The website says two different things about the composition of the wine; either it is 100 percent cinsault or a blend of cinsault, syrah and merlot.

In the philosophy section of the website it says:

The rosé is made entirely of Cinsault. About half of the grapes are pressed directly while the other half is put in tanks during a few hours for skin contact. This maceration brings a bit of colour and allows the extraction of more aromatic precursors.

After pressing, the must is cooled and left to decant for a period of 24 hours with the addition of enzymes. This process helps to bring purity and finesse to the rosé and eliminates potential green flavours and tannins. After decanting, the must is fermented in tank and the temperature is kept between 18 and 20°C. After fermentation, the wine is racked and only the fine lees are retained. The wine then spends the winter on the lees, before being bottled in the spring.

The Triennes rosé aims to be about 12-12.5% alcohol and the style is fresh and light, without an excess of acidity.

An enzyme? This is the first time I've seen someone actually put the additives in the wine description. Is it like saying we throw a few oak chips in there?

I know that the One Woman 2007 rosé was made with an enzyme. So I called up John Levenberg. He's now a consulting winemaker all over the country and the winemaker since March 2008 for a new venture here on the North Fork, One Woman. One Woman's first vintage was 2007 and they made a gewurztraminer and a rosé.

The enzyme John used was AR-2000, but more specifically a glycosidase, a white powder that can be added to the must or post fermentation. As John patiently explained, with only throwing in a few references to six-carbon rings, an sidase enzyme cleaves molecules. In this instance sugar molecules from the highly aromatic monoterpenes, and frees them up so the smell and taste is enhanced. As an example he gave linalool, a terpene humans are very sensitive to. It's used in Froot Loops.

The enzyme works best with varieties that are aromatic to begin with. For further study, check out this scientific paper.

End of chemistry lesson. Thanks John.

Traditional methods of generating enzymes for biofuel production currently operate at over five times the target cost required to make the fuels financially competitive. By using plants which have been engineered to make the proteins, Professor Nikolov believes that the target can be met. His group, which has expertise in the development of economic processing techniques, have designed processing strategies which allow multiple products to be obtained from each crop, making the whole process more economically viable.

"One of our projects focuses on producing cellulases, enzymes which can break down biomass, in maize seed. By carefully designing the processing chain, from a single crop of maize we can deliver oil that can be turned into biodiesel, cellulose that can be used to make other biofuels, and fibre and protein which can be used as animal feed, as well, of course as the enzymes themselves," he reveals. "These multiple products offset the outlay on the enzyme purification process, meaning we can make enzymes far more cost-effectively than is achievable using traditional fermentation methods, a result which we can also see in a similar sugarcane processing project."

In the 1990s there was much interest in using plants to make both industrial enzymes and pharmaceuticals, but in the last five years such industrial enzyme developments have gone out of fashion, largely due to production costs that simply weren't viable, combined with public unease. Now Professor Nikolov's group have brought this technology back into the picture.

"The economic improvements that we have delivered to the processing pathway, combined with a greater public acceptance of transgenic plants, mean that we can now develop the full potential of this technology. This in turn will bring us a step closer to the vital challenge of generating cheap alternative fuels over the coming decades," he concludes.
source: www.sciencedaily.com

材料：
香蕉一束
柠檬2-3粒(青/黄都可以)
冰片糖/寡糖适量(视喜好及水果份量而定)

做法：
柠檬洗净晾干待用，香蕉去皮切片、柠檬切片，
先放香蕉再放柠檬，第三层加糖，这样重覆做到满约容器的3/4 高度，
记得最后两层一定是柠檬和糖覆盖着。
放置大约两个星期即可饮用

注意事项：
用水洗的材料一定要晾干(或用干净的布抹干后风干)，避免沾没经煮过的水，也不
能沾到油，保持用具干净卫生。

看所有酵素文章

Science Daily - Enzyme induces adult stem cells to grow bone. Until now it has been difficult to induce adult human stem cells to produce bone, e.g. in order to repair bone tissue. Researchers at the University of Twente have just shown that if the enzyme PKA is previously activated in the stem cells in the lab, following implantation this results in substantial bone formation. This opens up new ways of repairing bone tissue using cell material from the patient.

In animals, ‘adult’ mesenchymal stem cells have already been used successfully to grow fresh bone. Bone formation using human adult stem cells, e.g. from bone marrow, has been less successful, which has hitherto limited the alternatives hospitals can offer for repairing damaged tissue other than spontaneous healing. Activating the PKA enzyme prior to implantation, however, produces a dramatic improvement in ‘in vivo’ bone growth. The cells can be observed maturing into bone cells already in the lab; once sown on a carrier and implanted in a mouse, the bone grows well.

Encouraging the neighbours

The enzyme protein kinase A (PKA) is responsible for many processes in a cell. The messenger ‘cyclic AMP’ activates PKA: adding it to the stem cells ensures that they stimulate one another, the researchers think. Not only does cyclic AMP promote maturation into bone cells; the cells themselves also secrete various substances that stimulate bone growth. This may explain why mesenchymal stem cells treated with cyclic AMP form significantly more bone than those without the stimulus.

The advantage of administering a bone-growth-stimulating substance in advance is that it can be removed just before implantation. Experiments to date have mainly used high concentrations of a bone-growth-stimulating hormone, e.g. incorporated in the carrier on which the cells are ‘sown’. In the new approach not only are the hormone concentrations lower, they also more closely resemble the cocktail of hormones normally involved in bone growth.

This is the second time in a short space of time that the researchers, led by Dr Jan de Boer, have published in PNAS: earlier this month they published an article on a major breakthrough in the use of embryonic stem cells to grow bone. Both methods are promising when it comes to repairing bone tissue in future using cells from the patient’s own body. Compact bioreactors will be developed to grow cells quickly into tissue that can be used in the operating theatre.

The research was carried out at the Tissue Regeneration Department of the University of Twente’s Institute for Biomechanical Technology (BMTI). The researchers collaborated with fellow scientists at UMC Utrecht and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam.

- repaired my cellphone -

Trong phần này, ta sẽ tìm hiểu và biết rằng từ gene tạo ra protein. Và enzyme chính là tên gọi chung cho các protein có vai trò tổng hợp sinh hóa (tăng tốc hoặc giúp các phản ứng hóa học bên trong tế bào được diễn ra).

George Beadle và Edward Tatum, năm 1941, thí nghiệm với Neurospora crassa - vi khuẩn ở mốc bánh mì màu đỏ (red bread mold) với mục đích chứng tỏ lí thuyết của Archibald Garrod rằng "bệnh di truyền là do lỗi bẩm sinh trong quá trình trao đổi chất (inborn errors in metabolism) - tức là có những thiếu sót hoặc giai đoạn bị lỗi trong quá trình hóa học của cơ thể khiến cho cơ thể không tự sản sinh ra những chất dinh dưỡng (nutrients) cần thiết, điều này khiến cho cơ thể phát triển chậm hoặc không thể phát triển được."

Neurospora là vi khuẩn với một bộ chromosome (haploid) trong hầu hết vòng đời, nghĩa là chỉ có 1 bản sao của mỗi gene (vì thế không phải lo lắng về allele trội hay lặn ở đây).

Neurospora có thể được nuôi cấy trên môi trường tối thiểu (minimal media): với agar có chứa ít đường, muối vô cơ (inorganic salts), và vitamin biotins... Và từ các thành phần này, vi khuẩn sẽ có cách để tự tổng hợp ra chất dinh dưỡng cần thiết.

Cả 2 cho rằng, nếu họ đột biến được một gene làm nhiệm vụ tạo ra enzymes, thì sẽ làm cho vi khuẩn không thể phát triển được.

Năm 1927, Herman Muller cho thấy tia X (X-rays) có thể gây ra đột biến ở gene. Vì thế, 2 nhà khoa học đã dùng tia X chiếu vào Neurospora, hi vọng là có thể thu được một số đột biến hiếm mà với phương tiện nuôi cấy thông thường, ta không thể thu thập được. Sau đó, đem kết quả nuôi cấy trên môi trường tối thiểu, thì thấy chúng hầu hết vẫn phát triển bình thường. Chứng tỏ chưa có loại đột biến mà làm ảnh hưởng đến sự phát triển của vi khuẩn. Tuy nhiên, có một mẫu không phát triển.

Họ lấy mẫu này nuôi cấy (culture) trên môi trường tối thiểu, lần này có bổ sung thêm amino acids hoặc vitamins. Kết quả cho thấy, mẫu phát triển tốt với môi trường có bổ sung vitamins, nhưng lại không phát triển trong môi trường có bổ sung amino acids. Như vậy, có thể khẳng định mẫu vi khuẩn bị đột biến này không có khả năng tạo ra một trong số các vitamins.

Họ muốn biết là thiếu vitamin nào, nên đã thử đưa từng vitamin một vào môi trường tối thiểu. Kết quả cho thấy là B6 chính là vitamin bị thiếu hay vi khuẩn bị đột biến không có khả năng sản xuất ra vitamin B6 vì một enzyme nào đó tham gia vào quá trình tổng hợp ra B6 (B6 synthesis pathway) đã bị ảnh hưởng. Có nghĩa là gene tạo ra enzyme này đã bị đột biến bởi tia X.

Ví dụ khác: amino acid Arginine được tổng hợp thông qua một loạt các bước và phụ thuộc vào nhiều enzymes. Vì thế, nếu một trong các gene mã hõa cho các enzyme này bị sai lệch thì sẽ ảnh hưởng đến metabolic pathways tạo ra Arginine.

CONCLUSION:

Một gene thì chịu trách nhiệm chứa thông tin tạo ra một enzyme hay một protein. Một đột biến (mutation) là sự vô hiệu hóa (inactive) một enzyme (protein) mà cần thiết cho sự tổng hợp chất dinh dưỡng bằng cách làm hỏng đi gene tạo ra enzyme (protein) đó.

LINK:

1. http://www.ux.uis.no/~ruoff/Neurospora_Rhythm.html (các giai đoạn của đời sống vô tính của Neurospora)
2. http://www.fgsc.net/Neurospora/neuros.htm (genome của Neurospora)

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Milk is advertised as having nutrients that are essential to your health. The milk lobby has been instrumental in this view. On average, American adults are known to consume only half of the three daily servings of milk recommended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Milk is advertised as a top dietary source of calcium, a mineral that's critical for helping prevent osteoporosis and keeping teeth strong. The problem is that the body is incapable of absorbing the calcium unless a sufficient amount of Vitamin D is present. Unfortunately, most containers in the market allow for the ready destruction of the added Vitamin D and other vitamins that are required to be able to absorb the calcium.

Milk is advertised as a great way to get calcium, but the truth is that other dairy products, soy proteins, beans, vegetables and some nuts are often far more valuable for good health, calcium and vitamin supplementation. To make matters worse, copious amounts of sugar are added to milk to improve the taste to the detriment of the blood-sugar impaired citizens of the U.S.

Raw milk became known as a convenient vehicle for the transmission of communicable disease because of improper handling. In older days, cows were not heavy milk producers with enormous udders. Cows were rarely ill because they were not pushed to the edge and afflicted with mastitis. Mastitis often requires the almost continuous use of penicillin to keep milk flowing freely. Special feed is used to maximize milk production. Milk production is about money over quality.

When people began moving to cities, milk became a food of commerce. Cows were bred for large udders to produce more milk. As milk production entered commerce, it became subject to contamination by bacteria. Mass production resulted in more milk, but quality faltered. Before the days of refrigeration, cows were kept in large sheds in the city, even underground, becoming distressed and diseased. Pasteurization was necessary to prevent the spread of disease.

Nowadays, milk is a remedy for nothing. Negative effects of modern products can be easily equated with the lack of food enzymes from pasteurization. Even pasteurized fruit juices provide little benefit to the average consumer. The rise of Diabetes and other immune disorders can be easily ascribed to the lack of food enzymes in processed products and the exhaustion of enzymes within the human body.

Modern nutrition condemns the old nutrition of raw fats and cholesterol. Men and women that live in Europe still use old fashioned butter and raw milk while commonly living into their nineties. Perhaps there is a difference between the dairy products of primitive Europeans and modern milk drinkers. Chemists have identified 35 separate enzymes in raw milk. Unhappily, more than 90 percent of naturally occurring enzymes in milk are destroyed by pasteurization.

Unpasteurized milk and butter were used for thousands of years with the history of giving good health to humanity. From the time of Hippocrates, physicians used raw milk and raw butter as therapeutic agents to treat disease. With the advent of pasteurization, dairy products lost the charm of rich health. In the days before milk and butter lost enzymes from the heat of pasteurization, millions of people that lived on dairy products did not develop atherosclerosis or clogged arteries. As a result of intensive pasteurized milk use, modern science has lost the ability to handle killer clogged arteries. The problem is in the lack of enzymes, notably lipase, also valued in olive oil and other unprocessed natural oils.

Milk proponents contend that women need milk most. Yet, many substantial documented studies have shown that drinking milk does not protect women against the development of fractures from osteoporosis. A 45% increase in hip fractures among women who drank at least two glasses of milk per day compared to those who rarely drank milk. The preponderance of evidence suggests that modern milk is not good for women either.

Meat, fish and dairy are concentrated protein sources. What is usually kept quiet is that high amounts of animal protein deplete calcium from the body through the kidneys leaving calcium deficient bones and increased kidney stones. The high acid in protein foods forces the body to remove calcium from bones to balance the pH in the blood. Acid forming foods also creates excess uric acid, which builds up in muscles and organs causing pain and congestion.

The nutritional hype is that milk is a great source of calcium. The high amount of phosphorus in cow’s milk interferes with calcium absorption. Aging in the human body prevents the absorption of calcium. The older you are the less calcium you are going to get from milk. Cow’s milk is also high in lactose, a carbohydrate sugar that bothers many sensitive individuals.

Cow’s milk can cause allergies from antibody reaction to milk proteins. The most common reaction is chronic diarrhea in which the stools frequently contain mucus and blood. Half of iron deficiency in infants and women is likely caused by gastro-intestinal bleeding from cow’s milk. Milk allergies are also responsible for the cause of eczema, psoriasis and dermatitis. Credible evidence also links milk to many severe disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, heart attacks, multiple sclerosis and osteoporosis.

The politics of milk have been costly to the American population. How costly milk is to you depends on what you decide to do with available knowledge and health. Who do you believe? The decision is yours.

But now there's mung bean Hi Lo milk. So that lactose intolerance people dont have to worry about diarrhea and nausea anymore after consuming milk.
Beside that, mung bean Hi-Lo milk also low fat and contains enough calcium, vitamin, and mineral to fulfill your daily needs.

For those of you unaware of the specifics of that disease, a patient infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) may or may not develop AIDS. Once infected with HIV, the disease damages the CD4 cells (T-Cells), and in fact uses those cells to replicate within the body; CD4 cells can be replaced through normal process in the early stages of the disease, but eventually the counts start to fall as the cells are overcome by the virus. A CD4 count between 700 and 1000 is considered normal in a non-HIV infected person; while a CD4 count of about 500 is considered normal when the virus is present. A CD4 count below 200 is indicative of AIDS, since it is at that point that the body loses its ability to fight off opportunistic infection.

Opportunistic infection is any infection which, under normal circumstances, the body could easily fight off. However, due to the lack of CD4 immune cells, AIDS patients are at very high risk of contracting diseases which they would never contract were it not for the virus destroying their immune system. Some diseases are so common in AIDS patients, and so uncommon in non-AIDS patients, that they are considered to be AIDS-defining diseases. Examples of AIDS-defining diseases include Pneumocystis Pneumonia (a fungal infection of the lungs) and Kaposi's Sarcoma (once believed to be a rare form of cancer, now believed to be caused by Herpes Virus HHV8); these diseases are normally not seen in patients with a normal immune system. While there is viable treatment for many opportunistic diseases, they must be treated swiftly in an AIDS patient due to the patient's body being unable to fight infection on its own.

Another important way of measuring HIV is by measuring the viral load. The viral load is the amount of HIV in the body. So while a CD4 count measures the amount of damage HIV has done, a viral load count will measure how much of the virus is actually in the body. In this way, doctors are able to measure whether drugs are working to halt the spread of the virus.

AIDS is a pandemic first identified in 1981 by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), due to Pneumocystis Pneumonia being identified in five homosexual men in Los Angeles. The disease did not take over worldwide as quickly as it is generally believed, though. AIDS has been identified in tissue samples of patients who died of unknown causes as early as 1959; one postmortem case identified the virus in a tissue sample from a 15-year-old boy who died in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1969, though it is still unknown how the boy may have contracted the virus. Some scientists suggest the virus could have first infected humans sometime during the end of the 19th Century, while other scientists suggest it first infected humans during the early 20th century, between 1915 and 1930. Regardless of whether it started during the late 19th Century or early 20th Century, it took many decades for it to even become prevalent enough to be noticed. Since the virus is slow to overtake its host, the window for inadvertent infection of others is years, rather than days or weeks as with most viruses.

It is unclear exactly how the virus started, but it seems clear that it crossed species from primates (which can carry a disease known as the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) into humans, likely when humans came into contact with the bodily fluids of monkeys, possibly during consumption, hunting or butchering the animals (monkey meat is a delicacy in some areas of the world, and is regularly eaten in some areas of Africa). The virus spread due to a number of factors, including vaccines given with unclean needles in developing countries. While AIDS is now generally viewed as a disease of gay men and intravenous drug users, the truth is far more chilling, since the virus is not contained only within a particular population. Many women and children are infected with the virus, and in some areas of the world, particularly Africa where infected patients do not have access to proper health care, the number of deaths has become catastrophic.

At this time, there is no cure for HIV, or for AIDS, nor is there a vaccine to prevent transmission. However, scientists have designed a number of drugs inhibit the virus's replication. To understand how these drugs work, a short primer on the virus is necessary.

HIV takes over CD4 cells, changing their molecular structure by inserting its own ribonucleic acid (RNA). The virus itself, which is too small to be seen except with an electron microscope, consists of an outer envelope containing the virus and the proteins and enzymes necessary for replication; the envelope has about 72 spikes on its surface. When the virus bumps into a cell coated by the CD4 protein, the spikes stick into the cell and fuse, at which time the inner contents of the HIV envelope is released into the CD4 cell.

Once inside the cell, the HIV enzyme called reverse transciptase converts the viral RNA into DNA, which is compatible with human genetic material. This DNA is transported to the cell's nucleus, where it is spliced into the human DNA by the HIV enzyme called integrase. Once it is spliced into the human DNA, the HIV DNA is known as provirus. The provirus may lie dormant within a cell for quite some time. However, when the cell becomes activated, it treats HIV genes in almost the same way as human genes. First it uses human enzymes to convert HIV genes into messenger RNA. The messenger RNA is transported outside the cell nucleus, and is used as a blueprint for producing new HIV proteins and enzymes, much in the same way as the human body normally produce replacement cells.

Complete copies of HIV genetic material is contained among the strands of messenger RNA produced by the cell. These copies combine with newly made HIV proteins and enzymes to form new viral particles, which are then released from the cell. The enzyme protease plays a vital role of the HIV life cycle, as it chops up long strands of protein into smaller pieces, which are then used to construct mature viral cores. At that point the newly matured HIV particles are ready to infect another cell, and begin the replication process all over again. In this way the virus quickly spreads through the human body, and causes its host to become infectious. HIV is passed to others through bodily fluids; some fluids contain more of the virus than others.

Contrary to popular belief, people do not die of HIV, or of AIDS. They die of the opportunistic infections which accompany the complete loss of their immune system. Patients therefore must take a strong cocktail of medications to stop the virus from replicating and destroying their immune system. Some common drugs prescribed for AIDS patients, to stop the virus from replicating, include reverse transcriptase inhibitors, which prevent the viral RNA from being converted into human DNA; protease inhibitors, which prevent the virus from creating new mature viral cores; and integrase inhibitors, which prevent the viral DNA from being spliced into the human DNA within the cells.

Unfortunately, with those life-saving treatments for the virus come life-threatening side effects, from lethal liver damage to an overwhelming nausea which results in starvation and dehydration; when this occurs, it only worsens those same symptoms which can be caused by the virus itself. Over the years many drugs have been discovered to combat the side effects (those same side effects are found in many other medical conditions as well), and to increase the quality of life for those who are infected with the virus; some of those drugs and treatments are pharmaceutical in nature, and some are natural.

One of the non-pharmaceutical drugs, which has proven very helpful in battling the anxiety, overwhelming nausea and physical wasting which comes with the virus and its treatment, is marijuana. So effective is marijuana that scientists have even made a pharmaceutical version of the drug, used in chemotherapy patients as well as AIDS patients, which contains synthetic THC (the active ingredient in marijuana). However, many patients believe that the natural THC in marijuana works better than the synthetic version in Marinol, and science supports this belief. In studies of marijuana usage for medicinal usage, it was found that other chemicals found in marijuana have additional medicinal effects which complement the effects of THC. Furthermore Marinol is extremely expensive (Tom's Marinol costs about $2200 per month, so severe is his nausea and gastrointestinal symptoms), and thus the drug is far beyond the financial reach of most patients; and for that reason they cultivate and smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. While the black market cost of marijuana can be high, the plant can be cultivated at home from seeds, at very little cost to the patient.

In some states, it is legal for patients with a valid medical prescription to possess certain amounts of dried and cultivated marijuana for personal medicinal use. However, even in those states, the US Government - which has declared that marijuana is an illicit and therefore illegal drug - refuses to permit patients to use the cultivated form of THC. Patients are regularly arrested for merely possessing the substance which allows them to live a more normal life, and which in cases of extreme wasting seen in AIDS, is actually life-saving. This occurs nationwide, including in the states where marijuana is legal for medicinal use.

I do not advocate the casual use of marijuana (or any other drug, prescription or otherwise) to get "high". I do strongly advocate the right of physicians and patients to determine the best course of treatment, and I believe the government has no right to interfere in the doctor/patient relationship when the patient is not being placed in untoward danger.

Enter Tom Faltynowicz. When Tom was diagnosed with AIDS in 1990, he was given "maybe a few years" to live. Eighteen years later, he is in a fight for his life, but it's a fight of a very different kind.

In September 2007, law enforcement officials in his native Meade County received an anonymous call, stating that Tom had between 75 and 100 marijuana plants growing behind a metal building on his property. It is believed that the anonymous call came from Tom's daughter, who was angry with him because he had recently stated his disapproval of her relationship with a particular man.

When Meade County Investigator Michael Walker and South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation Agent John Griswold arrived at Tom's home the next day, there were not 75 to 100 plants on the property, or even anywhere near that many; in fact, there were no plants out in the open at all. However, when asked by those officers about the accusation, Tom immediately admitted to growing marijuana to treat his medical condition. He even invited the officers into his home, so they can see where he was growing it, and he was completely cooperative at all times, even according to the police report regarding the incident. All told, the officers found five plants, and about four ounces of dried marijuana. There was never an allegation that the marijuana was being used for anything but his medical condition, and never an allegation that he was selling the marijuana. It remains undisputed that Tom was using the marijuana to treat AIDS, and the side effects of the many potent medications he takes to fight the virus.

Tom takes a total of four antiretroviral drugs to combat the HIV infection: Combivir (a combination of Retrovir and Epivir), Sustiva, and Viread. Each of these drugs, by themselves, come with potentially fatal side effects. All of these drugs can cause severe nausea, and can result in extreme anxiety as an additional side effect. In addition, Tom has been prescribed Marinol, the synthetic THC drug to combat nausea and vomiting, so there is no question that he suffers the side effects which are treated by marijuana, and there is no question that his side effects are severe based upon his dosage. However, Tom says that the marijuana is far more effective than the Marinol, since Marinol makes him so tired that he cannot function; and his physician is aware of and supports his use of marijuana to treat his symptoms.

Tom, though he has no prior criminal record with the exception of two prior misdemeanor convictions for possession of small amounts of marijuana - both of which occurred after he was diagnosed with AIDS - pled guilty to felony possession of marijuana. He faces a maximum of two years in prison, and a maximum fine of $4000; he could also be given probation. His sentencing date has been set for April 21st, before the Honorable Jerome Eckrich, Circuit Judge. Tom's Infectious Disease Specialist, Dr. Traub, will speak at the sentencing hearing. The State Attorney has already said that he will not object to anything Dr. Traub might say. It appears that no one is interested in punishing Tom Faltynowicz; at the same time, under the law, his possession of marijuana - regardless of the reason why he possessed it - is a felony in the state of South Dakota.

Tom, however, is an exception to the reason that law was written. It was written to stop people from abusing the drug to get high, and to stop them from selling or otherwise providing it to others for the same illicit purpose. It is extremely doubtful the legislature was aware of the medicinal effects of marijuana when that law was passed, and it's extremely doubtful the legislature ever intended to punish patients with a deadly disease. It's even possible that the medicinal effects of marijuana were unknown to them when that law was passed, since it is hardly a new law. Nevertheless, since the law exists, it will be enforced, even against people like Tom who are using marijuana strictly for medicinal purposes.

This raises a number of questions. Even if Tom is merely placed on probation, and even if he stopped smoking marijuana altogether, using Marinol to control his symptoms would result in violation of probation, since he would test positive for THC during required drug tests. If he fails a drug test while on probation, he will be incarcerated.

If he is incarcerated, he will not only not have access to the drug which he needs to survive without excessive suffering due to overwhelming nausea, vomiting, physical wasting, and extreme fatigue; but the South Dakota Department of Corrections will be forced to pay for the extremely expensive antiretroviral drugs which fight the virus as well as the Marinol, at a cost of thousands of dollars per month to the taxpayers, in addition to the increased cost of incarceration for a man with an infectious deadly disease. As you should understand after my explanation of how those drugs work, and how the virus works, missing even one dose of his antiretroviral drugs could be catastrophic for his health, since it would allow the virus to replicate until the drug was again built up to a therapeutic dosage. Yet in a prison environment there is no guarantee that he will receive his life-sustaining medications at all, much less receive them on the schedule those drugs demand.

Tom has said that he will not stop using marijuana, because it allows him to live a relatively normal life. Without it, his body is wracked with pain, nausea, and vomiting; he is unable to eat or drink, and thus his body becomes even more weakened, even more unable to fight the virus, and even more prone to the many opportunistic illnesses, any one of which could easily end his life. This is especially true if he is confined in a jail or prison facility, given that there are large numbers of inmates living in close approximation.

To incarcerate Tom Faltynowicz would therefore place his life at severe risk, and as such would clearly constitute cruel and unusual punishment, as prohibited by the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution. Furthermore, it would serve no purpose to incarcerate him, since his crime is merely possession of a drug which allows him to live with his disease and to continue take the cruel medications which literally keep him alive. He poses no threat to anyone and he is not selling or otherwise distributing the marijuana, nor has it even been suggested that he is selling or distributing the marijuana. Rehabilitation is also not a valid cause for his incarceration, since he merely uses the drug for medicinal purposes, and thus he is not in need of rehabilitation.

Society would not be served by incarcerating Tom Faltynowicz. The interests of justice would not be served by incarcerating Tom Faltynowicz.

As such, justice demands that the court show mercy by giving Tom Faltynowicz a suspended sentence, no probation, and whatever fine the court sees fit, as long as it is within Tom's ability to pay said fine.  The courts should also order the return of Tom's property; police seized property such as lights, and not just marijuana and implements for its use.  Those lights  should be returned.

Continuing on the important subject of enzymes in our pet's diets, I wanted to address the subjects of raw feeding and the benefits for all pets in using an enzyme supplement.

Raw Feeding and Enzymes

Raw feeding is often referred to as a 'live diet'. This is referring to the fact that added preservatives, cooking and processing pet food destroys and alters nutrients. Raw meat is a chock full of enzymes and amino acids, that, together with a dog's internal makeup, result in the healthiest companion you can imagine. I recomend the new book by Robert Mueller (of BARFWorld, Inc.), "Living Enzymes: The Best Kept Pet Food Secret" for an in depth analysis on the topic.

Enzyme Supplements

As dogs transition to a raw diet, supplementing with enzymes can assist them as they begin to produce the enzymes needed to digest this new diet. Enzyme supplements enhance the enzymes present in raw diets and enable more complete digestion, prevent gas, bloating and they regulate bowl movements.

For dogs who are eating a commercially prepared diet of kibble, enzyme are a vital supplement since these vital live enzymes are killed during the processing of traditional kibble. All pets, regardless of diet, can benefit from an enzyme supplement to improve absorption and utilization of nutrients.

There are plenty of great supplements on the market, however, I use Prozyme for Louis.

According to the manufacturer:

PROZYME® is a combination of four highly concentrated and purified natural plant-derived enzymes (lipases, amylases, proteases, and cellulases). All ingredients are of human grade quality. PROZYME® is not a drug and will not interfere with any medication or therapy. In fact, PROZYME® will enhance any therapy that your pet is presently receiving and should be used as part of therapy preventive care regimen.

The four main ingredients in Prozyme are:

Lipase is the enzyme to digest fats. Lipase works throughout the digestive process to break down the fats and lipids (fatty acids) in our diet to make them easier to absorb. Fats are the most difficult component of the diet to digest. Fats are also a major source of fuel for the heart muscle. In addition, our body relies on certain essential fatty acids that can only be derived from food.

Amylase is an enzyme found in our saliva and functions primarily as a starch-dissolving enzyme. Amylase is the first enzyme to take starch in our food and break it down into simple sugars which can be more easily absorbed. Starch refers to carbohydrates found in plants (grains). Amylase is the digestive enzyme needed to digest carbohydrates. Carbohydrates in food are an important and immediate source of energy for the body.

Protease is the general term for an enzyme that breaks down proteins. Proteins are molecules that make up much of our living tissue, including our muscles and our internal systemic enzymes. Certain proteins can only be provided through our food. If we have an inadequate means of breaking these down with proteases, we would suffer from what is known as “protein malnutrition”. Much of our body wouldn't be able to function properly without essential amino acids from absorbable protein.

Cellulase is an enzyme, which breaks down non-digestible fiber found in fruits & vegetables. Many minerals found in the fiber of fruits, vegetables and grains can be absorbed better with the addition of cellulose. Since humans poorly digest cellulose fiber, taking a digestive enzyme product, like Tyme Zyme, is not only necessary, but also vital for good health.

Guess what? Enzyme supplements are not only beneficial for your pet, but for you, his faithful caretaker as well!

Louis and I wish everyone happy digestion!

image of Rob Mueller's book via www.barfworld.com, image and info regarding Prozyme via www.prozymestore.com

Currently, most of the Ethanol produced in the United States comes from corn. As grain prices rise, popularity for the fuel goes down. And anyone can admit that it does seem ridiculous to use food-grade corn to make fuel.

But ethanol doesn't need to be made from corn. As I pointed out in a previous article, "The Case for Ethanol", recent advances in manufacturing specialized enzymes could negate many of the arguments made against ethanol.

First some background.

In order for yeast to create ethanol, they need an energy source. That energy source is primarily glucose - a simple sugar. Think of a molecule of glucose as being like a train engine. Now hold that thought!

Grains such as corn contain large amounts of carbohydrates and starches, but little glucose. Carbohydrates are kindof like if you hook three or four cars up to that train engine. Starches are even more complex, so they are like adding 8 or 10 cars to that train.

But our little yeast cells can only handle one train car at a time.

So enzymes have been isolated that can break these carbohydrate strings down (a process called hydrolyzation) into simple sugars - making them digestable for yeast. So this is where the train cars are broken apart and dealt with as individuals rather than an entire train.

But there is a whole lot more plant material OUTSIDE the seed than inside it. This material is called Cellulose. It makes up the fiberous material in a plant's stem, leaves, trunk, and roots.

Cellulose is like a really, really long train. A train with up to 9,000 cars (glucose units) attached. That's why it's so dang tough.

Now, the enzymes that have been used to do this process in the alcohol industry are only capable of breaking down carbohydrates and starches (the little trains) - and only after they have been fairly well torn apart mechanically and boiled to soften them up. These enzymes couldn't even begin to chew up a tree's roots.

So, the holy grain in the ethanol industry is to see who can come up with an enzyme that can break cellulose down into glucose.

The Holy Grain of Ethanol Has Already Been Found

In 2004 the Cellulosic Ethanol industry was born with the opening of a plant in Canada by Iogen Corporation. This plant processes 40 tons of wheat straw into ethanol per day. They use enzymes that they manufacture themselves, and have plans to roll this technology out worldwide.

So, what does this mean?

This means that fairly soon we could all be driving cars powered, at least in part, by things like grass clippings, waste from the lumber industry, and switchgrass from non-arable lands. It also produces approximately 85% less carbon dioxide than gasoline.

And the best part is that the fuel regrows itself every year. It is basically solar power that has been liquified in a distillation column.

Next Post: Debunking the Myth that Ethanol Plants Use Too Much Water

Arzneilich wirksame Bestandteile: Bromelain, Trypsin, Rutosid 3 H2O

Gegenanzeigen
Phlogenzym darf bei bekannter Überempfindlichkeit gegen einen der arzneilich wirksamen Bestandteile, gegen Ananas-Früchte oder einen der Hilfsstoffe nicht eingenommen werden. Beim Vorliegen von schweren Gerinnungsstörungen (z.B. Dialyse, Bluterkrankheit, schwere Leberschädigungen) oder bei einer Behandlung mit blutgerinnungshemmenden Mitteln, ist vor der Einnahme des Arzneimittels der Arzt zu befragen. Dies ist auch zu berücksichtigen, wenn die Absicht besteht, vor oder nach Operationen Phlogenzym einzunehmen.

Schwangerschaft
In der Schwangerschaft sollte die Einnahme von Phlogenzym kritisch durchdacht werden, da bisher keine systematischen Untersuchungen am Menschen vorliegen.

Wechselwirkungen
Die gleichzeitige Einnahme von Phlogenzym und Antibiotika erhöht die Konzentration der Antibiotika am Wirkort. Es gilt zu beachten, dass dieser Sachverhalt auch für vor kurzem verabreichte Arzneimittel gelten kann.

Verkehrstüchtigkeit, das Bedienen von Maschinen und Arbeiten ohne sicheren Halt
Es sind keine Veränderungen der Wachsamkeit zu erwarten, auch nicht bei der Einnahme hoher Dosen von Phlogenzym.

Vorsichtsmaßnahmen und Hinweise
Nach der Einnahme von Phlogenzym kann sich der Geruch des Stuhls bzw. Urins verändern - dies ist aber unbedenklich. Zu Beginn einer Behandlung kann es bei einigen Menschen zu einer vermehrten Schmerzsymptomatik kommen. Ist dies der Fall, sollte die Dosis gesenkt und (eventuell) ein Arzt aufgesucht werden. Ist eine Operation geplant, ist der operierende Arzt über die vorherige Behandlung mit Phlogenzym zu informieren. Dies ist erforderlich, da bei Operationen (bei vorheriger Behandlung mit Phlogenzym) eine mögliche Minderung der Gerinnungsfähigkeit des Blutes auftreten kann. Für Diabetiker: Eine Tablette enthält 0,015 BE Kohlenhydrate.

Dosierung
Falls vom Arzt nicht anders verordnet, gilt:
- Erwachsene nehmen 6 bis maximal 12 Tabletten am Tag ein.
In der Regel erfolgt die Einnahme der Tabletten 3mal am Tag. Es ist darauf zu achten, dass die Tabletten 30 bis 60 Minuten vor der Mahlzeit unzerkaut und mit genügend Wasser einzunehmen sind.
Die Einnahme der Höchstdosis von maximal 12 Tabletten ist bei schweren entzündlichen Erkrankungen sowie bei akuten Traumen möglich.

Hinweis: Die Einnahmemenge von Phlogenzym ist abhängig von der Art und Schwere der Erkrankung der zu behandelnden Person. Deshalb ist sie für jeden Patienten individuell, in unterschiedlicher Höhe festzusetzen. Die genannten Angaben zur Dosierung sind deshalb Durchschnittswerte und gelten nur, soweit der Arzt nichts anderes angewiesen hat.

Einnahmedauer
Die Tabletten sind bei akuten Entzündungen solange einzunehmen, bis die Symptome komplett verschwunden sind. Bei chronischen Beschwerden sollte der Arzt befragt werden.

Überdosierung
Bei der Einnahme von zu großen Mengen des Arzneimittels treten keine anderen Nebenwirkungen auf, welche nicht schon unter dem Punkt „Nebenwirkungen“ beschrieben werden.

Einnahme vergessen
Wird die Anwendung einer Tablette vergessen oder eine zu viel eingenommen, ist zu den nächsten Einnahmezeitpunkten die gleiche Tablettendosis wie verordnet anzuwenden.
Wird bei einer Behandlung mit Phlogenzym über mehrere Tage, einmal eine Einnahme komplett vergessen, ist bei den nächsten Einnahmezeitpunkten ebenfalls die gleiche Tablettenmenge wie verordnet anzuwenden.
Werden bei einer Behandlung mit Phlogenzym über einen kurzen Zeitraum, eine oder mehrere Einnahmen komplett vergessen, ist bei den nächsten Einnahmezeitpunkten ebenfalls die gleiche Tablettenmenge wie verordnet anzuwenden. Der Arzt ist aber zu kontaktieren, um abzuklären, inwieweit die Behandlungsdauer verlängert werden muss.
Bei Unsicherheit darüber, was zu tun ist, sollte unbedingt ein Arzt aufgesucht werden.

Nebenwirkungen
Bei der Anwendung von Phlogenzym kann es häufig zu Völlegefühl und Blähungen kommen. Gelegentlich wurde Übelkeit beobachtet. Selten treten allergische Reaktionen (z.B. Hautausschläge) auf, welche nach Absetzen des Medikaments abklingen. Häufig kann es zu einer harmlosen Veränderung des Stuhls in Farbe, Beschaffenheit, Geruch kommen. Gelegentlich wird auch über Durchfall berichtet. Eine Verminderung der Gerinnungsfähigkeit des Blutes kann nicht ausgeschlossen werden. Beim Auftreten der Nebenwirkungen, ist die Einnahme sofort zu unterbrechen. Der Arzt ist umgehend aufzusuchen.

Der Arzt oder Apotheker ist zu informieren, wenn Nebenwirkungen auftreten, die nicht in der Gebrauchsinformation angegeben sind.

Grundsätzlich gilt: Bei Unklarheiten und Fragen zur Anwendung, Risiken und Nebenwirkungen ist der Arzt oder Apotheker zu kontaktieren.

Es gibt Enzyme, die unser Körper selbst herstellt. Sie erfüllen lebenswichtige Aufgaben in verschiedenen Organen und Drüsen unseres Organismus. Beispielsweise produziert die Bauchspeicheldrüse große Mengen Enzyme, die für die Aufspaltung der Nährstoffe im Dünndarm verantwortlich sind.

Enzymstruktur      by Doreen Wetzel

Es werden nicht alle Enzyme von unserem Körper selbst hergestellt, sondern sie müssen auch mit der Ernährung zugeführt werden. In rohem Obst und Gemüse sind viele aktive Enzyme vorhanden. Damit sie unser Organismus auch verwerten kann, müssen diese Enzyme leben! Verzehren wir reichlich Obst und Gemüse in rohem Zustand, wirken die Enzyme in unserem Körper wie ein Jungbrunnen und fördern die Gesundheit. Die ständige Versorgung unseres Organismus mit lebenden Enzymen ist eine wichtige Grundlage für ein gesundes Leben.

Enzyme können sogar in unserem Körper gespeichert werden. Sind jedoch alle Enzymreserven aufgebraucht und werden sie nicht mit der Nahrung zugeführt, entsteht ein Mangel in den Zellen, es kann zu Fehlfunktionen von Organen und schließlich zur Erkrankung kommen.

Es gibt verschiedene Möglichkeiten Enzyme aus Lebensmitteln zu inaktivieren. Durch Erhitzen und Kochen der Nahrung werden die meisten Enzyme zerstört. 48-65°C reichen für diese empfindlichen Enzyme schon aus. Ab dieser Temperatur können sie ihre gesundheitsfördernde Wirkung nicht mehr entfalten.
Auch durch die Mikrowelle, Einfrieren und Bestrahlen von Lebensmitteln, sowie durch chemische Zusätze zur Konservierung von Nahrungsmitteln, werden Enzyme zerstört.

Why Colon Cleansing?

Colon cleansing health spas offer this unique service because the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat are filled with man-made chemicals and pesticides that intoxicate immune system. Studies show that these toxins have been associated with hormone disruption, immune system suppression, reproductive disorders, several types of cancer and other disorders such as allergies. Colon cleansing is intended to help heal these ailments and promote better health by preventing further damage to the immune system.

Colon cleansing aids in removing something called mucoid plaque.  Mucoid plaque is a harmful coating of mucus-like material existing in the gastrointestinal tracts of most people.  This build up is meant to be naturally expelled from the body, but with stress and poor eating habits, it unfortunately remains and causes problems.  The healthy colon weighs about 4 pounds. One autopsy revealed a colon choked with 40 pounds of impacted mucoid plaque! A colon cleanse results in preparing your body for optimal health by removing the mucoid plaque. You have over twenty feet of intestinal tract that your food has to pass through, most of the time, it gets lodged.  This is what eventually leads to toxins being released into your body that cause you to get sick.
Colon cleansing health spas have jumped on the wagon to help offer you an upscale, private look into something that matters; your health.  Adding this comfort level to something that can seem a little extreme and confusing will definitely lighten the load of worry

It is comforting to find a health spa that offers colon cleansing services because you know you are dealing with an intimate issue, and you want it to be treated as such.  Not to mention the fact that training in this area is of the utmost importance when it comes to dealing with your body. .  Have a trained specialist in your area that can help look in on your colon cleansing experience is an absolute must.

A colon cleansing health spa is the best place to get your cleansing done if you are looking for a highly qualified upscale atmosphere to put your mind at ease.

Important Topic Of Colon Cleansing, Must Read:

• Discover New Levels of Well Being with a Professio...
• Why Natural Colon Cleansing can be Important
• Honestly Now, Is Colon Cleansing Safe?
• You Can Make Your Own Colon Cleanse
• Marketing Colon Cleansing Products
• The Results Of Colon Cleansing
• How Professionals Determine Whether Colon Cleansin...
• Selecting a Healthy Colon Cleansing Tea
• Colon Cleanse with a Liquid Diet

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Leaping into Trouble — April 3rd, 2008 by Douglas Axe

Darwinists have always recognized the existence of an intuitive barrier that prevents many of us from joining them. Human understanding of complex things is strongly shaped by our experiences with human technology. You don’t have to be an engineer to appreciate in some way the extraordinary difficulty of getting physical systems to perform extraordinary tasks. Technology doesn’t just happen. It only comes with sizable investments of genius and diligence, along with more than a little patience.

So Darwin’s suggestion that genius and diligence are optional if patience is plentiful is a stretch for most of us. Richard Dawkins put it this way:

It took a very large leap of imagination for Darwin and Wallace to see that, contrary to all intuition, there is another way and, once you have understood it, a far more plausible way, for complex ‘design’ to arise out of primeval simplicity. A leap of the imagination so large that, to this day, many people seem unwilling to make it. [1]

I doubt anyone, Dawkins included, would generally recommend sweeping aside all intuition to accommodate leaps of imagination, particularly when the intuition is your own and the leap is not. If Darwinism really is plausible, it must instead be the case that Darwin leapt to something of substance—something that really explains how, contrary to our intuitions, the remarkable gadgets we see in biology can be chalked up to mindless inevitability. What exactly is this explanation? It needs to be compelling, whatever it is, since the intuition we’re being asked to abandon is so tied to real-world experience—the very stuff of science.

About forty years ago, plant physiologist Frank Salisbury posed the question in terms of the origin of enzymes, the intricately folded protein chains that do all of life’s chemistry. Appearing in thousands of distinct natural forms, each form suited to a well-defined function or set of functions, these tiny workhorses have proven to be technological wonders not just inside cells but in laboratories as well. Much of today’s advanced technology for manipulating and analyzing DNA depends on them. Genomes don’t get sequenced without them. Whole companies are devoted to purifying them and selling them. [2] Do little marvels like that really just happen if we wait long enough? Long before the age of genomics, Salisbury put the question this way:

In reasonable time intervals, is mutation by random rearrangement of nucleotides [i.e., DNA bases] likely to produce an enzyme… Will there be an enzyme (gene) for selection to act on? [3]

Here’s the problem. Enzymes, like all proteins, are built within cells by linking amino acids together into long chains. There are 20 different amino acids, any one of which could potentially be placed at any position along the chain. But the actual chain sequences are anything but arbitrary. Rather, cells use elaborate machinery to link the amino acids according to the precise sequence specifications contained in genes. And because the protein chains are typically hundreds of amino acids long, the cellular machinery is hitting a very tight design specification every time a protein is made. So, even if we grant that some changes to these specifications are tolerable, the mere existence of a production line tuned to such precision implies that the precision is needed. If so, enzymes are much more complicated than they should be if they just happened. A short word might surface in your alphabet soup by chance, but a paragraph won’t.

In response to Salisbury, eminent British biologist John Maynard Smith offered an analogy along the lines of alphabet soup, starting with this succession of words:

WORD -> WORE -> GORE -> GONE -> GENE.

“This is an analogue of evolution,” he wrote, “in which the words represent proteins; the letters represent amino acids; the alteration of a single letter corresponds to the simplest evolutionary step, the substitution of one amino-acid for another; and the requirement of meaning corresponds to the requirement that each unit step in evolution should be from one functional protein to another.”[4] It’s an analogy worth considering because, despite its simplicity, it does capture the crucial aspect of different functions arising from different sequences.

Maynard Smith reasoned that for evolution to work, all functional proteins must be interconnected by stepwise changes in a manner analogous to four-letter words. But does his succession of words really illustrate Darwinian evolution? And is it really reasonable to think that proteins are analogous to four-letter words in this respect?

Actually, there appears to be a significant problem with the illustration itself. For a succession of changes to illustrate an adaptive process, each one has to provide not just function but function that is helpful in the sense of advancing a principal objective. For Darwinism, the principal objective is reproductive success. New functions are only adaptive if they advance that objective. Language has communication as a principal objective. While these objectives are very different, both imply that functions are very unlikely to be helpful simply by virtue of being new.

For example, imagine needing to communicate something with a vocabulary restricted to four-letter English words. “NEED HELP CALL COPS”, might be the desired message. As a further restriction, suppose you’re granted your first word but have to construct the rest of your message from single-letter variants of that word or subsequent ones. Suppose also that adding a word is permissible only if it advances your communication objective as is. It becomes apparent that your objective needs to be met with your first word—the one given to you—because these constraints virtually preclude adding anything to it. “HELP” on its own is much better than “HELP KELP” or “HEAP HELP”.

Furthermore, if letters correspond to amino acids, as Maynard Smith suggested, then biological functions that require several protein chains, each consisting of hundreds of amino acids, are more like lengthy messages than short words. If Darwin’s approach has trouble finding the words to summon the police, just imagine how much trouble it would have dispatching the police—to a particular location, prepared to deal with particular circumstances.

Of course, we should keep in mind that the exchange between Salisbury and Maynard Smith took place in 1969, when molecular biology was in its infancy. The genetic code, used by cells to build proteins according to the sequence information in genes, had just been cracked; only a few protein structures were known [5]; and the beginnings of the boom in DNA technology were still years away. But did the huge scientific discoveries of the subsequent decades strengthen Maynard Smith’s case? Have we found that protein structures, and therefore sequences, are mostly accretions of junk, with just a handful of amino-acid residues forming the equivalent of his four-letter words?

Quite the opposite. I was present in 1997 when the champagne was uncorked at the MRC Centre in Cambridge in honor of John Walker. He was to share the Nobel Prize in chemistry that year with Paul Boyer and Jens Christian Skou for his work on the structure of the enzyme complex that uses pH gradients to drive ATP synthesis. Known as F-type ATPase, this molecular machine is built of dozens of protein chains of seven specialized types. Boyer was not exaggerating when he described it as “a splendid molecular machine”. [6] With design elegance and miniaturization wholly unrivaled in human technology, the F-type ATPase is a double energy transducer, first converting gradient energy into rotational energy, and then using the rotational energy to make ATP, the chemical energy currency used in all life—all in a package 1/500 the size of a small pollen grain.

There is no junk here. The ATPase is made not of four amino acids but four thousand—more like an essay than a paragraph (much less a word). Could it have started out much smaller? Not much, in view of the two sections that have to be coupled for it to work. Like an essay, it might withstand trimming in some places, and some of the parts might be reworded if we knew the rules of composition for proteins. Typos can be tolerated to an extent, as with essays. But none of this explains how random single-letter changes can produce new essays, whether from scratch or from existing essays on other subjects. According to intuition, there’s only one way to get an essay.

So, Maynard Smith’s beautiful analogy ends up supporting the design intuition that troubles Darwinism so. And the funny thing is, it’s awfully hard to find an analogy that doesn’t do that. Maybe that’s why so many people are unwilling to leap along with Darwin’s imagination. And maybe that’s why the leapers keep resorting to the same arguments, long after their flaws are known.

The year that we toasted Walker’s achievements, geneticist Graham Bell’s excellent monograph on natural selection came out. [7] Upon receiving my copy and glancing at the contents, I immediately turned to section 10, titled: “Very improbable structures readily arise through the cumulation of small alterations.” That would certainly solve the problem, if structural innovations could morph themselves into existence, one adaptive frame at a time. So, was Bell going to deliver the goods that no one else seemed to be able to deliver? Was the long awaited violation of the design intuition finally going to be revealed?

I’m afraid not. Bell took his argument straight from Maynard Smith:

WORD -> WORE -> GORE -> GONE -> GENE.

Evidently three decades of huge advances in molecular biology hadn’t improved the case for the leap.

What about the design intuition, though? If proposed justifications for the leap always come up short, often validating the design intuition instead, doesn’t that indicate something more substantive than an intuition? Many would argue that it does, and you have to admit that their position has something potent in its favor. It’s called common sense. No leap required.

A spidery fungus with a voracious appetite for military uniforms and canvas tents could hold the key to improvements in the production of biofuels, a team of government, academic and industry researchers has announced.

The fungus T. reesei rose to dubious fame during World War II when military leaders discovered it was responsible for rapid deterioration of clothing and tents in the South Pacific. Named after Dr. Elwyn T. Reese, who, with colleagues, originally isolated the hungry fungus, T. reesei was later identified as a source of industrial enzymes and a role model for the conversion of cellulose and hemicellulose--plant fibers--into simple sugars.

The organism uses enzymes it creates to break down human-indigestible fibers of plants into the simplest form of sugar, known as a monosaccharide. The fungus then digests the sugars as food.

Source: ScienceDaily

Vitalstoffe ist ein Oberbegriff für jene Stoffe (in unserer Nahrung), die notwendig sind, um ein "Funktionieren" biologischer Reaktionen im Stoffwechsel zu gewährleisten. - Zu den Vitalstoffen gehören die (vom Körper nicht selbst herstellbaren) essentiellen Aminosäuren und die ungesättigten Fettsäuren. Außerdem Vitamine, Spurenelemente, Mineralstoffe, Enzyme, Hormone und - seit wenigen Jahren - die Sekundären Pflanzenstoffe.

Vitalstoffe werden dem Körper zum größten Teil über die Nahrung zugeführt, bestenfalls durch den Verzehr von Lebensmitteln. Eine wichtige Rolle bei der Aufnahme und Verwertung der Vitalstoffe aus den Lebensmitteln spielt Wasser. Es übernimmt den Transport der Vitalstoffe in die Körperzellen und den Abtransport der "Abfallprodukte" aus den Körperzellen.

In der Spirulina Mikroalge findet sich eine Vielzahl von Vitalstoffen / Inhaltsstoffen:

Essentielle Aminosäuren:

Isoleucin, Leucin, Lysin, Methionin, Phenylalanin, Threonin, Tryptophan, Valin.

Nichtessentielle Aminosäuren:

Alanin, Arginin, Aspartinsäure, Cystin, Glutaminsäure, Glycin, Histidin, Prolin, Serin, Tyrosin.

Essentielle Fettsäuren:

Linolsäure, insbesondere Gamma-Linolensäure (die zur Gruppe der Omega-6-Fettsäuren gehört). - Neben Spirulina ist diese ungesättigte Fettsäure in nur sehr wenigen Lebensmitteln enthalten, unter anderem in der Muttermilch, im Borretschöl und im Nachtkerzenöl.

Pflanzenfarbstoffe:

Carotinoide (orange), Phycocyanin (blau), Chlorophyll (grün).

Vitamine:

Provitamin A (Beta-Carotin), Vitamin E (Tocopherol), Vitamin B1 (Thiamin), Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), Vitamin B3 (Niacin), Vitamin B5 (Pantothensäure), Vitamin B6 (Pyrodoxin), Vitamin B12 (Cobalamin).

Für Vegetarier ist interessant, dass das Vitamin B12 demnach nicht nur in tierischen Produkten enthalten ist, wie es in vielen Ernährungsratgebern immer noch dargestellt wird.

Folsäure: ein besonders sauerstoff- hitze- und lichtempfindliches Vitamin, welches in der "normalen Nahrung" nur unzureichend
enthalten ist, jedoch äußerst wichtige Funktionen im menschlichen Stoffwechsel übernimmt.

Biotin: Das "Haut- und Haarvitamin", in Spirulina im natürlichen Verbund.

Mineralstoffe:

Kalzium, Magnesium, Kalium, Eisen, Phosphor, Natrium.

Spurenelemente:

(als Untergruppe der Mineralstoffe) Zink, Kupfer, Mangan, Chrom, Selen, Germanium.

Nukleinsäuren:

RNS (Ribonukleinsäure), DNS (Desoxyribonukleinsäure)

But I digress, my point here is that one of the issues we were able to identify, was that I have low acidity in my stomach, which of course means that the food I consume is not necessarily being broken down to the greatest extent possible before it begins the digestive journey.  Combined with my Gluten-sensitivity, which one has to imagine would be aggravated by gluten that had not been maximally broken down, Dr.Allison provided me with digestive enzymes to assist in the breakdown of my food and improve the health of my gut. 

I try to keep a handful of enzymes in every bag or purse that I carry, and I take one before each meal that is prepared by anyone but myself.  If I suspect contamination, I will also take an additional enzyme after the meal.  It's hard to say exactly how effective the enzymes are, but at the least they provide me with peace of mind and best case scenario, they minimize my symptoms.  Although they were initially associated with low acidity and gluten-intolerance, I'm fairly certain I will still continue this regime once I get my stomach acidity in check.

NOTE: I am not a naturopath or healer of any type.  
This is merely my personal experience and opinion.

Although many of my favourite Asian foods, such as chow mein, are out, I am fortunately still able, to consume sushi.  As I mentioned in my last post, I am extremely sensitive to fermented soy, so unless I have planned ahead and brought some wheat-free Tamari with me, I usually enjoy my Japanese food sans-soya sauce.   Now, you may be thinking "but sushi has seaweed - doesn't that have soya sauce?". 

In short, the answer is yes.  I have read package, after package of seaweed and they all list soya sauce in the ingredients.  Exactly how much is not entirely clear, although in many cases it is close to the end of the ingredient list.  In general, I have been able to eat sushi without any problems, however I have found that at a few discrete locations, I get an upset stomach after consuming my meal.  In these cases, or when eating somewhere new, I will bypass the seaweed altogether, instead choosing to eat sashimi.  If you're Gluten-Free and like sushi but haven't been eating it, it may be worth a try.  I caution you however, imitation crab is made with wheat, so unless your restaurant can confirm that they are using real crab, stay away from the California rolls and such.  Personally, I like to get salmon maki, negitoro and edamame - delicious!

We also discovered a delicious Indian Buffet, less than a 10 minute walk from the office, where I can consume every item on the buffet.  The items that appear to be made with flour, are actually made from chickpea flour and thus safe for consumption (of course I still ask the waitress to double check every time).  In general, Indian food seems to be a safe bet.  Like much of the local population, I love butter chicken and matar paneer (peas and cheese) - I have even found a recipe for the latter that I can't wait to try.

The third ethnicity on our celebration rotation is Thai.  Although I can't eat the spring rolls, that come with the lunch specials, I can eat the salad and the hot & sour soup and those come with the special too.  Most of the curry's are Gluten-Free but I can't resist the Pad Thai. Mmmm!

And when I go to a standard steak & pasta joint with my Husband?
Why, I eat the steak of course!

First, many people and researchers do not believe the findings I am going to report.  Do not be discouraged, it is not harmful to read the information and it is not harmful to do the following things to keep your children safe. 

Autism is believed to be caused by a poisoning of some kind.  Many children past the point of Autism, 5 years and up, have developed signs of Autism after they have been in an accident where they were poisoned by mercury, cadmium, or other heavy metals.  Mercury attaches to our red blood cells and travels eventually to our brain.  Mercury can last two years in our blood.  At any time, the mercury can travel to our brain.  However, before it gets there, it stops by the liver.  In the liver, our blood is cleaned of heavy metals and detoxified.  The liver does this by producing an enzyme (PST) that attaches to mercury and rids the body of it. The PST enzyme requires sulfate in the body in order for it to be produced.  In some people, this gene for PST is turned off and they can not produce PST.  A second gene controls cysteine, which is the amino acid that is used to make sulfate, and if turned off, then sulfate is not being produced.  A deficiency of
cysteine, or a failure to metabolize it, would greatly affect the liver's ability to detoxify.  This would in turn allow a buildup of heavy metals, like mercury and cadmium.

If a person's body does not produce enough sulfate, if the dose of poisoning is too high, or if there has been prolonged poisoning, the sulfate in our body is depleted and the liver can not take the heavy metals out of our blood.  Thus the heavy metals will travel to our brains.  Also, when the sulfates are depleted in our body the lining of our intestines is affected.  The lining is a barrier between what is being digested and our blood stream and then our brain.  When this lining is broken down through the depletion of sulfates in our body, a new process results.  Now, peptides from milk and wheat (gluten) can cross the intestinal barrier and entire the blood stream.  Once in the blood stream, these peptides work like opiates (morphine) and drug the body and brain.  Hallucinogenic actions are then seen in the individual - staring at lights and spinning objects, not responding to voices, flapping arms and walking on tip toes, and various other learning disabilities.  These are the symptoms of Autism.  This phenomenon of the intestinal lining breaking down is known as the Leaky Gut Syndrome, and children with autism usually also have the nutrient depletion that goes along with the Leaky Gut Syndrome.  This is why the diet that Jenny McCarthy is promoting works in some children with Autism.  In these children, the damage is reversible.  The rate and the degree of poisoning versus how much sulfate is in the body and how fast the liver can rid our bodies of it correlates to the degree of autism and the various spectrums of autism.  Some children are more susceptible to mercury staying in the body longer because they have less available sulfates. 

In some children, the mercury has gotten to the brain and the damage is not reversible.  Also, many children were poisoned in utero and may not be able to be helped.  Some are born with the genes for making PST and Cysteine turned off.  Along with the diet, the children need to have their stores of sulfate replenished. Since the drug companies refuse to help, there are no easy ways to just give the kids shots of sulfate.  Tablets do not work.  The only thing that has shown progress is to have the children soak in Epsom Salt baths.  The salt is a magnesium sulfate, which is just what the liver needs.  Your breathe it in, your skin soaks it up, and you are helping to detoxify your body.  There is also a magnesium sulfate cream.

Now, there are other ways that sulfates can be depleted in your or your child's body - soaking or inhaling chlorine from pools, hot tubs or bleaches and digesting dyes, flavinoids, and aspartame in foods.  Besides rinsing off after swimming and using Epsom Salts, you can also look at the ingredients in your food and avoid all these dyes and additives.  There are so many, many other alternatives for foods in the grocery store.  The FDA continues to deny dyes are harmful, so you have to find the foods yourself that do not have the dyes, but they are out there. 

Lastly, ways to avoid mercury, cadmium, and heavy metal poisoning: 

1. Stop getting shots with thimerosal in them, including flu shots.

2. Do not live near a coal fired power plant or a chlorine making factory.

3.  Do not partake in the sushi fad!  A recent study of a Manhattan sushi restaurant's fish showed they had levels so high the FDA should take them off the market.  Do not let your children eat fish! Eating fish with these metals once a month, well you could clean your blood of that.  But twice a week?  Mercury stays in your blood for two years, if you have enough sulfate for your liver to detoxify it.  If you don't have enough sulfate, the mercury will stay for years.  Mercury crosses the placenta in pregnancy and in lower doses, breast milk.  Mothers who eat fish two years before getting pregnant can still poison their fetuses.  The sushi fad started in the US in the 1980's , right around the time of the rise in children with Autism.  The fad slowed in the 1990s and is once again a big fad since 2001.  Japan has one of the highest rates of children with Autism.  Think, Think, Think before you eat fish - are you wanting to be pregnant or make a woman pregnant within the next two years?

4. Mercury is found in some cosmetics, tooth fillings, lightbulbs, batteries, computer and television parts, and cadmium in rechargeable batteries.  Do not let children handle these. If one breaks open in your house, clean the spill up immediately and go to the doctors to get detoxed.  Go to a dentist that does not use mercury fillings.

5. Chlorine is found in pools, hot tubs, drinking water, and cleaning products.  Wash after swimming and take Epsom Salt Baths.  Put a low cost filter on you sink which you drink from.  Do not use chlorine bleach in your house in any way.  Check your cleaning products for it.  Check your dishwasher detergent for it!

6.  The FDA still allows thimerosal in drugs.  Ask your doctor before taking anything if the drug contains the preservative Thermisol. 

7.  Follow a detox regimen if you have high levels of mercury.  Chelation with chlorella, cilantro, alpha lipoic acid, DMSA, DMPs or cilantro are known detoxes (see sources below for chelation).   For children, time is of the essence, because the mercury is bound into the body's tissues after a few years and the damage is not reversible.

Here are some things I would like to see happen:

1.  Some children are born with the gene that produces PST enzyme "shut off".   They have found the gene and should test babies for it, like they test for PKU.  If they have this gene, they are very susceptible to mercury poisoning and autism.  Researchers should find a way to reproduce the pst enzyme.

2. Pharmaceutical companies should make a more readily available and easier for our bodies to use magnesium sulfate shot.

3. The AMerican Academy of Pediatrics and FDA and CDC should fund research to prove or disprove the above research and then not cover up any findings.

4.  The Diet of NO MILk-No Wheat should be made available to all children who have autism through their doctors. 

5. Children should get routinely checked for mercury and cadmium levels in their blood, any level is an unsafe level.

 6.  There should be more stringent regulations on what products chlorine, mercury, and cadmium should be allowed in.  California bans mercury in almost any product and Minnesota just banned mercury in cosmetics.

Sources:

Email: hemapriya_teddy@yahoo.co.in

School: SRV Hr Sec School

Career Interest: To work

Project title: A study on Production, Extraction, Purification and application of Keratinase from Paccilomyces sp

Catogory: Enzyme Technology

Intitute: CLRI,( Central Leather Research Institute)

Adyar

Time of Approach: 7^th semester

Experience: Just OK... If you can’t get in any other institute you can go there. Heard that projects in Biopolymer lab of CCR is good, don’t do Project in Tannery dept there.

]]> http://ecoenergynews.wordpress.com/?p=87 Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:41:28 +0000 pekowan http://ecoenergynews.wordpress.com/?p=87 Source: The Cornell Daily Sun
March 25, 2008 - 12:00am
By Wendy Wang

As corn becomes an increasingly popular ethanol source, the spotlight falls on the biofuels field as its researchers study how to convert crops like switchgrass and woody plants into energy. This is evident at Riley-Robb Hall, where the east wing is being converted into a new biofuels research laboratory. Prof. Larry Walker, biological and environmental engineering, is spearheading the large-scale project, slated for completion next January.

Walker received a $10 million grant from Empire State Development Cor­poration, with $6 million going towards the east wing renovation and the other $4 million to equip the new laboratory with incubators, fermentors and other machinery necessary to allow Cornell to convert cellulosic material, like switchgrass and other perennial grasses, into ethanol,from start to finish. Burst of energy: The former agricultural engineering, power and machinery lab is being turned into a new biofuels research laboratory.

“We can do what we call pretreatment of the materials to make this material more amenable to enzymatic biodegradation,” said Walker. “We have the capability of generating the enzymes needed to convert the biomass into fermentable sugars. We will then have the capability of taking the fermentable sugars to ethanol, butanol and other biofuels.”

Walker emphasized the importance of ethanol as one of the few renewable energy sources that can directly replace gasoline and the fact that by 2025, about 80 percent of ethanol production will come not from corn, but from cellulose materials, those primarily studied at the current biofuels lab on campus.

In fact, using corn as an ethanol source has come under scrutiny as it gains more media exposure. For example, Katherine McEachern ’09, president of KyotoNOW!, stated in an e-mail that the organization was “glad that this lab is focused on developing cellulosic ethanol and biofuel, not corn-based ethanol, which has many environmental and social problems.”

The new laboratory has also helped attract a new faculty member, Prof. Lars Angenent from Washington University in St. Louis, who will start at Cornell this fall. Walker and others in the department are also working on a master of engineering program in biofuels and bioenergy, in addition to continually seeking interested undergraduate and graduate students for the current research program.

“Certainly we’ve been trying to recruit new graduate students for the program. Graduate students are attracted by good facilities and good equipment, so that’s definitely a benefit for us,” said Prof. Beth Ahner, biological and environmental engineering, one of the faculty members moving into the new space. “The overall goal is renewable energy, and sustainable ways to use agricultural products to generate energy for human use.”

According to Walker, this lab will significantly advance Cornell’s biofuel laboratory infrastructure by consolidating all relevant labs, which are currently scattered; these labs range from those in biological and environmental engineering to plant sciences, applied and engineering physics, molecular biology and genetics and microbiology.

This multidisciplinary approach of the lab “plays to the strength that we have here at Cornell,” Walker said. “By and large, Cornell is very good at suppressing barriers between departments and getting faculties from different disciplines to work together on strategic research areas. This is a real strength of Cornell University.”

Earlier this month, Cornell received another $1 million to reinforce the multi-departmental biofuels research; the biomass research grant jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy supports work that links nanobiotechnology to biofuels in enzymatic conversion processes. Additional funding for biofuels research at Cornell also comes from the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation.

The increasing opportunities for funding reflect the public’s growing recognition of biofuels as potential solutions to current environmental and energy problems. Faculty members have also seen more interest from undergraduates.

“I’d gotten one request this week from someone who wanted to work in the biofuel lab,” said Ahner. “I teach a sophomore-level course [BEE 251: Engineering for a Sustainable Society] and we do talk about biofuels there, and students seem very excited about it.”

Upon hearing of the new lab, other students were also enthusiastic about its presence.

Carmen Iao ’09, president of the Cornell chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World, stated in an e-mail: “The tools that this lab will provide Cornell will definitely help it become more prominent in the field of biofuels research, an urgent and necessary area of renewable energy.”

Opportunistic infection is any infection which, under normal circumstances, the body could easily fight off. However, due to the lack of CD4 immune cells, AIDS patients are at very high risk of contracting diseases which they would never contract were it not for the virus destroying their immune system. Some diseases are so common in AIDS patients, and so uncommon in non-AIDS patients, that they are considered to be AIDS-defining diseases. Examples of AIDS-defining diseases include Pneumocystis Pneumonia (a fungal infection of the lungs) and Kaposi’s Sarcoma (once believed to be a rare form of cancer, now believed to be caused by Herpes Virus HHV8); these diseases are normally not seen in patients with a normal immune system. While there is viable treatment for many opportunistic diseases, they must be treated swiftly in an AIDS patient due to the patient’s body being unable to fight infection on its own.

Another important way of measuring HIV is by measuring the viral load. The viral load is the amount of HIV in the body. So while a CD4 count measures the amount of damage HIV has done, a viral load count will measure how much of the virus is actually in the body. In this way, doctors are able to measure whether drugs are working to halt the spread of the virus.

AIDS is a pandemic first identified in 1981 by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), due to Pneumocystis Pneumonia being identified in five homosexual men in Los Angeles. The disease did not take over worldwide as quickly as it is generally believed, though. AIDS has been identified in tissue samples of patients who died of unknown causes as early as 1959; one postmortem case identified the virus in a tissue sample from a 15-year-old boy who died in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1969, though it is still unknown how the boy may have contracted the virus. Some scientists suggest the virus could have first infected humans sometime during the end of the 19th Century, while other scientists suggest it first infected humans during the early 20th century, between 1915 and 1930. Regardless of whether it started during the late 19th Century or early 20th Century, it took many decades for it to even become prevalent enough to be noticed. Since the virus is slow to overtake its host, the window for inadvertent infection of others is years, rather than days or weeks as with most viruses.

It is unclear exactly how the virus started, but it seems clear that it crossed species from primates (which can carry a disease known as the Simian Immunodeficiency Virus) into humans, likely when humans came into contact with the bodily fluids of monkeys, possibly during consumption, hunting or butchering the animals (monkey meat is a delicacy in some areas of the world, and is regularly eaten in some areas of Africa). The virus spread due to a number of factors, including vaccines given with unclean needles in developing countries. While AIDS is now generally viewed as a disease of gay men and intravenous drug users, the truth is far more chilling, since the virus is not contained only within a particular population. Many women and children are infected with the virus, and in some areas of the world, particularly Africa where infected patients do not have access to proper health care, the number of deaths has become catastrophic.

At this time, there is no cure for HIV, or for AIDS, nor is there a vaccine to prevent transmission. However, scientists have designed a number of drugs inhibit the virus’s replication. To understand how these drugs work, a short primer on the virus is necessary.

HIV takes over CD4 cells, changing their molecular structure by inserting its own ribonucleic acid (RNA). The virus itself, which is too small to be seen except with an electron microscope, consists of an outer envelope containing the virus and the proteins and enzymes necessary for replication; the envelope has about 72 spikes on its surface. When the virus bumps into a cell coated by the CD4 protein, the spikes stick into the cell and fuse, at which time the inner contents of the HIV envelope is released into the CD4 cell.

Once inside the cell, the HIV enzyme called reverse transciptase converts the viral RNA into DNA, which is compatible with human genetic material. This DNA is transported to the cell’s nucleus, where it is spliced into the human DNA by the HIV enzyme called integrase. Once it is spliced into the human DNA, the HIV DNA is known as provirus. The provirus may lie dormant within a cell for quite some time. However, when the cell becomes activated, it treats HIV genes in almost the same way as human genes. First it uses human enzymes to convert HIV genes into messenger RNA. The messenger RNA is transported outside the cell nucleus, and is used as a blueprint for producing new HIV proteins and enzymes, much in the same way as the human body normally produce replacement cells.

Complete copies of HIV genetic material is contained among the strands of messenger RNA produced by the cell. These copies combine with newly made HIV proteins and enzymes to form new viral particles, which are then released from the cell. The enzyme protease plays a vital role of the HIV life cycle, as it chops up long strands of protein into smaller pieces, which are then used to construct mature viral cores. At that point the newly matured HIV particles are ready to infect another cell, and begin the replication process all over again. In this way the virus quickly spreads through the human body, and causes its host to become infectious. HIV is passed to others through bodily fluids; some fluids contain more of the virus than others.

Contrary to popular belief, people do not die of HIV, or of AIDS. They die of the opportunistic infections which accompany the complete loss of their immune system. Patients therefore must take a strong cocktail of medications to stop the virus from replicating and destroying their immune system. Some common drugs prescribed for AIDS patients, to stop the virus from replicating, include reverse transcriptase inhibitors, which prevent the viral RNA from being converted into human DNA; protease inhibitors, which prevent the virus from creating new mature viral cores; and integrase inhibitors, which prevent the viral DNA from being spliced into the human DNA within the cells.

Unfortunately, with those life-saving treatments for the virus come life-threatening side effects, from lethal liver damage to an overwhelming nausea which results in starvation and dehydration; when this occurs, it only worsens those same symptoms which can be caused by the virus itself. Over the years many drugs have been discovered to combat the side effects (those same side effects are found in many other medical conditions as well), and to increase the quality of life for those who are infected with the virus; some of those drugs and treatments are pharmaceutical in nature, and some are natural.

One of the non-pharmaceutical drugs, which has proven very helpful in battling the anxiety, overwhelming nausea and physical wasting which comes with the virus and its treatment, is marijuana. So effective is marijuana that scientists have even made a pharmaceutical version of the drug, used in chemotherapy patients as well as AIDS patients, which contains synthetic THC (the active ingredient in marijuana). However, many patients believe that the natural THC in marijuana works better than the synthetic version in Marinol, and science supports this belief. In studies of marijuana usage for medicinal usage, it was found that other chemicals found in marijuana have additional medicinal effects which complement the effects of THC. Furthermore Marinol is extremely expensive (Tom’s Marinol costs about $2200 per month, so severe is his nausea and gastrointestinal symptoms), and thus the drug is far beyond the financial reach of most patients; and for that reason they cultivate and smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. While the black market cost of marijuana can be high, the plant can be cultivated at home from seeds, at very little cost to the patient.

In some states, it is legal for patients with a valid medical prescription to possess certain amounts of dried and cultivated marijuana for personal medicinal use. However, even in those states, the US Government - which has declared that marijuana is an illicit and therefore illegal drug - refuses to permit patients to use the cultivated form of THC. Patients are regularly arrested for merely possessing the substance which allows them to live a more normal life, and which in cases of extreme wasting seen in AIDS, is actually life-saving. This occurs nationwide, including in the states where marijuana is legal for medicinal use.

I do not advocate the casual use of marijuana (or any other drug, prescription or otherwise) to get “high”. I do strongly advocate the right of physicians and patients to determine the best course of treatment, and I believe the government has no right to interfere in the doctor/patient relationship when the patient is not being placed in untoward danger.

Enter Tom Faltynowicz. When Tom was diagnosed with AIDS in 1990, he was given “maybe a few years” to live. Eighteen years later, he is in a fight for his life, but it’s a fight of a very different kind.

In September 2007, law enforcement officials in his native Meade County received an anonymous call, stating that Tom had between 75 and 100 marijuana plants growing behind a metal building on his property. It is believed that the anonymous call came from Tom’s daughter, who was angry with him because he had recently stated his disapproval of her relationship with a particular man.

When Meade County Investigator Michael Walker and South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation Agent John Griswold arrived at Tom’s home the next day, there were not 75 to 100 plants on the property, or even anywhere near that many; in fact, there were no plants out in the open at all. However, when asked by those officers about the accusation, Tom immediately admitted to growing marijuana to treat his medical condition. He even invited the officers into his home, so they can see where he was growing it, and he was completely cooperative at all times, even according to the police report regarding the incident. All told, the officers found five plants, and about four ounces of dried marijuana. There was never an allegation that the marijuana was being used for anything but his medical condition, and never an allegation that he was selling the marijuana. It remains undisputed that Tom was using the marijuana to treat AIDS, and the side effects of the many potent medications he takes to fight the virus.

Tom takes a total of four antiretroviral drugs to combat the HIV infection: Combivir (a combination of Retrovir and Epivir), Sustiva, and Viread. Each of these drugs, by themselves, come with potentially fatal side effects. All of these drugs can cause severe nausea, and can result in extreme anxiety as an additional side effect. In addition, Tom has been prescribed Marinol, the synthetic THC drug to combat nausea and vomiting, so there is no question that he suffers the side effects which are treated by marijuana, and there is no question that his side effects are severe based upon his dosage. However, Tom says that the marijuana is far more effective than the Marinol, since Marinol makes him so tired that he cannot function; and his physician is aware of and supports his use of marijuana to treat his symptoms.

Tom, though he has no prior criminal record with the exception of two prior misdemeanor convictions for possession of small amounts of marijuana - both of which occurred after he was diagnosed with AIDS - pled guilty to felony possession of marijuana. He faces a maximum of two years in prison, and a maximum fine of $4000; he could also be given probation. His sentencing date has been set for April 21st, before the Honorable Jerome Eckrich, Circuit Judge. Tom’s Infectious Disease Specialist, Dr. Traub, will speak at the sentencing hearing. The State Attorney has already said that he will not object to anything Dr. Traub might say. It appears that no one is interested in punishing Tom Faltynowicz; at the same time, under the law, his possession of marijuana - regardless of the reason why he possessed it - is a felony in the state of South Dakota.

Tom, however, is an exception to the reason that law was written. It was written to stop people from abusing the drug to get high, and to stop them from selling or otherwise providing it to others for the same illicit purpose. It is extremely doubtful the legislature was aware of the medicinal effects of marijuana when that law was passed, and it’s extremely doubtful the legislature ever intended to punish patients with a deadly disease. It’s even possible that the medicinal effects of marijuana were unknown to them when that law was passed, since it is hardly a new law. Nevertheless, since the law exists, it will be enforced, even against people like Tom who are using marijuana strictly for medicinal purposes.

This raises a number of questions. Even if Tom is merely placed on probation, and even if he stopped smoking marijuana altogether, using Marinol to control his symptoms would result in violation of probation, since he would test positive for THC during required drug tests. If he fails a drug test while on probation, he will be incarcerated.

If he is incarcerated, he will not only not have access to the drug which he needs to survive without excessive suffering due to overwhelming nausea, vomiting, physical wasting, and extreme fatigue; but the South Dakota Department of Corrections will be forced to pay for the extremely expensive antiretroviral drugs which fight the virus as well as the Marinol, at a cost of thousands of dollars per month to the taxpayers, in addition to the increased cost of incarceration for a man with an infectious deadly disease. As you should understand after my explanation of how those drugs work, and how the virus works, missing even one dose of his antiretroviral drugs could be catastrophic for his health, since it would allow the virus to replicate until the drug was again built up to a therapeutic dosage. Yet in a prison environment there is no guarantee that he will receive his life-sustaining medications at all, much less receive them on the schedule those drugs demand.

Tom has said that he will not stop using marijuana, because it allows him to live a relatively normal life. Without it, his body is wracked with pain, nausea, and vomiting; he is unable to eat or drink, and thus his body becomes even more weakened, even more unable to fight the virus, and even more prone to the many opportunistic illnesses, any one of which could easily end his life. This is especially true if he is confined in a jail or prison facility, given that there are large numbers of inmates living in close approximation.

To incarcerate Tom Faltynowicz would therefore place his life at severe risk, and as such would clearly constitute cruel and unusual punishment, as prohibited by the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution. Furthermore, it would serve no purpose to incarcerate him, since his crime is merely possession of a drug which allows him to live with his disease and to continue take the cruel medications which literally keep him alive. He poses no threat to anyone and he is not selling or otherwise distributing the marijuana, nor has it even been suggested that he is selling or distributing the marijuana. Rehabilitation is also not a valid cause for his incarceration, since he merely uses the drug for medicinal purposes, and thus he is not in need of rehabilitation.

Society would not be served by incarcerating Tom Faltynowicz. The interests of justice would not be served by incarcerating Tom Faltynowicz.

As such, justice demands that the court show mercy by giving Tom Faltynowicz a suspended sentence, no probation, and whatever fine the court sees fit, as long as it is within Tom’s ability to pay said fine.