catbirdseat

Ah, then the jokes on me. McKillop lied.

It ought to be called Murkwood. What a gloomy looking place!

bang stick... There are several early guides that all list it as "Broomstick". Culbert (1972) Smail (1976) Barley (1979) Campbell (1986) Harlin (1987) It was McLane who first published it as "Boomstick".

It's not treated successfully with cortisone. I've been told that cortisone works in the short term. The problem almost invariably returns.

Ev'rythin's up to date in Kansas City They've gone about as fur as they c'n go! -Will (Oklahoma)

FDA News FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE P07-84 May 9, 2007 FDA Approves Neupro Patch for Treatment of Early Parkinson's Disease. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced the approval of Neupro (rotigotine transdermal system), a skin patch designed to treat symptoms of early Parkinson's disease. Rotigotine is a drug not previously approved in the United States. Neupro is the first transdermal patch approved for the treatment of symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Parkinson's disease, which belongs to a group of conditions called motor system disorders, results from the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells. Rotigotine, a member of the dopamine agonist class of drugs, is delivered continuously through the skin (transdermal) using a silicone-based patch that is replaced every 24 hours. A dopamine agonist works by activating dopamine receptors in the body, mimicking the effect of the neurotransmitter dopamine. The effectiveness of Neupro was demonstrated in one fixed-dose response study and two flexible-dose studies. The parallel group studies were randomized, double-blinded, and placebo-controlled, and involved 1,154 patients with early Parkinson's disease who were not taking other Parkinson's medications. The most common side effects for Neupro included skin reactions at the patch site, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness and insomnia, most of which are typical of this class of drugs. Other potential safety concerns include sudden onset of sleep while engaged in routine activities such as driving or operating machinery (sleep attacks), hallucinations, and decreased blood pressure on standing up (postural hypotension). Neupro Patch is manufactured by Schwarz Bioscience of Research Triangle Park, N.C. According to the Parkinson's Action Network, more than 1 million Americans live with Parkinson's disease and 60,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. The four primary symptoms of Parkinson's are trembling in hands, arms, legs, jaw, and face (tremor); stiffness of the limbs and trunk (rigidity); slowness of movement (bradykinesia,); and impaired balance and coordination (postural instability). As these symptoms become more pronounced, patients may have difficulty walking, talking, or completing other simple tasks. For more information National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/parkinsons_disease/parkinsons_disease.htm

Good job, Tvash. That's a route I'd like to do some time this summer.

I think that things will gradually improve in Mexico. It was subject to one party rule for a long time. There is multiparty rule now, and one hopes that the competition for votes and the watchdog effect will finally cut down on corruption and inefficiency.

If plantar fasciitis is caused by necrosis and not inflammation, why is it that it can be successfully treated by cortisone injection?

What worries me? You don't even want to get me started.

Meatballs= fat + protein Beer= carbohydrate You have a balanced diet. Enjoy.

Where do you get that statistic? I don't believe it's true. I'm a liberal democrat who happens to be against illegal immigration.

Smart feet are some sort of commercially available insole? Try them and see if they work. I tried Superfeet insoles and they didn't help. Fallen arches are the cause of plantar fasciitis, or so I believe. The fibers in your arch called the fascia pull on the bone of your heel as you rock up on your toes. This causes inflammation at the attachment point. But supporting the arch of the foot, the fascia pull tangentially on the bone rather than away from the bone, and the inflammation with luck will go away. The other way in which insoles work is by forcing your foot to pronate correctly, that is rocking it outward which effectively raises your arch, and takes force off the fascia and the bone of your heel. The thing that can be done with custom orthotics is that the pronation can be adjusted by building up thickness on the inside as needed. I'm no expert and Layton could probably say it much better than I.

I'm optimistic that a solution can be worked out that preserves fish and provides lots of clean power. Seems like quite a challenge to make a device that can withstand the horrendous corrosion potential of salt water, be serviceable and still economically feasible.

A short sling MIGHT increase rope drag. It depends on the topography of the rock. If the rock projects above the piece in question then certainly you'd want to sling it long. Sherri, don't get wrapped up in rule-based thinking. Do what makes sense given the situation. Rope through carabiner isn't what causes drag, it's rope over rock. If the short sling does not cause the rope to be pulled against the rock you will not get excessive drag.

If the first piece has a shorter sling than the ones above it there will be no outward force on those pieces because their slings will never go tight, but rather hang down on the rope. That first piece can be a cam or it can be nuts set in opposition, or a single nut slotted really well against an outward pull. If a cam, it should be angled out a little more than you would normally set a cam.

You know that I am right.

A drug that I worked on in the late 1980's was finally approved by the FDA for use in the United States to treat Parkinson's Disease. The following is probably only of interest to tech geeks so be forwarned. I'm posting this because this approval is very gratifying to me, even though I left the project almost 20 years ago. My grandfather died of Parkinson's complications in 1983. Mohammed Ali suffers from this disease. It is a horrible disease. Neupro is the brand name for the rotigotine patch. The drug had its origin at a company called Nelson Research, founded by Eric Nelson on the UC, Irvine campus as a sort of spin off of Allergan Pharmaceuticals. I hired on there in 1986 under Richard Phillips. We built up an analytical services group from scratch. The earliest form of the drug was designated N-0437 (2-(N-propyl-N-2-thienylethylamino)-5-hydroxytetralin). It was racemic (mixture of two optical isomers). The drug was found to be very potent. A stereoselective synthesis was developed for the active (-) isomer, which was then designated N-0923. This was twice as potent as N-0437. N-0923 was so potent its active dose was about a milligram, and plasma concentrations were on the order of a mcg/mL. I worked on a sensitive HPLC method using electrochemical detection so we could conduct pharmacodynamic studies in monkeys and later humans. They had a rather interesting way of testing the drug. They'd induce "hemi-Parkinson's" in monkeys by giving MPTP to one side of the brain and selectively killing off the dopamine producing cells in the substantia nigra of only that side of the brain. One side of the monkey was paralyzed and the other normal. The monkeys could only turn towards the paralyzed side. They never turned the other way. If you gave an effective dose of drug, the monkey could turn either way as a normal animal would. They'd have people watching with clicker counters. One for left and one for right. Subract the left count from the right count and you'd have the net turns. You were shooting for a net of zero. One of the hallmarks of N-0923 was "first pass metabolism", that is it goes directly from the gut, where it is absorbed, to the liver where it is metabolised. Because of this, the half life of the drug was very short indeed. The drug could have died here but it didn't. It was pure serendipity that Nelson Research was experienced in dermal drug delivery and it occurred to them to try administration by skin as opposed to the oral route. This avoids first pass metabolism. It so happened that the drug was really well absorbed through the skin and the idea of a patch was discussed. Nicoderm had been recently introduced at this time, so patches were all the rage, as it were. One of the interesting things about this drug, a Dopamine D-2 Agonist, was that it not only reduced Parkinson's symptoms it made people feel REAL GOOD. In tests on rats it was much more addicting than cocaine. You'd think this would have killed the drug's chances, but did not because of two factors. Patches provide steady state levels, which tends to reduce addiction. Second, patients were generally old people with severe disease poorly treated by existing drugs (including L-Dopa). Nelson was bought by Ethyl Corporation around 1988 and the name was changed to Whitby Pharmaceuticals. In 1990, quite abruptly, Ethyl decided they wanted to move the company to Richmond Virginia. I gave serious consideration to making the move but decided against it as Richmond would be a bad place to find oneself out of work as a chemist. This was where I parted company and soon ended up in Seattle. About half of my colleagues made the move to Richmond where they worked for about a year when Ethyl decided to get out of pharmaceuticals and let everyone go. A group of scientist from Whitby got together and started their own company Discovery Therapeutics and bought from Ethyl the patent for N-0923. They labored through the 1990's on N-0923 which eventually was issued the generic name rotigotine by the FDA. Discovery eventually entered into a partnership with Schwarz Pharma, a Swiss company, since the costs of full scale clinical trials are beyond what a small company could afford. So now here it is 2007 and the drug is finally approved in the US, about 22 years after it was first synthesized by a chemist. It's a long road. Is it any wonder drugs cost as much as they do?

It would seem that Larry is not around much these days. A couple weeks ago, I saw a party camped with pitched tent in the woods near Icicle Buttress. They were in plain sight camped two nights in the same place.

Extending that first piece with a long runner will tend to protect only that piece from the zipper effect. It will in fact increase the chance that pieces above will zipper out. Much better to make sure that first piece is omni-directional and sling it short.

My son was told by Dave Marriot that Marsalis is not currently promoting a new release, but just touring for its own sake. This means one can expect a good mix of his music both new and old. One might even hear unreleased material.

Placing too much gear can mean pumping out and not sending. But I find as I become more experienced, I can place gear faster and in places I wouldn't have found it before. I can place it from stances that I wouldn't have considered rests before. I guess there are two approaches to protecting. One mind set is to protect in such a way that injury is completely prevented in ANY fall. The other approach is to place it such that catastrophic injury or death is prevented, but some injury is certain in a fall. I'd like to think that in the latter case, the climbing is easy enough that a fall is pretty darn unlikely. Again, with experience we can better judge the likelihood of a fall.

Humans could help the pika by relocating colonies of them to more northern mountains formerly too cold to inhabit. They have no way of spreading on their own.

Here he is doing a old time New Orleans Dixieland number called Royal Garden Blues. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgZOHevbXbk When they get into the solo section you have no doubt this is the 21st Century.

Anyone else going to see Branford Marsalis at Jazz Alley? It should be a good show.