Linode has turned out to be the best VPS provider I’ve ever used and it as of yesterday (6/16/10), they upgraded all VPS’ memory by ~42%. All I have to say is Wow. Since I’ve been with them, they have upgraded HDD space, which is also nice, but not something I really needed. RAM is a different story, that is very important for VPS customers. That much more memory means a LOT and really makes the entry level 512 servers (for only $19.95) much more useful without breaking the bank.
I currently have 5 512MB Linodes (upgraded from 360) and one 768 (upgraded from 512). I should now be able to do much more with these servers now and offer more scalability to my customers who are paying for their own servers.
Linode, in my opinion, destroys the competition and always seems to be ahead of the gang of “peer” VPS providers like Slicehost, Rackspace Cloud Servers, VPS.net and others. They may not have the “prettiest” or most user friendly control panel, but they offer a level of flexibility unrivaled by others.
Sarah Palin is the best choice McCain has made. I’m not huge fan of McCain and have nothing in my mind for the Obama/Biden ticket, but Sarah Palin, I think, will take McCain over the top for the republican campaign.
I’ll have to be honest, I had only heard a little bit about Sarah Palin in the past. I don’t keep up too much
with Alaskan politics, but after reading her bio, article about her, her family, record and Wikipedia entry, I connect with her 100% on the issues.
Superfically, any female politician that can look this good on the cover of Vogue and still have the brains, political conviction and garner an ~85% approval rating in her own state, has my vote.
More pictures at the bottom of the post
Here is her Wikipedia entry:
Early life
Palin was born Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, the daughter of Sarah (née Sheeran), a school secretary, and Charles R. Heath, a science teacher and track coach. She has English, Irish, and German ancestry. Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant. The Heaths were avid outdoors enthusiasts; Sarah and her father would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school, and the family regularly ran 5 km and 10 km races.
Palin was the point guard and captain for the Wasilla High School Warriors, in Wasilla, Alaska, when they won the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982; she earned the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” because of her intense play.She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds. Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.
In 1984, after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year, Palin finished second in the Miss Alaskabeauty pageant which won her a scholarship to help pay her way through college. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.
Palin holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics. She married her high school sweetheart, Todd Palin, on August 29, 1988, and briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband.
Pre-gubernatorial political experience
Palin served two terms on the Wasilla City Council from 1992 to 1996. In 1996, she challenged and defeated the incumbent mayor, criticizing wasteful spending and high taxes. The ex-mayor and sheriff tried to organize a recall campaign, but failed. Palin kept her campaign promises by reducing her own salary, as well as reducing property taxes by 60%. She ran for reelection against the former mayor in 1999, winning by an even larger margin. Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.
In 2002, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for Lieutenant Governor, coming in second to Loren Leman in a four-way race. After Frank Murkowski resigned from his long-held U.S. Senate seat in mid-term to become governor, Palin interviewed to be his possible successor. Instead, Murkowski appointed his daughter, then-Alaska State Representative Lisa Murkowski.
Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she served from 2003 to 2004 until resigning in protest over what she called the “lack of ethics” of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest. After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican Party’s chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners, who was accused of doing work for the party on public time, and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail. Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned; Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.
Governorship
In 2006, Palin, running on a clean-government campaign, executed an upset victory over then-Gov. Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Despite the lack of support from party leaders and being outspent by her Democratic opponent, she went on to win the general election in November 2006, defeating former Governor Tony Knowles. Palin said in 2006 that education, public safety, and transportation would be three cornerstones of her administration.
When elected, Palin became the first woman to be Alaska’s governor, and the youngest governor in Alaskan history at 42 years of age upon taking office. Palin was also the first Alaskan governor born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood. She was also the first Alaskan governor not to be inaugurated in Juneau, instead choosing to hold her inauguration ceremony in Fairbanks. She took office on December 4, 2006.
Highlights of Governor Palin’s tenure include a successful push for an ethics bill, and also shelving pork-barrel projects supported by fellow Republicans. After federal funding for the Gravina Island Bridge project that had become a nationwide symbol of wasteful earmark spending was lost, Palin decided against filling the over $200 million gap with state money. “Alaska needs to be self-sufficient, she says, instead of relying heavily on ‘federal dollars,’ as the state does today.”
She has challenged the state’s Republican leaders, helping to launch a campaign by Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell to unseat U.S. Congressman Don Young and publicly challenging Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the federal investigation into his financial dealings.
In 2007, Palin had an approval rating often in the 90s. A poll published by Hays Research on July 28, 2008 showed Palin’s approval rating at 80%.
Energy policies
Palin’s tenure is noted for her independence from big oil companies, while still promoting resource development. Palin has announced plans to create a new sub-cabinet group of advisors, to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions within Alaska.
Shortly after taking office, Palin rescinded thirty-five appointments made by Murkowski in the last hours of his administration, including the appointment by Murkowski of his former chief of staff Jim Clark to the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority.[19][20] Clark later pled guilty to conspiring with a defunct oil-field-services company to channel money into Frank Murkowski’s re-election campaign.
In March 2007, Palin presented the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) as the new legal vehicle for building a natural gas pipeline from the state’s North Slope. Only one legislator, Representative Ralph Samuels, voted against the measure, and in June Palin signed it into law. On January 5, 2008, Palin announced that a Canadian company, TransCanada Corp., was the sole AGIA-compliant applicant. In August, 2008 Palin signed a bill into law giving the state of Alaska authority to award TransCanada Pipelines a license to build and operate the $26-billion-dollar pipeline to ship natural gas from the North Slope to the Lower 48, through Canada.
In response to high oil and gas prices, and in response to the resulting state government budget surplus, Palin proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards. She also proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers’ rates. She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and in its place she proposed to send Alaskans $1,200 directly and eliminate the gas tax.
Social issues
Palin is strongly opposed to abortion and supports capital punishment. While running for Governor of Alaska, Palin supported the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in schools, however, she noted she would not use “religion as a litmus test, or anybody’s personal opinion on evolution or creationism” as criteria for selection to the school board.
She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination. While the previous administration did not implement same-sex benefits, Palin complied with an Alaskan state Supreme Court order and signed them into law. She disagreed with the Supreme Court ruling and supported a democratic advisory vote from the public on whether there should be a constitutional amendment on the matter. Alaska was one of the first U.S. states to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, in 1998, along with Hawaii. Palin has stated that she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment.
Palin’s first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to the partners of gay state employees. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska’s attorney general on the constitutionality of the legislation
Matanuska Maid Dairy closure
When the Alaska Creamery Board recommended closing Matanuska Maid Dairy, an unprofitable state-owned business, Palin objected, citing concern for the impact on dairy farmers and the fact that the dairy had just received $600,000 in state money. When Palin learned that only the Board of Agriculture and Conservation could appoint Creamery Board members, she simply replaced the entire membership of the Board of Agriculture and Conservation.The new board, led by businesswoman Kristan Cole, reversed the decision to close the dairy. The new board approved milk price increases offered by the dairy in an attempt to control fiscal losses, even though milk from Washington was already offered in Alaskan stores at lower prices.In the end, the dairy was forced to close, and the state tried to sell the assets to pay off its debts but received no bids.
Budget
In the first days of her administration, Palin followed through on a campaign promise to sell the Westwind II jet purchased (on a state government credit account) by the Murkowski administration. The state placed the jet for sale on eBay three times. In August 2007, the jet was sold for $2.1 million.
Shortly after becoming governor, Palin canceled a contract for the construction on an 11-mile (18-kilometer) gravel road outside of Juneau to a mine. This reversed a decision made in the closing days of the Murkowski Administration.
In June 2007, Palin signed into law a $6.6 billion operating budget—the largest in Alaska’s history. At the same time, she used her veto power to make the second-largest cuts of the construction budget in state history. The $237 million in cuts represented over 300 local projects, and reduced the construction budget to nearly $1.6 billion.
Commissioner dismissal controversy
On July 11, 2008, Governor Palin dismissed Walter Monegan as Commissioner of Public Safety and instead offered him a position as executive director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which he subsequently turned down. Monegan alleged shortly after his dismissal that it may have been partly due to his reluctance to fire an Alaska State Trooper, Mike Wooten, who had been involved in a divorce and child custody battle with Palin’s sister, Molly McCann. In 2006, before Palin was governor, Wooten was briefly suspended for ten days for threatening to kill McCann’s (and Palin’s) father, tasering his 11-year-old stepson (at the stepson’s request), and violating game laws. After a union protest, the suspension was reduced to five days.
Governor Palin asserts that her dismissal of Monegan was unrelated to the fact that he had not fired Wooten, and asserts that Monegan was instead dismissed for not adequately filling state trooper vacancies, and because he “did not turn out to be a team player on budgeting issues.” Palin acknowledges that a member of her administration, Frank Bailey, did contact the Department of Public Safety regarding Wooten, but both Palin and Bailey say that happened without her knowledge and was unrelated to her dismissal of Monegan.Bailey was put on leave for two months for acting outside the scope of his authority as the Director of Boards and Commissions. Commissioner Monegan received no severance pay, though at the same time another dismissed Commissioner, Charles Kopp (who served only 11 days) received $10,000, implying some animus on Palin’s part toward Monegan.
In response to Palin’s statement that she had nothing to hide, in August 2008 the Alaska Legislature hired Steve Branchflower to investigate Palin and her staff for possible abuse of power surrounding the dismissal, though lawmakers acknowledge that “Monegan and other commissioners serve at will, meaning they can be fired by Palin at any time.” The investigation is being overseen by Democratic State Senator Hollis French, who says that the Palin administration has been cooperating and thus subpoenas are unnecessary. The Palin administration itself was the first to release an audiotape of Bailey making inquiries about the status of the Wooten investigation.
2008 Vice-presidential candidacy
On August 29, 2008, Palin was announced as presumptive Republicanpresidential candidate John McCain‘s vice-presidential candidate, or running mate. Palin’s selection surprised many Republican officials who had speculated about other candidates such as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, United States Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.
Palin is considered to have similar policy positions to John McCain in most respects. One major exception is drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which Palin strongly supports and McCain has opposed. Palin is expected to try to convince McCain to change his position on ANWR drilling.
Palin is the second U.S. woman to run on a major party ticket, after Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, under former vice-president Walter Mondale in 1984.
Personal life
Palin’s husband is a commercial fisherman. Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP energy corporation at an oil field on Alaska’s North Slope and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile “Iron Dog” race four times. The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated from college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street. The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Anchorage.
On September 11, 2007, the Palins’ then eighteen-year-old son Track, eldest of five, joined the Army. He now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September 2008. She also has three daughters: Bristol, Willow and Piper.
On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome. She returned to the office three days after giving birth. Palin refused to let the results of prenatal genetic testing change her decision to have the baby. “I’m looking at him right now, and I see perfection,” Palin said. “Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?”
Details of Palin’s personal life have contributed to her political image. She hunts, eats moose hamburger, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane. Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. She admits that she used marijuana when it was legal in Alaska, but says that she did not like it. In December 2007, Palin posed for a photo spread in the fashion magazine Vogue.
McCain/Palin Logo
Office Sarah Palin Portrait
Sarah Palin
Palin in a car
Misc Sarah Palin Photo
Governor-elect Sarah Palin announces members of her cabinet during a news conference in Anchorage, Alaska, Friday, Dec. 1, 2006
Since I am starting to focus this whole place more on technobabble, I try to avoid non-techy subjects, but having posted on Amtrak before, I will do so again.
Last week, Congress appropriated 15 billion to help Amtrak “steam forward” (sorry! ;-) ) into the the future.
In a veto-proof 311-104 vote last week that mimics a Senate decision late last year, the U.S. House wisely pumped $15 billion into the national rail system, allowing for capital improvements and providing operating funds for the heavily-subsidized service through fiscal year 2013.
While cross-country service will continue – Amtrak serves 500 destinations in 46 states – the House turned a switch and sent passenger rail service barrelling in new directions.
The bill provides about $500 million in each of the next five years for grants to allow states to contract with Amtrak to expand or establish rail service between cities. It also instructs the federal Department of Transportation to seek proposals from private firms to establish rapid rail service between New York City and Washington, the nation’s first foray into high-speed rail.
I’ve taken Amtrak in the past on various trips mostly from Ohio to DC or vice-versa on the Cardinal. They have been fun and full of socializing with new people from all over the world (mostly while smoking in the smoking car, if they still exist). From students to lawyers, hackers, rural commuters who were taking the train from Prince, WV to Manassas, VA to work construction, the people and their stories can be mesmerizing. I even happened to run into a Shawnee “tribesmen” (who rolled us cigarettes when we ran out) who actually knew my old minister who married my wife and I. Besides being a minister in Oxford, Ohio, he is also the story teller (AKA: Neeake) for the Shawnee Nation United Remnant Band. Small world!
In my few trips, Amtrak service was plagued by delays, mostly due to CSX and other freight lines that hit their crew’s time limit and had to stop, wherever they were, and bring in a new crew. Sometimes these stops were made in the middle of the night on a single track with no secondary track nearby for them to “pull over”. Sometimes the delays were up to 12 hours, but at least there was food (and self brought vodka and coke) to pass the time. Even with the delays, there was plenty to do and we were able to move about the train and stretch, unlike the recent airline debacles this past winter. Fortunately, I had no schedule to meet, but others did and problems like these turned a lot of people away from rail.
Hopefully this new federal funding will change this and allow infrastructure upgrades possible that will minimize or eliminate these massive delays and bring back the “good ol days” of passenger rail in the U.S.
To conclude, trains are an American past-time, a mode of transportation that made expansion across North America possible. Most people these days don’t give trains their due when it comes to this “forgotten” piece of history. Lets embrace this funding and encourage your elected officials not to let it die before it is fully realized.
PS – Gas prices aren’t getting any lower any time soon.
This is the end of all my support for this company… They put this ad up in Mexico to, in my opinion, embolden the Mexicans in their takeover of the American southwest.
They claim:
“In no way was it meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues,” Absolut said in a statement left on its consumer inquiry phone line.
So what did they expect it to convey? Is it not anti-American to post an ad that shows the areas that are currently being “taken over” taken over by Mexico? This ad, considering the current climate of illegal immigration, is probably the most outrageous thing I’ve seen in a LONG time.
This should be a message and wake up call to the leaders in Washington of how America is being perceived by the world. America is slowing losing its sovereignty and identity to those who come here and do not believe in our law or want to integrate into the society which hosts them… Absolut’s pandering of Mexican anti-American sentiment is disgusting.
I have a little Absolut left at home, but I’m not going to pour it out. I’m going to happily drink to their demise. They will receive none of my business in the future.
Then a U.S. Contractor needs to HIRE this guy for a huge sum of money, perfect this suit and mass produce it! If he could build this on his OWN in his own home, imagine if he was working with others with more sophisticated equipment!
Troy Hurtubise is a modern day genius. This suit, called the Trojan Suit, could protect our troops in the war and greatly reduce casualties and it would be VERY intimidating to the enemy as well.
He’s lost his family and his truck, but not his will to see Canadian soldiers wearing his armored suit.
Troy Hurtubise, 43, is travelling from North Bay to his hometown in Hamilton this week to make preparations for a three-day tour of Ontario war memorials. He plans to gather signatures on a petition pressing Ottawa to test the effectiveness of the Trojan suit he created in his home lab.
Hurtubise became an Internet sensation last winter when he introduced the suit and put it up for auction on eBay, drawing media attention worldwide.
The Trojan takes design inspiration from movies and video games and puts it into light armour that Hurtubise says is bulletproof. The suit offers 95 per cent head and body coverage, and also features such extras as a helmet ventilation system, arm-mounted pepper-spray, magnetic sidearm holsters, and even a crotch-mounted, pull-down clock.
When the suit failed to draw any substantial eBay bids, Hurtubise ran out of money and his family was evicted from their home. Hurtubise said his 16-year marriage crumbled under the stress. He sold his pickup and gave his wife the proceeds to start up in a new home, and now it’s just him and the suit.
He’s planning to visit three war memorials daily between Saturday and Monday, arriving at the cenotaph in Hamilton’s Gore Park at 9 a.m. Saturday, and wrapping up at the National War Memorial in Ottawa at 3 p.m. Monday.
He plans to walk “a soldier’s mile” to each memorial wearing the Trojan suit, then stop and salute.
At each stop over the three-day tour, he’ll be gathering signatures on a petition he hopes to present at the Parliament buildings also on Monday.
In early 2007, Hurtubise made public his new protective suit which was designed to be worn by soldiers. Calling it the “Trojan”, Hurtubise describes it as the “first ballistic, full exoskeleton body suit of armour.” Weighing in at 40 lbs, he claims that the suit can withstand bullets from high powered weapons (including an elephant gun). Hurtubise claims that he has been unable to test the suit against live ammunition because no one is willing to shoot him in it.
The suit has many features including a solar powered air system, recording device, compartments for emergency morphine and salt, and a knife and gun holster. He estimates that the cost of each suit to be roughly $2,000 if mass produced. It has been called the Halo suit, after the fictional MJOLNIR battle armor the Master Chief character wears in the Xbox game.
In early February, after failing to receive any offers to buy the Trojan, Hurtubise – now bankrupt from the expense of creating the suit – was forced to put the prototype up for auction on eBay in the hopes that it would bring in enough money to sustain his family. Unfortunately for Hurtubise, the auction’s reserve bid was not met. There was a raffle for the suit on the Mission Trojan website, who’s goal is to raise money for further prototypes and testing of the Trojan Suit to demonstrate its abilities for military applications. The suit was won by Sara Markis of West Palm Beach, Florida.
Besides this suit, Troy also has invented other things that in conjunction with this could advance modern day war fighting and law enforcement to the next level.
1313 Paste
One of Hurtubise’s latest projects has been the creation of a new paste that he’s called 1313 and believes could be put to good military use. It is a mixture of all his previous concoctions applied to a kevlar fiber pad and then subjected to high pressure for the period of a day in a press. The result is a board or tile-like panel. The panel is placed in layers with other materials such as tiles. The resulting composite material can withstand a direct assault by shotgun slugs, rifle fire, and enough high explosive to demolish a car, yet is quite inexpensive to manufacture.
At an enthusiastic demonstration taped by Daily Planet, Troy displayed its capability to a Canadian military observer. In one of Troy’s demonstrations, the composite material was placed in cushions meant to be placed over the outside of a Humvee. In the tests, the material successfully blocked explosive charges greater than those of a rocket propelled grenade, although they were not shaped charges, and was able to block shot after shot on exactly the same point of impact by a sniper rifle (which is a feat no material in use by the U.S. nor any other military has matched in public demonstrations).
It is Troy’s desire to see military vehicles, currently in service in Afghanistan, equipped with such protection in order to stand up to a landmine explosion, which has already claimed the lives of Canadian soldiers serving there. That, along with his younger brother serving in the Canadian military, inspired the creation of 1313.
I wonder what the fuck is going on these days when people are more outraged about a few people killing some dogs than a few people absolutely slaughtering 2 human beings…Here are the two cases… First is Michael Vick, the football player. His story gets TONS of coverage on every major media outlet. People are screaming that he be punished harshly…
“Three co-defendants of Michael Vick had agreed to plea deals in exchange for contributing evidence to the case against Vick, who was charged with taking animals over state lines as part of a dogfight gambling ring.Graphic details of his abuse of the dogs, including brutal methods of killing the animals, led to protests against him outside the courtroom and the club’s headquarters.Graphic details of his abuse of the dogs, including brutal methods of killing the animals, led to protests against him outside the courtroom and the club’s headquarters.”After consulting with his family over the weekend, Michael Vick asked that I announce today that he has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors regarding the charges pending against him,” Martin’s statement said. “
Then you have the following absolutely brutal case.
The animals pictured below car-jacked, then raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. An even more cruel fate awaited her!
Channon Christian, was beaten and gang-raped in many ways for four days by all of them, while they took turns urinating on her. Then they cut off her breast, put chemicals in her mouth, set her on fire (murdering her) and left her body in the apartment in 5 separate trash bags.
The chemical they poured in her mouth was bleach, to destroy the DNA in all the semen from days of gang rape. They gang raped her in all three major orifices. Anal, vaginal and oral. Imagine that for ONE second. Just the act of rape alone would justify life in prison and major outrage by everyone.This story hardly got any coverage and I watch the news often, but most of the public outrage was “muted”… Where were all the typical players in speaking out against this? Imagine if this were a young black couple who had the same gruesome thing done to them by 4-5 white perps. There would be mobs out to get them. The Duke rape case being a good example. The Duke Lacrosse players didn’t even kill her, and ultimately were acquitted of all charges surrounding the case. The media had a field day covering the Duke case, but where is the outrage when it is a black-on-white crime? Especially something as brutal as this?I bet if the couple were black, and the perps were black, none of this would have even happened… They (the 5 monsters above) would’ve ignored the black couple completely. But this isn’t even being treated as a “hate crime” even though the Jesse Jackson’s and Al Sharpton’s are pushing for hate crime legislation.Other interesting stats.In 1989, the FBI reported the following:
Blacks commit 8 times more assaults than Whites.
Blacks commit 9 times more rapes than Whites.
Blacks commit 14 times more murders than Whites.
Blacks commit 19 times more armed robberies.
Black neighborhoods are 35 times more violent than White neighborhoods.
There were 629,000 interracial attacks committed in 1985 (the last year the FBI “chose” to report this information). Some nine out of every ten were committed by Blacks against Whites.
Black males (6% of the population) make up 46% of the nation’s prison population.
And don’t get hasty and call me a “RACIST”, just look at what I’ve stated above and the FBI stats and many other sources for black on white crime and tell me HONESTLY, there isn’t an imbalance here. PLEASE.
I am blocked in China. I feel honored. Must be my conservative politics and pro-gun stance on things. I’m assuming their “national involuntary forced proxy” pre-scans websites before allowing Chinese surfers visit, scanning for keywords and so on.
I looked at my Google Analytics over the last 6 months and have only received a single Chinese visitor (probably the test server scanning me).
Saw this on Drudge this evening and thought I’d repost the article. Very neat stuff!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Stem cells made from human embryos can home in on damaged eyes, hearts and arteries of mice and rats, and appear to start repairs, a U.S. company said on Monday.
Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology said it had devised a straightforward way to make blood vessel precursor cells out of the stem cells and plans to test them in humans.
“We figured out how to produce literally billions of so-called ‘hemangioblasts’ — the mythical cell in the embryo that gives rise to our entire blood and immune system as well as to the blood vessels in our body,” Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of research and scientific development at ACT, said in an e-mail.
“We’ve also tested these cells in animals for the first time, and it turns out that they have incredible reparative potential.”
Embryonic stem cells are the ultimate master cell of the body, giving rise to all of the tissues and organs. The use of human embryonic stem cells is controversial because many people oppose destroying the embryo.
The U.S. Congress has passed several bills that would expand federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research but President George W. Bush vetoed one and has said he will veto any more.
However, companies working with private funding, such as the over-the-counter listed ACT, may do as they please.
Working with embryonic stem cells is not easy. For medical uses, researchers would like to partly differentiate them — start them down the road toward becoming a specific cell or tissue type.
Another roadblock is that many of the current batches, or lines, of stem cells must be grown in a serum culture taken from animal blood. This can contaminate them with viruses.
Writing in the journal Nature Methods, Lanza’s team said they found a way to grow and differentiate human embryonic stem cells without using culture.
They directed the stem cells into becoming what they believe are hemangioblasts, the blood vessel precursor cells, although other teams will have to replicate this for it to be accepted.
“When injected into the bloodstream, they homed to the other side of the body and repaired damaged vasculature within 24 to 48 hours,” Lanza said.
“For example, we injected the cells into mice with damaged retinas due to diabetes or other eye injury. The cells (labeled green) migrated to the injured eye, and incorporated and lit-up the entire damaged vasculature. The cells are really smart, and amazingly, knew not to do anything in uninjured eyes.”
The researchers killed the mice to check the cells’ progress, so they do not know the long-term effects.
“The cells also showed remarkable reparative capacity in animals with heart attacks and ischemic (blocked by a blood clot) limbs. The cells reduce the mortality rate by 50 percent after a massive heart attack,” Lanza said.
“If the same thing works in humans (these would be the same human cells we would probably use), you might be able to prevent patients from having legs and other limbs amputated by simply injecting some cells.”
William Caldwell, chairman and chief executive officer of Advanced Cell Technology, said the company wanted to test the cells in people and had asked the Food and Drug Administration for permission to do so by the end of next year.
“We also have studies underway indicating that the cells can also considerably accelerate wound healing, repair lung damage, and can even generate unlimited amounts of red blood cells for transfusion,” Lanza said.
“Three co-defendants of Michael Vick had agreed to plea deals in exchange for contributing evidence to the case against Vick, who was charged with taking animals over state lines as part of a dogfight gambling ring.Graphic details of his abuse of the dogs, including brutal methods of killing the animals, led to protests against him outside the courtroom and the club’s headquarters.Graphic details of his abuse of the dogs, including brutal methods of killing the animals, led to protests against him outside the courtroom and the club’s headquarters.”After consulting with his family over the weekend, Michael Vick asked that I announce today that he has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors regarding the charges pending against him,” Martin’s statement said. “
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Stem cells made from human embryos can home in on damaged eyes, hearts and arteries of mice and rats, and appear to start repairs, a U.S. company said on Monday.
Recent Comments