2011: A Scientific Odyssey

Posted: December 17, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because | 14 Comments

Does this remind anyone else of 2008's Wall-E?... Guardian caption: An artist’s impression of Curiosity, Nasa’s Mars-bound science lab, as it analyses Martian rock. Photograph: Reuters

Well hello again, news junkies… the Guardian’s top ten list of science news stories for the year seems like the perfect compendium of already-synthesized-information to put up for your lazy Saturday afternoon perusal.

Here’s a quick rundown of the top ten, but be sure to click over to read the concise summaries under each bullet point:

  • Graphene is going to be the ‘it’ material of the 21st century

  • Flying faster than the speed of light just might be possible after all

  • Modern humans have been hanging around Europe for thousands of years longer than we had thought

  • The female brain lights up in a very special way after an orgasm

  • The best candidate for finding life on another world has been pinpointed by astronomers

  • You can win the Nobel prize even though you are dead

  • Stem cells may not be the great white hope for medicine in the 21st century after all

  • Mars continues to be a tricky place to reach

  • Archaeopteryx may not have been the world’s first bird

  • And finally, we learned that the Higgs boson really does exist

The Higgs boson news that’s been in the headlines this past week (see Sci Am’s Tantalizing Hints of Elusive Higgs Particle Announced) has been fascinating to follow…in a nutshell, researchers MAY have found the so-called “God particle”… or they may not have! In another year or so, we’ll know. I guess those particle reactors have their work cut out for them in 2012.

Re: the likelihood that We are Not Alone…

Here’s a direct link to the NASA briefing on the Kepler mission finding its first planet in the habitable zone:

NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the “habitable zone,” the region where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.

The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don’t yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.

Very neat!

I personally find the thought that humans are the most intelligent life in this universe to be extremely depressing. I hope to the sun, moon, and stars we are not alone and there is a species smarter than us out there than can help us save us from ourselves! (I’m only half-snarking!)

In other astronomy news from this year, I remember this Reuters story from August on scientists discovering what I very inaccurately am going to call the Bling-Bling planet.

I’d like to add a note on stem cell research…while the Guardian science-year-in-review points to the not-so-encouraging stem cell research developments in 2011, I remember doing a roundup back in June where I covered some exciting news about stell cells on the heart research front (the relevant portion is probably somewhere mid-post at that link). I’ll excerpt it here:

Stem Cell & Heart Research

Next up… Encouraging news, via Reuters… Scientists show heart can repair itself, with help. The BBC has some good coverage as well:

You can read James Gallagher’s report on the breakthrough here, but the research raises the astonishing prospect that we might, one day, teach the human heart to repair itself. A new golden age of regenerative medicine now seems tantalisingly close.

From the British Heart Foundation, which is responsible for the research:

Our Associate Medical Director, Professor Jeremy Pearson, said:

“To repair a damaged heart is one of the holy grails of heart research. This groundbreaking study shows that adult hearts contain cells that, given the right stimulus, can mobilise and turn into new heart cells that might repair a damaged heart. The team have identified the crucial signals needed to make this happen.”

Also in related stem cell heart research news: Cytori Reports Sustained Benefits at 18 Months in Cardiac Cell Therapy Heart Attack Trial (press release, via Reuters).

One more blast from the Wonk-the-Vote 2011 posting vault… remember all those dying bird and fish ringing in the new year? I’ll just quote from my closing paragraphs:

All of these strange events feel like a creepy ass movie script, except there’s no M. Night Shyamalan directing the nightmare we’re living. What struck me while trying to get to the bottom of things is that our zombie press really is not in the business of trying to investigate or get to the bottom of anything anymore.

And, just the other day Bostonboomer reported on the bird crashes out of Utah in her morning reads…as Minkoff Minx noted downthread in the comments of BB’s roundup, this isn’t the first time bird crashes have happened in that exact same spot. What in the world is going on in that Walmart parking lot?

And, is anyone else freaked out a bit by the fact that we have mass animal deaths as bookends for the beginning and end of 2011? Is mother nature trying to tell us something?

Looking toward the future…this special report to CNN by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku is worth the read this weekend when you get a chance:

Space elevators and smart machines: Life in the year 2100

Kaku talks about telomeres and reversing the aging process somewhere in there, and if your interest is piqued by that topic, please be sure to set aside some time to read Sci Am’s October 2011 “Actuary of the Cell: A Q&A with Nobelist Elizabeth Blackburn on Telomeres and Aging Cells”. Unfortunately, only a preview version of the interview and extended web exclusives are available online, but I can make anyone a xerox if they’re really interested!

Here’s the introductory blurb on the web exclusive bits:

The little tips of chromosomes get shorter every time a cell divides, and this shortening is a mark of cellular aging. If they get short enough, the cell dies or stops dividing. Elizabeth Blackburn, who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her studies on telomeres with colleagues Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, has spent the better part of her career trying to figure out why. In recent years, Blackburn has expanded on that initial work to show that these gauges of cellular health serve as barometers of environmental and emotional stress and predictors of various diseases. In this expansion of an interview in the October issue of Scientific American, Blackburn talks about additional ways that this research has started to branch out.

If I remember any more geeky goodies from the year, I’ll post them in the comments, but for now I’m going to turn this discussion over to all you inquisitive and informed Sky Dancers out there!

What science stories have caught your eye during this last trip around the sun?

Friday Reads

Posted: December 16, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because, morning reads | 30 Comments

Good Morning!

We’re finally out of Iraq and it’s based on terms set by Dubya Bush.  Have we learned anything at all?

The war that was waged – yes, for oil, and yes, also for Israel – was waged above all to terrify the world (especially China) with American power. It turned into the largest boomerang in history. For what has been demonstrated instead are the limits of near-bankrupt America’s power. Far from being cowed, America’s adversaries – and its enemies – have been emboldened. With shock and awe the empire soon dominated the skies over Iraq to be sure. But they never controlled a single street in the country from the day they invaded until this day of retreat. One street alone – Haifa Street in Baghdad – became the graveyard of scores, maybe hundreds of Americans.

Fortresses like Fallujah entered history alongside Stalingrad as symbols of the unvanquishable power of popular resistance to foreign invasion. Crimes like Abu Ghraib prison – where Iraqis were stripped naked and humiliated, forced to perform indecent acts upon each other and videotaped doing so for the entertainment of their torturers in the barracks afterwards – entered the lexicon of the barbarism of those who invade others, flying the colours of their “civilising” mission. As Chairman Mao once put it: “Sometimes the enemy struggles mightily to lift a huge stone; only to drop it on its own foot.” In an America where a third of the population are living in poverty or terrifyingly near it, and where imperial hubris met its nemesis on Haifa Street, China now knows it has nothing to fear from this paper tiger.

The NYT mentions that we’ve left them with a lot of challenges.

Iraq faces a multitude of vexing problems the Americans tried and failed to resolve, from how to divide the country’s oil wealth to sectarian reconciliation to the establishment of an impartial justice system. A long-standing dispute festers in the north over how to share power in Kirkuk between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, an ominous harbinger for power struggles that may ensue in a post-America Iraq. A recent deal between Exxon Mobil and the Kurdistan government has been deemed illegal by Baghdad in the absence of procedures for sharing the country’s oil resources.

“We are in a standstill and things are paralyzed,” said Adel Abdul Mahdi, a prominent Shiite politician and former vice president of Iraq, describing the process of political reconciliation between Iraq’s three main factions, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. “We are going from bad to worse.”

After 9 years and a few trillion dollars, you would hope something was resolved.

Pew Research released the results of an extensive survey of US voters.  There’s a lot of support for Occupy–although not their protests–and a lot of dislike of Congress.  Some of the results should trouble both parties but especially Republicans.

Public discontent with Congress has reached record levels, and the implications for incumbents in next year’s elections could be stark. Two-in-three voters say most members of Congress should be voted out of office in 2012 – the highest on record. And the number who say their own member should be replaced matches the all-time high recorded in 2010, when fully 58 members of Congress lost reelection bids – the most in any election since 1948.

The Republican Party is taking more of the blame than the Democrats for a do-nothing Congress. A record-high 50% say that the current Congress has accomplished less than other recent Congresses, and by nearly two-to-one (40% to 23%) more blame Republican leaders than Democratic leaders for this. By wide margins, the GOP is seen as the party that is more extreme in its positions, less willing to work with the other side to get things done, and less honest and ethical in the way it governs. And for the first time in over two years, the Democratic Party has gained the edge as the party better able to manage the federal government.

Christine Lagarde of the IMF is liking the current Eurozone crisis to the 1930s.

Lagarde said that if countries don’t work together, the world will face a situation similar to the 1930s, before the world slid into World War II.

“There is no economy in the world, whether low-income countries, emerging markets, middle-income countries or super- advanced economies that will be immune to the crisis that we see not only unfolding, but escalating at a point where everybody would actually have to focus on what it can do,” Lagarde said.

If the international community doesn’t work together, “the risk from an economic point of view is that of retraction, rising protectionism, isolation,” Lagarde said. “This is exactly the description of what happened in the ‘30s and what followed is not something we are looking forward to.”

Lagarde said the world economic outlook “is quite gloomy” with pervasive downside risk, downward revisions, slower growth than expected, higher deficits than predicted and public finances in shaky condition. “And that is pretty much true the world over,” Lagarde said.

The one exception, she said, is emerging markets and the Asian economies most badly hit during the 1990s economic crisis. They, too, will have to help manage the current crisis if the world is to weather the risk, she said. Leadership has to rest with Europe, she said.

EmptyWheel is keeping track of the battle over subjecting US citizens to indefinite detention and violations of due process.

Kudos to Dianne Feinstein for trying to eliminate the President’s ability to indefinitely detain (and kill?) American citizens. This time, she’s trying a free-standing bill titled the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011. It says,

(1) An authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority shall not authorize the detention without charge or trial of a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States apprehended in the United States, unless an Act of Congress expressly authorizes such detention.

(2) Paragraph (1) applies to an authorization to use military force, a declaration of war, or any similar authority enacted before, on, or after the date of the enactment of the Due Process Guarantee Act of 2011.

The language seems sound enough to me. And given that this wouldn’t constrain the President’s ability to detain (or kill) Americans in Yemen, the Obama Administration might not put up as big of a fight as it did with the detainee provisions (though I suspect they would fight it, because of all the other things that rely on detention language–they’d have to rewrite a bunch of OLC memos).

So, those are the things that caught my eye today.  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Saturday Morning Reads

Posted: December 10, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Good Morning!! On Tuesday I was complaining about our weather, but it has been sunny now for two days straight. Just a little sun does wonders for my mood. If only it didn’t get dark at 3:30PM. I might have to start setting my alarm for 5AM so I can get more sun exposure. Okay, enough about Boston weather. Let’s what’s in the news. We’ll start with the lightweight stuff.

It was rumored yesterday afternoon that Donald Trump was going to cancel his debate, which is sponsored by Newsmax.

With the wheels coming off the GOP debate he is supposed to host, Donald Trump admitted Friday that he’s looking into canceling the sparsely-attended forum.

But Trump, in a typical display of chutzpah, said there’s another reason why he might pull the plug – he still may run for President.

“If the Republican, in my opinion, is not the right candidate [to defeat President Obama\],” Trump declared, “I am unwilling to give up my right to run as an independent candidate.”

But as of late last night, “organizers” claimed the debate was “still on,” according to the LA Times.

There may only be two candidates, but plans for a debate moderated by Donald Trump are “moving full steam ahead,” the organizers said Friday.

Only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum accepted the invitation from conservative media group Newsmax to attend the Dec. 27 forum in Iowa, broadcast on Ion Television.

Ion Television normally shows reruns of Criminal Minds, Ghost Whisperer, and other TV dramas, along with old movies on weekends. It seems appropriate that the Republican Candidates might appear in the Criminal Minds slot.

Steve Coz, Newsmax’s editorial director, said in an interview that the hosts were “absolutely not” considering dropping Trump from the event.

“We just had a full production meeting this morning. We’re moving full steam ahead,” he said.

Coz said he was “disappointed” that other candidates backed out.

“It’s because they’re afraid of Trump because he’s so tough and so smart,” he said, admitting he is not a “typical moderator.” “The fact that they’re so fearful of Donald Trump that they don’t come is ludicrous. How can you be running for president and afraid of Donald Trump?”

Donald Trump “smart?” Now I’ve heard everything. But I agree that if these candidates are afraid of an old windbag like Trump, they’re in the wrong business.

A video has been released of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agenct who disappeared five years ago at age 59.

The mystery surrounding the disappearance nearly five years ago of a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent in Iran was rekindled Friday with the release of a hostage videotape showing him alive as of a year ago. In the video, the former agent, Robert A. Levinson, is shown in a makeshift cell looking gaunt and wearing a threadbare shirt.

Mr. Levinson, who worked as a private investigator after retiring from the F.B.I., disappeared in March 2007 while on Kish Island, a resort in the Persian Gulf. In the tape, which was received by Mr. Levinson’s family last November, he says that he has been held in captivity for three and a half years but does not identify his captors.

The tape was the first sign he was still alive. “I need the help of the United States government to answer the requests of the group that has held me,” he said on the tape as faint music played on a soundtrack. “Please help me get home. Thirty-three years of service to the United States deserves something.”

I don’t recall hearing about this before, does anyone else? Levinson’s family members have a web site where they have posted videos and appeals to his captors. The FBI is aware of the situation and there have been meetings between U.S. and Iranian officials. The Iranian government claims they had nothing to do with Levinson’s kidnapping, but are willing to help find him. According to the NYT article, Secretary of State Clinton indicated earlier this year that she believes Levinson is still alive.

The suspect in the Virgina Tech shooting has been identified as Ross Truett Ashley.

A 22-year-old Virginia man stole a Mercedes SUV at gunpoint the day before he shot dead a Virginia Tech police officer and then took his own life, police said Friday.

Virginia State Police on Friday identified Ross Truett Ashley, 22, as the man who killed Virginia Tech Police Officer Deriek Crouse and then himself about 30 minutes later.

A part-time student at Radford University, 15 miles southwest of Blacksburg, Ashley had no connection to or contact with Crouse before Thursday’s shooting, according to a news release from state police.

“State police investigators are continuing their work to establish a motive in the killing and to re-create Ashley’s movements in the days and hours leading up to the murder-suicide,” police said.

A little more on Ashley from the NYT:

Little was known about Mr. Ashley. He lived on East Main Street in Radford. He did not appear on Facebook or MySpace and had no criminal history. The only photograph the police could find was from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

On Wednesday, however, Mr. Ashley walked into a real estate office in Radford, pulled a gun and demanded the keys to an employee’s car, a white 2011 Mercedes-Benz S.U.V., the police said. The car was found Thursday on the Virginia Tech campus.

Mr. Ashley appeared to have considered his moves carefully. He had a change of clothes and a backpack, the police said. He drove to the campus in the stolen vehicle. But the police said they were still trying to establish why he walked up to Officer Crouse during a routine traffic stop and shot him dead….

After shooting Officer Crouse, Mr. Ashley fled to an area near the campus greenhouses. There he changed some of his clothes, leaving a wool hat and a pullover in his backpack, as well as an ID card, Ms. Geller said.

I guess we’ll have to wait for more answers. Apparently Ashley’s family hasn’t been interviewed by the media yet.

There was another mysterious random shooter in LA yesterday.

Los Angeles police detectives spread out to several parts of Southern California on Friday investigating addresses connect to a gunman who randomly opened fire on drivers and pedestrians in Hollywood before being fatally shot by Los Angeles Police Department officers.

Police have so far found no motive in the shooting and don’t believe the gunman knew his targets.

Law enforcement sources said detectives have checked on several addresses — including at least one in the San Gabriel Valley — to seek more information about the gunman, who has not been identified.

There is video of the shootings. A student, William Wiles heard shots outside his apartment and filmed the scene on his iPhone.

A brief video, which he provided to The Times, shows a man in the intersection firing a shot at a pickup truck.

The gunman was “being crazy and spastic,” Wiles said, adding that he heard the man yelling.

The gunman started shooting with no apparent motive. He was killed on Vine Street by Los Angeles police officers Friday morning.

A man in a silver Mercedes Benz who was shot in the jaw is in critical condition, police said. The 40-year-old victim was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Other witnesses said the man was standing in the middle of the intersection, apparently “shooting randomly at cars and in the air,” said witness Gregory Bojorquez, who was on the way to the Bank of America.

“At first it seemed like a movie but then you could hear the shots hitting metal,” Bojorquez said.

I didn’t watch the video, because I’d rather not have that image in my mind right now.

Are we going to see a “Russian Spring?” From the Guardian UK:

Vladimir Putin is set to face the biggest show of opposition yet to his strongman rule with tens of thousands of Russians promising to take to the streets on Saturday in a popular wave of discontent unseen since he came to power 12 years ago.

The opposition coalesced around a set of concrete demands, including the annulment of a parliamentary vote marred by fraud and the holding of new elections.

“We expect the biggest political demonstration of the last 10 years,” said Ilya Ponomaryov, a Duma deputy with the Just Russia party and a protest organiser. “What will happen tomorrow is an important step in the development of our democracy.”

More than 35,000 people indicated via Facebook that they planned to join the protest in Moscow. After a day of intense negotiations, protest organisers agreed to demands by the city government to move from Revolution Square to Bolotnaya (Swamp) Square, away from the Kremlin. Some protesters expressed concern that the site, on an island accessible by bridges, could be cut off by police.

It really is looking like 2012 could resemble 1968.

Occupy Boston planned to hold a general assembly last night, one day after Mayor Menino had ordered them to leave Dewey Park. From the conservative Boston Herald

The refuse-to-die Boston Occupy movement is holding its general assembly tonight where they are bracing for police to sweep them out sometime after midnight, according to an alert the group sent out.

The warning comes as occupiers hold a general assembly at the Dewey Square encampment — defying Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s call for them to leave.

A new sign is also being showed off: “You Can’t Evict An Idea.” The rally has turned bitter as members take turns lashing out at the mayor’s eviction order.

According to The Boston Globe: Some Occupy Boston protesters said they plan to stay until they are forced to go.

With determination in his voice and a hammer in hand, Occupy Boston protester Harry said today he is willing to risk arrest in order to continue living at the Dewey Square encampment.

One day after Mayor Menino ordered an end to the tent village, the Dorchester man hammered a wooden stake into the ground to support the tent he intends to live in – until he is forcibly removed by Boston police.

“There is a good amount of hope and possibility left at this camp,’’ he said.

Asked what he will do if Boston police change tactics and arrest him as part of the effort to permanently close the encampment, Harry was resigned to being taken into custody.

“Oh, well,’’ he said. “What’s the worse thing they could do? Arrest us for a peaceful protest? Oh, well.’’

I just hope they’re discussing their next moves, because the occupation of parks seems to be played out, especially up here where the weather will be getting colder and messier soon.

Those are my Saturday offerings. What are you reading and blogging about today?

Martina Correia, Sister of Troy Davis and Anti-Death Penalty Activist, Dies at 44

Posted: December 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Injustice system, just because | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments

Martina Correia–older sister of Troy Davis–who was executed by the state of Georgia on September 21–died yesterday of breast cancer at age 44.

Correia, who fought for 22 years to keep her brother alive, died Thursday after a long battle with breast cancer.

Troy Davis was convicted and sentenced to death for the August 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah Police officer Mark MacPhail. After years of appeals, Davis was executed by lethal injection on September 21.

Correia was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 31.

Curt Goering, chief operating officer of Amnesty International USA said in a statement, “Our hearts are breaking over the loss of this extraordinary woman. She fought to save her brother’s life with courage, strength and determination, every step of the way. She was a powerful example of how one person can make a difference as she led the fight for justice for Troy Davis, even as she endured her own decade-long battle with cancer.

“She was a tenacious fighter, a graceful inspiration to activists everywhere, and a true hero of the movement for human rights. At this sorrowful time, we at Amnesty International offer our profound sympathy to her family.”

Democracy Now has posted an interview (scroll down) that Amy Goodman did with Correia at her brother’s funeral in October. There is video at the link.

Correia wrote a beautiful blog post at HuffPo on September 16 in which she described her struggle to save her brother and help her son deal with what was happening to his uncle.

As a young child, De’Jaun didn’t understand that my brother, his uncle was incarcerated, much less slated for death. When the family was getting ready to leave after a visit, he’d say, “Come on, Troy, let’s go, let’s go!” But he couldn’t go with us, and my mom would say, “He’s in school. He can’t come. One day, he’ll come home with us.”

As De’Jaun grew older, I explained to him that his uncle was in prison. But I had not yet told him that Georgia planned to kill him. He confided in his uncle more than anyone else. When De’Jaun was 12 years old, it became clear to me that my son understood far more than I had realized.

Our dog, Egypt, had gotten out of the yard and had been hit by a car. We immediately brought Egypt to a vet who told us that the dog’s leg was broken in three places and would need extensive surgery to be repaired. If Egypt did not have the surgery, she would have to be put to sleep. The cost of the surgery was upwards of $10,000.

As I drove De’Juan home, I wondered how in the world I would come up with $10,000. Putting Egypt down might be the only realistic possibility.

In the silence of the ride, De’Jaun turned to me and said, “Mom, are you going put my dog to sleep like they’re trying to put my Uncle Troy to sleep?”

I had to swallow this giant lump in my throat to hold back the tears. I didn’t know that he related the two things. That he knew they were trying to kill his Uncle Troy. And, he knew about which method that they would use to kill him. At that point, I decided that if I had to pawn my car, I wasn’t going to be able to put our dog to sleep.

What an amazing woman, and what a tragic loss to the world.

Late Night: Let’s Hear It for the Beagle Freedom Project!

Posted: December 1, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , | 8 Comments

Via Time Magazine, The beagles in the above video were rescued from experimental animal lab at a California university in June. From NBC LA:

Nine beagles who were released Wednesday from a California university animal testing lab, arrived in Los Angeles Wednesday night on the first step of a journey which, hopefully, will lead them to new homes.

These dogs were bred specifically for research, according to the Beagle Freedom Project. The dogs have lived in the lab almost their entire lives.

Shannon Keith, of the Beagle Freedom Project, said dogs were scared and shaking.

“At this point, it’ll take a few days to do blood tests and see what’s up with them,” Keith said. “They’ve never felt a human touch of kindness.”

Keith said the dogs have never seen the outdoors, never walked on grass, and never smelled fresh air until they were released on Wednesday.

Did you know that beagles are the breed of dog most commonly used in research? I didn’t. It’s because they tend to be friendly, gentle, and docile and thus easy to control.

Recently, the group rescued 72 Beagles from a research lab in Spain–32 of the dogs were adopted in Europe and 40 were brought back to Los Angeles to receive treatment and hopefully find homes in the U.S.

All the male beagles, which are between 4 and 7 years old, have lived in cages their entire lives, [Gary] Smith, [the group’s spokesman] said.

“We’ve been told they lived one per cage in rooms of 10 beagles, but they never had any physical interaction with one another,” Smith said. “They’ve been in kennels since they were rescued about a week ago, but aside from that, they’ve spent most of their lives locked up.”

[….]

“Beagles are incredibly sweet, docile, companion animals,” Smith said. “The downfall is, the same reason the beagle is a perfect companion animal, is the same reason they’re used for testing.”

Wednesday’s rescue is the fourth for the Beagle Freedom Project, and according to Smith, by far, its largest mission.

Beagle Freedom Project will be seeking adoptive homes for these special beagles. You can find more information by clicking here.

Please watch the video. You’ll be glad you did. It went a ways toward restoring my faith in humanity for today anyway. But when you watch, keep a box of Kleenex handy.

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