Spice up your life

Easily recognized and distinguished by its bright orange-yellow color, the spice turmeric is made from the root of curcuma longa, a member of the ginger family. Turmeric, as well as many curries with turmeric, contain a compound known as curcumin. Curcumin has a long history in eastern medicine, being employed in the treatment of an extremely broad range of ailments. A rapidly growing body of scientific evidence from both laboratory research and clinical settings is reinforcing this history. Curcumin exhibits anti-oxidant, anti-arthritic, anti-inflammatory and anti-tumorigenic activity in vitro and in animal models. A recent phase II clinical study published in ASCO, provides evidence that curcumin may enhance the chemotherapeutic efficacy of gemcitabine in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Keep in mind, this study involved advanced stage and metastatic pancreatic disease patients, who unfortunately suffer extremely poor prognosis. While this regimen may help and is very encouraging, it is by no means a cure for this disease. Another interesting study published recently in the scientific journal Cancer Research, presents data that curcumin represents a new class of mTORC (mammalian target of rapamycin complex) inhibitor. mTORC is a target of pharmaceutical companies due to its fundamental role in the cell. mTORC1, a member of the PI3K related-kinase family (PIKK) promotes cap-dependent mRNA translation and ribosome biogenesis, two absolutely fundamental processes used in all cells. Your probably asking yourself, wouldn’t this suggest that curcumin is bad for you and toxic? From a cancer treatment perspective, it is all about therapeutic index. The current basis of many cancer treatments without any other options, is to use anti-metabolites (such as the nucleoside analog gemcitabine mentioned above) that are more devastating to proliferating cells than non-proliferating cells, as cancerous cells are often proliferating at higher rates than most non-cancerous cells. Many “chemo” drugs are cytotoxic agents with narrow therapeutic windows; therefore compounds with considerably less toxicity that can widen this window are of great value and high priority.

In terms of your everyday diet, curcumin likely has many benefits. In fact a little research will yield an enormous amount of both substantiated and putative benefits of curcumin. Don’t be lead astray by its function at high concentrations in terminally ill cancer patients (8 grams orally per day in the above clinical trail) in combination with gemcitabine and at high concentrations in cell culture. Toxicity is a complete non-issue if used as a seasoning. Remember that many drink caffeinated beverages everyday while caffeine is a potent inhibitor of DNA repair. However, the concentrations of caffeine required to have this effect are not physiologically achievable by drinking caffeinated beverages. Just a little thought to illustrate the dosage concept, too often overlooked these days in my opinion (a complete blog post in and of itself really). Spice up some sautéed vegetables and cleanse the palate with some green tea. While you’re at it, transcend binary thought and balance the opposing forces of the universe! Cheers.

Thomas Paine Day 2009 - Celebrating a Revolutionary

Happy Birthday to Thomas Paine: an American Revolutionary and ABOLITIONIST.

In preparing for this day I have been reviewing several pieces written by and about Thomas Paine. Inevitably the Wikipedia article about him comes up as the top hit when submitting his name to the Google gods. Upon reading this entry I felt like I was wandering through a reader's digest version of the biography by Craig Nelson. But one passage about Mr. Paine puzzled me for days and has led me down a rabbit hole of hearsay and speculation. The passage includes the assertion that Thomas Paine's "fervent objections to slavery" led to his exclusion from power during the early years of the Republic. This assertion was made by the historian John Nichols and was questioned in the Wikipedia entry, saying it was "dubious" and needed to be discussed. Have historians tried to suppress the opinions of Thomas Paine regarding slavery? Why is the abolitionist article "African Slavery in America" which was first published in the Pennsylvania Magazine, no longer listed as being penned by Paine when it once was assigned to him? This article was published in the periodical during Paine's tenure there and is of content that echos his opinions expressed elsewhere. Where is the evidence that he did not author this article? These are some of the questions that still loom regarding Paine as an abolitionist. It is perplexing to me that a writer lauded for his clarity could be ambiguous regarding his opinions on an issue as monumental as slavery. The answer came to me as I was reading a collection of his writing last week. In a letter Paine sent to the medical guru among the founding father's (Benjamin Rush) Paine pronounces his opinions on the slave trade. The letter is dated March 16th 1790 and was sent from Paris.

"I wish most anxiously to see my much loved America - it is the country from whence all reformations must originally spring - I despair of seeing an Abolition of the infernal trafic in Negroes - we must push the matter further on your side the water - I wish that a few well instructed Negroes could be sent among their Brethren in Bondage, for until they are able to take their own part nothing will be done..."

Further, Paine authored the preamble to the 1779 Pennsylvania proposal to abolish slavery in that state. Tom Paine died alone and destitute with no money to his name and little respect amongst his contemporaries. He knew that his opinions about universal fairness and opposition to the stranglehold of organized religion over the minds of the masses would not make him popular, but he held his opinions without apologies until his death. Nearly 200 years have since passed, and nine days ago President Barack Obama vindicated this "better angel" of history by quoting Paine's words during his historic inauguration. I can think of no better way to celebrate the lives of those that forged the ideals that enable the "great experiment" that is the United States to continue evolving than by breathing life back into the words of people like Thomas Paine; forgotten by the writers of history but not by the makers of history.

"My Own Mind is My Own Church." ~Thomas Paine

There are some very good reasons to use this thought to remedy the damage done by the rise of evangelicals in the United States over the past decade. When God Inc. came to town independent-thought, skepticism, and the scientific method were put in the closet while the shepherds were welcomed into the living room and fed the grapes of leisure. But as their corruption spills into the pews their grip around the brain stems of the masses diminish. It appears that in the information age, paying people to keep the truth under wraps just does not work the way it did back in the glory days of the Vatican.

The first time I saw Ted Haggard was in the following interview with Richard Dawkins.



Now, three years later, his prolonged fall from grace is doing some public good. The bureaucracy of his church actually paid a 20 year-old man thousands of dollars not to go to the press with his story of sexual encounters with Mr. Haggard. While attempting to salvage their public image by suppressing the truth the church has in effect repulsed the public even further. It is refreshing to see the power of a free-market of information self-correct itself and force some well-deserved critical analysis of at least one mega-church. I hope this incident sparks a new revolution of faith: the rise of the micro-church, the church of reason that exists within every persons mind.

Thomas Paine Quoted in Obama's Inauguration Address

Though not mentioned by name, the hand that penned some of the last words of President Obama's Inaugural speech belonged to Thomas Paine. Taken from his work entitled The American Crisis #1, the following words remind us that even when held at the brink of despair, hope has and will rally these United States to survive and thrive.

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive ... that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it."

Thomas Paine was not mentioned by name perhaps because of the controversial stigma that came to be associated with his character later in life along with the publication of his treatise criticizing all established religions of the world The Age of Reason. This caused his image to reflect poorly in the minds of some of the United States greatest leaders. Teddy Roosevelt once labeled Paine a "dirty little atheist." Though, Paine was in fact a self proclaimed deist believing in one God.

As a president cognizant enough to mention non-believers by name in his inaugural speech begins the immense task of rebuilding a nation torn apart by fear it is my hope that the subtleties of the founder's intellects will be explored and extolled once again.

As for the climax of the inaugural speech; it came for me with the following paragraph.

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

This extends a friendly hand to the planet while echoing the wise words of Benjamin Franklin when he said.

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

With the promise of the still waters of peace on the horizon may this be attained swiftly and with minimal human suffering.

8 Years of Bush in 8 minutes

Some thoughts on evolution and pudding

Evolution is to life, as time is to the day. Evolution is both the vehicle and the passenger. This message brought to you by our sponsors water, carbon and silicon. Evidence? Like life itself, the scientific method is a continuous process. Evidence is either in support of or in opposition to a hypothesis. Period! Evidence need not be directly experimental in nature. Evidence can be purely observational. Proof is as fleeting as those who tout it. The idea of someone who presents a religious text as "Truth" speaking on the nature of evidence and proof is completely ridiculous. Take as example, the correlative evidence between smoking and lung cancer. The concept of proof is subjective in nature and quite misleading. The only thing you really need to know about proof is that it's in the pudding. It's tasteless though, you might not even know it was there at all. Hypotheses are tested and if they can be supported by studies over time then they graduate to the status of theory. Theories are descriptions of observable existence. Science is observation. Truth? Good versus evil? Apparently it can be quite difficult to elevate beyond absolutes and begin to understand perspective. Religion is like mental retardation in this respect. “We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.” - Richard Dawkins. Societies and their religions have evolved throughout history. Unless you are satisfied with ignorance and bloodshed, the next step in this evolution urgently awaits. Tolerance and understanding of different perspectives is paramount for society as a whole to advance. We will have taken a giant leap for humankind once we come to understand the nature of observation and embrace the concept of perspective. Many of the struggles we are witnessing in our world today stem from absolutism and the failure to understand or even consider perspective. Well... this emerged in a context of religious beliefs and the basic struggle for pudding itself. Irrespective of religion, the struggles of our past and of our present will only be escalated in the future if we continue on our current course of complete disregard for issues such as the sustainability of pudding and it's carrying capacity. Meanwhile, the old cliche of walking a mile in someone else's shoes becomes more relevant with every passing day. Practically impossible? Take the old imagination out for a spin and give it try. EVOLVE!

The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776

On the birthday of Benjamin Franklin I think it appropriate to review a particularly progressive collaboration between he and Thomas Paine - the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776. This document is considered by some historians to be the most "democratic" legislation to emerge from revolutionary America. This was the first legislation drafted that directly echoed the Declaration of Independence and further enunciated and protected the freedom of every person to "natural rights" including the right to worship "according to the dictates of their own conscience." Also, the language of this document presents a situation wherein all men, no matter race or creed were free to vote. This being penned in 1776 was a little too radical for the time. In 1790 it was amended by conservatives in that state to be more inline with the other state's constitutions.

From the preamble it is clear that this document serves as a universal template for an evolving government. It also highlights the balance of consciousness Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine had. Though they did not agree on the extent to which to renounce religion themselves they did understand the significance of embedding religious freedom in the legal genome of posterity's government.

"We, the representatives of the freemen of Pennsylvania, in general convention met, for the express purpose of framing such a government, confessing the goodness of the great Governor of the universe (who alone knows to what degree of earthly happiness mankind may attain, by perfecting the arts of government) in permitting the people of this State, by common consent, and without violence, deliberately to form for themselves such just rules as they shall think best, for governing their future society; and being fully convinced, that it is our indispensable duty to establish such original principles of government, as will best promote the general happiness of the people of this State, and their posterity, and provide for future improvements, without partiality for, or prejudice against any particular class, sect, or denomination of men whatever, do, by virtue of the authority vested in us by our constituents, ordain, declare, and establish, the following Declaration of Rights and Frame of Government, to be the CONSTITUTION of this commonwealth, and to remain in force therein for ever, unaltered, except in such articles as shall hereafter on experience be found to require improvement, and which shall by the same authority of the people, fairly delegated as this frame of government directs, be amended or improved for the more effectual obtaining and securing the great end and design of all government"

Read the rest here.

God Soaked Violence

This is the way Bill Moyers describes the conflagration in Gaza.

Thomas Paine on The Writer's Almanac.

On the 233rd anniversary of the publication of Common Sense, Thomas Paine's famous pamphlet is commemorated by Garrison Keillor on The Writer's Almanac. This pamphlet explained the reasons the American colonies should declare their independence from Britain and was originally published anonymously. It sold roughly 500,000 copies in its first year. Thomas Paine did not profit from the sale of his work and donated all the proceeds to provisioning the continental army thus illustrating the old adage - the pen is mightier...

ABOUND SOLAR - Named a Top Startup 2008

The excitement surrounding Abound Solar and the potential for this company to bring down the cost of solar generated power on a global scale is at a fever pitch. Generating electricity at about $1 per Watt would serve as a great equalizer in an energy starved world.

I am not an economist or a stock broker but I must say that the odds that an onslaught of recently liquidated capital might flow into this promising company are high. A torrent of naysayers and worrywarts that recently yanked their assets from the ailing international banks and other old-timey blue chips are chomping at the bit to sew their wild renewable energy oats. This sets the stage for a perfectly poised flood of money which would reinvigorate and essentially recreate the economic landscape. Enter: Abound Solar and other companies like them such as Vestas - the wind energy people.

Business Week Online announced Abound Solar as one of the 25 most successful startups of 2008. Business week cites the fact that Abound raised over $104 million in venture capital in 2008 making it the most lucrative start-up in the state of Colorado.

Abound is using an old American invention to make their magic - the assembly line. By passing panes of regular window glass through a series of extremely hot vacuum chambers various chemical solids are sublimed onto the glass to form a series of photovoltaic thin films and the process of producing cheap solar cells is manifested. Owning proprietary rights to some steps in sealing off the cadmium telluride/cadmium sulfide within a glass sandwich is really what makes the company viable. Watch the assembly line in action within this blog post on Solar Power Authority.

Carl Sagan began an episode of Cosmos with the following assertion - “We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads, but to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The cosmos is full beyond measure with exquisite relationships of the awesome machine of nature.”

As we speculate on the success of new energy technology there is hope that human interrelationships with the machine of nature will approach a state of sustainability where humanity can thrive.

Stay tuned for updates about abound solar on Tom Paine's Ghost!

See Abound solar on CNN and their website.

Nikola Tesla

For a man obsessed with the number 3 this is a unique moment. 66 years ago, between January 5th and January 8th 1943 NIKOLA TESLA, like an electron popping out of an uncertain orbital, passed out of earthly existence in room 3327 on the 33rd floor in the Hotel New Yorker. The story of this man's life is more magical because of its truth than the most fantastic fiction ever written. I imagine his life as a heavenly existence spent in reality passing time with some of history's brightest stars - Mark Twain, John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Edison. His vision for free and equitable POWER (in all philosophical and practical definitions of the word) for every man woman and child on earth has still not been fully realized. As the internet gains depth and gravity this vision is pieced together slowly and perhaps one day will be complete. The ghost of Nikola Tesla breathes life into the very medium in which I pass these keystrokes along. May he never be forgot!

5 Things to Start and 5 Things to Stop in 2009

I'm publishing this right away to get it out there, though teri.mclain penned the following post.

So - we have the audacity to hope that Barack Obama will change the world for us in 2009 and we can continue to sit around on our keisters and whine. I think we all know that this isn’t going to happen. We will need change a few things ourselves.

As with most New Year’s resolutions, most of us will pick tiny things to improve our own tiny lives. But this year, imagine how improving yourself can also improve our planet.

During the 2008 election, we learned that we do actually want change and we prioritized our concerns. We elected a new guy because we are concerned about 5 whopping problems:

1. Environmental POLLUTION
2. Lack of AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE
3. Lack of quality EDUCATION
4. The ECONOMIC CRISIS and
5. The perpetual state of WAR

For those of you ready to try something different, here are some suggestions for ordinary things we can all resolve to do every single day. Things that take little time and minimal effort but could result in big and noticeable changes. Observe that the simple act of stopping can have just as much effect as starting something new.

To work on the problem of preserving our planet:

Start: Conserving
Stop: Having babies

Use a clothesline, a travel mug, a bicycle. Once you start even one simple conservation act, you will start to see opportunities to reduce waste in almost everything you do. Just pick the easiest one and start. Look in your trashcan. Try to eliminate most of that stuff from your life. And must we mention birth control? We know that this planet can sustain a finite number of humans and if we exceed that number, the whole thing falls apart. Resolve to quit arguing about the number and stop having babies. If we fail to pass this simple test of intelligence, we deserve to die a slow painful death of starvation in a miserable, polluted stinkhole.


To participate in the reform of our health care system:

Start: Exercising
Stop: Eating Junk Food

There are two very simple concepts at work here: Cause & effect and supply & demand. Bad diets and poor exercise cause disease. If you take a little time for wellness each day, you will not have to make time for illness later. People who are not sick and do not take 57 prescription drugs will decrease the demand for healthcare. When there is low demand and a steady supply, this is known as abundance. When something exists in abundance, the cost goes down. A few cases in point: SUVs, onions, air.


To improve our pitiful education system:

Start: Learning
Stop: Watching television

When we are educated, our children will be also. If we are zoned-out, TV couch zombies, our children will be also. The corruption and exploitation machine relies on a country of zombies. Stop contributing to the machine. Go learn something. Teach it to your kids. This does not require that you sign up for a PhD thesis or a Mandarin Chinese class in Mongolian economic theory. Learn something interesting every day. Use your new free time to read independent news from around the world and exercise. Unplug.



To turn the Economy around:

Start: Buying locally produced stuff
Stop: Borrowing money

Our local economies are suffering because much of our money travels on a one-way ticket to the corporate headquarters of the institutions we buy things from – most located on the Cayman Islands. If WE want to control OUR money that WE earn by OUR labor, we need to keep more of OUR dollars circulating in OUR towns so WE can use it. Buy local. Supporting your mates right here at home actually helps YOU.
We have all seen in great detail what happens when borrowing gets out of control. The banks and the government obviously have no idea how to properly regulate these things, so it looks like we will have to do this one ourselves. This is a tough one. We are addicted to easy credit. We must kick this habit or submit to more wage slavery because when we are in debt, we are desperate to have a job and will submit ourselves to almost anything.



To End War:

Start: Traveling
Stop: Being judgmental

When you travel, especially in the third world, you see things. You see what real poverty looks like. You see that foreign people are more like you than different from you. You see that it is a real crime to bomb them for any reason. You see that they really don’t hate Americans, just misguided American policies and guided American missiles. Go. Get out of your safe little rut of Las Vegas and Cancun and Disney world. Explore the planet, it’s pretty cool, really. The people will welcome you. And finally, let’s all resolve to stop being so judgmental. Let us recognize the humanity of each person that we meet in 2009 and quit comparing everyone and believing that some are going to hell and some are devils, and some are out to get us, while some are evil and others deserve death and we deserve a posh retirement on a golf course.



These are easy things to try. Pick one. Let’s see what happens.

New York's "Obesity Tax"

A tale of aspartame and high fructose corn syrup.

While home in New York State for the Christmas holiday political matters were generally not part of familial conversation. But one piece of legislation in New York was discussed. The new "obesity tax" on regular soda. This tax essentially attempts to deter people from drinking regular soda by adding an ¢18 charge per can. After contemplating the reasoning surrounding this law I believe the intention is good but the mark is missed. Mainly because all other food products with added high fructose corn syrup, and diet sodas are excluded from taxation.

I was a fat kid. In junior high I had to wear a special "fat kid" jersey on the basketball team. I know the torment so many kids are going through now because of their weight. Wanting to understand metabolism because of my battle against childhood obesity guided my choice to study biochemistry. I'm writing this because of that fat kid jersey.

The primary reason soft drink consumption is linked to obesity is the disproportionately large volumes in which soda is sold. 12, 24, 32, even 64 oz. containers are not unusual in our fast food nation. A simple solution to the soda problem would be to tax soda per individually packaged unit on an exponential scale for any container over 8 oz.

Super-sizing the soda portion was the way Pepsi Co. and Coca Cola dealt with plummeting soda prices in the 1980's. This depression in the supply/demand curve happened when the technology to turn regular corn syrup into the much sweeter high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) finally emerged from recombinant genetic research in Japan in the late 1970's. The soda companies, along with almost all other processed food companies, were quick on the uptake and in 1980 they swapped the more expensive imported cane sugar, for cheap domestically grown and processed HFCS. To stay profitable they upped the volume sold to the consumer. When I worked at my local cinema as a high school student my manager called this strategy "up-selling." I was told to ask the customers "you sure you don't want to upgrade that medium to a large? It's only ¢50 more."

In short, the American people fell for the old movie theater pop-corn trick. For nearly 30 years our average caloric intake from soft drinks has gone up and up and up. Michael Pollan explains this phenomenon in greater depth from page 100-108 in the Omnivore's Dilemma.

But simply reducing the volume would be far too easy a solution for our high-tech world. Why rain on Pepsi Co./Coca Cola's parade? Why not make money on the other side. Run billions of ads for weight loss programs, machines, lipo-suction, Richard Simmons and that guy with the pony-tail. Why attack the cause when there is so much money to be made in the clean-up?

Speaking of money to be made on the other side of obesity, I'd like to focus on Aspartame, aka NutraSweet. This compound actually promotes sugar uptake from other dietary sources. This means that an individual that only consumes diet soda and no other food or beverage would indeed loose weight, but any other sugary or fatty food consumed by an individual drinking a NutraSweet drink absorbs those other calories more readily.

I would love to see a scientific paper that is not blocked by the soda, or artificial sweetener companies on weight gain in mice fed aspartame vs. cane sugar. The paper I am proposing would include a control group of mice (fed a normal diet with no added sugars), one experimental group fed a normal diet and 1 gram of cane sugar per day and a second experimental group fed a normal diet and 1 gram of aspartame per day. If the hypothesis that aspartame promotes the uptake of glucose is correct the group of mice being fed the NutraSweet should be heavier than either of the other groups.

There is another disturbing twist in the legend of aspartame. One of the main proponents that pushed legislation through the FDA to allow aspartame to be used as a food additive for mass consumption was the chief operating officer of G.D. Searle and Company - Mr. Donald Rumsfeld.
Mr. Rumsfeld re-applied for the FDA to approve aspartame within the first few months of Ronald Regan's presidency. He filed the application despite the fact that the FDA had rejected the initial application because of unclear data relating to observed brain cancer in mice fed aspartame. The relative value Mr. Rumsfeld has placed on human life when reckoning business transactions gives me little reason to believe this man would care to look at any negative evidence about something he wanted the American people to buy into, whether it was war or soft drinks.

A recap - Solutions include; changing the tax language to include all products with added high fructose corn syrup, an exponential tax scale for all beverage containers over 8 ounces, and a ban on all artificial sweeteners until long term biological effects can be thoroughly studied.

In the meantime, raise a small glass of cane-sugar-sweetened cola; to the end of the Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Bush error!!!
Cheers!
~The Ghost

AVA Solar

A solar cell company to keep your eye on in 2009.


Despite the unfortunately cheesy music in the background this provides one of the most encompassing views of a company I have a lot of hope for in my own back yard.

Burned Iraq War Vet Makes Cameo on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve

History Deciding.

Plato wrote - "the penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves." The remorse I feel in having spent the last eight years under the tyranny of a hereditary ruler in a country founded on the abolishment of monarchy ignites the flame of revolution buried deep within my genome.

If all the lamentations from the past eight years regarding President George W. Bush were collected into a singular sonic boom of public outcry, it would pail in comparison to the echoing legacy of shame he leaves festering all over our planet. Indeed, actions (and by the same reasoning - inactions) speak louder than words. All the strong words that have been flung his way in recent history are but whispers when compared to the resounding emotion that comes from witnessing consequence first hand.

Moments into the new year, during the broadcast of Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve on ABC, a certain scene resonated and has been smoldering in my mind ever since. The cameras had turned to American Idol star Kellie Pickler, where she was surrounded by three Iraq war veterans celebrating the new year in Times Square. The man in the center was staring into the camera intensely through the skin of his face pulled taught around his cheek bones by severe third degree burns. He raised his hand and cheered at the camera, while Ms. Pickler hurried to step between him and the camera to "shield" the American public from the manifestations and real consequences of war. George W. Bush has asked that history decide if his presidency was bad or good, but someone forgot to send him the memo - nowadays history is written in real time.

REVOLUTION

"Art is either plagiarism or revolution."
~Paul Gauguin

TOM PAINE YEAR - 2009

The Rough Guide to Evolution: 2009, Tom Paine's Remains and Darwin