My first Nature paper

Nature Gardening: Brief Communications
The Darwinian Approach to Solanum lycopersicum cultivation: preliminary results
Obligatory Cheesy Nature Paper Pun: No spray tom-ay-to, delay tom-ah-to
by
Ennis, MG and Ennis, CA^1^
Background: We investigated the effects of Darwinian gardening methods on the drought resistance and fruit quality of a common Solanum lycopersicum variety. Darwinian gardening can be defined as starting plants from seed or small plants, and letting the fittest plants survive with a minimum of investigator interference. This is the first published study to explicitly test the hypothesis that subjecting Solanum lycopersicum to Darwinian gardening techniques would allow the plants to survive periods of drought during the brief British Columbian dry season.
Methods: Following failed experiments with Solanum lycopersicum seeds during the last grant growing cycle, the current study used starting material consisting of plants of approximately 4 inches in height (Home Depot, Vancouver). Plants were kept indoors under a skylight and watered intermittently. Only the fittest seedlings (those that survived random Felis catus-induced gravity/impact stress trials: n=2) were transplanted into a larger outdoors container and kept in the sunniest possible spot of a South-facing garden that was shaded at various times of day by trees and buildings. Concomitant with seedling purchase, control plants were started from seed in the garden. Pisum sativum had performed well in previous Darwinian gardening trials and was chosen as a positive control. Cucumis sativus had not previously been subjected to Darwinian gardening in this laboratory and was chosen as the most-likely-to-be-negative control.
Watering frequency was increased shortly after transplantation to once daily (more or less), by watering can or natural methods depending on the weather. Once the first green fruit appeared on the plants, two periods of drought stress (5 days each, two weeks apart) were induced by leaving the plants un-watered while the investigators went camping pursued other studies. These periods were planned to coincide with the hottest and sunniest weather available to residents of Southwestern British Columbia. Daily watering was resumed upon the investigators’ return, and continued until the first ripe fruit was observed.
Results: As expected, Cucumis sativus had not produced fruit by the time of publication (data not shown), whereas several Pisum sativum plants survived the drought stress periods and produced good yields (Figure 1).

*Figure 1.* Solanum lycopersicum (left) and Pisum sativum (right) plants that were previously subjected to Darwinian gardening techniques produce quality food following drought stress. There was no significant difference between the positive control food items in this pod (p=5).
The Solanum lycopersicum plants naturally selected by subjection to gravity/impact and Darwinian gardening stresses not only survived the two periods of drought, but produced ripe fruit (Figure 1). Fruit was semi-quantitatively assayed for tastiness and pronounced “pretty good, actually” and “are you kidding, it’s bloody delicious” (n=1, assay performed simultaneously by two independent investigators). Score was found to show a positive correlation with the amount of effort expended by each investigator.
Conclusion: Natural selection by neglect (“Darwinian gardening”) results in Solanum lycopersicum plants that can tolerate periods of drought and produce bloody delicious tomatoes. Ongoing field trials will address the effects of ripe windfall fruit of the Prunus sp. tree on Solanum lycopersicum fruit ripening times in situ.
Acknowledgments: We would like to thank the laboratory’s two furry technicians for their contributions to the preliminary natural selection experiments. We also thank this manuscript’s previous reviewers for their comments, which have been helpful.
^1^Corresponding author. Please use comment box.

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments

Corporate creativity, or lack thereof

From GraphJam, here’s a visual description of the Ugly side of my last job in marketing, as I described it on the Alternative Scientist blog:


No further comment required!

Posted in career | 3 Comments

w00t! Part 2

Remember my stressful February, in which I worked on five grants that were submitted to the same competition – writing large parts of two of them – and helped with another three grants for a second competition that closed a couple of days later?

Well, all five in the first category got at least partial funding! I am now six for six when working on grant submissions from my department. Two out of the other three were also funded, but since “my” PIs were relatively minor co-applicants/collaborators, I didn’t do much other than provide CVs and proof reading services.

A very welcome boost to my ego as we approach the next set of multiple submissions to two separate and very important competitions…

Posted in career, grant wrangling, personal | 10 Comments

All weekends should be long weekends

Seriously, I think I need three days EVERY weekend. Here’s what we did this BC Day long weekend:

Saturday: lazy day.

Got up late after being out for dinner and drinks on Friday. Lounged on sofa. Drank tea, made simple breakfast. Read papers. Played with cats. Read book. Played a lot of Risk. Read blogs. Drank more tea. Watched TV. Sent Mr E Man out to forage for food (Thai) and DVDs. Watched Juno (I loved it. Great dialogue and soundtrack, although Jason Bateman and Michael Cera are in danger of overexposure. At least they didn’t have any scenes together – given their roles as father and son in Arrested Development, it would have been quite weird. Mr E Man was more ambivalent about this movie). Watched In Bruges (we both really liked it. More great dialogue, and the city looked amazing. I’ve been to Bruges three times, but am happy to visit for a fourth time to show Mr E Man around and have encore des moules et frites, avec beaucoup des bieres). Snoozed on the sofa. Early night.

After dealing with work crap last week and being out of town for the last few weekends, I really, really needed a day like Saturday.

Sunday: party day (with occasional chores).

Got up late. Lounged on sofa. Drank tea, made simple breakfast. Did weekly grocery run and called my parents. Played with the cats. Headed to Spanish Banks beach for friends’ annual BC Day Weekend BBQ. Drank beer, ate hot dogs and cake and fruit. Drank more beer. Realised I was hammered (this happened in a very precariously placed and wobbly port-a-potty) and switched to juice. Adjourned to friends’ house for poker (I won some money, Mr E Man broke even). Played with friends’ pets, fell asleep on friends’ couch. Late night.

Monday: chores day (with occasional movies).

Got up slightly earlier. Drank tea, Mr E Man made super fabulous cooked breakfast. Cleaned and tidied house. Tried to fix crashed computer – it’s back up now, but I haven’t checked that all my files are still where they should be. Weeded and watered garden (I have one red tomato! And a bunch of green ones that don’t seem to want to ripen). Picked peas, eating most of them before they made it into the kitchen. Meanwhile, Mr E Man helped with the cleaning and tidying, washed all the dishes, sorted out our camping gear, and cut the grass. Or rather, the weeds. Played with cats (outside this time).

Got stood up by my scheduled geek date, because he got himself a real date instead. Somehow managed to persuade Mr E Man to take geek date’s place and take me to see the new X-Files movie (Good, but not great. If you’re a fan then I’d recommend it, but only if you’re a fan. The snowy BC mountain scenery did look amazing, but why was this a summer release? I have two regrets related to this movie, the first being much more serious than the second: I realised that the mystery location shoot I’d cycled past every day for a couple of weeks last winter was the set for Billy Connolly’s (the preacher’s) lodgings. This is just a few blocks South of the Olympic curling venue by the way – is my route to work the most happening part of the city or what?! I can’t believe I never stopped to check out the shoot; as big of an X-Files fan as I was/am, I’m a MUCH bigger Billy Connolly fan and would have loved to see him in action. I must be getting complacent about film sets, like native Vancouverites. Also it was dark and bloody freezing at the time, the artificial snow being joined by the real thing on a few occasions. Secondly, according to IMDB the film has an extra scene during the credits that I missed because Mr E Man was desperate to leave by that time. Although he did think the movie was OK, and he was happy to support the local film industry that helps to pay our mortgage).

Drove home, passing the aforementioned movie location on the way. Ordered sushi, ate it while watching The Spiderwick Chronicles (pretty good, for a kids’ movie. Quite scary for younger kids though I’d imagine). Early night.

So, overall, the weekend was a perfect blend of rebooting my energy levels, getting all the essential stuff done, seeing friends (and movies!) and generally relaxing.

Why can’t every weekend be like this?!

Join my campaign for a four day work week!

Posted in drunkenness, embarrassing fan girl, food glorious food, gardening, movie review, personal, Vancouver | 4 Comments

Is it really August?

Conversation from lunch today:

Friend 1: “I had to put the heating on today”
Me: “I had to put the duvet back on the bed”
Friend 2: “I had to put on a COAT!”

Got back to work to find a third friend’s updated Gmail status message:

“I will NOT put the heat on in August”

Rain. Cold. Low cloud. Wind. This is NOT normal. Not for August, anyway.

It’s supposed to get better for the upcoming long weekend…

In other news, I suspect that Okham is using mind control on my cats. They stole my iPhone headphones this morning; I eventually found them with the wire wrapped no less than four times around the horizontal support on one of the dining room chairs.

Yes, I’m having a horrible day at work and I need to break it up with nice things like blogging and brownies. Got a problem with that?

Posted in furry friends, rants, technology, Vancouver | 9 Comments

Rings Around The World

I’m sure you’ve all noticed the new additions to my blog roll (because you all watch this page like a hawk, instantly noticing every minor alteration and waiting on the edge of your seats for an explanation, right?). Yep, it’s finally Olympic month! The excitement is building and I’m already hooked on the BBC and CBC Olympic blogs.

I love, love, LOVE the Olympics. Summer and Winter. I love the idealistic thought of the world’s athletes and fans coming together, of a global celebration of sport and the dedication and passion it inspires. I stay up until 3 am watching the rowing, and fencing, and sailing, and a myriad of other sports I usually view with complete indifference. And when the track and field start, well, I’ll be needing a lot of caffeine at work.

Oh, and I cry at medal ceremonies. Especially if a British or Canadian athlete wins*, but sometimes even if they don’t. Four years of dedication, hard work and pain paying off in that one perfect moment as the flags are raised and the anthem plays. I’m actually tearing up a bit just writing this! And don’t even get me started on the Paralympics, except to say that now would be a good time to invest in Kleenex Canada shares.

I’m not totally naive, before anyone says anything. I know the Olympic ideal was corrupted years ago by rampant commercialism and drug use. And as an Amnesty International member for over ten years, I really wish the games weren’t in China. But can I at least hope that the intense media spotlight centred on the country will have some positive and long-lasting implications for the Chinese people? I like my rose-tinted glasses, damnit!

The biggest excitement, though, comes in 2010 when the Winter Games come to Vancouver and Whistler.

Olympic flag flying at Vancouver’s City Hall, just a few hundred metres from my office
There’s been a lot of local opposition to the Games, due to the expense and the (perceived?) neglect of other issues such as health care and homelessness in favour of Olympic infrastructure and a short-term cosmetic clean-up of the city’s problem areas. To these people I say: you’ve made your point, which obviously has its merits, but the Games are a done deal, so shut up, NIMBYs! There is not a single city in the world that wouldn’t have the same issues – in fact a wealthy city like Vancouver, in a wealthy country like Canada, is one of the best options – so should we just scrap the whole Olympic thing for good? You really, really, want to scrap Olympic Ice Hockey and the chance for bragging rights over the Americans every four years? Yeah, didn’t think so.
Yes, the construction’s a pain. I cycle past one of the in-progress venues every day and suffer from traffic congestion and clouds of dust blowing over the road. But I also cycle past the Olympic and Paralympic flags, and remember what they stand for and how much fun the Games are going to be. The best of the best athletes in the world are coming to town, so let’s enjoy the party. And of course we’re going to benefit from the Olympic infrastructure for generations to come – the expanded light rail to the airport and a safer, faster highway to Whistler as well as the new sports facilities. I hear they’re going to take paying tourists down the bobsled track in Whistler when the games are over, something I’ve always wanted to try. The whole thing would be worth it just for that, in my opinion!

When tickets go on sale, I’m going to be one of the first in line. Mr E Man says he would do anything – anything – for hockey tickets. That would indeed be awesome, especially if local favourite Roberto Luongo backstops Canada to the gold medal. But I’m more interested in visiting the venue that I see on my daily ride. I can WALK from my home to an OLYMPIC VENUE. How cool is that??!! OK, so it’s only curling, but still. It’s Great Britain’s best chance of a medal in the Winter games, actually.
The 2012 Summer Games are in London. My sister says I can stay at her place. But, until then, good luck Beijing! I’ll be glued to the TV!

(Title explanation for those of you not well up on the Welsh indie music scene of a few years ago)

*I still support any British athlete against any Canadian, and probably always will. Here’s hoping for a record medal haul for both countries!

Posted in blog roll, embarrassing fan girl, personal, photos, politics, rants, sport, Vancouver | 11 Comments

No, I haven’t been mauled by a bear. But thanks for asking.

Holy Snapping Duck Do! I just had a cup of tea and realised I have not updated this since they let me out!… You would not believe the amount of people that are totally stalking me. I hope they bring chocolate!
I am distracted with finding Jesus (after someone told me he was lost), spending my husband’s money, just generally being a delightful mistress to every Lost Boy that crosses my path, my day seems to be a litany of stuff and giggles from my partner kicking me out of bed to way past dusk. I am not being a whinging Pom or anything. life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.
I swear on the bones of my ancestors I will make more of an effort to blog more often until the nice men in the white coats come back. No, really! The Piccaninnies say I have to!

Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

More Facebook Questions

I think it’s going to be OK. I’ve installed the official Scrabble application, which apparently will activate in a couple of weeks. The fact that the US and Canada are getting a different version to the rest of the world means I might not be able to play my sister in London and brother-in-law in Vietnam, but I’ll survive. I can still play them at chess and Risk. And I can play Scrabble against other people, including various other bloggers and blog readers.

So: question one. I’ve played several of you individually, but I’d love to play some bigger games. How much fun would a quest for global blogger domination be??!! Imagine the trash talk!! But while I know a few pseudonymous bloggers‘ real names, you don’t always know each others’. Any suggestions as to how we can all play without giving too much information away?

And question two. I’ve seen some Facebook etiquette questions on other blogs, along the lines of “should I accept friend requests from my students?”, but I’ve never seen this particular dilemma before. Before I go on I should say that I’m not one of those compulsive “friend” collectors just for the sake of it – everyone on my contacts list is an actual friend, colleague or relative, or someone I feel I “know” quite well through blogging. So. A girl who bullied me for years at high school wants me to be her friend. I’m talking verbal taunts, turning friends against me, throwing my bag into the boys’ bathroom at break time so I had to go in to retrieve it when the place was packed, the usual high school stuff. I’ve ignored her request for weeks and am getting sick of seeing it always there on my home page. So should I:

a) delete it, potentially denying myself the opportunity to get the hell over this (mostly there already);
b) give her the benefit of the doubt (it was a long time ago after all and I’m sure she doesn’t throw peoples’ bags into boys’ bathrooms any more);
c) accept her request just long enough to send her a really mean comment, then remove her from my list;
d) take the opportunity to have some evil fun and mess with her head.

My friends have suggested option d), as in, leave her a message saying “my therapist thinks it’s a good idea to confront you, but as I write this through a flood of tears and painful memories I think it was a bad idea, and by the way here’s a bill for my therapy sessions”. While that would be fun, it’s just not me. I’m tending towards option a myself. Thoughts?

Posted in blog buddies, personal | 22 Comments

What just happened??!!

Scrabulous just went *poof*!

Where did it go? And what am I going to do now?

Help!!!!!!!!

Posted in personal, silliness | 5 Comments

Another book meme

Tagged by Mad Hatter!

I’ll steal her colour scheme too: Books I’ve read are in bold, books I started but never quite finished are in blue, and books I have read multiple times are in red. I’ll also steal EcoGeoFemme’s trick of adding an asterisk if I’ve seen the movie or TV adaptation (including cartoons).

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen*
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien*
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling*
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee*
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy and I HATED it.
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare I wonder how many people in the world have really read the whole thing?! I have read a few complete plays though.
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell*
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams* Hmm, anyone surprised by this one?!
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll*
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame*
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis*
34 Emma – Jane Austen*
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen*
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis*
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne*
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell*
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown*
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving Love it!
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding*
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert*
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons*
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen*
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck* If you haven’t seen the movie version with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich, rent it NOW! Sinise directed too. This movie started my love affair with Steinbeck. I’ve since read everything he ever wrote, including a collection of letters etc.
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding* OMG I LOLed! Literally! On a train! The second book is even better.
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens*
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker*
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett*
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens*
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker*
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro*
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams*
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare*
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl*
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo*

What this list says about me

  1. I read a lot.
  2. If I really like something, I’ll read it over and over again. Same with movies.
  3. I usually finish everything I read.
  4. The only thing more boring than On The Road is the Bible.

I tag… anyone who reads books and blogs who hasn’t already done a book meme this year. On a purely voluntary basis of course.

Posted in book review, meme | 4 Comments