The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Mutant Wolves of Chernobyl Develop Apparent Cancer Immunity BEN BARTEE Via  New York Post : “ Mutant wolves that roam the human-free Chernobyl Exclusion Zone have developed cancer-resilient genomes  that could be key to helping humans fight the deadly disease, according to a study… Humans abandoned the area after the explosion leaked cancer-causing radiation into the environment, and a 1,000-square-mile zone was roped off to prevent further human exposure. But in the nearly 38 years since the nuclear disaster, wildlife has reclaimed the area — including  packs of wolves  that  seem to be unaffected by the chronic exposure to the radiation .” Via  The Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology “Love and colleagues went to the CEZ, radio-collared wolves, and took blood to understand the wolves’ responses to cancer-causing radiation. Using these specialty GPS collars armed with radiation dosimeters, “we get real time measurements of where they are and how much [radiation] they are e

  An Anthropocene Worth Having John Michael Greer For more than two years now I’ve been trying to figure out how to introduce a way of thinking about humanity’s relationship to nature that cuts straight across nearly all of the conventional thinking on that subject. It’s been a challenge. I’m glad to say, though, that a project now being lauded by the corporate-enabler end of the environmental movement offers a very good way to talk about the way of thinking I have in mind. That’s not because the project in question embodies that way of thinking. It’s because the project goes so far in the other direction that it offers the perfect contrast to the way of approaching nature I want to discuss. Nature, as envisioned by the 30 by 30 Project. The project in question is called “30 by 30.” Its ostensible goal is to have 30 per cent of the Earth’s surface defined as protected areas by 2030. What that label “protected areas” means is very hard to figure out from the websites and press releases;

  We're All Bags of Bitchy, Demanding Enzymes and that's okay. Don't overthink it. ALEX WASHBURNE My mom was a molecular biology professor and I was something of a delinquent skateboarding child on the school-to-prison pipeline. During my occasional bouts of suspension, I would go to my mom’s office for the day. Sometimes she’d put me to work cleaning glassware, other times I’d be plating yeast or counting cells on a hemocytometer to think about what I’d done. Occasionally, I’d be free to roam the department and, every time I was free, I went straight to Eric Toolson’s office. Eric Toolson is a legend in my mind. He is biology professor who looks and talks more like a Hells Angel. With long grey hair, sophisticated glasses and imposing facial hair, Eric would drive a Harley Davidson to work, occasionally swear like a sailor, but think and talk like philosopher. When the glassware was cleaned, the yeast plated, and the cells counted, I would roll up to Eric’s office with my