Trees in West Texas????

Proof for Jamelle that Texas, even West Texas, is not a desert:

Trees!


This is the view from the Observatory. Gorgeous.


What are these plants? Yucca? The flowers look like foxglove.


One more picture for Jamelle, because I'm feeling generous:

BEARS!!! (Maybe look at the larger image).

First photo attempt - this has us written all over it.

So I'm starting posting not with photos of Germany, but photos taken out in West Texas, at Balmorhea, actually. I think these photos are pretty revealing of everyone's personality, really. Anyways, the first one:

Yes, we're sliding. Get ready.

J: Too fast! A quarter of a meter per second is too fast!


Let's try that again.


Yes, that's much more dramatic.


Phew. Enough sliding for today.


Now it's LR's turn.


Always performing, LR. :)


They made me try the slide too.


Oh, right... aah.


Thank goodness that's over with.

The NOOZ

Sometimes I really wonder if the National Geographic News feed really isn't just a parody site. I really, really wonder.

PHOTO IN THE NEWS: Gold Toothpick-Earwax Spoon Found

Plus, they're diving to the Santa Margarita. This story is already 90% funny by itself. It really doesn't need me to do anything with it.

Sex DNE Gender!

Cool article "How Boys Become Boys (and Sometimes Girls)" by Scientific American about how embryos slated by X and Y chromosome allotment to become boys instead develop into girls (welcome - more girls!), and sometimes vice versa.

If Sox9 is somehow switched on in a genetic female—an embryo with two X chromosomes—it causes male gonads to form; if it fails to turn on in males, the cells it controls will become follicle cells, which mature into ovaries."

My only qualm is that, though it appears that this study and article have just as much potential application for how "Girls become girls (and sometimes boys)", this reciprocity was really only seen in one sentence in the article. I know, I know, gene expression anomalies cause genetic boys to become girls much more often than girls become boys (more X chromosomes have more control that just having one Y chromosome). But the study looked at both - how (genetic) boys become girls, and how (genetic) girls become boys. To me, the framing of this article is too reminiscent of recent studies about effects of stress on women during pregnancy on a child's gender, and how this was portrayed "we still don't know how to advise women in how to make boys". Chilling.

Why is the Hulk green?

You can thank Biochemistry for this lovely tidbit. Why is the Hulk green? How does he double in size in just a few seconds? How does he get stronger as he gets bigger?

My hypothesis is that, besides, you know, having extremely sped up cell replication from all the gamma rays (it'd have to be sped up at least 20,000x!) the Hulk must have evolved photosynthetic capabilities de novo from all the mutations he accumulated. Otherwise, there's no way the Hulk could ever increase so dramatically in mass! Absorbing carbon from the air would solve that problem. Plus, this would explain why the Hulk turns green when he gets angry. Chloroplasts are transcribed and assembled extremely speedily (first second), cells double (2nd second) then double in size (3rd second), the cells (just skin cells? acquire a super hard cell wall (again, like in plants - 4th second) and maybe the cells increase in size a little more (5th second?). Voila, a terrifying half-man half-plant hybrid arises. I knew this would happen when we started working on GMOs.

Worse, it seems Dr. Banner has lost all control of his cell replication mechanisms, at least when he gets angry - this is essentially a cancer (definition: loss of control of cell replication) of the worst sort, triggered by all sorts of different environmental factors.

The real problem is, of course, how the Hulk sheds all of this excess mass and these extra cells when he goes back to his alter ego. No wonder it takes so long to subdue the Hulk - how else can the Hulk have time to lose all the extra size he's gained?

And yes, I was asked a similar question on my Biochem exam today, so I do have an alibi for thinking about all this. Although perhaps not in such fine detail or for as long as I have done.

Don't even get me started on the physics of Iron Man and his suit. It won't be pretty. Although the Iron Man movie was absolutely fantastic.

Real Posts Now

In an effort to start blogging more over the summer (during which I will be in Germany) I may as well start posting now.

First, please tell me why the BBC posts this garbage. Someone please enlighten me.

One gem:

"The study suggests sex hormones can alter the workings of the voice box, but the change may be too subtle to pick up in many situations."

(emphasis mine)

My question is, then, why this study? If the change is too subtle to pick up? Is this an ascertainment bias thing - you want to prove something, so you go out and find information/data that supports it? My suspicion is that it might be. Unless this professor did a study on men's voices, as well, which didn't get reported.

So a second question would then be, are there studies on men like this? I.e. "Men under more influence of progesterone 'sound sexier'". My suspicion is that this study would be portrayed vastly differently. First off, this study would never be done, or at least never reported on by the BBC: we're much more interested in what makes women sexy than men. Secondly, if this study were done, my guess is that the title would be more like "Women view men as sexier with higher progesterone levels". As in, here you have the women falling all over themselves to get at these men (this would be the implication). Whereas in the study the BBC reports on, the men rate very scientifically the attractiveness of the woman's voice, and then they are sexier, because the men say so. Don't worry, men are very objective.

Also, there was this classy quote from the professor who did this study:

"While it's possible, the other issue is that women do have mood changes across their menstrual cycle, and people might just be attracted to a happy-sounding woman, rather than a fertile one."

So difficult to avoid running into sexist tropes when talking about this kind of research! Makes me wonder if it really has much scientific value at all. Of course, it's the only kind of science the BBC reports - relatively useless, psuedo-sexist science. "Women in high heels actually happier, healthier, one scientist reports". "Men funnier than women, says unicycling professor" (although that one, I think, was a very interesting joke the BBC completely misreported.)

It seems mandatory, as well, that the BBC has to catch the professor of whatever research report guessing why their research is the way it is, and it's inevitably something offensive. I don't know whether it's the professor's fault, really, or the BBC's fault for reporting these studies this way. But please, this just sounds like a 1950's commercial. Unhappy? Your man will never love you! Aiyo.

And, before you jump on me for "something that couldn't possibly be sexist! After all, it's science!" please read this.