Post-Rick festivities -- more than I'd bargained for!

So much has happened since last time... as usual... where to start?

August 26, 2010:

It seems as though at least two weeks have gone by in the past few days, so I figure it's a good time as any to resume writing about what's been going on again.

Things have been a lot better since, Rick Real (or Rael or whatever), the would be cat-killer roommate, was practically hauled off by the cops.

` Interestingly, the CEO and founder of Skullcandy, Rick Alden, helped us out! On Monday, he sent over these kids to clean out Rick Rael's room, and they didn't feel comfortable doing so because it was so disgusting!

` Well, if you can't hire someone else to do it, might as well do it yourself. Rick Alden himself said he'd fly over from Utah tomorrow, presumably with a biohazard suit, to do it himself!

In the meantime, we had no other plans, so... we went hiking! Troy was awesome enough to drive us to the trailhead, which is a half hour walk in the scorching sun.

` There was the community garden... which has an actual flower BED, as well as crops for the Food Bank.

The trail was very nice and pleasant... and dotted with bike ramps and ladders up which to climb when you are being pursued by rabid woodland creatures!

In one spot there were just jump after jump in a row!

We were trying to make it down to the train tracks and to the other end of Japanese Gulch, but wound up going in a circle. So, we went in again, discovered our mistake, and found the path we had taken up the hill last time -- on the fourth of July when we got lost for six hours!

` I was hoping to get some exercise with -- and photos of -- some of the more extreme-looking hillside bike ramps and other structures, which look kind of surreal and are fun to run over.

However, Lucas unfortunately managed to take a wrong step that extended to the rest of his body, and we had to find our way out into the nearest neighborhood.

` It happened to be our own neighborhood, and as we were walking down our own street, we passed the house that had burned down. At least they apparently rebuilt the garage.

Interestingly, I heard it was possibly self-arson, as the last fire in the neighborhood had been. Though the house practically had to be torn down, the valuable heirlooms and whatnot where undamaged.

The next day, Rick Alden did indeed fly in just to come over here, at exactly noon, with a police officer and the West Coast distributor of Skullcandy, just to clean all traces of Rick Rael from the house, and presumably help the guy out -- then fly back home to Utah!

Yes, all the giant broken TVs Rick R. had amassed -- like the one on the wall -- were thrown out.

How could such a successful entrepaneur be friends with such a loser? It turns out that they're both about 52, and they grew up together, so they've known each other since before Lucas and I were born!

` As Rick Alden became more successful, Rick Rael failed a whole bunch of times and apparently has never even gotten laid. Well, I don't blame anyone for not wanting to sleep with him. That's why he wound up a loser with a crappy car who can't even keep his room sanitary.

` Apparently, Rick Alden didn't even know how bad off his friend was, and how mentally defunct he has become.

The good news is, Rick Alden got to know Lucas a bit, got to know how compassionate and decent Lucas is, how much he's been trying to help Rick R. and how clean he keeps his house, despite what Rick R. has probably said about him.

` The other good news is, Rick Rael had a bunch of frozen chickens and ground hamburger in the fridge that they were just going to throw out, so we're taking those... and we're going to have a Rick-e-que!

In other news, since my car also works now after several months of not working, I've been trying to get tabs, which expired in June. Unfortunately, to get tabs, my car needs to pass emissions check, and in order to do that, the little doohickeys that monitor the engine's function need to come online, and despite having driven around since my car was fixed, they aren't all reset.

` In better news, I finally got my driver's license renewed just this morning, after standing in line an hour before the DMV opened. I was nearly first in line, and the rest of the line disappeared around the corner of the building.

Why did I do that?

Because, I had gone to the DMV just days before, taken a number, found that I was number 65 and that the number count was at 31, so Lucas and I went out for half an hour to get something to eat. Upon our return, the number had only moved to 33!

` According to the woman holding #64, the other DMVs in the area are closed, so ours is packed at all times! Anyway, I only had an hour's wait this time and finally renewed my license, which was $25.
` It's been suggested to me by many people that I get my driver's license renewed every time I move, but I've moved seven times since I've lived in Washington, therefore not doing so has saved me over a hundred bucks!

` And the picture... well, I'll have to show you when I get my new driver's license in the mail....

Basically, my last picture made me look like a stoner, despite not being one, and this time I look more like I'm on crack. In any case, it's nice to have a valid driver's license again, now that my car works!


August 29, 2010:

Been busy lately! Saw a blimp the other day. It circled over the park, then practically flew over the house!

Picked up my mom at the airport! On the way, saw an actual Mini Cooper from abroad, with the steering wheel on the right (wrong) side and everything -- got a picture! It's not important enough to be on here, so it's on Flickr.

` Also, just before we saw the MiniCooper, we were almost rear-ended by a silver Jetta with two broken taillights that was swerving all over the place. I almost called it in, but forgot what number to call... argh.


August 31, 2010:

This morning, Lucas found his gas can tipped over in the bed of his pickup truck, which has no logical, ordinary explanation. Instead, it looks like another one of Rick's set-ups -- like the 'collapsing bed' trick -- and Rick had mentioned something about burning down our house!
` It looks as though Rick tried to create an 'accidental' gasoline spill that would wind up burning down the cars, firewood and eventually the house if Andrew were to smoke a cigarette outside. Luckily, Lucas' gas can is of a special type that never leaks.

Just like last year in Georgia, me and my mom went to a nice shoe store. They didn't have the shoe I wanted in my size, so we're going back tomorrow. We did, however, go on a walk to the Diamond Knot Pizza House -- Violet couldn't follow us the whole way, though.

Later, I went back to the doctor to treat my RickInfection, if that's what it is. I swear, the man must have put three months expired milk in my underwear, just as he did the cats' food -- it happened at the same time!
` Apparently I've also had a bladder infection as well as a yeast infection this whole time, and the doctor would have known this if she had listened to me the first time!
` The doctor I saw this time, however, did seem to take this more seriously and sent off a urine sample for further analysis.

If that wasn't enough RickEffects for one day, we then had the good bit, Rick-e-que! Michael and Alex and JT and Ananda and Morgan all showed up! Made baked potatoes, Waldorf salad, coleslaw, and cooked six cheeseburgers and three chickens!

What all happened, I barely remember! There was much eating and much talking, that's all I know.

Oh yeah, Lucas did rock out... and Andrew did entertain us with his root beer-influenced singing.



I had to go to bed at some point, and I put in earplugs to help, but then there was this screaming about "I'm not a sinner!" But then it was over and I fell asleep.


September 01, 2010:

I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and everyone but JT was still there! Apparently, the screaming I had heard was Troy who thought that others were attacking him and trying to get him to admit to being a hypocrite to his religious beliefs. Evidently, there's some sort of conflict that runs deep, because he put that on himself, no one was trying to do that.
` By five o'clock, the sky was getting lighter, and I had some of the Kahlua pie that Alex and Michael had brought, which also complemented the strawberry-rhubarb pie that Troy had bought. Got a picture of the pie and the clock.
` Also, got pictures of the watch-with-wings hanging around Ananda's neck, which Alex had made. I call it the BoobyWatch! Not to be confused with BayWatch.

I'm not putting all these pictures on my blog because they'll overload it and people's computers will crash if they try to come here, so I have links to them at the end of this post!

Later on, long after everyone had left, me and my mom went to the shoe store -- the shoes finally came in, but didn't fit, so I got another pair anyway.
` We were going to go to the fair, but Lucas was so busy with court preparations for dealings with Rick that we didn't have time. Eventually, Lucas and my mom went to the Farmer's Market while I went to the gym.

Apparently without the benefit of sleep first, Michael came over, and wanted to apologize to Troy, but Troy wasn't there so we had a frenzied, weird conversation about other things.
` I thought it was odd that Michael didn't want to believe that Lucas -- one of the most disciplined karate instructors -- knows how martial arts works.
` While Lucas was trying to explain that you can't understand martial arts just by talking about them, you have to DO them, Michael was saying things like 'that's just your opinion' and 'Muppets are really awesome, don't you think?' Eventually, though, he did listen.

He said, "I'm a leader, not a follower", but yet he's an apologist to darn near anything. Sure, all these different points of view are neat, but he doesn't seem troubled when people believe that J.R.R. Tolkien's tree ents are real creatures because having no clear distinction between fantasy and reality supposedly doesn't hurt people.
` He doesn't seem to realize that not being able to figure out what's real versus what's not real can be a huge disadvantage, which I witness all the time (and should write about here but don't).


September 02, 2010:

This morning, Lucas and I went to court. We stopped at the snack shop beforehand, but they didn't have my chai ready in time, after Lucas had finished his sandwich.
` The same guy who was there last time we were in court -- Andrew Mudd, who has long hair and a beard, and his own company -- and was still trying to serve a restraining order against this guy who was threatening him. Trouble was, Andrew couldn't find him to serve him!
` There was, however, nobody else there! Rick, or any representative of Rick, did not show up, after all that Lucas and Rick Alden have done to help him get the criminal charges dropped and everything!
` Well, the restraining order defaulted to us, so there was nothing left to do but go back for my chai.

Later in the morning, Lucas, Mom, Violet and I went for a walk in the ravine. Violet found a tree growing out of a nurse log! Good Violet!

Lucas also found a tasty mushroom, which was soon to be in a salad. Even later, we went to the fair! There was bunnehs and pretty pheasants...

...and alpacas and babeh pigs....

...and highland cattle, and dinosaurs, and goats that look like dinosaurs because they have no ears, a basillisk...

...a sasquatch, a guy on two unicycles, and... True Alaskan Racing babeh piggehs!

The strangest creature of all was probably Steve The Pretty Good!

He was pretty good!

Oh yeah, and later on, Michael called, wondering if we wanted to go to some seance or something. "It's right up your alley," he said. Uhhh... okay... sounds... interesting.


September 6, 2010:

I spent more time with my mom. While Lucas was doing some pruning, we went out for lunch and Michael called again wondering if we wanted to go somewhere.
` I suppose me and my mom didn't do much of any spectacular note, besides hang out, and hang out we did until she left on the third.
` Thus, I'm finally getting caught up on everything that I had been catching up on to begin with.

But what else happened between now and then? Well, we discovered was will probably be the last batch of new adult Rickflies, probably from his Rickmaggots, one of which Troy discovered just after Rick had been ousted.

Vada also had a small wound on her chest, which we amusingly treated with Neosporin. I suspect a certain squirrel may have tried to have her assassinated!
` You see, just days before I had seen her wait at the bottom of the plum tree for a squirrel to descend, which it did! Vada leapt onto the tree, the squirrel sprang to the ground, ran around the tree trunk with Vada following closely, and she almost caught it as it scrambled back up the tree!
` That cat can still corner -- when she was a baby she would run in circles on a vertical surface!


You know what? It's kind of depressing how un-fun and un-creative my posts have gotten over the past few years. Why? Because life has been so strange, and mostly stressful, that there's been plenty of crazy stuff to write about, but I've been so miserable there wasn't much point in having fun with it.
` That's because most of it hasn't been fun. Actually, the Good Doctor has something to say about this... Hopefully, now that Problem Roommate #10 is gone, I'll get my mojo going again!

Whatever mojo is.

At least my pretty pictures are still something to see...

Check out the rest of my August and September photos!

Hopefully, my mojo will recover....

My boring homework assignment!

When I got home from school today this afternoon, prepared to do a huge load of homework by tomorrow, I immediately had to get back in my car and act as house driver and didn't get back until about 6:30.
` Well, then I really had a fire at my ass to get my homework done, except for at that time, B Gangsta went in to work on beats, so I kicked him out. Immediately thereafter, Matty unexpectedly dropped by with his son, but I luckily escaped from having to watch him, because why? I am determined to do my damn homework!
`I just got my first item done, and I thought I might as well show yous peoples. Okay, so alls I had to do, really, was take this here article and make it smaller.

Here's the original article as it was written in my textbook:

` TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- The largest earthquake to strike the eastern Gulf of Mexico in the last 30 years sent shock waves from Louisiana to southwest Florida Sunday, but did little more than rattle residents.
` The magnitude 6.0 earthquake, centered about 260 miles southwest of Tampa, was too small to trigger a tsunami or dangerous waves, the United States Geological Survey said.
` The U.S.G.S. received more than 2,800 report from people who felt the 10:56 a.m. quake. Scientists said it was the largest and most widely felt of more than a dozen earthquakes recorded in the region in three decades.
` "This is a fairly unique event," said Don Blakeman, an analyst with the National Earthquake Information Center who said the quake was unusually strong. "I wouldn't expect any substantial damage, but it is possible there will be some minor damage."
` The most prevalent vibration, which lasted for about 20 seconds, was felt on the gulf coast of Florida and in southern Georgia, Blakeman said. But residents in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana also called in reports.
` "It rattled our trailer pretty good," said Dan Hawks, who lives near Ocala in the small central Florida community of Pedro. "The house started shaking. We could actually see it moving. We looked at each stupidly [sic!] and said, 'What's the deal?'"
` Florida counties along the Gulf of Mexico called the state emergency operations center with reports of tremors but no damage was reported, spokesman Mike Stone said. Gov. Jeb Bush was informed of the situation, Stone said.
` The earthquake likely did not have any effect on oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Ray Connolly, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, the trade association for the U.S. oil and natural gas industry. Earthquakes are factored into the design of the industry's equipment both onshore and offshore, Connolly said.
` The epicenter is an unusual location for earthquake activity, but scientists recorded a magnitude 5.2 tremblor in the same location on Feb. 10.
` "This kind of occurrence is unusual in that spot especially for an earthquake of this size," Blakeman said of Sunday's quake.
` The tremblor was unusual because it was not centered on a known fault line. The "Midplate" earthquake, deep under the gulf, was probably the result of stresses generated by the interaction of tectonic plates in the earth's crust, the agency said.
` Only one of Florida's rare earthquakes caused significant damage. In January 1879, St. Augustine residents reported heavy shaking that knocked plaster off the walls.
` A more recent tremblor, in November 1952, prompted a resident of Quincy to report the shaking "interfered with the writing of a parking ticket," the U.S.G.S. said.

So, then I had to shrink it down to fit in a tighter space - here's what I did to it:

` TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- The largest earthquake to strike the eastern Gulf of Mexico in the last 30 years sent shock waves from Louisiana to southwest Florida Sunday, but did little more than rattle residents.
` According to the U.S. Geological Survey, at 10:56 a.m. a magnitude 6.0 earthquake originated about 260 miles southwest of Tampa and was reported by over 28,000 residents as far as Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
` Don Blakeman, an analyst with the National Earthquake Information Center, said the quake was unusually strong, but that he "wouldn't expect any substantial damage...."
` The tremblor was unusual because it was not centered on a known fault line. The "Midplate" earthquake, deep under the Gulf of Mexico, was probably the result of stresses generated by the interaction of tectonic plates in the earth's crust, the agency said.
` Though the Florida counties along the Gulf of Mexico called the state emergency operations center with reports of tremors, spokesman Mike Stone said that no damage was reported.
` In addition, the earthquake likely did not have any effect on oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Ray Connolly, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, as earthquakes are factored into the design of the industry's equipment both onshore and offshore.

But wait, there's more! After that, I had to shrink it down even more! Check it out:

` TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- The largest earthquake to strike the eastern Gulf of Mexico in the last 30 years sent shock waves from Louisiana to southwest Florida Sunday, but did little more than rattle residents.
` According to the U.S. Geological Survey, at 10:56 a.m. a magnitude 6.0 earthquake originated about 260 miles southwest of Tampa and was reported by over 28,000 residents as far as Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
` Though the Florida counties along the Gulf of Mexico called the state emergency operations center with reports of tremors, spokesman Mike Stone said that no damage was reported.
` This tremblor was unusual, according to the U.S.G.S both because of its magnitude and because it was not centered on a known fault line. The "Midplate" earthquake, deep under the gulf, was probably the result of stresses generated by the interaction of tectonic plates in the earth's crust.
` In addition, the earthquake likely did not have any effect on oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico, according to Ray Connolly, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute.

Wow, that was incredibly short - much moreso than the original article! Anyway, I have to work on another project now... that'll be going on my Corrigendopedia! Whoo!

Spoony finally checks her email!

My inbox says I have 686 unread messages.

It's been a while - long enough for gmail to have been changed drastically since last time I've checked my email.
` Here is the first message that might make good blog content.

It's a link to a review of a book about how to teach morals to robots! Good luck with that, dude.

And what's this? An ankylosaur skull was scientifically studied and it was published, which is fine, except it's terrible because bones are thought to have been smuggled from the Gobi Desert and oh no, the world's gonna end!

"It is totally inappropriate to publish on this specimen; it is stolen patrimony," says Mark Norell, curator of vertebrate palaeontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who does field work in Mongolia and China.

I never knew Mark Norell was such a tightass! Nor this guy, who I think looks funny:

Philip Currie, a palaeontologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, says that publishing work about such fossils only encourages the raging illegal trade. "This really flags a horrendous problem in Mongolia, where a frightening number of specimens are smuggled abroad," says Currie.

Oh, it's such a tragedy that someone actually found the damn fossil and described it so we can all know about it instead of it going completely unrecognized while sitting in someone's living room!

Okay, do you think that's enough bitter sarcasm? That's great because it just so happens I have to go right now, to bed, but before I do...

Recently discovered toads with pretty colors! Colors!!

Thank you, Alex! Also: Do I have an alter ego, like the guy in Fight Club?

` Good old Alex the bloggin' cat! He's already done a few posts about me... and the time this month when Vada was lost and later found (though missing most of her subcutaneous fat layer).
` Alex now has a new blog! The banner still features the portrait I drew of him. In fact, it looks like this:



` ...No, it's not invisible (though it is click-visible). That's just what happens when I try to post a photo that is hosted on Blogger. Anyway, he even wrote about me again there! What a nice kitty!
` I don't remember promoting his blog before, so I am today! Check out the post, and look around at his blog - where you will see his banner (and the original portrait)!
` Not many cats can blog, you know. Even Violet can't, and she thinks she's human!

` In other news, this is the so-far unpopular post I put up the other night, in a similar reactionary state as the one today:

6/22, 10:05 pm:

I was checking my emails just now and one was notifying me of this message I got on a website called 'OKCupid'. Weird! Never heard of it... But what's disturbing is that I really did have an account there, with a message....

My Messages

• Inbox
• Sent Mail
• Saved Mail
• Your mailboxes are 1% full. (4/300)

move to folder... Inbox Sent Messages Saved Messages

	chriscoyne (0%)		Quick question...from a 0% friend	Today - 11:27am
	* Connection Manager		Connecting with friends on OkCupid	06/14/2008 - 2:05pm
	OkCupid Admin!		Not your typical welcome message	06/14/2008 - 2:05pm

move to folder... Inbox Sent Messages Saved Messages

Messages 1-3 of 3. First | Previous | Next | Last

How could I have signed up at that time? Last weekend I was a hundred miles or so away from here and did not have internet access the entire time. To be specific, on Saturday the 14th at around 2:05pm I was at an air museum filming a jazz band with really talented choir girls in order to help Lou Ryan and Nathan Lee make money.

Which I'll write about next.

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? Should I call the FBI?

Dumbest Spam IN THE WHOLE WORLD! (possibly)

` I've worked on my 'moving post' a few times today, and it will be ready tomorrow. But, since I already have a recent 'insignificant' post in draft - one that will help clear my front page of photos - I thought I'd put that one up first.
` TOMORROW I will put up one of the GREATEST POSTS MY BLOG HAS EVER SEEN! (Whoa, kind of puts me under pressure, huh?)
` But for now, I'd like you to take a look at the dumbest piece of spam I ever laid eyes upon:

What makes us Different?

1st Reason: Price

We have the lowest prices on all our medical supplies.
NOTE: Our medical supplies are all shipped directly from the manufacture and are the same supplies prescribed by your physician.
2nd Reason: Shipping

We Express Ship all our products
Our packaging is discrete
Your Privacy is guaranteed
3rd Reason: No Consultations

You will never need consultations
You will never need a physician letter
You will never have to fill out forms

DIFFERENT IS GOOD!

` If that isn't vague and distinctly non-reassuring enough, they put this just below the web address:

Multiple Sentence Creator:
Ah amiable indeed
a good deal and had felt that I was a
look wild
In a word
that I received soon recalled me to myself
as he handled the reins
Heaven knows and been the better for it
to be sitting up there behind four horses
and I know hell die there
And hes like Rocky too said my aunt decisively
In a word
I had not yet relinquished
a good deal and had felt that I was a
I infer that poisoning is not always
The letter was reluctantly produced and as I handed it to the old lady
a good deal and had felt that I was a
distinguished eminence had glorified myself upon it
And hes like Rocky too said my aunt decisively

` No doubt about it, that's a multiple sentence creator. I mean, if you weren't sure, it says what it is!
` The attachment was of a poster that apparently says the same thing as the email. Like, after seeing that, how could anyone even think that it could possibly be a real company? And yet, sadly, there must be a lot of people who fall for it!
` That is just so sad.

I've been so out of the loop!

` I would have had this up yesterday, but my computer is behaving so badly and erasing everything I've done in Blogger (or Word, for that matter) that I think I need to take it back into the shop.

` I regret not being there 'in time' to catch the latest Nature articles (or at least News Flashes, for the most part.) So many I've lost, and most of them look fascinating! Check it out:

Wipe out a single memory-Drug can clear away one fearful memory while leaving another intact.-11 March 2007
Earth's magnetic field reversals mimicked in the lab-The switching of the poles can be studied in a tub of molten metal.-9 March 2007
Quantum cryptography goes wireless-Single entangled photons travel 144 km through the air.-8 March 2007
Rose-scented sleep improves memory-Bursts of scent during the night can help solidify learning.-8 March 2007
Robo-salamander goes swimming-Bot throws light on the evolution of walking.-8 March 2007
Pollution decreases rainfall-Mountains in haze get less rain.-8 March 2007
Dozens of new cancer genes found-Genome sweep shows cancer-driving mutations more common than thought.-7 March 2007
Did a 'light' genome help birds take flight?-A smaller genome evolved in dinosaurs, long before birds learned to fly.-7 March 2007
Not a sea, but a seep, on Mars-Salt deposits could have come from groundwater, not standing water.-7 March 2007
Breath test for diabetes-Non-invasive test can pick up the whiff of disease.-6 March 2007
Turning sweat into light-Could 'gym generators' power the way to green electricity?-2 March 2007
Antarctic 'sandbags' may protect ice-Glacial deposits could help to protect against sea-level rise.-1 March 2007
None more black-Engineers make the most anti-reflective coating yet.-1 March 2007
Graphene steps up to silicon's challenge-Tiny transistor uses a single electron to turn off and on at room temperature.-28 February 2007
Electric switch could turn on limb regeneration-Tadpoles use a proton pump to direct tissue regrowth.-28 February 2007
The more, the wikier-The secret to the quality of Wikipedia entries is lots of edits by lots of people-27 February 2007
Ancient DNA solves milk mystery-Analysis of fossilized bones suggests milk-drinking mutations emerged after dairy herding.-26 February 2007

` There's also a bunch I would have missed anyway simply because I didn't pay the money:

Psychological attacks rank high on torture list-Watching a sham execution comes near the top of distressing assaults.-5 March 2007
The United States set its clocks back an hour last Sunday - three weeks earlier than usual, in an attempt to save on energy bills. Read our special report from January 2007 to see if the scheme will work.
Chinese ban on Internet cafes ducks the issue-If addiction's the problem, says Phil Ball, prohibition's not the answer.-9 March 2007
Scriptural violence can foster aggression-Elements of religious texts seem to inspire bad behaviour.-7 March 2007
Laser physics: Extreme light-Physicists are planning lasers powerful enough to rip apart the fabric of space and time. Ed Gerstner is impressed.-28 February 2007
Nature's X-files-Not all the correspondence to a top science journal contains top science. Some of it is very odd indeed.
The lab that asked the wrong questions-Closure of parapsychology lab throws spotlight on scientific taboos.-28 February 2007
Chimps make spears to catch dinner-Wooden weapons are a first in animal kingdom.
22 February 2007
Who were the first Americans?-Dating study suggests it wasn't the makers of the Clovis culture.-22 February 2007
Scrub-jays look ahead-Far-sighted birds plan breakfast the evening before.-21 February 2007
Monkeys hug it out to avoid fights-Embraces calm tension between rival gangs.-21 February 2007
Quantum computing at 16 qubits-Programmable computer solves sudoku and sets seating charts.-15 February 2007
Scientific treasure found in junk pit-Archaeological dig reveals high-tech medieval instrument.-14 February 2007
Squid vid shows swimming surprise-Pictures from the depths reveal luminous and speedy animal.-14 February 2007
Bird-eating bats pinned down-Bat blood shows that they can attack migrating birds.-14 February 2007
Oldest chimp tools found in West Africa-Apes could have passed down skills for thousands of years.-12 February 2007
Carbon goes deep-Studies show CO2 has reached the bottom of the ocean.-12 February 2007

` However, there are many more articles I have been able to access in the past week, and I promise you, they're just as interesting. But, if you're not into that, you can just stop right here and... and... go... watch Ryan vs. Dorkman 2!
` I just saw this video and was very impressed at how professional the martial arts and special effects were! Excellent work, guys!



` Now, as for more current editions, ones that I can access, I'll go over a few of them - I seriously have NO TIME AT ALL to write about them, so I'll have to reproduce chunks for you here: Not seeing is believing Hmm, this looks promising....
'Bond's invisible Aston Martin and Potter's invisibility cloak aside, what have metamaterials done for us? Not much in the real world yet, but from relatively mundane beginnings in all-optical communications technologies, that could all change. Just wait and see, or not.'
` Grrr, I should hope so!
` 'Unexpected tricks of the light-The buzz over invisibility cloaks is fun — while it lasts. But metamaterials are likely to transform optics through more mundane applications. Katharine Sanderson reports.'
` Ohhhh... I hope you don't think I'm a bastard for saying 'boring'....

Published online: 26 March 2007
'Semi-identical' twins discovered-Hermaphrodite reveals previously unknown type of twinning.-John Whitfield

` Now this is just insane!

Researchers have discovered a pair of twins who are identical through their mother's side, but share only half their genes on their father's side.

The 'semi-identical' twins are the result of two sperm cells fusing with a single egg — a previously unreported way for twins to come about, say the team that made the finding. The twins are chimaeras, meaning that their cells are not genetically uniform. Each sperm has contributed genes to each child.

"Their similarity is somewhere between identical and fraternal twins," says geneticist Vivienne Souter, of the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona. "It makes me wonder whether the current classification of twins is an oversimplification."...

Souter and her colleagues investigated the twins' genetic makeup because one was born with ambiguous genitalia. This twin turned out to be a 'true hermaphrodite', with both ovarian and testicular tissue. The other twin is anatomically male.

Genetic tests revealed that each twin contained some 'female' cells with two X chromosomes, and some 'male' cells with an X and a Y. The proportion of each type varies from tissue to tissue in each twin, the researchers report in Human Genetics....

...Occasionally, two sperm are known to fertilize a single egg; this 'double fertilization' is thought to happen in about 1% of human conceptions. An embryo created this way doesn't usually survive, but a few cases are known to have made it — these children are chimaeras of cells with X and Y chromosomes.

...It had been previously predicted that this might happen. Biologist Michael Golubovsky, for example, now at the University of California, Berkeley, suggested in 2003 that twins intermediate between identical and fraternal might result from double fertilizations2. The new discovery confirms his theory.

` Fancy that! Who would have ever thought it could work like that? (Besides Golubovsky....)

Published online: 22 March 2007-Mice made to see a rainbow of colours-All you need to see more is more pigments in the eye.-Lucy Odling Smee

` I already get the idea that some crazy scientist has tweaked a mouse's genes for opsin to allow it to have trichromatic color vision....

Simply by inserting a piece of DNA that codes for a human eye pigment into the genome of a mouse, scientists have introduced a rainbow array of colour to the dull mix of yellows, blues and greys that normally make up a mouse's visual world....

Gerald Jacobs from the University of California in Santa Barbara and his colleagues have genetically engineered mice with a human pigment in their eye as well as the normal mouse pigments and shown that this does appear to give the mice the ability to see colours they could not see before....

In looking at the evolution of full colour, or trichromatic, vision in humans, most scientists turn to New World monkeys, which have an arrangement mid-way between the two- and three-photopigment systems. They have only one photopigment gene on their X chromosome, but there are different versions of the gene, producing different pigments. As a result, female monkeys (which carry two X chromosomes, and so can potentially have two different pigment genes) can end up with three different photopigments in their eyes.

The team made female mice in which one X chromosome carries a normal mouse photopigment gene, while the other X chromosome has a human pigment gene. Like female New World monkeys, these mice were able to produce three types of photopigment, the team reports in Science1.

...They presented the mice with three circular panels each of which was lit up by light with a wavelength within the 500-600 nm range - that's the bit of the visual spectrum that looks green, yellow or red to us. In each trial, one panel was lit up differently from the other two; pressing on the odd-one-out would result in the mouse getting a soy milk reward.

Most of the transgenic mice could clearly see a difference when the lights were more than 10 nm different: three out of five of them pushed the correct panel with their nose or paw 80% of the time during 10,000 trials. As for the two transgenic mice who didn't do so well, the researchers speculate that they didn't have a good mix of the different photopigments in their eyes.

That means that the mouse brain is perfectly capable of deciphering a stream of new information from the eye. "This is a beautiful demonstration that fairly sophisticated processing can arise from a single change at the front end of the visual system," says Williams.

The result also hints that perhaps the right kind of photopigment is all that's needed for humans to get owl-like night vision, or to see ultraviolet colours.

` Mua ha ha ha ha haaaaa!

Degrees in homeopathy slated as unscientific-Alternative therapies are now a degree subject at some British universities. But do they deserve these credentials? Jim Giles reports.-21 March 2007

` Indeed!

As debate rages in the United States over whether intelligent design should be taught in science classes, another topic that many researchers see as a pseudoscience is claiming scientific status within the British education system.

...Many scientists and advocates of evidence-based medicine feel that giving homeopathy scientific status is unjustified. Aside from the fact that there is no known mechanism by which this treatment could work, they argue that the evidence against it is conclusive.
` Of the many rigorous systematic reviews conducted in the past decade, only a handful have produced evidence, marginal at best, in favour of homeopathy, with the authors in each case stating that the data were weak. Several reviewers found no effect, and a prominent study suggesting that homeopathy does work (L. Linde et al. Lancet 350, 834–843; 1997), and which is frequently cited by homeopaths, has had its methodology extensively criticized since publication.

...Ben Goldacre, a London-based medical doctor, journalist and frequent critic of homeopathy, says that several universities have refused to let him see their course materials. "I can't imagine what they're teaching," he says. "I can only imagine that they teach that it's OK to cherry-pick evidence. That's totally unacceptable."

One university that is willing to discuss its teaching is the University of Westminster in London. Brian Isbell, head of Westminster's department of complementary therapies, defends the BSc description, arguing that as with all of the university's complementary therapy degrees, students also have to study the health-sciences model of disease, so that they can "work safely and effectively within the healthcare system". Students are required to do research and produce critiques of the literature.

...One assignment asks students to critique a paper that assessed the health changes reported by patients suffering from a range of chronic diseases when they attended follow-up appointments after receiving homeopathic treatment at a hospital in Bristol. Almost three-quarters of the 6,500 patients reported that their condition had improved (D. S. Spence et al. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 11, 793–798; 2005).

The paper generated significant media coverage when it was published, but its methodology has been widely criticized. No control group was used, prompting Colquhoun to note that the study is not even capable of showing that homeopathy was producing a placebo effect. So what happens when students critique the paper? Do they get full marks for showing that it provides no evidence at all for homeopathy?

Not quite, says Isbell, who says the paper was chosen precisely because of the controversy over its methodology. Students would be expected to discuss the problems with the lack of controls and to suggest ways to run better studies. But Isbell says that the Bristol researchers still collected useful 'outcome measures' — basically a set of reports from individual patients about how they improved. "It doesn't have the rigour of other methods," Isbell says, "but it is part of the picture."

The differing opinions over the paper highlight an issue at the centre of the dispute about the evidence for homeopathy, and which explains in part why lecturers feel they can teach the subject as science. For advocates of evidence-based medicine, the double-blind randomized clinical trial (in which neither the doctor nor the patient knows who is getting active treatment and who is getting a placebo) is the best form of evidence available to practitioners. When regulators take decisions on drug safety, for example, they usually rely on such studies. But for homeopaths, there is a serious flaw in this approach.

When a patient visits a homeopath, the practitioner asks questions that go beyond the symptoms and probe other aspects of the patient's life, such as whether they are feeling stressed or unhappy. The result is an individualized treatment that takes longer than the ten or so minutes that the patient would get with a government-funded family doctor. This personal interaction is critical to homeopathy, both in tailoring the medicine and in gaining the patient's confidence. Homeopaths say that if there is a chance that the patient might receive a placebo at the end of it, the necessary trust can break down.

...For advocates of evidence-based medicine, such arguments are equivalent to admitting that homeopathy is nothing more than a strong placebo effect brought on by an attentive practitioner. If the treatment cannot work unless the patient and practitioner believe in it, then it cannot be due to the physical properties of the remedy. Homeopaths disagree, insisting that the remedy itself does have an effect independent of the practitioner. But by ruling out what scientists consider the best mechanism available to test this assertion, it is hard to see how homeopaths will ever convince their opponents.

` I could mention here, that Lou says even though homeopathy isn't proven in studies, and that you can't tell the difference between placebos and homeopathic remedies, the fact that it's so hard to test and the overwhelming anecdotal and personal evidence is what keeps him believing.

'Here boy' makes dogs wag to the right-Direction of tail wagging highlights different tasks of brain halves.-21 March 2007

Dogs wag their tails to the right when they see something they want to approach, and to the left when confronted with something they want to back away from, say researchers in Italy.

` Now that's vaguely interesting!

...Shown a human or a cat, tails wagged consistently to the right. The unfamiliar person elicited less wagging than the owner, and the cat the least wagging of all — probably because the dog was so interested in giving chase that it was distracted from wagging, says Vallortigara.

Shown a large, unfamiliar and intimidating dog, the dogs wagged their tails more to the left. Dogs also wagged to the left when left on their own without anyone to look at, the researchers report in Current Biology¹.

...Previous studies have shown that, in humans, strong activity in the brain's left hemisphere (which controls the right side of the body) is associated generally with a sunny disposition. Human studies have also linked left-brain activity with approach behaviour, and right-brain activity with retreat.

...Biases for right- or left-'handed' behaviours have been seen in fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, reptiles and mammals. "The evidence is that brain asymmetry is quite ancient," says Vallortigara. "It seems to have started early in the vertebrates."

Parcelling out tasks to one side of the brain or the other avoids duplication, and may help decision-making by reducing conflict between brain regions.

More puzzling, says Rogers, is why such biases also arise in behaviours such as escape. Toads and chicks, for example, are both more likely to leap away from something seen in the left eye — suggesting that a predator could learn to sneak up from the right. Why such biases do not vary at random from animal to animal is still uncertain.

A chip in the eye boosts sight - Amplification of light restores limited vision in some damaged retinas. - 21 March 2007

` Hooray for cyborgdom!

Eberhart Zrenner, executive director of the Eye Hospital at the University of Tübingen in Germany, announced at a recent press conference that his team had surgically implanted a 3-millimetre-square chip behind the retina of one eye in seven legally blind patients between the ages of 26 and 58. The chips restored limited vision to three of the patients, Zrenner said. The group will present its results at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology annual meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in May.

...For two of the patients who showed no improvement in the trial there were technical problems with the chips; two others had been blind for more than 10 years, and so seemed to have lost the ability to interpret the light signals.

The three patients in whom the chip worked reported seeing "sort of an illuminated window frame", in which they had limited vision. One was able to locate white dinner plates on a dark tablecloth, for example, but could not locate white plastic packages of coffee creamer.

"The patients were absolutely enthusiastic about it, to see light or find a plate on the table in front of them," says Wrobel. "For them, it was tremendous progress." A key to future success will be teaching patients to interpret the images better, he says.

...Alan Chow at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago is a co-founder of Optobionics of Naperville, Illinois. His team has a sub-retinal implant that works without amplification, and is powered only by the incoming light. "We have demonstrated that a passive device works," Chow says, adding: "With ours there is no need for an exit wire."

An artificial silicon retina developed by Optobionics, with 5,000 microscopic solar cells, each with its own stimulating electrode, has been tested in ten people in a trial that began in 2000. The company says that sight improved for all of them. Chow says some have seen colours and others have been able to see their own face in a mirror. But Wrobel still argues that amplification is necessary to truly restore sight.

` ...Ear chips, eye chips, motor chips... what's next?

To kill one, or watch many die?-Brain damage takes the emotion out of decisions.-21 March 2007

` If this is what I think it is....

A runaway train is speeding down the tracks towards five workmen. You and a stranger are standing on a bridge over the track. The only way to save the five is to push the stranger in front of the train to his death, and his body will stop it from reaching them.

` It is!!

...Antonio Damasio at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and his colleagues used a battery of dilemmas like this one to explore the role of emotion in moral decisions. Healthy subjects rejected most of the solutions that involved harming one person to save many lives, but the team found that people with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain area just behind the forehead, endorsed such decisions.

These patients, whose brain damage resulted from stroke or the removal of a brain tumour, made perfectly normal decisions when the scenarios didn't have a moral component (is it all right to change a cake recipe if you don't like it?) or were asked to make less personal decisions (is it all right to push a heavy sculpture off a bridge to save the five workmen?). But when patients responded to more personal moral dilemmas, they were more than twice as likely as both normal controls and patients with brain damage that didn't include the VMPC to decide to harm one person — even their own child — to save more lives in the future.

..."Social emotions were really the scaffolding for what we came to construct as ethics," he says. How those social emotions are taken into account in the process of decision-making seems to be very biological. "When things get complicated, we engage an emotional system — it's not reason alone," Damasio says.

` And now... time for dinosaurs!!!!

Burrowing dinosaur unearthed - Fossilized family broadens picture of extinct reptiles. - 21 March 2007

The discovery of a dinosaur family fossilized in its burrow could make us rethink where the animals lived, how they behaved, and even what wiped them out, say researchers.

David Varricchio of Montana State University in Bozeman and his colleagues found the jumbled remains of two juveniles and an adult together in what looks to be the remains of a custom-built hole in southern Montana.

...The team has named the beast Oryctodromeus cubicularis, meaning 'digging runner of the lair'. It belongs to a group of small herbivorous dinosaurs, and lived 95 million years ago during the mid-Cretaceous period.

The skeletons are incomplete, but they show that when fully grown, the animal was about 2.1 metres long, of which more than half was tail. The dinosaur had a broad snout and powerful shoulders well adapted for digging, and sturdy hips that would help it to brace itself as it dug. It could also run on its back legs.

The den was just over two metres long, with a pronounced s-bend — making it harder for predators to enter — opening out into a terminal chamber. The close fit between the sizes of burrow and beast convinced the team that Oryctodromeus had dug its own den, rather than simply displacing a previous occupant. "It's not just a random attempt," says Martin. "It's very well constructed."

...Varricchio and his colleagues had previously found what seemed to be a family of dinosaurs in what could have been a collapsed burrow in China (see 'Fossil hints at devoted parenting in dinosaurs'), but no one had seen an actual tunnel space until now.

` What a charming find! I myself have always thought that some small dinosaurs must have dug burrows to keep warm in during the winter, but this is beyond my expectations!

` Anyway, I have many a this, that and other thing going on, but I have to get my computer to the shop quickly (hence the rush job) because of its fondness for crashing whenever I open a program. I don't know why it hasn't done this yet today, but it had about thirty times yesterday.
` So, I hope you see it's important for me to get going. However, when I come back - I promise you! - I'll have a really big surprise!! (In fact, it might be done now if my computer would stop so rudely interrupting me with a Blue Screen of Death!)
` See you later! And if I'm not back before April Fool's Day, wish me a good 25th birthday!

Cool internet-based things to see that aren't on my blog

` I know, I've been really slacking lately in the posting area, though I have an upcoming post that is almost finished. (See? I'm not completely absent!)
` Currently, I'm at school between a class and a workshop, listening to The Red Letters playing in the next room. I swear, they're so good I think they may have a music-based future involving high income!
` Anywho, before my computer exploded, I installed this thing on Mozilla called StumbleUpon, which takes you to really cool websites you would probably just love to go to if only you knew about them!
` And then my bookmarks were all mysteriously deleted. Fortunately, I had this draft cooking online, so many of them have been preserved.
` Now, for some reason the things I've 'Stumbled Upon' tend to have something to do with art, even though I have other interests. Even so, I'm not complaining, they're really cool! Check these out!

` The lost art of snowmen....

` Cool timelapse project!

` Pretty three dimensional kaleidoscope!

` Weird art and movies! (I thought that the slow-motion world of rocks vs cavemen was really creative!)

` Draw a picture, then see a drawing someone else did! I don't really understand the point of this, but it's cool! (I've contributed heavily, too, so you might run into something I did!)

` Oh, shoot! I have to get outta here! I'll finish my next post really soon, I promise!

The Price Calvin (and his parents) Had to Pay...

` In lieu of an actual post, I recommend you all to watch this heartwarming video of Calvin and his pet tiger, Hobbes. Or is it just a hallucination? Decide for yourself.



` Yes, I'm scared too.

Yay for things more important than blogging!

` But no hard feelings. If it makes you feel better, here's a photo of a beautiful carnivorous marsupial fossil as it was found in Flightstar cave! Then, the skeleton was laid out in a museum! And some brilliant artistic person made a computer model (not generally my favorite kind of reconstruction art) of what the beast looked like in real life.
` Yes, not related to dogs and cats, but nevertheless something worthy of dread of things with sharp, rodent-like teeth and killer thumb claws! Anyway, I'm up way past my bedtime and I have to get to school at nine the next morning!

` Boo hoo....

` There will be more vacation photos up at some point or another... maybe something else if I have time.

` P.S. I get the idea that Nociceptor's been screwing around with medium-sized ratite birds. Don't be surprised if you walk into the lab in the near future and find some kind of razor-clawed beast.

Have a Very Scary Solstice!

` I just learned that today's the day! Sing along, everybody, it's Cephalopodmas! Be prepared to say Hello to Cthulhu! (Or at least, check out 'Hello Cthulhu', a very twisted and evilly cute webcomic.)



` Now, let's flee the planet! We're doomed! Hurrah!

A most confounding algebra problem: Margaret + ? = Peg

` I've been working hard on another post, but I keep getting interrupted so here's a Straight Dope I came across recently:

Dear Cecil:

My grandmother was named Margaret. She, and every other Margaret I know, has the nickname "Peg" or "Peggy." None of them can tell me how the two are connected, or how one arose from the other. Can you? --Michael Hix, Redlands, California

Dear Michael:

Never underestimate human ingenuity. Margaret has spawned an amazing variety of names, some of which you wouldn't connect with the original in a million years. For example: Margot, Marguerita, Rita (!), Greta, Gretel, Gretchen, Marjorie (originally Margery), Margie, Maggie, Madge, May, Maisie, Daisy (!!), Maidie, Meg, and Mog. As for Peg, one historian writes, "the nicknames Mog and Meg later gave rise to the rhymed forms Pog(gy) and Peg(gy)." Can't say as I know a lot of Poggies, and can't say as I want to. But you see how Grandma Margaret wound up with Peg.

OOPS O' DAISY

Dear Cecil:

Regarding the question about how Peggy derived from Margaret, you showed some astonishment that Daisy derived from Margaret. It is, in fact, the origin of the name. La marguerite is French for daisy. Daisy historically (until this century) has been a common diminutive of Margaret, and in the fifteenth century Marguerite d'Anjou, wife of England's Henry VI, used the daisy as her personal symbol.

An anonymous poem:

In search from A to Z they passed,
And "Marguerita" chose at last;
But thought it sound far more sweet
To call the baby "Marguerite."
When grandma saw the little pet,
She called her "darling Margaret."
Next uncle Jack and cousin Aggie
Sent cup and spoon to "little Maggie."
And grandpapa the right must beg
To call the lassie "bonnie Meg."
From "Marguerita" down to "Meg,"
And now she's simply "little Peg."

--Eirene Varley, Austin, Texas

Cecil replies:

Poetry always chokes me up. Just so we understand each other, I wasn't personally astonished by the Margaret/Daisy connection--when you've been on this job as long as I have, you're not astonished by anything. But I'd venture to say the average citizen wouldn't suspect a link. Contrary to what is apparently wide belief, judging from the mail, Margaret doesn't derive from the French/Spanish/Yiddish word for daisy. Margaret and marguerite do have a common source, the Latin margarita, pearl.

--CECIL ADAMS

` I've always wondered about where the name 'Peg' came from!! It never made any sense! Well, sad to say, though Lou is making some very pleasing Floor Noises (jamming downstairs) I'm gonna be off to a night walk through the graveyard with TallGuy. Later!

Americans - Sick Limey Bastards?

` Another bonus post drafted from May!

` Yes, the Americans are so sick, in more than one way.... A 2006 study compared the health of 8,000 white Americans and Englanders between the ages of 55 to 64 years old and found that the Americans are amazingly less healthy than the Englanders, despite having better private health insurance, etc!
` The authors were shocked to find that diabetes was twice as common in the US as England, that cancer was 70% more common, and heart disease was more than 50% more prevalent.
` Furthermore, the Americans in the healthiest, highest-income and best-educated bracket had the same rates of heart disease and diabetes as the poorest, least healthy bracket in England.
` Yeah, of course that seems likely if you don't control for certain aspects, but even when groups of equivalent obesity, smoking and drinking were compared, there still wasn't much of a difference.
` So even that stuff doesn't matter much? Okay... that's just outrageous!
` James Smith of the RAND corporation in Santa Monica (and senior author of JAMA) said that "it seemed implausable" at first. "We did not expect to find this."
` What on earth could be causing it? Is it the way we live? For other countries that are copying the lifestyles of the U.S., Smith cautions that "It may be a warning signal."

` Another study, however, shows that hypertension is 60% higher in Europe than it is in Canada or the U.S., meaning that the real picture may not be as exaggerated as it looks.
` So, were the people who took the health surveys just complaining more about their health? Since blood samples from another 7,600 people were studied for levels of cholesterol, blood glucose, etc, match up with the survey results, that seems unlikely.
` Smith says that; "All the easy answers are not what is going on. It's something more fundamental."
` But what?
` Perhaps the obese Americans had been that way for longer than the obsese Englanders in question - that was not noted in the study. And if the Americans had had worse health as young children, it could have easily led to poorer health by now. It could even be that Americans are a lot more stressed out - that really does make such serious diseases more likely to occur!
` So, says Smith, we should be able to figure out how to keep people healthy on this dreary side of the Atlantic: "The United States should be able to achieve the health of the English. It's not an impossible goal."

` Isn't that just crazy? And another thing I'm familiar with and annoyed about: The fact that there is a higher percentage of obsese Americans than Englanders - which makes sense because Americans typically eat a lot more than Europeans. (In fact, Lou Ryan and his friends have had the opportinuty to amaze Englanders, etc. with how much they normally eat in a day!)
` It is an unfortunate thing because from what I can tell, people were meant to be fat, if they could be sometimes, but not obese!
` And according to The Lancet Infectious Diseases 2006; 6:438-446, obesity apparently weakens the immune system, making people suffer even worse from common infections while at the same time heightening their chances of catching more rare infections!
` So, they're at a higher risk for heart disease and a whole lot else, and their immune system is depressed? Sucks to be both obese and American!

The ringtones that WILL NOT DIE!!

` I can't write intelligently right now because I'm surrounded by people and almost out of time, but I just thought I'd say this:
` Every time my phone rings, it reminds me of people I don't want to be reminded of, and my cat, who is now dead. So, I tried a free trial of cell phone internet so that I could get ringtones that don't bum me out!
` Unfortunately, I can't find any ringtones I am willing to listen to even once more that are, at the same time, on a website that has a working download page!
` It's so frustrating - I have spent too many hours trying to find a working site and it is such a waste of time! I refuse to do it any more because I have better things to do than be disappointed!!
` So yes, I can't download anything I like the sound of - either that, or I can download as many songs as I want, but I have no idea what they are. And I'd really rather not do that because then I'd have to download about 100 just to get one I didn't want to delete. Y'know?
` Of course, being a musician I have also tried to send my own homemade ringtones to my phone via e-mail, but my phone downloads the message (which is blank anyway) and not any MIDI files.
` Darn Sprint!! Darn it to heck!!!
` And to add insult to injury, my phone is still receiving text message spam from all those websites I tried to get ringtones from!

` Does anyone know anything I can do!?!?

I want to read these, dammit!!

` This bonus post is pretty old, and there's not much to it. I can't add anything intelligent to it because I'm surrounded by stuff. Also, it's similar to the last one because I'm mostly venting and have no time to make it in any way tasteful.

` Look at all the lovely Nature articles I'm missing because I won't pay them money:

Genes wilder

---

The genetic code 'cracked',protein synthesis 'solved' and complete genomes sequenced: surely we now know what a gene is and what it does. That may be true for those safely outside the field. But for geneticists close to the action, the concept of a gene is getting very complicated indeed.

News Feature: Genetics: What is a gene?

The idea of genes as beads on a DNA string is fast fading. Protein-coding sequences have no clear beginning or end and RNA is a key part of the information package, reports Helen Pearson.

doi:10.1038/441398a

25 May 2006

A healthy distance

---

Social animals gain a lot by pooling resources — but they stand to lose a lot if they also pool pathogens. The Caribbean spiny lobster has developed a way of reducing this risk. Normally they share an underwater shelter with others of the species: but healthy individuals recognize and steer clear of those infected with the lethal virus PaV1. It is possible that infection alters the visual displays used to establish social groups, but the signs are that this avoidance strategy is chemically mediated.

Brief Communications: Ecology: Avoidance of disease by social lobsters

These gregarious animals shun lobsters that carry a lethal virus, even when they still seem to be healthy.

Donald C. Behringer, Mark J. Butler and Jeffrey D. Shields

Nature 441, 421 (25 May 2006) | doi:10.1038/441421a; Published online 24 May 2006

Ecology: Avoidance of disease by social lobsters

Donald C. Behringer¹, Mark J. Butler¹ and Jeffrey D. Shields²

Top of page

Transmissible pathogens are the bane of social animals¹, so they have evolved behaviours to decrease the probability of infection^{2, 3}. There is no record, however, of social animals avoiding diseased individuals of their own species in the wild. Here we show how healthy, normally gregarious Caribbean spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus) avoid conspecifics that are infected with a lethal virus. Early detection and avoidance of infected, though not yet infectious, individuals by healthy lobsters confers a selective advantage and highlights the importance of host behaviour in disease transmission among natural populations.

1. Department of Biological Sciences, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia 23529, USA
2. Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester Point, Virginia 23062, USA

Nature 441, 506-508 (25 May 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature04591; Received 4 November 2005; Accepted 18 January 2006

Homology of arthropod anterior appendages revealed by Hox gene expression in a sea spider

Muriel Jager¹, Jérôme Murienne^1,3, Céline Clabaut^1,3, Jean Deutsch², Hervé Le Guyader¹ and Michaël Manuel¹

Top of page

Arthropod head segments offer a paradigm for understanding the diversification of form during evolution, as a variety of morphologically diverse appendages have arisen from them. There has been long-running controversy, however, concerning which head appendages are homologous among arthropods, and from which ancestral arrangement they have been derived. This controversy has recently been rekindled by the proposition that the probable ancestral arrangement, with appendages on the first head segment, has not been lost in all extant arthropods as previously thought, but has been retained in the pycnogonids, or sea spiders¹. This proposal was based on the neuroanatomical analysis of larvae from the sea spider Anoplodactylus sp., and suggested that the most anterior pair of appendages, the chelifores, are innervated from the first part of the brain, the protocerebrum. Our examination of Hox gene expression in another sea spider, Endeis spinosa, refutes this hypothesis. The anterior boundaries of Hox gene expression domains place the chelifore appendages as clearly belonging to the second head segment, innervated from the second part of the brain, the deutocerebrum. The deutocerebrum must have been secondarily displaced towards the protocerebrum in pycnogonid ancestors. As anterior-most appendages are also deutocerebral in the other two arthropod groups, the Euchelicerata and the Mandibulata, we conclude that the protocerebral appendages have been lost in all extant arthropods.

1. Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, UMR 7138 CNRS UPMC MNHN ENS IRD, Case 05, 9 quai St Bernard, 75005 Paris, France
2. Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, UMR 7622 CNRS UPMC, 9 quai St Bernard, 75005 Paris, France
3. †Present addresses: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, UMR 5202 CNRS, Département Systématique et Evolution, case 50, 45 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France (J.M.); Department of Biology, Evolutionary Biology, University of Konstanz, D-78457 Konstanz, Germany (C.C.)

25 May 2006

Talking heads

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The arthropods are a good example of how evolution shapes different body forms from a single ancestral species. They consist of a series of head and body segments, each with different appendages — claws, antennae, wings, legs. A recent Nature paper offered a new explanation of some apparent anomalies. The curious arthropods called sea spiders, it was suggested, have appendages on the first head segment, providing a link with the arthropod ancestor. That work was based on neuroanatomical observations, but now, using molecular techniques, Jager et al. show that sea spiders, like all other living arthropods, have lost the first head appendages seen in fossils.

Letter: Homology of arthropod anterior appendages revealed by Hox gene expression in a sea spider

Muriel Jager, Jérôme Murienne, Céline Clabaut, Jean Deutsch, Hervé Le Guyader and Michaël Manuel

doi:10.1038/nature04591

Nature 441, 509-512 (25 May 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature04756; Received 28 November 2005; Accepted 30 March 2006

Somatic stem cell niche tropism in Wolbachia

Horacio M. Frydman^1,2, Jennifer M. Li^1,2, Drew N. Robson² and Eric Wieschaus^1,2

Top of page

Wolbachia are intracellular bacteria found in the reproductive tissue of all major groups of arthropods^{1, 2}. They are transmitted vertically from the female hosts to their offspring, in a pattern analogous to mitochondria inheritance. But Wolbachia phylogeny does not parallel that of the host, indicating that horizontal infectious transmission must also occur^{3, 4, 5}. Insect parasitoids are considered the most likely vectors, but the mechanism for horizontal transfer is largely unknown^{4, 6, 7}. Here we show that newly introduced Wolbachia cross several tissues and infect the germline of the adult Drosophila melanogaster female. Through investigation of bacterial migration patterns during the course of infection, we found that Wolbachia reach the germline through the somatic stem cell niche in the D. melanogaster germarium. In addition, our data suggest that Wolbachia are highly abundant in the somatic stem cell niche of long-term infected hosts, implying that this location may also contribute to efficient vertical transmission. This is, to our knowledge, the first report of an intracellular parasite displaying tropism for a stem cell niche.

1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute,
2. Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540, USA

25 May 2006

A niche fit for Wolbachia

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Wolbachia are remarkably successful intracellular parasites. They are found in most Arthropods and are also in the news as possible tools for malaria control — transgenic variants could block maturation of malaria parasites in mosquitoes. Like mitochondria, these bacteria are transmitted by the mother. They also spread horizontally between species, but little is known about the cellular mechanisms involved. Frydman et al. now report that Wolbachia can cross tissue barriers to reach the germline. They preferentially populate the somatic stem cell niche of the Drosophila germarium (where the ova form) in newly initiated or inherited infections. The stem cell niche appears to act as a reservoir of bacteria for germline infection.

Letter: Somatic stem cell niche tropism in Wolbachia

Horacio M. Frydman, Jennifer M. Li, Drew N. Robson and Eric Wieschaus

doi:10.1038/nature04756

` Hee. And here's another: Practice patterns of Japanese physicians in urologic surveillance and management of spinal cord injury patients

S Kitahara, E Iwatsubo, K Yasuda, T Ushiyama, H Nakai, T Suzuki, T Yamashita, R Sato, T Kihara, T Yamanishi and Y Nohara

` And, if you snooze, ya lose - the articles I can access disappear, and so I'm also too late for these:

Stressed-out plants warn their offspring
Increased tendency to mutate is handed down to next generation.
6 August 2006

How a leopard changes his spots
Equations get to grips with patterns in a growing cat's coat.
4 August 2006

Japan aims to build Moon base by 2030
Ambitious plan surprises fellow space agencies.
3 August 2006

Mice saved from lethal allergic reaction
Protein discovery reveals mechanism of anaphylactic shock.
2 August 2006

It's official: apes outsmart monkeys
Primate IQ test hails orang-utans as our smartest relatives.
1 August 2006

` Alas, I cannot read all these. The best I can do is to find copies of them elsewhere and to act fast. If only relatively reliable information could be free....