Mary Meets Dolly

I got this one for all the ladies that come over to my house for tutoring and are in a emotional panic over their chemistry class. (Have you noticed the camera on my smart phone is scratched? I got my hubby's cast-off with the jacked up lens. At least it is a phone, and it's smart.)



From girls, to teenagers to grown women, I have seen more tears shed over chemistry than any other subject. And if there is one thing that will guarantee failure in chemistry is panic; the outward sign of that panic is tears. So if you want my help, the tears have to cease. Otherwise, learning cannot continue. Tears = total brain shut down.

Faced with a difficult multi-step problem, males and females attempt to solve said problem with divergent styles.  A male will skim the problem and immediately start furiously writing, almost as if it is a race. He then circles his answer and looks at me with a proud look on his face. At this point, I burst his bubble and tell him his answer is wrong.  It is wrong because he did not read the question carefully and so instead has the right answer for a different question entirely.  (I believe this mental process is the same one that causes men to be reluctant to read directions or consult a map.)

A female will read the question carefully, consider it, and consider it.  She knows exactly what the question is asking.  She can usually see the first step in her head, but after that she does not know where to go next.  Since she cannot easily see the destination, she begins to panic.  Her lip starts to quiver and her eyes begin to tear up.  The problem never gets solved and all she has for her trouble is a blank piece of paper with a tear-stain on it. (I have experienced this phenomenon more times than I would like to admit so I immediately spot it in those women I work with.)

If I can get her to take just one step in the problem, she is usually more likely to get the question right than her male counterpart who didn't bother to read the question properly. That first step, even if it is in the wrong direction, illuminates the next step, and then the next and finally the girl gets to the destination: the right answer.  But she has to get over her emotional response to a difficult question and take that first step.

A growing body of evidence suggests that in some patients, increased inflammation contributes to autistic behaviors. Now, a Phase I clinical trial is under way to measure the effects of infecting autistic patients with a non-pathogenic parasitic worm. Scientists at Montefiore Medical Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and biotech company Coronado Biosciences will test the hypothesis that treating these patients with Trichuris suis, a non-pathogenic parasitic pig whipworm, will dampen their immune responses and ameliorate repetitive and irritable behaviors.

“The trial is a novel approach [to autism treatment] with a naturally occurring drug delivery system”—a parasitic worm, said Eric Hollander, a Montefiore psychiatrist and head scientist on the trial.

Autoimmune and allergic diseases are more prevalent in more developed countries where citizens are accustomed to better water quality and less contact with farm animals. Some researchers chalk this phenomenon up to the so-called hygiene hypothesis, which posits that the microbes and parasites that humans co-evolved with act to help keep our immune responses in check. The theory was spurred initially by observations in humans—that after anti-parasitic therapy, people scored higher on allergy skin prick tests, or that autoimmunity and allergies were more prevalent in more-developed West Germany than East Germany—and supported by laboratory studies on mouse models of such diseases, said Marie-Helen Jouvin, a pathologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard University, who is not involved in the clinical trial. Parasites, such as the whipworm used in the autism trial, are thought to both dampen inflammation and stimulate immune regulatory pathways in their hosts.

In the cutthroat field of fertility treatments, Dr. Ernest Zeringue sharply cuts costs by creating a single batch of embryos, then divvying it up among several patients. One 'horrified' critic calls it the 'commodification of children.'

Dr. Ernest Zeringue was looking for a niche in the cutthroat industry of fertility treatments.

He seized on price, a huge obstacle for many patients, and in late 2010 began advertising a deal at his Davis, Calif., clinic unheard of anywhere else: Pregnancy for $9,800 or your money back....

Zeringue sharply cuts costs by creating a single batch of embryos from one egg donor and one sperm donor, then divvying it up among several patients. The clinic, not the customer, controls the embryos, typically making babies for three or four patients while paying just once for the donors and the laboratory work.

People buying this option from Zeringue must accept concessions: They have no genetic connection to their children, and those children will probably have full biological siblings born to other parents.

Inside the industry, Zeringue's strategy for making embryos on the cheap has spurred debate about the ethical boundaries of creating life.

"I am horrified by the thought of this," said Andrew Vorzimer, a Los Angeles fertility lawyer alarmed that a company — not would-be parents — controls embryos. "It is nothing short of the commodification of children."

...Before the clinic makes a batch of embryos, it sends an extensive profile of a sperm donor and an egg donor to prospective parents.

Once the clinic gets buy-in from a few patients, it purchases the sperm from a sperm bank, harvests eggs from the egg donor and combines them in the laboratory.

A single pairing can result in a dozen embryos, and the clinic keeps the extras frozen while it looks for patients who want them.

"We want to keep the embryos moving," Zeringue said. "The goal is not to create a bank."

So the other day on my blogging break my family made me sit down and watch the new Spider-Man movie, "The Amazing Spider-Man". I don't know why they had to make yet another Spider-Man flick, but for the sake of family unity I cuddled up on the coach and watched.

Recently, I hit a bunch of unsuspecting Catholic women at an innocuous book club over the head with the reality that transhumanist ideas are everywhere and that our children are soaking them up like a sponge. "The Amazing Spider-Man" was full of them.

I appreciated that the depiction of transhumanism, called "cross-species genetics" in the movie was a negative one. Dr. Connors, in a desperate attempt to keep his job and regrow his lost arm, injects himself with what I assume is a concoction of reptile DNA. In a total suspension of disbelief, Dr. Connors gets his arm back and then some when he turns into something horrific, the vile character of the Lizard that is whole, strong and, in the Lizard's opinion, superior to all humanity.

But Dr. Connors doesn't stop there. He wants the whole human race to share in his new found genetic superiority. He now understands that humans are weak and pathetic and it isn't good enough to fix us. He needs to change us and it is for our own good. In a monologue in the the depths of the sewer, Dr. Connors muses, "This is no longer about curing ills. This is about finding perfection." (At which point my 10 year-old son whispers to me, "Don't say a word, Mom. Don't say a word.")  Dr. Connors, of course, attempts to bring all of New York City into his genetic nirvana.

I was heartened that Dr. Connors was such a tragic figure as super-heroes and villains with super powers have traditionally been. So why does the depiction of a lizard-man in a silly remake of a silly comic matter? Because I hear Dr. Connor's monologue everywhere coming from normal everyday people. People like this commenter at the transhumanist site Singularity Hub who tells us how he or she really feels about being human:

"Who doesn’t want to be smarter, prettier, healthier? Who doesn’t want to have wings to fly through the air, or gills to breathe under water? Are we stuck just being land dwellers? We spend most of our lives OBTAINING and MAINTAINING health, beauty, intelligence, etc., when we could be spending all this time and money obtaining and maintaining loving relationships with other people (transhumanists!) and going on adventures out to space exploring the universe, rather than stuck at home watching crap movies from Hollywood, going to school half our lives and drowning in debt because of it, and then just paying bills and taxes till you die. That’s no life, that’s SLAVERY.

Transhumanism is the answer to the racism, sickness, death, ugliness and stupidity. Transhumanism is the ultimate solution to be able to live up to our fullest godlike potential. The creative potential is limitless! I can’t wait to experience more, not being trapped inside these biologically frail, disease-prone bodies!