Bioterrorism

[adventureman]

WTF does this have to do with anything??

July 18, 2005

# ANY HOPE of understanding the twisted logic that motivates murder in the name of religious or political beliefs has not apparently been helped by the theories of David Buss, the author of The Murderer Next Door, billed as the ultimate explanation of why people kill. Buss, the Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas, has already attracted a hurricane of criticism for his assertion that men are hard-wired to kill.

He maintains that evolution favoured those with ?killing? genes because they would be more likely to dispatch rival suitors and enhance their status with a potential mate. Today?s crimes of passions, he says, are evidence that this dormant homicidal circuit can be triggered when mating opportunities are threatened.

Buss insists that evolutionary explanations for murder are not equivalent to excusing it. Still, his theories have been dismissed as ?BS? (by the investigative psychologist David Canter, at Liverpool University) and ?tiresome? (Steven Rose, the director of the brain and behaviour group at the Open University).

It is hard to see the room left in Buss?s theory for female murderers, who make up a sizeable minority of this ghastly elite. It is also a challenge to understand how wife-killing could be viewed as a winning reproductive strategy, since a dead ex may deter future partners.

Maybe this is true. I once read an article by a "doctor" who claimed that the reson humans are so violent and unevolved was becuase we are a genetically engineered work force placed here by a race of aliens. They purposefully gave us a trait to make us violent so that we would not become enlightened enough to advance our society and throw off the chains of our alien overlords. :shock: I guess all GM technology is bad.

# CALLING ALL red-blooded men: do you prefer real or fake?

No, I?m not talking about those. I am, of course, referring to the crimson fluid flowing through your veins. The European Union is funding a project to develop blood substitutes that would ultimately do away with the need for donated human blood in transfusions.

Donated blood suffers from several obvious drawbacks: contaminated blood can transmit HIV, hepatitis viruses and, rarely, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). It has a shelf life of little over a month, leading to both wastage and shortages. Screening and refrigerated storage is expensive, rendering it an unaffordable luxury for poor countries. It must be matched to the recipient ? a transfusion of the wrong blood type can be fatal. People with rare blood groups are hard to treat.

Scientists have long sought to manufacture artificial blood, or, at least, the bits in it most needed in medicine. Haemoglobin, the molecule that does the oxygenating, is the prime target, although the iron, coagulants and antibodies found in whole blood are also separated out and used.

Because haemoglobin is ferried around in red blood cells there is no point isolating it and injecting it directly; it would exit immediately via the kidneys without circulating.

The European project, led by Dr Kenneth Lowe at Nottingham University, aims to attach a genetically altered form of haemoglobin to large artificial molecules. The liquid would not only circulate around the body delivering oxygen, but also fill emptied blood vessels to prevent them collapsing.

If such a liquid could be mass-produced cheaply and stored without refrigeration it would be invaluable on the battlefield or in disaster areas, where it could be used for the treatment of casualties.

I am all for it, and where the hell is my lab grown liver? Too many people die every year because of lack of blood and organs. Those damn vampires are always calling for my blood. O neg., liquid gold baby. Give blood and sign your donor card!
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Chris Dyer