Wired News: You Dirty, Healthy Rat

Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs, two studies indicate. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick.

The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory, called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that people’s immune systems aren’t being challenged by disease and dirt early in life, so the body’s natural defenses overreact to small irritants such as pollen.

See, Mom. All those times I didn’t clean my room, I was promoting a healthy lifestyle choice.

Challenged immune systems — such as kids who grow up with two or more pets — don’t tend to develop as many allergies, said Dr. Stanley Goldstein, director of Allergy & Asthma Care of Long Island.

Thank heavens, you let me have a cat when I was five or I’d be doomed now. Good thing you’ve got Buster for the grandkids.

Parker said he hopes to build a 50-foot artificial sewer for his next step, so that he could introduce the clean lab rats to an artificial dirty environment and see how and when the immunity was activated.

That may be the biggest thing to come out of the wild and lab rodent studies, Platt said: “Then all of a sudden it becomes possible to expose people to the few things (that exercise the immune system) and gives them the benefit of the dirty environment without having to expose them to the dirt.”

Ooo! I think I may have just found the trigger for my next science-fiction story.

YouTube - Robbie Rotten spot (Season 2) (correct spot posted now)

Ooo! Someone posted the Nick Jr. Lazytown spots on youtube, and I’m actually in one. In the middle of this one Robbie’s periscope pops up and that’s me. I mean, it’s only a pair of eyes on a stick, but it’s still fun.

They also have a song from the original stage show. It is interesting to see what design elements remain in the television show and which ones changed.

And finally this one
Most of the drumming by Ziggy are my hands, except the closeups. One of the grips on set was an actual drummer so, with Þor’s permission, I asked Riki to sub for me. He did a great job.

I’m lucky that my brother is visiting our parents in Chattanooga and has offered to celebrate in my stead. Rob’s dad is out of luck though. Sorry, Glenn! Once again, we are ungrateful wretches. I hope that the weather is beautiful where you are, and that you get to do everything you want to do today.

I completely forgot to tell you about the real score at Koloportið. Rob and I collect portable typewriters and I’ve been keeping my eye out for one with an Icelandic keyboard. This little beauty is a Groma Kolibra. It’s an East German machine from the 1950s and is in beautiful shape. It comes with a carrying case and the instruction manual. Best of all, it was only 500 kronur, which is like $6.70.
I typed our shopping list on it today and it was very satisfying. The keyboard has good action although the return lever is not as springy as I would like. One of the nifty things is the accent key. (You strike that to make letters like “á”) The carriage doesn’t move when you strike it so that the next letter winds up centered under the accent. Snazzy.