All is not lost, part II

I recently did a post about an 11 year old who caught a mistake at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, AND got them to change it.

Here is another story that makes me feel as though all is not lost in this country. A 14 year old girl is trying to do something to mitigate the zebra and quagga mussel invasion of California. Brenna Callero has invented a compound that she is hoping will deter the mussels from clinging to anything it is painted on. She's using a concoction she created for a science fair project last year to kill mosquitoes, and adding a glue-like (and I assume waterproof) substance so it will stick to plastic and concrete. She came in 4th-place in the state with last year's project.

I love this quote: "I love science," said Brenna, a ninth-grader at La Reina High School in Thousand Oaks. As opposed to my 17 year old step-daughter who recently vehemently stated, "I hate science."

Scientists at the California Department of Fish and Game are taking her very seriously and helping out with the study.

"She wanted to use all natural ingredients because she has allergies and didn't want to sneeze while all the science was going on." That only means she's not allergic to marigolds and lemon rind, the active ingredients in her compound. She's smart enough to eventually figure out that most things that cause allergies are natural...

She apparently wants to try out for the Ladies Professional Golf Association. If her golf career doesn't pan out, she should definitely consider a career in science. Maybe she could do both.

Bacteria? See ya later alligator!

The 235th meeting of the American Chemical Society sounded interesting. One of the presentations was a group of biochemists from Louisiana reporting their studies on the antimicrobial activity of alligator blood. I got this from a Science Daily report: Alligator Blood May Put The Bite On Antibiotic-resistant Infections,* and a National Geographic article: Alligator Blood May Lead to Powerful New Antibiotics.

Apparently alligators and crocodiles have an unusually strong immune system that can fight off fungi, viruses, and bacteria including methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus. This is likely an evolutionary adaption to frequent injuries due to such things as territorial disputes, and (often) living in swampy, microorganism infested environments.

These scientists separated out the white blood cells and extracted the active proteins from the alligator white blood cells. They found that of the 23 strains of bacteria they tested, alligator serum killed...23 of them. The same tests using human blood serum killed 8.

They are hoping that alligator blood products might be available for human use as pills or topical ointments within seven to ten years.

Is anyone else envisioning a future 50 or so years hence, where crocodilians are dying from infections they never used to get, due to human misuse induced alligator blood resistant bacteria?

My bearma ate your dogma

I used to work with a rabidly Republican young scientist who I'll call George, although his real name is Andy. Anyway, An...I mean George, is an enthusiastic outdoorsman and hunter - and Bush supporter. He seems to have a blind spot when it comes to Bush idiocy, although he probably thinks I have a blind spot when it comes to Bush brilliance.

My husband Bill is 58, and leans so far to the left it's a wonder he doesn't fall over sometimes. He always has. I, of course, also lean a long way left, but am young enough to keep my balance...I only fall occasionally while skiing. Or walking sometimes. Definitely while roller blading, unlike some people...but I digress.

For some reason, even though we were at opposite ends of the political scale, and I don't even like to kill ants, Andy....George and I got along like a house on fire. One of the things we had in common was the HBO series Deadwood, although it irritated Andy because he watched it in realtime, while we only watch shows on DVD, so we were always a season behind him. I mean George. I'd come into work and say things like, "Well, surprisingly, nobody was fed to Mr. Wu's pigs on the episode we watched last night" or "McCall killed Wild Bill Hickok last night*," and Andy would be able to guess the episode.

One day, we were talking about our respective spouses, and Andy declared that all he would have to do would be to take Bill deer hunting** with him for a few days and he could convert him into a Republican.

When I relayed this to Bill, he stated that what would actually happen would be that he would come staggering out of the woods a day or so later yelling, "A bear killed Andy! A bear killed Andy! It was horrible! I tried, but I couldn't stop it! The bear couldn't take him spouting Republican dogma anymore and it beat him to death with a tree branch!"***

Andy thought that was hilarious. That's why we got along so well.

*Not giving anything away. You knew that had to happen.
**Bill would NEVER hunt, by the way, although he does kill ants. Someone around here has to sometimes.
***See why I married him? I try not to tell him I think he's funny, though. It just encourages him.

April showers... No, wait.

If April showers bring May flowers, what to April flurries bring? Ok, it doesn't look like it, but it really IS snowing in this photo.

Yep. I went skiing today, probably for the last time this year. And it snowed on me. Some of the ski resorts are already closed (no whining about ski resorts closing over a month ago from the east-coast contingent...you know who you are, Philip).

It snowed pretty heavily over Donner Pass on my way home. Note the general lack of snow on the ground in this high mountain pass. I know the Donner Party had some trouble in the area in 1846-47, but my main worry was staying on the road (BIG dropoff down to Donner Lake) and avoiding the tractor trailers while trying to take a picture of the snow out the windscreen while driving 65 mph. Yes, it really is snowing in this photo, too.

The INDEXED blog had what I thought was a humorous take on the Donner Party last Thanksgiving. I highly recommend having a look through her blog, by the way.

Hearing loss

I found these ultrasonic ringtones on the Science Made Cool website via Tangled Bank #102 which was hosted by Further Thoughts. Wow. That was complicated. Actually, I think that ultrasonic is defined as 20kHz and above. Eight, 10, and 12kHz were almost unbearably loud. 14.1kHz was comfortable, and 14.9kHz was audible, but quiet.

Bill's daughter came in so I tested it out on her. She could only hear up to 16.7kHz.

I booted up our PC because I wasn't sure that the speakers on this laptop are very good. I could hear up to 15.8kHz with those speakers. Barely. Bill's daughter yelled from the back of the house, "Are you still messing with those ringtones?" She could hear it from two rooms and a hallway away.

My son, his girlfriend, and his friend Will wandered in on their way to San Francisco, so I used them as guinea pigs, too. My son and his girlfriend could hear up to 16.7, and his friend Will could hear up to 18.8kHz. Most of the sounds hurt Will's ears.

I am really not surprised about my obvious hearing loss. I have a really difficult time hearing people speak if there is any background noise. I blame the various bands I've played in since I was 13. Particularly because I usually sit in front of the trumpet sections (Sorry, Andrew).

I tried testing this out to see how well the other animals in the family heard it. I put the laptop on the floor between Smokey and Fang, and played all the notes. Smokey looked on, mildly interested and Fang started falling asleep. Neither one made so much as an ear twitch. One of the other cats, Alice, came over to investigate, probably more because it is fairly unusual to see me sitting on the kitchen floor than the noises.

Oh, and Bill couldn't hear ANY of them. Not even the 8kHz. I keep telling him he's getting really deaf. Now I have proof. So he's not just ignoring me! I hope.

Concert tonight

Band concert tonight. I don't mean to sound conceited or anything, but they really can't start without me. It's not because the band absolutely HAS to have a bassoon. We have another bassoonist, even if bassoons WERE indispensable. We could possibly even start without the director, because we have an assistant director (FSM forbid anything happen to our director, though. We're all very fond of him). It's not because I am the chairperson of the Band Board of Directors. It's because.......


I drive the truck.

Tower of Time

Maybe all is not lost in this country. We were listening to NPR's All Things Considered on the way home from work yesterday, and Robert Siegel was interviewing a 5th grader from Michigan who found a 27 year old mistake regarding the name of the Precambrian Era Supereon on the Tower of Time at Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.

Listen to the interview here.

Robert Siegel is very condescending, considering this 11 year old is probably more intelligent than 90% of the people in this country. He's eleven. Not five. Here's a photo of the future of this country and a little more on the story.

Bill and I were in the Natural History Museum in January of last year, and I don't even remember the Tower of Time. I was more interested in this: I have always loved Irish Elk. Why? I don't know.

and this: I also love Triceratops(es?). Who doesn't?

God botherers

Sheesh! Two in one day.

I was in a meeting at work today, and this was on a giant post-it note on an easel in the corner of the room.
It reads:

Thank You for being
a blessing for me
May this beautiful Easter Holiday
remind us all to have Faith
I Love You!!
your co-worker

It isn't a great photo because I sneaked back into the room after the meeting and took it with my cell phone. Obviously it has been there a couple of weeks, though.

I work in a government office where this sort of thing usually doesn't happen. The State of California is pretty secular. People don't very often even have overtly religious things in their cubicles. Large photos of Dubya and Laura Bush, yes (I don't care how much you like him, having a photo of the president and first lady in your cubicle is just weird!), and the occasional Governator photo. I sometimes think I should take down my little red letter "A" and "The Brights" pins I have stuck in my cork-board. Very occasionally, there is an e-mail with a religious message in the signature line. I'm pretty sure I know who this person is.

Also today, while at the gym, I had a woman randomly yell across the room at me, "God wants women to have long hair!"

I recently got all my hair chopped really short as I do occasionally. Apparently she felt strongly enough to later move over to the machine next to me and suddenly turn and say, "God loves you! You should let your hair grow and smile more!" I just smiled at her and kept going. From some of the things I heard her tell other people, it was pretty apparent that she wasn't all there, so I wasn't about to start a conversation that could come back to haunt me every time I go to the gym. I don't need that stress. Hmm. Maybe she's right about the smiling part, though...

Twister is world famous!

I think this means that Twister is now world famous! I hope he doesn't get a big head when I tell him.Too late.