SeniorJunior

The Frumster Some of my best friends are Republicans. Seriously. However, only a tiny fraction are ultra-right-wingers. (Note the restraint. I did not say " wingnuts ," which I think reflects the poison in our polarization.) For the record, I think two strong parties with opposing, well-defined ideas for solving our problems and facilitating The Pursuit of Happiness, Justice for All, etc, is the way it oughta be here in the U.S.A. However, the collapse of the current Republican Party into internecine warfare between the Tea Partiers and the Big Tenters is NOT helping the Repubs define their ideas for solutions and facilitations . David Frum , ex-W guy and author of "Comeback; Conservatism That Can Win Again," vividly spells out the problem with the Tea Party approach; NO SOLUTIONS. Check it out. So I say (in awe of myself for my open mindedness) that if David Frum suddenly replaced Sen Jim DeMint /Michael Steele as the main conservative thinker,...

HOW MANY TIMES... Have we all seen great news about... ... a science "breakthrough" story with the promise of some cure or another [my favs : obesity, brain cancer, aging, etc.] but it will be years before we can get an actual prescription in our aging hands? Now there's "translational medicine!" This is the go-from-basic-discovery-to-human-applications-at-warp-speed idea. I love the way the people in this new- ish field think. Here's an excerpt from an article in Science Magazine. (You have to be a subscriber to read it.) It's kind of a how-to on making translational medicine work: Recommendations for the Future Our analysis documents objectively show the long length of time that passes between discovery and translation. As scientists, we should convey to our funders and the public the immense difficulty of the scientific discovery process. Successful translation is demanding and takes a lot of effort and time even under the best circumsta...