Currently in a bar drinking long islands. Friend and I just created a dance imitating pipetting and running PCRs. Huzzah for being nerds! Now if you’ll excuse me, back to drinking!
Blag Hag
Atheism, feminism, geekery
Currently in a bar drinking long islands. Friend and I just created a dance imitating pipetting and running PCRs. Huzzah for being nerds! Now if you’ll excuse me, back to drinking!
This is pretty much the most amazing site ever: I Did It For Science. These journalists get random sex topics (trying anal, crossdressing, make your own dildo kit – curious yet?) and they actually have to do them and report on them in a “scientific” matter. All of them are absolutely hilarious and a great time waster. The site’s pretty old, so you may have seen it already. They haven’t had new articles since 2006, which was about when I first found it…but they’re supposed to start posting new articles soon! Huzzah! Go check it out, as I’m still probably jetlagged and you’ll need some other entertainment.
The only thing I don’t like about it? I didn’t think of it first. I’m pretty sure having an excuse to do all that crazy sex stuff and then write up a hilarious report would be my dream job. …And as a blogger, I probably shouldn’t tell you guys that. Don’t get your hopes up.
I should probably have a lot more to post about now that the conference in almost over, but I’m so brain dead that I can’t come up with much. Hearing technical biology talks (80% of which are over my head) from 8 to 5 is just mentally exhausting after a while. That being said, I really enjoyed the conference. There’s so much cool science going on out there, and now I have all these neat ideas floating around in my head. And while the whole grad school application process still freaks me out, I feel like I have a lot better idea of what I need to do since we had some talks about that.
Though honestly, the best part was just being around so many nerdy biologists. It was amazing sitting in a bar, and instead of hearing people talk about sports, hearing people talking about transcriptome characterization or population genetics or who knows what. Everyone just went into absurdly geeky mode. Take this dinner conversation, just one example out of many:
My Prof: Those are all the Oregon State people over there, and those are all the Michigan people sitting there.
Me: And all of us Purdue people clumped together here.
My Prof: Yeah.
Me: So overall we have a diverse population, but when you look at subpopulations there’s very low variation.
My Prof: Yep!
One more, just if you don’t believe me:
Me: Excuse me! *trying to scoot past someone to get in a seat* Sorry!
Guy: Oh, don’t worry, it’s an open niche that needs to be filled!
My flight leaves 6:45 am tomorrow and I’ll be back in my apartment around 7 pm (hopefully). I plan on wearing my atheist club shirt for that trip, so we’ll see if I get any fun stories out of that. You know you’re officially a blogger when you start doing random crap just for the potential blog posts.
The Nano Song from nanomonster on Vimeo.
Man, science is so cool. Stuff like this is why I’m a geneticist. The FOXP2 gene is considered the “language gene” in humans. People who have nonfunctional versions of the gene have a hard time controlling the fine movements in the face needed for forming words, and their areas of the brain associated with language are less active. FOXP2 is found throughout the animal kingdom and is associated with vocalization and song learning. It is also highly conserved – except in humans. While mice and chimpanzees have the same version of the gene, humans have two non synonymous mutations – that is, two different amino acids.
So what did these scientists do? They stuck the human version of FOXP2 into mice to see what would happen. No, the mice didn’t start talking like Mickey, but they showed changes in brain structure that is associated with human speech and had different ultrasonic vocalizations. Unfortunately we’re not fluent in Mouseish, so we don’t know if these mouse pups are suddenly speaking at a Shakespearean level, but it’s still pretty neat.
This is especially exciting because we kept coming back to this topic in my Eukaryotic genetics class. Our professor was telling us the above information about FOXP2. “What if you put a human FOXP2 in a chimpanzee?” a student asked. “I wonder what would happen.” Half of the class’s eyes twinkled with mad scientist glee (the half that will be researchers, not med students I assume). Our professor sort of laughed nervously. “I don’t know, have fun getting an ethics committee to accept that.” I turned to one of my friends and mouthed, presumably with an evil grin, “I’m gonna do it!!” and it turned into a running joke for the class. She’s the one who sent me the article. We haven’t been scooped quite yet, but almost!! I better get crackin’ on my talking chimp.
With House, Heroes, and ANTM over for the summer, I decided I needed a new fun distraction. I hadn’t bought a new video game since Mario Kart Wii, so I decided to splurge and buy Rock Band 2. I had been debating about it forever, but now my excuse was that I have a job (moola!) and don’t have any classes any more…so great idea, right?
So with the Froommate I go to pick up my Best Friend (his girlfriend, who will be my new froommate in the fall…yay confusing relationships). Me buying Rock Band 2 is a momentous and joyous occasion for all of us, especially them, since they get to reap the benefits without paying any money. As I’m pulling into her driveway, I hear a loud ‘POP!’.
Me: That didn’t sound good.
Froommate: No, no it didn’t.
I get out of the car, and of course I have a flat tire. Thankfully Froommate has Man Training and changed the tire for me, while BF and I stood by and did our duty of supervising. Though in all honesty, we didn’t think either of us would have been strong enough to do it, which is kind sad…and why I’m starting to exercise.
Me: Aren’t you glad you showered before coming over?
Froommate: *sweaty greasy mess* =(
BF: Well, he shaved too, so that wasn’t a waste.
Me: No, the pure manliness of changing a tire produced so much testosterone he’s about to sprout a full beard!
Tire changed, we still made it to Game Stop to buy Rock Band 2, I bought him dinner as thanks, and we played for about 5 hours. Our band name is “Zinc Fingered.” BF and I, both being biologists, think this about the funniest thing in the world. Froommate, a chemist, is probably wondering why zinc is such a humorous element. Oh well.
Tomorrow I get to actually…you know, work and look into finding new tires. I think my replacement isn’t going to hang in there long, and I won’t be surprised if it’s flat in the morning. Sigh. Hooray for the real world.
Many parts of this image annoy me (click for bigger version), but my biggest gripe is this quote: “Humans have long considered themselves truly unique. But it turns out that the better word from ‘unique’ is ‘more advanced.'”
Sigh. No, “more advanced” isn’t the better word. In fact, it’s worse than unique. At least it’s true that we’re unique in that we have a certain combination of skills that other animals don’t have, though I’d still argue all animals are unique. But viewing humans as more advanced than the rest of the animal kingdom is a fallacy. It goes back to the Scala Naturae, or the Great Chain of Being. This was the idea that everything in the universe could be ranked in order of how perfect or advanced it was, with God at the top and amoebas and dirt at the bottom. Mammals are better than birds, hawks are better than pigeons, trees that bear fruit we eat are better than ones we don’t, etc.
But that’s not how things work. Through evolution, everything has had the same amount of time on this planet to evolve. Bacteria are just as adapted to their environment as a tree or a tiger or a human. While they’re less complex, I wouldn’t say they’re less advanced. Advanced implies that there’s some end goal in mind that we’re comparing them to, usually the wonderful Homo sapeins. Think of it this way. What if other animals considered themselves the most advanced, and were comparing us to them?
Dolphins: They can only hold their breath for a couple minutes? And they can’t echolocate? Ha! Even bats can do that!
Ducks: They can’t sleep with one half of their brain at a time? But what if a predator wants to come and eat them in the middle of the night! How will they escape if they don’t keep one eye open? Man, they are goners!
Swallow: Humans can’t instinctively migrate thousands of miles to a place they’ve never been before? They need maps and GPS, and they still get lost trying to find the Walmart that’s 15 minutes away? Wow, just wow.
Clark’s nutcracker: I can remember where I stored thousands of seeds across a 15 mile area over the winter, and you can’t even find your car keys. Humans.
Thermus aquaticus: A toasty 160 degrees F is the perfect temperature for me. You start breaking a sweat at 90?! What a bunch of pansies!
Yeah, we wouldn’t fare too well (and I could probably keep going with this list forever). There are plenty of things animals do better than us, but we don’t view those traits as important because we don’t necessarily need them. The environment we evolved in is different than that of a Clark’s nutcracker, so we don’t need that awesome of a memory. It goes both ways – Clark’s nutcrackers don’t need to have language or build fires or have long distance stamina. That doesn’t make them less advanced – they just had different evolutionary needs.
I still think humans are special – we can’t deny that we have certain traits not seen anywhere else in the animal kingdom, or the fact that we’ve actually developed civilization (minor point). But as a biologist, I see all creatures as special with their unique adaptation for their environment. We shouldn’t judge them by human standards.
And for those of you who think I may have it out for Star Trek, you should know I’m almost as stupid about Star Wars. I still have yet to see the three original films in their entirety. It’s one of those things where I’ve seen all of them through bits and pieces over about a 15 year period, but I have no concept of how they go together and I’ve forgotten the majority of it. To show my ignorance, I will admit the girl in the following video has a MUCH more coherent grasp on the movies than I do. Now that I’ve covered my bases and offended my entire readership (and lost my Geek Card), watch the hilarious video: