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Saturday, July 31, 2004 Recent Reading The Confusion by Neal Stephenson. As a volume continuing the Baroque Cycle (started by Quicksilver) the style is in the same vein. If you liked Quicksilver, you'll probably also like this one. I personally kept putting off reading it the past two months because of its imposing bulk and the author's penchant for being long-winded. Another note: as I was reading parts of The Confusion, I thought it might be more exciting to read an actual non-fiction economics and history book. Or maybe I just don't have the patience to read fiction any more. The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. I went through high school biology before this book became required reading in the classrooms, but I did see Outbreak. At any rate, this makes me appreciate the fact that the bacteria that I work with are babies compared to these viral Godzillas. This is not something you would want to read right before going to bed--because you'd be wishing that you were living like the bubble boy before you're through. Preston focuses on the filoviruses which include Marburg and various Ebola strains. There are particularly gory descriptions of these viruses' effects on humans: severe hemorrhagic fever that in about a week's incubation time, turns a normal person into a liquefied bag o' viruses. Most of the book deals with an Ebola outbreak in a Virginian monkey lab--scary not because of the infection and spread itself but of bureaucracy, politics, personal fears, and grudges that get in the way of more effective containment. Current reading: I am in the middle of Birth of the Chess Queen by Marilyn Yalom which depending on mood, an interesting history about a chess piece or a blatantly feminist take on European history. Also, I'm on the verge of starting Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague. Not surprisingly, I'm more excited about starting the huge tome on infectious diseases than a piece of fiction that won a National Book Award. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:21 AM : Friday, July 30, 2004 Update on Food I am not sure if anyone liked the pie even though people kept telling me they liked it because my advisor made a big production of it. However, I do know people liked the potato and cucumber salad because I managed to sneak it into the pile of other main dishes without anyone looking and only when everyone tasted everything people began demanding, "Who made the potato salad?" Of course they made me tell them the recipe. Once again, I dodged the bullet of bad food. I wonder if my luck will hold the next time I have to make food for other people. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:58 PM : Recipe Craziness Cooking is only fun when I have free time and when I can't think of anything else to do. Last minute potluck parties are bad because I can never think of what to make. Besides, it also means that I have to go out and buy stuff. I usually don't have enough food in the house to feed twenty people. So after going through many recipes, I decided on some things I found in the magazine Bon Appétit. Yes, I know this is a stupid yuppie magazine, but I was getting desperate and at least it had pictures so I had some vague idea how the recipes should turn out. That said, I took some major liberties and altered the said recipes--due to laziness, ingredients I couldn't find, and ingredients I didn't have the stomach to put in. Potato and Cucumber Salad 2 large cucumbers 5 lbs. golden potatoes 6 tablespoons white vinegar 4 teaspoons kosher salt 1/2 cup mint, finely chopped 1 cup thinly sliced onion 8 radishes, thinly sliced 3/4 cup mayonnaise Note: Except for the number of cucumbers, I estimated everything else. I would guess it would serve 10 to 12 people, if you don't have many other dishes. Dissolve the kosher salt into the vinegar. Thinly slice the cucumbers and add the salt-vinegar mixture. Let the cucumbers soak in this solution overnight. Meanwhile, peel and cut up the potatoes and boil them. Do not cook them over 30 minutes or they will get mushy! Drain potatoes and let them cool. Once the cucumbers are done soaking, drain them, and mix them in with the potatoes along with the onion, radishes, and mint. Add some pepper. Finally add the mayonnaise and mix well. It can either be served refrigerated or at room temperature. Apricot Apple Pie Topping: 1/2 cup grape nuts 1/2 cup sugar 1/3 cup all purpose flour 1/3 cup almonds, chopped 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) chilled margarine Filling: 1 1/2 lbs. apricot preserves, halved 1 lbs. apple filling 5 tablespoons of sugar 4 tablespoons cornstarch 1/8 teaspoon almond extract Note: I also estimated everything here except for the margarine. I bought the crust (9 inch, deep dish) instead of making it from scratch because I didn't have time. Preheat the oven to 350 F. For the topping, add all the ingredients except the margarine. Cut up the margarine and add it last. Mix until everything is on the verge of forming moist clumps. For the filling, add apricots, sugar, cornstarch, and almond extract and mix. Add to the crust. For the next layer, add the apple filling. Now add the topping and bake the pie until the topping is brown and the filling is bubbling. I recommend putting a tray beneath the pie when you're baking it because the liquid part of the filling tends to leak out. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:11 PM : Thursday, July 29, 2004 Ed Lewis Oh wow. I just heard about this too. Pharyngula has an excellent piece about this brilliant geneticist. I remember when I was taking a genetics lab with about nine other students and we would walk through the third floor of Kerckhoff past rows of bottled flies and the prof would tell us, "This is where Ed Lewis and Seymour Benzer work." And I remember being very impressed that these guys were still doing what they loved when other people their age were sitting on the beach enjoying the sun. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:32 PM : Francis Crick Yesterday, a great biologist passed away after a long battle with colon cancer. On one hand, I'm not sure what to say. As a student, I've pretty much viewed Crick as a historical fixture in science textbooks. I don't know him. I haven't even seen or heard him in person. Other people are way more qualified than I am to talk about Crick's life and work. So in a way, I doubt that my feelings or thoughts about this matter to anyone else except myself. However, I can say how I think his work has influenced me. Like most people, I heard of "Watson and Crick" before I learned that these were two separate men. When I was about nine or ten, I became fascinated with genetics. Which I suppose isn't that surprising now that I look back--what kid hasn't wondered why we look the way we do? I remember checking out a book from the local library with a picture of a simplified DNA helix and thinking, "That's so cool." But at that time, I was far more interested in how the thing worked. I never thought to ask about the people who figured everything out in the first place. Fast forward to high school biology. It was a horrible class. How I escaped it with my love of the subject intact is still somewhat of a mystery to me. There were very few bright spots that I remember about the class and none of them had to do with the teacher. One was the showing of the movie The Race for the Double Helix. I actually don't remember exactly what I saw but I do remember coming away with the feeling that science wasn't just a bunch of stuffy people in lab coats, science was exciting. About two years ago, when I was in my last term at Caltech, I decided to take a neurobiology course about the correlates of consciousness just for the heck of it. The class was taught by Christoph Koch--one of Crick's last collaborators. The textbook for the class, co-written by Crick, was still in its rough draft form and the students in the class were invited to submit suggestions for revision if we came across any errors. Crick never visited the class, but his collaborator had plenty of stories about him and what we learned was infused with Crick's ideas on consciousness, perception, and self. This was literally the kind of thing that made students apply to grad school instead of medical school. So aside from his actual work, Francis Crick is an inspiration. Anyone can navel-gaze and psychoanalyze and say "This is who I am." But I have more admiration for those who really dig down deep to the fundamentals--all the way to the atomic level--to find out really who we are. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 1:49 PM : The Thursday Threesome: Knit One, Purl Too Onesome- Knit one: Do you have a crafty hobby? Knitting, stitching, scrapbooking or model building, whatever it is, tell us about it! Or is there a crafty hobby you'd like to take up if had the time and/or money to do so? No, I do not have a crafty hobby. I don't have an interest even if I did have the time and money. I'm not the domestic type. At one time my mother did try to interest me in sewing and knitting but I simply didn't take to it. I guess I don't have the type of patience to deal with that kind of thing. But to be fair, I didn't take to the computer programming my father tried to interest me in either. Twosome- Purl: Or rather, pearl. What's your birthstone? And while you're at it, what's your sign? *g* I always thought that birthstones were something the jewelry industry cooked up to increase sales. Anyways, my birthstone is topaz or citrine--which I never thought was very interesting. The only time I was really interested in rocks was when I took a geology class. I'm sure I mentioned my signs elsewhere in the blog, but here they are again: monkey, scorpio. Threesome- Too: Too much? Have you had enough of the political coverage already? ...or are you waiting for things to really gear up in the Fall? There's always too much political coverage. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:33 AM : Wednesday, July 28, 2004 Tangled Bank #8 Head on over to reagank.com for this week's compilation of biology posts. I promise it's more interesting than my rants about my neighbors and nonexistent cooking skills. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 8:11 AM : Pseudo Chef Aw crap. Apparently my former housemates have been spreading tall tales about me. Now my advisor thinks I'm an expert cook and I'm supposed to bring some sort of culinary masterpiece to the next party. I guess I'm off to ransack some recipe websites. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:51 AM : Tuesday, July 27, 2004 News? Kill scientists, says animal rights chief. To the fury of groups working with animals, Jerry Vlasak, a trauma surgeon and prominent figure in the anti-vivisection movement, told The Observer: 'I think violence is part of the struggle against oppression. If something bad happens to these people [animal researchers], it will discourage others. It is inevitable that violence will be used in the struggle and that it will be effective.' So I guess this guy has never heard of Ghandi? Ogre? Octopus? Blobologists Solve an Ancient Mystery. Yep, with DNA tests, they have finally figured out that the blobs washing ashore are just bits of whale blubber--not decomposing aliens. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 1:43 PM : Silly Putty Since no one answered the previous post, I'll either assume no one knows anything about the earplugs on market these days or everyone thought I was just trying to be amusing. Well, I have said before that I could sleep through almost everything--but the key thing is: almost. I thought getting my own apartment would also eliminate what I found so annoying about roommates and dorms, but no. And did I mention that I also had a thesis committee meeting yesterday? Even though I didn't fall flat on my face, it's a bad idea going through those things feeling spacey. So last night I picked up some Mack's Earplugs. It's like putting silly putty in your ear except you don't have to stick anything down your ear canal. I think they sort of worked although I still heard my crazy neighbors slamming their doors. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:49 AM : Monday, July 26, 2004 Must. Need. Earplugs. Arg. I feel like I've done an all nighter. My neighbors are crazy. I got woken up twice last night--first by loud X-rated noises and second by a loud argument about money. I'm definitely going to get some earplugs. Anyone recommend a good brand that works? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:43 AM : Sunday, July 25, 2004 In Lieu of Strange Dreams FavIcon from Pics. The FavIcon from Pics makes it easier to create icons for your web pages. Simply select a picture, logo or other graphic (of any size/resolution) that you already have for the "Source Image" and click "Generate FavIcon.ico" I figure this might be neat for some people. I personally find favicons a bit on the annoying side. Ramblers without a cause. A lot of people put "rants", "musings", or "ramblings" in the title their weblogs. Those words are definitely not false advertising, but they increase the chances that I won't read that blog. The Works of H.P. Lovecraft. Horror written in overwrought prose. Love the stuff. The 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction. I've only read 5% of the books on the list. A softer world. A webcomic made of cropped photographs. More pathos than humor, I think. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:41 AM : Saturday, July 24, 2004 Human Beans An acquaintance remarked: "It's so different. Go to a Wal-Mart and everyone is so...they're like a different species!" Admittedly, I don't pay so much attention to how other people differ from each other. My view is a bit more egocentric--I feel like a fish out of water pretty much everywhere, from the local Wal-Mart to the more "trendy" stores. If the customers going to Wal-Mart are different than the ones going to the Co-op (the local snobby grocery store), it is only by class. They are equally as obnoxious whether they argue with the cashier over discounted coffee or the gourmet brand from Bolivia. Links: How Not to Talk. Good advice on how not to be a troll in a conversation. Parking meter fairy. (via Monkeyfilter) Man, I wish we had one here. You would think the town would get enough money from the tourists and upscale residents, but no. Sometimes I get the impression that the meter maids around here hover over cars with tickets in hand. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 11:41 AM : Friday, July 23, 2004 Something I Read and Some Rhetorical Questions I really respect and admire what he has done for Cancer Research, too bad he’s an atheist. That statement (which I read in the comment section of another weblog), for some reason, completely rubbed me the wrong way. Does the commenter wish that research be reserved for religious people? Does my faith (or rather lack of) make me a bad person even if I have good intentions for everything else? Do I really have to point out all the examples of religious people doing something bad? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:16 PM : Thursday, July 22, 2004 Complements from the Mosquito Mosquitoes are not among some of our more beloved of insects even if Earth is some sort of endangered mosquito preserve. Not only will they take your blood and leave an itchy bump on your skin that won't go away for days, they are also vectors for various diseases, including malaria. Although malaria generally thrives in locations close to the equator since the parasite's growth cycle is temperature dependent, those of us in cooler climes shouldn't think that we're completely safe. Forty-one percent of the world's population live in malaria's range with an estimated 700,000 to 2.7 million deaths from the disease each year (data via the CDC). Malaria has been eradicated from the United States since the 1950s, but the threat of reintroduction is a very real possibility. Two species of Anopheles mosquitoes capable of carrying malaria are still quite common in the U.S. Malaria is caused by various species of Plasmodium, a protozoan that requires Anopheles as host. The life cycle of malaria can get quite complicated but the gist is this: Plasmodium sexually reproduces in the mosquito gut. The offspring then enter the salivary glands where they are injected into a person when the mosquito feeds. Plasmodium migrates to the liver where they will asexually reproduce, then enter the blood stream where they will asexually reproduce some more (killing a bunch of blood cells in the process) with a few becoming gametes that would be taken up by another passing mosquito for the cycle to begin again. But things aren't so simple--mosquitoes aren't just passive syringes filled with Plasmodium that just happen to fly too. Out of all the parasites that the mosquito sucks up from an infected person, only a few of them will survive to sexually reproduce in the mosquito gut and subsequently infect the mosquito's next meal. So what happens to all those other parasites? They don't just disappear--so do they just die or are they killed in some way? In a recent paper in the journal Cell, Blandin et al. show that, yes, most of the Plasmodium parasites are killed--but get this--by the mosquito's own immune system. Insects do have immune systems, albeit a simpler innate one. What researchers found was that the mosquito TEP1 protein, which is very similar to complement in other organisms, was involved in parasite killing. So what is complement? Complement (so named because they "complement" the activity of antibodies) proteins are found in plasma and make up part of our innate immune system. These proteins help fight infection by not only acting as enzymes to directly kill the pathogen, but also latching onto the pathogen's surface so that phagocytes can recognize and engulf the foreign invader. The authors in the Cell study examined the interaction between the mosquito innate immune system and the parasite by using the related protozoan Plasmodium bergei which infects African rodents (Plasmodium falciparum is the leading cause of malarial deaths in humans) and a strain of Anopheles gambiae which is resistant to P. bergei. The researchers were able to follow the parasite in the mosquito by tagging P. bergei with the green fluorescent protein (GFP). Normally, when Plasmodium species are taken up by the mosquito in a blood meal, the gametocytes (the sexually reproducing form of Plasmodium) undergo a transformation--killing the host red blood cell--and become free-living gametes. The gametes are fertilized and in a couple of hours, the parasite transforms again into motile form called the ookinete. About a day after that, the ookinete buries itself into the mosquito gut and makes an oocyst on the outside of the gut. Then Plasmodium replicates, splits up the oocysts (which occurs within one to two weeks), and the next form, the sporozoites, migrate to the salivary gland where they will journey to their next host when the mosquito gets hungry again. Blandin et al. showed that when Plasmodium tried to penetrate the gut as the ookinete in resistant as well as sensitive mosquito strains, the parasite became coated with TEP1. The researchers concluded that many of the parasites were killed at this stage because when TEP1 gene expression was blocked using RNAi (in other words, they prevented the TEP1 protein from being made), practically all the ookinetes survived. One difference between resistant and sensitive mosquito strains, however, was that more Plasmodium survived in the sensitive strain. Since the TEP1 sequences from both strains showed many differences, particularly in the thioester bond of the protein, it is possible that this part of TEP1 is required for killing Plasmodium. So what does this mean for malaria research? Well, for one thing, scientists now have another avenue for stopping the malarial parasite--by killing it with the mosquito immune system even before it gets into a human. Somewhat related previous post, a more biochemical approach to malaria: Evil Fava Beans Which May Not Be So Evil After All. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:20 PM : The Thursday Threesome: If it can go wrong... Onesome: If-- Ever hear of that guy Murphy? If you have a story that can add to his legacy, can you share it here? When it comes to things going wrong, I'm actually quite laid back about it. Sure, I can rant and rail as well as the next person, but, things could be much worse. That faux pas you inadvertently blurted out during lunch could have been televised. Just think of all the things that you have done right in your life. One bad day isn't going to kill you. But if you really want to read about other people's misfortunes, see this post. Twosome: it can-- What is it that you can never remember to get correct? Is it which way to turn the wrench to loosen the screw? How about directions to that one restaurant? ...or maybe it's people's names? What is it you call for assistance on? I eventually remember people's names but I'm definitely not as good at it as others. I always remember faces first and for people who don't "resemble" their names, I have the hardest time. Spelling is also one of my weaker points. I would have never made it out of the classroom in a spelling bee. I used to never remember "Wednesday" or "occasion" but I think I got it down now. My current word I'm working on now is "curiosity". I never remember if there's an extra "u" or not. Threesome: go wrong...-- ..and the big finish: what was the last thing you had go so gloriously wrong that all you could do was just stare in awe at the aftermath? I mean, come on, you can tell us When I was much younger: I completely forgot a piece in the middle of a piano recital. This is probably one of the reasons why I hate memorization (see previous post). Public humiliation is a harsh taskmaster. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:57 AM : Wednesday, July 21, 2004 Lend Me Your Ears Lynn Sislo over at Reflections in d minor wishes that she had done more memorizing poetry when she was in school. Me? I hated it. What better way to alienate young people by forcing them to memorize Shakespeare soliloquies and recite them in front of a class. And forcing them to do it again if they stuttered too much. Memorization isn't completely useless, but it certainly seems pointless when the instructor doesn't expect any comprehension or insight aside from regurgitation. I've spent too much of my life memorizing when I could have been more productive figuring out the hows and whys instead. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 1:17 PM : Tuesday, July 20, 2004 Version 2.2 This isn't the first time that I've made a sideways logo although it wasn't for this particular site. And that's probably as exciting as it gets. This template is pretty spare--neutered even more than the last one. The point is to eliminate anything that might graphically convey gender and a certain personality (color, font choice, style, images) and focus on the words. Of course, this would not work on the repeat visitor; such things tend to be ignored over time. I don't have a screenshot yet to show how it should look like (and I haven't tested the layout yet in other browsers besides MSIE and Firefox), but some hints: The font for the main body is Verdana, 11px. The links in the navigation box is Arial, 11px. None of the tables should be overlapping. I had wished to fix the title and the navigation, but position:fixed doesn't work in Internet Explorer unless I added some code to change position:absolute to act like position:fixed but the end result would be that I couldn't use both. Ah well. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 2:48 PM : Really Pissed Now All right, who (or perhaps what) the heck is hijacking my classmates' email and sending me suspicious attachments? Why don't people just automatically delete weird looking e-mails? I listened to a bunch of secretary ladies from the medical center on the shuttle talking about "innocently" opening e-mails and getting their computers infected. Those same kind of secretary ladies like to forward a barrage of e-mails to people's accounts (including mine) even when there aren't any virus scares. Down with the secretary ladies! Also, I'm in the process of writing my qualifier and all my abbreviations are getting autocorrected to copyright signs. Damn MS Word! [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:59 AM : Monday, July 19, 2004 A Comment The library would be a great place to do some studying except for all the people moving around. No matter how secluded the desk I work at, somebody has to come lurking around pretending to find a book. Over-the-shoulder hovering is one of my biggest pet peeves. Whenever another person so "casually" comes around I'm really tempted to go ballistic and shout "Go away!" before tearing their throat out. Some people might accuse me of not having enough curiosity, but I think there is definitely a distinction between a questioning attitude and outright nosiness. I certainly won't be looking at what you are working on--it's not that I'm apathetic or don't care. Aside from the people who make enough ruckus to qualify themselves as exhibitionists, I just respect other people's privacy. And gosh darn it, I wish people would respect mine too. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:20 AM : Sunday, July 18, 2004 Reading and Anime Update What Einstein Told His Cook: Kitchen Science Explained by Robert L. Wolke. If you want to find out the science behind cooking without being bored to tears this book does a fine job. Wolke's writing is witty and entertaining except for one fatal flaw (or perhaps virtue depending on how you look at it)--it's written for the great unwashed masses. I mean, I appreciate the play with words, but I sort of felt like I was being talked down to. Perhaps that was just my own impression; I'm not exactly the book's target audience. If you think warm water takes longer to boil than cold water, though, this is just the book for you. Not only can you find out why the fats on the nutrition label don't add up, but also why there are holes in crackers, how vinegar is made, why your thermometer won't explode if you place it against the bone of the bird you've stuck in the oven the last four hours, and why you won't get cooked if you stand next to the microwave. Other reading: I swear I'm trying to finish the other books as fast as possible. It's just those darn science journals getting in the way again. Yami no Matsuei (Descendents of Darkness) is what some people would call shoujo anime (anime aimed for girls) despite all the male main characters, numerous female victims, and tons of violence. Perhaps all of this would immediately earn a negative review from me, right? Ah, well no. By the last episode, I found myself strangely feeling reluctant that it was ending so soon. I mean, the bad guy somehow got out alive--who doesn't want to know what he's planning next? The premise is that the afterlife consists of a bureaucracy which processes souls after people have died. Sometimes, though, people die from unforeseen circumstances--i.e. murder--and the Shinigami or gods of death are called in to investigate. So in a way, this anime can be viewed as a series of murder mysteries except that we already knew who did it. Actually, that was pretty much the only thing I found annoying: there were points in the story where things couldn't be made any more obvious. Tsuzuki Asato is one of the Shinigami who in addition to being a ditz with a sweet tooth is the most powerful of the gods of death. But despite his easy going attitude, he has a hard time keeping a partner. The first episode introduces Tsuzuki's latest partner Kurosaki Hisoka, a moody teenager who died under mysterious circumstances. The villain is the psycho-serial killer-doctor Muraki Kazutaka who likes to claim that all the murders were done for "research". A major part of the story deals with the relationships between these characters which is more like shounen-ai between bishounen than your typical western buddy cops and cartoony villain. It can get quite dark at times, but it's not a total angst-fest; it's occasionally punctuated with humor. But if you're the type of person who's squeamish and conservative about blood and same-sex themes, you might want to skip on this one. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:02 AM : Saturday, July 17, 2004 Silver Linings I love stumbling on wacky stuff while I'm searching for something completely different. For instance this: A review on bacterial silver resistance by somebody named Silver. Makes one wonder if this is just one big joke played by the journal on its unsuspecting readers. When most people think of bacterial resistance, they think of diseases that can't be cured by antibiotics like penicillin, streptomycin, chloramphenicol or a whole host of other drugs. Of course, microbes don't magically develop tolerance overnight. Most of the time what happens is that the bacterium acquires a mutation (most likely through an error in replicating its DNA) that gives the microbe the advantage in a drug-laden environment. Well, how would this mutation work? It could work a number of ways. For example, the mutation might be in a gene that helps the bacteria make its cell wall. If the drug you're hitting the bacteria with is something that prevents cell wall synthesis (like penicillin), then it wouldn't do a lick of good (or rather bad) to a mutated bacterium that has developed the ability to trap the drug in its cell wall to prevent it from interfering with its cell wall synthesis machinery. Another example is a mutation in a gene that encodes an efflux pump. Perhaps ordinarily, the pump helps the bacterium to get nutrients from its environment but at the same time allows antibiotics to get through as well. If there's a mutation in the gene that makes that pump so the result is a pump that doesn't work too well (or not at all), the bacterium could effectively block entry of any drugs. As for getting in nutrients--many of these pathways are redundant so the bacterium could still survive happily by using a backup mechanism. But why would we care if bacteria get on silver or not? On a first glance, it's like putting Cher in a molecular biology lab. Cher goes about her business never needing a lab and if we put her in a lab, most likely there won't be any interaction. Cher and the lab could care less about each other. But what if Cher got curious and perhaps got her hands on an electrophoresis box? She could get zapped. Then it would be the end of bad music and bad outfits although the electrophoresis box would still be there, to the benefit of the biologist. Silver and silver compounds are like the electrophoresis box; silver can be used in many medical applications. Silver salts are used to treat burns. Catheters are either made of or coated with silver. Bandages are coated with silver. Silver compounds are used in health food supplements and dental work. It's used to help sterilize water. Silver is considered to be bactericidal. How does it work? Many sites (including questionable ones selling snake oil) claim that the effectiveness of silver, which has been used in folk medicine for thousands of years, is due to the silver interfering with the bacteria's "chemical lung" and suffocating it. That's over-simplifying things, but basically, they are correct. Silver ions, once they get into the bacteria, inhibits one of its enzymes--a sodium-dependent NADH-quinone reductase. Basically this enzyme acts as a pump by moving sodium ions from one location to another. People call this a "lung" because this pump is similar to the proton pumps in our mitochondria--our cell's energy powerhouses. Without going into too much complicated chemistry, silver causes FAD (a chemical group associated with the reductase) to dissociate from the enzyme and the enzyme no longer works. Since the enzyme is involved in one of the many steps of bacterial respiration, oxygen is no longer converted to useful compounds--instead, it's left to run amok in the bacteria as oxygen radicals thus ultimately killing it. You can then see why it would be very useful for a bacterium to develop silver resistance--just as Cher could prevent herself from getting electrocuted by wearing a costume that is well insulated. Silver resistance can be transmitted between bacteria with a piece of DNA called a plasmid that contains a series of sil genes involved in resistance. These genes encode a variety of proteins that help the bacterium get silver out--one to bind silver, a pair to sense silver in the environment and transmit this information, and a series that makes up the efflux pumps in the bacterial membrane that transport the offending metal out of the cell. So about all those sites out there talking about adding silver to everything from laundry detergent to drinking water and trying to hawk "colloidal silver" therapeutics? I'll say: don't encourage people (like Cher) with bad taste. In other words, silver itself won't harm you, but if it's used widely and indiscriminately enough, we might find bacteria regularly donning the silver resistance plasmid instead of relegating it in the ugly clothes section of their wardrobe. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 11:15 AM : Friday, July 16, 2004 Bad Mail Sometimes I get stuff in the mail that's for the previous resident. Usually its just car ads, but today, I got a catalogue for magazines. Not your regular old magazines but ones featuring lots of busty females. I'm not a prude (that much) but I despise objectification. The first thought that went through my head was to burn the thing--preferably in front of a lot of horrified men who like "reading" the stuff. But then I felt sort of bad. I mean, why should I care what people like? I guess I just don't like the indignity of bad mail stuffed in my mailbox. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:11 PM : Thursday, July 15, 2004 Honestly I'm amused at how proudly some people show off their stats. 10,000 since the first six months they started a blog. 10,000 in a month. 10,000 a day. 10,000 an hour. Whatever. Sometimes I'm really happy when I break 20. And 90% of my hits probably come from deluded Google queries (or myself) anyway. And am I the only one concerned about my weblog's quality? I'm seriously considering ditching all memes (well, maybe not the Thursday Threesome--that one actually requires some thought) and not writing any more posts shorter than three sentences. Or maybe that might turn people off more. The problem is, there's something about my writing that I feel like I've lost between now and about a year and a half ago. Perhaps I'll never find it again. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:18 PM : Thursday Threesome: State Fair and Rodeo Onesome- State: What state (or territory) do you live in? Have you lived in any other(s)? Where would you like to live? And as a bonus: Any idea what year your state became a state? *grin* I am currently in New Hampshire (9th state, June 21, 1788). Other states I have lived in: California (31st, September 9, 1850); Tennessee (16th, June 1, 1796); Ohio (17th, March 1, 1803). I have also lived in Canada: Ontario and Quebec which both joined the Confederation at the same time (first) in 1867. I'm not sure where I would like to live. There's a certain thrill to moving around, after all. Twosome- Fair: Or amusement parks: Did you enjoy them as a kid? What was your favorite ride? How do you feel about them now? Ready to go wander around one again, sampling funnel cakes and corn dogs and riding rides until you're sick or would you rather just enjoy the entertainment or stay home and avoid the crowds? I've been to some amusement parks when I was younger. It's exciting when you're just a kid, but now, not really. I guess my tastes have changed. As for rides, all of them seemed cool back then. Threesome- And Rodeo: Have you ever been to or watched a rodeo on TV? Did you enjoy it or consider it a barbaric spectacle? If you liked it, what was your favorite event? Ever tempted to race barrels or ride a bull yourself? No. Considering the hint of my dislike of country music in a previous post, I really am not into country/western stuff. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:05 AM : Wednesday, July 14, 2004 Yet Another Nosy Person An acquaintance asked: "Where do you live?" What do you mean, where do I live? This is the boondocks, and there are only so many places a student is able to find. "I live in < insert a town next to Hanover here >." "Yeah, but where?" A perplexed look on my part. "Near the center of town." "Where?!" "I'm really close to the green." I'm beginning to get concerned because this acquaintance is practically frothing at the mouth. "No! Where do you live?" A paper towel is whipped out and streets and buildings are drawn in aerial view. Why does it matter so much about where I live? Is it because I usually keep to myself most of the time and now people are dying with curiosity about me? I don't want to give out my address--it's like publicizing your phone number and SSN on the internet. I reluctantly point to a random blob on the abused napkin. "Ohhhh." I don't like that tone of voice. Where do you expect me to live, in a pretentious upper class neighborhood? For crying out loud, I'm a student. Shouldn't that be obvious when you always see me in a t-shirt, a pair of ratty jeans, and an overstuffed bookbag? I don't have rich parents to help me live in "style" and give me extra pocket money to go mountain climbing during gratuitous vacations in Iceland (like some people I know). This isn't something that is completely unexpected, after all, I'm at what some people would consider a very posh institution. I actually get these kind of conversations on a regular basis. But what bothers me is how people can be so blissfully unaware how much of a class snob they are. What's wrong with not living like a business person working in a Fortune 500 company? [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:41 PM : Tangled Bank #7 Another edition is up at Rhosgobel. Lots of science-y goodness for starving brains. And as for my anonymity, I'm not so much anonymous as low profile. You could probably dig something up about me (like the fact that I used to work for a Nobel laureate) if you knew where to look. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:12 AM : Tuesday, July 13, 2004 Some Reasons Why Driving A Car Is Stupid
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:37 PM : Additional Cents on the Flu It isn't surprising that after the mass culling of ducks and chickens in various Asian countries the World Health Organization renewed their warnings about influenza outbreaks. By why should we be worried if right now, the disease is confined to fowl? What about the outbreaks that completely come out of left field? Well, no matter what sensationalists will say to scare us, new diseases don't appear suddenly out of nowhere. Usually, new and particularly virulent diseases have a habit of showing up in areas where there is significant intermingling of humans and animals. A virus may very well live undetected in an animal reservoir until an unwitting person comes in contact. The virus itself may immediately become pathogenic in the human if the immune system hasn't developed a way to combat it, or it may also live harmlessly in the person's body until it "mixes" with other viral genomes and gains an advantage. In a letter to Nature, Li et al. include their observations on the H5N1 influenza strain in Asia. Although especially virulent, H5N1 is currently confined to poultry. But if that's the case, why should we be worried? The problem is, this strain has become endemic in its avian hosts. H5N1 itself can be subdivided into several genotypes. The original genotype, Gs/Gd, which was originally isolated from geese in southern China in 1996, cycles according to season. Now, the most widespread strain is H5N1 genotype Z which evolved from Gs/Gd by reassortment with other strains in both water and land birds. What is most disturbing is that H5N1 genotype Z is now found in all kinds of birds throughout east Asia--from egrets, herons, and falcons to pigeons, sparrows, gulls, as well as domestic fowl. If it was this easy for the influenza virus to spread itself through different species of birds, it would only be a matter of time before H5N1 tries to reshuffle itself with a human flu virus like H3N2 to create a super-virus. As I've explained previously on my 2.5 cent on the flu, the influenza virus is a particularly volatile beast. Its very genomic structure allows it to evolve quickly to take advantage of any new niche it encounters. One such kind of alteration is antigenic drift. For a virus, this means that there is a mutation in its genome causing the virus to express different surface proteins. In influenza, the surface proteins are hemagglutinin and neuraminindase (hence the "H" and "N" used to identify a viral strain) which are important in the virus's infection process. But aren't mutations completely random so we would have no idea of when or where a particularly pathogenic strain might strike next? Perhaps there is some way to make that randomness a little more controllable. In a recent paper in Science by Smith et al., researchers developed a computer program to help predict antigenic drift. For their model, they used the H3N2 strain which has been documented since 1969 and mapped the virus's antigenic drift showing that with each successive change, the virus was trying to escape from being identified by the human immune system. The map they had constructed was verified by testing antisera with unrelated and related strains. This would undoubtedly be useful in helping develop vaccines for the seasonal flu outbreaks. And if there is an unfortunate tryst between H5N1 and H3N2, this might be a tool we might be able to use to combat their virulent offspring. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:42 PM : A subway map of cancer pathways. (via Pharyngula) This is so awesome. They should make subway maps for everything. It would have made memorizing stuff for classes (when I still had classes) a lot easier. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:04 AM : Sunday, July 11, 2004 Recent Reading I haven't finished any books this week, but I did pick up the tenth anniversary edition of a magazine called Giant Robot which is edited by Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong. And boy, if I didn't already know I was tragically unhip, this would have done it in for me. Giant Robot is about "Asian pop culture and beyond" which means between the ads for Ugly Dolls, anime, and underground bands I have never heard of, are articles and interviews about teenage gangs in Singapore, an artist who installs pictures of aliens from the old computer game "Space Invaders" on various public buildings (whether people want them or not), as well as (you guessed it) underground bands I have never heard of. This sort of cool, grunge image is interesting but hard to identify with. Marketers probably read this in an effort to find out what the next trend is, although if this magazine already made it to the New York Times, any PR person caught with this is woefully behind. But I won't say it's entirely geared towards the Asian fanboy or fangirl who've colored their hair and ride skateboards to school (if they even go there) although it is written in that perspective. For me, as an Asian raised in the predominantly white Midwest and south and trips to "Chinatown"--even if it was only three stores--was a major event, this kind of Asian American experience that can only be witnessed on the coasts feels quite foreign to me. They may approach things with humor--such as how the Asian grocery store in a Mississippi community is the only place that makes any money during the catfish fest because they're the only place with a liquor license or how a San Franciscan artist discovers that a lot of Chinese restaurants in the Midwest serve an abomination that definitely isn't Chinese food called crab rangoon (fake crabmeat and cheese wrapped in wonton) that only Americans would eat. I'm just a little sad that what some American might consider Asian is really just another American product after all. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:36 AM : Friday, July 09, 2004 More Links: Museum Merges Science, Fiction. Mystery solved! So I was flipping through the photo gallery when I came upon a picture of a sandworm head. That looked mighty familiar. It was then I realized that I had indeed seen it in a movie when I was much younger. I did not know the movie of the title then, but I do now--Dune. Maybe I should read the book one of these days. Fewer Noses Stuck in Books in America, Survey Finds. All demographics are reading less? They blame the internet? Hey, there's lots of reading to be done on the internet. True, some stuff is dreck, but there's also a lot of good stuff too. I'm not sure if I read more or less than other people my age, but I certainly haven't read all the "classics" that I should have. Reunited, and it Feels So...What? "It can't be, I reasoned, that there aren't more people like me. It can't be that everyone else who graduated in 1984 is married, kidded, and rich. It can't be that everyone else knows all the words to the alma mater, a song that ends by pledging allegiance to God, country, and our school. It felt that way, though, at the reunion. Those who never fit the mold, I know, are not likely to age into it. Those people do not tend to attend reunions." Yes, I'm going to be one of those people who tries to avoid reunions at all costs even if I develop some morbid curiosity about what my former classmates are doing. I'm not into social reminiscing about something I have never experienced. Of course, if they are curious about what I'm doing, all they will have to do is google me and eventually they'll stumble upon this blog (and they'll find out more about me than they'll ever want to know). [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:10 PM : Link-Filter Somatic diversification of variable lymphocyte receptors in the agnathan sea lamprey. (Here's a brief news article.) They look like a cross between a worm and a leech--maybe they're escapees from a horror film--but lampreys are seriously underappreciated. These primitive vertebrates are used by scientists to study the evolution of our immune system. This recent Nature paper reports that lampreys do have an adaptive immune system although it isn't exactly like ours. Where we have antigen presenting cells to help stimulate T cells, lampreys don't have that extra antigen presenting step. Instead, the primary immune cells, the lymphocytes, get activated themselves. Lifestyle causes myopia, not genes. "Contrary to popular belief, people in east Asia are no more genetically susceptible to short-sightedness than any other population group, according to researchers who have analysed past studies of the problem. The epidemics of myopia in countries such as Singapore and Japan are due solely to changes in lifestyle, they say, and similar levels could soon be seen in many western countries as lifestyles there continue to change." This was one of the reasons my parents tried to curb my book reading habits when I was younger, but I don't think it worked. Bloggers Suffer Burnout. Boo hoo hoo. Popular bloggers complain about their readership getting too demanding. This is more the symptom of being too popular than in being a blogger. If your average blogger stopped posting for a month, no one would give a damn. 60 per cent of German men didn't shower today. I would understand it if they didn't have easy access to bathrooms. But otherwise, ew. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 9:59 AM : Thursday, July 08, 2004 Grr... Some people have serious communication problems. Why complain to me about stuff when you should go directly to the person you have a problem with? I tell them to do that instead of complaining to me, but they don't listen. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 10:13 AM : The Thursday Threesome: Not so much easy as addicted Onesome: Not so much-- --to do now that school is out for the students? ...or maybe a little too much to do for those student's parental units? What are you up to this July? Back for Summer Sessions? ...off to the beach? ...headed out on a weekend adventure? Surely you must be doing something < g >! Same old. Same old. Still in lab. Twosome: easy as-- Pie? Sure, how about your favorite pie? ...and hey, homemade versus store bought! Would you rather have Mom's Apple Pie or head on over to Marie C's for a slice of heaven there? Any kind of pie is okay with me, I guess. Except pecan pie or chess pie or whatever people call it these days. That stuff is nasty. Threesome: addicted-- Okay, what is it you are addicted to, that element of your life you simply cannot do without. Reading? The Net? Little porcelain dolls? Oh, yeah: Money? Nah, make it something you'd spend your spare change on... Books. Unfortunately, I haven't any time this week to make any headway through my to read list. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:31 AM : Wednesday, July 07, 2004 Into the Blogosphere Some of these essays totally went over my head. Does this make me dumb? But despite the obvious intense navel gazing, some of this stuff was interesting. One of the essays (by Brooks, Nichols and Priebe) mentioned this: "We found that first-year students at our institution were not particularly interested in the academic potential of weblogging, but they were interested in the personal and expressive dimensions. Students in upper level courses, including one graduate level class, reported that they prefer the personal and expressive weblog genres, but the academic potential is clearer to them and more obviously valued." Why is the academic potential preferred over the personal? Is it because this is more acceptable? Perhaps. I know I avoid talking about anything other than academics with other students and profs because I have the hunch that they will think less of me because of it. I found this essay on the gender and age demographics of the blogosphere thought-provoking. They also mention some stats on media coverage of bloggers: # more males (88%) are mentioned in the articles than females (12%); Also: "Blog authors themselves contribute unwittingly to creating a hierarchy within the blogosphere with adult males at the top. They do this by linking to “A-list” blogs, which tend overwhelmingly to be filter-type blogs created by men, thereby contributing to these blogs’ perceived popularity and status." Ha! Not me. And that's exactly the reason why I think people should put their reading list on a separate link page (like me) than shamelessly pandering prime linking space on their front page. Another essay found something that I found very humorous: "Colors that clash were present in 6.4% of the weblogs (n=18) (Figure 3). Colors that clash were defined for coding purposes as color schemes that distracted from the visibility of the words, and more specifically those color schemes that register first visually, before one realizes that there is associated text. This characteristic was present more often in weblogs by females, 55.6% (n=10), than in those by males 44.4% (n=8)." Also: "It merits some comment that the males and females in the "emerging adult" [i.e. in their 20's] category are almost equal in number, with the greatest disparity being between males and females in the "teen" and "adult" categories, where adult males and teen females predominate." Heh. I wonder why that is. "Within certain social groups, the scarcity of customized weblogs is in itself interesting. Within the demographic of adult males, 42.5% have made no discernable changes to their weblog templates. This works in opposition to the stereotype of the "adult male techie," likely to make changes and act as an early adopter of technologies. With the "teen female" demographic, the 53.8% measure of those who use standard templates does not seem significantly different than that of the "adult male" population." Hmm. < insert smirk here > [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 5:10 PM : More Observations: The neighbors' (different neighbors this time, not the ones into domestic fights) kids are really annoying. They sit in the yard yelling "Giddy-up! Giddy-up! Giddy-up!" a gazillion times without wearing out. I'm sure I was not this annoying when I was that young. I remember the teachers complaining to my parents at those parent-teacher conferences that I was too quiet. As I've mentioned before, I've taken to riding the shuttle to campus during the weekdays to save on gas (and my sanity from driving through rush hour). I've noticed that all the sixty-something-year-old ladies who ride the shuttle at the same time I do read literature (the stereotypical pretentious kind) while the shuttle is rumbling from point A to point B. I can't read anything on any moving vehicle or I'd get seriously ill, but when I'm a sixty-something-year-old lady, I'd definitely not be reading stereotypical pretentious literature just to impress the rest of society. On another note: I wonder how many sixty-something-year-old ladies read science books for fun. I also wonder how many sixty-something-year-old ladies read this blog. Probably zero. Linky-Dink The Language Construction Kit. Design your own language. A must have for wannabe fantasy writers who are seeped in the Tolkien tradition. Disease Cards. What card collection is complete without a set of Disease Cards from the CDC? Includes your all your favorite epidemic causing germs. (And yes, my microbiologist half just giggles in glee.) Mozilla Feeds on Rival's Woes. A Wired article that reports on the surge of Mozilla usage and MSIE's security flaws. Technorati tracks 3 million blogs. It's actually pretty impressive; it usually notices when someone links to me fairly quickly. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:07 PM : Two Dream Scenes They probably came from two totally different dreams I had last night, but they are the only things I remember: 1. I'm serving spaghetti to a woman who looks like one of those petulant models in an underwear magazine and her date. She tells me to hurry up. I completely lose it and tell her to do the cooking herself. She just stares at me as if I'm an idiot while her date tries to make excuses for her. 2. I'm at some sort of school where the cafeteria serves chunks of chocolate the size of boulders. Students are clustered around an announcement posted on the wall. I recognize all these students as the ones from Geeks U. and I wonder if this was some sort of grades post or honor roll. I look at the announcement myself, but I see no familiar names or grades. It looks more like a menu or a program than an honor roll. The dates at the top say: 1910-1946. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:40 AM : Tuesday, July 06, 2004 Another Anime Review Did I gorge myself on hot dogs and beer over the holiday weekend? No, I did what any sensible dork would do. Watch anime. Okay, so I'm not really an anime fan, but the last time my sister visited, she gave me copies of the stuff. And what was I supposed to do, "stare at the wall and twiddle my thumbs"? Well, enough of the snarkiness. At least that's the reason there's going to be a couple of these reviews during the summer. Fruits Basket. The title makes absolutely no sense whatsoever until you get halfway through the series. This show is both hilariously perverse and horribly didactic. And for some reason, it reminded me of this comic which I used to follow off and on. The main character of Fruits Basket is Tohru Honda, a high school girl whose mother recently died in an accident. In the first episode, we find her living in a tent in the forest because she's too goody-goody to impose on her friends and relatives. The forest, however, is the property of the Sohma family. Tohru ends up living with the Sohma although things aren't as peppy and cheery as Tohru's personality. The Sohma are cursed with playing hosts to the spirits of the animals in the Chinese zodiac and whenever one of them hugs a person of the opposite sex or becomes physically weak, they change into their animal counterpart. One can imagine the shenanigans that ensue, but on top of that, the Sohma family is completely dysfunctional. The head of the family is pretty much an egotistical and sadistic brat too used to having his own way. The rest of the family self-torments and obsesses over various things. Tohru, however, would make a modern psychoanalyst proud by dispensing advice and wisdom in an attempt to understand this troubled family. This sort of philosophizing and Freudian analysis from an apparent "airhead" (as one of the characters described Tohru) would usually make a normal person puke but she really turns out to be a bit of the wise fool. Yes, this show can be serious--and it drags at those points--but it is also incredibly funny. My favorite episodes were the ones that were completely off the wall, like the one where Ayame Sohma invites his brother Yuki and Tohru to see his new store which turns out to be a costume shop catering to "male romance" and the Yuki fan club episode where jealous high school girls with crushes on Yuki attempt to get rid of their perceived rival, Tohru, because he's always talking to her. Their plans are foiled, however, by Tohru's psychic friend Saki Hanajima when she invites the Yuki fan club over to her house. So I found it amusing, although I was wishing it had more of the slapstick outrageousness than the angst. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:45 PM : Sunday, July 04, 2004 Arguments and Lost Sleep I'm tired. And I wish I still had that neighbor who played bad music. I pride myself on sleeping through almost anything. Music, no matter how bad it is, is something I can handle. Arguments, apparently not. I was jolted awake in the middle of the night by door slams and stomping. And then there was the yelling and the shrieking which devolved into a one-sided shouting match with the man bellowing obscenities while the woman was reduced to a bawling, whimpering mess. The fight was about having friends over. Or it could have been something else entirely. Most of it consisted of the word "f---" or some variation thereof. I know I get mad sometimes. Everyone does. And it's completely normal for couples to have fights. But something about the quality of this one frightened me a little. Like the cowardly ostrich, I tried burying my head under the pillows, but that didn't work. I finally took the recourse of getting my CD player, putting headphones on, and turning up the volume--loud. I suppose I should invest in some earplugs too. Unconscious Mutterings
[posted by S. Y. Affolee on 6:41 AM : Saturday, July 03, 2004 Fahrenheit 9/11 Okay, so I gave in. Most of it was due to curiosity as I generally tend to shy away from the political if I can help it. It's not that I ignore the news (I read it almost every day) or that I'm apathetic (I think there are other people with my views who can express it more eloquently) but I'd rather think about other things on my time off. Besides, this kind of stuff usually makes me depressed about the state of humanity in general and Fahrenheit 9/11 itself was no exception. Stylistically, the movie did not impress me. It makes Saturday Night Live look like Oscar-worthy material. The tone was also somewhat jarring--irreverent humor at blowhard politicians and a bumbling and clueless president does not mix well with the more serious topic of war. Perhaps laughter (and the audience I was with did that quite a lot when Bush showed up on screen) is the best way to diffuse the tension but all it did was make me even more depressed after watching gruesome war footage. It's like Marie Antoinette declaring "Let them eat cake!" while the peasants underfoot rioted. Except in this case, the peasants were rioting against the wrong thing. The scene which struck me the most was of the mother from Michigan who had lost her son in Iraq. She wanted to visit the White House and on her way there, she encountered a shrine where a woman in white was wailing about all the children killed in the war. The mother was about to commiserate with the woman when another woman--who looked quite yuppie-ish--came by to denounce the shrine as something to con the gullible. "I lost my son!" the mother cries. "Other people have too," the yuppie woman retorts. The mother wanders away for an emotional break down. I actually don't like how Michael Moore tries to pander to the audience's emotions but this scene worked (staged or not)--although probably not in the way he intended. The people who are not directly involved in the messy part of the problem never realize that the people who are aren't mechanical pawns to be pushed around. You know how society continually tells you that you're unique and that you're not like anyone else? When someone you love dies, you don't want to be told that you're like everyone else who has lost a loved one. But the people swept up into the middle of the conflict fail to see the bigger picture until it is too late. Is Moore biased? Heck yeah, but the viewer comes away thinking the current state of affairs is probably more serious than he used to believe. The real message is not Moore's end narration that gave a mangled rationalization about class and hierarchy but what that mother who lost her child says during her break down. She rails against her own ignorance. The trick is to not blindly follow politicians (or even film makers for that matter) but to examine why you're doing something and what you believe before charging ahead. (Very Brief) Reading Update: How to Dunk a Doughnut: The Science of Everyday Life. By Len Fisher (winner of the 1999 Ig Nobel Prize in Physics). Fisher explains the science behind the fine art of dunking doughnuts (or donuts if you'd rather) and cookies as well as other mundane activities like using tools and adding up the grocery bill. His goal is to make science accessible to the lay person and to dispel the notion that science's sole purpose is for the betterment of humankind. Between his essays on how to catch a ball and the physics of sex, Fisher rails against what most people in science do today--to do research to find something they already have in mind. The real breakthroughs, he argues, comes from people who look at something because they want to and then develop technologies that they wouldn't have dreamed of before. Other Reading: Same as previous weeks. I have also finally obtained my very own copy of Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. I've read parts of it before (which could be said of a lot of famous science books) but not the whole thing. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:55 PM : Friday, July 02, 2004 Tangled Bank #6 Johnny Logic has compiled posts on a wide variety of topics for science fanatics. And even if you aren't a science fanatic, well, I suggest you head on over there and check out the links anyway. A Note on Shopping: Do not go to the grocery store on the Friday before the 4th. It's filled with maniacs wielding outsized carts looking for beer and hot dogs. (Yes, this means that I went to the grocery store today and nearly got run over at the orange juice and dairy aisle--which was conveniently located next to the alcohol.) [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 3:35 PM : Thursday, July 01, 2004 On Writing Well, I'm forcing myself to do some creative writing for this month. Mostly due to this. If you're curious, my efforts will be posted here. I have absolutely no idea where I'm going (no outlines, prior character sketches, yadda, yadda, yadda) except that the genre will be a mix of western and fantasy and maybe some horror. Who knows. And for those of you who don't give a damn about my speculative fiction endeavors, I promise I won't blabber about this through the month. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:39 PM : The Thursday Threesome: Yankee Doodle Dandee Onesome: Yankee- Hey, this is the 4th of July weekend here in the States; do you have any plans? Fireworks? Watching the Boston Pops? Hiding under the bed with the dog? No plans. Only the usual. Twosome: Doodle- Is there any paper safe from you, or are you a doodler? If you are, when are you most likely to doodle and what do you draw? Paper isn't safe from me, but this isn't because I'm a doodler. The best I can do are stick figures. I'm more of a writer and despite computers and word processors, I still like writing in longhand. Threesome: Dandee- Or dandy. It's one of my favorite words. How about you, do you have any favorite words that you like to use, just because you like the way they sound or just because you can? I don't have any favorite words. I'm more concerned about how to put a bunch of them together. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 4:41 AM : |
