Eideard

Similar to the classification of blood types, the bacteria in our guts appear to fit into one of three categories that have no relation to our nationality, age, sex and other characteristics, new research indicates. The study combined genetic information from about three dozen people in six countries, revealing that everyone falls into one of three categories they dub enterotypes, which they believe are spread around the globe just like blood types.

Humans’ guts are home to swarms of bacteria. Members of this internal ecosystem help us with all sorts of important tasks, such as digesting food, assisting our immune systems and producing nutrients such as vitamin K. And research indicates there is a connection between these micro-organisms and some health problems, including obesity and inflammatory bowel disease.

Using an approach called metagenomics, researchers sequenced genetic material collected from fecal samples from 22 people in Denmark, France, Italy and Spain, and combined that with existing data from residents of Japan and the United States.

Their analysis revealed three enterotypes determined by the relative abundance of different networks of species, according to study researcher Peer Bork, a unit head at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Germany…

While the type of bacteria present in the gut showed no connection to the host’s characteristics, this was not the case for the bacteria’s function. For instance, the presence of bacteria capable of breaking down starch appears to increase with someone’s age. And men seem to carry more bacteria with the machinery to synthesize aspartate, an amino acid.

The findings, detailed in the most recent issue of the journal Nature, have implications for personalized medicine, in which treatments can be tailored to an individual’s needs…

Knowledge of enterotypes may also help with the development of techniques to restore healthy gut communities, rather than killing off all of the bugs living there with antibiotics…

I imagine we’ll have about as much cooperation with political systems and corporations with a vested interest in profitable processed foods in educating folks about enterotypes – as we do with anything else found to aid in healthful living.

OTOH, this study is miniscule – and expansive work is needed to corroborate anything more than an educated guess at this stage.

This week, a federal jury in Virginia convicted mortgage executive Lee Farkas on fraud and conspiracy charges that could send him to prison for life.

Authorities say Farkas tried to defraud banks out of almost $3 billion, in one of the biggest cases to come out of the mortgage crisis. And that, critics say, is the problem. Almost three years after the economy nearly collapsed, most top Wall Street banks and their executives have emerged with no criminal trouble. And that’s making people angry.

The argument that prosecutors have gone light on the nation’s largest banks for their role in the financial meltdown has become really popular — even if it’s not true.

Not so for Farkas, 58, who cut a larger-than-life figure in his north Florida community. In his heyday, Farkas collected cars — including a 1963 Rolls Royce and a Ford Model A. He served caviar in the dining room at his mortgage lending company Taylor Bean and Whitaker, or TBW…

“Farkas was really the mastermind of one of the largest bank fraud schemes in history,” says Lanny Breuer, who runs the criminal division at the Justice Department. “What he did led not only to the downfall of TBW, perhaps the second largest mortgage lending company in the United States, but also led to the failure of one of the country’s largest commercial banks, Colonial.”

Late Tuesday, a federal jury in Virginia convicted Farkas of all 14 charges against him. A judge immediately ordered Farkas into custody. He could get life in prison when he’s sentenced July 1…

Breuer of the Justice Department says public opinion doesn’t influence his decisions.

“When we believe we have a criminal case where we can prove each of the elements beyond a reasonable doubt, we’re going to do it,” he says. “When we don’t believe we can prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, we’re not going to do it, no matter … how popular it would be.”

Two parts of the same problem. The lawyers who seem to set the standards for judges and legal beagles alike have slowed down the system of justice so radically that you could die of old age before you have a chance at justice in America. And the bits and pieces that fade away over time diminish the likelihood of a conviction.

Probably little need to note lobbyists paid by Wall Street who carry the message to an outraged Congress – whose wallets are as open as their mouths. They’re most often a subset of the same group of lawyers chartered and funded by corporations to rebuild that edifice in the image of corruption and shame.

SSA Mark Hitts, SSA Susan Kossler

Bernard Madoff — the architect of history’s biggest Ponzi scheme — and Gary Ridgway – the Green River killer — would seem to have little in common aside from being branded as “monsters” in the tabloids.

But a team of FBI agents, the same ones who specialize in helping local police track down serial killers like Ridgway, are using their expertise in behavioral profiling to target white collar criminals like Madoff.

For about two years now, agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Behavioral Analysis Unit have been consulting with their colleagues in New York who specialize in securities fraud detective work. The BAU agents are going over the case files put together by the FBI for Madoff and other convicted scammers like Bayou Group’s Samuel Israel, whose $400 million hedge fund turned out to be Ponzi scheme, and former Democratic fundraiser Hassan Nemazee, who stole nearly $300 million from Citigroup and two other big banks.

The hope is the BAU agents, whose work in profiling serial killers has been popularized in books, movies and on TV, can get into the minds’ of fraudsters and see what makes them tick…

The expanded efforts to sniff out white collar crime arise from a deep-seeded belief shared by many in law enforcement – that fraud is rife in some corners of Wall Street and corporate America. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Baharara says his office, which is prosecuting the big insider trading case against Galleon Group co-founder Raj Rajaratnam, has found that trading by hedge funds on confidential information is “pervasive and pernicious.”

Indeed, some of the FBI agents in New York assigned to investigating securities fraud openly describe some of their targets as operating like “professional criminals” – the kind of language you might expect agents to use when discussing the Mob or other organized crime syndicates…

Yet the agents with the FBI’s behavioral group, some of whom also are active in developing profiles of terrorists and criminals who prey on children, believe they can develop profiling strategies that will help undercover agents ferret out corrupt corporate titans, shady hedge fund traders and other Wall Street con artists. At a minimum, the profilers want to determine if major white collar criminals share enough personality traits and behavioral patterns that agents in interrogations and investigations could use the information they glean…

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Cartilage wounds can be very difficult to treat. While they may eventually heal on their own, the resulting tissue often won’t take the same form – or allow for the same function – as the original. Cartilage injuries are often treated with a process known as ACI (autologous chondrocyte implantation), in which a patient’s own cells are injected at the wound site to form new tissue. The procedure doesn’t always work, as the cells are just injected loosely, with no carrier to transport them or help them get established. Now, however, a scientist from the University of Michigan has developed a technique in which cells are delivered to wounds via injectable nanofiber spheres, and the results are said to be very promising.

Professor Peter Ma’s process starts with star-shaped biodegradable polymers that self-assemble into hollow nanofiber microspheres. Cells, which are slightly smaller than the spheres, are then inserted into them.

Because they are very porous, the spheres allow nutrients to reach and nourish the cells, mimicking the cellular matrix in which the cells would normally be located. Once they reach the wound site, the spheres biodegrade, producing little in the way of byproducts that could affect cell development. Because of the protected environment they were in, the cells will have already started to grow by this point, and so are better able to integrate themselves into the wound site.

In small animal tests, wounds treated with the microspheres grew as much as three to four times the amount of tissue as a control group. Ma and his colleagues at U Michigan now plan on moving the tests up to larger animals, with human patients as their ultimate goal.

Bravo! I realize it wil be a spell before results grow to more than promising; but, these especially are the sort of injuries that nag at an athlete or simply anyone who’s happy with a vigorous outdoor life. Nothing but good news, so far.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the Shanghai Convention Center was little more than a rice paddy, but this week, the sprawling facility will play host to what has rapidly become one of the world’s most important auto shows.

By a quirk of the calendar, this year’s big Chinese car show not only overlaps but threatens to overwhelm the New York Auto Show and its ability to garner valuable media time – a development that echoes the rapidly transformation occurring in the global automotive business.

Michael Dunne, the founder of Automotive Resources Asia – today a part of J.D. Power and Associates – recalls his first trip to China, barely two decades ago, when the roads were ruled by bicycles, motorbikes and buses, and the sight of an automobile was enough to draw everyone’s attention. Today, the most populous nation on Earth is also the biggest automotive market, having surpassed the U.S. two years ago, never to look back.

There will be a number of major launches that might have, until now, been steered to New York. Yet few could have anticipated that boom…Even as recently as 2007, skeptics wondered just how much more growth the Chinese car market could support. But that year was a milestone for a number of reasons. One that many initially missed was the decision by several major Western automakers to stage significant global previews at the Shanghai Motor Show for the first time. That included the debut of the BMW CS Concept car – which would only eventually return to the U.S. and a domestic preview at New York’s Jacob Javits convention center…

Few will downplay the significance of the 2011 Shanghai Motor Show. By one estimate, as many as 100 different electric vehicles will be displayed by the scores of manufacturers participating in the event. That’s no surprise considering the Beijing government’s increasing emphasis on battery power to help it overcome the country’s endemic pollution problems – and to reduce the Chinese dependence upon foreign oil…

But there’s no question that the days when the U.S. and Europe dominated the auto show circuit are over – much as the old, industrialized markets are no longer the drivers of automotive sales growth.

For Americans there even was a time back in the day when the European auto shows were meaningless. Volkwagen and Volvo changed that forever. The last people to respond were the Detroit Big 3.

This time around give credit where credit is due. Detroit iron – especially General Motors – were quick to respond and even quicker to profit from demand in China that still looks to the United States for economic guidance. Recognizing the difference between what’s good and what’s bad – but, not rejecting the knowledge from either.

La Cieneguilla

There’s an old Stephen Wright joke that goes something like, “I have a map of the U.S. Scale 1:1. I spent all last summer folding it.”

Now Google Maps is seeking to make its map approach that scale by launching a tool called Map Maker in the U.S. that lets users correct and add to Google’s map of the United States.

The tool is already available in 183 countries, where the lack of good maps made it impossible for the search giant to create a useful online mapping service. The user-generated maps quickly became good enough for driving directions in India, according to Google MapMaker tech lead Lalitesh Katragadda…

Now Google wants to have its U.S. users tweak its U.S. maps to make them even more detailed, into what Katragadda calls a “living, breathing map and canvas for the people who live there.”

For example, Google imagines college students including campus shortcuts or annotating the names of dorms. Suburbanites might annotate the map to indicate which parks have soccer fields or to add a new coffee shop. To make those processes simpler, Google is also rolling out new tools for editors. One lets MapMaker users see StreetView photos to help with their edits. Another is an advanced search function that lets you search the map for things like “all chinese restaurants in San Francisco,” to make it easy to see which ones are missing and which have incomplete data…

“Local information is the final frontier,” product manager Manik Gupta said. Still, only 30% of the world is well mapped by Google’s estimation, though every time fiber lands in a country, the Map Maker tool begins to take off.

I’ve gone through a much more complicated procedure a few times – just to straighten out mistakes entered when the Google StreetView car passed through La Cieneguilla. “Moved” my home twice and it’s still one lot off from the platt.

This will be a piece of cake – fun to boot – and a bit constructive. Can’t hope for much more than that.

Distraught parents descended on a northeast Houston elementary school today after a pistol brought to campus by a kindergartner fell and discharged, slightly injuring three pupils.

The pistol fell out of a pants pocket of the 6-year-old boy, who was not identified, and fell on the floor of cafeteria of Ross Elementary School, 2819 Bay, about 10:22 a.m., Houston school district spokesman Jason Spencer said.

The boy who brought the gun was wounded in the foot, another 6-year-old boy was wounded in the leg and a 5-year-old girl was wounded in the foot, Spencer said. The students were either hit by a single bullet and/or fragments, officials said.

The children were taken to Texas Children’s Hospital and their parents notified. Houston Independent School District police were investigating how the child obtained the weapon…

The three children were in stable condition and were in good spirits, playing video games this afternoon, said Dr. David deLemos, assistant trauma medical director at Texas Children’s…

HISD officials didn’t close the school but allowed parents to pick up their children if they chose.

I wonder who’s going to pickup the parents of the kid with the gun?

 
On Tuesday, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that local authorities in Orlando, Florida may restrict groups handing out free food to homeless people in city parks. But one organization doesn’t care.

Food Not Bombs, a loosely-knit group of independent collectives that serves free vegan and vegetarian food to all comers, says it will continue cooking such meals for Orlando’s homeless every Wednesday at Lake Eola, despite the law. “We’re going to do what we feel is right. They need food. Everyone deserves to be fed,” Gemma Thatcher told WFTV 9 in Orlando.

The Orlando ordinance in dispute requires groups serving food to more than 25 people in the downtown area to obtain a permit, with only two permits per year for each park issued to the groups.

The city argues that there is already a designated area for groups to feed the homeless, complete with benches and portable toilets. The only problem is…the area is locked up right now. In a news conference, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said Food Not Bombs can serve all the food it wants without a permit, so long as it does so outside the downtown area.

Food Not Bombs contends that food is a basic human right and that the group’s action is a form of free speech. The 11th Circuit Court agreed, saying that feeding hungry people in public spaces was an activity protected by the First Amendment. But the court ruled that the city of Orlando’s efforts to regulate such activity were also legitimate…

But what about the more pressing interest of making sure everyone in the city has enough to eat?

Food Not Bombs operates much the same way in San Francisco as it does in Orlando…local authorities in the City by the Bay, a decidedly more progressive bunch, allow the group to do its valuable work unmolested. It wasn’t always that way; members of the group were arrested more than 1,000 times in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But the wise men and women who run San Francisco realized that there is no higher priority than feeding the hungry, and today Food Not Bombs is a respected institution that serves meals to the city’s needy five nights a week.

I hope the City of Orlando decides to creep up on the 21st Century and adopt a better attitude to their fellow human beings. There’s a reason it’s called “human-itarian”. Someone just needs to explain it to local politicians.

Thanks, Mr. Fusion

Police responded in force today to a report of a man with a rifle at a mall, evacuating shoppers and calling in a SWAT team as worried workers locked themselves into stores. But it turned out that the man was only carrying an umbrella.

Police said the umbrella, which had a samurai sword-style handle, did look like a rifle, and they didn’t fault those at the Burlington Mall who had reported the man…

“I’d do it all over again if this happened tomorrow,” said Burlington Police Chief Michael Kent, who said about 40 officers responded to the scene from his department, surrounding departments, the State Police and federal agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement…

Police raced to the mall, blocking off the parking lot as four helicopters hovered in the sky. The North East Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council SWAT team, composed of officers from area communities, was summoned.

Tigges said that once police were inside the building, they were alerted that there was surveillance video of the suspect leaving the Sears store at the mall. Police showed the video to two people who had spotted the man at the Nordstrom store. They confirmed it was the same person, and police were able to determine the object the man was carrying was an umbrella and not a rifle…

State Police also said in a statement that a man had called them to report that he was the person seen in the mall. Troopers and officers went to the area of the nearby Lahey Clinic hospital, where the man worked, and interviewed him, determining he was not a threat…

Chief Kent praised the man, whom he would not identify, saying he had helped to bring the crisis to quicker end by contacting police. “We appreciate that he put an end to it a lot sooner,” he said. The man still has his umbrella.

Yes, this is the mall where they filmed the movie “Paul Blart: Mall Cop.”

I saw someone at the airport the other day who really caught my eye.

Her beautiful, long blond hair was braided back a la Bo Derek in the movie “10″ (or for the younger set, Christina Aguilera during her “Xtina” phase). Her lips were pink and shiny from the gloss, and her earrings dangled playfully from her lobes.

You can tell she had been vacationing somewhere warm, because you could see her deep tan around her midriff thanks to the halter top and the tight sweatpants that rested just a little low on her waist. The icing on the cake? The word “Juicy” was written on her backside.

Yeah, that 8-year-old girl was something to see alright. … I hope her parents are proud. Their daughter was the sexiest girl in the terminal, and she’s not even in middle school yet.

Abercrombie & Fitch came under fire this spring for introducing the “Ashley,” a push-up bra for girls who normally are too young to have anything to push up. Originally it was marketed for girls as young as 7, but after public outcry, it raised its intended audience to the wise old age of 12. I wonder how do people initiate a conversation in the office about the undeveloped chest of elementary school girls without someone nearby thinking they’re pedophiles?

What kind of PowerPoint presentation was shown to the Abercrombie executives that persuaded them to green light such a product?

That there was a demand to make little girls hot?

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