Dammit! I'm A Day Late

Despite the fact that this was yesterday, it was such an overload of dorky science love I just can't get over it and I just had to post it, despite my tardiness.

 

 

 



Let The Cultural Differences Commence!

Another country, another opportunity to spot the cultural differences that make life so interesting.

When I moved to Germany, I noticed that this was a place in which caution was very much in the common culture. Germans have insurance for things that would never even cross my mind. When discussing these issues, people would ask me things like "well, if you are walking down the street and you pick up a piece of wood that someone was throwing away and the pile of wood falls on you, then who is responsible? Which insurance pays?" Um... if a pile of wood fall on you cause you were messing with it, that gets filed under sad day for you? No? Does this filing chapter not exist here? OK.

This observation came into conflict with a reaction to something that happened in the institute. There was an accident, which resulted in a certain amount of a volatile toxic chemical to be released into the air. The lab and the labs surrounding it were evacuated and the situation was assessed. While the room in which the accident happened was determined to be too contaminated to use, the room immediately next to it, which connects to the contaminated room through a normal door, was not determined to be unsafe for use. I needed to do something in that adjoining room, but I decided to wear a mask in there anyway, just in case. My Mediterranean colleagues, though not known for their extreme caution, fully supported this decision. When I was walking there with my mask on, however, a German colleague said to me "why are you wearing a mask? You don't need one in there, they said it was safe".

What?! These super cautious people are now the ones telling me there is no need to be cautious? What is going on here? Then it hit me.

Germans trust authority far, far more than Italians or other Mediterranean people do. They assume that, if something is determined to be safe, it is because people who know what they're doing thoroughly checked the situation and made this determination accurately. If in Italy something dangerous happened in a lab and then someone came out and was like "No problem! You can come back in everything's fine!" We'd all be like 

 

Yea right! We're going home. For the rest of the week.

Our people just don't trust people in authority with anything. Many would say with good reason, but it is the one time that you will find an Italian who is more cautious than a German. 

Oh sweet irony, how you make life fun!

Carnival Madness!

So today is officially the last day of Carnival, and I got to experience much of it here in one of the Carnival Capitals of Europe: Cologne.

When I first arrived here it became apparent that the Germans are not a particularly passionate people, especially from the Italian perspective, or a rowdy people, especially from the Irish perspective. Despite the fact that they love their beer, they are generally quite well behaved and contained in their emotions. However, I was told that there are two places at two times of year which represent the epitome of all of the repressed madness that the Germans have to offer: Munich at Oktoberfest, and Cologne at Carnival. Of course I had to jump all over that one, I wanted to see the ultimate in craziness that these Germans were capable of. I wasn't expecting to be shocked of course, after having lived in Dublin for five years, but I was still very curious.

So yesterday was the big Carnival celebration and parade in Cologne, where apparently everyone dresses up, fights over the candy thrown to the crowds and start drinking as soon as the parade begins, at 10 AM. Of course I had to laugh at this as typically German: they are obsessed with their Carnival, but celebrate it properly a day early, because God forbid they miss an extra day's work! Well anyway, these couple of videos give an idea of what it is like.

 

 Overall? I would rate it a 4/10 on the crazy scale. Definitely not the most mental celebration I have ever seen by a long shot, but good fun and a good day out for sure!

Hang On, What Was That?

First The Atheist Experience, then The Non-Prophets, and now the unfortunately defunct Godless Bitches are keeping me company as I spend 12 hours of my day slaving away in a lab. I'm properly tearing it up with the Atheist Community of Austin these days! I'm definitely donating to them for all of the entertainment they have provided.

 

Well anyway, the Godless Bitches Podcast shows began with snippits of various different songs. I don't usually pay much attention to songs I don't recognize, though I was pleasantly surprised when I heard that one of the songs was a rap song. Suddenly I started picking up the words... what was that? A rapper calling himself a feminist? Rapping about women's rights? Those are few and far between!

 

I immediately went online to try to find the name of the song and artist. Typing in various combinations of the lyrics I finally managed to track it down. Unfortunately it has been removed from YouTube, but once I managed to figure out the names of the rappers I found the song on their website. May I present:

 

"Personhood" by Johnny Hoax and Uncle Bungus

 

The guy doing the second verse isn't quite as good as the first one, but that isn't really the point of this story. The extremely ironic thing is that the only way I managed to find this site was through a blogpost of an anti-choice writer, defining her self an "abolitionist" who decided to dedicate an entire post to quoting bits of the song and bitching about it.

 

I was going to return the favor and quote bits of the post so that we could all have a good laugh about it, but it was such a mess of garbled idiocy that it was just too much effort and too much pain from the constant facepalming to unpack it all. Well, maybe just one little quote, so you get the idea:

 

 

"Why not just complain that no one should tell anyone else what they can do with any part of their body?
I'll tell you why - this would mean that proscribing rape and the Holocaust and might-makes-right "morality" is impossible."

 

If you think you have the stomach for it, you can find the whole post here.

 



 

 

I Love That So Many Get This....

I'm starting to get to the age where the decision of whether or not to have kids has reached a new level of relevance in my life, and the first babies have already been born to my former high school classmates. Because of this, words cannot express how awesome it is that almost everyone I know in my age group agrees with this wholeheartedly, and are raising (or planning to raise) their kids with this basic rule as one that barely needs to be put into words for how obvious it is.

 

 

 

 

  

Breaking down societally-constructed gender norms FTW!



Turns Out, I Was Too Easy On That Awful Book

Remember the book reviews I used to do? Well, when I fell into the trap of reading that god-awful book Fifty Shades of Grey, I reviewed that too, and it was certainly not a very favorable one.

However, after reading a far more thorough review on The Pervocracy, I realized I was being far, far too nice, mostly in my hesitation of speaking for the BDSM community, of which I am not a part and was fairly ignorant about.

OK gushing time: I looove The Pervocracy. It opened my eyes to a community which I now find incredibly fascinating, although not something that I am personally interested in partaking in. She SLAMMED this book, and reading her chapter-by-chapter evisceration of the novel had me in stitches. She is so much funnier than I could ever be, and I only wish I could have read the book with her commentary in my ear, it would have made the whole experience far more enjoyable. 

If you have some time to kill read through her take on the chapters, it's awesome. 

Fuck You Libertarians!!

I'm so very sorry that I have been neglecting you. I have been finding very little to say and even less time to say it, and I was wondering whether or not to acknowledge the fact that the United States just, finally managed to re-elect their president. It's not like it was a shock, the math was pretty clear on that before the actual election, so it wasn't exactly a nailbiter. Of course there are the hilariously uninformed that actually were flabbergasted about it (including the Mitt Romney campaign itself), and I suppose it is only because of them that I have decided to talk about this at all. This video just tipped me over the edge in its absolute hilarity, so I figured why not.

Yes, Obama won, and apparently there are some very drunk and incidentally very funny people that are just stinking MAD about it!!!




It's OK, you can admit it, it's pretty funny. Actually, I'm more interested right now in getting follow up interviews with those people that were sure that Romney would wim because God was going to make sure of it, because God was never wrong. My question would be this: Did the absolute creaming of Romney in this case make you

A. Question your belief in God
B. Question your belief that God prefers Romney to Obama
C. Think that Satan might currently be stronger than God?

My guess, it'll be D. Non of the above. There's no reasoning with some people.

Happy Birthday To Me...

Yay, whoopee, today I turn a quarter of a century. Happy birthday to me....

Think I can get one of the most boring coworkers on the planet to come out for a drink after work? Are we taking bets? 5 more hours to go!

Anyway, I'll make up for my lack of fun today with a Halloween concert that I hope will be cool tomorrow in Rome, and as I'll be away for 5 days the updating of the blog may be inconsistent (and when is it not you might retort....).

To Hell with superstition, I still ascertain that being born on mischief night is a good part of the reason why I am this cool :p

I Didn't Know Ellen Was Funny

Well, I had heard she was funny, but I guess the clothes and the extremely vanilla set-up of her show made me think she was one of those generic American talk-show hosts that I wouldn't enjoy very much. I mean people absolutely adored Oprah and still rave about the View but shmieh, not something that entertains me all that much. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that Ellen is actually for realz funny!

Gotzta get me some of those woman pens. Well, I really type more than I write nowadays.... oh crap! Am I using a MAN keyboard??!!! Quick! Grab the pink paint and glitter!

I'm A Sucker For Magic Tricks

My youtube channel may be revolving around Penn and Teller's Bullshit! episodes, but when they actually start doing their magic tricks I may as well be an eight year old. Of course I know it's not real, of course I don't need the entertainer to be honest about it to know that (although I do prefer it when they are), but what can I say, I'm a sucker for it and I can never spot the trick. I love it, and like a child I can get lost in the "magic" of it and "pretend" it's real, the way you can get lost in a really good fantasy movie.

I suppose that therefore it's no surprise that when I saw this guy, I was dumbstruck. Not because I think he's actually levitating, obviously (despite the fact that, every time I tell someone about it here, they scoff and say "well you know he's not actually levitating right? Please". No shit!!!! Welcome to Italy). However I do think that he is probably the coolest street mime I have ever seen, and it took me ages to figure out how he does it.

Of course I knew that it had to do with his hand on the staff, because it is his only point of contact with anything that is actually on the ground.

Still, I think it's very clever and my favourite street mime so far. 

What do you think? What's the coolest street mime you've ever seen?

Says It All

Thank you Why Evolution Is True for this little gem:

I Be Busy

Another round of deadlines heading my way coupled with a whole lack of imagination. Don't forget, if you feel like piping in to ask me a question or are curious about my opinion on something, don't hesitate to leave a comment on this post! I don't have time to write anything involving a lot of research right now (my organic vs GMO foods post is getting pushed back further and further), but any comment or question is greatly appreciated.

Anywho, since I have no time or imagination I am going to use this opportunity to give a shout-out to another, far more popular and visited blog than mine that most likely requires no shout-out. But hey, Pharyngula gets tens of thousands of hits a day and yet someone discovered it through this blog, so it's not necessarily an exercise in futility. On the same blog network I'd send you over to Chris Rodda over on This Week in Christian Nationalism, who writes primarily about three things:

1. The issue of religion in the military (since she is the Senior Research Director of MRFF)

2. US History and debunking the blatant lies told about the religiosity (among other things) of Thomas Jefferson

3. Some of the funniest Sunday funnies I have ever come across. 

I admit, the funnies are my favourite (I always stank at history, it really was not my thing). Below a sampling of my favourite, if you have my same sense of humour do check out her blog - though check it out for the serious posts too, they are very good

Catholic Church, This Time You Made Me LOL

I have mentioned the Catholic Church at its worst in this blog, but sometimes you just have to laugh. OK, so the implications of this video made by Catholic nuns in the US are pretty horrendous, but the Children of Mary Order have made a video that perfectly embodies that classic Italian saying: da ridere per non piangere

For those of you who have not read (or do not remember), that means "to laugh, so as not to cry".

If you don't think you can hadle 14 minutes of pure stupid, have the shorter version with the apt mocking from TYT

Seriously now, this is just ridiculous. You're honestly perpetuating the stereotype that in order to be religious you must be monumentally stupid - not doing yourselves any favors there

Boss Number 6

That's it, I need to make a new category for these awesome people. Nothing put a smile on my face this morning like Stanley Jerry Hoffman, a.k.a. Kwayzar, the 83-year-old rapper that is the new best thing on the internets.

Apparently he's also cool in his politics, according to TYT

I love it, I love him, and I love that he can still be loads of fun at the tender age of 83. I hope I reach his age, and if I do I hope I will be half as ballsy and laid back.

Ladies And Gents, Meet Bosses 4 and 5

Just like they said in the TYT video I saw on this subject this morning, I LOVE that it is football athletes that are being this vocal in support of gay marriage, that they are painstakingly breaking the stereotype that it's "unmacho" and "uncool" to support gay rights. Although linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo came out in support for gay marriage back in 2009, it is a more recent video that seems to have sparked a juicy controversy.

Oooh Emmett C. Burns Jr. did not like that. He was incenced that a football player from a team he actually likes could do something so offensive!!! He wrote the following letter to the owner of the Baltimore Ravens, the team this awesome athlete plays for:


"As a Delegate to the Maryland General Assembly and a Baltimore Ravens Football fan, I find it inconceivable that one of your players, Mr. Brendon Ayanbadejo, would publicy endorse Same-Sex marriage, specifically, as a Raven Football player. Many of my constituents and your football supporters are appalled and aghast that a member of the Ravens Football Team would step into this controversial divide and try to sway public opinion one way or the other. Many of your fans are opposed to such a view and feel it has no place in a sport that is strictly for pride, entertainment and excitement. I think Mr. Ayanbadejo should concentrate on football and steer clear of dividing the fan base. 

        I am requesting that you take the necessary action, as a National Football Franchise Owner, to inhibit such expressions from your employee and that he be ordered to cease and desist such injurious actions. I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbedejo is doing. 

      Please give me your immediate response "



Emphasis my own.

Dude, what the Hell do you think you're doing?! You're a Democrat, and a black man from Jackson Mississippi!!! Are you serious? Do you need someone to explain the definition of the word irony, or hypocrisy?!

Actually no need, cause while Ayanbedejo may have been the first NFL player to speak publicly about this issue, he's got one more on his side, Vikings punter Chris Kluwe fires back with this awesome open letter:



"1. As I suspect you have not read the Constitution, I would like to remind you that the very first, the VERY FIRST Amendment in this founding document deals with the freedom of speech, particularly the abridgment of said freedom. By using your position as an elected official (when referring to your constituents so as to implicitly threaten the Ravens organization) to state that the Ravens should “inhibit such expressions from your employees,” more specifically Brendon Ayanbadejo, not only are you clearly violating the First Amendment, you also come across as a narcissistic fromunda stain. What on earth would possess you to be so mind-boggingly stupid? It baffles me that a man such as yourself, a man who relies on that same First Amendment to pursue your own religious studies without fear of persecution from the state, could somehow justify stifling another person’s right to speech. To call that hypocritical would be to do a disservice to the word. Mindfucking obscenely hypocritical starts to approach it a little bit.

2. “Many of your fans are opposed to such a view and feel it has no place in a sport that is strictly for pride, entertainment, and excitement.” Holy fucking shitballs. Did you seriously just say that, as someone who’s “deeply involved in government task forces on the legacy of slavery in Maryland”? Have you not heard of Kenny Washington? Jackie Robinson? As recently as 1962 the NFL still had segregation, which was only done away with by brave athletes and coaches daring to speak their mind and do the right thing, and you’re going to say that political views have “no place in a sport”? I can’t even begin to fathom the cognitive dissonance that must be coursing through your rapidly addled mind right now; the mental gymnastics your brain has to tortuously contort itself through to make such a preposterous statement are surely worthy of an Olympic gold medal (the Russian judge gives you a 10 for “beautiful oppressionism”).

3. This is more a personal quibble of mine, but why do you hate freedom? Why do you hate the fact that other people want a chance to live their lives and be happy, even though they may believe in something different than you, or act different than you? How does gay marriage, in any way shape or form, affect your life? If gay marriage becomes legal, are you worried that all of a sudden you’ll start thinking about penis? “Oh shit. Gay marriage just passed. Gotta get me some of that hot dong action!” Will all of your friends suddenly turn gay and refuse to come to your Sunday Ticket grill-outs? (Unlikely, since gay people enjoy watching football too.)

I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won’t come into your house and steal your children. They won’t magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won’t even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population—rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children. You know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing to you?

In closing, I would like to say that I hope this letter, in some small way, causes you to reflect upon the magnitude of the colossal foot in mouth clusterfuck you so brazenly unleashed on a man whose only crime was speaking out for something he believed in. Best of luck in the next election; I’m fairly certain you might need it.

Sincerely,
Chris Kluwe

P.S. I’ve also been vocal as hell about the issue of gay marriage so you can take your “I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing” and shove it in your close-minded, totally lacking in empathy piehole and choke on it. Asshole."

Ooh how I love it! I really hope the guy writes back, though I doubt it. Most importantly I hope that he royally shot himself in the foot with his constituents over this matter, and I hope that anyone that voted for him, even if they agree with him on the gay marriage issue, kick his ass out of office for his abhorrent views on the First Amendment. 

Is that too much to hope for? He is (technically) in the Democratic Party after all....

The Torn Biologist

Sorry about that absence guys, yesterday was the last day of the week-long conference I was at and I am BEAT! But now it's back to work as normal and hopefully the inspiration I felt at the conference will carry me along until I can catch up with my sleep. 

So on the last day of the conference I go to get on my bike to go home, and I was faced with an extra passenger trying to hitch a ride on the back. This is where my human side and my biologist side come head to head in a battle most people do not think should exist within me given my line of work.

So my first reaction was ah cool NO WAY! I didn't know we had praying mantises in Italy! TAKE A PICTURE! 

But then my second reaction was... eeeewwwww. It's a bug. It's longer than my palm, that makes it a big bug. I don't want to ride home with a big bug behind my ass. How do I get rid of it?

Biologist pipes up: Don't kill it!

Human side retaliates: no no, squishing big bugs is just as eeewww-y as having them around, it solves nothing. But I don't know how mantises react when you swat them. Do they fly? Do they fly at you? Do they start freaking out? I don't like bugs that stay perfectly still and then freak when you try to get rid of them. Eeeeew, what do I do?

Fortunately for me a male colleague of mine chooses that minute to walk over as he had parked his bike right next to mine, at which point I find out that this interior battle is not as uncommon as I would have thought.

His first reaction: Crap do I have one on my bike?!
second reaction: hey, would you look at that, I've never seen one that wasn't behind glass!
third reaction: eeewww, I don't like bugs, sorry, don't know if I can help you.

But finally he couldn't say no to me, so what ended up happening was him taking out the cord attached to his keys, standing as far away as possible, swatting at it and punctuating each blow with "Go away! Go away!"

In conclusion? Turns out Italian mantises don't fly, nor do they jump, nor do they freak out. After the fifth swat it just kind of plopped to the ground and assumed what my colleague referred to as the thriller pose

Some kind of reaction to a perceived threat perhaps? We asked ourselves as we watched it being perfectly immobile again. There's our biologist showing again.

Dude's Got A Dick On His Chin

 

How do some of these scientists present their findings without giggling like schoolchildren?

Ladies and gents, meet Phallostethus cuulong, a little Vietnamese fish that for some bizarre unexplained reason has its genitals underneath its head instead of, well, the usual places. 

 I got nothing but respect for these people that have to present these data, and more for all the people in the audience stifling the giggle. Perhaps they realize that they can't possibly expect such maturity from a group of scientists, and present the entire thing with a humorous spin to begin with. 





Either way, the article is extremely mature in its detailed techincality, but for a much simpler and straightforward article you can read what National Geographic has to say about it.

The more interesting question that comes out of all this is, how and why would these fish evolve in this way? One theory put forth:

head-to-head mating is apparently "a very efficient way to do it," Parenti added. While examining preserved female priapiumfish, she has found oviducts filled with sperm, meaning almost all the eggs had been fertilized.

So, did you chuckle? I did. If you didn't, well, must be boring being that mature.


Source: Shibukawa, K. et. al. (2012). Phallostethus cuulong, a new species of priapiumfish (Actinopterygii: Atheriniformes: Phallostethidae) from the Vietnamese Mekong. Zootaxa 3363: 45-51

See? Scientists Have A Sense Of Humor...

I was reading this article the other day, just another on the very long list of articles that I force myself to read in order to get the most thorough understanding of my field as possible, and I couldn’t help but chortle at the sense of humor scientists occasionally reveal in their work. I shall quote, if I may:

Homozygous mutants are semilethal, and adult escaper flies are uncoordinated and show numerous neurological defects (Figure S1), hence the name fratboy.

OK I’ll translate that for those of you who have not studied biology since high school.

As you may remember, animals like flies, mice and humans are diploids, which means that we all have two sets of chromosomes, which also means two “copies” of our genes. I use quotation marks because that is not precisely accurate as they are not precise copies, but rather we often have two different alleles on the same corresponding portion of our chromosome pair, but that’s a story we don’t need to get into, except to explain the difference between a homozygous and heterozygous individual.

Having two copies of the same gene can mean that if one of the two genes is mutated, the individual can sometimes survive just fine with the one copy of the gene that has remained unchanged. If an animal has one of it’s genes mutated while the other “copy” is not, it is heterozygous for that mutation. If, on the other hand both copies of the gene are mutated it is homozygous for that mutation, and if that gene is important and there are no other genes that can step up and cover for it, the animal is screwed.

Scientists usually name genes based on the problems that the animal has when you remove the function of the gene by mutation. For example, the gene eyeless in Drosophila is called eyeless because when it is mutated the flies are born without eyes. In this case, the flies that have two copies of the mutated gene sometimes die before they can reach the adult stage. The ones that do survive, however, have neurological problems including bad coordination, which prompted the researchers to name the gene fratboy.

Not the best joke in the world after that tedious scientific explanation, but I was amused.

It is not uncommon for scientists to give genes weird or humorous names. Probably the most famous is sonic hedgehog, which was named after, well, Sonic Hedgehog. There are others too, like Van Gogh, because mutations in this gene cause Drosophila wings to form these swirling patterns that apparently but the researchers in mind of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. Mutations that led to clear larvae earned that gene the name glass bottomed boat. And the list goes on and on.

Yea, I don't see it either

So yes, scientists are not as stuffy as you think people! We can make each other smirk at each other’s papers when we come across yet another oddly named gene.

And then we find out that we’re the only ones that find each other funny, and go back to another funless day – unless we decide to make dry ice bombs, that can brighten up our moods.

Sources: Verstreken, P et. al. (2005). Synaptic Mitochondria Are Critical for Mobilization of Reserve Pool Vesicles at Drosophila Neuromuscular Junctions. Neuron 47(3): 365-378

Taylor, J et. al. (1998). Van Gogh: A New Drosophila Tissue Polarity Gene. Gentetics 150: 199-210

You Know You're Cool When They Name A Fish After You

In a recent paper published in Ichthyoloigical Explorations of Freshwaters, Pethiyagoda et. al just went through the laborious task of teasing apart the tropical Asian cyprinid (i.e. small, colourful and pretty freshwater fish) named Puntius, a “catch-all” genus that comprised over 120 species. In this paper, the researchers delved into the relationships between these species as well as their morphological characteristics, organizing them into more detailed genuses (geni?). One genus was called Dawkinsia, in honor of the great (and not late!) Richard Dawkins.

Now I have always admired Dawkins’s intellect and his contribution to evolutionary biology, and am prone to defend him vehemently. Those who dislike what he has to say about religion and atheism fine, dislike it, but I always argue that despite him being more famous for that aspect of his career in the public, in scientific circles he has made an enormous contribution, and the two things should be considered separately. It tires me that most people only know him as the Atheist Boogeyman, because he is so much more than that.

Anyway, despite what I think, it’s pretty badass to have a fish genus named after you, especially when you’re still around to know about it. It is also infinitely cooler than naming the species after yourself, which some people are prone to do.

Anyway, I tip my metaphorical hat to you Mr. Dawkins! Hope to be reading more of your books soon enough.

Source: Pethiyagoda, R., Meegaskumbura, M., Maduwage, K. (2012). A synopsis of the South Asian fishes referred to Puntius (Pisces: Cyprinidae). Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwaters, 23:1 6

Says It All

A little cartoon that perfectly describes my sentiments on the matter.

 

In Italy it is most certainly not illegal to sunbathe topless (quit drooling boys, it's mostly old women who do it) but regardless there is of course still a huge difference in how areolas are perceived, depending on the person's gender.

People, grow up and get over it.