Living-Today: Issues of modern living

VIRTUAL CHILD PORN

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down a federal law outlawing "virtual" child pornography as "overbroad" and unconstitutional.

The law banned sexual images purporting to be of children, but produced without the use of children. Such images could include actors who appear to be children or may be completely computer generated without the use of real people.

Tuesday's ruling was almost a complete defeat for the government. Attorney General John Ashcroft said it'll make enforcing anti-child pornography laws "immeasurably more difficult."

The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 "does more than prohibit pandering (of child pornography)," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in the court's majority opinion. "It prohibits possession of material described, or pandered, as child pornography by someone earlier in the distribution chain. The provision prohibits a sexually explicit film containing no youthful actors, just because it is placed in a box suggesting a prohibited movie. Possession is a crime even when the possessor knows the movie was mislabeled. The First Amendment requires a more precise restriction. For this reason, (a key portion of the law) is substantially overbroad and in violation of the First Amendment."

Federal law has banned child pornography for decades. But changing technologies, particularly the advances in computer graphics and the Internet, moved Congress to change the law in 1996 to ban images of a child who "appears to be" engaging in sexual conduct, or images that "convey the impression" of child sex, regardless of whether real children were involved in the production. The act also bans the knowing possession, receipt, reproduction, sale, transmission or shipment of child pornography.

In response, the Free Speech Coalition -- a trade association dealing in adult-oriented materials -- and other plaintiffs in Northern California challenged the law in court. A federal judge ruled the law was constitutional but a federal appeals court panel reversed the judge. The Justice Department then asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

(Thanks to UPI Legal Affairs Correspondent Michael Kirkland)

UNDERAGE DRINKING

For high school seniors, this can be the happiest and most memorable time of the year with proms and graduations. But it also can be one of the most deadly because of the drinking many teenagers see as part of the rite of passage, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).

"This should be a fun time, the end of another school year," said MADD national president Millie Webb. "It should be a time of great achievement and a time to remember, not a time they wish they could forget because they chose to use alcohol."

A study of prom-graduation traffic fatalities during nine spring weekends in 2000 found from 58 percent to 64 percent were alcohol-related, according to the National Traffic Safety Administration. More than 100 fatalities were reported each weekend.

MADD offers public awareness campaigns to make students and parents aware of the dangers of underage drinking. In most states, the legal drinking age is 21. MADD works with 20 other organizations and local groups to promote all-night, chemical-free parties.

Although the impact of underage drinking is usually measured in traffic fatality figures, another expert in the field notes there are other deadly consequences.

"People think this is some kind of rite of passage, but this is dangerous," said Bill Patterson, a former deputy director of the North Carolina Alcohol Law Enforcement Division. "They think alcohol is related to drinking and driving, but it's not just drinking and driving. It's also assaults, suicides, and accidents like falling out a window."

(Thanks to UPI's Phil Magers in Dallas)

DIABETES

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University said they've found direct evidence that a build-up of sugar in a cell's proteins triggers insulin resistance, the hallmark of type II diabetes.

Their finding also indirectly implicates glucosamine, a popular health food treatment for arthritis, as a possible contributor to the disease.

Type II diabetes mellitus, the most common form in adults, occurs when muscle, fat and other tissues stop responding to insulin's signals to remove excess sugar from the blood. The result is high blood sugar, which if uncontrolled, can lead to blindness, limb amputation and death from kidney failure.

"Cells don't respond to insulin itself," Dr. Gerald Hart, professor and director of biological chemistry at Johns Hopkins' Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences in Baltimore, told UPI. Hart, along with Drs. Keith Vosseller and Lance Wells of Johns Hopkins, authored the research, which appears in Tuesday's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Instead, Hart said the binding of insulin to human cells triggers a cascade of chemical reactions that ultimately regulates blood sugar levels.

Using rat fat cells in a test tube, the scientists discovered that if too much sugar becomes attached to the proteins inside a cell, it inhibits the function of other protein modifiers such as phosphate, thereby throwing off the cell's entire chemical balance. Hart said if the same proteins in diabetes patients are found to have excess sugar tags or attachments, it could lead to new strategies to deal with the disease.

Although diabetes can be controlled by diet and by carefully monitoring blood sugar levels, removing excess attached sugar might allow diabetes to be prevented or cured.

The research also suggests something else researchers have suspected -- that eating certain sugars can damage the body's ability to respond to insulin.

Hart said he believes glucosamine might be suspect in this process. Glucosamine is popularly sold as a nutritional supplement said to relieve arthritis symptoms. "When animals are fed large amounts of glucosamine, they always get diabetes," he told UPI.

Glucosamine is 10 times more potent than glucose or common sugar in causing insulin resistance in animals.

"There's no evidence in humans that (glucosamine) is dangerous," Hart said, "but there is also no evidence that it's safe." In light of the new findings, he recommended that the relationship between diabetes and glucosamine in the diet be investigated.

THE REAL SCORPION KING?

A recent finding attributed to ancient Egypt's King Scorpion may represent the oldest form of writing yet discovered, according to a New York Times report.

The discovery is a 5,250-year-old tableau of a victorious ruler, perhaps the so-called King Scorpion, who may have played a role in unifying ancient Egypt. If the findings are correct, it is the world's oldest known historical document, pushing back "known history" another 100 to 150 years, to 3250 B.C.

John Coleman Darnell, a Yale egyptologist and his wife, egyptologist Deborah Darnell, discovered the tableau in 1995 while surveying ancient trade routes in the desert west of the Nile. Their work will be featured in a new book to be published in June by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and on the upcoming television program, "The Real Scorpion King," to be shown April 23 on the History Channel.

The finding "may not be exactly 100 percent writing, only proto-hieroglyphs, but the tableau really is able to impart the who, what, (and) where of an event," said Darnell.

A comparison of the symbols on the tableau with later symbols suggest that "we may be seeing evidence of a rapid development from proto- to true writing occurring, perhaps in the lifetime of King Scorpion," said Darnell.

(Thanks to UPI Science Writer Jim Kling)