Learning
Holiday Gifting: Jill Norgren Reviews The Slave Who Went to Congress
Slavery ended when Turner was a middle aged man. It was 1865, the American Civil War was over, and the era we call Reconstruction had begun. As a freedman, Turner joined the Republican Party and was elected tax collector of his county. In 1869 he won a seat on the Selma, Alabama town council. The following year he ran for the US House of Representatives on the Republican ticket. He won and served in Washington from 1871 to 1873. Like most incumbents, he hoped to be re-elected but another African American ran as an independent and split the Black vote, leaving victory to the fusion party white candidate. Turner returned to Selma. He resumed his life as a farmer and businessman but also kept a hand in politics including serving as a delegate to the 1880 Republican convention. more »
Julia Sneden: Niggly Things
Julia Sneden Wrote: When I was a child, my parents encouraged (or discouraged) my independence, in appropriate measure. They shared their love of vigorous physical activity. They fed my curiosity and encouraged my mental growth. A kid couldn’t ask for a whole lot more. By all lights, I should have matured into a calm, capable, well-adjusted adult, which, mostly, I think I am. But there are a few things in life that shove me over the edge into cranky-old-dame territory, and push my usually normal blood pressure into the red zone. more »
Stateline Editors Picks; What We're Reading: Top State Stories 10/26
Voters in New York City waited hours to cast ballots during the first time early voting has been allowed in the state in a presidential election. Recent mishaps involving mail-in ballots seemed to drive many voters to the polls. Massachusetts acknowledged it has not been able to determine the source of infection in about half of COVID-19 cases, an information gap that epidemiologists say could limit the ability to respond to outbreaks and control transmission of the disease. The Trump campaign and Nevada Republicans asked a state judge to stop the count of Las Vegas-area mail-in ballots, alleging that “meaningful observation” of signature-checking is impossible in the state’s biggest and most Democratic-leaning county. more »
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Scientists Use Gene Therapy and A Novel Light-sensing Protein to Restore Vision in Mice; NIH-funded therapy will now be tested in humans
A newly developed light-sensing protein called the MCO1 opsin restores vision in blind mice when attached to retina bipolar cells using gene therapy. The National Eye Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, provided a Small Business Innovation Research grant to Nanoscope, LLC for development of MCO1. The company is planning a U.S. clinical trial for later this year. “The beauty of our strategy is its simplicity,” said Samarendra Mohanty, Ph.D., Nanoscope founder and corresponding author of a report on the mouse study that appears today in Nature Gene Therapy. “Bipolar cells are downstream from the photoreceptors, so when the MCO1 opsin gene is added to bipolar cells in a retina with nonfunctioning photoreceptors, light sensitivity is restored.” ... However, no one knows how the restored vision will compare to normal vision. more »