I'm off to give my progress report.
eep.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Thursday, April 08, 2010
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
The coolness!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
My nose is still numb...
While ignoring the dentist's drill and listening to the Discovery channel this AM I learned something rather interesting:
Recent brain studies have shown multiple functions for the amygdala - the weird nut shaped tweedles inside both lobes of the back part of your brain. It's been linked to the emotion of fear for a long time now...it's what allows you to (or not to) react to/deal with/feel afraid or control your fear of something. In a favourite show Firefly, the character River Tam had been forced to undergo repeated surgeries to strip her amygdala, so that she felt all her fears all the time and couldn't suppress them, gaining a lot of mental problems as a result...he heh...they weren't just making up mumbo jumbo for good TV - I was impressed that they actually looked that up for the show! It was what kept me on the channel in the first place...to see if they were making all that up or not.
Anyways...back to the matter at hand.
Now they've found the function of the amygdala it is also linked to the concept of personal space...it can greatly affect how you deal with crowds and how much personal space you need to feel comfortable. It can allow you to turn other people around you into objects in order to deal with crowds and not get freaked out by lack of personal space. Odd huh? Seeing as agoraphobia really is a fear of crowds and inability to deal with lack of personal space that ties in very neatly with the whole aspect of dealing with fear. I'm interested to read further work on this. Apparently people with damage or lack of function in this area have too little inhibition - they get right up into people's faces without realising they're intruding on personal space and don't really have healthy fears of things that would keep the usual person a bit safer...it also is involved in long term memory development...perhaps in developing deep fears from childhood?? It can also, when damaged, be involved in agoraphobia. The good news is that it is involved in positive reinforcement/ learning of new things...so perhaps you can deal with fears over time with positive reinforcement.
Interesting...
Almost made it worth sitting through the 2 fillings this morning.
Almost.
Recent brain studies have shown multiple functions for the amygdala - the weird nut shaped tweedles inside both lobes of the back part of your brain. It's been linked to the emotion of fear for a long time now...it's what allows you to (or not to) react to/deal with/feel afraid or control your fear of something. In a favourite show Firefly, the character River Tam had been forced to undergo repeated surgeries to strip her amygdala, so that she felt all her fears all the time and couldn't suppress them, gaining a lot of mental problems as a result...he heh...they weren't just making up mumbo jumbo for good TV - I was impressed that they actually looked that up for the show! It was what kept me on the channel in the first place...to see if they were making all that up or not.
Anyways...back to the matter at hand.
Now they've found the function of the amygdala it is also linked to the concept of personal space...it can greatly affect how you deal with crowds and how much personal space you need to feel comfortable. It can allow you to turn other people around you into objects in order to deal with crowds and not get freaked out by lack of personal space. Odd huh? Seeing as agoraphobia really is a fear of crowds and inability to deal with lack of personal space that ties in very neatly with the whole aspect of dealing with fear. I'm interested to read further work on this. Apparently people with damage or lack of function in this area have too little inhibition - they get right up into people's faces without realising they're intruding on personal space and don't really have healthy fears of things that would keep the usual person a bit safer...it also is involved in long term memory development...perhaps in developing deep fears from childhood?? It can also, when damaged, be involved in agoraphobia. The good news is that it is involved in positive reinforcement/ learning of new things...so perhaps you can deal with fears over time with positive reinforcement.
Interesting...
Almost made it worth sitting through the 2 fillings this morning.
Almost.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Check cha check check check a check it out!
Hooray! image
There is official scientific proof for a new element - with an atomic number of 112. It was theorised to have existed back in 1996, but yesterday evening, scientists in Germany declared that they have sufficient evidence and studies to prove the existence of this element, known now as ununbium until it can be named("ununbi" is derived from the figures "one one two" in latin). What's the big deal? Well, Element 112 has finally been officially recognised by IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry- the ruling kings of all chemical knowledge) and will soon be placed on the Periodic Table of Elements. That is a BIG deal - like finding a new planet (or losing one...RIP Pluto...*sniff*). When IUPAC declares something to be so...it just IS.
Element 112 is a man made element, made by firing streams of charged zinc ions at lead atoms. Nuclei of the two elements fuse to form the nucleus of the new element. It is not very stable and can only exist for a very short period of time (we're talking less than a second here) but it's as real as my skull and it does exist.
This element is 227 times the atomic weight of hydrogen, making it the heaviest addition to the periodic table. The team who discovered it was led by Sigurd Hofmann at the Centre for Heavy Ion Research - they get to propose a name for it before it can be formally added to the table. On my periodic table, sitting here on my wall next to my desk (which I got for my birthday many years ago...ahem) there is a spot for it saying "unnamed discovery". Well...looks like I may now have to pitch in and buy myself a new one :)
The advanced technology used to make element 112 is of real practical interest-accelerators at ANSTO used for the detection of signatures of nuclear activities were used. Accelerators are used as dating tools for geology and environmental sciences.
SCIENCE!!
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
I *knew* it!
I came across this article :TV Causes Learning Lag in Infants (Live Science) By J. Bryner
In it, they talk to Dimitri Christakis who recently published a paper on the negative affect TV viewing has on young developing minds...
I quote a bit to summarize the interview article:
"... the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages TV watching before the age of 2, a time when critical development, such as language aquisition occurs. (Christakis said a baby's brain triples in size during the first two years of life, so there's a lot going on in that little noggin.)
To figure out the TV-language link, Christakis and his colleagues rounded up 329 2-month to 4-year-old children and their parents. The kids wore digital devices on random days each month for up to two years that recorded everything they heard or said for 12 to 16 hours....Analyses of the recordings revealed that each hour of additional television exposurewas linked with a decrease of 770 words (7 percent) the child heard from an adult during the recording session. Hours of television were also associated with a decrease in the number and length of child volcalizations the back and forth between the child and an adult (called a conversational turn). "
they concluded that: ""Some of these reductions are likely due to children being left alone in front of the television screenbut others likely reflect situations in which adults, though present, are distracted by the screen and not interacting with their infant in a discernible manner."
And interaction is key for baby's brain."
They were concerned. Why? Well "hearing adults speak and being spoken to are critical exposures that play a role in infants development in language". With 30 percent of households having televisions on all the time, the researchers wondered how many fewer opportunities there were for children and parents to communicate and socialize". Christakis recommended that children under the age of 2 be discouraged from watching TV, even if the TV show is intended for the adults, as the effect is the same.
So there ya have it - keep their little brains occupied with other stuff! The article is: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. 163(6):554-558, June 2009 if you want to check out the nitty gritty. It's just another bit of proof for me that kids should playand ignore the TV...and so should adults :)
In it, they talk to Dimitri Christakis who recently published a paper on the negative affect TV viewing has on young developing minds...
I quote a bit to summarize the interview article:
"... the American Academy of Pediatrics discourages TV watching before the age of 2, a time when critical development, such as language aquisition occurs. (Christakis said a baby's brain triples in size during the first two years of life, so there's a lot going on in that little noggin.)
To figure out the TV-language link, Christakis and his colleagues rounded up 329 2-month to 4-year-old children and their parents. The kids wore digital devices on random days each month for up to two years that recorded everything they heard or said for 12 to 16 hours....Analyses of the recordings revealed that each hour of additional television exposurewas linked with a decrease of 770 words (7 percent) the child heard from an adult during the recording session. Hours of television were also associated with a decrease in the number and length of child volcalizations the back and forth between the child and an adult (called a conversational turn). "
they concluded that: ""Some of these reductions are likely due to children being left alone in front of the television screenbut others likely reflect situations in which adults, though present, are distracted by the screen and not interacting with their infant in a discernible manner."
And interaction is key for baby's brain."
They were concerned. Why? Well "hearing adults speak and being spoken to are critical exposures that play a role in infants development in language". With 30 percent of households having televisions on all the time, the researchers wondered how many fewer opportunities there were for children and parents to communicate and socialize". Christakis recommended that children under the age of 2 be discouraged from watching TV, even if the TV show is intended for the adults, as the effect is the same.
So there ya have it - keep their little brains occupied with other stuff! The article is: Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. 163(6):554-558, June 2009 if you want to check out the nitty gritty. It's just another bit of proof for me that kids should playand ignore the TV...and so should adults :)
Friday, May 29, 2009
Science is sexy
or something like that...
The latest issue of Scientist magazine, has a bit of a blurb about how the most recent issue of GQ has a spread about the Rock starts of Science...putting popular musicians with top scientists for photo shoots. It was response to only 4% of people randomly surveyed being able to name any scientist. They want to make more people think about science...
Although I think it's great to create more awareness of science...and how we're not all (*cough*) complete nerds (*whistle*), and that it's a goal in life for future generations, what rubs me entirely the wrong way is to put them in a photo spread with rock stars. Cause that's what science is all about - fame and fortune and feeling sexy. Yeah, we wake up every morning and put on our sequined lab coats and think "Someday I'm gonna find out something that will make me FAMOUS! I'm going places baby!"
Yeah. Sure.
We all toil away in labs, doing meticulous work, to try and find links for disease prevention, cures and treatments, find better ways to test for impurities and bacteria to make food safer - heck even help students learn more about science...we learn WHY things are the way they are. It's not about fame and entertainment - and the few researchers who are in it for fame are nasty, venomous dicks who will undermine other researchers, refuse to collaborate and work their grad students to near death to have glory of the next big paper, and even skew or make up data for profit or recognition. The thing is - Nobel prizes are given to amazing accomplishments in research - they are not the goal of research, they just happen, because someone makes an incredible leap of knowledge that is so fundamentally enhancing to science that we are all better for it as a society and as a researching group. I'm not knocking music - it brings me great joy, but to compare Cheryl Crow to NIAID director Anthony Fauci ? Well...not a level comparison at all. That's like saying Charles Darwin's ideas could be equal to the incredible leaps ahead that Sir Issac Newton or Albert Einstein brought to physics....PULEEZ!
(sorry - just a little geek humour there...)
And yet, the more I muse over this, the more I realise that there are correlations of rock music to labwork:
Lypsynching a performance - when Principle Investigators go and present projects at conferences under their name and they've done none of the actual work - they're just spouting out their lab slaves data with just a shadow of their former ability.
Grant proposal times are a lot like Canadian Idol - a lot of talented people competing for a few bits of $$ and the ability to go forward...all of them pretty focused and talented and yet only 1 will be given the prize, based on the whim of a few people on a panel
Groupies - Doing cutting edge research in the current hot field of science? (right now-breast cancer). Well, you'll be beset on all sides by grad students and post docs wanting to work with you. Companies will offer you equipment to use in exchange for addition to your publications or patents so they can make billions off you. People will toss your name about at conferences, as tho simply knowing or collaborating with you makes them better workers too.
It all just amuses me in a slightly chaffing way. Putting fame into the mix is insipid and dangerous. We already have to fight the battles of rediculous patenting of ideas with no practical applications that inhibit the average joe researcher from doing new things. We have to all squabble after reduced funding. We have to try and take money from companies and let drug companies fund our research and yet somehow be unbiased and learn without always producing a marketable product.
And perhaps, most importantly: People need to understand that there is just as much value in the experiments that fail. Those teach us things too...we learn how things DO work by this kind of results...yet, noone wants to publish a negative paper. People will try and publish junk research to just get a publication. People refuse to collaborate, wasting money and effort in the quest for the scientific prize, instead of using their ethics to keep their work in check.
We have a long way to go in the field of scientific research in regards to bringing up anew generation of scientists who are willing to shed the crap and bureaucracy and move into the future of research - groups of like minded individuals pooling their effort to best use money and knowledge to solve ideas. Creating open source data like the human genome and online journals. Quality over quantity to increase the field of knowledge - to find cures. To help people live better lives...one bit of data at a time.
The latest issue of Scientist magazine, has a bit of a blurb about how the most recent issue of GQ has a spread about the Rock starts of Science...putting popular musicians with top scientists for photo shoots. It was response to only 4% of people randomly surveyed being able to name any scientist. They want to make more people think about science...
Although I think it's great to create more awareness of science...and how we're not all (*cough*) complete nerds (*whistle*), and that it's a goal in life for future generations, what rubs me entirely the wrong way is to put them in a photo spread with rock stars. Cause that's what science is all about - fame and fortune and feeling sexy. Yeah, we wake up every morning and put on our sequined lab coats and think "Someday I'm gonna find out something that will make me FAMOUS! I'm going places baby!"
Yeah. Sure.
We all toil away in labs, doing meticulous work, to try and find links for disease prevention, cures and treatments, find better ways to test for impurities and bacteria to make food safer - heck even help students learn more about science...we learn WHY things are the way they are. It's not about fame and entertainment - and the few researchers who are in it for fame are nasty, venomous dicks who will undermine other researchers, refuse to collaborate and work their grad students to near death to have glory of the next big paper, and even skew or make up data for profit or recognition. The thing is - Nobel prizes are given to amazing accomplishments in research - they are not the goal of research, they just happen, because someone makes an incredible leap of knowledge that is so fundamentally enhancing to science that we are all better for it as a society and as a researching group. I'm not knocking music - it brings me great joy, but to compare Cheryl Crow to NIAID director Anthony Fauci ? Well...not a level comparison at all. That's like saying Charles Darwin's ideas could be equal to the incredible leaps ahead that Sir Issac Newton or Albert Einstein brought to physics....PULEEZ!
(sorry - just a little geek humour there...)
And yet, the more I muse over this, the more I realise that there are correlations of rock music to labwork:
Lypsynching a performance - when Principle Investigators go and present projects at conferences under their name and they've done none of the actual work - they're just spouting out their lab slaves data with just a shadow of their former ability.
Grant proposal times are a lot like Canadian Idol - a lot of talented people competing for a few bits of $$ and the ability to go forward...all of them pretty focused and talented and yet only 1 will be given the prize, based on the whim of a few people on a panel
Groupies - Doing cutting edge research in the current hot field of science? (right now-breast cancer). Well, you'll be beset on all sides by grad students and post docs wanting to work with you. Companies will offer you equipment to use in exchange for addition to your publications or patents so they can make billions off you. People will toss your name about at conferences, as tho simply knowing or collaborating with you makes them better workers too.
It all just amuses me in a slightly chaffing way. Putting fame into the mix is insipid and dangerous. We already have to fight the battles of rediculous patenting of ideas with no practical applications that inhibit the average joe researcher from doing new things. We have to all squabble after reduced funding. We have to try and take money from companies and let drug companies fund our research and yet somehow be unbiased and learn without always producing a marketable product.
And perhaps, most importantly: People need to understand that there is just as much value in the experiments that fail. Those teach us things too...we learn how things DO work by this kind of results...yet, noone wants to publish a negative paper. People will try and publish junk research to just get a publication. People refuse to collaborate, wasting money and effort in the quest for the scientific prize, instead of using their ethics to keep their work in check.
We have a long way to go in the field of scientific research in regards to bringing up anew generation of scientists who are willing to shed the crap and bureaucracy and move into the future of research - groups of like minded individuals pooling their effort to best use money and knowledge to solve ideas. Creating open source data like the human genome and online journals. Quality over quantity to increase the field of knowledge - to find cures. To help people live better lives...one bit of data at a time.
It all gives a whole new meaning to "I'm gonna rock the lab today". :)
I'm gonna get off my soapbox now and put on my sequins and get back to work...
Friday, April 03, 2009
Playground Antics
To celebrate my victory in Laboratoria, I made a pecan chocolate tart thingymabob, made from a recipe everyone at work has been drooling at in a magazine. Basically sugar, eggs and butter and nuts in a springform pan with a crust made of more butter and sugar and eggs...like a huge nutty pecan pie.Oh. Yeah. It was good.
Now I have enough sugar in me to fuel an entire playground of 3 year olds, so must twitch away all day until I can go home and relax. J's last nightshift is tonight so very soon, I will see him :) Awake and everything. Yay.
Have a great day my fine peeps.
I'm off do do a little mad science!
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
I have made it this far. I have become king.
I did it.
It worked great.
Only one more to do tomorrow and it's all done.
I am the queen of Laboratoria
That is all...
It worked great.
Only one more to do tomorrow and it's all done.
I am the queen of Laboratoria
That is all...
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Happiness patrol
Another day, another cookie...
This morning I sincerely smiled at a stranger and he blinked, looked a bit taken back and then his eyes lit up and he smiled. His whole face lit up. I tried it again at the bus stop...and another smile.
Geo was curious.
I am going to do a smile survey today...anyone I do not know, I will look at them straight in the eye and smile sincerely and see how many people smile back VS look away or frown. Granted I don't work around a lot of people, so I don't know how many people I'll be able to inflict smiles upon, but I figure it can only be a good thing...the nerd in me may even make up graphs of results...I'll keep you posted.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
SCIENCE!!!
Today I got to use an HPLC to do lactic acid analysis of serum, analyze genetic sequences for mutations, and program and run a giant autoanalyser.
Some days I feel like quite the scientist.
These kind of days make me feel like Queen of the Labrats.
They make it all worthwhile.
I shall begin feeling smug starting...........now.
SCIENCE!!
Some days I feel like quite the scientist.
These kind of days make me feel like Queen of the Labrats.
They make it all worthwhile.
I shall begin feeling smug starting...........now.
SCIENCE!!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Genetic alignment BLAST tools...I haz dem
EUREEEKA!
As of now I FINALLY have the tools I need in my lab to align some patient genetic mutations with a published sequence and screen for differences in translation...to correlate with treatment data. To complete work I've been trying to do for months but not had the proper software available to me (cause it costs money...ahem).
And NOW I don't have to book a lab resource through grovelling in another department on weekend evenings...and it works on my mac laptop too should I ever get the silly notion to do work at home.
And it's free!
Bloody f*cking brilliant.
Thank god for brilliant grad students with bioinformatics training. I found someone who knew how to do what I want to do and has helped me just because she is a nice person who wants to help quality resaerch being done. No ego. No posturing - just sincere kind assistance to a friend.
Monique, you are a goddess.
Oh yes my pretties. What we will do with this...muahahahah!
As of now I FINALLY have the tools I need in my lab to align some patient genetic mutations with a published sequence and screen for differences in translation...to correlate with treatment data. To complete work I've been trying to do for months but not had the proper software available to me (cause it costs money...ahem).
And NOW I don't have to book a lab resource through grovelling in another department on weekend evenings...and it works on my mac laptop too should I ever get the silly notion to do work at home.
And it's free!
Bloody f*cking brilliant.
Thank god for brilliant grad students with bioinformatics training. I found someone who knew how to do what I want to do and has helped me just because she is a nice person who wants to help quality resaerch being done. No ego. No posturing - just sincere kind assistance to a friend.
Monique, you are a goddess.
Oh yes my pretties. What we will do with this...muahahahah!
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Holy Crap with a Parachute
I would have to say this is up there with best pictures...ever...
Sometimes humans can do things right.
Huzzah.
Sometimes humans can do things right.
Huzzah.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Warning: Science ahead
A friend sent me this...it cheered me up.
Someone wrote a silly mock song about PCR...
PCR when you need to detect mutation
PCR when you need to recombine
PCR when you need to find out who the daddy is
PCR when you need to solve a crime
Technically it's an ad, but I'll take it...for some reason it cheers me up. Just to know others know my suffering and plod on in the lab...if you're not a geek and don't get it that's OK.
That may be a good thing :)
Well, I must go amuse myself in the lab...much to do.
But before I go, read up a bit on PCR and why it's such a huge tool in genetic science. It's what I spent the last dissapointing months doing. It's neat...well...to *me* anyways. You can sequence someone's DNA. Honestly...you can't tell me that's not at least a little bit cool?
Ahhhh, if only I could have magical scientist TV PCR powers...I could have done this kind project in a few minutes...instead of over a month. Anyone know how to reach these guys??? They seem to have an advantage over us chumps in the real world...
Bloody CSI...
Someone wrote a silly mock song about PCR...
PCR when you need to detect mutation
PCR when you need to recombine
PCR when you need to find out who the daddy is
PCR when you need to solve a crime
Technically it's an ad, but I'll take it...for some reason it cheers me up. Just to know others know my suffering and plod on in the lab...if you're not a geek and don't get it that's OK.
That may be a good thing :)
Well, I must go amuse myself in the lab...much to do.
But before I go, read up a bit on PCR and why it's such a huge tool in genetic science. It's what I spent the last dissapointing months doing. It's neat...well...to *me* anyways. You can sequence someone's DNA. Honestly...you can't tell me that's not at least a little bit cool?
Ahhhh, if only I could have magical scientist TV PCR powers...I could have done this kind project in a few minutes...instead of over a month. Anyone know how to reach these guys??? They seem to have an advantage over us chumps in the real world...
Bloody CSI...
Monday, March 03, 2008
Bummed out
I've spent a lot of time and energy on a project that I thought I'd made a most excellent discovery on that would help sick people get weller (is that a word?) and actually be useful. All weekend I was giddy, thinking of how I'd go over the results with one of my coworkers today and we'd have something useful to publish to actually make a difference in people's lives.
AND after spending the morning going over stuff...
It turns out although it is interesting, I've found a mutation in a non-specific uncoding intron region, that although novel, is not changing the amino acid sequence of my protein of interest.
Translation to non-geekspeak: I spent a lot of time and money learning what *isn't* the cause of an interesting mutation disease and am rather bummed out.
*sigh*
Just once I'd like to discover something interesting...I know a lot of science is learning what isn't causing something and slowly building a proper pathway of action and this really is a useful thing I've done by adding to the pool of knowledge on a particular disorder, but it still sucks.
I'd like to find, just once, something ON the pathway, not off it.
Just for me.
I'd make a cake and everything.
*sigh*
AND after spending the morning going over stuff...
It turns out although it is interesting, I've found a mutation in a non-specific uncoding intron region, that although novel, is not changing the amino acid sequence of my protein of interest.
Translation to non-geekspeak: I spent a lot of time and money learning what *isn't* the cause of an interesting mutation disease and am rather bummed out.
*sigh*
Just once I'd like to discover something interesting...I know a lot of science is learning what isn't causing something and slowly building a proper pathway of action and this really is a useful thing I've done by adding to the pool of knowledge on a particular disorder, but it still sucks.
I'd like to find, just once, something ON the pathway, not off it.
Just for me.
I'd make a cake and everything.
*sigh*
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
They're justified and they're ancient...and they drive an ice cream van
The last train left an hour ago, They were singing "All aboard. All bound for Mu Mu Land"
Then someone starting screaming "Turn up the Strobe" ...
Well I woke up this morning, worked out and feel absolutely giddy with energy for no damn good reason, but you know what?
I'll take it :)
I spent last night restocking our house and pantry after striking and chrsitmas and all that...it seems we've officially gotten past the strike and holidays, and now have all the bills caught up and food and things are stocked up again. It was a lot of stuff, but I'm a hoard for emergency sort of girl, and it helped us out in the past few tight months...I feel more at ease with things all topped up again (and more than a bit justified about doing it).
And as a bit of a treat, a CD we tracked down on ebay arrived and we had a listen. It's an old out of print KLF remix EP with All Bound for Mumu Land and a few other tracks on it. One of the tracks even had Tammy Wynette singing vocals...not sure why, but it was good. I like hunting down odd music and having a listen, particularly remixes or side projects by musicians I already enjoy...it's not always good, but mostly we've been lucky.
Then next obscure album on my *want* list is the Space CD put together by Jimmy Caudy and Alex Patterson. It was originally to be the first Orb album, and is a bit of a concept electronic album, with a track for every planet in the solar system...it is out of print and very hard to find. The KLF, in a fit of pique, deleted their entire catalog when they broke up, so a lot of their older stuff, like this album and the EP we just got, is hard to get, even pirated copies. I'm a "support the artist" sort, so I've tried my best to get the actual albums of things, but it's tricky sometimes. I've bid on a few of them when they come up on ebay, but they're pretty pricey and I always seem to lose out (I just can' t justify over $75 on a CD). I don't really care if I own an original...I just want to hear it.
But I digress...
Have a wonderful day everyone. I know I will. I'm off to anexperiment..:)
Later tater.
Then someone starting screaming "Turn up the Strobe" ...
Well I woke up this morning, worked out and feel absolutely giddy with energy for no damn good reason, but you know what?
I'll take it :)
I spent last night restocking our house and pantry after striking and chrsitmas and all that...it seems we've officially gotten past the strike and holidays, and now have all the bills caught up and food and things are stocked up again. It was a lot of stuff, but I'm a hoard for emergency sort of girl, and it helped us out in the past few tight months...I feel more at ease with things all topped up again (and more than a bit justified about doing it).
And as a bit of a treat, a CD we tracked down on ebay arrived and we had a listen. It's an old out of print KLF remix EP with All Bound for Mumu Land and a few other tracks on it. One of the tracks even had Tammy Wynette singing vocals...not sure why, but it was good. I like hunting down odd music and having a listen, particularly remixes or side projects by musicians I already enjoy...it's not always good, but mostly we've been lucky.
Then next obscure album on my *want* list is the Space CD put together by Jimmy Caudy and Alex Patterson. It was originally to be the first Orb album, and is a bit of a concept electronic album, with a track for every planet in the solar system...it is out of print and very hard to find. The KLF, in a fit of pique, deleted their entire catalog when they broke up, so a lot of their older stuff, like this album and the EP we just got, is hard to get, even pirated copies. I'm a "support the artist" sort, so I've tried my best to get the actual albums of things, but it's tricky sometimes. I've bid on a few of them when they come up on ebay, but they're pretty pricey and I always seem to lose out (I just can' t justify over $75 on a CD). I don't really care if I own an original...I just want to hear it.
But I digress...
Have a wonderful day everyone. I know I will. I'm off to anexperiment..:)
Later tater.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
All hail the mighty parallax
Pete's friend Betty is smart.
Not only does she have a cat named Vir, and work for the very large array in the US...which has to be one of the coolest jobs around, but she recently explained parallax and how it's used to calculate the distance between Earth and the new "earth-like" planet that was just found, as well as how they work out a lot of galaxy-size distances and calculations inm a way that makes sense to me. I've never quite been able to wrap my mind around it before.
I feel ever so much smarter now.
Last night I tried to impress J with this new found knowledge...but he already knew what parallax was. Turns out, I married a man of infinite knowledge...either that or I just need to read more :)
Not only does she have a cat named Vir, and work for the very large array in the US...which has to be one of the coolest jobs around, but she recently explained parallax and how it's used to calculate the distance between Earth and the new "earth-like" planet that was just found, as well as how they work out a lot of galaxy-size distances and calculations inm a way that makes sense to me. I've never quite been able to wrap my mind around it before.
I feel ever so much smarter now.
Last night I tried to impress J with this new found knowledge...but he already knew what parallax was. Turns out, I married a man of infinite knowledge...either that or I just need to read more :)
Friday, February 23, 2007
Science!
Just looked it up, and apparently the chemical formula of the molecule of my name (spelled properly) is:
C12H22O
which if you draw it all molecularly like is like this:
and if you say it is:
4, 8a-dimethyldecalin-4a-ol
or
4, 8a-dimethyl-decahydronaphthalen-4a-ol
depending on your preferences of nomenclature.
So...erm...still best you call me Geo then, eh?
C12H22O
which if you draw it all molecularly like is like this:
and if you say it is:
4, 8a-dimethyldecalin-4a-ol
or
4, 8a-dimethyl-decahydronaphthalen-4a-ol
depending on your preferences of nomenclature.
So...erm...still best you call me Geo then, eh?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
Hi- still here. Mostly posting on my other blog mainly...no point in repeating. Changed the format here...seemed fitting what with me being... -
Any respect I had for Palin, McCain's token female running mate in the US election, is waning after reading that she is pushing to have ...