eldavojohn writes “Is there life on Mars? Maybe not, but a superior question might be whether or not it has ever existed on Mars? Scientists are claiming that the best indication for this will be in newly found evaporated salt deposits on Mars which they have the ability to use to check for cellulose. Here on earth, little fuzzy fibers have been found in salt dating back almost 250 million years making it the oldest known evidence of life on earth. Jack Griffith, a microbiologist from UNC, is quoted as saying, ‘Cellulose was one of the earliest polymers organisms made during their evolution, so it pops out as the most likely thing you’d find on Mars, if you found anything at all. Looking for it in salt deposits is probably a very good way to go.’”

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coondoggie writes to tell us that researchers from Penn Say and New Mexico Tech have unraveled the mystery of lightning diversity. A new “Lightning Mapping Array” has been able to show detailed models on how lightning acts. “About 90% of lightning occurs inside clouds and isn’t visible to the casual observer, researchers stated. The researchers wondered if lightning that appears within clouds and the lightning that escapes upward or downward shared the same development mechanisms, researchers said. Lightning forms in clouds when different areas of the cloud become either positively or negatively charged. Once the electric field near a charged area exceeds a certain propagation level, lightning occurs. The type of lightning depends on where the charge builds and where the imbalance in charge exists in the clouds. The mechanism behind different types of lightning is what the new model shows, researchers said.”

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Filed under: Bad news, Products and services, Consumer experience, Merck and Co (MRK)

Shares of Schering-Plough Corp. (NYSE: SGP) and Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) were obliterated today after a major study cast doubt on the effectiveness of their cholesterol-fighting drugs Vytorin and Zetia.

Schering-Plough fell $5, almost 26%, to $14.47 in early afternoon trading while Merck plunged $6.67, or 15%, to $37.84. As the New York Times and other media outlets noted, the news from the American College of Cardiology couldn’t have been much worse for investors.

A scientific panel stated the drugs failed to slow the growth of plaques in arteries associated with heart attacks and strokes. It also urged physicians and patients to “rely more heavily on older cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins, which have proven benefits and can be cheaper,” according to the Times.

For Schering-Plough, the results are potentially devastating because both drugs account for about 70% of the company’s profit, according to analysts’ cited by the paper. You’ve to wonder how much longer Schering-Plough can remain independent.

About the only winners from this mess are the media companies. Those annoying commercials for the drugs helped fatten their bottom lines during a period of uncertain consumer spending. If the companies have any hope of salvaging these products, they are going to need to open up their checkbooks and purchase lots and lots of advertising.

Freelance journalist Jonathan Berr writes and edits the blog Ketchup and Eggs.

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Filed under: Newspapers, Politics, Presidential elections, Housing

While Congressional Democrats and candidates for the presidency have spoken out in favor of more extensive help for distressed homeowners, the leaders of the Republican Celebration, including John McCain, have been more reluctant to support a bailout of people who bought houses they couldn’t afford.

This is putting congressmen representing those areas hardest hit by foreclosures in a bind, as their constituents plead for help. What are they supposed to do?

This may be a case of a silent majority of people who oppose a bailout but aren’t making much noise. People who are desperate to hang onto their houses tend to be louder than regular joes who just don’t want their tax money being used for bailouts of irresponsible people — Who wants to be seen as a judgmental curmudgeon?

I worry that politicians will compound the housing industry’s problems because of political pressure, making doing the rational thing — which might very well be nothing — basically impossible.

When John McCain, in a rare moment of coherence got it right, the backlash was immediate, with an enthusiastic mob comparing him to Herbert Hoover.

The ideal bet for Republicans here is probably to stick to their guns on the no-bailout platform, and hope that the silent majority will get behind them.

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Filed under: Politics, Headline news, Housing

Alphonso Jackson resigned this day as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, becoming the latest Bush administration official to leave under a cloud. No word on a replacement.

Jackson, who most Americans couldn’t name in a bar bet, is under investigation by the FBI. He allegedly helped a friend who was paid $392,000 by HUD in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and allegedly punished the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) for nixing a deal with another friend, the record producer/developer Kenny Gamble, according to The Associated Press. The PHA filed a lawsuit.

“At a congressional hearing this month, Jackson repeatedly refused to answer questions about the Philadelphia redevelopment deal,” the story stated. “Last year, the inspector general at Jackson’s department found what it called ’some problematic instances’ involving HUD contracts and grants, including Jackson’s opposition to money for a contractor whose executives donated exclusively to Democratic candidates.”

Jackson was a disgrace who should have been forced out months ago. Instead, the Bush administration stood by its man even though most of Washington was calling for his head. This is particularly unfortunate since the American people need HUD at a time of turmoil in the housing market.

Let’s hope that the administration can find a skilled, competent HUD leader who can help the bureau become the eyes and ears for the government’s efforts to deal with the subprime mortgage crisis. Almost anybody would be a significant improvement.

Notice how this announcement came out at about the same time as the Administration’s overhaul of financial services regulation. This was not an accident. Bush officials are hoping that the media will focus on that rather than yet another in a never-ending series of scandals.

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Filed under: Bad news, Industry, Merrill Lynch (MER), Economic data, Housing

After a recent run-up in mid-March, many stocks in large money center banks and brokerages are back near multi-year lows. A great deal of news about mortgage-backed paper write-downs and poor first quarter forecasts is already in the market. So, what’s wrong? It would seem like most of the trouble is already known to the market.

There might be several things which could hurt that financial sector nearly as badly as the housing crisis. One is related to the current problem. There are $1.2 trillion in home equity loans on bank books. With many houses valued at below mortgage value, this could be a real problem. Home equity holders could block home sales if consumers do not get the money to pay-off both the primary mortgage and secondary mortgage at a closing. The could further gridlock the housing market.

Perhaps more troubling is that huge pools of credit card and auto debt haven’t injured financial company earnings. These are sliced into pieces and sold as derivative paper just as mortgages were. A lot of this paper is still sitting on balance sheets.

According to The New York Times: “what investors fear is that financial companies’ pain will not end with the troubled mortgages, which by some estimates have already resulted in more than $200 billion of losses.” And, they’re right to. Housing is not the only large sector of the US economy. There is a reason that a company like Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) fell another 14% last week. A lot of the bad loans and bad derivatives are not washed out of the markets yet.. That means that shares in banks and brokerages could make new lows.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

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Timothy found a profile in The New Republic of Jonathan Schilling, a 53-year-old software developer from New Jersey who works to keep Hillary Clinton’s Wikipedia entry clean and fair throughout the election season. “After he started editing her page in June 2005, Schilling became consumed with trying to capture her uncomfortable place in American culture, researching and writing a whole section on how she polarizes the public… [T]he attacks on Hillary’s page mainly take the form of crude vandalism… It’s different on Obama’s page, where the fans — no surprise — are more enthusiastic, the haters are more intelligent, and the arguments reflect the fact that Obama himself is still a work under construction… The bitterness of the fights on Obama’s page could be taken as a bad sign for the candidate. But it may actually be Hillary’s page that contains the more troubling omens. Few, if any, Hillary defenders are standing watch besides Schilling. In current days, the vaguely deserted air of a de-gentrifying neighborhood has settled over her page…”

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ribasushi writes “The last open day at the Big Hadron Collider is one week away. While I have a solid opportunity to go, I’m dumbstruck by the insane amount of things to see during the 10 hours of the event. Since I don’t know all that much about physics, I’m turning to the knowledgeable crowd here at Slashdot — what do you think are the most awesome 5 must-see things on the agenda next Sunday?”

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