Whats in the news this week

yes I know I said I'd mention the second round of gigs from the great week, but in the meantime, here's a couple of articles that have caught my eye.

The Pope has closed a Cistercian monastery. The monks (an ecclesiastical term referring to orders whose life is bound by vows of chastity, poverty and obedience) have been closed down due to 'loose living'. In particular, running a 24hr hotel with a limousine service, and possibly of more interest, concerts starring a lap-dancer-turned-nun.
I'm sure I've seen that b-grade...

One more serious article, that I may try and check out more of the science behind, is claiming that the home-test market for genetic diseases is a load of crock. In principle I'd agree with them, there's too many variables for most of these tests. But what was interesting is that they used a variety of kits, and all gave wildly different results. That's very concerning as most other variables were controlled for. What does this mean? well if you were home-testing for heart disease, and got a 'bad' result, what effect would that have? Possible implications for insurance policies?
As a brush-stroke criticism, most of these diseases are polygenic, or at least are heavily influenced by the environment - so one of the genes predisposing you to a disease, does not equal having the disease. A good example of this interaction is alcoholism, you may have the genes that predispose you to being an alcoholic, but remember a) you'll never become one if you don't drink, and b) if you can show some will-power and control your drinking, then again, you won't be classed as an alcoholic.

The papers appear to have returned to normal, Obama isn't featuring on every bloody news article. It's been like a media wet-dream recently.

Oh yeah the other thing, the arsenic lifeforms reported late last year have been seriously questioned in Science this week. to recap, the entirely unexpected finding of some bacteria that appeared to be able to live using arsenic as a substrate shocked (mild understatement) a lot of scientists. Some of them have now published a critique of the research. We await developments...
(me: I think it woudl be cool, but it's not an area I know much about, so for a change, I'm sitting on the fence)

right, back to music and Springback 100 proof.

me