covaithe

(Ok, when I started, the snowy icon was appropriate...)

I'm thankful for the coming spring. The last few weeks it has felt stubbornly cold and damp in our flat in the evenings, to the point that I'm huddled on the sofa not wanting to move.
But I've seen the increasing light levels in the length of the day - now there's still light outside when I get out of the Tube at 6.15ish, close to my home.
This weekend it felt like a turned corner: could open windows for fresh air, woke up before my alarm in early-morning light. There are daffodils sprouting in the estate yards around us.
The equinox is next weekend, and British summer time doesn't start til Palm Sunday, 2 weeks from now. 
Even if I lose sleep to it, I'm going to try to appreciate the early morning sun after months and months of gray.

It's raining, quite heavily; maybe the Geese of the Pond across the Road (TM) do not like that, or something else bothers them, because they've been honking their hearts out. I would have to stand up to see where they likely are, and I'm too lazy busy to do that at the moment, so all you get is an aural report.

Deadline day of Big, BIG Proposal. We're filling in spackles and filing corners and burrs. In a salute to military heroes of Pratchett, I am drinking saloop (hot milky sweet tea). One co-worker is sticking to espresso from the new machine we bought for the lab; the other is chugging Coke for, as far as I can say, breakfast. At least I had oatmeal at home. Tech geek lifestyle, represent.

(We will not comment on how I preserve the temperature of my tea by keeping the mug on the charger of my laptop.)

It's Spring Break; this essentially means two things for me: 1. Campus is deserted, 2. If I come with my car I get free parking in half-empty parking lots without a ticket, yays. Since I habitually bring my lunch from home anyway, the closing of delis and cafeterias don't make much of a difference.

...Here go the geese, again.

Me, back to filing a burr.

http://www.dorktower.com/2010/03/15/dork-tower-monday-march-15-2010/

http://www.dorktower.com/?p=4588

Valerie, Greg and I went for a walk yesterday and then spent a little time playing in the back garden. I will post pictures another time, but here is a video of Valerie playing in the garden with Daddy. I didn't realize at the time that there was a plane flying over, but it is rather loud in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np6WuikqtmU


Valerie has started saying 'down' (really it's 'dow') as she gets down from things like my lap or off of the couch. She's really starting to use a lot of words, but still seems to use them for a little while and then stop using them. Perhaps she can only concentrate on a few at a time as she's learning them.

I've stopped giving Valerie bottles completely now. Even if she wakes in the middle of the night, I give her milk from a sippy cup. She doesn't seem to notice the difference except that I think she gets more air from the cup. Last night (like several nights in the last week) I have given her a bottle during the night when she wakes up and gets fussy. I then got an impressive burp from her and put her back in bed. Probably 10 minutes later she started fussing which got more and more serious. I don't know if this was that she still had a burp in her or why she's started fussing like that.

Well, that's new. Not only is the Blue Line down (not without precedent) and the Green Line D Train down (not without precedent -- considering Kenmore Station's true aquatic nature, I'm surprised any of the Green Line is functioning), the Ashmont leg of the Red Line is down due to weather. Holy cats.

Tomorrow's commute could be really sucktastic. :(

Home safe, if rather soggy, from Intercon.

It was an amazing weekend. I managed to avoid serious mood crash or social anxiety until the end of the weekend, when lack of sleep, lack of food, and lack of hydration caught up with me. Luckily, friends and husband were good to me and managed to maneuver me into a place with chairs and food and enough people but not too many.

I am home now, and mostly happy, but still exhausted and mentally and emotionally worn out enough that ASPCA commercials are leaving me in tears. I think that's a sign that, while it was a good weekend and I don't want it to be over, I should go to bed.

(Oh, sad puppies and kittens.... emotional blackmail, but for such a good cause....)

I have a point to make, and I figured this would be a more fun way of making it (should I ever get around after doing this to making it). You know the bloggame where you have to name the song from the first line of the lyrics? Well, this is like that only completely different. Below are descriptions of genre books. Identify by naming the protagonist AND the book title AND the author(s). One book per comment, please, as many guesses as you like, only the first person to identify the book gets credit. Googling is not sporting, but I don't know that it would help you much in this case anyway.

WARNING: technically these constitute spoilers.

1) Protagonist risks last fertile female of sympathetic, intelligent megafauna species in a desperate scheme to attempt to save all life on their planet. kelkyag: Lessa in Dragonflight by McCaffrey

2) Undone by a treacherous seductress, the sexy world-traveling super-spy protagonist must escape captivity to warn the Crown of a treasonous plot and imminent foreign invasion, and help raise the defense. bluetourmaline and livredor split it: Phèdre nó Delaunay in Kushiel's Dart by Carey.

3) Magically immortal angst-filled protagonist strives through the years to free the love interest, who was captured by supernatural beings in a parallel world due to the youthful hubris of the protagonist. Protagonist has to go through character development, largely concerning learning how to trust others and ask for help, to be able to finally rescue the damsel in distress; along the way teaches friends many inspiring life lessons. woodwindy: Chairiste Ni Cummen called Christa, in Gossamer Axe by Baudino.

4) Magically immortal angst-filled protagonist will strive through the years to free the love interest, who was captured by supernatural beings in a parallel world due to the youthful hubris of the protagonist. However, in this volume (the first of eight), the protagonist will mostly be concerned with being that hubristic teenager and then coming to terms with the terrible, terrible tragedy, and getting the cool canine side kick, and hunting a demon. Mostly gotten by matt_doyle: it is indeed Cooper's Indigo series.

5) Quasi-telepathic protagonist teams up with brother and a friend to cross space and time with the help of three mysterious old women to rescue father from a totalitarian regime. kelkyag: Meg Murray, in A Wrinkle in Time by L'Engle.

6) Plucky, glib orphan protagonist goes on quest to rescue kidnapped best friend, aided by a shape-changing side kick and a cast of inexplicable thousands, and armed with the titular mcguffin, provided by a mysterious uncle. kelkyag: Lyra Belacqua called Silvertongue, in The Golden Compass by Pullman.

7) Itinerant scholar protagonist teams up with honor-obsessed sword-wielding barbarian to investigate what at first seems like a benign lapidary mystery, and which turns out to be something the most powerful people in the world will kill to keep from being discovered. dsrtao: Rowan in The Steerswoman by Kirstein

8) An immigrant struggling with assimilation issues and family drama, this protagonist leads a commando raid to rescue kidnapped son during a coup d'etat, after rescuing the heir to the throne. kelkyag: (Cpt.) Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan in Barrayar by Bujold.

9) Gentically engineered sexy super-human super-spy protagonist, spends about 300 pages angsting over anti-gentically-engineered-people oppression, passing for human, and not being a "real person", when not occupied by having sex or doing super-spy things. heron61: Friday, in Friday by Heinlein.

10) Heir to the throne and hot-shot spaceship pilot, this protagonist, aided by mysterious wise old man, fakes own death and goes under cover to hunt across the galaxy for the assassin that killed predecessor. batwrangler: Beka Rosselin-Metadi in The Price of the Stars by Doyle and McDonald

Finally, a bonus question, which famously was originally a TV listing in the Marin Independent-Journal, for the movie version (not the book, though also accurate for the book), and slightly edited:

11) "Transported to a surreal landscape, this young protagonist kills the first woman met and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again." kelkyag: Dorothy, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Baum.

My dear friend dawntreader42 has spent much of the last few years working on scholarship regarding some of the most horrific events of the last decade, including recent work on the ground in Rwanda.

She shares food for thought: Twenty Ratifications.

http://www.dorktower.com/2010/03/12/dork-tower-friday-march-12-2010/

http://www.dorktower.com/?p=4585

Coffeeeeeeee!

(And muffin. But most important: Coffee.)

Proposal. Boring, I know.

Rain dank damp dark depressing thick bah.

Midnight Knitter: Own up, which one of you? lonebear? patches023?

(Need craft icon bah.)

Had a dream: Living in an apartment, upstairs neighbors were pirates. Who were in the SCA. And went around in costume. Was, actually, nice---in the dream.

Payday! Monies.

But most important: Coffee.

This weekend, many friends will be gathering up north for Pirate Swing, organized from the ground up by dear friends Jesse and Zach. Because swing dancing + pirates = Awesome. Hooray!

At the same time, this weekend, many friends will be heading down south for Gulf Wars, the great March clash of SCA armies that takes place down in Missisippi beginning this weekend. My home Kingdom of Calontir is on track to put more than one-hundred heavy armored fighters onto the field under the Falcon Banner, vivat! Will you stand in the van / Like a true Calon man / And hold the Line for Kingdom and for Crown...

I'll raise a toast to you all while on duty Saturday and Sunday on the cystic fibrosis / ventilator unit. :-)

Valerie and I danced together tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_CuoOSyV8Y

In other news, her bottom canines are breaking through. This will mean she has all of her teeth on the top and bottom back to and including the first molars. Once they come fully in she will have 16 teeth!

Valerie has been using more and more words, but will only use them if you don't expect her to. This weekend I heard her say 'sock' and she goes woof woof if you point to a dog and say woof woof. Also, she has a stuffed sheep. She will say 'Baah' rather emphatically if you say Baah.

$LABMATE_1 is a guest editor for a special issue of $TECHNICAL_JOURNAL. They have had 100+ submissions, and have sent them to anyone they could think of for reviewing... including everyone else in this lab, naturally.

The deadline was yesterday, again naturally.

Conversation in the lab, one minute ago:

$LABMATE_1: So, $LABMATE_2, I still didn't get your reviews.
$LABMATE_2: Oh, OK, I'll send them tomorrow. Is that OK?
$LABMATE_1: I guess that's OK... [in a "no biscuit" tone] no review, no thank-you letter.
$LABMATE_3: ...that's what he's doing it for? No pizza or anything?

Those are some high stakes, those are.

(I turned mine in, guess when, yesterday. And got my thank-you letters. They were delicious.)

I have a few other reviews from other journals that I should get to, as well, but proposal has been Eating the Brain.

This is a science story about learning to make stem cells dance.




When we use the term "stem cell", we mean a cell which can do two things:

• (1) it can make more copies of itself,
  
• (2) it can differentiate into (grow into) other cell types.
  

With regards to the ability to make copies -- known as self renewal -- this is an ability *lacking* in many key cell types. Neurons, for example, do *not* self renew (generally speaking). When a disease or injury kills neurons, generally speaking, existing neurons cannot divide and form replacements. This is in part why neurological injuries and diseases are so devastating -- neurons lost are largely neurons gone forever. Similarly, it was generally thought (until recently) that heart muscle likewise does not have significant ability to self-renew; heart muscle destroyed by a heart attack cannot be replaced by the body. In contrast, skin grows back easily, quickly filling in cuts and wounds.

But the ability to multiply is only half of what makes a stem cell a stem cell. The other, critical half, is the ability to differentiate, to become something else, or become many kinds of something else. After all, although skin cells grow, skin cells only become other skin cells. They don't turn into blood cells. Stem cells, on the other hand, *can* become other kinds of cells, as well as making copies of themselves.

"Stem cell" is a category. There are many different kinds of stem cells, with varying ability to multiple and differentiate. The ultimate stem cell, of course, is the initial fertilized egg itself -- the single cell which has the capability to become an entire human being. As it turns out, (handwaving madly, and setting aside things like trophoblast formation) among the first 50-150 cells after that are also still capable of turning into most, if not all, cells in the human body. These near-universal stem cells are known as pluripotent stem cells.

Subsequent to this in development, these pluripotent stem cells specialize. As they specialize, as they proceed down developmental paths, they become more limited in what they can become. A pluripotent stem cell which could once become almost anything, becomes a more specialized stem cell with a more limited set of options. Eventually, our body's cells (almost all) fully differentiate into specific types of adult cells, with a specific ability (or lack of ability) to make more copies of itself.

And then the (scientific) fun began.



( Read more... )

Today is a day to write. Paper reviews first, proposal section later.

Curse of the Golden Flower: I think they needed just one big revelation at the end to convert the movie from extremely depressing to merely depressing, but it didn't come, so oh well. It is still not a bad movie. Visually, I have already renamed it "Movie of A Million Desktop Backgrounds," because seriously, look at this or this or this, and there is plenty more where those came from. The colors in particular are gorgeous, and if you want to test your Blu-Ray player or your high definition TVs color space, this is the movie for you.

(Besides, after a while you will start uncontrollably laughing every time you hear a clock strike the hour, and that can only be a plus. "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It is the hour of the Monkey." I should not mock too much, though. Like Chastity said, as if I would do any better having to come up with 12 platitudes each day to recite before the hour announcements.)

Anyway. I have to write the words I am paid to write now, so off I go.