butterfly populations, glyphosate, GM crops, figurine cut-away models, bacteriophage

In brief, i was very pleased to be in attendance at a well-staged dinner party hosted by the highly talented Jeremy and lovely KateB. One of the conversational topics included the migration of monarch butterflies to their overwintering location, and subsequent population decline as measured by the amount of land they occupy in their Mexico overwintering site (45 acres in 1996, a peak year, to 1.65 acres this year). This number has dropped in the past 10 years in what amounts to a steady decrease, and reasons for the decline have been attributed mainly to sheer loss of habitat due to land conversion to agriculture, herbicide use preventing milkweed growth (milkweed being the main food for Monarch butterflies), and very detrimental weather patterns.

This lead to a complicated conversation regarding the herbicide commonly known as glyphosate, or Monsanto's Round-up. It's an analog of the amino acid glycine, and jams up the synthesis of other amino acids (phenylalanine, tyrosine, and tryptophan) by binding competitively to one of the enzymes which make a precursor to these amino acids. Only plants and micro-organisms have this pathway; mammals get these amino acids from their diets, making glyphosate a highly effective herbicide. On the other end, some bacteria (agrobacterium, in this instance, which is famous because, somewhat ironically, it's commonly used to make transgentic plants anyway), have resistance to glyphosate due to what amounts to a single mutation in that enzyme, and folks have put that gene into various crop plants to get glyphosate-resistant, "Round-up Ready" plants.
There was also discussion of the fact that apparently, there are very few genetically modified (GM) food crops (corn, sugar beets, papaya and soybean crops) grown in the US, including a lack of GM potatoes, wheat, and other vegetables (and please note, numbers are a little elusive regarding wheat). There are 2 different ways you can genetically modify something; either by introducing a gene from a different variety in the same species of that organism (for instance, between varieties of wheat), or introducing a gene from a different species (for instance, inserting a bacterial gene, bacillus thuringiensis, which produces a toxin against caterpillars, into potatoes, corn, etc). A variety of these potatoes were released and grown from 1996-2001, but consumer skepticism lead food processing companies to stop purchasing it, which effectively caused it's removal from the market despite completely safe reports and FDA approval.  This is frustrating; " There is broad scientific consensus that genetically engineered crops currently on the market are safe to eat. After 14 years of cultivation and a cumulative total of 2 billion acres planted, no adverse health or environmental effects have resulted from commercialization of genetically engineered crops ", quoted from this excellent article. Furthermore, use of GM plants would decrease the amounts of chemical pesticides and herbicides used (as illustrated with the Bt and glyphosate crops), extend the range of climates in which some crops can be grown (which is pretty important given current climate change data), and nutritionally enhance other crops. Also, given that originally, corn looked like this, humans have been genetically modifying crops via selection for millennia.

Anyway.

An artist named Jason Freely has been making really neat 'cut-away models' of various pop-culture figures (Barbie, My Little Pony, Lego figures, etc) (via this article).

This SMBC comic was sent to me this morning; please disregard the fact that the virus depicted there is one of the alien-looking bacteriophage, which only infect bacteria and do not (directly) cause humans to vomit.

And finally, because i can't resist:
You know why the cowboy purchased a dachshund? He wanted to get a long little doggie.

Carolina Shag, soap scents, and automotive starters

This is pretty cool, and a dance style that i've always really wanted to learn. One of my favorite authors is Pat Conroy, as his imagery/sense of place are among the best i've ever encountered; he feels about the American south as i feel about my own home turf, that it's pretty much a gift made for us by a generous creator. Anyhow, his books frequently reference the Southern partnered dance called the Carolina shag, and it seems to be nearly as much fun as two-stepping. Yup.

i have addressed my bar soap junkie tendencies on this blog before, and i assure you that this remains a strong personal interest. While traveling, i stopped by a market and brought home soaps as souvenirs for myself. One of the more common ones used in Kolkata was Dettol, which has a remarkably strong antiseptic scent, so i picked up one of those, as well as a seemingly popular sandalwood-scented one. Also common were rose-scented varieties, but rose scents aren't quite my thing. This lead to the question; are various soap scents more popular in some places than others, due to local preferences? And exactly what does 'American' soap smell like? i couldn't find any hard data on soap scent preferences sorted by country. There are articles out there attempting to tie scent to that which underscores a person's own unique MHC signature, okay, and as others have pointed out, it's less science and more subjective/context dependent. There are a lot of articles out there looking at the scents of household cleansers, and how those have gone from relying on ammonia, pine tar and lemon for odor (and subsequent indication of effectiveness) to, as " New surfactants and solvents that have boosted cleaning efficacy over the years also tend to have less odor than older formulas that used bleach and ammonia. Consumers have gradually accepted that cleaning products work even without a chemical smell. ", from this well researched Wall Street Journal article, which goes on to cite fashion, food and even popular color fads as current inspirations for cleanser scents. Googling to determine the most popular soap purchased anywhere is super annoying, as google wants to direct you to soap operas, but carefully refined search terms indicate that Palmolive soap is the most popular brand of soap purchased in the US (please note; i don't necessarily trust this data, as it's produced by the Colgate company, and can't really seem to find any actual quantization to support it.) Given that the main bar soap produced by Palmolive is Irish Spring, the smell of America, then, might be that. Another popular soap is Dial's Gold, apparently having a " non-medicinal clover-like smell" (and wth is "a fragrance as fresh as a new morning"? seriously.), and Dove, which claims to be " named the most popular soap bar in the world, according to a major survey ", but those numbers eluded me tonight, as well. Dove's white soap bar apparently smells 'clean and fresh', and gets a lot of compares to Clean's Shower Fresh, with "quintessential soapy, fresh-from-the-shower clean scent is a soft and sexy musky floral". If you know of or come across any actual data, or any studies regarding soap scent preferences by location, please let me know.
Interesting articles kicked up while researching this is a huff post article regarding bar v/s liquid soap (bar soap being both cheaper and with an estimated 25% less carbon footprint), and a NYTimes article concerning facial bar soap.

i have had two very interesting technological issues lately. i had taken my laptop home one night carefully ensconced in my backpack, slipped on some ice and landed directly on my pack. The laptop still works, thankfully, but the sound system developed a massively annoying high pitched whine. Happily, the computer specialist in the building in which i work helped me remove the case and use an exacto knife to remove the left speaker. There's still a slight whistle when using headphones, but the high pitched whine is gone, so i feel it was a worthy sacrifice. Secondly, my truck refused to start on Wednesday morning. i'd driven it the night before, for good 20 miles, and the lights/radio/air all still worked, but turning a key in the ignition only resulted in a 'click', and nothing more. Took it in (the dude who showed up in a tow truck managed to jiggle around the key enough for the starter to work), and it turns out that there's apparently a dead zone in my starter (and check out this coolness). There are supposedly several causes, including a burned spot on the armature or starter relay windings, or issues with the fly-wheel. In my truck's case, it's not quite bad enough to replace just yet, but if it ever happens again, i'm supposed to attempt to shift the vehicle (the car repair shop said to jump up and down in the truck bed, and my dad suggested putting it in neutral and rocking it, but i don't think i can shift it to neutral without starting it) and try it again. Man, i wish i knew more about automotive repair and could just fix it myself.  Maybe future goals?

University of Winterfell, snow flamethrower, curling fashion, hulk the pooh, analog clocks

Sorry about the brief intermission; the holidays happened, then i did a little traveling to celebrate the marriage of two dear friends.

First and foremost, it's pretty cold here. The high today is 1 degree Fahrenheit, which is at least positive. A friend commented that we attend the University of Winterfell (which is strangely appropriate). i came across this (satirical) article whereby a man supposedly tries to clear snow via flamethrower, and it's certainly worth a read. A google image search for 'snow flamethrower' is also appropriately hilarious.

A recent NYTimes article featured the Norwegian curling team's fashion sense in respect to uniforms. i sent this around, and it elicited various responses from friends. KateB pointed out that some of the patterns available from the company who makes those pants are quite pretty. Bryan opinioned that they look like clown pants, a view shared with other internet users (based on this google image search as well as a few corresponding articles).

Some close friends are having children, and i would love to frame these prints, entitled 'Hulk the Pooh', for all their nurseries.

i had lunch with a friend in the break room today, wherein there is a remotely controlled analog clock that is rarely set to the correct time. He mentioned that once while touring a power plant, the tour guide mentioned that the intensity of the electrical current could cause clocks to run either fast (more/too much power) or slow (less/not enough power). We had a brief discussion regarding this, and the internet semi-confirms it, as well as here, "In an analog clock the hands of an electric clock are driven by a synchronous electric motor supplied with alternating current of a stable frequency.  ".

The delightful 'What If' section of xkcd addressed bulk virus volume today: Pile of Viruses.