No UFO? Do not bet on it!

Thanks to this article I will not watch CNN all night to see if any UFO will hover over our blue planet tomorrow (October 14th).....no UFO! And I wanted to see one so, so bad!!!!! But wait...that black out last night...is still unexplained....It has to be THEM!

I know some people are really hoping THEY do not come because they will have to pay....big time!

Bookies William Hill have taken a £1,000 bet from Lawrence Trout, of Wiltshire, which will win him £1million if Ms Goodchild is correct.

And they have also taken bets from Ms Goodchild's UK relatives. Her Surrey based niece Rebecca Simpson bet £100 and her step daughter Kelly Mosedale wagered £50.

Via: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3046840.html

I took the image from: http://www.ufodigest.com/news/1008/images/no-ufo.jpg

Mr. Dolphin or Ms. Dolphin????

Ever tried to sex a dolphin? Me neither! But it seems like it is a difficult task for obvious reasons. A team of researchers decided to compare visible features (!) sizes, and scars! For those of you who get the wrong idea (admit it) I am talking about fins.

Via Nature News

"Rowe and Dawson found that male fins had significantly more scars than female fins, probably as a result of fighting. Male fins had a median of 15% scar tissue, whereas in females this was just 3.9%. Conversely, female fins tended to have a greater number of patchy skin lesions than male fins, with a median of 12.1% coverage compared with males' 6.8%.

The two then used a statistical analysis of scarring, number of fin nicks and fin size to correctly predict the sex of 93% of the 43 dolphins in the group. This laser-sighted technique could potentially be applied to other, less-studied populations of dolphin or even to other species, the scientists say."

It was a turkey "brown-out"

Yesterday 200,000 people on the Vancouver Island got their turkey roasting cut short. At 5:44 PM the power went out! We were lucky, our turkey was cooked! A (funny) logical explanation for this was: "Too many people were roasting their turkey at the same time"....from my Father in law! We had a good chuckle!!!!

Almost there....ahhhhh!

My personal best at a half-marathon was 1h 34 minutes 10 seconds...that was in Comox last March. After my bad results at the Lands End half marathon a few weeks ago I thought I was getting out of shape but I had no reason for that. At the Royal Victoria Half Marathon 2008 I realized, once more, that long distance running is all about pace....I missed my PB by a few seconds....15 seconds total! That's 0.71 seconds for every km....AHHHHHHH! Oh well....I was 26th in my age category which makes me quite happy!

Is this girl for real? You decide...

via:Cognitive daily

Hockey Night in Canada Challenge - My choice

Here is what I would like to hear at the beginning of every hockey game!

Gallo, not the first one! Nobel snubs!

Top 10 Nobel Snubs from SciAM. Interesting. I just wanted to say that Rosalynd Franklin did not receive the Nobel because she died before, it should not be counted as a snub!

The other ones

Want to know what the IgNobel prize is? CLICK HERE! Want to know who won this year CLICK HERE....chuckles garanteed!

To be fair...

I just wanted to come back on my last posting to be fait to Dr. Robert Gallo, a great scientist nevertheless. I found THIS ARTICLE that makes a good primer to Gallo's career.

"For the record, here is what Gallo did achieve: He first described retroviruses, which is the class of viruses to which HIV belongs, and he linked a retrovirus to a rare leukemia--this alone is deserving of the Nobel. (In an interview that I read, he considers this his most significant scientific achievement). Then, his lab discovered a "T cell growth factor" that turned out to be pivotal in sustaining the growth of T cells in culture, cells that are the target of HIV."

Gallo must be fuming, oh well...too bad!

Viruses are cool. Not because some of them kill people but because they are relatively so simple, yet so efficient! Viruses can make you famous, if you are working hard on the right project, at the right time, in the right place you can score big. The Nobel prize of physiology/medicine was awarded to virus researchers: Harald zur Hausen for his work on the papilloma virus and to Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of HIV. The reason why Gallo must be angry is that the science that helped link HIV to AIDS was developped by Gallo's team.

If you followed the story you might be aware that Gallo surrounded himself with a shroud of controversy, he was originally accused of science misconduct regarding samples from which HIV was identified, this was overturned after an appeal....but doubts are very resilient, I guess that's what happened to this scientist.

Human nature explained by science: A slippery slope?

I am a person of great skepticism and I almost never believe anything unless I experiment it by myself but I am convinved that human behaviour can be explained in plain scientific terms. Genes regulate many aspects of our personnality but the extent to which the gene effect will be measured involves social interactions and other things that cannot be explained in biochemical/genetic terms.

Yet, bot aspects of who we are are connected through genes, mind, conscience, perception, stress etc.... (May I propose a very good podcast about the effect of a crowd on human behaviour? CLICK HERE to access it) and the scientific community seems to be reluctant to create relationships between Science and Human Nature. According to an article from the Skeptical Inquirer there are two reasons that explain the distance observed between "hard science" and "social sciences":

"There are two overly concise reasons for the segregation of social science from biology.

The first has to do with a broad allergy to “reductionism”—in effect, trying to explain a social phenomenon by a physical or genetic cause."

The second and perhaps more significant reason for the segregation of the two sciences has to do with the appropriation of some biological and many nonbiological materials by various fascist groups, especially the Nazis. Consequently, there was plausible and understandable suspicion of attributing to genes any major social or cultural phenomena."

In an interesting intellectual twist, the author (Lionel Tiger) refers to a set of behavioral "vitamins" that explain our needs, when these "vitamins" are missing, problems seems to emerge. Curious about the nature of these "vitamins"? Read HERE

Conspiracy theories and stress in the population

As you are all aware, we are now facing times that are extremely stressful for many people here in Canada and in the US as well. Both countries are facing elections, both countries are involved in armed conflicts and losing soldiers, both countries are impacted by the financial crisis and the stock exchange meltdowns of the last few days....and we are allies and neighbours.I was reading my Vancouver Sun today and came across an interesting article about conspiracy theories and the reason why they become popular in times of stress (see my recent post on a supposed alien Mothership, predicted for Oct 14th, 2008).

It seems that when people's confidence is shaken, the same people will try to understand and many will start to see patterns when, in fact, there are none. This was replicated in the lab with the same conclusion:

"A quest for structure or understanding leads people to trick themselves into seeing and believing connections that simply don't exist"

Speaking of conspiracy theories I have to admit that I am a big fan of Adam Curry's Daily Source Code and it's podcast. I am a proud "Chucklehead" (Adam Curry's fan) and religiously listen to every single episode while walking on my way to work to Camosun college. I like Adam Curry (see picture above), he is a bright guy and quite funny but lately I think he gets a bit delusionnal, he seems afraid of everything and sees an amazing conspiracy against the freedom of everyone. I am not saying he is totally wrong and I think he is probably right on many issues....but he talks like a person that's really afraid.

Illustration source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lloyd-davis/308659540/

How old is HIV ?

This is from Nature news. I knew that an AIDS-like disease has been described way before the term AIDS was GRID. For sure the HIV has been around for a while.

Using a database of HIV-1 sequences and an estimate of the rate at which these sequences change over time, the researchers modelled when HIV-1 first surfaced. Their results showed that the most likely date for HIV's emergence was about 1908, when Léopoldville was emerging as a centre for trade.

Curious about the Large Hadron Collider?

Via: http://drop.io/dailysourcecode

So what is going to happen on October 14th, 2008???

I recently heard about October 14th, 2008....A mothership should come and we should be in contact with "beigns" from another dimension. Many websites are actually devoted to this event, whatever that event will/would/could/should be. This event is predicted by Blossom Goodchild, an Australian psychic.

We wish it to be understood that on the 14th day of your month of October in the year 2008 a craft of great size shall be visible within your skies. It shall be in the south of your hemisphere and it shall scan over many of your states.

We give to you the name of Alabama.

It has been decided that we shall remain within your atmosphere for the minimum of three of your twenty four hour periods.

During this time there will be much commotion upon your earth plane. Your highest authorities will be intruding into ‘our’ atmospherics that surround our ship. This ‘security field’ is necessary for us, as there shall take place a ‘farce’ from those in your world who shall try to deny that we come in LOVE.

Do you want them to come?....you can vote! Your votes will be tallied through telepathy!

Click HERE for more info! Keep posted!



Once again,lets apply the general rules of critical thinking...shall we???

Death by hot sauce

I was looking at one of my favorite blogs....the Bayblab blog and found an interesting post on pain perception. It appears that eating too much hot chili sauce can be lethal. It is not known how hot sauce can kill you but if you ever go a a shop where they sell hot sauce you will find these silly bottles covered with skulls, fire and whatever reminds us that in comes in as hot and goes out with the same burning sensation.....

Read this article

To study bacteria without growing bacteria

It is a well known fact: Bacteria are very diverse and adapted to a very specific niche. If that niche disappears some bacteria will adapt and a new niche will be found and exploited. There are only so many bacteria that can be studied in the lab and often these studies can be flawed because one cannot replicate the conditions under which the bacteria normally strive....and then comes metagenomics.

Metagenomics is the study of gene expression and genome organization in a specific environmental condition. This is quite useful when studying microorganisms that live in extreme conditions impossible to fully replicate in a lab setting. I found this article at the Science Daily site. It is about an article published in Nature by Philip Hugenholtz and MIT researcher Gene Tyson.

“By employing the techniques of metagenomics we can go beyond the identification of specific players to creating an inventory of the genes in that environment.”

“We find that genes occurring more frequently in a particular community seem to confer attributes beneficial for maintenance of the function of that particular ecological niche.”

I really think bacteria hold the secret of our long term survival on this planet, studying these wonderful cells will allow us to identify specific solutions to very complex problems....if we can only survive long enough as a species.

Dressing up for disease....

I have been saying that for a long time to my students including nursing and medical students. This article was publised on the New York Times website

"In 2004, a study from the New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens compared the ties of 40 doctors and medical students with those of 10 security guards. It found that about half the ties worn by medical personnel were a reservoir for germs, compared with just 1 in 10 of the ties taken from the security guards. The doctors’ ties harbored several pathogens, including those that can lead to staph infections or pneumonia.

Another study at a Connecticut hospital sought to gauge the role that clothing plays in the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The study found that if a worker entered a room where the patient had MRSA, the bacteria would end up on the worker’s clothes about 70 percent of the time, even if the person never actually touched the patient."

And I am working so hard!

On October 12th I will be running the half-Marathon in Victoria (Royal Victoria Marathon. I would like to reach a new milestone...a new personal best but I am afraid it will be impossible and it seems my VO2 Max is to blame for this. What is VO2 Max? In a nutshell it is the amount of oxygen my body can use and it is measured in ml/kg/min. Right now, my VO2 max is estimated at 56-58. Not bad at all but not enough....far from enough! I would like to achieve 1h 30 minutes...but my VO2 Max would need to be at least 62....I am almost there!

Last year, during the Island Race Series, I raced every other week. I had a lot of practice, a lot of speed work and also I was 8-10 pounds lighter (I am now 172 pounds). During one of those races, the Comox Half Marathon, I ran 21.1 km in a time of 1h 34 minutes 10 seconds. I tried to do this two weeks ago at the Lands End Half Marathon only to find out that I am not running fast enough, not because I am not trying but because my body cannot. I need more training, more speed work in order to increase that important VO2 Max value!

By the way, a new record was set today for the marathon distance....42.2 km in 2h 03minutes 59 seconds....that's 2minutes 56 seconds per kilometer....for 42.2 km. Haile Gebrselassie is a running machine, a biological machine with a VO2 max of about 82.....but he is way lighter than me (that's my excuse) ;-)

I will not complain again!

Everybody has to read THAT STORY

Genetic diversity can have an ugly side (I guess)

Sweaty T-Shirts and Immunity

A corny question to ask a prospective mate might be: So...what is your zodiac sign? A better question could be: So, what's in your HLA? A few studies suggest that people tend to choose their mates based on MHC dissimilarity. A paper by Chaix et al. published in PLOS Genetics demonstrates that European American couples are really dissimilar when MHC loci are compared....way more different than what is expected by pure randomness. Although this selection could be a semi-counscious choice as stated by the following:

"In a less direct way, other studies have focused on odor preferences: in “sweaty T-shirts experiments”, in which females were asked to smell T-shirts worn by different males, it was shown that females significantly prefer the odor of T-shirts worn by MHC-dissimilar males, although such preference was not found among females taking the contraceptive pill. However, in another sweaty T-shirts experiment, in which males where chosen from a different ethnicity from the females and females were not aware of the nature of the smell (contrary to the two previous studies), females significantly preferred the odor of males having a small number of HLA alleles matching their paternal inherited alleles than the odor of males having fewer matches."

The authors also mention that this selection could be totally up to the egg to "choose" the right sperm cell....

A little advice can go a long way!

Here is something I found on LifeHack.org. They post a list of important things that can help students get ahead after college. A very important one is the 4th one....Craft your own personna.
Here's what they write:

"In today’s world, one of the worst ways students damage their future careers is by sharing too much of the wrong kind of information online. Assume that everything you post online is going to be available to prospective employers, clients, or investors, all of whom increasingly turn to the Internet to research potential employees or partners. Keep the drunken stories either anonymous/pseudonymous, or marked as “private”, and be sure to build out public-ready profiles, under your own name if at all possible."

So always be very careful about what you decide to post on Facebook and other social websites.

Picture from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/87704480@N00/192719734/

May the best of ideas win

Google if offering up to 10M$ for an idea or ideas that will have an impact on the world....can you think of something? Click HERE to be redirected to their site!

A true inspiration

I do not consider myself as a religious person at all but Sister Madonna Buder inspire me, what a character and a warrior!

Science tattoos

I know a few students that have, somewhere on their body and I do not care, a tattoo of a molecule. For instance a known carcinogen or the famous double helix....anyway...if you are thinking of getting one or if you already have a science tattoo, THIS SITE might be of interest to you.

Picture source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/_tim/149500684/

What's in your feces?

There is a very interesting theory in immunology: the hygiene hypothesis. Basically, if you are too clean and not exposed to enough dirt, scum and bacteria...you will suffer eventually. Our immune system has evolved to detect, recognize and eliminate millions of different molecular structures found among other things, on viruses and bacteria. Early exposure seems to be a key to a healthy immune system and a allergy-free life. This is, once more, confirmed by a new study published today (Sept 22nd, 2008) Clinical and Molecular Allergy. Fecal samples collected from 21 infants showed that a poorly diverse gut microbiota is associated with eczema development early in life.

"We found a significant inverse association between fecal bacterial diversity and eczema in early life. In addition, we found a significant increment in fecal bacterial diversity from ages 1 to 4 months in healthy children, but not in children who developed eczema by age 6 months."

To understand these findings, it is important to realize that our immune system is often "educated" through the gut, in fact more than 70% of the immune system is gut-associated. Experimental mice models show that a sterile gut leads to an abnormal immune system geared towards the development of allergies. In their article, the authors mention a reduced microbial diversity has also been implicated in various diseases including Crohn's disease and coeliac disease.

Click HERE to find a .pdf version of this very interesting article

How we learn

I am fascinated by this simple fact...our brain changes daily and when we go to bed at night the connections are not quite the same as they were when the alarm clock buzzed too early in the morning. Just imagine learning again EVERYTHING we know, having to use a fork again, riding a bike etc...Of course there are conditions that will steal away from your knowledge and abilities but children, of course, have to learn everything. Just using this little game where you have to place a cube in the square opening of a container seems to be quite a challenge...and it is!

I found this on one of my favorite blogs, Cognitive Daily. I think if you are into cognition, learning and behaviour...you will like this posting!

Here is the link:
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/09/a_simple_toy_and_what_it_says.php

Une similitude?

If you are from Québec, chances are that the picture on the left is embedded in your brain! Yes, it is the little house in Chicoutimi that stood up to torrential rains and a crazy river....When I compare this picture with the one on the right, a house that survived hurricane Ike, I can only imagine what the people of the Saguenay went through in July of 1996!

Want to know more about the Saguenay floods? Click here (From Radio-Canada Archives)

First PICTURE of an exoplanet...pure beauty!

Via: NY Times

And we thought we were so very special....

When it comes to emotions, humans think they are special. We think we are the only creatures capable of empathy....NOT! Chimps, our closest cousins, do that as well! After a bad day or a bad fight some chimps will hug the broken hearted to comfort and to relieve stress. See...."animals" have feelings too!

via: Times Online

The Elephant, the Donkey and stem cell research!

It's not always easy to predict who is going to vote for which candidate...even the polls tend to predict a trend that fails to materialize when the the big day comes. This special year where our close neighbours will decide on a new administration, it seems like reasearchers involved in embryonic stem cell science can only vote one way....the Donkey way! As mentionned by Obama himself, embryonic stem cell research could be funded again if he is elected. This is a different view from McCain's who (might have) changed his mind since the California primaries

Here is a sample of what they said recently according to the Science Debate 2008

OBAMA

"I strongly support expanding research on stem cells. I believe that the restrictions that President Bush has placed on funding of human embryonic stem cell research have handcuffed our scientists and hindered our ability to compete with other nations. As president, I will lift the current administration’s ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines created after August 9, 2001 through executive order, and I will ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight"

MCCAIN

"While I support federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, I believe clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress. Moreover, I believe that recent scientific breakthroughs raise the hope that one day this debate will be rendered academic. I also support funding for other research programs, including amniotic fluid and adult stem cell research which hold much scientific promise and do not involve the use of embryos. I oppose the intentional creation of human embryos for research purposes and I voted to ban the practice of “fetal farming,” making it a federal crime for researchers to use cells or fetal tissue from an embryo created for research purposes."

Here is what McCain said during the California primaries

"I believe that we need to fund this. This is a tough issue for those of us in the pro-life community. I would remind you that these stem cells are either going to be discarded or perpetually frozen.

We need to do what we can to relieve human suffering. It's a tough issue. I support federal funding."

Via: BioTechniques newsletter

BRAVO CHANTAL!!!!!

SIMPLY A-M-A-Z-I-N-G......a true role model, a true warrior!

Not too sure about the last one...

Water memory???...I thought this was bogus....and I still think it is, unless somebody can "educate" me about this....anyway, still an interesting site!

Via: http://curry.mevio.com/

Ballistics and Mother Nature

Spores are really neat and they can be ejected from a sporangia at amazing speeds. I found this article in PLOS One...scroll down and download the videos. I really appreciate the Pilobolus one....a spore ejected like a rocket at a distance of almost 3m!

"In this study, we have used ultra-high-speed video cameras running at maximum frame rates of 250,000 fps to analyze the entire launch process in four species of fungi that grow on the dung of herbivores. For the first time we have direct measurements of launch speeds and empirical estimates of acceleration in these fungi. Launch speeds ranged from 2 to 25 m s⁻¹ and corresponding accelerations of 20,000 to 180,000 g propelled spores over distances of up to 2.5 meters."

To view the Pilobolus video you can also click HERE

They finally understood.....

The Anglican Church apologized for misunderstanding Darwin's theory of evolution! It is a start....others will follow and stop thinking the Bible is a science book! Way to go Rev. Brown!

Read the article from The Guardian HERE

Rev Malcolm Brown: Good Religion Needs Good Science

If you are interested...more to read HERE

Win some, lose some! Unfortunately!

I ran at the Lands End Half Marathon today. I was looking for a new personal best, under 1h 34min 1o sec...the time I got at the Comox half marathon last march. I wanted it pretty bad, too much! My goal was actually 1h 30 minutes....to reach such a goal my pace had to be 4 minutes 16 seconds per km.

I started fast, way under 4:16, too fast....wayyyyyy too fast. By km 12 I realized I was going to run out of gas before the end....and I did. By km 17 there was no way to reach 1h30...not even my previous personal best. By then, little demons started to tell me I should slow down, I would not make it, why am I doing this etc etc...in these times the left part of he brain, the logical one, tells you many things.....not always nice things! Oh well, I did something like 1h38....I do not have the official time yet but I did not reach my goal...not today! The Royal Victoria half marathon is in a month...I will be more reasonable by then...I swear!

PS. I love my new runners....Asics Gel Nimbus 10 (pic above).....like running on pillows! The right amount of support, the right amount of cushionning.......

It's going to be such a nice semester!!!

I have GREAT students this term, everybody seems to be prepared, eager to learn and, it seems to me, enthusiastic about the wonderful world of invisible life! Hurray....it is going to be a GREAT semester! Vive les bactéries!

Universal flu vaccine and human Guinea Pigs!

Human trials of universal flu vaccine begin from PhysOrg.com

Clinical trials of a new vaccine that could protect against multiple types of flu are beginning at Oxford University. If successful, the ‘universal’ flu injection would transform the way we vaccinate against influenza and could offer immunity to a bird flu pandemic.

[...]

The problem with the Influenza Virus (the Flu virus) is that it changes over time. Small changes lead to drift and normally cause epidemics while more substantial changes, also know as gene shift, may cause dreaded pandemics. The problem with the flu vaccine is that it targets special protein found at the surface of the virus and that shift and drift creates "new viruses" no longer recognized by our immune system. So there...you need a shot every year...AND YOU SHOULD GET IT!

The problem with yearly shots is that new vaccine production is mainly based on statistics and the probability to find such and such strain in any given year. This is normally based on the study of previous years. In a way, it can sometimes be a long shot. Having said that, even with the uncertainty these shots can prove to be useful.

Many people do not want to be inoculated with vaccines for various reasons including the fact that some vaccines contain Thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative, even if Thimerosal has been proven to be eliminated very quickly by the organism even in infants.

The bird flu that, so far, has killed close to 200 people worldwide reminds us that a pandemic is more a question of "when" than of "if" and the scientific community is trying its best to come up with a solution. The main problem in the production of a new vaccine against a probable bird flu pandemic is that we need the virus before we can produce a vaccine...in other words, we need the pandemic to start before we can inoculate people. The other problem is that vaccine production takes a lot of effort and the industrial capacity worldwide is limited. We would NOT have enough vaccines for everyone on the planet!

A new vaccine seems promising and would likely address many problems related to yearly vaccine production. A universal vaccine targeting ALL strains of influenza. WOW! That is a real need! On September 8th, human clinical trials started with a limited cohort of brave human Guinea pigs. This study, done at the Oxford university, could lead the way to a new and much needed vaccine. Read more HERE

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gustavocarrijo/12181990/

We are still here....

The Large Hadron Collider in Geneva has been humming for quite a while now....we are still here, no giant black hole was created....YET! The particles will keep on going in circle, almost at the speed of light, for weeks. Eventually some particles will smash into each other and then.....we will still be there!

If you are into nuclear physics, you can read all about it at the WIRED Mag site.

Superbugs and weed!

"Hey man...this is good stuff" might soon mean: "Hey dude, I got a cure against this MRSA bug thing". A few substances found in Cannabis sativa (Marijuana) including THC (the psychoactive ingredient) have been proven to inhibit the growth of Methicillin-Resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Based on their highly hydrophobic structure it seems like these compounds have an affinity for lipids and might indeed disrupt the membrane.

The authors point out that the mechanism remains elusive....I might know why it remains elusive!

Reference: http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jnprdf/2008/71/i08/pdf/np8002673.pdf

New Scientist website

Just wanted to tell you about the New Scientist magazine website. The news feature is really great, if you are interested in science you will become addicted to this high quality format.

Way to go Philly!

Philadelphia will honor Darwin and the evolution theory and John E. Jones III is invited to give a talk.

Spot the crook.....

After reading what happened to OHRI's Kristin Roovers in the newspaper and also on the Bayblab Blog, I thought I could design this little game.

All of the scientists below were, once, accused of fraud and/or scientific misconduct. Can you associate the controversial paper with the scientist?





ARTICLES:

1) Restricted use of T cell receptor V genes in murine autoimmune encephalomyelitis raises possibilities for antibody therapy (Cell. 1988, 54: 577)

2) In individual T cells one productive alpha rearrangement does not appear to block rearrangement at the second allele (J. Exp. Med. 1989, 170: 2183)

3) Altered repertoire of endogenous immunoglobulin gene expression in transgenic mice containing a rearranged Mu heavy chain gene (Cell 1986, 45: 247)

4) Evidence of a Pluripotent Human Embryonic Stem Cell Line Derived from a Cloned Blastocyst (Science 2004, 303: 1669)

Scientists

A) V Kumar (Leroy Hood's lab - Caltech)
B) T Imanishi-Kari (David Baltimore's lab - MIT)
C) JL Urban (Leroy Hood's lab - Caltech)
D) WS Hwang (His own lab)


ANSWERS

1 C, 2 A, 3 B , 4 D

NOTE: (Imanishi-Kari was cleared of any science misconduct in 1996)

How many more?

What is going on in BC? Five right foot were found and one left....6 feet total! What the hell is going on? The last one foot was sawn off..... Read the story HERE

UPDATED: The last foot WAS A HOAX!!!

Image source: Flickr CC

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Journalists

Went downtown tonight, the usual....bought a magazine, got a latté and started reading. I bought a magazine I never bought before: The Ryerson Review of Journalism. This is a great mag! On the cover one of my favourite journalists, Wendy Mesley. Inside a very interesting article about journalists and PTSD. I have to admit I never thought about that, I guess we are used to associate PTSD to soldiers, Romeo Dallaire and Rwanda....at least I was.

I guess we forget about those courageous journalists, risking their lives for the sake of telling the truth or because some of them are actually adrenaline junkies. Nevertheless, PTSD is also afflicting journalists and I there are many resources devoted to them (here is ONE and ANOTHER). furthermore, covering disasters and mass killings (think Virginia Tech for instance) can have a huge impact on the journalists trying to get the story out. Just imagine watching someone drowning, a man caught in a fire or a falling off a bridge. Even though watching the news at 9 seems mundane because we are getting more and more immune to horror because of the distance created by the TV, we should not forget that somebody had to see and live the horror...without it. Just imagine how helpless and guilty you would feel by just watching and reporting the horror.

In case you think you are one of these adrenaline junkies, you can test yourself using the Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale...I did not take the test...just looking at the questions I know I am definitely not the type...although.....

The article on PTSD and journalists can be found HERE

Image source: Flickr CC

Time to turn the page

As long as web searches for the current and next leader of America go....George W. Bush is no longer on the radar! I love Google Trends!!!

They were NOT the "savages"

A LOOOONG due apology.....

Steven HARPER PART 1



Steven HARPER PART 2



Jack LAYTON



Phil FONTAINE

Love and Pain

Everybody that's ever been in love knows that. You might even have heard (or said): "I love you so much, it hurts"....well, there you go!


Via: http://www.insidestory.iop.org/mri.html (Picture was modified from pictures on site)

Pharyngula's author must Google himself!

I love Google Trends! I still love your blog PZ!

Microsoft and Yahoo is dead...long live Google!

No deal between Microsoft and Yahoo....but Google will be allowed to place adds on the side of a Yahoo websearch page. Google think they could get up to $800 M / year on top of what they already make. I should have invested in Google shares.....darn!

Image source: http://xkcd.com/256/

Pharyngula still going strong. Especially in Minnesota!

According to a November 2007 poll, the Weblog awards, P.Z. Myers' Pharyngula is the second best (most popular) science blog after Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit and Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy Blog. Why second? Actually there are three very popular blogs but Climate Audit and Bad Astronomy Blogs had the exact same number of votes...so P.Z. is second. I wanted to use Google Trends to compare the traffic on these three sites and it seems, according to this tool, that Pharyngula is in fact quite ahead when Google searches are used as a comparison.

Lately, there's been a small slip in Pharyngula's traffic but I guess it is only temporary (students on vacation) But there is one thing I find quite odd, most of Pharyngula's traffic, comes from Minneapolis, MN. Humm....Are you "Googling" yourself that often P.Z.???

Boris the Cat can walk again!

I like stories like this (From The Vancouver Sun)
Boris the cat is found at a construction with a broken back in Mission but, thanks to hydrotherapy at K9H2O in Abbostford Boris can walk again......makes me believe in the human race again!

See Boris during hydrotherapy and Boris walking again

K9H2O's photostream on Flickr

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Energy, Pyramids, Wine and DNA

I am in Kelowna, Canada's closest thing to the Napa Valley. I like wine, I like to taste it and I like to smell it. I just like wine...just enough! Last Friday I went on a wine tour and I have been looking forward to this. Imagine, the sun, the vines and that wonderful liquid.

We went to Summerhill Pyramid Winery, one of the most visited winery in Canada. Why? I have absolutely no idea...for one thing I did not like their wine ! The special thing about this winery is that they have this tacky pyramid where their wine ages. What? They age their wine in a pyramid? Absolutely! This pyramid has the same proportions as the great pyramid of Kheops. Our guide even told us:

"It has been scientifically proven that wine ages better in a pyramid, milk will turn to yogurt when put in a pyramid"....are you kidding me? Scientifically proven? Has he was saying that I looked around me to see if our group (about 40 people) were buying this....NO ONE SAID ANYTHING, they just had fish eyes not really listening to what was being said. It seems so easy to fool people, all you need is to mention a few buzzwords such as Energy, Science, Proof and voilà! Doing a bit of research on the net about pyramids and their powers I found this list (with some of my comments beside them...)

ref: http://www.geocities.com/undergsci/pyramideffects.html

• Sharpen razor blades (Sure...Gillette will hate that!)
  
• Restore the lustre to tarnished jewellery and coins
  
• Purify water (Hey, build a pyramid in Myanmar...)
  
• Mummify and dehydrate meat, eggs and other food stuffs (Mummies...of course)
  
• Help keep milk fresh and prevent souring without refrigeration (and yogurt...)
  
• Dehydrate flowers without losing their form or colour
• Increase the growth rate of plants (a pyramid will activate transcription factors just like that)
  
• Help attain increased relaxation
  
• Improves the taste of coffee, wine and certain fruit juices (taste is relative, is it?)
  
• Promotes healing of cuts, bruises and burns, as well as reduces pain from toothaches and headaches (Sure.....!)
  

Here's what I think...people are so gullible because they:

1. Lack scientific knowledge
2. Lack critical thinking
3. Trust anyone that seem to "know what they are talking about"

This is sad. Very sad!

A company even claims that they can activate some of your junk DNA...just go there, read their biological blurb and tell me if you understand anything!

Via Sandwalk

Good point!

I need to vent......

Habacuc could have saved this dog in his exhibition, he could have shown that one person can make a difference and that we can not remove ourselves from our environment. He could have shown that human compassion can triumph. He decided to let this dog die while everybody watched in silence. This does NOT surprise me (see next video below), it reminds me that Homo sapiens can be a real parasite to this planet and that we, in fact, do not live in harmony with other species. We belong to no ecosystem, we are part of the problem. I wouild like to believe that someday things will get better...I do not. I will keep on doing my random acts of kindness....

Q: How many available free ribosomes in E.coli? R: 500 nM

I like trivia and I always wonder about how many of "whatever" per cell...or, wait, how fast a specific process is...This kind of data is usually a pain to find...Well not anymore, I found this site: B1ONUMB3R5. Even better, click on the topic you are interested in and get the reference....Now you have data you can use to impress people at conference cocktails.

Via: http://neurodudes.com/

I want to learn...and remember what I learned!

To all of you interested in teaching/learning, I urge you to read THIS ARTICLE from Macleans. Teaching behavior will influence learning habits and retention. After all, that's our goal, teach something the students will apply! Isn't it?

Image source: Flickr CC

Device to Root Out Evil

Ah...controversy finally got the best of it! Art is sometimes supposed to challenge our minds and our souls. I guess this was too much for some people...just too bad! I am surprized this sculpture will move to Alberta (Calgary), a more conservative province. Oh well....all the best little church!


Read the story HERE

Image source: Flickr CC

Tornado in a bank.....

Languages and genomes

While looking through Technorati I stumbled on this blog post..."Litterature - Can languages be understood by treating them like genomes?". That caught my attention because a few years ago, while teaching population genetics at Carleton University in Ottawa I told my students about this tribe on Vancouver Island: The Nuu-Chah-Nulth. I have great respect for the first nations and I wanted my students to learn from an anthropological point of view, not just through a stretch of nucleotides. While doing my research for my course I found a few articles including this one: Gene flow across linguistic boundaries in native North American populations.

Using statistical methods and mtDNA analysis, the authors found that language can in fact be replaced (or modified) faster than mutations can occur because language can be transmitted in a vertical fashion (just like DNA) as well as horizontally between unrelated people. Because first nations have been subjected to tremendous pressures through the centuries it is plausible to think that at times DNA might have evolved at different speeds when compared to language evolution depending on the tribe.


A few highlights:

• The Navajo and Apache, who reside in the Southwest, have high nucleotide diversities, in the range of nucleotide diversities in populations classified as Amerind speaking.
• Several sites were polymorphic only in populations classified as Amerind-speaking, but none occurred in all populations attributed to Amerind.
• With respect to Greenberg’s three language families, the average nucleotide diversity within populations is low in Eskimo-Aleut populations and high in Amerind populations. However, nucleotide diversity varies considerably among the populations classified as Na-Dene-speaking.
• The Alaskan Athabascan and Haida populations, who reside in the North, have low
  nucleotide diversities, in the range of nucleotide diversities in the Eskimo-Aleut-speaking populations.

When reading through the blog, I slowly realize that the author is a believer of intelligent design** and that, like all ID proponents, he decides to include some no-so-objective-god-related-stuff in his blog. Here's what he states while trying to explain why languages can not be understood the same way a DNA sequence can:

"The problem is that languages are fully teleological, whereas the tools of molecular phylogeny do not acknowledge teleology in genomes."

In other words...God created the languages...so do not even try to study them with objective techniques!

**Silly me...the title of the Blog site is: Literature - A discussion of ID-relating reading

Alien design.....Intelligent design? (PART 2)

After writing my last blog posting I was interested to see is UFO sightings were recorded before the camera was invented...actually I knew it was but I wanted to document it. What better than a YouTube video? Well there it is. Actually very interesting. When I think about it, people at that time could not imagine such technology and therefore anything unusual, especially something flying would have been associated with some god or superior entity. Watch the following video and notice that the design of the "flying saucers" has not changed.

Alien design.....Intelligent design?

Reading a recent blog post from my favorite graduate bunch (see Alien Autopsy - Bayblab) I thought of something that bugged me for a long time: Alien Design.

Before you continue: first, lets agree on a few things.

1) be open minded BUT....
2) be critical at the same time

OK...If aliens exist they are probably advanced and the popular belief is that they are way more advanced than we are. If they really are that advanced and if they travel through some wormhole (interesting blog post here), the perception of time is not the same. Therefore design should be quite the same and TIME should not have any effect on the appearance of the extraterrestrial vehicles. When we compare pictures of ufos taken through the years one can only admit one thing....they are very, very similar (there are exceptions of course). If these pictures were bogus, or if the "flying saucers" were man made (a hoax) the design would probably evolve as years go by as we are all influenced by imaginary and not so-imaginary Stealth spy planes.



The ufos all look the same despite their location and year....puzzling isn't it?

Image source: The image was assembled from pictures that can be found on THIS SITE.

Gr8t news! SMS and english language...

Here is on for the purists. It seems "texting" (SMS) and instant messaging (IM) is not as damaging to the language of Shakespeare as previously thought. After studying 1.5 million words taken from SMS and IM (72 subjects), University of Toronto researchers have found that only 3% of the words were abbreviated. Moreover, the word YOU was preferred over U nine times out of ten. Surprising isn't it?

"Contrary to popular belief that IM is breaking down English language, we found that online shorthand is actually not detrimental. Our study shows that while kids use words like 'gotta' and 'gonna' in IM, they do use 'shall' and 'will' while communicating formally. I would encourage my child to use IM simply because it means using a fluid language. This automatically hones their skill with English."

Reference: The Times of India
Image source: Filckr CC