Issues related to human life and dignity usually attract attention from only one end of the political spectrum. If it relates to the unborn, the attention usually comes from the right; if it relates to undesirable adults, the attention usually comes from the left.

Republican Louisiana state representative John LaBruzzo has succeeded in the rare accomplishment of uniting the pro-life right and the progressive left — against him. This united front is a response to his proposal to pay poor women $1000 to undergo a tubal ligation. (Make no mistake — though he does not advocate physically forcing sterilization, this plan definitely constitutes a form of coercion.)

Coerced sterilization is a gravely disturbed idea, though not a new one. Commenters from all over the political spectrum have described it as eugenics. New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes called it "blatantly anti-life" while decrying the "bigotry of low expectations" experienced by the poor. The liberal blog Think Progress took a measured approach, letting LaBruzzo's ideas speak for themselves. An editorial in the New Orleans Times-Picayune noted that "[t]he state has no business assigning a sliding scale to the value of human lives, but that's exactly what Rep. LaBruzzo is suggesting. "

In a hostile interview with CNN, LaBruzzo whined that the media are focusing only on this aspect of his plan because of "ratings." It does not seem to occur to him that the focus actually results from the wrong-headedness and evil of these ideas; in fact, he dismisses that idea out of hand, grumping, "If dealing with generational welfare is a bone-headed idea, then I guess I'm bone-headed."

LaBruzzo is not just manifestly bone-headed, but also unoriginal. Eugenics became popular in the United States a century ago, with compulsory sterilizations for undesirables such as the poor and especially the mentally ill. American eugenics also advocated encouraging the well-to-do to "breed," another idea floated by LaBruzzo. The eugenics movement came to a halt when Nazi Germany provided a demonstration of where the slippery slope leads. LaBruzzo should devote his time and attention to studying history instead of brainstorming elitist, inhumane ideas.

Infant formula is critically valuable for babies who cannot nurse. It contains expensive ingredients and its quality cannot be evaluated easily by consumers. All these factors lead to baby formula being a frequent target for contamination, adulteration, and confusion. With formula, the result isn't just consumers not getting their money's worth; it can be malnutrition, illness, and even death for young children.

Contamination

I have heard of powdered formula bound for third-world countries being cut with plaster and other white powders, although I can't confirm those rumors. But one form of contamination, originating in China, is prominent in the news today: melamine. And just as with pet food a year and a half ago, melamine contamination has reportedly led to infant deaths in China.

Melamine is an industrial chemical that contains nitrogen. The only significant food ingredient that contains nitrogen is protein, so the measure of protein in food is often based on the measure of nitrogen. By adding melamine, unscrupulous food manufacturers can give their product the artificial appearance of a high protein content and sell it at a higher price.

Ingested in large quantities, melamine causes kidney stones that lead to kidney failure. Nearly 13,000 Chinese children have been hospitalized with melamine poisoning from consuming tainted formula, and at least four have died, according to the British Medical Journal.

Inappropriate marketing

But contamination is not the only problem with infant food in the world; another is inappropriate marketing. There is an international code for infant formula marketing, which focuses mainly insisting that formula companies acknowledge that breast milk is best. Occasionally, a more outrageous situation comes up, such as a food not meant for babies being marketed as infant formula.

That's the situation with Bear Brand Coffee Creamer from Nestlé, sold in the southeast Asian country of Laos. In addition to coffee creamer, products with the Bear Brand label include infant formula and canned cows' milk. The label shows a bear cradling a baby bear as if nursing it. In a country where perhaps half of the rural population is illiterate, it is no small wonder that the coffee creamer is widely used (yes, widely) as a "breast milk substitute." There are case reports of severe malnutrition-related illnesses and deaths in young Laotian children who were fed Bear Brand Coffee Creamer instead of breast milk or infant formula. Again, the British Medical Journal has the story (hat tip to Chanpheng Lew (saosalavan) on Plurk).

If you couldn't read, would you think this product is good for children? Click image to enlarge:

Elsewhere, this blog has noted efforts to generate petroleum using genetically engineered bacteria (Bell BioEnergy, Amyris and LS9). These methods use naturally-occurring abilities of certain bacteria to convert cellulose, a carbohydrate, to hydrocarbons, the chemicals that fuel our vehicles, heat our homes, and otherwise serve most of our energy needs.

Bacteria convert one type of chemical energy to another type, as explained here. Photosynthesizers such as green plants are needed to perform the first step of converting light energy into chemical energy for the bacteria to work on.

What if this middle step were eliminated? A new Bill Gates start-up, Sapphire Energy, begins and ends with the photosynthesizer — in their case, algae, single-celled plant-like organisms. The goal is to create "renewable gasoline," not ethanol, taking advantage of "non-arable land."

Another company, Solazyme, takes a more conservative approach, if anything about this field can be called conservative. It grows its oil-generating algae in the dark and feeds it sugar water, which must be derived from food sources. The fundamental principles are the same as with methods that use bacteria to produce renewable hydrocarbons.

Algae are aquatic organisms that require water to be circulated, a significant energy cost that currently keeps the price of algae-derived fuels high. This factor may limit algae's usefulness on an industrial scale. Algae also need a source of carbon dioxide. These fundamental differences may mean algae will turn out to be inferior to bacteria in the field of renewable fuels.

Or not. There are few certainties yet in this exciting, promising field. There is a lot of potential and a lot of hope, and I will be interested to see whether these new energy companies can bring down the costs enough to produce their products on a meaningful scale and compete with fossil fuels.

Read more at Scientific American.

I don't think any of them are right about why trailer park devastation is so prevalent in the media after tornadoes. I think it's because trailer homes are not sturdy structures. But that's not the point.



The irony of posting about storm damage while I am a refugee from a major storm is not lost on me.

My house is in the direct track predicted for at least one computer model of Hurricane Ike. Yikes. We are not evacuating. I will be reporting on the storm on my other blog, Road to Black. You can subscribe to that blog here.

The science world is all abuzz about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe. Located under the Switzerland-France border, it is the largest and, more importantly, the highest-energy particle accelerator in the world, with an energy of 7 tera-electron volts (TeV).

Take my word for it that that is a very high energy. Here is an easier number to understand: At full energy, the LHC will use $100,000 worth of electricity per day.

Americans could have outdone the LHC, with the planned Superconducting Super Collider, once planned to be built south of Dallas, Texas. It was to have an energy of 20 TeV. But Congress cancelled the SSC's funding in 1993.

Today the LHC lit up with its first beam. No particle collisions have been conducted, although once they start, particle physicists hope they will be able to fill in the gaps in the Standard Model of particle physics. The media hyperbolically calls this "the search for the God particle," i.e. a particle called the Higgs boson.

Some bosons, er, bozos have cried loudly that the LHC will create a microscopic black hole that will not immediately disappear, but that will consume the entire earth. To keep apprised of this developing crisis, I recommend this blog, Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed The Earth Yet?