12 Jun 2005
U.S. to Review Heart Drug Intended for One Race

This strikes me as a grievous intervention by politics into science. The fact that we believe that all humanity needs be treated as political equals does not mean that we can ignore the simple fact that there are ethnic difference between human families. Do we routinely test Hispanics for sickle cell disease? Do we screen Swedes for Tay-Sachs?

Standing for equality before the law is one thing, denying that "races" exist is quite another. Whatever happened to "celebrating diversity"? Differences in cultural and biological heritage should be treated with delight, not approbation. To quote Malcolm X, "You can put a shoe in an oven but that doesn't make it a biscuit."

This looks like a promising drug for African-Americans, and I can only hope that it's approval is not derailed by politics.

A drug marketed to African-Americans has engendered controversy as scientists say that race is too ill-defined a category to be relevant in determining a drug's approval.

(link) [NYT > Home Page]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for x86 Leaked?

If this is an Apple marketing campaign, it's nothing short of brilliant...

Mac Daily News is reporting that Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for x86 processors has been leaked to the Internet already. Apparently the version running on the development kit machines is easily transfered to run on any x86 machine. Conspiracy theorists unite: an Apple marketing scheme?

(link) [Slashdot]

00:00 /Technology | 1 comment | permanent link

Europe's oldest civilisation

This is an exciting discovery: pastoralists building monuments in central Europe in the late Neolithic. Of course, now that we know the "when and where" all we have to do is figure out the "who, why and how". Given the time frames involved, that promises to be considerably more difficult.

Archaeologists have discovered Europe's oldest civilisation, a network of dozens of temples, 2,000 years older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids.

(link) [The Independent]

00:00 /Asatru | 1 comment | permanent link