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DNA Blueprints Guide The Construction Of Specific Human Structures
Chad Mirkin discusses using DNA to build a three-dimensional structure out of gold, likening the process to building a house. Starting with basic materials such as bricks, wood, siding, stone and shingles, a construction team can build many different types of houses out of the same building blocks.
The article includes an audio recording of the full interview. Photo courtesy of the UCSD School of Medicine.
| Everyone’s Flown The Cuckoo’s Nest |
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| Opinion - Global Warning | |||
| Lisa Jain Thompson | |||
| Monday, 01 December 2008 21:00 | |||
 Fairfax, VA, USA. In Michigan in the United States, a man was arrested when he was caught “receiving sexual favors from a vacuum” at a car wash. In Leeds in England, a gay sous chef has been convicted of murdering his boyfriend before carving, seasoning, frying, and chewing parts of his lover’s body. Crazy knows no boundaries and does not limit itself to any particular social strata, religious affiliation, educational level, sexual preference, or gender.
The unstable walk among us, demanding we give them due reverence and respect even as they steal hours, if not days and weeks from our lives and make a mockery of any attempt at rational discourse. From all indications, the daft and delirious come in all flavors, sizes, and political affiliations. No particular group has a monopoly on instability and, judging from their numbers, I suspect the asylum has been empty for some years.
Political correctness insists we treat everyone, including unbalanced loonies, as if they possessed a firm hold on reality. After all, when the most bizarre opinions are to be given the same weight as scientific research, who is to say that the maniacal imaginings of the softheaded and distraught do not represent a valid description of the world around us.
Perhaps God really is a schizo. It would explain a lot.
May not an ass know when the cart draws the horse? I grow too old to joust gibes and gambols with a thousand different fools, no matter what their best intentions might be, and do not wish to spend another half-century dealing with the ill-tempered cant of raging know-nothings, full of themselves and little else. Perhaps that I’ve almost died one time too often has something to do with it but I have never tolerated fools gladly. You can ask any of my teachers and quite a number of Army Colonels I have encountered.
The unstable walk among us …Asses and birdbrains, bores and buffoons, dunderheads, nitwits, numskulls and schlemiels — there are more than enough to go around. They can come out of academia: some of our best universities are filled exclusively with imbeciles and twits. They can come in from the streets: living at minimum wage or selling your body does not automatically endow one with wisdom.
And they certain can come from anywhere on the political spectrum: our political parties are overfilled with fools. You are just as likely to encounter a moron on the left as you are an imbecile on the right. You can identify the political fool by the righteousness of their cause, the purity of their beliefs, and the absolute sureness of the litmus test they used to determine truth, justice, and the American Way.
Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? It would seem so, especially if you assume, like many do, that gay and lesbian are synonyms for Liberal Democrat, that transgender is another word for community organizer, or that a man or woman born with Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS, or a transsexual, if you prefer) is just another flavor of left leaning queer. One world, one people, one cause.
One movement.
Workers of the world unite!
Spread the wealth!
Your money or your life (and if you should be so bold as to disagree, it’s off to Coventry with you, a life sentence in the politically correct gulag, or, at the very least, an attempt at a Denial of Service of your website).
The movement knows best.
Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. Sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. The Outer Limits. Please stand by. The fools on the Republican Right are no better. Whether they are a social conservative or a religious conservative, there is little difference between them and the liberal left when it comes to wanting to impose their beliefs and rules — their will — unilaterally on society.
Whether you are dealing with the Activist Left or the Activist Right, a fascist wingnut is still a fascist wingnut. The only difference is the litmus test they use to determine you are an apostate worthy of societal condemnation and, if you persist, formal damnation to some wingnut designated nether region.
The social conservatives like to talk about lifestyle choices and the historical certitude of heterosexual marriage. The religious conservatives prefer to emphasize sin and abomination.
Science doesn’t matter.
Medical research doesn’t change a thing.
What is is what is (as long as what is agrees with what the social and religious conservatives say it is). Strangely, they agree with the left Liberal Democrats that an HBS man or woman is just another flavor of queer. (There is disagreement on transgender which the right seems to be convinced is just another word for crossdresser which is just another word for homosexual.)
Social and Religious Conservatives would like to pass laws making my existence illegal. Leftist Liberal Democrats would like to pass laws controlling what I think or say, preventing me from disagreeing with them.
Ah, the purity of belief.
The sureness of knowing you are right.
The impossibility of fools even considering they might be wrong.
There is no point in arguing with any of them. They are not looking for discussion, they are looking for agreement. The Left and the Right already know what the correct answers are
— The rest of us simply have to commit them to memory —
and a pox on anyone who might say otherwise.
Or else.
Well, I, for one, ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.
The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.  Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is the Co-Founder & President of TS-Si, Inc. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. Lisa welcomes your comments. You can use the public form below or send private correspondence via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.
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