CE 6

eBay fraudsters sentenced to jail

Three Romanians, who conned over £300,000 from eBay customers, were sentenced to a total 8 year sentence. The leader of the group, Nicolae Cretanu, age 30, was sentenced to 3 and a half years, his wife Adriana and accomplice, George Titar, were sentenced to 2 and a half years each.

The scam went on for two years, the couple sold imaginary items that ranged from non-existent cars to concert tickets. They used around 12 different user names and they had the money sent to various bank accounts, where Titar would collect the money.

They were able to carry out the scam because customers had to send payment before receiving the goods. The couple contacted the customer and told that them that they would not be able to complete the transaction through the actual eBay website, but if the customer was willing to send them the money through Western Union for example, then they would receive the goods.

It is this exact reason why eBay says that although they are sorry about the scam, it did not happen on their website, so they cannot be held responsible.

eBay does warn users that they should not be sending cash to anyone they do not know personally.

DUH.

CE 5

Strawberry smell trademark denied

if you could trademark anything you want, wouldn't it be a specific smell? Well, Paris-based Eden Sarl wanted to use the smell in soaps, face cream, stationery, leather goods and clothing.

They first went to the trademark union of the European Union, but were turned down. From there, they went to the region's second highest court. Their argument was that because strawberries only had one specific aroma, and they wanted to trademark that one. But the court, with their smell experts at hand, declared that were was actually five distinct scents to the strawberry.

Who knew!

Because smell is the strongest sense tied to memory, many companies have tried to trademark smells, such as rasberries, lemon, and vanilla, but so far, only fresh-cut grass has won this legal battle.

The smell was registered by a Dutch perfume company that uses it to give tennis balls a more summery aroma.

1918 Pandemic: Avian Flu

Crossposted at intellectuals, inc.

Soon to be published in the journals Science and Nature, virologists have isolated the flu virus that caused the 1918 pandemic, killing 50 milling people, reports the NY Times.

It had been "like a dark angel hovering over us," said Dr. Oxford, the virology professor at St. Bartholomew's. The virus spread and killed with terrifying speed, preferentially striking the young and the healthy. Alfred W. Crosby, author of "American's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918," said that it "killed more humans than any other disease in a similar duration in the history of the world."

The story of how this flu virus was reconstructed over the last decade is facinating. In 1918 viruses were unknown, and therefore a sample had not been isolated. As luck (or some bizarre approximation) would have it, the Spanish Flu of 1918 swept through an Alaskan village; the permafrost burial plot served as a freezer for the virus.

Then Dr. Taubenberger received a third sample, from a woman who had died in Brevig, Alaska, when the flu swept through her village, killing 72 adults and leaving just five. The dead were buried in a mass grave in the permafrost. A retired pathologist, Johan Hultin, hearing of Dr. Taubenberger's quest, had traveled from his home in San Francisco at his own expense. He dug up the grave with the villagers' permission, extracted the woman's still frozen lung tissue and sent it to Dr. Taubenberger.

In the last 18 months, the media has been reporting on more isolated outbreaks of avian flu. Could a new bird flu jump to the human population and wreak havoc on the world? More importantly are concerns about using the 1918 flu virus in bioterrorism.

Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers, said he had serious concerns about the reconstruction of the virus. "There is a risk verging on inevitability, of accidental release of the virus; there is also a risk of deliberate release of the virus." And the 1918 flu virus, Dr. Ebright added, "is perhaps the most effective bioweapons agent ever known."

Is the science more important than the risk of terrorism? The short answer is yes. If the threat of possible terror use of the 1918 influenza virus as a weapon were to stop significant scientific research into how viruses mutate, thus leading to discoveries in an array of areas (including possibly AIDS research), then the terrorists have accomplished their goals while still snuggling up in their caves.

current events 2-4, Degas Exhibit, Kyoto Protocol, Criticism on the Treaty of Amsterdam

CURRENT EVENT 2
Euthanasia doctor 'broke the law'

Doctor Michel Irwin admits to having obtained sleeping pills that were meant to help his terminally ill friend commit suicide. The charges against him are that he has a "blatant disregard for the law and his attitude to responsible prescribing is incompatible with his professional status."

Dr. Irwin, a former UN medical director, admits to getting 60 Temazepam sleeping pills in order to assist Patrick Kneen in ending his life. But, in the end, Keen was became too ill to take his medication (the actually prescribed one), fell into a coma, and died a few days later without any assistance from Dr. Irwin.

The General Medical Council claimed that "this case is not about the morality or otherwise assisted suicide. This case is about Dr. Irwin's deliberate failure to conduct himself within the law."

Dr. Irwin belives that "his actions were not unprofessional, inappropriate, and irresponsible"

He said that many doctors, including himself, agreed that if any of the other needed help in ending his or her life, they would assist.

If I was suffering, and was mentally stable enough to make the decision of whether or not I wanted to end my life, I would atleast like the opportunity to make such a decision. In the article, he said, " [being] a compassionate physician has a greater duty to a patient or a close friend rather than his or her duty to the state."

CURRENT EVENT 3
Spinal injuries treatment hopes

Imagine if you were a paraplegic and a doctor told you that you might have a chance of getting the feeling back into your legs, how would you feel?

Well, whatever feeling you are trying to come up with is nothing described to how happy Justin Richardson is, he is one of the first patients to experience a partial cure to paraplegia.

"The treatment, called Procord, uses a type of white blood cell, called a macrophage, which is taken from the patient themselves.When an injury occurs in most parts of the body, such as a wound to the hand, the immune system activates a healing processes, in which macrophages play a part. This does not happen in the central nervous system, including the spinal cord, which is protected by the blood-brain barrier, a defence system blocking foreign substances in the body from reaching the nervous tissue."

In the case of the CNS (central nervous system), because it has this blood-brain barrier, the level of macrophages is extremely low, mainly because they are not needed. But, in the case of spinal cord injuries, they simply inject the macrophages directly into the spinal cord.

In addition to this, doctors and researchers are also discovering different types of bacteria that are able to digest scar tissue, allowing nerve fibers to grow.

In the future, they hope to use these treatments together in order to repair the tissues of the patient.


CURRENT EVENT 4
Tall grasses set to power Europe

Grass powering the world folks!

Maybe not the world, but in some parts of Europe, scientists have discovered that burning elephant grass (Miscanthus) can serve as a source of energy that is more environment friendly. Many people believe that burning the plant would be just as bad as burning fossil fuels, but this is incorrect mainly because as the grass is growing, it is taking CO2 from the air, and therefore, when it is burned, the net effect remains zero. It is simply putting back into the atmosphere what it took out. Fossil fuels on the other hand are, when burned, adding carbon dioxide into the air. And everybody knows that carbon dioxide is bad for the atmosphere because CO2 is one of the greenhouse gases that leads to global warming.

The reason why the elephant grass is being used as the plant for burning is because it takes very little fertilizer to create immense yields of the plant.

"This is definitely being taken seriously in the UK, where the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is now funding a major breeding programme." "One farmers' cooperative also plans to cultivate 10,000 hectares for burning over the next three years."


DEGAS EXHIBIT.
Edgar Degas is widely known across the world. And I am almost positive that the Harvard Art Museums considered themselves to be extremely lucky to have the chance to host such a prestigious gallery.

I on the other hand could not understand why. Yes, his paintings were beautiful, but the entire exhibit consisted of ballerinas and naked women, naked women in odd positions might I add. His extremely attention to detail was definitely interesting, but I could not handle so much of the same thing again and again. It was repetitive and somewhat boring.

But I do have to admit that his statues are quite amazing, especially the bronze girl with the cloth skirt and ribbon in her hair. The contrasting materials seemed to bring her to life.

Also his statues of the horses were magnificent. They looked as if they were about to come to life at any moment. His attention to detail in this situation did not disturb me the way his details of the dancers and naked women did. On the contrary, I was silenced by the beauty of his statues, and for me to be silenced by anything, let alone art, is saying something.


CRITICISMS OF THE TREATY OF AMSTERDAM.

The Treaty of Amsterdam was established in in July of 1997 and on October 7, 1997. It was signed by 15 member countries of the European Union. On May 1, 1999, it was finally ratified by all of the member states. It's main objective was to supplement previous treaties, such as the Treaties of Rome and the Treaty of Paris.

Instead it was met with heavy criticism. Many claimed that it did not solve the greatest of problems within the Union. It did not address the problem of the fact that the Union was growing larger and large by the year and it needed to adapt. Some of the nations thought that it was made for a "Europe of Fifteen" rather than of the soon to be 25 countries.

Also, the Treaty of Amsterdam did not try to work on the democratic deficit of the Union. A democratic deficit is a term used to "refer to organizations which are democratic to some extent, but are not as democratic as they could be."


THE KYOTO PROTOCOL
The Kyoto Protocol is an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC or FCCC). It is an international treaty that concerns itself with the problem of global warming and how it can be avoided. The FCCC was first produced by the UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, more commonly known as the Earth Summit. It's main purpose was to serve as a framework for the limitation of greenhouse gases being put into the air. The Kyoto Protocol is the most recent update to the FCCC, and "has become much better known than the UNFCC itself."

(list of nations that have signed the protocol, take note of how the US isn't on it)

It "sets mandatory targets on emissions of six gases that contribute to global warming: Carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N20), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)."

Strangely, one of the largest perpatraitors, the USA, has not signed the agreement. They mainly argue that they are refraining from signing on behalf of the economy, but if one were to think ahead a hundred some odd years from now, there might not be an economy to sustain. True, if the US signed the agreement, the economy would have been badly damaged. True, the details are not as smoothed out as the president would like them to be, but it seems as if he is not trying at all. President Bush has no intention of signing the treaty because China isn't cooperating the way he wants.

"Yet, China was entirely exempted from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol. This is a challenge that requires a 100 percent effort; ours, and the rest of the world's. America's unwillingness to embrace a flawed treaty should not be read by our friends and allies as any abdication of responsibility. To the contrary, my administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change. Our approach must be consistent with the long-term goal of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere." --President Bush

Earth is an interdependant system and as much as the United States would like to think that they control everything, someday, everything is going to come crashing down.

Interestingly enough, even Christians are taking a stand and saying that President Bush is not doing enough.

“While I believe President Bush cares about the plight of the poor, this is not reflected in his climate policy. As a country, and as the world’s No. 1 source of green house gases, America needs to do much more."

current event 1: BABIES! LEEETLE BABIES!

"One in 10 babies born in Britain is premature - many are so tiny that it can be some time before their parents are able to take them out of their incubators and cuddle them."

Sally Halls, graduate student, has designed a new type of incubator that would enable the premature baby to have more human contact. Until now, parents of premature babies were only allowed to have contact with their child through the portholes, but this new design allows the parents to actually pick up the child. Neonatal doctors encourage the contact, especially during it's early stages.

The newly designed incubator allows the parent to pick up and hold the child, while still offering the medical attention the child needs. The design is still in it's early stages, but as of now it consists of a heated mattress that can be folded around the baby, creating a seal environment when being held by the parent. Also, the mattress would be made of a special material so to prevent bed sores.

All in all, this is a great idea. Frankly, parents of premature babies have it hard enough, sitting in that neonatal unit, with their child's life on the line. If we could offer them any sort of comfort, I am sure that anybody, especially doctors, would jump at the chance.