Random bullets of questions

Posted on January 28, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?
  • Why does it so often happen that, after hearing a new word for the first time, I hear it again (and sometimes again and again) within the next few days? This week’s example: fiduciary. Heard twice from two completely different and unrelated sources. Maybe it’s in common usage and I’d never picked up on it until I had to ask my hubby to explain what the hell he was talking about. The best example was when a non-scientist friend came up to Glasgow to hang out with me and my geeky science buddies for Hogmanay. I used the word placebo, which she wasn’t familiar with, and then over the course of the evening’s festivities, 3 other people used it in unrelated conversations. She was very confused.
  • Why can’t I find the right pair of knee-high boots? You’d think it would be easy. The criteria are: brown; leather; not lined with fur or nasty sweaty synthetic material; a heel that’s a) not too high (2 inches is easily enough,) b) not too spiky, c) not a wedge; don’t make me look like I should be riding a horse or a motorcycle; and in my size. I found one pair (Hush Puppies! In a sale!) that met all criteria except the last one, and another (Nine West! In an even better sale!) that were perfect except for being lined with fur. I was dripping sweat just in the store. Vancouver is f****** cold at the moment, but not cold enough for fur-lined boots.
  • Is it possible that the time until the next leap year determines how dark it feels? If I remember my primary school lessons correctly, we have leap years because every year is actually 365.25 days long and we have to compensate by putting all the 0.25 days together every 4 years. A lot of people are saying that this winter feels darker than normal. Could this be because the actual hours of darkness are set differently against the 24-hour clock this year, making it feel like the sun rises later than usual? Or is it all just perception? (This might be a really really stupid question. Feel free to laugh and point).
Posted in English language, personal, silliness | 6 Comments

Book Review Times Two

Posted on January 28, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Two today – one badly written book with an interesting theme, and one wonderfully written book on a topic I couldn’t get all that excited about.

“Angels and Demons” by Dan Brown: 5.5/10

This guy can’t write* and needs to work on his pacing, but he knows how to tell a story. I started this book with low expectations, and ended up enjoying it much more than the Da Vinci code. The subject matter – the conflict between science and faith – was interesting enough to compensate for the cheesy writing (the description of the sexual tension between the two main characters was truly cringeworthy). It got a bit silly towards the end, but hey, it’s Dan Brown. Definitely worth a try, even if you didn’t really like the Da Vinci code all that much.

*some passages were clumsy enough to merit being read out loud in a silly voice for my husband’s amusement.

“Road Fever” by Tim Cahill: 5/10

The tale of a record-breaking drive from the Southern tip of Argentina to Alaska. I’m a big fan of Tim Cahill’s based on his other books – collections of adventure travel articles that span everything from fighting oil fires in Kuwait, to sea turtle conservation, to sky diving and hang gliding. It was Cahill’s books that first inspired me to try sea kayaking – I’d read about it in a couple of his articles, thought it sounded great, and signed up for a course a couple of months after I arrived in Vancouver. I prefer to Just Say No to sky diving and hang gliding though.

So this book was a wee bit disappointing. Unlike Dan Brown, Tim Cahill can really write, and parts of this narrative were very engaging. But I just couldn’t get all that excited about the driving aspect, which was obviously featured very prominently. Like Angels and Demons, it all got a bit breathless at times, and reading two books like that back to back is a bit much. I missed the variety of his other books, and the ability to dip in and out, reading one article at a time. I’d recommend skipping this one and picking up any of these other books instead.

Posted in book review | 2 Comments

Friday’s Primate Party

Posted on January 25, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Two related stories from Primate Info Net this week. In Austria, a chimpanzee named Matthew Hiasl Pan (!!) is at risk of becoming homeless if the animal shelter he’s lived in for 25 years goes bankrupt. Private donors are willing to pay for his ongoing accommodation costs, but since only humans can receive personal gifts, activists have tried to obtain “personhood” status for Matthew. The supreme court turned them down. Matthew’s human friends will now have to set up a foundation in his name to process donations, but they’re worried that without personhood there’s nothing to stop him being sold to a foreign owner and having to leave the protection of Austria’s strict anti-cruelty laws.


Are chimps people too?
Photo credit

Meanwhile, in Texas, a court has dismissed a claim by PETA that chimpanzees and monkeys in a local sanctuary have the right to sue over their conditions.

Why do I feel so differently about these two cases? I don’t think Austrian Matthew should be granted human status, but surely there was some other way to give him added protection and keep him in the country. But giving chimps the right to sue? C’mon. That’s not the right way to go about things at all. I wonder whether the money and effort invested in this case could have actually made a difference if spent on lobbying for improved legislation to regulate sanctuaries and zoos instead.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just biased against PETA, who I think have their hearts in the right place but are often grossly misguided, and Fox News (linking to their site made me feel dirty).

Seeing as it’s Friday and I’m already in the habit, I’ve also posted about primates at my other blog (well, I wrote the text yesterday and posted it today – I can’t figure out how to fix the date and time stamp like I can here). But there’s nothing there that regular readers of this blog won’t have already seen, so skip that and read about transposable elements instead! It’s full of geeky science goodness.

Posted in apes, photos, Primate Party | 5 Comments

Embracing my inner primatologist

Posted on January 25, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I first became interested in science through a love of animals. The first career I ever aspired to was James Herriot’s, followed by David Attenborough’s.
This seems to be a common career path for many biological scientists; I’ve met several other people who’ve made their way down the chain from large interesting mammals to tiny interesting genes. (I suppose quantum physicists are the people who took that journey to its logical conclusion, although I suspect that they may have started with rocket ships and black holes rather than dolphins and whales).

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Album cover meme

Posted on January 24, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Here’s a fun meme from Science Girl at Curiosity Killed the Cat:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result in your own journal.

Here it is:

That actually worked pretty well!

I did cheat slightly; the name of the band should have been Blue Earth Lake Provincial Park, which is actually not too far from my sister-in-law’s place. We’ll be driving out there in March so maybe I should go and pay homage. (I can’t quite imagine the conversation with hubby when I tell him exactly why we have to go so far out of our way before reaching his sister’s, which is a paradise of good food, great company, lots of booze, cute nephews and fab skiing. We usually try to get up there as fast as possible and stay as long as we can). The quote is from Mark Twain (“We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess”) and the photo is, erm, somewhere in California (sorry whoever took the photo, I accidentally closed that tab before I could give you credit and now I can’t find it again).

My song-writing friend and I always said that our first album (which would, of course, include the PhD Blues) would be called All the Way to Anywhere. This was taken from one of our many cycling day trips on which we would spend too much time talking and in beer gardens, and never ever reach our intended destination. We would always lament on the way home (with sore bums and sunburn on one arm only) that it would be great to one day go all the way to, well, anywhere. With the profits we were going to buy a racehorse called Spinnaker. All we were missing was the talent to actually write any good songs.

Posted in cycling, meme, music, personal, photos, silliness | 13 Comments

Drum roll…

Posted on January 23, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

In a previous, rather jubilant post written on a very good day, I mentioned an exciting offer I’d just received. And here’s the scoop!

I’ve been invited to start blogging on the Nature Network! (And I got the hockey tickets too!)

OK, so it’s not quite the Nature publication that I’ve always wanted, but it’s as close as I’m likely to get!

They gave me two options: to move this whole blog over there, archives and all, or to start a new blog and keep this one intact. I went with the latter, so this blog will keep going, albeit with a reduced post frequency.

This actually feels like a really good time to split my blogging efforts. I started this blog while away on conference duty with my old job, when I was feeling mentally about as sharp as a butter knife. Being around academics again, and attending conference sessions for the first time in a long time, made me realise how much I missed using the science part of my brain. So my first couple of months worth of posts had a very scientific content as I dragged my science brain, kicking and screaming, back to life. I actually felt smarter than I had in ages!

As I became more comfortable with the medium and met some regular commenters, some more personal posts crept in, followed by monkeys and silliness. Since I started my new job – which uses my science brain every day – I’ve not posted much scientific content at all. Instead I’ve somewhat lazily regaled you with tales of football’s ups and downs and New Year’s drunkenness. However, I have been meaning to post the occasional journal club-type article. Honest.

So now, I get the best of both worlds! Posts about any new and exciting research that I come across, or posts with any other hard-core scientific content, will go up at my new blog. (I’ll insert a link to each new post the next time I post here). All the less serious stuff will stay here.

I think this is the best way to go, but I may have to adapt and evolve! Any feedback is always welcome!

Oh, and I decided to use my full name on the new blog. (I think I’d be crazy to stay anonymous on Nature’s site). So now you know! I realise it’s somewhat pointless to keep using my initials here, but I think I’d prefer it if googling my real name didn’t bring this blog up on the first few pages. So please don’t include my full name in any comments or anything. Thanks!

__________

(Interestingly enough, I went straight to my reader after writing this and found two posts, by Mrs Whatsit and Propter Doc, about blog anonymity. Spooky!)

Posted in blog roll, career, meta, personal, science | 14 Comments

Technorati ping thing

Posted on January 22, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Please ignore this post, it’s just me claiming this blog on Technorati.
Apparently you can’t delete posts once they’re up!
Technorati Profile” rel=”me”

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Transposable element awesomeness

Posted on January 22, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

That last post was just a warm-up; consider this my first real contribution to Nature Network.
I’m also going to take the opportunity to insert lots of links to the more scientific posts on my other blog. Purely to give you a taste of the kind of research that I’m interested in and that is likely to crop up here. I am not a blog pimp. Oh no.
Anyone who has read VWXYNot? will know that I’ve got a bit of a thing about endogenous retroviruses and other transposable (or repetitive) elements. This sometimes causes arguments with creationists, which is very entertaining and satisfying.

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Transposable element awesomeness

All about me

Posted on January 22, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

This is my first-ever post, on my second-ever blog!
Yes, last week I received an invitation out of the blue to start blogging on the Nature Network. And how could I refuse? It’s every scientist’s dream to get “published” in “Nature”, right?
Because I do still consider myself to be a scientist, despite leaving research in 2005.

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on All about me

Luck, or lack thereof

Posted on January 22, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

The CBC is reporting that today is the most depressing day of the year.

I have to confess to a case of the blahs over the weekend that continued into this morning. It’s been so rainy and dark (several people have agreed with me that it seems worse than usual this year, although I know that Wayfarer is going to think I’m a total wuss), I’ve been mildly sick, and am just feeling generally a bit lethargic and, well, blah-like. I even found myself getting all emotional and weepy over a relatively minor occurrence first thing this morning, although I was more or less OK by the time I got to work. But mostly I’m fine – my blahs never seem to last for more than a few days, or a couple of weeks at the very most. And today the sun came out and I ticked some things off my work to-do list, which always helps. So the most depressing day of the year was not too traumatic.

What I’m really worried about is Friday. Burns Night seems to be my very own personal Friday the 13th. In previous years:

– I’ve broken my arm badly enough to need 3 surgeries, 2 weeks in traction and extensive physiotherapy to regain the movement in my fingers.
– I’ve caught the measles.
– I’ve caught the flu.
– I’ve slipped off my bike in the frost and hurt my leg.
– I’ve dropped my bike while locking it up and taken a huge curl of skin off my shin with one of the spikes on the biggest gear cog.
– My then-boyfriend moved to another country (this one actually turned out to be A Good Thing, but was very traumatic at the time and involved lots of sobbing at the airport, a feature that recurred several times that year).

Some years pass by without incident, so I’ve got my fingers crossed for this week. Hopefully nothing worse than the forecasted return of the rain will happen. Maybe I should skip work and stay home, liveblogging my misfortunes as they happen. But then I’d probably get fired, so perhaps work is my best option after all.

Hmmm. To cycle or not to cycle?

p.s. What with special off-site work events and patchy home internet access, I managed to miss Friday’s primate party last week. Oh well, major calamities permitting I’ll prepare something extra special this week!

Posted in cycling, personal, Vancouver | 7 Comments