The evolutonary biology of acne

[Sorry - I had two typos in the title: ance for acne and evolutonary for evolutionary. Alas, if I fix the typos Blogger will create a new URL and break links to this posting. In this respect I consider Blogger's design to be, fundamentally, "stupid".]

IngentaConnect Article: Acne: A biopsychosocial and evolu...erspective with a focus on shame

Many years ago, it occurred to me that acne was far too common (80% of adolescents are affected) to not have some adaptive advantage. This thought came back to me while listening to a medical lecture.

A quick google scholar search didn't turn up anything interesting (this link, for example, is a particularly pointless article).

So why is it normal for humans to experience a (usually) transiently disfiguring condition of the face -- a condition that appears in women around the time of maximum fertility? A condition which, occasionally, causes long term scarring and decrease in physical attractiveness?

The condition must have large advantages to offset the impact on reproduction.

My guess is the advantage accrues to young adolescent females. It's a way to reduce their attractiveness, and defer age of first conception. Early conceptions may have high mortality for both infant and mother, and thereby increase the lifetime number of children. A condition that decreases the risk of early conception may actually have an adaptive advantage.

Any other theories?

John Glenn on the limited life expectancy of earth-based civilization

Slashdot | Astronaut: 'Single-Planet Species Don't Last'

Slashdot thread on a John Glenn article. The article references are good, the Slashdot commentary is feeble (I think the rise of blogs has killed Slashdot's commentary quality). The Economist had a good issue on this years ago -- they came to the same conclusion about the probability of a meteor annihilation vs. airplane crash.

Glenn exaggerates a bit. Sharks, for example, have been around a long time. Humans are pretty resilient rats and might survive a lot of harm. Our civilization, however, would not.

On the other hand, we have much bigger problems than meteors ahead in the next forty years.

The Mozilla firefox ad -- PDF where names are readable

nytimes-firefox-final.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Yep, I'm there. Probably the only time my name will appear in the NYT (I don't think they've printed any letters so far ...).

There was no nanny

The New York Times > Washington > Missteps Cited in Kerik Vetting by White House

... A major problem, law enforcement officials said, was that the White House did not have the benefit of any F.B.I. investigation into Mr. Kerik's past. Mr. Kerik, as New York City's police commissioner on Sept. 11, 2001, had been offered a high security clearance by federal officials so he could receive classified intelligence about the city's security, a law enforcement official said. But he failed to return a questionnaire needed for the F.B.I. to conduct a background check, and he never received that clearance, the law enforcement official said.

Mr. Kerik said on Tuesday night through his spokesman, Christopher Rising, that he could not remember receiving the questionnaire. Mr. Kerik still received classified information from the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. regarding security issues in New York, the law enforcement official said, although the police commissioner was not given the most sensitive intelligence about the sources of the data. He served as police commissioner through the end of 2001.

Mr. Kerik also failed to complete a required federal financial disclosure form in May 2003, when he left the country to spend three and a half months in Iraq trying to train Iraqi police officers, a law enforcement official said. The disclosure form, law enforcement officials said, might have turned up some of the financial problems that surfaced this month in connection with a condominium he owned in New Jersey.

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Bloggers have noted that no-one has found Kerik's "nanny". One suspects that if she exists, she was hired maybe two weeks and a day ago.

This says a LOT of interesting things about the FBI (hey, next time I get a request for a background check, I'll just "forget it" too), Giuliani, Bush, and the culture of the "Washington insider".

Bush had strong positive vibes about Putin. His tummy resonated with Kerik. Maybe he shouldn't trust his "instincts" quite so much? Nahhhh.

Shock. Shock. Unregulated herbal remedies maybe not utterly safe

Newsday.com - Health News/Science News

Lead, mercury and arsenic have been found in herbal preparations imported from India, some so laden with contaminants they were potent enough to cause serious poisonings, researchers report today.

The herbal remedies - many of them intended for children - which can be bought in health food stores and other venues, are sold for the practice of ayurvedic medicine, an ancient healing art. Dangerous heavy metals were found in 14 of 70 ayurvedic products, which are attracting a growing number of consumers in the United States, experts said yesterday.

I am soooo shocked.

The deregulation of herbal rememdies in America (the role of the Mormon church in that effort, btw, has always intrigued me) has always been one of my favorite examples of magical thinking.

Somehow, something created by nature is fundamentally safe?! Like, umm, tetrodotoxin? Somehow, companies that sell things that are "natural" are fundamentally trustworthy? Like, umm, the tobacco industry?

So they don't need regulation, unlike, ummm, pharmaceuticals? (The regulation of which has collapsed under Republican rule.)

At least the libertarians are happy. They probably consider this a way to "thin the herd". (Note, I am not a libertarian.)

Round 174 in the Great Game goes to ...

The New York Times > International > Middle East > The Elections: Iraqi Campaign Raises Question of Iran's SwayIran?

On a list of 228 candidates submitted by a powerful Shiite-led political alliance to Iraq's electoral commission last week, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's name was entered as No. 1. It was the clearest indication yet that in the Jan. 30 election, with Iraq's Shiite majority likely to heavily outnumber Sunni voters, Mr. Hakim may emerge as the country's most powerful political figure.

Mr. Hakim, in his early 50's, is a pre-eminent example of a class of Iraqi Shiite leaders with close ties to Iran's ruling ayatollahs. He spent nearly a quarter of a century in exile in Iran. His political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was founded in Tehran, and its military wing fought alongside Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war. American intelligence officials say he had close ties with Iran's secret services.

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About a year ago the tin-hat brigade noted that many of the favorites of the Pentagon/Rumsfeld cohort had interesting connections to Iranian intelligence -- especially Chalabi. If Iran, which has a feared and "respected" intelligence service did manipulate the US into invading Iraq (not that Bush needed much encouragement), then we're now entering yet another stage in a plan they've been preparing for some time. (Note bin Laden's brother still operated freely in Iran last year, but we don't talk about that any more.)

On the other hand, the Economist had a solid review of Iran in this week's issue. It was one of the better recent pieces in a journal that's on the decline. Iran is an economic and political mess; it cannot be deterred from a nuclear weapon, but it's in no shape to "rule" Iraq. Getting too involved in Iraq could push Iran over the edge. Of course that may not deter them, like America they have strong beliefs in divine destiny.

BTW, for how many years have Sunnis ruled the land now called Iraq?

Military interrogation techniques repel even the CIA

INTEL DUMP - CIA memo: stay away from military interrogations

Comment: This provides a tiny glimpse inside the highly secretive world of interrogations, but an important one. Both the FBI and the CIA -- not agencies with a good historical record when it comes to civil liberties -- objected to the Pentagon's approved interrogation tactics. The FBI objected primarily for courtroom reasons; the CIA appears to be object for operational reasons. Yet, both were unable to sway the Pentagon through the policy vetting process, so they simply decided to abstain from these practices in the field. The natural inference here is that the tactics approved, adopted and used by the military really did go too far, as evidenced by the FBI and CIA's refusal to play ball. Clearly, I think, the FBI and CIA cared as much about squeezing HUMINT out of foreign prisoners as the military, especially when it came to Al Qaeda members plotting against the U.S. (as opposed to insurgents in Iraq.) And yet, they either saw these interrogation methods as counter-productive, inhumane, illegal, or all of the above.

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Maybe it's not good to turn very young men and women into professional torturers? I wonder if Bush will invite them to dinner.

Google vs. Amazon: The battle of the library

The New York Times > Technology > Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database

Whack. Thwock. Thwack.

Google and Amazon battle it out. We haven't seen anything this fun since the days of Gopher. Go Amazon. Go Google.

Sigh. Sooner or later Microsoft will kill the party, but we can enjoy it until then.

Desperately sniffing around the world

Health News Article | Reuters.com

For the study Devanand and colleagues studied 150 patients with minimal to mild cognitive impairment. They compared them to 63 healthy elderly people and ran tests on them every 6 months.

The inability to identify 10 specific odors clearly predicted who would go on to develop Alzheimer's, they told a meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

These smells included strawberry, smoke, soap, menthol, clove, pineapple, natural gas, lilac, lemon and leather.

'Narrowing the list of odors can potentially expedite screening and help with early diagnosis,' Devanand said in a statement.

This makes sense, he added, because examination of the brains of Alzheimer's patients shows that the nerve pathways involved in smell are affected at a very early stage.

Several groups have tried to link the sense of smell with Alzheimer's and at least one company markets a scratch and sniff test for the disease. But Devanand said it is important to identify the specific odors that may be involved.

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I'd be amazed if this were a specific test (If you can't smell them --> Alzheimer's). I suspect it's more likely to be a "sensitive" test (Can smell? --> Not Alzeheimer's -- maybe another dementing disorder?). Really way too early to tell.

Not that that's going to prevent a lot of sniffing by every 40 yo with middle-aged memories.

Influenza: a rather nice and sober summary

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Dissecting flu's deadly weaponry

This BBC summary is very well done. The science is clearly explained, we're given a good historical reference, and the threat outline is relatively balanced. The threat is significant, the key intervention is preventing (as much as possible) simultaneous infection with avian and non-avian flu, but the potential resources to meet this threat are also significant.

One caveat. Yes, mother-nature is the current biothreat champion -- but that's only for today. I think in 10 years we'll be able to outdo nature in self-annihilation, and in 20-30 years those techniques will be available to the terrorist organizations of 2045. The bright side? We probably needn't worry about social security. Maybe that's the real reasoning behind the Bush budgets -- spend now, for tomorrow ...

19th century Minnesota winters: brutal

City Pages: Cruel and Unusual

Hop back two lifespans, and land in hell. These tales of the brutal winters of the 19th century are a good reminder of the natural state of humanity. We are all wimps compared to the least of these pionners.

BTW, in 1996 we were skiing north of Ely. It wasn't -60F there, but it was darned cold. My ski boot froze solid, and left me with a flaky toe tendon. Sniff.

Ideas of the year - NYT Magazine review

The New York Times > Magazine

NYT Magazine does an idea issue -- the fourth in an annual series. The interview with Stephen Hawkings is pretty weak (who came up with such a dumb list of questions?), but it can't all be bad.

Europe's contribution to the war on terror: dollars for heroin

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Afghanistan's opium problem

The Bush administration has a religious devotion to the idea that "markets" are "good". This is particularly ironic in a group that loathes "evolution"; of course both natural selection and market selection are fundamentally the same processes.

In the case of Afghanistan, and the US budget, the market has come up with some ingenious solutions to the problems faced by the Bush administration. I am genuinely curious as to whether Rumsfeld feels these are good solutions.

In the case of the US budget, the devaluation of the US currency seems to be transferring a chunk of the cost of funding our economic additions to europe and asia. This is a diabolically clever maneuver, yet it may have been invented by the market as much as by any Machiavellian operatives in Washington.

In the instance of Afghanistan, the US destroyed the Taleban, but enforced law (more or less) only in the capitol. The rest of the country was divided between warlords and tribes. Market forces were thus able to operate effectively, and the country rapidly rebuilt its primary comparative advantage -- the production of poppies, opium, and heroin for the european and Turkish markets.

Now Afghanistan is floating on a sea of drug dollars. Overall it seems to be doing better than expected. The Afghan people are resourceful, Karzai is a remarkable talent, the US keeps a low profile but has a powerful fighting force. Most of all, though, the money is flowing.

Where does the money to fund Afghanistan come from? Not from foreign governmental aid or investment. It comes from european drug addicts. A market solution.

So Bush, by design or by the genius of the marketplace, has funded the US economy and the post-war rehabilitation of Afghanistan through Europe (war and deficit) and (in the case of the deficit) China.

Fascinating.

PS. That insufferable idiot, David Brooks, wrote in the NYT the other day that we communistic liberals don't "trust" the marketplace. God, that man hurts my teeth. Is his continued existence at the NYT a sophisticated (but pointless) jab at the right? Maybe some eastern elite thinks displaying the idiocy of a "respected" right wing spokesman is a service to the nation.

Nahh, I think it's just another sign of the decay of the NYT. Brooks makes even Safire, now well into his dotage, look, if not good, at least not pointless.

Sigh. Markets are not "good" or "bad". They are the most effective ways of solving local minimization problems using distributed processing. Markets are a computing technique. They are "good" or "bad" in the same way that a particular alogrithm is "good" or "bad". Markets do not have souls, they do not go to Hell or Heaven. Markets are not divine. Markets do not have values or ethics. Markets are good at "solving" problems. People, who (to a working approximation) have to decide if they like the solutions the markets deliver.

Cheating in sports ...

Cheating Athletes - Who dopes, why they dope, and who it hurts. By Bill Gifford

Who are the cheaters? Again, by and large they are not the dominant figures in their sports; they're the the wanna-bes, the almost-weres, and a fair number of has-beens. Indeed, even the 40-year-old Bonds might well have retired by now, far short of Hank Aaron's career home run record. In cycling, at least, there are indications that the most rampant cheating takes place in the amateur ranks, where riders are desperate to make the pros. In the past few years, literally dozens of European amateurs have dropped dead from suspicious causes, some as young as 20 years old.

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I think this is comforting nonsense. For female athletes in particular, the benefits of male-like blood chemistry are enormous, enough to take someone from the middle of the pack to the top of the pack. A female athlete has the same basic tissue structure as a male athlete -- all they're missing is some chemistry.

In contrast, this may not be true for young male athletes. I suspect most young ultra-elite male athletes are working near the limits of human tissue structures. Revving the engines may have little effect and may even decrease performance.

Men in their 30s and 40s though, are more like the female situation -- their chemistry is in decline and their core potential may be underutilized. Of course their hearts and vessels may not survive the stress of a youngster's chemistry.

CIA is corrupt and compromised by neocons? So what?

Salon.com News | Dogmatic intelligence

A senior CIA analyst who was once decorated for his work on weapons proliferation in the Middle East has accused the spy agency of ruining his career as punishment for his refusal to adhere to official prewar 'dogma' on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In a lawsuit filed in a U.S. district court, the unnamed agent, described as a 22-year veteran of the agency's counterproliferation department, accuses his former supervisors of demanding that he alter his intelligence reporting to conform to the views of CIA management in the run-up to the war on Iraq.

The action marks the first time the CIA, which proclaimed that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, has been publicly accused by one of its employees of exerting pressure to produce reports that would help the Bush administration make its case to go to war on Saddam. However, one former CIA employee said the process described by the analyst -- pressure and retaliation -- was a familiar bureaucratic response to agents who did not conform.

The agent's refusal to tailor his reports had, he claims, a disastrous effect on a career that had previously been marked by regular promotions and a CIA medal for the operative's recruitment of moles who penetrated a nuclear weapons program in another Middle Eastern country. 'The complaint alleges that there was a prewar dogma at the CIA concerning weapons of mass destruction, and my client's reports were contrary to the dogma,' said Roy Krieger, who represents the agent. 'My client was told to conform to the dogma. He refused and retribution followed.'

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The Atlantic ran an essay on this topic a few months ago; that article detailed this story. It's old news. So Rumsfeld and Cheney steamrolled the CIA. So Rove/Bush think the CIA is a bunch of intellectuals who yearned for Kerry. So one of our nation's primary defenses has been degraded by our government, leaving us in a persistent state of delusion.

Who cares?

Not me. I'm moving to another planet as soon as my ship arrives ...