The Chance for Peace

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
 - Dwight D. Eisenhower

taken from a speech delivered April 16, 1953

the number one please

Genetics and Gender

Today in my genetics class we talked about some peculiar genetic abnormalities and one of them I thought was pretty interesting but before we get to talk about it think about a few questions.
What makes you the gender you are?
Is it the hair on your chest? the fact that you like to play with dolls? Do you identify yourself with a particular gender only because that is the way you were raised? Or would you say you are who you are because of your genetics?
There is a particular genetic disorder that causes one to think about the source of our gender identities. Take a look at the picture below.

Does anything strike you about these ladies? Because in reality these Ladies (or should I say dudes) are in fact are genetically male. They were born with a particular genetic disorder called Androgen Insensitivity Disorder. This particular disorder is pretty interesting because as I stated before they are all genetically male meaning that they have an X chromosome and a Y chromosome just like any linebacker on a football team would. But the key difference here is a mutation in their genetic code which makes their cells unresponsive to testosterone the same hormone that causes all of the traits we normally associate with maleness.
So why are they female? To answer that question in very simple terms we would say that every human is "naturally" born a female, only through exposure during critical times during pregnancy (and later during puberty) to testosterone do male characteristics appear.

So what do you think makes you the gender you are? Is gender merely a social construct? I am not sure I would go that far but the moral of the story here is that the question of gender is more complicated than we think.

Little People - Moon

getting late, gotta go to bed. still have homework to do...

Oil Immersion

Yesterday in my Microbiology Lab we learned how to do Oil Immersion, which is a process that is used in microscopy to increase the resolution at much higher magnification. I though it was a pretty clever way to increase resolution. Here is a cool diagram that shows the process

Principle of immersion microscopy. Path of rays with immersion medium (yellow) (left half) and without (right half). Rays (black) coming from the object (red) at a certain angle and going through the coverslip (orange, as the slide at the bottom) can enter the objective (dark blue) only when immersion is used. Otherwise, the refraction at the coverslip - air interface causes the ray to miss the objective and its information is lost. 

Mmm, feelin like a million bucks after a nap

Stanley Kubrick on Existensialism

Stanley Kubrick on Existentialism 

"if life is so purposeless, do you feel that it is worth living?"

 KUBRICK: “Yes, for those of us who manage somehow to cope with our mortality. The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their Idealism—and their assumption of Immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But if he’s reasonably strong—and lucky—he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s élan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death—however mutable man may be able to make them—our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfilment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”

taken from an interview, you can read a part of it here

Soldering skills Lvl. 3 Minty Boost Update

I tried to get my microphone to work better so hopefully you can hear things better.

The Ten Most Important Things We've Learned About College

good advise from lifehacker.com

I need to take to heart some of these suggestions.

network? yeah I need to work on that

internship? yeah still trying to get that one out of the way

study abroad? really? how do I justify the expense?

Wesley Crusher on Politics

Remember little Wesley Crusher from Star Trek? Well take a peek at what popped up in my G+ stream today

Time to school on bike: 17.40

got my Minty Boost kit soldered up! Just need to get a case made up for it. Pictures and stuff coming later.

If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.
- Andrew Lewis

Crazy Science

all of these videos show the necessity of how actually observing an experiment can really challenge your preconceptions

Farewell amazon prime account! I am missing you already

The Indelible Stamp of our Lowly Origin

We are apes. do not let any ideology tell you otherwise. we are not some exalted and perfected beings only momentarily exiled from a state of perfection. If one needs convincing one only needs a brief glimpse of history to confirm this fact
It is often all to easy to see that we still today carry the roots of our past but this knowledge should not scare us or make us feel uncomfortable. It should guide us and help us better understand our weaknesses, the old adage "know thyself" applies.
It may seem hard to understand (and it is hard to truly understand) but our past ancestry does not mean make us any less of who we are (nor more), it makes us human. We walked our of Africa to face new challenges, that more often than not seemed insurmountable. A select few had the courage to ford a raging river, cross a snow capped mountain pass, navigate an endless ocean, and break free of the limitations set forth. To deny our past would deny the understanding that yes, humanity has made plenty of mistakes but humanity has also overcome

Limits of Free Trade

"US tariffs are on average only 4%, “low by historic standards.” But a closer look shows that this openness to foreign goods is selective, and allied to a form of protectionism-by-subsidy.