This is the Dao of Virus

A virus is a non-living thing, and we can build a meditation or philosophy based on its goal in the world.

Like months ago I saw an article about an Israeli scientist discovering a parasite that does not need to breathe.

Viruses don't need to be alive at all, and they can exist only if there are enough host living tissue to replicate and multiply them.

At any given time a version of a virus is only temporary. The virus contains a genetic program as a DNA, or double strand of RNA, or a single strand of RNA, that runs the show. The rest is a container for the programs and a receptor that fits a host's cells.

As soon as hosts seem to have efficient immune response, or get infected but do not produce enough viruses, there is a mysterious feedback that changes something in the genetic program, and first of all, the receptor is changed slightly, and according to the progress in the mass of the hosts capacity to accept or produce the virus.

This is why the common cold, flu and corvid19 viruses are basically same. They have different programs, each targeting different cells.

Their receptors are always changing, and only within a very simple parameters:

The receptors are made of H and N proteins. Each protein could be of the 1, the 2, or the 3 version. That is why these virus builds are designated HxNy depending on the current epidemic. Receptors can also contain specific numbers (a,b) of the H and N molecules. FYI, a protein molecule is always shaped like a clumped shoelace. So the formula for a receptor is like (aHx)(bNy).

All this means it is futile to research and try to weaken a virus. It will have a solution while replicating inside the cell nucleus of the (resisting) host's tissue.

The only way to resist an infection is to help one's body to preserve heat - not to catch cold - so the immune response will have the support of the fever to accelerate the multifaceted lymphocyte (macrophages, B-cells, T-cells, etc) response to the tasks of disposing of the viruses, of disposing of the subverted tissues. etc. Drinking water helps maintain the volume and the flow of the lymphatic system, which gathers the lymphocytes with their load form the tissues and delivers it all to the spleen or to the liver be digested/disassembled, accordingly.

The mysterious programming of the virus does not care for the weak host, who will die, and not help the virus agenda. Everything in the genetic program is relying on a host who can be strong enough to circulate among other strong hosts and spread the newly manufactured viruses.

In a way, you could say the common cold virus build year 2003 is weaker than than build 2008.

And there are viruses (retroviruses or related types, like herpes) that transcribe their genetic program (or a part of it) into the no longer in use (since childhood), or deactivated part of the host's DNA, and has its own mysterious activating triggers. 

So it is futile to measure a virus' power, and to try to resist it. Any given vaccine against a virus will be good only versus the specific build. The most meaningful research is about finding the most constant surface area of the virus, ideally the container, and make vaccine against it, but the receptors are always obscuring (defending) the surface.

I t seems that viruses have been around, and killed people, and we could not figure it all out until Pasteur with his bacteria work, and Germans developing X-ray microscope that could shed fuzzy light into viruses being totally different from bacteria.

2 weeks ago the parsha started with the word MAGEF whose root has been reworked by the Academy of Hebrew Language as Nagif =virus. But the Tirgum (Aramaic) keeps the translation more true and not "epidemic", but "death."

To repeat the fact: it is as impossible to measure a virus power (even by statistic analysis) as it is to develop a vaccine against it.

The impotence of alternative medicine

The world has no chocie but agree that all that Chinese folk medicine, and all the alternative medicine, has been just a bunch of bunk and excrement after the Corvid-19 pandemic.
What could be the fitting punishment for all the crooks that cheated people out of their money under the pretense of offering them treatment and medicine?
Maybe burrowing the concept from the bunk of homeopathy, the punishment should be like the offense, feed the homeopaths with all the inventory of their snake oil, make the Chinese charlatans eat rotten intestines from the butcher's market in Wuhan.

Meet The Big Four Weed Killers

Roundup, Atrizine, Resicore, and Status. These herbicide make sure that (broadleaf weeds and grasses, especially) we have plenty of vegetables at a reasonable price, and there is still plenty of veggies left to export.

Roundup is Glyphosate:

This herbicide's PO3H group with the NH part may easily cause errors in the phosphate rich environment of the DNA-RNA and its transcription. Nucleotides have the same PO3 terminus:

But I still have to find research papers studying this effect. 

Hopefully this chemical's water solubility means it could be washed nearly completely, and if there are any residues managing to enter an organism, then ultimately the error checking RNA mechanisms would overcome it, as they overcome these challenges daily.

Atrazine:

One positive thing going for this herbicide is that many bacteria easily though slowly biodegrade it.

The molecule itself once it reaches the cellular nucleus might be mistaken for a pyrimidine, a crucial part of the DNA and RNA code. The Chloride atom may easily wreak havoc with transcription.

by BruceBlausen

Let's hope our chromosomes have a good programs running all the time and check our genetic code for errors.

Resicore 

It is something new, designed by Dow Chemicals to counteract herbicide resistance, and is comprised of three unique herbicides, which have interesting commercial names (from this Iowa State University paper):

Acetochlor, a.k.a.Surpass

In plants it inhibits enzyme that builds, or elongates fatty acids. This process is a crucial to all life animal or vegetable.

Mesotrione, a.k.a. Callisto, 

This molecule is a somewhat natural inhibitor of an enzyme that builds carotene, which protects chlorophyll from being degraded by sunlight.

Any damage to the production of this enyzme (4-Hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase, HPPD) can be linked to one of the oldest known inherited metabolic disorders known as alkaptonuria in humans.

Alkaptonuria is a rare inherited genetic disorder in which the body cannot process the amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine, which occur in protein.

It is possible to imagine that the molecule once inside the cellular nucleus, might have its acidic SO2 group pose as the acidic PO3 group of nucleotides. The rest of the molecule presents enough capability to obstruct the DNA/RNA transcriptions by both its spatial dimensions and interatomic affinities for the correct nucleobases. 

and sometimes substitued by Flumetsulam, a.k.a. Python, which is

the molecule already resembles these building blocks of genetic material

and looks as if Guanine is coupled to any of the pyrimidines, U, T or C.Except the herbicide molecule does not need to fix itself into the nucleotide's place in the DNA helix. it might just float there, obstructing transcription, and preventing either growth, or promoting death outright.

and, 

Clopyralid, a.k.a. Stinger

It is particularly damaging to peas, tomatoes and sunflowers and can render potatoes, lettuce and spinach inedible. Being a benzoic acid due to the -OOH group, it is rendered rather water soluble, and neutral to mammal organisms, but theoretically having the -N- nitrogen in the ring, it is a pyridinecarboxylic acid, and again theoretically, could masquerade is pyrimidine, which it does in many plants, and does it successfully.

The fourth biggie is Status, 

It is a mixture of sodium salt of Diflufenzopyr, 

Diflufenzopyr is an auxin-transport inhibitor that can increase the phytotoxicity of certain auxin-mimicking herbicides such as Dicamba (see below) on broadleaf species. Auxin is a plant hormone which causes the elongation of cells in shoots and is involved in regulating plant growth. Auxin is produced in the apex of growing stems.
Being in the Sodium (Na+) salt state, it is relatively water soluble, and should be easily broken up by the gut bacteria, or jsut ignored and passed through human body. Theoretically, the overall structure of this molecule resembles a guanidine-pyrimidine pair.

and Dicamba. 

The OOH is what makes the molecule a carboxylic acid, just like Chlopyralid, and water-soluble too. The herbicide is very selective and efficient. It has not been shown to affect mammals. The only controversy it did cause what transferring to and poisoning compost, which instead of fertilizing tomato gardens, killed them off.
To comment on possible interaction with human metabolism, the molecule is most likely to be treated as a benzoic acid, which is also found in cranberries, accept the Chloride groups and the methoxy group (-OCH3) theoretically would steer it down the PCB disassembly pathway.

These last two herbicides should present no danger as long as vegetables are washed with plenty of water.

How Flaky Can Detox Ideas Get

Flaky detox ideas: what the alternative quacks forget is the existence of the lymphatic system. This is what cleans body, removes shed cells, unwelcome biological molecules, own white blood cells that ate viruses and bacteria, blood glucose bound old hemoglobin and other materials. All of that flows to the spleen, the true detox center. Any other detox approach is lethal. Body pH is precise. Anything changing it will cause serious malfunction. Liver has no refuse storage department, it is like a molecular assembly site. Unnecessary water soluble materials and light waste get filtered out by the kidneys. Some out from the skin.

If liver is presented with any new molecule - always getting to the liver through the portal vein - it starts taking it apart into known biological materials, like acetyl COA, fatty acids, glycerides, vitamin building blocks, and makes new molecules, and sends whatever necessary into blood stream for the muscles.

Reading up on the quack detox ideas sound like they have done nothing, not centuries of white coat research.

They did quick rationalizing or back pedaling when it comes to the lymphatic system, and there is a separate field of quacky recommendation. In the spirit of the well known century long blood letting, the quacks make claim that the botanicals, also peddled to the unsuspecting people as liver detox, exist also as lymph drainers. Of course, they do not elaborate on where the drainage occurs, and since when they have had the time to do research on this, and on how many impressively many people. This is disgusting. When you hear science reduced to the word "drainer," maybe it's money down the drain.

Question: Acidic drink interacting with the plastic bottle.

Would you expect any chemical interaction, BTW, when apple-cider vinegar sits inside the plastic bottle they sell it in (versus glass) -- could acid leach anything from the plastic bottle?

If it is ldpe, or hdpe, then the worst case scenario would be ethylene, which either would evaporate, as it does from apples, or oxidize into ethanol. Which would be quickly worked into to the AcetylCoA, one of the main sprockets of the Krebs cycle. But the polymer is very durable, and it takes sunlight UV and high heat to break it.

if polypropylene, then it would be a propylene, eventually evaporating, or becoming isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol), or acetone, which would evaporate, or remain within the body's native acetone content.

the cola bottle material, PETE, is very durable, and is highly resistant to chemicals, especially weak food acids. Acetic acid in vinegar is nothing compared to concentrated main acids.

To summarize, whatever monomer leaching into food would be somewhat below the biologically relevant concentration.

How about that home-made soap?

to make skin-friendly soap is hard. Vegetable or animal source fat differs from batch to batch. Differing composition due to source and amount of vegetable matter, animals, type of animals. A chemist has to get a sample of the bulk mix of all rendered fat in the reaction vat, hopefully more than 1000 gallons. 

Titrate the sample with sodium caustic, which in the industry is about 55% solution. Or caustic potash, 45% solution. Scale up the amount of the caustic, add to the vat on the low amount side. Watch the consistency, take pH. No possibility for sodium or potassium-based soap to attain the gentleness of baby shampoos. Once the fat-caustic based soap is used for washing, the fatty acid does its job of suspending the soiling matter, uncoupling from the +OH hydroxide ion, since the pH of tap water is different from the soap's optimal pH, and the +OH ion contributes to the excess of alkalinity of water, and all together attacks skin.

Ionic soaps which are more friendly to the skin use weaker bases, like amines, and the resultant acid-base is more natural to the tap water pH. 

But non-ionic soaps are still the best. Labelling still can't be interpreted as chemically correct. "Non-soap" may mean non-ionic, or non-ionic surfactant, or it could mean cationic surfactant, in either case it's a high-tech product optimized for right pH in the wash. 

Last time i checked the Fa brand soapless soap was the best. Other than baby soaps.

Nuclear close calls and the moments the CPUSSR was genuinely concerned

and then there were regular Wednesday PolitInform briefs by the school's Communist Party representative, in our case the deputy principal. She told us about the US unable to control its nuclear weapons and bombers, suffering incidents. We smirked, assuming creative propaganda, in hindsight the Soviets' sore feelings about aviation. But the Party propaganda was correct about the incidents, which I easily checked. This is serious stuff in addition to the nuclear weapon testing, releasing contamination.

• 1956 B-47 disappearance
• 1958 Mars Bluff B-47 nuclear weapon loss incident
• 1958 Tybee Island mid-air collision  <<<<<<<!!!!!!
• 1961 Yuba City B-52 crash
• 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash
• 1964 Savage Mountain B-52 crash
• 1964 Bunker Hill AFB runway accident
• 1965 Philippine Sea A-4 incident
• 1966 Palomares B-52 crash^{[6]  <<<<<<<<<!!!!!!!!}
• 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash <<<<<<<<!!!!!!

Homeopathy: a huge molecule of a funny flower

Using expedient generalization, I told the "doctor" about high molecular weight molecules having little chance of making it into the homeo dilutions, the "doctor', having no background in math or chemistry, conveniently abandoned the defense of the unique protein dilution, and stated that high dilutions which have no chance of retaining a single original molecule do preserve the memory of the molecule. I requested any scientific article showing experiments with water having memory. It is a very fair request: after all, scientists dedicated lifetimes to studying seemingly small, insignificant aspects of water's chemical properties. Surely, homeopathy should be basing its hydro-memory facts on years of research using at least atomic-, and ultraviolet- absorption, mass spectrometry gravity and high pressure liquid chromatography.

The homeodoctor quickly showed me to this passage "...succussion whereby the energetic blueprint or pattern of the substance is held in the remedy but without any of the original material." -no empirical data exists to substantiate this belief. from this site which is highly popular with patients. I offered a bait (a hypothetical scenario) that in the case of having to recover from mercury exposure, a patient would be given a dilution or succussion of mercury. The homeodoctor agreed(!) To which I offered that the succussion probably no longer contains a single ion (they forgot the existence of such) of mercury, and such a patient would be better off saving money and drinking municipal, (somewhat contaminated enough to contain sadi mercury) water from a kitchen faucet. He let out genuine laugh and grew thoughtful. QED. Enough said.

Homeopathy treats the individual rather than the disease so the range of conditions that can be helped is huge! Whilst a diagnosis can seem useful, in homeopathy it is rare that the same complaint is always treated with the same remedy

here is a good example:

A 30X ( 1:1000) dilution means that the original substance has been diluted 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. Assuming that a cubic centimeter of water contains 15 drops, this number is greater than the number of drops of water that would fill a container more than 50 times the size of the Earth. Imagine placing a drop of red dye into such a container so that it disperses evenly. Homeopathy's "law of infinitesimals" is the equivalent of saying that any drop of water subsequently removed from that container will possess an essence of redness. Robert L. Park, Ph.D., a prominent physicist who is executive director of The American Physical Society, has noted that since the least amount of a substance in a solution is one molecule, a 30C solution would have to have at least one molecule of the original substance dissolved in a minimum of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water. This would require a container more than 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth. Actually, the laws of chemistry state that there is a limit to the dilution that can be made without losing the original substance altogether. This limit, which is related to Avogadro's number, corresponds to homeopathic potency of 12C or 24X (1 part in 1024). Hahnemann himself realized that there is virtually no chance that even one molecule of original substance would remain after extreme dilutions. But he believed that the vigorous shaking or pulverizing with each step of dilution leaves behind a "spirit-like" essence—"no longer perceptible to the senses"—which cures by reviving the body's "vital force." Modern proponents assert that even when the last molecule is gone, a "memory" of the substance is retained. This notion is unsubstantiated. Moreover, if it were true, every substance encountered by a molecule of water might imprint an "essence" that could exert powerful (and unpredictable) medicinal effects when ingested by a person.

Medical insurance call: a case of iridology

The economic crisis apparently has an effect on my business: the patent consultancy has been falling off, and there is a notable increase in the demand to settle alternative medicine cases. It's all logical - people have less capital to secure their intellectual property, and less capital for conventional medical treatment. Hence, they turn to the soothsayers of the alternative medicine, which in the end are as brutal on the bank account as conventional medicine. The most recent case is that of iridology. The state insurance commission called me with the case of a patient that started to combine ear-nose-and-throat MD visits with visits to an iridologist. The lab tests for the last year showed plenty of vitamins, iron and a good liver profile. The patient complained of sinusitis, which really was a reaction to dry, furnace heating-dried air. Yet the iridologist decided that the patient's iris indicated a lack of selenium (!) as well as iron, which was responsible for the stuffy nose. The patient stopped going through with the MD's prescribed, over-the-counter treatments, and made other decisions that complicated medical insurance claims, and prompted me being called onto the scene. I immediately advise the patient to start using a vaporizer, which she had (ultrasonic), and she found a good deal on a hot-water vaporizer that can be attached to the furnace. She immediately reported relief in breathing through her nose. I made an appointment with the iridologist, and made a usual request for a free advice. In the process, I asked the iridologist very basic questions, which challenged the laughable principles of the scam:

1. the founder of the iridology did not know enough about owl's eyes to start making deductions about human eye;
2. the iris is an island in the middle of the eye, relying on the air for oxygen absorption, and on the nutrients seeping through the glassy matter of the eye;
3. the only physical connection to the rest of the body is a nerve that controls dilation of the pupil.
4. iridology has had no clue of the selenium inside the human body, for the last 150 years.

The iridologist has failed to show me the presence of iridology research materials analyzing the ENT problems. Nor did the iridologist produce any publications that are peer reviewed. She referred me to many of internet web sites that brag about case stories (not studies) where diagnoses were made using the owl's eye ideology of the scam's author, with no other lab or doctor-administered tests. I also challenged the iridologist to explain the difference between the iridology assessment of the selenium and iron deficiency, and the professional alb results consistently showing the contrary. That prompted the iridologist to say that iridologists and their patients are successful "because they have faith in it." QED. Case finished.

PHARMACEUTICAL AD FOR ER-DYSFUNCTION FALSELY CLAIMS A PATENT

The August 25th San Francisco Chronicle, page A5, had an ad (one in many other newspapers, I suspect), from the BostonMedicalGroup.com for their proprietary process for treating performance dysfunction for those men for which the new pills don't work. One sentence caught my eye: "The secret to Boston Medical Group's success lies in The BMG Method, a proprietary treatment process for Urecktyle Dysfunction that recently received a U.S. patent. The group is the only physician network known to have acquired such a patent, ..." But what is the patent number? The ad doesn't mention it, I couldn't find it on the BMG Web site, nor could I find any patent assigned to Boston Medical Group, or two of its doctors mentioned in the ad - Barry Buffman and Alan Sperber. I am always suspicious of small companies touting patents in medical ads, because the existence of the patent means little medically, and it is all the more suspicious when it is so hard to find the actual patent.

CANADIAN SUPREME COURT: HARVARD MOUSE CAN'T BE PATENTED

Globe and Mail (www.globeandmail.com) reports that the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled 5-4 that the Harvard oncomouse cannot be patented. The majority decision written by Justice Michel Bastarache says: "The Canadian federal Patent Act] in its current form fails to address many of the unique concerns that are raised by the patenting of higher life forms.", and that the oncomouse does not fit the definition of invention written into the federal Patent Act in the 19th century. Activists are happy - the industry unhappy - with the decision. I guess we are to think that the oncomouse is all things but it is not a result of a technical process.

Stem cells can be extracted from baby teeth

I found the following article by browsing back issues of Scientific American. The discovery significantly alleviates the stem cell controversy. However, I do not see it recieve enough news coverage. On April 23, 2003, the magazine reported that a seven-year-old's baby tooth may be worth a lot more than the quarter the tooth fairy left under the pillow. Scientists have discovered that the pulp inside deciduous teeth is a treasure trove of fast-growing stem cells. Naturally-shed choppers could thus provide an easily accessible new source of these sought-after cells for clinical studies of stem-cell transplantation and tissue engineering. When his six-year-old daughter pulled out her baby tooth, Songtao Shi of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in Bethesda, Md., washed it off to prepare it for the tooth fairy. Holding his daughter's partial tooth, the stem cell researcher noticed living tissue inside and wondered whether it might contain relatively young stem cells. Shi took the tooth to his lab and found that he was indeed able to isolate such cells from the tooth pulp left in the crown. Extracting more stem cells from the lost baby teeth of seven- and eight-year-olds, Shi called the new group of cells SHED (stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth). In the lab, the cultured cells grew quickly, forming sphere-like clusters indicative of a fast rate of proliferation not observed in stem cells isolated from bone marrow or adult teeth. Not only did they grow rapidly, but when implanted under the skin of immunocompromised mice, SHED induced bone formation -- a feat that stem cells extracted from adult wisdom teeth could not accomplish. SHED cells also triggered neural cell formation in the brain and fat cell growth; stem cells from adult teeth, on the other hand, are not as good at neural cell generation and cannot trigger fat cell growth at all. A report describing these findings was published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. One of the challenges of stem cell research is that nobody quite knows the extent to which they can be used to induce growth in tissues other than that from which they were extracted. In that regard, SHED cells could potentially work better than other types of stem cells because of their youth (and thus fast proliferation) and their demonstrated ability to induce the growth of several types of cells. "When kids' teeth fall out we can save them," Shi remarks. "If they need [the stem cells from] them in 20 years, there will be no immunorejection." Just what those needs might be, Shi cannot say. But considering that other researchers are already freezing stem cells from umbilical cords, he muses, "Why don't we save this one?"

Olive oil inspired inventive thoughts:

The Wall Street Journal of June 7, 2007, and New York Times, had two major articles on patent reform. The problem is that the reporters don't know enough about patent practices to realize a lot of what they are being told (and then reporting), especially from PTO management, is nonsense. The Wall Street Journal article started out with "U.S. patent law, already shaken up by a Supreme Court ruling this spring, ...". I assume he is referring to KSR, but did the KSR decision, with its bad semantics, really shake up much about obviousness? Or was it just a tweak, a papal reminder to the CAFC of who has the real authority. Interestingly, an article in the food section of the New York Times has a good example of a non-obvious discovery. The article is titled "Extra virgin anti-inflammatories" (NY Times, 6 June 2007, D3), and reports on annual tastings of extra virgin olive oils. But it includes a mention of a scientific discovery, as follows:

At the 1999 international workshop on molecular and physical gastronomy [in Sicily], ... the physicists Ugo and Beatrice Palma brought along [olive] oil freshly pressed from their own trees. Dr. Gary Beauchamp [director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia] tasted the oil and felt his throat burn, as did I and all the other attendees [a side effect of very aromatic virgin olive oils]. But he was the only one who immediately thought of ibuprofen. Not an obvious thought? Dr. Beauchamp happened to be an ibuprofen connoisseur. He and a Monell colleague, Dr. Paul Breslin, had been trying to help a manufacturer replace acetaminophen with ibuprofen in its liquid cold and flu medicine. The medicine tasted fine until it was swallowed. Consumer panels described the unpleasant sensation as bitterness, but Dr. Beauchamp recognized it as an irritation akin to the pungency of black pepper and chilies, strangely localized to the back of the throat. And he recognized it again in Sicily. "The moment I felt that burn from Ugo and Beatrice's oil, I saw the whole picture in my head.", Dr. Beauchamp recalled last week. "There's a natural analogue of ibuprofen in olive oil, and it could have anti-inflammatory properties too." He, Dr. Breslin and several collaborators confirmed that the pungent substance in olive oil is a phenolic chemical, which they name oleocanthal. And they showed that oleocanthal is even more effective than ibuprofen at inhibiting enzymes in the body that create inflammation. ... [In a 2005 Nature article], they suggested that the oleocanthol in pungent olive oils might be one of the things that make traditional Mediterranean diets so healthful. A deliciously non-obvious discovery!

Dumb blood group patent, and an idea as well

Are many software patents bad? Sure, and it is worth pounding the system to improve software patent quality, especially the handling of non-patent prior art. But the whole system needs pounding, massive pounding, not just software patents. Case in point - what follows is anonymous email from either a jealous patent lawyer, or a patent examiner unhappy with one of his colleagues. After the email is part of the patent in question. Actual correspondence between a USPTO examiner and a patent lawyer: Examiner: Does claim 1 of US-6,503,529-B1 read upon taking a vitamin pill? Practitioner: The effective filing date for the patent below was 1999. comments: Unfortunately, a best selling book came out in 1996 by Peter D'Adamo called "Eat for your Blood Type" which taught herbs and vitamin pills best for each blood type. Shockingly, this book (or some tiny portion thereof, maybe a photocopy of the cover), is "of record" in the file. I simply cannot believe that it does not anticipate. Supplements for Type A blood is discussed on pages 131-138, for instance. Yes, indeed it does read on taking a vitamin pill. The BEST you can say about the claim is that the inventor thought his invention was the LABELING of a bottle of pills, for a specific blood group. That is what was specifically claimed in the parent patent. However, the dumb-as.s attorney broadened that out to make it "formulated" for a specific blood group, which is infinitely broad and also indefinite. "Formulated.... for" is not defined in the spec. Of course, the dumber as.s examiner bought it. The Notice of Allowance count date for the patent was 25 March 2002, probably a "Count Monday", perhaps even at the end of some quarter. Production ueber alles. For your reference: United States Patent 6,503,529 Blood type methods and dietary supplements Abstract Dietary supplement compositions designed to be responsive to specific blood types, and thus most beneficial for people with specific antigenic blood types. Inventors: Fleischner; Albert M. (Westwood, NJ) Assignee: Goen Group, Inc. (Cedar Knolls, NJ) Filed: April 11, 2001 This application is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/468,819, filed on Dec. 22, 1999 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,291,533. Other References Metaform/MetaPlexx, Weider Nutrition International, Aug. 29, 1989.* Peter J. D'Adamo, Eat Right for Your Type (1996). Primary Examiner: Pryor; Alton Attorney, Agent or Firm: Pharmaceutical Patent Law LLC, Pohl; Mark Claims I claim: 1. A method to supplement the diet of a human of a specific antigen blood type with a specific dietary supplement for said specific blood type, wherein the method consists essentially of providing to said human said dietary supplement, said dietary supplement consisting essentially of a substance selected from the group consisting of a vitamin, a mineral, an herb and a botanical, and wherein said dietary supplement can be formulated as a pill, capsule, tablet or liquid for the antigen blood type of the human. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein said substance consists essentially of vitamin K, ginseng root and green tea leaf. comment: herb and a botanical in claim language means one and the same thing can be formulated - the implied existence of the fact is that it is NOT formulated, though it can be, see a post about claim language can be formulated as a pill - if I was an attorney for a second party, and I was good and picky, I would counter with the fact that formulated implies a makeup, not a final form. In this case, a pill specifies the claim into the direction that renders it non-legally binding, specific, and, therefore, does not preclude others to use the claim for their own benefit. essentially - a meaningless term in claim language. It might have been substantially, or generally (stretching it: maybe)

to sum up the water panic

To summarize the bottled water vs. tap water vs. other water wars: this subject plays tricks with the impulsive nature of an everyday consumer. More so, it is related to intellectual dishonesty. It is enough to allude to the fact that tap water contains lead, present due to the soldered pipes, and a consumer is heading for the corner convenience store to stock up on a gallon of designer water. Though it is also enough to mention that a bottle of spring water was found to contain more than a minimal level of sodium, or, even more seriously alleged, a trace of pesticide, and the consumer is ready to rationalize that the good ol' tap water is the God's gift to humans.

• Tap water rules only when it contains lowest amounts of lead and other heavy metals, and the local water authority is certified by an independent lab to produce water having trace metals below EPA limits. It is also important to consider whether the chemical is regulated or non-regulated (see this link http://www.ewg.org/tapwater/findings.php) Other than that, tap water contains low-to-medium low levels of sodium and iron, which are basic necessities for any person.

• Bottled water is still a hands-down winner for areas contaminated with industrial pollutants or agricultural chemicals. Just because trace pesticide was found in bottled water out East, there is no reason to start a lemming run.

• also important to keep in mind: bottled companies often launch smear campaigns against each other (which sometimes backfire when they get out of control), causing a major skew in public perception.

• but the most important thing to remember for the upcoming summer - if you are planning to do any strenuous work that will cause you to lose electrolytes through seating and urination, you are better off drinking sports drinks.