Soylent Green

By regulating protein expression, organisms are able to adjust to different external variables in the environment without having to change their DNA. Plants are especially dependent on this sort of passive defense because they do not have the luxury of major movement like humans and other animals.

The secondary structure of miRNA

Until recently, scientists were not even aware that tiny key-like miRNAs were involved in turning on/off the proteins an organism can or cannot express. The critical biological processes that are modulated by miRNAs range from immune response to the maintenance of cell and tissue identity and everything in-between. Without the help (or hindrance) of miRNA, organisms would have significantly different life strategies than they do today.

But the real shocker came in 2011 when a team of Chinese researchers isolated plant miRNA found in rice that did not naturally occur in the human body (http://www.ask-force.org/web/Genomics/Zhang-Exogenous-plant-MIR168a-2011.pdf). By extracting miRNA from human blood sera, scientists were able to isolate the same miRNA that was made by the plants the humans had recently ingested. Studies were further confirmed when the researchers extracted plant miRNA from the organs of mice that were fed large quantities of food containing the exogenous plant miRNA.

What’s the moral of the story?

Plant miRNA can make it into your bloodstream through food intake and eventually cause changes in your protein expression! A new meaning to ‘you are what you eat’.

But what are the consequences for humans who have ingested foreign plant miRNA?

In the same study, certain plant miRNA was found to decrease the removal of LDL-cholesterol from the body by decreasing the liver’s ability to express the proper proteins for its removal. Drug companies rejoice! A totally new way to tinker with human health…

How does this discovery impact our understanding of what food to eat?

Vegetarians can take a chill pill before freaking out that their plant-heavy diets may cause detrimental health effects. There is no reason these plant miRNA (or miRNA from any organism in any kingdom) wouldn’t be in even higher concentrations in mammal or bird meat than in edible plants.

More importantly, however, are the unknown human health effects created from genetically modified crops made as a result of miRNA manipulation.

OTHER ARTICLES:

Related posts:

It seems that the main arguing point for putting such a ban in place (besides the always popular, ‘because it’s not good for you’) is to save the University money by reducing the tobacco-associated health costs that its insurance must cover. That makes sense — the University, after all, is a business and must look to keep costs down just as any other business must. So why not charge an extra fee or raise the premiums for those employees who smoke?

Apparently the U of A did give a bit of thought to that option, but concluded that such fees/charges might come off as a bit too ‘punitive’ or ‘intrusive’, and that they would be difficult to enforce. Agreed.

A future U of A non-hire.

So, to get around this, the University is simply considering not hiring them at all. The University would presumably conduct a pre-employment ‘nicotine test’ (perhaps right after testing for the presence of caffeine, liberal beliefs, and bacon-double cheeseburgers) that would separate the guilty from the innocent.

Let’s be clear here: That health costs for smokers are generally higher than those for non-smokers is a pretty widely agreed-upon fact, and as such, employers that provide health coverage to their workers have very good reason to take this information into consideration when implementing their healthcare policies. By simply not hiring these potentially overly-expensive employees in the first place, the problem is solved.

Sure, adopting such a hiring policy is harsh, and should be illegal (actually, it is illegal in 29 states), but it makes perfect sense from a business’ perspective.

But why stop there? How about refusing to hire fat people?  Or people that indulge in a couple of gin & tonics after work each day, while sitting in their own recliner in their own house?  Or anyone over the age of, say, 45?  Why haven’t we heard about these ideas being discussed?  Do old age, obesity, and alcoholism cost businesses that much less in healthcare costs than smoking does? — so much less that it’s simply a non-issue?

It took only a cursory amount of research to find that the opposite is true. According to one study, healthcare costs associated with smoking and alcoholism were far lower than those associated with obesity and normal aging — in some cases, up to 3 or 4 times lower. Another study (this one conducted in order to estimate the medical and indirect costs to the Department of Defense that are associated with smoking, obesity, and alcoholism) included dollar amounts to go along with their findings:

The DoD spends an estimated $2.1 billion per year on medical care associated with smoking, obesity, and alcoholism. The breakdown is as follows:

– cost of medical care associated with tobacco use = $564 million
– cost of medical care associated with obesity = $1.1 billion
– cost of medical care associated with alcoholism = $425 million

A quick bit of arithmetic and it becomes quite clear: obesity-related costs amount to about double what tobacco-related costs do.

And, mind you, this study was published in 2007 — what do you think today’s numbers look like?  And if you’re going to consider that, you must also consider the fact that smoking rates in this country have been steadily falling while obesity rates are steadily rising.

Conclusion: Hey, University! — Wake up and smell the lack of logic in the air! Perhaps it’s time to rethink your so-called line of thinking. If your true aim is to save yourself and your employees some money by snubbing tobacco users, well, clearly there are much bigger fish to fry.

To which the University might reply: "Yeah, pretty much."

OTHER ARTICLES YOU MIGHT CARE TO PERUSE:

– Speaking of alcoholism: What exactly happens to wine once it enters a typical man?…
– Click here to find out why we hired Musa Luna, despite the fact that she smokes 1.6 packs per day…
– Besides bacon-double cheeseburgers & cigarettes, what else can be defined as ‘delectable’?…
– Other ‘reasonable’ reasons for unreasonable things that we humans do…
– Will the University decide to hire ‘synthetic biologists’ (assuming that they don’t use tobacco, of course) in the near future?…

Related posts:

To find out more about how Alaskans actually feel about the Chili’s closure, fairbanksirl ran the following poll during the week of March 11:

Regarding the ‘Chili’s Restaurant’ closure & potential re-opening:
1) What ever happened to ‘Dairy Queen’?!?
2) I vote for a more relevant poll next week.
3) Get it re-opened, soon!
4) Good riddance! – And stay out

Interestingly, only 4% (1 vote) of voters chose ‘Get it re-opened, soon!’. The remaining votes were split almost perfectly, with ‘What ever happened to ‘Dairy Queen’?!?’ and ‘Good riddance! – And stay out!’ each receiving 33% of the vote and ‘I vote for a more relevant poll next week.’ capturing the remaining 30%.

Since two of the choices (comprising 63% of the votes) had nothing to do with Chili’s, the most apparent attitude coming from Alaskans seems to be “Who cares?” And those who did care were overwhelmingly pleased (8 for, 1 against) with the franchise’s decision to pack up and leave the last frontier.

According to Wikipedia, there are Chili’s restaurants in nearly 40 countries, including in such unlikely locations as Kuwait and Guatemala. Along with those in Alaska, other locations around the globe have run into problems as well: all of the Australian locations were shut down in 2008 due to illegal employment practices and a branch in Abu Dhabi was shut down last year ‘for violating hygiene standards.’

The three Alaskan locations were reportedly closed because of mismanagement and financial problems, with the Fairbanks location being noted as the least profitable of the three. Probably not coincidentally, a significant number of Fort Wainwright troops were deployed overseas this past winter.

OTHER ARTICLES YOU MIGHT ENJOY:

– Your horoscope for the upcoming week, written with love by our own Musa Luna
– What is Rep. Don Young’s oh so delicate definition of ‘environmentalists’?
– Is there potential for a new boom in Rare Earth Elements-mining in Alaska?
– A mortician saves an Iditarod dog’s life with mouth-to-snout CPR, what??!!

Related posts:

According to the Anchorage Daily News, musher Scott Janssen was a little over a day into his 2nd Iditarod when he found himself sobbing over one of his older huskies after it had suddenly collapsed, several miles from the nearest checkpoint. Mr. Janssen reacted quickly, utilizing a technique he had learned from veteran musher Paul Gebhardt, and was eventually able to revive the dog.

After tucking the dog’s tongue back into his mouth and holding his mouth shut, “I had my mouth over his nose, breathing into his nose as I was compressing and rubbing his chest, trying to work the air out,” Janssen said.

Janssen continued this process for what was probably about 5 minutes, though he said it seemed like an eternity, and ‘Marshall’ finally came to with a grunt.

“I really love that dog…I was sobbing…I’m like, c’mon dude, please come back.”

Scott Janssen & an unidentified dog on an unknown date - (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

“And he did.”

Here I should note that Janssen’s ‘day job’ is owning and operating an Anchorage funeral home (for over 20 years now), a profession that has earned him the nickname, ‘the Mushing Mortician’, which he has referred to himself as for some time now…I’ll leave it at that.

Anyway, Janssen loaded Marshall into the sled and safely made it to the next checkpoint, Rohn, despite breaking a runner on the way. Marshall was checked out by the vets there and seemed to be just fine. By the next morning, Marshall “[was] standing around, bummed-out that he wasn’t going with us,” Janssen said.

Marshall was eventually flown home to Anchorage the next day and Janssen continued on with the remainder of his team. (As of press time, he was ranked in 39th place, of the 54 remaning teams of the original 66…)

If you want to learn more about performing C.P.R. on non-human animals, you can start by visiting HERE.  I also recommend learning how to perform the non-human version of the Heimlich maneuver while you’re at it, especially if your dog is as stupid about eating inedibles as mine is. You can learn about it HERE.

Non-consensual interspeciel CPR

And I suppose that I would be remiss if I didn’t also include links that instruct how to perform these life-saving techniques on human animals — so if you can imagine yourself ever being in a situation where you might actually want to save a human life, visit these sites and pay attention: Human CPR  & Heimlich for humans…

Lastly, if the above methods don’t end up working for you and you find yourself in need of the sort of counseling and service that funeral homes provide, why not give Scott ‘the Mushing Mortician’ Janssen a holler at Janssen Funeral Homes?  (I assume that they only take on human clients, however.)

OTHER ARTICLES THAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST:
– Why does this cat hate you and all of your relatives?
— If we Alaskans are so happy, why then are we so suicidal?
— Rep. Don Young’s ever so gentle definition of ‘environmentalists’
— ‘…stop thinking that people don’t view you as a jerk.’ - is this your horoscope?
— Results from last week’s poll & an update on the Eielson situation
— If Elvis’ supposed brother has orangutan blood coursing through his veins, is secretly the head of the C.I.A., and shares a lawyer w/George W. Bush, then what was (is!) coursing through Elvis’ veins…?

Related posts:

The opinion of the media is another story. The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly has already approved over $100,000 in spending to analyze the United States Air Force decision to move the F-16s. Property taxes and home rental costs in areas such as North Pole have been on the rise over the last 10 years, arguably due to increases in military personnel.

So the base gives Alaska more taxes to play with and the state uses the money to try and keep the base? This explains why the politicians are fighting so hard (spending Alaska tax money) to keep the base.

But what about the opinion of the average Fairbanks resident? Our poll indicates that interest in closing the base is split down the middle. There are many positives and negatives associated with Eielson’s closure, yet only the opinions of the politicians seem to be represented in the news.

fairbanksirl will continue to provide updates on the Eielson controversy in order to offer underrepresented opinions that the big dogs (News-Miner, Anchorage Daily News) are not willing to objectively provide.

OTHER ARTICLES THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST:
– VIDEO: Ron Paul comments on the Eielson situation during his visit to FBX
— Rep. Don Young’s tactful definition of ‘environmentalist’
— Commentary on the UAF Veteran’s Center controversy
— What exactly is ‘ordure’, anyway?
— Alaska’s high ‘happiness-index’/high suicide rate — How’s that work?
— What does ‘animal-to-human fusionology’ have to do with FBX (or reality)?

Related posts: