Contribution over acumulation

Pirate Radio: Micropower broadcasting

Moving onto the Airwaves Micropower Broadcasting Primer

WooHoo! 96% on my first test! Great way to start out the semester! Lets get ready for the weekend.

first test!

first test of the semester! been studying my brains out, hopefully I do ok. Wish me luck!

Electronics 101

While procrastinating some important studying for school I found a youtube playlist (what can I say the internet is awesome!) that explains the basic properties of electronic components. I thought they were pretty well done so check em out!
I just wish the rest of my classes could be posted up on youtube! Back to sticking my nose in a text book...
Videos posted after the break

whew! School and work is getting in the way of blogging these days. Feeling super busy which makes it hard to sit down and make sure I have a blog posted every day. I think I might have to slow things down and post a bit less. Genetics is getting really tough, I need to get into a study group, but I am enjoying microbiology a lot. Also these days I am feeling a lot less inclined to post or discuss politics, which is interesting because I used to really enjoy discussing politics but now I think I might have just become too entrenched in my beliefs that I cant objectively discuss politics with others. I need to change that and make sure I stay open to other possibilities. I think part of the problem is that I have been studying too much science, because in science there is usually only one right answer whereas in politics there are many options to solve a problem

Ingenious Animalcules

Been putting off some Microbiology reading till tonight and I don't know why because let me tell you I am impressed with these little guys! Some of the reading included various adaptations of motile bacteria for sensing and responding to varying levels of environmental stimuli through a proccess called taxis. Examples of taxis in bacteria involve chemotaxis which is defined as the response to a chemical gradient of movement towards or away a stimulus. But there are many forms of taxis in bacteria some with peculiar attributes. For example take a look at this guy

Magnetospirillum magnetotacticum

take a look at the series of black spheres running through this bacteria, those are tiny magnetic particles and make up a structure called a Magnetosome which is to put it in simple terms a microbial compass! These magnetic particles actually strong enough to orient the bacteria along the magnetic fields of the Earth. This magnetosome helps the bacteria perform Magentotaxis, the movement in response to a magnetic field. 

The purpose of this structure is proposed to attract the bacteria downward into sediment where the oxygen levels are lower and more to its liking for growth. Its affinity for lower oxygen concentrations have been observed in the lab and fossil record which show what are called Magnetofossils which appear in formations deposited during the Proterozoic Era which saw a build up in atmospheric oxygen confirming the observation of its distaste for too much oxygen.

here are a few more pictures of our ingenious friend

New shoes!

Got my new shoes, some PRO-keds. They are PRO! Very cool. I want to get some new shoelaces for them. They came with grey ones and I had a pair of black ones so I thought I would throw one of em on to see how it looked. I think I am going to rock the black laces till I can get some new laces. But what color laces? Should I get some red ones or blue ones?

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui. – Helen Keller

Fainting Goats

Nature has produced a lot of stunning diversity so we shouldnt be too surprised when things go "wrong". Take for example the "Fainting Goats", which have a condition called Myotonia. Wikipedia explains:

is a genetic, neuromuscular channelopathy that affects skeletal muscles (muscles used for movement). It is congenital, meaning that it is present from birth. Amongst other problems, it causes delayed relaxation of the muscles (myotonia) and rigidity. The disorder is caused by mutations in the part of an ion channel gene responsible for shutting off electrical excitation in the muscles, causing muscle fiber membranes to have an unusually exaggerated response to stimulation (hyperexcitability). Symptoms include delayed relaxation of the muscles after voluntary contraction (myotonia), and may also include stiffness, hypertrophy (enlargement), sluggishness of the muscles, transient weakness in some mutations, pain, and cramping. The disorder is caused by a genetic mutation involving the chloride channel of the muscles.

take a look at the results below

Unfortunately this disorder is not limited to goats and can also occur in humans. here is a cute video of some kittens who are afflicted with this disorder (but regrettably died not long after)

these kittens were so cute! it is so sad that they died...
here is another cute cat video to cheer you up.

ok just ONE more. I promise

.3 watts per search

Google is massive. With huge data centers keeping data safe and serving up each query to inquisitive visitors. Maintaining these servers requires quite a bit of energy but amazingly Google has kept energy consumption low.
Google has shown how to do more with less, and commentators have noticed that being green is not only good sense for the environment but good business sense

it is Sunday I am going to take a break from blogging

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.