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In this motionless body, behind that glazing eye, and with all the appearance of death, sensitiveness and intelligence persist in their entirety. The corpse before us hears and distinguishes all that is done around it. It suffers when pinched or irritated, in a word, it has still consciousness and volition, but it has lost the instruments which serve to manifest them. Claude Bernard, 1864 quoted in ANESTHETIZING THE PUBLIC CONSCIENCE: LETHAL INJECTION AND ANIMAL EUTHANASIA in BERDOE, supra note 29, at 63 (quoting Bernard) by Edward Berdoe “Locked-In Syndrome” is a neurologic condition resulting from a catastrophic brain stem injury that leaves the cerebral cortex functional. A patient with Locked-in Syndrome is fully conscious and able to feel pain , but almost completely unable to move. This is different from a persistent vegetative state or a minimally conscious state. At bedside a locked-in patient is indistinguishable from a corpse on life support. In recognized cases t...

“Frightened citizens, sheltered in place, with no means to defend themselves or their families from whatever might come crashing through their door. How many Bostonians wished they had a gun two weeks ago?” — The National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre, quoted by the Huffington Post . Mr. LaPierre’s characterization of non-gun owners is so IGNORANT that I wonder why the NRA lets him have a microphone. Trust me, folks who don’t have guns DO have baseball bats and crow bars, and they can tell if some kid is trying to break into their house. The main thing I get from this is that Mr. LaPierre himself falls apart under stress, then hides somewhere snuggling his gun like a security blanket. Come ON, dude. Make popcorn, turn on the TV, take a FUCKING Ativan. LaPierre is totally wrong to assume that the rest of the world has the amount of fear that he does. And he is not typical of gun owners, who are as likely to own baseball bats and crowbars as ever...

Patternicity is Shermer’s name for apophenia, the tendency to find meaning in noise. This is how we see constellations in the stars, faces on Mars, and Kaziklu Bey’s visage grinning evilly from a slice of cinnamon toast. In its negative form, patternicity is behind many forms of self-deception, from superstition to conspiracy theory. This video goes into it in depth, with examples.

Breeze was trying to tell about my back in 140 characters or less. I want to clarify. <Whine ON> 1967, grade school – Probably unrelated – Fell on my tailbone in the playground and nobody noticed I was lying on the pavement in pain. When it subsided I got up and went into class. Didn’t tell teacher or parents for reasons that are still unclear to me. 1969, grade school – Stepped on base playing kickball. Intense pain and left leg wouldn’t move. School nurse said “You’re too young to be throwing your back out.” Ok… Osteopath crunched it back and in a few days I went right back to playing kickball and softball. 1969, summer – Some idiot hit me in the forehead with the point of a big-assed curved blade. We played rough back then. LOL!! Concussion. 1970, grade school – Playing volleyball, “threw back out.” Maybe twice that year. Took in “developmental gym” for weakness in leg and tight hamstring...

Perhaps you remember the Walt Disney classic “ Old Yeller ” in which a frontier family’s dog contracts “the hydrophobie” from fighting a rabid wolf. Who could forget the tear-jerker scene where, after telling his mama “He was my dog… I’ll do it,” young Travis ends Yeller’s suffering. Although it is a vaccine-preventable disease, rabies still poses a significant public health problem in many countries in Asia and Africa where 95% of human deaths occur even though safe, effective vaccines for both human and veterinary use exist. Nearly half of those bitten by suspect rabid animals are children under 15 years of age. Although the efficacy and safety of modern cell culture vaccines have been recognized, some countries still produce and use nervous tissue vaccines, which are less effective. — World Health Organization » Health topics » Rabies In many parts of the world, vaccination, testing and treatment are prohi...

  I hate Global Warming skeptics . Ecotoxicity Excerpts: /PLANTS/ … It is not known how poison ivy might respond to increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO(2)), but previous work done in controlled growth chambers shows that other vines exhibit large growth enhancement from elevated CO(2). Rising CO(2) is potentially responsible for the increased vine abundance that is inhibiting forest regeneration and increasing tree mortality around the world. In this 6-year study at the Duke University Free-Air CO(2) Enrichment experiment, we show that elevated atmospheric CO(2) in an intact forest ecosystem increases photosynthesis, water use efficiency, growth, and population biomass of poison ivy. The CO(2) growth stimulation exceeds that of most other woody species. Furthermore, high-CO(2) plants produce a more allergenic form of urushiol. Our results indicate that Toxicodendron taxa will become more abundant and more “toxic” in the future, potentially ...

Conversation: K : It just ocurred to me. A major flaw in the premise of the movie “ Signs “. Why would anyone go to a planet that contained such vast quantities of a substance so extremely toxic to them? Me : USUALLY they don’t. In those cases the native species all die and there is no movie. Yeah, it’s not like they could use us as food. No idea. That, and the humidity in the air would burn whatever they use for lungs. Of course, running around naked didn’t help. Didn’t they have space suits? For that matter, why didn’t they have weapons? Never bring your own balls to a baseball bat fight. And DAMN, did they not have doors where they came from? Locked in the *pantry*? T : If today’s TV and movies were logical, most of them would last about 2 minutes. I tried watching “ Alias ” and the lead character is a CIA agent/grad student. She tells her fiance. He leaves a long phone message on her answering machine musing about this rev...