Monthly Archives: November 2006

Gender Bender in NYC

New York City is moving ahead with a proposed change in the rules of birth certificates. After much campaigning from activists who argue that gender is not merely physical, NYC will soon start letting people change their gender on their birth certificates (NYT link, to bypass registration try bugmenot). Reader mkb also points out this article .

Once it’s approved people will no longer have to have sex-change surgery to proclaim what gender they are.

“If approved, the new rule would put New York at the forefront of efforts to redefine gender. A handful of states do not require surgery for such birth certificate changes, but in some of those cases patients are still not allowed to make the change without showing a physiological shift to the opposite gender.”

Thanks, mkb!

AIDS Fighting AIDS

A new, but very small, study has found that AIDS can be used to fight AIDS like a vaccine. The US experimenters used gene therapy techniques to tackle AIDS in the five test patients. The results are promising and “hint at something much more,” according to Dr. Carl June of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

The article points out in the second paragraph that AIDS has no cure, something that many articles fail to do when talking about proposed new ‘cures’ for HIV/AIDS. So that acknowledgment is good, because there is (for some bizarre reason) people who think that HIV/AIDS can be cured. This article talks about fighting AIDS, and in doing so also fights ignorance.

Build Your Own Solar iPod Charger

For those of you with iPods, you may want to ensure that you never have to worry about the battery dying. This is a neat use of small scale solar power, it’s a homemade solar panel that attached to a backpack using velcro that connects to an iPod.

The instructions are easy to follow, and one step is sipping on some coffee (which is hopefully fair trade and organic). If I had an iPod I would try making this, not just for cheap power, but for solar style.

The UK, so advanced

In another move that proves its not all about the GDP, the UK is moving forward to regulating energy effeciency. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been working on replacing “ineffecient” goods. This would set minimium standards for 14 energy using products, including commercial lighting. With a competative advantage such as this, the UK stands to make real progress in the environmental, financial and social fields.

Fight for your Right to Eat

Fighting hunger is an ongoing challenge in many parts of the world, so it is good to hear that the Right to Food Campaign is on the road to success in India. India is by no means a shining example of ending hunger, but with the work of organizations like the Right to Food Campaign circumstances in India can change.

“The Right to Food Campaign has succeeded in placing hunger at the centre of development discourse in India. The campaign hopes that this long-running case will culminate in the right to food becoming a fundamental right that can be made justiciable in any court of law in the country. The case and the accompanying campaign have established the importance of the law as facilitator, but the right to food also requires political means and people’s participation.”