Well, I talked to my brother briefly this afternoon (about 1:30), and he’s helping to cook over where he’s rooming right now. I don’t know if we’re going to get together today, or not, but at least we got a chance to gab for a bit. We’ll see where the day takes us, but I doubt anything will happen at this point. I do know that he’s getting fed and chilling out today, so that’s a good thing. If I don’t hear from him in an hour or two, I’ll chow down solo. [update, 5:07pm – He just called and said he wasn’t going to make it. That’s all well and good, but I missed out on getting together at Danny’s due to my sense of family and obligation to him. It’s too bad that I can’t get together with Dan today, but perhaps sometime this weekend will work out. ]

So far, being on call today has been slow, just a habitual this morning. (I was wondering if there’d be a rash of kids taking off with the force of holiday/family friction.)

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“I know I’ve seen the hymn in a hymnal at a very odd little church on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach (it’s hard to describe just how odd it is that there’s a church there at all – it’s as if they transplanted a miniature Spanish Mission into a largely-gay international shopping mall)… I can’t remember if it had music or not, but I may have to drive the hour and a half to find out. ” – via Barbelith

The Hymn in Question?

#90 God of Concrete
[Frederick R.C. Clarke and Richard Granville Jones]
[from The Hymn Book of the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada (1971 edition)]

God of concrete, God of steel,
God of piston and of wheel,
God of pylon, God of steam,
God of girder and of beam,
God of atom, God of mine:
all the world of power is thine.

Lord of cable, Lord of rail,
Lord of freeway and of mail,
Lord of rocket and of flight,
Lord of soaring satellite,
Lord of lightning’s flashing line:
all the world of speed is thine.

Lord of science, Lord of art,
Lord of map and graph and chart,
Lord of physics and research,
Word of Bible, Faith of church,
Lord of sequence and design:
all the world of truth is thine.

God whose glory fills the earth,
gave the universe its birth,
loosed the Christ with Easter’s might,
saves the world from evil’s blight,
claims us all by grace divine:
all the world of love is thine.

Man, that’s great. I would really like to hear a chorus of people singing that… Somehow, picturing a congregation wearing choir robes, Green Lantern rings and hard hats is wayyy too nifty to me.

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William S. Burroughs – A Thanksgiving Prayer (mp3 format) (The snarky side of things.)

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Nifty Cams all over the planet.

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Spray-on female contraceptive to start trial

The world’s first trial of a female contraceptive spray will begin in Australia early in 2004. The approach involves a new technique for transferring hormones across the skin and a novel low-dose contraceptive hormone.

Separate studies involving each component suggest they will work well in combination, says the Population Council, a US-based non-profit organization involved in the new trial.

The spray will be used daily to deliver Nestorone, a synthetic progestin for which the Population Council holds the rights. Nestorone cannot be used in pill form because it is completely broken down in the gut, preventing it from entering the bloodstream.

Trials in women using Nestorone in a skin gel or under-the-skin implant show it works well and is safe, says Ian Fraser, a reproductive medicine expert at the University of Sydney, where the new trial will be conducted.

But for some women there could be advantages to using it in a spray. For example, the hormone would be transferred almost instantaneously across the skin, so it could not be washed off, unlike a gel.

“This sounds excellent, like it would be very easy for women to use,” says Louis Salamonsen, who is involved in contraceptive research at the Prince Henry Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne. “The only disadvantage compared with something like an implant is that a woman would still have to remember to do it every day.”

Steady delivery

The spray system exploits the properties of chemicals also used in water-resistant sunscreens. These compounds modify the structure of the outer layer of skin, allowing sunscreen – or in this case hormones – to penetrate.

Trials of the technique for use in hormone replacement therapy in post-menopausal women show that once under the skin, the hormone collects in a reservoir. This reservoir then very slowly diffuses into the bloodstream.

“This means we get a nice steady delivery of the drug – very different to what happens with the contraceptive pill, where there is a quick peak with a rapid drop-off,” says Andrew Humberstone, director of research at Acrux, the Melbourne-based company that is commercialising the spray technology.

This could mean that lower doses would be needed in a spray, compared with existing pills, potentially reducing the risk of side effects. It also means a Nestorone spray would not have to be used at exactly the same time every day, unlike current contraceptive pills.

Nestorone itself could have other advantages over current contraceptives. Breast-feeding women could use it knowing that any hormone that was secreted into milk would be broken down in their baby’s gut.

“Most contraceptive research today is about giving women a choice,” says Fraser. “There are cons with everything. But for some women, I think this will turn out to be an excellent method of contraception.”