger/Voigt – Bring Trance Back To Life (Kompakt)
Samim – Heater (Get Physical)
DJ Gregory – Elle (Ame piano mix) (Yellow)

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Thursday, October 11, 2007
  Pinker on cursing
Steven Pinker has a long, but interesting essay on why we curse.

"...The upshot is that a speaker or writer can use a taboo word to evoke an emotional response in an audience quite against their wishes. Thanks to the automatic nature of speech perception, an expletive kidnaps our attention and forces us to consider its unpleasant connotations. That makes all of us vulnerable to a mental assault whenever we are in earshot of other speakers, as if we were strapped to a chair and could be given a punch or a shock at any time. And this, in turn, raises the question of what kinds of concepts have the sort of unpleasant emotional charge that can make words for them taboo."

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Wednesday, October 10, 2007
  Housewatch - Episode 4.3 http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Another episode of House, another post. This time, the patient had the misfortune to suffer from spinal muscle atrophy. In his case, it was ascending, which means it started at his feet, and slowly worked its way up his body. Like last week's disease, it's genetic. But SMA is recessive, which means you need two copies of the bad gene, instead of just one, as in von Hippel-Lindau.

SMA kills motoneurons, which are the nerve cells that control muscles. Related diseases include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig's Disease, and Parkinson's. In SMA, the mutated gene (SMN1, or survival motor neuron 1) makes a protein that is essential for nerve cell maintenance. Without it, the nerve cells shrink and die, and without stimulation, the muscles atrophy.

They called what actually killed him by two names, threadworm and Strongyloides. This was very confusing, since they are different, but related diseases. Both are caused by a worm infection. In each case, the 1-cm worms can easily be seen in the stool. That's why the male team wanted a stool sample.

Threadworm, or pinworm, is a very common illness. As this article notes, one course of treatment is usually sufficient to cure the disease. (The patient did not have this.)

Ickiness from Wikipedia:

Reproduction

Pinworm eggs are easily seen under the microscope.
Pinworm eggs are easily seen under the microscope.

After mating, the male dies. The female migrates to the anus and emerges, usually during the night, to deposit about 10,000 to 20,000 eggs in the perianal area (around the anus). She then secretes a substance that causes a very strong itching sensation, inciting the host to scratch the area and thus transfer some of the eggs to the fingers. Eggs can also be transferred to cloth, toys and the bathtub. Once ingested orally, the larvae hatch and migrate back to the intestine, growing to maturity in 30-45 days. The eggs can survive from 2 to 3 weeks on their own outside of the human body. It is also in some cases where the larva will hatch around the skin of the anus and travel back inside the anus, up the rectum and back into the intestines where it matures. (SOURCES: Rudolph's Pediatrics - 21st Ed. 2003; Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment - 45th Ed. 2006)

The patient actually had Strongyloides, which involves a different worm that can infect dogs and be transmitted between humans and dogs. This article is very informative. Like a lot of parasites, it has a bizarre life cycle.

But it's easy to treat with a dose or two of ivermectin, which is why everybody was upset at the end that it wasn't caught. Or that it was caught, and the medicine wasn't delivered.

And what about the dog? The dog died because it ate the ivermectin pills intended for the patient. Collies react unusually to it (J Vet Intern Med. 2002 Jan-Feb;16(1):89-94. Ivermectin toxicity in 17 collies. Hopper K, Aldrich J, Haskins SC.).

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Now playing: Deadbeat - RA.072 Deadbeat - 2007.10.01
via FoxyTunes

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Tuesday, October 09, 2007
  Swoon 207 - October 8, 2007
Minilogue – Urubamba (WIR)
Intus – Agujas (K2)
Xhin – Recall (Meerestief)
Raudive – Needles (Steve Bug mix) (Poker Flat)
Pantha du Prince – Asha (Dial)
James Priestley, Dan Berkson – Chariots (Simple)
Plastikman – Passage (in) (M_nus)
Cobblestone Jazz – Hired Touch (Wagon Repair)
Robin Judge – (Noise Factory)
Plastikman – convulsed (M_nus)
Venetian Snares – Like Tooth Decay
Squarepusher – Modern Bass Guitar (Warp)
Aphex Twin – Meltphace 6 (Warp)
HRSTA – Entre La Mer Et L’eau Douce (Constellation)
Samim – Setupone (Get Physical)
James Zabiela – Human (Renaissance)
Junior Boys – In the Morning (Hot Chip mix) (Domino)
Paranoid Jack – Addy’s vs. Ardalan mix (Stickman)
Gui Boratto – Beautiful Life (Gui Boratto mix) (Kompakt)
Riton – Hammer of Thor (Connaisseur)
DVAS – Relief (I Can’t Get No) (Pop Echo)
Gregory Tresher – A Thousand Nights (Great Stuff)
Cobblestone Jazz – W (Wagon Repair)

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Wednesday, October 03, 2007
  Cobblestone Jazz - 23 Seconds

In 2006 Cobblestone Jazz released two singles which became extremely popular, and spread way beyond their intended techno audience. The first, "Dump Truck", was a loose, jazzy techno track with constantly changing beats. It was light-hearted and fun, much like Gabriel Ananda's "Doppelwhipper". The second, "India In Me", was very different, with more traditional techno beats, eerie, repetitive, filtered keyboards and sounds, with a little dose of acid.

So the stage was set for the trio, Mathew Jonson, Danuel Tate and Tyger Dhula, who compose and play their music live in extended jam sessions, to release a full-length album. 23 Seconds will be out soon, and it follows on the pattern they've laid down before, of smooth techno beats and melodic lines.

The album begins with a brief opener, and the goes into the spacy "Hired Touch", which sounds like it could have been written any Detroit techno pioneer. It's a somewhat spooky intro.

Next is one of the 2007 singles that led to the album, "Lime In Da Coconut". The techno beats continue, but the keys get much more intricate, courtesy Tate, the group's keyboardist, who sidelines as a jazz musician and church organist (seriously). It's an arpeggiated, jazzy workout. Things get even jazzier with the next track, "Slap the Back", which doesn't really include slap bass, but is still quite funky with a lot of tweaking on the keyboards and bass.

They change gears with the next track, "PDB", which is a deep and sexy, saxophone-led techno monster. It's a long, beautiful glide. It's one of my favourite tracks on the album.

Next up is the title track, which may be the most experimental one of the album. It's jazzy and quirky at the same time.

"Change Your Apesuit" is traditional, funky techno, with a very nice bassline and an occasional twinkling keyboard line added for effect.

Then comes a shortened version of "Saturday Night", released earlier this year, that still sounds good. It has a funky bassline, with punchier percussion and prickly keys that are constantly sliding downwards. "Peace Offering" is somewhat similar, but definitely cheerier, with vocodered vocals hidden in the background.

The album ends with "W", which appeared on a Cocoon compilation earlier this year. Like "PDB", it's deep and sexy, with a funky bassline, again the vocodered vocals in the background, and lush, warm keys looping a melody over and over.

The second cd has their hits from 2006, "India In Me" an "Dump Truck". Then there's a 40 minute live set recorded in Madrid, which features many of the album tracks and is a great example of what live techno can be.

All together, it's a very solid package. If you liked "Dump Truck" or "India In Me", you won't have any problems with this album.

It will be out October 15 on !K7 and Wagon Repair.

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  House is now HouseMD
In accordance with several suggestions, tags for the television show House, M.D., are now tagged as HouseMD. House music is retaining house.

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  Housewatch, episode 4.2
Last night on House, M.D., the young Air Force pilot was finally diagnosed with Von Hippel-Lindau disease, a rare genetic disorder that causes abnormal growths throughout the body. The process, called angiomatosis, leaves the patient with cysts or tumors scattered throughout the body. The pilot happened to have hers in the liver and brain, although the blood vessels, kidney, pancreas and retina of the eye are common locations too. It occurs worldwide, in about 1 in 32,000 people.

The gene that causes the disease is located on chromosome 3. It is a tumor suppressor gene, which, when lost, lets cellular division go out of control. This can lead to the overgrown blood vessels, which turn into cysts and in the worst cases, cancer. It is an autosomal dominant disorder, which means only one copy is needed for the disease to occur.

Chase showed up to posit that the pilot's panic attacks were caused by a pheochromocytoma, a known early sign of Von Hippel-Lindau. (One researcher has suggested pheochromocytomas aggravated the Hatfield-McCoy feud. ) A pheochromocytoma is a small tumor in the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys that secretes too many stimulating hormones, like adrenaline, into the bloodstream. This is logical, considering VHL can often cause abnormal growths in the kidneys.

The pilot's original complaint was synesthesia, which is a confusion or overlapping of the senses. The most common form is associating sounds with colors. For instance, a flute would be associated with bright red. I searched PubMed for "synesthesia and von" and "synesthesia and hippel". Both came up with zero results, so I wonder if the writers just made that up.

Addendum: Given that Cameron was only onscreen for 60 seconds, she still managed to be quite annoying. House was right, she did look like a cheap hooker. Dark hair and blue eyes is a much better combination.

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Tuesday, October 02, 2007
  Swoon 206 - October 1, 2007
DiskJokke - Flok L Farta (Kindisch)
Jeremy P. Caulfield - Lacewing Puff (Dumb Unit)
Greenbeam and Leon - Fisher (Unfoundsound) <--- free download, click on unreleases
Will Saul and Tam Cooper - Sequential Circuits (Gui Boratto mix) (Simple)
Cobblestone Jazz - PDB (Wagon repair)
Small Fish With Spine - High Fibre (Oxide)
Aphex Twin - Ziggomatic 17 (Warp)
Squarepusher - Planetarium (Warp)
Orbital - Meltdown (Ffrr)
Lawrence - Friday's child (Mule electroniq)
Five Green Circle - Ronan's BBQ (Xhim remix) (Meerestief)
Wighnomy Bros. - My Gloomy Head (Musik Krause)
Quenum - Acalanto (Orac)
Pan-pot - Charly (Anja Schneider mix) (Mobilee)
Slam - No One Left To Follow (Soma)
Marc Houle - Techno Vocals (M-nus)
Alex Tsiridis - Oshhh (Hedges and Beaner mix) (DoC)
Schaeben and Voss - Blaze (Kompakt)
Dusty Kid - The Cat (Southern Fried)
Pryda - Ironman (Pryda)
Philip Sherburne - Lumberjacking (LAN)

download it
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Now playing: Damian Lazarus - Lazpod 01
via FoxyTunes

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