Weird Links

The base - according to The Dulce Book, by a man known only as Branton - lies deep beneath the desert mesas near Dulce, inside levels of countless miles of tunnels and rooms, in which aliens and humans work together on projects ranging from strange meddlings of technology and the occult to the dissection and genetic alteration of captive human beings.

"I frequently encountered humans in cages, usually dazed or drugged, but sometimes they cried and begged for help," said an alleged former base employee interviewed in The Dulce Book. "We were told they were hopelessly insane and involved in high-risk drug tests to cure insanity. We were told never to speak to them at all."

A functional retrovirus, called Phoenix, has been recovered from human DNA. Mutations that rendered Phoenix otherwise non-viable were corrected by using consensus sequences, obtained from the alignment of dozens of related viruses, in order to piece the thing back together again.

Human DNA is littered with all sorts of ancient viral DNA and self-replicating DNA sequences (transposons) that are just along for the ride.

A man-made, pure-white compound called Oxycyte carries oxygen 50 times more effectively than blood. It's being used in phase II clinical trials to prevent brain damage following head-trauma. The theory is that Oxycyte carries oxygen through swollen and damaged blood vessels more efficiently than red blood cells; reducing the damaging effects of oxygen starvation.

Grown from embryonic stem cells, the technique will eventually allow drug testing to be carried out on cultured organs and even better, will eventually lead to entire organ replacement.

Now I'm wondering if this only works with embryonic stem cells, since the obvious advantage would be if you could grow organs from adult stem cells, because then you'd have no problems with rejection following a transplant. Perhaps it would be possible to replace the nucleus of an embryonic stem cell with one from your own cells? I'm sure I read a story about someone doing this recently, but I'm buggered if I can find it.

Hossam Shaltout, a former political adviser to Saddam Hussein's son, said today that before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, Saddam expressed his intent to yield to all American demands, but that the Bush administration refused his offers.

Someone tell Quaid to start the rector.

Lord Levy, a close associate of the prime minister, told Scotland Yard detectives last month that he was acting on the direct orders of Blair when he secretly obtained £14m in loans from businessmen to fund the party.

An Al-Qaeda terror suspect captured by the United States, who gave evidence of links between Iraq and the terror network, confessed after being tortured, a journalist told the BBC.

Troopers said a woman from the day care center called for animal control because there was a dead dog near the property that had been hit by a car several days earlier.

Before officers could arrive, the man showed up and began engaging in sexual acts with the dog, police said. The animal control officer also reported seeing Kuch involved in the sex act and as he approached him, Kuch shoved him away and ran off.

Asked by Sky News whether there should be any restrictions on the number of people included in the database, Mr Blair - who has previously provided a sample of his own DNA voluntarily - said: "The number on the database should be the maximum number you can get."

The national DNA database has expanded by around a third to 3.6 million profiles since the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which allowed police to take and keep DNA samples from all people arrested for any imprisonable offence - regardless of whether they are eventually convicted.