now act like it

http://www.risingtidecapital.org/home

Oh yeah.

Straight from the TED Conference on “Ideas Worth Spreading,” Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist who was able to study her brain “from the inside out” as she was having a stroke. Definitely a worthy 18 minutes and 44 seconds.

Talks Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

I was riding my bike up 1st avenue today to drop of my 2007 taxes in the mail when something very dangerous happened. It was a rainy and gloomy day, generally unpleasant to be out. I was coasting along as far to the shoulder of the street as I could, though there were cars parked on the side, when… SWOOP! FULLY EXTENDED CAR DOOR!

I swerved to try and avoid it but there was also the problem of traffic to my left. So I ended up just barely clipping it which toppled me over my handlebars directly into the rightmost lane with traffic in motion. As I rolled over the first thing that popped into my head was, "Oh! Car? Look!" But luckily the traffic wasn’t moving to fast and the guy saw me take the spill so he was able to stop without much hassle.

Overall, the injury is pretty boring, but the story behind it makes the potential gruesome event that much more shocking. Oh, and I was wearing a helmet and just so the picture doesn’t mislead you, clothes as well. I was checking out my shoulder when I decided to take the picture of the scratch on my forearm. Heh, you can still see the helmet marks on my forehead!

In the end that is probably top 5 near death experiences for me… and another opportunity to post injury pictures.

Top 5 Near Death Experiences (plus two bonuses because I couldn’t stop):

1. Car accident as I was driving my girlfriend of the time, Joanna, to school. I rear ended someone going about 35 MPH which isn’t fast but in car accidents, anything can go wrong and really get you.
2. Swinging car door knocks me off my bike into NYC traffic.
3. As a child, I was pushed backwards off an 8 foot high jungle gym.
4. That brief second as I was jumping out of the plane when I went skydiving in 2004 instead of going to my college graduation.
5. Falling about 10 feet out of a tree on New Years Eve 2003/2004 which yielded two broken wrists but no death.
6. Travelling through the military blockades in the near-rebellious southern half of Thailand the day of the peaceful coup.  Peaceful coups…. who wouldda thunk it?
7. Driving anywhere in Cambodia on a Scooter, Car, or Bus.  Seriously, ANYWHERE.

Just cool.

(via kottke.org) 

Everyone wants to use the Milkshake Analogy from There Will Be Blood:

"Part of the competitiveness stems from the importance of finishing first. The Keck telescopes beat other telescopes in their class to operation by a few years and skimmed the creamiest science off the top. And so the TMT’s competitors want to keep it from drinking everyone’s milkshake before they have their own straws ready."

Astronomy: Eyes as Big as the Sky (Nature News) 

I am officially a Giants fan for the next two weeks. Watching the Giants play has convinced me that they have a shot to beat the Patriots. It won’t be easy because the Patriots are the best football team by far that I have ever seen play the game. But with Eli playing safe and clutch football while the Giants D keep making a real difference, then I can’t help but be nostalgic about how much they remind me of the good ‘ol Ravens of 2000 (who just so happened to take the Giants to the mat for a superbowl title).

Despite seeing history with the Patriots going undefeated, I believe a better story would be to see the Giants overcome the years of public outcry concerning their coach and quarterback. We all can’t be the Patriots, I could only hope for the Ravens to ever play half the football that the Patriots have this year. But ultimately I like the idea that it comes down to any given Sunday… and that in two Sundays from now, the Giants will show that even a team thought to be down and out can rally to beat the best.

Holidays have pretty much turned into kidfest since Sofia and Riley were born. But I’m not complaining… how could anyone when you walk into the living and see:

So I’ve been quite busy for the past few weeks getting into a lab headed by Dr. Leslie Vosshall who studies fruit fly behavior with a focus on olfaction (smelling).  I began my rotation 2 weeks ago (btw - rotation is like a long term interview where the student sees if they like the lab and the lab sees if they like the student) and was handed a pretty cool project where I would learn this crazy technique called ingle sensilla recording in order to see if certain mutations in a protein caused any informative result.

So last week I began training on the technique that consists of mounting a fruit fly into a pipette tip with its head poking slightly out and shoving it up against a slide while using a thin glass pipette to push down his antenna (where the olfaction neurons are).  Then you put this preparation on a microscope and shove a metal electrode into its eye as a reference and another into these little hairs on its antenna so that you can read action potentials being fired when you puff a certain smell on the fly through a tube.

So while a labmate was showing me this technique as he performed some of his experiments I got a little too comfortable and let out a silent fart.  And then I realized, "Oh shit!  The smell from my fart may mess up his experiment!"  Luckily it didn’t, and I didn’t find it necessary to admit my lack of control under experimental circumstances.

Anyways, more to come soon. 

Well, day one is complete. And what can I say? QUITE LIBERAL. At times it seems like the program may be held together by strings. But in honesty, I think it is just an adjustment to a new place. The university is quite flexible in all it does. They are quite generous with money for different uses including buying a new computer up to $2500 (actually a new computer every 3 years), $125 of matching funds for anything recreational, research funds, and of course the stipend. As far as classes go, the trend continues. There are about 5 courses offered at Rockefeller during each of their three semesters in a year. But they will allow me to take any course offered in the area if I deem it necessary. Also, the choice of which classes is left to my own preference. Thats just a taste of how easy-going this place is.

The 20 or so students in the PhD program with me seem kind enough. Obviously with under 24 hours of exposure, everything is in the earliest stage of development. But I’ve hit it off with a couple based on Music and well, Beer. I’ll find out more tonight as we all go out for some drinks.

So for the next two weeks I will be attending the three sparse classes I must attend with only one meeting at any given day. During the down hours I will be trying to squeeze my way into a laboratory on campus to start rotations. Rotations are simply like trying out a lab to see if you enjoy the people and the research. It is customary to rotate through a few labs and then choose where to spend the next 3+ years. Like I have said multiple times to folks, its like a job generally.

As far as NYC goes, everything seems ok. I am still learning my way around the immediate vicinity. Everything seems to be inbetween 1-5 blocks that I generally need (so anywhere from 6-20 minute roundtrip walk). It is true that groceries are more expensive. I got my typical house starter that typical would run around $80-90 and it cost me $120. It is also a bit difficult to get some good vegetables for a decent price. I am trying to scope out the locations of the farm stands because they seem cheapest right now for not much different quality. We’ll see.

Thats the story right now. I’ll be back soon with more though.  But feelings are good right now.