Moving mutants

I am just getting over a common cold today. Surprisingly, it was my first in about three years. Being scientifically trained, it makes me ponder how do they find a cure for the common cold through its spread.

The common cold is caused by a virus. Viruses routinely mutate when jumping host to host. This is why people need new flu shots each year because a new genetic variation of the virus is spreading among the population. Not being medically trained, the mighty Wikipedia saved the day giving a description of the many viruses that cause colds (links in quotes do not work)

The common cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract. The most commonly implicated virus is a rhinovirus (30–50%), a type of picornavirus with 99 known serotypes.^[5][14][15] Others include: coronavirus (10–15%), influenza^[5] human parainfluenza viruses, human respiratory syncytial virus, adenoviruses, enteroviruses, and metapneumovirus.^[10] In total over 200 serologically different viral types cause colds.^[5] Coronaviruses are particularly implicated in adult colds. Of over 30 coronaviruses, 3 or 4 cause infections in humans, but they are difficult to grow in the laboratory and their significance is thus less well-understood.^[10] (5–15%),

I knew there were multiple "cold" viral strains out there, but I never realized there were several distinguishable viruses causing illness. The inability to grow with ease in a laboratory answers the question why have we not made little progress on a cure. The other main reason why we can not find a cure

Due to the many different types of viruses and their tendency for continuous mutation, it is impossible to gain complete immunity to the common cold.

How does one track this mutation? When does a virus become genetically variable to reinfect a healthy host? When is a virus a completely new strain? How many hosts are required for each step is the key factor.

My guess will be the use of laboratory animals since it would be impossible to track human to human transmission. Species that are helpful would need to resemble humans, i.e. rats, mice, pigs or primates. Once a host is infected, isolate the animal and allow only one other host to have contact limiting the infection's spread. This would be a long term research project. I am not necessarily sure that big pharmaceuticals are up to the expensive task.

Sun blows against reality

I am a proponent of most alternative energies on the grounds of replacing limited fossil fuel sources and alternative energy's lower environmental impact. My global opinion on the subject can be read here. One issue that restricts alternative energy's growth is cost. These technologies are not cheap to implement. In an effort to offset the high cost, government subsidies are often given to wind and solar companies. This may seem fine, but when the political winds change, these mostly startup operations run into serious cash flow issues from the simple fact that they can not turn a profit on their high investments into equipment and talent.

This CNNMoney.com article warns of the expiring subsidies the US federal government has been giving to both wind and solar companies.

After years of rapid growth and darling status among many in Washington, the future of the American renewable energy industry is uncertain. That's because the government cash it has come to rely on may dry up on Dec. 31.

Before the Great Recession, renewable energy developments were helped by a tax credit, worth generally 30% of the cost of the project. When the recession hit, the stimulus package replaced those tax credits with direct cash grants of similar value.

Cash is considered more beneficial than credit to the industry.

So far, the government has handed out about $5.4 billion, according to the Energy Department.

Congress could vote to extend the grants, but that's highly unlikely.

$5.4 billion is a lot of money to be spending on technologies that may be abandoned from lack of interest. Those companies most likely will not survive without the stimulus money. Money thrown down a hole. What saddens me further is this is a repeat of the solar boom/bust that occurred in the 1970's. This is a demonstration of why socialism does not work on a large scale, the government's central planning is not efficient and is often driven by politics, not market reality. Do we ever learn?

What to do? The stark reality is these alternative energy technologies are not yet ready for prime time in the capitalist market place. Reality trumps a naive, orthodox environmental ideology. This should not be an excuse to fully abandon them though. As a supporter of these alternative energies, I believe we need to spend more money (government and private) on research and development (R&D) of these technologies. Develop them to the point where they can compete with the more traditional fossil fuel and companies will be able to turn a profit. The secondary benefit would be a revitalization of US R&D and industry.

This lesson should not be forgotten when the true energy crisis strikes, the exhaustion of crude oil.

After the ballots were cast

Little less than a week ago the US had their midterm elections. The majority of candidates for positions in the federal government were for the House of Representatives and the Senate. The post is going to explore one way to reduce a common thread that has been evolving in our electorate, extreme partisan candidates on both sides of the aisle. Two simple changes in the way congress worked would reduce this problem without major changes in the constitution. It also would lead to both major parties working together better and independents would have a greater voice.

What I propose is the elimination of current seniority rules in both houses of congress. Specifically, the way committee members are selected. These vital positions are automatically given to the most senior party members from the majority party without any input from rest of congress. This gives quite a bit of power to ranking majority members over very important issues like military, social spending and law writing. Bills that were good for the US often died in these committees before making it to the main floor where it may have passed.

Why is this a problem? It has to do with how the most senior members being reelected year after year. In the case of the House, the jurisdictions are picked by a state's government. If a state leans towards one ideological direction, i.e. Texas to Republican or California to Democrat, the districts are setup so the majority of Representatives will come from the stat's dominant party. This is often referred to gerrymandering if blatant or is against Civil Rights laws. It occurs regularly even with the laws and I do not know of a way to eliminate the issue. The Senate has less of this issue due to the fact the entire state elects the position, but it is still a problem. The result is certain districts will elect a member from the same party over and over again. This is further exacerbated by reelecting incumbents since they become more senior in their own party and have greater ability to bring home pork spending projects to their home state. The voters know this instinctively. Vote for the incumbent because they will bring home the bacon. It is in the voter's favor to do so. The candidates also know this. Candidates respond by following the party line and not putting forth any ideas that may hurt their chance for reelection. This is another disincentive for congress members to break party line for the benefit our country. The final result is often political polarization.

Proposal #1: Bring committee members to full chamber majority vote

Instead of allowing the majority party full control over vital committee members, the rules should be changed to reflect the Speaker of the House. The Speaker of the House is nominated by the majority party and is picked through an election of the full House chamber. The elections often filter out the extreme members to a limited degree unless the chamber has a vast majority. To further filter out partisan hacks, I suggest all leadership positions (including the Speaker) and committee members come to full chamber vote and each member requires a 2/3 majority to be seated. This results in two outcomes. First, even if a party wins the majority it forces them to make some concessions when congress convenes. It forces a limited bipartisanship immediately. Second, it will prevent the extreme elements of a party from dominating the committees. Voters would also be less inclined to rubber stamp the incumbents if bringing home the bacon is a little more difficult. Congress members would have to work a little harder for their reelections.

Proposal #2: Eliminate congressional primary elections

Primary elections developed out of the 1960's as a more populist way to pick candidates. The daunting problem is the low key elections bring out the most fired up voters which are often the most partisan in nature. This leads to the most partisan and extreme candidates running later in November. The other problem is the extra money required to run in the early election. This forces a candidate to either be rich or depend heavily on wealthy contributions. This could potentially lead to elections being bought. We can return to the system in place before the 1960's, let the local parties directly pick their candidates for the election without opening the polls.