Dammit Universe...

2011-09-27T13:29:00.002-04:00

Important stuff going on in NYC, also now mirroring in Boston. Uncovered by national media, spread the word.

https://occupywallst.org/

Y/N?

2011-01-08T23:13:00.005-05:00

Marx postulated that, in a purely capitalist society, there would eventually become an overwhelming disparity of wealth between the very rich and the common man. Think Dickens' London, mid 19th century, or better yet, Paris, 1788 (not exactly capitalist, I know, but the dichotomy of the society is similar in scale). Marx, having lived the ravages of impoverished London, concludes that the only response can be socialism. His view is understandable, if a bit idealistic on the true character of human nature.

Current capitalist thought, specifically American economic pragmatism, holds that this can never be true, because for so long as one has an idea it is possible for one to earn money, and a lot of it. If anyone can have an idea, anyone can be rich, hence leveling the playing field; and who doesn't want to be rich? Those who believe maybe a little socialism would be good for the democracy, well, they're just too lazy to get rich themselves, and seek to spoil being wealthy with backbreaking taxes for those of us who do.

In a booming economy, this might actually be true. When money is plentiful on the ground, credit, which is that age old companion to commercialism, is easy to come by. If you can get credit, you can develop your fabulous idea, make a mint, and never worry for money again. Its when you cannot get credit that the idea breaks down. When there is no credit, there is no way to develop the idea, only the possibility of selling it to the highest bidder, who might not be bidding very high at all. This is leaving out the money and legal clout necessary to enforce a patent, if it can be enforced at all.

All of this, of course, increases the divide between rich and poor, and, in a country that was supposed to be about being a self made man not even death can assist in leveling the playing field, we end up in the ugly conundrum we face today, with megacorporations, legal near-monopolies, and 10% of the country owning more wealth than the other 90% combined. Unite that with the fact that money means more than words or intent in the political sphere, and we are heading down a very dangerous road.

Here's the question:

In the 1990's, when the economy was booming, was the wealth better distributed? Can the line where the shift started to be made at the downturn of the economy, or can it be made at the tax cuts and deregulations of the Bush (and Clinton) years? Which is more important? And, knowing the potential this has for our democracy, what the hell are we going to do to fix it?

The New Realism

2010-04-16T02:18:00.002-04:00

I've decided that I should bring this blog into a new state of being. Using it as a sounding board for my own personal issues isn't nearly as heartening as using it as a sounding board for all kinds of other, general, public issues. Therefore, I think I will use it as a way of expressing opinions and exposing facts that seem to be otherwise overlooked or underestimated or simply ignored on the mad mass screaming of the current political climate. I'm not a politician, I don't even study politics, I'm a total outsider looking in and bringing to bear analytical and critical tools that have fallen by the wayside in the public forum. I have no idea if I'll be good at it. But, I do hope to explain myself and my opinions to the fullest extent I am able. Its important, in any age, to have voices who do that. If my faint murmurs get any attention, I hope it makes you pause and think before you react, whether it is to shriek with fury or to sound an agreement. I'm tired of being wrong and crazy and unpatriotic. Its time for a new face of so-called liberalism. Lets try realism for a while.

Holy smokes...

2009-05-17T18:41:00.002-04:00

ok, admittedly, from last year, but considering how pathetic a birthday it was, I'm having a happy moment here---thanks guys, best birthday present EVER!

John Barrowman and Gareth Lloyd

epic sexy silliness

Best. Weekend. Evar....

2009-01-11T23:43:00.003-05:00

I had one of those truly rocking weekends. Went to Beers of the World on Friday, found Woodchuck Dark and Dry Cider, Purple Haze and---for serious---Monty Python's Holy Grail Ale (it was tasty, and now i have the awesomest bottle ever). Hung out with Jess and Colin-teh-roommate (encouraging what sparks appeared the whole way), went to Petsmart and got very depressed when other roommate vetoed adopting a kitty. Went home, chilled, ate, and then--big surprise here--started the drinking. It got really fun really fast, especially when people decided that beer needed to happen, because, dammit, we were gonna party. So we got more beer, and went back to he apartment, where there was then--Rock Band. Oh yeah. We had a SHITE-TONNE of fun. Crashed out, woke up, watched Colin's fish for a while, agreed with Alay that last night's party was TEH AWESOME, and then worked on homework. Got dinner with Colin, went to senior's night with the guys, where me and Colin bailed on Alay. Went home, chilled, crashed out, and got up today--talked to Jess, went shopping with her, went to her place, hung out with her and Dre, made corn chowder, met new webcomics, and watched the Golden Globes.

all in all?

GREAT WEEKEND.

Plan for next weekend?

Friday night: Drunk snow football

Saturday: ?

Sunday night: Me making chicken soup.

Hells friggin yes.

In Memorial

2009-01-01T16:42:00.006-05:00

Zoe

February 1998 ~ January 2009

A most excellent cat

Ms. Zoe Motormouth Lapwhore passed today after she suffered liver failure earlier this holiday season. Zoe was loud, demanding, an attention whore, and the best lap cat you will ever see. She had a remarkable personality, and was very devoted to her human mom. She will be deeply missed.

O.O

2008-12-19T17:05:00.004-05:00

amazing snow of DOOM!

PURPLE! hehehehe!

2008-12-16T00:39:00.004-05:00

Kyrias: postpostpostpostpostpostpostpost

:sigh: alright, alright, alright, yeesh.

I burned out the motors on my windshield wipers. don't ask me how. i'm just infinitely talented in that respect. so my wipers don't work, and one of my rear brakes freezes in the cold.

needless to say, i'm a little testy about it. however, jess knows a dubber mechanic (dubber=VW fanatic). We have left the baby in his capable hands.

in theory i genetically engineered E. Coli to be resistant to two different antibiotics instead of one on monday. (YAY.) (don't worry, we autoclaved everything. made it deaddeaddead.) it was a fun lab. we got to get Ben and Jerry's while we waited for the bacteria to incubate. however, when we returned the next day, we found that only one of the plates had grown, meaning only one resistance gene took. (pudu.) we put them back in the incubator for another 24 hours, and made new plates of the stuff that did grow on the off chance we screwed up the other plates somehow. we shall see.

christmas cometh (heaven help me). its both and upside and a downside of the quarter system, that you miss the amazing christmas circus for most of december (which is really, REALLY nice), but you also don't get the happy holiday spirit (and you enter christmas week exhausted from the first round of exams in week 3 of 10).

also, while i see people more this quarter than i did last, its still lonely.

janice wants me to be her replacement for her terrestrial isopods phylogeny project. i get training today. :-) woot.

i'm in a vertebrate evolution class. its awesome, and we're learning a whole lot, however....

yesterday we did a section on hagfish (aka slime eels) and lampreys (both v. primitive vertebrates). lampreys are pretty sketchy to me because they're parasites. hagfish are scavengers, and do this cool thing were they tie themselves into a knot to get leverage to tear away meat from a carcass. they also produce an astounding slime. i mean, this stuff--just a little of this stuff--can make all the surrounding water turn gooey. its amazing stuff. now, with that said...

I had a nightmare last night, involving hagfish coming out of faucets and slime everywhere--a frigging hagfish epidemic! they were everywhere! and there were giant worms that would eat people, and national crisis, and OMG!

stupid weather change. always gives me weird dreams.

i'm still blaming my professor on thursday.

dammit universe.

and the sign read, "closed on Thanksgiving"

2008-11-30T23:59:00.004-05:00

400 miles, mostly highway

/65 mph

=6.15 hours

time left: 1:30 pm

time arrived: 11:30 om

time elapsed: 10 hours

caffeine consumed: 3 large cups

state of driver upon arriving: >>>O.o`<<<

whywhywhywhywhywhywhyohGODwhymakeitstop.

All the stupid people, where do they all come from...

2008-11-07T00:22:00.002-05:00

Ok, I had to do a paper on HPV and Gardasil for a class recently. HPV is the primary cause of most warts, including hand, plantar, and genital, as well as causing most cases of cervical cancer. Gardasil is a vaccine which prevents HPV infection in strains 6, 11, 16, and 18, which are the leading causes of genital warts and cervical cancer (along with vulvar, penile, and anal cancers). There are upwards of 100 strains of the virus, but these strains cause most (70%) of cancer cases. HPV will infect more than 50% of the population at some point in their lives, and most cases clear up without any symptoms. Those that don't become cancer

People are worried about Gardasil side effects.

Never mind that in previously uninfected patients the efficacy of the drug is 100%. Never mind that cervical cancer is deadly, and effects primarily young women with families. Never mind the face that it is men who are often the reservoir for this disease. oh no. its DANGEROUS.

three deaths have been vaguely connected to gardasil. this is 3 out of 5 MILLION patients. all of these deaths have different primary causes. the most common side effects are redness, swelling, or pain at the injection site, and mild fever. (I had pain and swelling, as well as the mild fever, I got over them all in a day.) No study has ever shown Gardasil to be harmful.

but there are those who day that HPV is a "disease" and Gardasil is a "drug company product to sell to a panicked populace."

uh....get yer freaking science right. HPV is relatively harmless--until the infection has continued for years, and eventually the viral DNA becomes one with the host DNA (host=you.) the HPV has all sorts of mechanisms to make the cell divide, which also reproduces the the virus. when the viral DNA is incorporated, the virus no longer exists, but the ability to divide unhindered remains in the cell. Ta-da, cancer. This isn't trickery, its basic virology. DO YOUR RESEARCH, you fuckers.

dammit universe.

and you did. you did.

2008-11-04T23:19:00.002-05:00

moar funny pictures

VOTE

2008-11-04T13:22:00.004-05:00

For the love of all things unholy people, go vote. Vote, vote, vote.

This has been a message from your friendly neighborhood blogger. Look Ma, I'm doing something civic!

Seven Random Things

2008-10-29T14:22:00.003-04:00

Mz. Dre has tagged me with the Seven Random Things meme. So, here we go.

1.) I love lolcats. DON'T look at me like that. I don't know why, but for some reason my childhood obsession with felis domesticus and my far to easily entertained sense of humor collided on the lolcats phenomenon with great force. I love em. I check www.icanhascheezburger.com every day. I'm a freaking freak for lolcats.

2.) I have a wildly overactive imagination. The only reason I dislike the date of my birthday is its proximity to Halloween, and my brain can come up with more horrifying scenarios than any Hitchcock movie or Stephen King novel--ever. Offer it even the tiniest little bit of encouragement, and I really start to freak out. On the other hand, I can make something funny with almost no trouble, and it makes me very good at writing stories. You win some, you lose some.

3.) I collect gargoyles, and have since I was 12. Gargoyles are the coolest things EVER. They are scary, bad ass motherfuckers who protect you from demons. (No, really.) Seriously. I have one thats picking its nose, I have one that is a cat with wings (his name is Cedric) I have one that sits over where I put my watch and ring at night, and I even have one thats actually an incense holder, who looks like he's smoking a joint. I have dragon ones, and fishy ones, and one day I will get one that can be in both the gargoyle and rubber ducky collections.

4.) I hate being cold. I don't hate THE cold, but I hate BEING cold. I will wear more layers that anyone else for 500 miles just to be not cold. This may have some connection to my knitting habit...

5.) My system is very sensitive to any kind of drug. I get hyperactive on sudafed, get hallucinations from percocets, have gone nearly psychotic on birth control pills, and was singing "walking on sunshine" 12 hours after taking my first round of antidepressants after not sleeping that night. Needless to say, I am VERY aware of when my body is doing weird things, and always take the lowest recommended dose of everything the first time.

6.) I am one of two responsible parties who introduced "Little Bunny Foo Foo" to Russia. We taught it to an exchange student in high school, and she taught her little sisters, who taught their friends. When my friend and I went to Russia to visit said exchange student, we were asked if we were the ones who had taught her "Little Bunny Foo Foo." We were asked to do it ourselves so they could get the accent better--and learn the hand motions. I have passed on a meme to a whole other country...

7.) I am a serious fiber crafter. Knitting, quilting, spinning, sewing, even the occasional embroidery, I do it, I love it. :-)

I tag... Kyrias.

Women's Clothing

2008-10-12T01:36:00.002-04:00

Recently, I went on an odyssey to buy new blue jeans.

For the record, I don't like clothes shopping, especially when I'm on a mission. This is because, inevitably, something that i like either a) does not fit or b) is far, far beyond my budget. I am known to wander through my favorite clothing stores and browse the clearance section, mostly because it is smaller, and I am willing to spend a smaller amount of money on a garment I will have to alter.

For those of you not aware of how women's clothes sizing works...

The sizes run from roughly 00-30. These sizes are completely arbitrary. I own clothes from sizes 14 to 22. Most sizes are even numbers.

Why is it, that on a form that varies so much in proportion, and in curviness, that women's clothes aren't sized according to inches or centimeters? i mean, I knit. I know that i have a 52 inch bust, because that's what i knit for. but no sizing ever had anything to do with that in commercial clothing. Seriously. I used to buy men's pants for exactly that reason: know your waist and your instep and life is good. (at the time i was 36x30.) there. easy. now, add in to that a hip measure, and suddenly it is ever so much easier to find jeans that fit. but no, they won't do it. and to top it all off, I for some reason can find--always can find--size six and size eight blue jeans wherever i go. this is despite the fact that i only know 1 female who falls in that size category. in the meantime, i can't find jeans at jc penny, or sears, or anywhere other than lane bryant that fit me (and they changed their sizing to something even more idiotic, which pisses me off even more.) what is with this? all i want is to buy some friggin blue jeans. This shouldn't be that hard. I don't want to order things online, because a) its more expensive, and b) there is no reason for me to believe that the sizing will be consistent across brands. and sewing patterns are even worse. they are by and large significantly smaller than their commercially produced counterparts. What is with this? just give me an inch measure and life will be dandy. what is so hard about that?

Hey fashion industry, do you hear me? ACTUAL BODY MEASUREMENTS. Please. This is getting ridiculous.

And i still haven't gotten my blue jeans.

hmph.

On another note entirely...

2008-10-06T17:41:00.002-04:00

We would like to take this time to congratulate Ms. Andrea Abreu and Mr. Ryan Nolette on their engagement. Well wishers should feel free to post here.

Rock on, you crazy kids!

Chat chat chat...

2008-09-10T20:38:00.004-04:00

I haven't posted in a while, so I shall remedy that.

School has returned, and has eaten my life (as it should be.) Organic Chemistry isn't nearly as horrifying as General Chemistry, but it is only week 2. This may change. Evolutionary Biology is rather wonderful (huh, who could have predicted that?). Invertebrate biology is very cool (ctenophores are BEYOND spiffy). Cell biology, is, well, cell biology. More in depth on stuff that we've learned in at least three previous biology classes (sigh). And given all that, I hope I can be forgiven for not posting (OMFG HOMEWORK!!).

I recently had a good dig around my iTunes library--found a number of things I'd forgotten I had, as well as not finding a number of things I know I did have (there was an epic hard drive fail not too long ago, so this isn't unexpected, merely irritating.) For some reason, all of the Crystal Method, Prodigy, Rage Against the Machine, and other more hardcore electronic/techno/rap-ish things (for the love of god, I'm not enough of a connoisseur to know what all the genres are) are much more appealing to me now that they were even a few months ago, never mind when I got them years ago. Something about the bouncy is appealing (yes, Rage is bouncy. I can't hear you, lalalalala.) I'm also going on a small Big Band kick, having recently dug out Running Wild, the Boston Pops doing Glen Miller. Its absolutely fabulous, though for some reason iTunes has named it "easy listening," which makes me angry inside. It also annoys my male roommates (two out of the three) which just makes me happy. I guess after the RATM and Daft Punk they weren't expecting In the Mood. Pussies.

My Doctor Who and Torchwood kicks appear to be moderating themselves--likely because I'm caught up on all the existing episodes and now wait with bated breath for the new seasons. (grr arg snarl, Torchwood only gets five episodes...gggrrrrrrrrrr.....) This is very sad for me, because I live in the states and we don't get our BBC shows until way after the UK release--revenge, I suppose, for the same thing with American TV in the UK (my sister made very angry noises when she could not get the current season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer while she was at school in London.) However, I currently have advantages that she did not (and NO, I don't feel guilty, dammit. I watch them again when they come out on SciFi. And they should broadcast Torchwood while they're at it too. If they can get as dark as Battlestar Galactica, they can do Torchwood, too.) Anyway....mad obsessiveness (all evidence to the contrary studiously ignored) has slowly faded to a dull roar. (I am NOT looking into grad schools in the UK. I am NOT. I SWEAR. Except the evo-bio programs are figgin kick ass....i think i may have found my calling...huh, who'da thunk?)

Thoughts involving fiction writing are back on the horizon--we'll see if they actually take off.

On irritability...

2008-08-18T13:01:00.002-04:00

Ok, I've been thinking some. I've always been fascinated by this quote:
"A God that made the world and allowed evil to exist is incompetent. A God that knows there is evil in the world and cannot destroy it is impotent. A God that can destroy evil but still allows it to exist is purely malevolent."
There are quite a number of people this quote is attributed to, in various translations. This is one of the things I look at when examining religion and shudder. There are a lot of people who say that if you do not believe in God, you are going straight to Hell. If there is a God that will damn me forever, based on a belief instead of an act, I don't want anything to do with It. I also don't really want anything to do with a God that both created evil and still allows it to exist. (We are talking in big, highfalutin concepts here. "Evil" can be awfully hard to define when all of the facts and humanity and messiness of the thing is brought in to it.)
In many ways, I am sick to death of defending my beliefs. I rarely talk about them to anyone anymore. The prejudice attached to it, however, is a real sticking point for me. Its infuriating. Also the continuing feeling of "Christianity is under siege!" abundant across the US is getting old. Seriously. You make up, what, 80% of the population of the country? If this was an election, it would be a landslide. You are far from being a minority. Very, very far. You aren't victims, you aren't all alone, you are, in fact, a super majority of the citizenry of the country. So stop it. Go and read something other than a religious text for once. Get informed. Shut off the TV, turn off the radio. Stop taking someone elses word for it and find out for yourself.
People are really starting to tick me off anymore.

"I do not believe in God because I do not believe in Mother Goose." --Clarence Darrow

2008-08-15T13:05:00.003-04:00

I am not religious.
For some reason, this makes me:
a) incapable of being a patriot
b) unsuitable marriage material
c) immoral
d) "evil"
e) a member of one of the last groups it is still acceptable to hate openly

In general, I try not to be bothered by the "evil" and "immoral" parts. (I was actually called evil to my face by my 9th grade English teacher [who I did not see fit to inform of my religious preferences], but she was a 79 year-old nun, so I'm inclined to forgive her based on age and upbringing.) Those are things I think are silly to believe, because, frankly, there are plenty of evil and immoral people who are more than happy to call themselves "good (insert religious identification here)" while committing some truly heinous acts (can anyone say "Crusades"?).
This sort of thing baffles me, that a person could consider me some how morally wrong by the simple basis of my lack of belief in their Big Man in the Sky. If simply believing in that doesn't make me moral and good, why should the opposite be true? And how can you make that judgment automatically, when you have no idea how I live my life or who I am as a person? I mean, when lots of religious people don't live up to the creed of their faith, why are you worried about me? At least I'm honest and consistent. My moral code isn't something i took by rote from an ancient culture, its something I had to examine and determine and actually think about, for a long time. I don't take those things on blind faith, but instead look at why these things are important. When the why is answered, it makes you ever so much more likely to follow those codes, because there is a reason to it, not just an arbitrary rule.
As for being a bad patriot, that mostly came about during the Communist era, when the Russian dictatorship tried to banish religion in accordance with Marx's cynical examination of faith among the proletariat (opiate of the masses and all that). Ergo, if Communists = bad and atheists = Communists, atheists = bad. Not the truest of statements, but the amount of paranoia running rampant through the communal psyche of the country makes it much more understandable. What doesn't make sense is the continuation of this prejudice. I love my country, and I'm one of the very, very few that can honestly say I love my country more that I love my God. How does this make me unpatriotic? When someone can explain this to me, I will be happy to listen, but honestly...what more do you want?
Here's some numbers then. 10% of the population of the US is atheistic or agnostic--0.2% of the prison population is made up of atheists though. Christians make up 75-85% of the population of the US, and an equivalent part of the prison population. Atheists have one of the lowest divorce rates of any "faith group" in the country (yes, lower than that of Born Again Christians). Right. Evil, Bad, Terrible people.
The blind hate for atheism has actually been studied; people would rather their child be gay, marry outside the faith they were raised in, marry outside their ethnic group, political group, anything rather than them marrying an atheist. I don't get this. Really. The idea that somehow I'm poison simply by my existence confuses me greatly. And its not just the marriage, its the fact that its everywhere. I have the benefit of living in a secular society, where I do not have to reveal my religious preferences if I don't want to, but try saying "Yes, I am an atheist, actually" and see what kind of reaction you get. Its impressive. People back away from you, don't want to talk to you, all sorts of things based on that one statement. What ticks them off even more is when you are actually informed about their faith and still don't care. (I do this to Christians all the time, which I personally consider both hysterically funny and profoundly sad when I am more familiar with the Bible than they are.) There is also a sense of surprise when they find that, philosophically, I actually agree with a number of Jesus' teachings (I also mostly agree with the Buddha's as well). I just don't buy the Big Man in the Sky bit. I mean, most religious people say they can "feel the presence of god" in their every day lives. I don't. Really. Yes, yes, the Christians have the Bible, the Jews have the Torah, the Muslims have the Qu'ran, everybody has something. And "God Wrote It." How do they know? Because the book says he did.
....
uh....this is what we call "circular reasoning" kids. I know the book is right because the book says its right. That's all it basically comes down to. On the other hand, many religious insist that atheists "prove" that their god does not exist. Not my problem. Also not my philosophy. I'm a student of the sciences, and the scientific method relies on experiments. If you can't design an experiment, how can you prove anything? How do we prove the earth is 4.5 billion years old? Radioactive decay. Carbon 14 (as opposed to carbon 12, which is just regular old carbon) is very common and has a very regular rate of radioactive decay. Depending on the amount of carbon 14 found in a rock, fossil, etc., its age can be determined by the half-life of the carbon. (see here for information on half-lives) How do we know half-life really happens? We can see it happen. Take something with a short half life, and you can literally observe it breaking down into simpler components. (Also, anyone with an ounce of knowledge of genetics knows that a gene pool consisting of two individuals will become so inbred it will kill itself off in maybe four generations. Sorry kids, neither Adam and Eve nor Noah's Ark happened. If it had, we would be...well, just do a netsearch with the word "deformed". Profoundly disturbing.
There is also this question of "where do you get your moral compass?" Well...I get it from my parents, society, philosophy, and from my own personal feelings. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Its pretty simple, but so very few people follow it. I believe this is the only life I've got, and, well, I want to both enjoy it and make the world enjoyable for my children. They are, to me, my immortality. My life beyond this one. If those are my values, to make the world a better place to live, for everyone, because the way I treat others is reflected in the way they treat me--how is that wrong? Or bad, or immoral. I don't need a god to tell me to do that. And really, I believe that the choices I make are my responsibility. I am not afraid of disappointing or angering some far off deity, I am afraid of something much closer to home: disappointing myself, and those I care about. That is ever so much more painful.

"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion."
-Arthur C. Clarke

I think this one I will continue....Later.
Sigh. Dammit Universe.

wordiology

2008-07-29T15:16:00.004-04:00

I know its not a word, really. But seriously, people get completely bent out of shape about "inventing" words. Really? All words are invented. In my view, I would rather a word be invented instead of co opting another word and re-tasking it. So, wordiology. Word study, or word philosophy. (Which to the Greeks, who had -logy first, was study/science/philosophy--there wasn't a real distinction then...)
I spend a lot of time getting annoyed by people who use different words to mean the same thing. I was listening to Talk of the Nation this morning, they were talking about business world slang. Some of it was very interesting. Personally, I think its businesspeople wanting to have their own jargon (spake the bio major...), but this is beside the point. There are so many ways of describing things and everyone has their own context for a word. In business, a contractor is someone who works on a by-contract basis. In construction, a contractor is something much more specific.
You see this a lot if you're in a specialized field. Laymen will use your jargon and take it literally, or worse, misunderstand something that doesn't appear in the common use lexicon. I mean, if I started talking about ecosystem relations, niche predators, and tertiary consumers, most people would have half a clue as to what those are, but wouldn't necessarily understand the intricacies. There is nothing wrong with this, but its the fact that many people think they get it since they have an inkling of understanding. It is the unwillingness to admit to ignorance of a complex subject that is frustrating.
This comes to the forefront with subjects like evolution. Scientists don't use the word "theory" like laymen do. To a layman, a "theory" is your idea of how something works, with maybe a little evidence thrown in. To a scientist, a "theory" is how something works in all observed cases, but since all cases haven't been observed, there may be an exception or aberration. So when someone says, oh, evolution is just a theory---well, yeah. So is gravity. But no one has ever seen gravity not work unless there was another force involved (such as lift). Same case with evolution. There are very few species where a family tree cannot be drawn back into other species, and those that can't are researched intensely by those in evolutionary science. The other issue is that often things can get personified: 'X' changed in this way because it was better suited to this environment. Not how it works. For those who would like to know, here's the short version:
In any population, there is a range of genetic diversity. This occurs from random genetic mutation, which is a side effect of imperfect gene copying. If the mutation is not harmful the individual, (in that, kill it before it can breed sort of way) it will be passed on to that individuals offspring and take a place in the gene pool. These mutations can be anything, from things you can't see externally, like sickle cell anemia, to very obvious things, like albinism. Some of them are completely arbitrary, like a widows peak, a cleft chin, or tongue curling. These are all monogenic (dominant/recessive) traits in humans, and don't really have an effect on our "fitness".
But lets look at albinism. In most cases, around the world, being pure white is not so good. Its really hard to blend in to the forest, grasslands, swamp, etc, when one is white. It can also leave the individual more susceptible to skin damage from the sun (polar bears have black skin under all that fur for this reason). So when a genetic mutation for albinism appears, it is unlikely that it is going to be very common, since that individual is not liable to live long enough to reproduce, being easy to spot by predators and by prey. But suppose our white friend is an arctic creature. A white animal would blend in much better with snow and ice. In this case, the individual would be ideally suited to the environment, and would likely be healthy and live a long life, and hence produce more offspring. Since it passes its genes on to the next generation, a portion of these offspring will also be white. These offspring will be able to out-compete their darker colored siblings, and will be more likely to breed as well. Over time, the albinism gene would spread throughout the population, until the whole species had the albinism gene--and, ta-da: evolution.
This is a simple good/not good scenario for mutation. A more complex one would be sickle cell anemia, which is a monogenetic syndrome which effects the structure of hemoglobin in the blood. If one has both of the recessive sickle cell genes, one has sickle cell. If, other other hand, one has only one or none of the sickle cell genes, then one is normal.

S = normal gene s = sickle cell gene

SS = normal individual
Ss = unlikely to show symptoms of sickle cell
ss = sickle cell patient

Sickle cell can kill, but it is extremely prevalent in tropical populations. Why would a potentially deadly gene be so widespread? It is because the heterozygous individual (Ss) is resistant to malaria, which is abundant in the tropics. The heterozygous expresses both genes, but in most cases, the "good" gene can make up for the "defective" one. If one looks at Mendelian genetics, it shows that of all of the children a heterozygous couple can have (both Ss):

S s
S SS Ss
s Ss ss

one will be sickle cell, one won't have the gene but will be susceptible to malaria, and two will be sickle cell carriers and resistant to malaria. To mother nature, two out of four ain't bad, and so that is what gets passed on.
This stuff can take some thought, but its not really difficult to understand. The easiest examples are bacteria, or populations decimated by disease. Wipe out a major portion of the population, and whatever could survive that destructive force will reproduce and create a new population resistant to whatever that force was, be it antibiotics or the bubonic plague.
I think this is all fascinating, but alot of people don't understand it, and don't want to.

to be continued?

Holy Sequel, Batman!

2008-07-25T13:18:00.003-04:00

I saw Dark Knight last night. For those of you who haven't seen it, I will do my best not to reveal any spoilers, but if you don't know who Harvey Dent is, and who Two Face is, I would suggest you don't read any further.

ok, they gone now?

Alright, here's the thing. We all know that originally Harvey Dent is a good guy, and a friend--or at least acquaintance--of Bruce Wayne. He has some terrible accident that affects half of him, and ergo becomes Two Face. As villains, pairing Two Face and Joker is practically kismet: both are obviously psychotic, bent on destruction, and motivated by reasons we aren't always clear on. (And, in case you hadn't heard, Heath Ledger's Joker is truly frightening and brilliantly portrayed. He really is not firing on all cylinders here, and the effect is so creepy it makes your skin crawl.)
Admittedly, and like all superhero movies, they have some issues with physics and technological probability; this is almost unavoidable, but, like the first entry in this saga, they do try to off-set a good deal of it, which I personally appreciate. The acting is impeccable from all, the plot takes several unexpected twists, and some of the psychology involved is rather advanced for an action flick.
Here's my only real complaint.
Harvey Dent's transformation into Two Face is, in this interpretation, realized through a terrible burn. Burns, especially those chemically accelerated, can be truly horrific. Beyond just the sheer physical damage, the destruction of skin, nerves, etc., they are agonizingly painful, and once the skin barrier is gone, leave the victim extremely vulnerable to infection. The scarring, even with skin grafts, is awful, and can often lead to restricted motion, depending on where the burn is located. As a way to make an otherwise good man lose his final grasp on sanity, it does its job well, but...well, here's the thing. Dent's injuries are bad: really, really bad. As in, no more cheek or lips on the left side of his face. No eyelid, and from what I could tell, no tear duct either. Chin bone showing through skin, jaw bone visible as well. There are a few muscles left so he can move his jaw, but not really.
Seriously? I don't want to be too picky, but burns being what they are, wouldn't you think that the real thing would be more horrific that taking it so completely over the top? There is mention of his refusing painkillers (which would have left him in shrieking agony) and skin grafts (which with those injuries, I think the doctors would have overruled him on that)--and then gets up, starts running around and killing people.
And I swear to god, the only thing I can think is, "Huh. Well, aside from being blind in that left eye since its getting no moisture at all, he's gonna be dead from infection in about 12 hours at this rate."
This didn't ruin the movie, but it did annoy me.

Welcome to The Jungle

2008-07-21T18:36:00.004-04:00

I like the FDA. Its one of my favorite institutions. One has a distinct peace of mind when there is an organization that makes sure my medications are safe and effective, and that the food I eat is fit for human consumption.
In theory, at least.
Given the recent happy fun time with salmonella poisoning, as well as numerous articles (see Discover Magazine, New Scientist) about the utter inadequacy of drug testing, one does have to wonder what is going on. In recent years, the approval procedure performed by the FDA has been paid for by the companies themselves (somehow this seems like a bad idea). Eighteen years ago, if the FDA made a mistake, approved and unsafe or ineffective drug, or did not perform rigorous inspections of food prep factories, there would be a congressional hearing to explain what happened. There have been two oversight hearings since then. The relationship between the FDA and the prescription drug industry is very friendly. The drug companies even gave the FDA commissioner an award for doing a good job.
Wait a tick there...
As a monitoring agency, I would hope that the relationship between the FDA and the drug companies would be an adversarial one, with the drug companies constantly complaining about the stringent requirements enforced by the FDA. This used to be true. It isn't now. There are some rather obvious reasons for this, not the least of which is the drug companies funding of congressional campaigns.
Recently studies have shown that bladder control drugs are strongly connected to the onset of Alzheimer's, to the point that if a patient is taken off of the drug, they lose all symptoms of dementia. This is just one sign of the fact that the monitoring and research of these drugs is insufficient. This isn't just the FDA's fault. If there is no money, no vigilance on the part of either the congress or the citizens, and a strong motivation to keep things the way they are, who the hell is surprised that things slip through? There are reasons that we have these regulations, and those are to prevent the spread of disease and to prevent drug companies from selling snake oil (potentially harmful snake oil) to unwitting consumers. As a student of biology, I know the high likelihood of things not going quite to plan, and the temptation to alter results even a little bit to make it fit your hypothesis.
This is not how science is done. It is certainly not the goal of science, which is to test the hypothesis, and take that data, be it positive, negative, or completely random, and form another hypothesis based on that data. There is no wrong answer. When money gets involved, the answer is always "does this result cost us more money or get us more earnings?" The drug companies often complain about the expense of developing a new drug. If this is so, why is it that they are paying such enormous amounts of money to campaigns? Why is it that the executives are multimillionaires? In other words, where is the corporate focus? It should be in providing the best, safest drug possible, which will be used widely because it IS in fact the safest and most effective drug on the market. If your goal is merely to make your executives and stockholders rich, I would suggest that you invest in alternative energy sources right now, since they are going to be getting popular Real Soon Now.
I find this all extremely frustrating, because of all of the Federal Institutions I would want to participate in in my career, the FDA and the CDC are it. If the first goal is to please the drug companies and the second to keep people safe--maybe I want to become a Congresswoman before anything else.
They need money, oversight, educated employees, and a distinct line between their goals and those of the drug companies. Until those things happen, I think I'll be getting my tomatoes from the local farm stand.

Crash and Burn

2008-07-15T14:46:00.003-04:00

I've been watching this housing crisis unfold, listening to Public Radio and the BBC. It breaks my brain that these kinds of shenanigans have been able (and allowed!) to go on for as long as they have. It used to be that a perspective home buyer put 20% down--they were required too. These days, 5% down is not only possible, but common, and it was even feasible to put no money down.
Let me repeat that.
It has been possible for a person to put no money down on a home loan for a $270,000 home purchase.
Lets do some math, ok? Assuming this is a standard 30 year mortgage, at 6.75% interest, this individual will pay 18,500 dollars in interest, if they keep to the payment schedule. The median household income in the US is about $48,000 a year. This means that this person's home is worth 6 times as much as they make in a year. In 1967, the median income was $37,000. The average home price was $20,100 (sources here, and here). Adjusted for inflation, those come to $227,500 and $123,000, respectively. The price of the home was 54% of the yearly income.
So, lets go over this again. The price of the house has skyrocketed 45% in adjusted value, and the average pay a person gets have plunged by 474%.

What?

Am I the only one who sees a problem here? Never mind the fact that people are woefully underpaid anymore, but when buying a home is 600% of your combined salary--thats two earners, most times--its nearly impossible to buy a home with a 20% down payment (that would be $54,000, for those keeping track). Now, in a normal market, with responsible lenders, this would lead to a decrease in the number of loans being granted, which would cause one or both of two things: a drop in the prices of houses to match what people can actually and responsibly spend, or a jump in salaries as employees got more and more annoyed at their inability to purchase a home.
As we can see, this hasn't happened. Instead, there has been a steady decrease in the amount required to make a downpayment, as well as a decrease in due diligence on the part of lenders, in checking the income of the buyer and only providing a loan they have a good chance of repaying. I have heard of single mothers making $27,000 a year being given loans for $400,000 houses. That is fifteen times what she makes in a year. Who on earth thought that this woman would be able to pay this loan?
Whats worse is that the ability to get these loans disguises just how much the average household income has declined, even since 1968. Talk about not getting by in America. You aren't doing nearly as well as your parents or even grandparents were, and are likely doing alot more work for it--and while your pay hasn't gone up, costs have. The artificially low prices of Asian goods leads to a false sense of cost--and that isn't going to last forever, especially as the Chinese economy becomes a real force in the world.
What's the bottom line? Alot of people who want to make money have made it easy for Americans to get deeply in debt buying houses they cannot afford but assuaging the feeling of money-tightness by providing underpriced consumer products which they can afford--and if they can't they can buy it with more credit.
I can't wait for the credit card crash.

Dammit Universe.