Stickybuffalo.com

[note: this started as a response to charlie's tour de france post, but got a little too long for the comments thread.]

if you think that’s bad, just wait ’til 2012, when gene doping will be in full flower just in time for london.

“It is possible to introduce genes into people and change the DNA of some of their cells, genes that affect the way muscles function or the way that they heal after injury,” he said.

Although gene doping is probably still in its infancy, as techniques become more sophisticated naturally occurring hormones could be boosted or altered to enhance performance.

“In mice and in monkeys and in other tests that have been done, the animals have shown increased amount of blood production,” Dr Friedmann said. “Those mice have in fact become much stronger and much more muscular.”

…and we’re still at least a decade away from developing a test that will be able to detect it. some think it’s already going on in beijing this summer:

Dr Peter Larkins is a former head doctor for Australia’s athletics team and past president of Sports Medicine Australia.

“I think it is happening now,” he says of gene doping.

“I can’t believe that 10 years after gene therapy has been proven and we have mice that grow muscles twice the size of normal mice and mice that are called marathon mice because they run all day, I can’t believe the scientists who have been unethical enough to help athletes cheat for the last 30 years aren’t giving that technology to some people.

” Associate Professor Bob Stewart, a drugs-in-sport expert from Victoria University, is also pessimistic.

“We just have to accept the fact that athletes and biochemists are a jump ahead of the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) testers,” he says.

“accept facts”??! sounds like surrender talk to me!

seriously, though. the puritans and drug warriors and self-deluded nostalgia mongers who run professional sports (yes, the olympics are a pro outfit) have an extremely simple choice to make: either figure out a way to remove big money from the equation, or deal with the fact that athletes as a group are going to continue doing whatever is required of them to stay competitive. it’s unreasonable — hell, it’s unfair — to expect otherwise from people whose livelihood is competition.

and please, no lectures about sportsmanship and unfair advantages from the olympian sector, when the IOC already sanctions huge technological and economic advantages for certain competitors. why is it that the larger, developed nations always seem to do best in the medal count, anyway? is it because we’re naturally superior, or could it be that our teams enjoy superior training facilities and equipment, better coaches and staff, larger and more competitive recruiting pools, and more all-around institutional support?

drawing the line at drugs seems pitifully arbitrary, especially when the pace of development in the doping sciences is so fast that we can’t even agree on a stable universal definition of what “doping” is in the first place, or in some cases, as charlie notes, how to differentiate between doping and legitimate sports medicine. besides, as long as prohibition prevails and doping happens underground, the aforementioned institutional & economic disparities mean that only the most technologically disadvantaged dopers — the ones who can only afford treatments that the piss police have already figured out how to catch — will get caught.

it seems obvious that the hardline anti-doping stance is more ideological than anything else. but don’t take my word for it: ask WADA chair Dr. Gary Wadler why cannabis is also a no-no:

“Specifically, three criteria are used when considering whether or not a drug should be on the Prohibited List: (a) Does the drug or method have the potential of enhancing performance? (b) Does its abuse represent an actual or potential risk to an athlete’s health? And/or (c) does its use violate the spirit of sport? To be even considered for addition to the Prohibited List, the drug or method under consideration must fulfill at least two of the three aforementioned criteria.

The use of marijuana… is considered to represent a risk to the athlete’s health and its use violates the spirit of sport.”

that is to say, “drugs are bad, m’kay?”

So another person gets popped for EPO use in Le Tour.  Eporon, Mi(r)cera… It all seems to be advertised on the web by the same companies willing to sell Vi@gr@ via email. (Who buys this stuff to keep the spammers spamming? Someone must be!) Obviously the stuff is out there, and it sounds like the number of products won’t be decreasing any time soon.

I found an interesting tech. doc. on how it works, including info on CERA. Trilife has a small debate on testing Age Groupers  triathletes for it. The effects of altitude on hypoxia seem to cause a similar, potentially “unfair,” advantage. Heck, if the only argument is that it means the athlete isn’t naturally maintaining their level of fitness, then most of the Tour should go as they monitor and artificially adjust hematocrit all the time. I’d sure like to see who’s on the list of the “20 riders (that) had abnormal blood test results before the race“.

Now that things are starting to look up a bit in Iowa City, maybe the timing is right to post some potentially excellent news about oil.  Apparently, there’s a new company that’s figured out a way to turn agricultural waste (wood chips, wheat straw, or whatever leftover plant material is available in large quantities in an area) into crude petroleum in a carbon-negative way.  Surprisingly, they’ve convinced yeast and E. coli to literally shit oil. 

Apparently, bacteria shit is already very close to oil, so the DNA fiddling required for the final step is relatively minor.  The company says that the plants used to make the oil take more carbon out of the atmosphere than the oil itself will release.  Furthermore, since the end-product is still oil,  there’s no need to buy a new vehicle or convert your current vehicle to a new technology, or to invest in a huge infrastructure replacement project.  And, at the technology’s current level, it takes just a week for one 40-square-foot machine to produce a barrel of oil.  The linked article points out that it would take a machine array the size of Chicago to produce enough oil to keep up with America’s weekly oil usage, but surely the space requirements will decrease as the technology develops. 

Frankly, this seems to be too good to be true.  It sounds like something out of a Greg Bear novel (or maybe Vonnegut, since some are comparing these altered microorganisms to Ice-9), which may be why I have a vague feeling of unease about this.  Surely something this promising must have a horrible trade-off, right?  Still, I’m feeling a little less doomed than I was a few days ago.  Here’s to bug poop!