Observations
We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane. Kilgore Trout -Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions, Ch 1.
Most men are not curious to know; nay, some make no bones about saying, 'What does it matter whether we know this or not'? -Antony van Leeuwenhoek"Superman violates the laws of physics!" (I will never live that down.)
Many years ago, my wife and I viewed the Superman movie with Christopher Reeve, which featured a scene wherein Superman sees Lois Lane being crushed in an earthquake, and so he flies around the earth faster than the speed of light so that he can go back in time and rescue Lois just before she is crushed.
My immediate response to this was "That couldn't happen; nothing can move faster than the speed of light." My wife's response was to start giggling without pause.
Listen to an Internet choir: lush!
A choir as big as the Internet! Eric Whitacre directs a virtual choir.
Take a listen!
Craig Venter is utterly amazing!
Craig Venter and his team have taken a large step in synthetic biology: They have created a full bacterial chromosome starting from a computer model of the chromosome! Enter, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0.
Waving the flag for the right reasons
Federal law was changed a few years ago to allow veterans and servicemen not in uniform to salute the flag when it was being hoisted or lowered or presented, typically at a ball game. Prior to that, only servicemen were allowed that privilege. Civilians who haven’t served still should remove their hat and hold it or their hand over their heart.
Cheating on a metaphysics exam
Selected one liners from Woody Allen:
"I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me."
"Those that can't do, teach, and those that can't teach, teach gym."
"I failed to make the chess team because of my height."
The wisdom of Mark Twain
"I want to be in Kentucky when the end of the world comes, because they are always 20 years behind."
-Mark Twain?Substitute for Kentucky a place that you feel is less aware than you think you are.
Abiogenesis or Creation?
Abiogenesis currently amounts to little more than scientific parlor talk, which leaves us free to choose an explanation of the origin of life that is most personally satisifying.I think that life was more likely created by God than having arisen spontaneously on earth. I have read a number of scientific arguments regarding the origin of life. They differ markedly in some aspects, but they are consistent in arguing that life on earth is massively complex and a massive amount of time would be necessary for life to arise from non-life (formation of the first self-replicating cell, then the evolution of life to its current forms). Many of abiogenesis proponents suggest that the current estimate of the earth's age, 4.5 billion years, is not sufficient time for life to have arisen spontaneously! At any rate . . .
Bacteria talk to each other … new approach to antibiotics?
The old bacterial cell wall inhibitors, etc. are the antibiotics soon to be the past, obviously so because the bacteria have evolved means to defeat most of them, and we are out of good ideas to extend those methods, save at much too slow a pace. But much has been learned about bacteria in the past 20 years, and from this recent knowledge are born new points of attack!!!
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