On Pumice and Luffa

Unpacking your bathroom yields numerous surprises- often embarrassing. That old, folded metal tube of yellow ointment,-the grease rendering the pharmacist's label illegibly translucent. That itch i had back in 1987- oh yes- now i remember.

Pink and green (hers and his) pumice stones- how grateful we are that God has created a world for us in which volcanos erupt in frothy glass rocks for the benefit of our chapped heels. Apparently, it's density is so low that pumice rafts waft on the ocean currents for decades after an appropriate eruption.

Now on to the Luffa... about 6 months ago in my local mega-supermarket i came across a thing resembling an eggplant (aubergine). Unlabelled, it confused the checkout drone- and needed 3 layers of supermarket beauracracy to identify it as a "Luffa".

Obviously, i went home and googled recipes for it... printed out a few and adhered to fridge with magnet in hope wife would cook it... no luck... eventually it went black at the back of the fridge and was sadly disposed of.

Further googling showed that the thing i thought was a dried sea-sponge hidden behind her never-used scented candles was a dried version of the eggplant... "Oh, it's a Loofah!".

This came as quite a shock as i did a very detailed school project on Sponges (Phylum Porifera) when i was 9- and i thought my knowledge was better than most. Did you know you can strain a sea-sponge through a sieve into it's consituent cells and it will reassemble itself into a new one? I think sponges invented multicellularity -and tissues. (not the bathroom kind).

Ikea Apple Corer & Slicer

This gadget... from Ikea is, however, indispensible- it slices AND cores at the same time! If they were around when Buddah was a babe- he would have carried one around with his begging bowl.

Moving House

I have found a cure for philosophy and deep thought- moving house.

Posting has been a little thin on the ground over the last 2 weeks as the house renovations have finally begun! We've moved out to a rental ...how many individual items are in the average kitchen... 1000?

More Lavazza Photography- couldn't resist

Some of the best (middle) ones are by Marino Parisotto.

Lavazza Girls!

I have seen this ad for Lavazza coffee quite a few times over the last few years... it's one of the only ads i've ever seen (and i must have seen billions) that i keep thinking about...

Firstly- what's going on? Well, obviously, a very attractive brunette air-hostess has 'abandoned ship' in mid-flight. Why? She is a terrorist sleeper agent from Al Qaida. It is 9/11.

Having activated the bomb- she dons her parachute and jumps out the emergency exit- the sudden depressurization sucking many through the aperture with her to fall cartwheeling to their deaths.

She has just a minute before this to make a good strong cup of coffee (Lavazza of course!) and grab her handbag. Oh - and lets not forget the saucer and spoon.

But boy- she is a sexy terrorist. Phew! Look at those old-fashioned stockings & suspenders. She's probably already synchronized her rolex and is meeting her contact on the ground in a few minutes. Is coffee-breath sexy? No. That's why she needs the suspenders.

I think i've always had a 'thing' for girls from the 30's... strange but that they're all over 100 now or dead.

Many years ago, in my 1st year as a medical student when stonewash was new, and i was still wearing hi-top basketball sneakers - i met a librarian (i returning books) in what was called the "Biological Sciences Library" before it was knocked over.

This creaky old hot wooden building was the last place i expected to find a very cute girl -librarian dressed up in what appeared to be a bell-bottomed sailor suit - complete with a 30's deco hairdo and a curl over her left eye. A vision. I had just discovered 'Swing' music via Benny Goodman at that point. (My Grandfather's old 78's).

In my fantasy she would berate me for returning my books late- it would end in a struggle that would by chance approximate my lips with hers. We would discuss the Dewy Decimal System late into the night.

Since then i've always had a fondness for the 30's - despite WWII!* The music, the design, but mostly the way women looked then. I feel nostalgic for a period 40 years before i was born.

I think that's why i really like this:

p.s. it seems Lavazza has been doing great photography for decades. Check here.
* On that note- very funny is Comedy Central's "I Love The 30's"

Theodicy Idiocy: The Problem of Evil

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why is the world so F%&^ed up? Why does God want there to be acne, evil dictators, global warming, bad television? Lets face it- He's not doing a great job.

Here are the qualities of God as He is traditionally reckoned:

* Omniscient (all knowing)
* Omnipotent (all powerful)
* Benevolent (all good)

The existence of evil requires that one of these 3 is not true BUT if this is the case, it pretty much excludes God from being God by definition (reductio ad absurdum). God and 'evil' cannot logically coexist.

One might argue that we mere mortals cannot understand why (for example) the birth of a severely retarded child is in God's best interests. Great minds have contorted themselves through the ages and arrived at a number of complex theoretical structures to explain away the problem of evil. Many require one to believe a large number of other unbelievable things in order to square the circle.

I prefer Laplace's comments (to Napoleon) when asked whether he thought God existed he said: "I have no need for that hypothesis.".

Eta Carinae : The End of the World

There are a few interesting things about this star - visible mostly in the southern hemisphere skies.

The first is that it "exploded" in the 1800's - ejecting mass equivalent to 10 times the mass of our sun- and briefly becoming the 2nd brightest star in the night sky.

It didn't however, completely destroy itself by becoming a supernova- however astronomers believe this could happen at any time- e.g. 4pm next tuesday.

When it does, the process will lead to the formation of a black hole and release an incredible amount of energy in the form of gamma rays. If these hit us, they will sterilize the Earth by destroying our protective ozone layer entirely.

We will have no warning.

The other problem is that this thing is 7500 light years away- which means that it has probably already happened. The gamma rays are on their way. Ciao!

link here to Astronomycast podcast about gamma ray bursts.

Muji Evolution Puzzle for Kids

Great design from Muji- the Japanese design store. Great for teaching kids about evolution. Also- all they have to know is this:

Dead monkeys don't have sex
Baby monkeys look a bit different to their parents
Some monkeys will be better at surviving than others

Add in some changing environmental conditions, wait 4 billion years and "hey presto"... opposable thumbs, language, culture, dancing with the stars.

Please note children that this process is NOT RANDOM. Yes the engine of change is mutation (random) but evolution is steered towards survival in whatever environment happens to exist at that moment.

The History of the Universe in 200 Words or Less

Quantum fluctuation. Inflation. Expansion. Strong nuclear interaction. Particle-antiparticle annihilation. Deuterium and helium production. Density perturbations. Recombination. Blackbody radiation. Local contraction. Cluster formation. Reionization? Violent relaxation. Virialization. Biased galaxy formation? Turbulent fragmentation. Contraction. Ionization. Compression. Opaque hydrogen. Massive star formation. Deuterium ignition. Hydrogen fusion. Hydrogen depletion. Core contraction. Envelope expansion. Helium fusion. Carbon, oxygen, and silicon fusion. Iron production. Implosion. Supernova explosion. Metals injection. Star formation. Supernova explosions. Star formation. Condensation. Planetesimal accretion. Planetary differentiation. Crust solidification. Volatile gas expulsion. Water condensation. Water dissociation. Ozone production. Ultraviolet absorption. Photosynthetic unicellular organisms. Oxidation. Mutation. Natural selection and evolution. Respiration. Cell differentiation. Sexual reproduction. Fossilization. Land exploration. Dinosaur extinction. Mammal expansion. Glaciation. Homo sapiens manifestation. Animal domestication. Food surplus production. Civilization! Innovation. Exploration. Religion. Warring nations. Empire creation and destruction. Exploration. Colonization. Taxation without representation. Revolution. Constitution. Election. Expansion. Industrialization. Rebellion. Emancipation Proclamation. Invention. Mass production. Urbanization. Immigration. World conflagration. League of Nations. Suffrage extension. Depression. World conflagration. Fission explosions. United Nations. Space exploration. Assassinations. Lunar excursions. Resignation. Computerization. World Trade Organization. Terrorism. Internet expansion. Reunification. Dissolution. World-Wide Web creation. Composition. Extrapolation?

Eric

Amy Whinge-house

Amy Winehouse- self described "quiet Jewish housewife"... not. Add "Toothless" and "tatooed" and "self-destructive" and you're getting close. Also, a little less Fran Drescher, and a little more Barbara Streisand would be good. Nevertheless- an amazing trumpeting voice. Best when singing real Jazz- i can hear Carmen McRae.

Un-Methylated Spirits

Our 'nurtured' genes determine who we are. Our DNA gene codes for an RNA message that gets printed out into a string of protein that gets folded up in three dimensions to become a little bit of bio-nano-technology. This is why we are tall or short, fat or thin, blue-eyed or brown.

You would think that it would not matter if a chromosome comes from your mother or your father- that there would be no way to tell- after all they simply consist of chunks of DNA. Female mice have 2 copies of their X chromosome- but it is ALWAYS the paternal X that is switched off. This 'tagging' is known as genetic imprinting- and the trick is performed using methylation.

There are 2 "epigenetic" syndromes that are essentially the reverse of each other- both are due to problems with genes on an area of chromosome 15.

Prader-Wili syndrome occurs when neither segment has paternal imprinting- (e.g. the mother's contribution is present, but the father's has been deleted). These children are characteristically obese, hypogonadal and have some intellectual impairment- although interestingly tend to be very good at jigsaw puzzles!

Angelman's Syndrome occurs, by contrast when there is no maternal imprinting present (e.g. the father's contribution is present, but the mother's has been deleted). These children were initially described as "Happy Puppets". They are often affectionate, verbose, and crave human contact.

But there is more. Genes can be tagged "maternal" or "paternal"- but methylation occurs for many other reasons too. A diet high in "methylation" precursors in rats can change the expression of a lot of genes.

Here is the REALLY interesting bit: If methylation occurs in the cells destined to become the sperm or ova- then these traits become hereditary- at least for a few generations. In other words, this represents a form of "Lamarckian" (vs Darwinian) evolution- the inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Offspring of female rats fed folic acid had brown fur due to methylation of the Agouti gene. Offspring of rats who were not fed the supplements had yellow fur- AND a tendency to diabetes and obesity!

You are not what you eat- you are what your mother ate! It makes me wonder- what if the folate supplement that reduces the incidence of neural tube defects and leukemia in our children has more sinister late methylation effects?

What would a genetically normal but completely un-methylated human look like?

Detailed article here, New York Times article here.

Rap Music I Can Stand

Caught a few minutes of "8-mile" and remembered why i hate almost all rap- except for these- the only 5 good rap songs ever made/written ... i include 'Wham Rap' in this list as it was the 1st rap song i ever heard.. even though it is terrible.

Cephalopods : The Nautilus

Don't ask me why but for some reason i have become obsessed by cephalopods. I have a small Ammonite fossil given to me as a present by my dad when i was 12 ... to the uninitiated it looks like a few snail shells embedded in grey rock. Ammonites went extinct along with the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago but their relative- the Nautilus- survives as a "living fossil" - apparently unchanged in form. It only needs to eat a meal every few weeks- perhaps this explains it's success.

Essentially it is a cuttlefish stuck in a shell. The shells have a regular, mathematical beauty ... but the squid-bit is pretty ugly. Unlike it's relatives the Octopus and the Cuttlefish - it's eye is rather simple - 'pinhole' in nature and without a lens.

What an otherworldly thing it is ... but look at the anatomy- it's got a heart, a kidney a mouth and an anus just like ours. When the real Aliens come they are going to make this thing look like a close cousin.

Tom Waits

I love Tom Waits. First thing i heard was a track from "Bone Machine"... unlike anything i had ever heard before- it's the only CD i ever bought twice! (lost it once). I then bought a few of his earlier albums- "Blue Valentines". The stuff over the last 5 years has been horrible carnival music.. but i love the new stuff... esp "Make it Rain" from the album "real Gone" (2004) .... esp the lyrics.

Make it Rain

She took all my money
and my best friend
You know the story
Here it comes again
I have no pride
I have no shame
You gotta make it rain
Make it rain!

Since you're gone
deep inside it hurts
I'm just another sad guest
on this dark earth

I want to believe
in the mercy of the world again
Make it rain, make it rain!

The nite's too quiet
Stretched out alone
I need the whip of thunder
and the wind's dark moan

I’m not Able, I'm just Cain
Open up the heavens
Make it rain!

I’m close to heaven
Crushed at the gate
They sharpen their knives
on my mistakes

What she done, you can't give it a name
You gotta make it rain
Make it rain, yeah!

Without her love
Withour your kiss
Hell can’t burn me
more than this
I’m burning up all this pain
Put out the fire
Make it rain!

I’m born to trouble
I’m born to fate
Inside a promise
I can’t escape
It’s the same old world
But nothing looks the same
Make it rain!
Make it rain!

Got to make it rain
Make it rain
You got to make it rain
Got to make it rain
You got to...

I stand alone here!
I stand alone here!
Sing it:
Make it rain!
Make it rain!

More Brain Food: Bloggingheads.tv

Think DIY interviews with so not-groovy headsets and you've got blogging heads TV! .. but at least the content is good. Carl Zimmer does a few good ones ... didn't expect those gappy teeth though! Not sure what boring video has on simple podcasts- particularly enhanced ones... oh well. Here is the search page- select your topic of choice.