Today’s picks from Wikipedia

Wikipedia

Enzyme inhibitors are molecules that bind to enzymes and decrease
   their activity.  Since blocking an enzyme’s activity can kill a
   pathogen or correct a metabolic imbalance, many drugs are enzyme
   inhibitors.  Inhibitor binding is either reversible or irreversible.
   Irreversible inhibitors usually react with the enzyme and change it
   chemically.  These inhibitors modify key amino acid residues needed for
   enzymatic activity.  In contrast, reversible inhibitors bind
   non-covalently and different types of inhibition are produced
   depending on whether these inhibitors bind the enzyme, the
   enzyme-substrate complex, or both.  Their discovery and improvement is
   an active area of research in biochemistry and pharmacology.  A
   medicinal enzyme inhibitor is often judged by its specificity (its
   lack of binding to other proteins) and its potency (its dissociation
   constant, which indicates the concentration needed to inhibit the
   enzyme).  A high specificity and potency ensure that a drug will have
   few side effects and thus low toxicity.  Enzyme inhibitors also occur
   naturally and are involved in the regulation of metabolism.

Read the rest of this article:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enzyme_inhibitor

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Today’s selected anniversaries:

1791:
   The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution,
   collectively known as the United States Bill of Rights, were ratified.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights)

1891:
   James Naismith introduced the first version of basketball, with
   thirteen rules and nine players on each team.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Naismith)

1961:
   Former Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death after being
   found guilty on fifteen criminal charges, including war crimes and
   crimes against humanity.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann)

1994:
   The web browser Netscape Navigator 1.0 was first released.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netscape_Navigator)

1995:
   The European Court of Justice passes the Bosman ruling, allowing
   footballers in the European Union to freely transfer from one UEFA
   Federation to another at the end of their contracts.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosman_ruling)

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Wikiquote of the day:

   To talk about the end of science is just as foolish as to talk about
   the end of religion.  Science and religion are both still close to
   their beginnings, with no ends in sight.  — Freeman Dyson
   (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson)

Today’s picks from Wikipedia

Wikipedia 

The Mormon handcart pioneers were participants in the migration of The
   Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Salt Lake City, Utah
   who used handcarts to transport their belongings.  The Mormon handcart
   movement began in 1856 and lasted until 1860.  Motivated to join their
   fellow Church members but lacking funds for full ox or horse teams,
   nearly 3,000 Mormon pioneers from England, Wales, and Scandinavia made
   the journey to Utah in 10 handcart companies.  Although fewer than ten
   percent of the 1847–68 Latter-day Saint emigrants made the journey
   west using handcarts, the handcart pioneers have become an important
   symbol in LDS culture, representing the faithfulness and sacrifice of
   the pioneer generation.  The handcart pioneers continue to be
   recognized and honored in events such as Pioneer Day, Church pageants,
   and similar commemorations.  The handcart treks were a familiar theme
   in 19th century Mormon folk music and have been a theme in LDS
   fiction, such as Gerald Lund’s historical novel, Fire of the Covenant,
   and Orson Scott Card’s science-fiction short story, “West.”

Read the rest of this article:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers

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Today’s selected anniversaries:

1545:
   Counter-Reformation: The Council of Trent, an ecumenical council
   convoked by Pope Paul III in response to the growth of Protestantism,
   opened in Trento, Italy.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Trent)

1862:
   American Civil War: Union forces under Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside were
   decisively defeated in the Battle of Fredericksburg.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fredericksburg)

1981:
   Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland,
   suspended Solidarity and imprisoned many union leaders.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojciech_Jaruzelski)

2003:
   Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a spider
   hole during Operation Red Dawn and captured.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Red_Dawn)

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Wikiquote of the day:

   My deepest impulses are optimistic; an attitude that seems to me as
   spiritually necessary and proper as it is intellectually suspect.  –
   Ellen Willis
   (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ellen_Willis)

Is your MSN Messenger blocked? Try radiusim.com

Hello, a friend of mine in Brazil, whom I have been corresponding with quite some time, introduced me to a neat site.  It is called radiusim.com. It is an instant messaging site where you can find friends to chat with in your area, or what ever area in the world you choose, using Google maps technology. It is still catching on  here in the United States, and I hope it will take off.

You also can log on to your AIM, Yahoo, MSN, and Google Talk accounts through this simple interface. It is great for logging on from schools or businesses with firewalls that otherwise prohibit instant messaging because it logs on to the service using a protocol called Ajax.

 So, check it out, have fun, and spread the word!

My Brazilian friend wrote about this same subject in his blog in Portuguese

American pilots finally charged

The American pilots who were delivering a new Embraer Legacy jet to the United States from Brazil were finally formally charged and allowed to leave Brazil. If you remember, this was a crash near the Amazon on September 29th. Their aircraft collided with a Gol Airlines 737-800 which killed all 154 on board. Finally, the pilots were allowed to leave the country. Ever since the accident, the Brazilian authorities seized the pilots’ passports. Please read the article here.

Yay- Free Doritos!

Catch of the day – Doritos?

Associated Press

HATTERAS, N.C. – Pass the salsa.

Dozens of bags of Doritos that washed up on Hatteras Island last week came from one of four massive cargo containers that was swept off a ship during a storm, the Coast Guard says.

The container – about 45 feet long, the size of a standard tractor-trailer – was spotted floating near Diamond Shoals on Wednesday.

Steve Hissey, who runs the tackle shop at Teach’s Lair marina in Hatteras, said charter boat captains spotted the container and opened it – in longstanding Outer Banks tradition, which holds that anything coughed up from the Graveyard of the Atlantic is fair game for salvage.

The container appeared to have been filled with about 400 3-foot by 4-foot boxes of Doritos, each holding about 20 individual bags, according to John McCutcheon, Cape Hatteras National Seashore district ranger for Hatteras Island.

The National Park Service spent most of Thursday securing the site and using two bulldozers to remove the container, McCutcheon said. Meanwhile, dozens of people roamed the beach with garbage bags to pick up the chips from the tide line.

The Coast Guard said Friday that the container was one of four that washed off the container ship Courtney L during a storm the night of Nov. 22-23 as it sailed somewhere near the Virginia-North Carolina line. The other three have yet to be located.

One was filled with another, unknown Frito-Lay product, and the other two held paper products, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Kevin Schneider of the Marine Safety Team in Elizabeth City.

The ship is owned by Great White Fleet Ltd. of Cincinnati, a subsidiary of Chiquita Brands International, and was carrying its cargo from Wilmington, Del., to Costa Rica, Chiquita spokesman Mike Mitchell said.

Great White is responsible for cleanup and removal costs, McCutcheon said. But no lasting impact was noted.

“There’s no resource damage, except for the chip or two that a bird might have eaten,” McCutcheon said.

This text was copied from Myrtlebeachonline.com here, and was originally from the Associated Press. I claim no authorship to this article.

Bible Reading for December 6, 2006

Bible in a year

Today’s Picks from Wikipedia

Mount Rushmore is a United States presidential memorial that
   represents the first 150 years of the history of the United States of
   America with the 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of former U.S. Presidents
   George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham
   Lincoln.  The entire memorial covers 1,278 acres (5.17 km²), and is
   5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level.  It is managed by the National
   Park Service, a bureau of the United States Department of the
   Interior.  The memorial attracts around 2 million people annually.  The
   mountain known to the Lakota Sioux as Six Grandfathers, was renamed
   after Charles E.  Rushmore, a prominent New York lawyer, in 1885.  The
   project of carving Mount Rushmore originally started with the purpose
   of increasing tourism in the Black Hills region of South Dakota.  After
   long negotiations involving a Congressional delegation and President
   Calvin Coolidge, the project received Congressional approval.  Under
   the direction of sculptor Gutzon Borglum, the carving started in 1927
   and ended in 1941.

Read the rest of this article:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore

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Today’s selected anniversaries:

1768:
   The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopædia_Britannica)

1917:
   Halifax Explosion: A ship in Halifax Harbour carrying trinitrotoluene
   (TNT) and picric acid caught fire after a collision with another ship
   and exploded, devastating Halifax, Canada.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion)

1922:
   The Irish Free State came into existence, one year after the signing
   of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Free_State)

1957:
   Project Vanguard: An attempt to launch the first American satellite
   failed with an explosion on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Vanguard)

1989:
   Marc Lépine killed 14 women in the École Polytechnique Massacre in
   Montreal.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_Polytechnique_massacre)

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Wikiquote of the day:

   Never think that you’re not good enough.  A man should never think
   that.  People will take you very much at your own reckoning.
   — Anthony Trollope
   (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anthony_Trollope)

Word of the day- risible

Word of the Day for Wednesday, December 6, 2006 risible \RIZ-uh-buhl\, adjective: 

1. Capable of laughing; disposed to laugh.2. Exciting or provoking laughter; worthy of laughter; laughable; amusing.3. Relating to, connected with, or used in laughter; as, “risible muscles.”  

Before long, I began to read aloud with my father, chanting the strange and wondrous rivers — Shenandoah, Rappahannock, Chickahominy

– and wrapping my tongue around the risible names of rebel generals: Braxton Bragg, Jubal Early, John Sappington Marmaduke, William “Extra Billy” Smith, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.– Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the AtticAll twelve selected are thoughtful, small and funny in both senses of the word: odd and risible.– Stefan Kanfer, “Of Cats, Myths and Pizza”, Time, December 11, 1989But Lionel . . . is not a risible character, even though he is often called “freakshow” and “crazyman.”– Adam Mazmanian, “Postmodern PI”, Washington Post, November 7, 1999Risible comes from Late Latin risibilis, from the past participle of Latin ridere, “to laugh, to laugh at.” The noun form is risibility.

Today’s picks from Wikipedia

  Down syndrome is a genetic disorder resulting from the presence of all
   or part of an extra 21st chromosome.  Down syndrome is characterized by
   a combination of major and minor abnormalities of body structure and
   function.  Among features present in nearly all cases are impairment of
   learning and physical growth, and a recognizable facial appearance
   usually identified at birth.  Individuals with Down syndrome have lower
   than average cognitive ability, normally ranging from mild to moderate
   retardation.  Some individuals may have low intelligence overall, but
   will generally have some amount of developmental disability, such as a
   tendency toward concrete thinking or naïveté.  The incidence of Down
   syndrome is estimated at 1 per 800 to 1 per 1000 births.  The common
   physical features of Down syndrome also appear in people with a
   standard set of chromosomes.  They include a simian crease, almond
   shaped eyes, shorter limbs, speech impairment, and protruding tongue.
   Early childhood intervention, screening for common problems, medical
   treatment where indicated, a conducive family environment, and
   vocational training can improve the overall development of children
   with Down syndrome.  While some of the genetic limitations of Down
   Syndrome cannot be overcome, education and proper care, initiated at
   any time, can improve quality of life.

Read the rest of this article:
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome

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Today’s selected anniversaries:

1492:
   Christopher Columbus became the first European to set foot on the
   island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic).
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispaniola)

1590:
   Niccolò Sfondrati became Pope Gregory XIV, succeeding Pope Urban VII
   who died two months earlier.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_XIV)

1766:
   Auctioneer James Christie conducted his first sale in London.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christie%27s)

1933:
   Prohibition of alcoholic beverages in the United States officially
   ended when the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition)

1936:
   The 1936 Soviet Constitution, also known as the “Stalin” constitution,
   was adopted.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Soviet_Constitution)

_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:

   We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but
   nature exposed to our method of questioning.  — Werner Heisenberg
   (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg)

Speed Traps in Denmark

The Danes have come up with an innovative way to slow down those speeding motorists!

Watch this video- BEWARE ADULT CONTENT!!!!

I think it’s time I pack up and move to Denmark…