No. 256, May 2004
HISTORY OF SIX PICTURES OF
MAN Petroglyphs, Daguerreotype,
Kodak camera, digital pictures, digital man/woman, and the
Human Genome. What does man (i.e. a human being) look like? With the
archaeological discovery of petroglyphs (PETROGLYPHS.US http://www.petroglyphs.us/
), we found the prehistoric men graphically depicted themselves on a stone
surface. The petroglythic carving is the first permanent picture of man. Thousands
of years later in 1839 the second picture
was created by Louis J.M. Daguerre who invented the Daguerreotype, a metallic
photograph of man. Third, in 1888, the Kodak camera took its first paper
photographs. With late 20th
century computers and digital cameras without paper, came (the fourth) a
digitized picture of (the outside of) man. Then, in 1986 the National Library of
Medicine undertook the ambitious Visible Human Project to see the inside of man.
This fifth picture is the “creation of complete, anatomically detailed, three
dimensional representations of the normal male and female human bodies.”
Representative male and female cadavers have been digitized resulting in
a “Visible Humans Data Set” of digitized images. Images which present a
complete “inside and outside” view of the digitized/virtual man and woman,
or any part of either or both. The Visible Human Project, Overview
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html
is a very good overview and introduction to this inside electronic
picture of man. Also in 1987, the Department of Energy’s Human Genome
Research (http://www.science.doe.gov/ober/hug_top.html)
and the National Research Council recommended that the human genome of
over 30,000 human genes be mapped and sequenced. A sixth genetic picture of man
was proposed in Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome (1988) (found
online at http://books.nap.edu/catalog/1097.html
), this volume presented the program and plan for such a project. In 2004, The
Human Genome Project is complete, and the History of the DOE Human Genome
Program (http://www.er.doe.gov/production/ober/history.html)
provides the background and history of this newest picture (of the
genetic structure) of man. The Human
Genome Project Information (http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/home.shtml
is where you find this latest picture. What is next?
A PIECE OF THE ROCK AND
OTHER FOREIGN STOCKS Once we learned how we could own a piece of the Rock of
Gibraltar. However, Asani Sarkar and
Kai Li in “Should U.S. Investors Hold Foreign Stocks?” in Current Issues
in Economics and Finance, V. 8, No. 3, March 2002, 6 pages (http://www.ny.frb.org/research/current_issues/ci8-3.html)
tell us that Americans tend to avoid
buying foreign stocks despite the fact that foreign stocks can strengthen their
portfolio. Americans avoid foreign
stocks because of those foreign countries’ trading restrictions and bans on
short sales. Asani and Li did a
study of the stocks returns data in fifteen G7 and emerging market countries
from 1976-1999 when a ban on short sales was in place. The study showed that the
emerging countries markets were a valuable investment and enabled the
GLOBAL WARMING DANGERS: THE
PENTAGON’S CLIMATE REPORT An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its
Implications for United States National Security is the report by Peter
Schwartz and Doug Randall completed in October 2003. Commissioned by the
Department of Defense this is a report describing a plausible scenario of the
effects of global warming in the year 2020. The
basic concept is that after early in the 21st century, after so many
years of a higher global temperature, the lowering of the ocean’s temperature
will cause a five degree temperature drop in parts of
SUMMER TIME IS FOR FISHING Did you ever go fishing? No, then you are not one of the fifty million children and adults who spend time at a creek, lake, pond, ocean, or any body of water where they can spend some time. If you want to learn, the first thing is to use your computer to find some information about fishing published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1999. Fishing is Fun for Everyone, It’s Easy to Lean How is about 10 printed pages of basic information and illustrations of all the equipment needed for freshwater fishing. Available as an electronic publication at http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/misc/fishing/fishing.htm will “show and tell” about rods, reels, fishing line, bobbers, casting plugs, fish hooks, tackle, live bait and fishing lures, and how to get a fishing license, if you need one. Following the instructions and seeing the illustrations, you can learn how to tie the Palomar and Improved Clinch knots, cast, spincast, spin, and do all the things that fishermen/women do. Also important is the section on the “hook, line, and sinker.” For ocean fishing, one must seek information about the fishing equipment designed for saltwater fishing. Also, all every good sport fishermen/women follow the ten rules listed in Pathway to Fishing, the Ethical Angler (I 49.2:F53/27/KIT/ETHICAL/) issued in 1993 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. You can help the blind or handicapped person learn to fish with Fishing, An Introduction to Fishing for Fun and Food for the Blind and Physically Handicapped Individuals. This 17 page title was issued by the Library of Congress, National Service for the Blind and Handicapped in 1988. It will also lead to other sources of related information about sport fishing and the blind and handicapped.
AQUATIC NUISANCE SPECIES
There are a number of invasive plants, algae, animals, and microscopic
organisms which have been introduced into
HEALTH LITERACY
Basic literacy is an individual’s ability to read, write, and speak in
English and compute and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to
function on the job and society, achieve one’s goals, and develop one’s
knowledge and potential. Literacy
can be applied to a specific topic such as computer literacy.
Computer literacy is shown by how well uses a
computer. Also, computer
illiteracy can be remedied with instruction and practice. However,
some literacy skills such as health literacy skills are not as obvious. Health
literacy is defined as the degree to which individuals have the capacity to
obtain, process, and understand basic information and services needed to make
appropriate decisions regarding their health. “At some point, most individuals
will encounter health information they cannot understand” and nearly half of
all American adults (about 90 million people who) have difficulty understanding
and using health information. Health
literacy levels in people are not easily observed and measured and
illiteracy remedies are more complex. There are three testing instruments
available for detecting and measuring health literacy discussed in Literacy
and Health Outcomes, Summary http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/epcsums/litsum.htm
is an 18 page summary of recent research
report Evidence Report/Technology Assessment No. 87, Literacy and Health
Outcomes issued by the Agency
for Healthcare Research and Quality in 2004. The
problem of health literacy is to be addressed by the public health and health
care systems as presented in the
http://www.nku.edu/~yannarella/news0405.html