Pity poor Ed Markey. He's 72 years old, has been in Congress since 1976 – at this writing, 42 years, 3 months, 6 days. A United States senator for 5 years, 6 months, 23 days.
And yet yesterday he felt the need to get his picture taken with and endorse any and every word uttered by a 29-year-old first-term member of Congress who has lost her mind, if she ever had one – all so he won't get taken out in 2020 by someone as nutty as she is.
A team of scientists led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has looked to Africa's leopard turtle to create a potentially revolutionary oral "pill" that delivers insulin through the stomach lining of patients suffering from Type-2 diabetes. People afflicted with that form of diabetes usually require multiple needle injections of insulin a day to counteract dangerous levels of sugar that build up in their bodies. The new pill may completely eliminate such injections, which are often painful.
In designing the small capsule, called a S.O.M.A., or self-orienting millimeter-scale actuator, scientists drew on the curious shape of the leopard turtle shell; that shape allows the turtle to easily right itself should it somehow topple over onto its back. When the S.O.M.A is swallowed, it rights itself inside the stomach, using gravity to land and remain upright on the stomach wall. That orientation will ensure the capsule delivers the needed insulin to a patient via a tiny, biodegradable needle ingeniously placed inside it.
