Yesterday California’s Air Resources Board (ARB) announced a new rebate program, the Clean Vehicle Rebate Program. The program comes with a list of approved vehicles that is curiously short. On the one hand if they had waited a few months to launch the program more electric vehicles are supposed to be available (such as the Volt and Coda) but on the other hand some existing vehicles on the market are not on the list. It’s causing some to ask what’s up with that.
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Image courtesy A123 Systems Related Articles $2.4 billion grants program to jump start electric vehicle business in the U.S. The dance between Fisker, Think, Enerdel, and A123Systems Clean trucks for clean ports and harbors On March 9,…
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Image courtesy ARB Related Articles Nissan LEAF (almost) test ride, impressions, and the LEAF tour Zero Motorcycles unveils their 2010 lineup of electric motorcycles Now may be the time to buy an electric vehicle if you live in California…
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…this is what happens.
I mean, seriously, look at the control panel on this thing! It has its own “multi-function programmer I think I have equipment in my lab that looks exactly like that!
It’s beautiful and has its own suitcase!
I am in love with these dudes!!
That said, I’m putting the video of The Tender Lover behind the cut because some of you have delicate sensibilities and can’t look at penises at work…
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Apparently someone at a British hospital thought that this was a good idea.
I beg to differ. Words fail me. It’s rare, I know, but occasionally it does happen.
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sourceMy Google news alert for MDMA, Ecstasy and the like has been turning up references to a cathinone analog called variously 4-methylmethcathinone (4-MMC), mephedrone (2-methylamino-1-p-tolylpropan-1-one), Meow-Meow, MMCAT and a few other things. There has been one fatality attributed* to 4-MMC that I can find and a few bits of seized-drug analysis confirming that the stuff is indeed being used. A quick scan over at PubMed finds little reported on the effects of this compound in animal models or in humans. I did, however, run across an article on other cathinone analog drugs that caught my attention.
The newpaper reports on 4-MMC coming out of the UK, for the most part, are experiencing the usual difficulty in characterizing the subjective properties of an analog of a stimulant class of drugs. This not dissimilar to the case of MDMA and relatives such as MDA, MDEA/MDE which are structurally similar to amphetamine and methamphetamine but convey subtly different subjective properties. This gives me an opportunity to talk about an animal model used quite a bit in drug abuse studies: The drug-discrimination assay. Since the news reporting
Cathinone: an investigation of several N-alkyl and methylenedioxy-substituted analogs. Dal Cason TA, Young R, Glennon RA. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 1997 Dec;58(4):1109-16. (DOI)
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The strange case of the twins of Kodinji:
The latest survey, from December 2009, counted 265 pairs of twins in the village, which is home to about 3,000 families and 13,000 inhabitants. This equates to a twinning rate of about 30 to 35 per 1,000 live births within a radius of about 500 metres. The average in the rest of the country is 8.1 per 1,000 live births.
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Unlike in Cândido Godói, consanguineous (blood-related) marriages are not a factor in the Kodinji twin phenomenon. “The majority of the population is Muslim, but the incidences of twinning are present even among the small minority of Hindu families,” Sribiju explains. “More importantly, brides who are not originally from Kodinji are giving birth to twins after they move to the village.”
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One of my pet peeves is the idea that BMI provides an accurate indication of individual health. It doesn’t. It’s useful across populations (and may be useful to individuals to monitor progress), but when it comes to indicating which individuals are “healthier”, BMI fails miserably - and our new Sciblings at Obesity Panacea do a great job of explaining why.
If, as a policy matter, we want to differentiate between the healthy and unhealthy - which is a big if, depending on how libertarian you are - let’s make such assessments meaningfully, using a workout that proves general endurance and cardiovascular health. BMI is far too influenced by genetics/body type. I look forward to more solid posts like this from Obesity Panacea to counter popular misconceptions about weight and health.
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Of course, the best way to decide such questions is to vote, right?
I know, I know, I’ve complained about poll-crashing before, but, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
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While we regularly post lengthy discussions on Obesity Panacea, there are many research updates, news stories, videos, etc. in the field of obesity, physical activity and nutrition that we come across on a daily basis that never grace the pages of the blog. Most of these mini-stories we share with our followers on Twitter, and we encourage those of you with active Twitter accounts to communicate with us there to get real-time updates of all the stuff we are discussing (Follow Peter and/or Follow Travis). For those of you who shy away from Twitter, enjoy below the best mini-stories that we came across during the prior week along with links to the original source so that you can follow the full story.
Have a great weekend,
Peter Janiszewski
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