earmarking, hairy eyeballs, temperature cooking issues, Olympic beverages, mannequin portraits

Made caramels and chili with Jack and Leslie yesterday (and yes, their house smelled just as amazing as you'd imagine it). Various phrases were bandied about, including the term 'earmark' and its origins. i referenced the action of identifying domesticated animals by marking their ears (with a cut or a tag), while Leslie called to mind the political definition (to designate funds, etc). Yes, the latter gained it's roots in the former (and let's not confuse them with dog-earing, the act of folding over a page in a manner in which some dogs' ears flop down). 'Hairy eyeball' is North American (North, Jack, ya Yankee) slang for looking at someone in a disapproving manner. Curiously, wikionary also reports a secondary slang meaning of looking at someone through batted eyelashes, which would connote the entirely opposite meaning (and let's not confuse either of these with the Lagunitas beer, " Especially formulated for when you wake up feelin’ like you need to shave your eyeballs to see the new day. " Okay, that too.)

i mentioned earlier to Bryan that out of my 4 attempted batches of caramel, only 2 turned out. The other two simply overheated (like, hit a temperature plateau, then suddenly surged before i could remove the pan from the stove burner), and turned out more like hard candy. He said that he and Sarah had a heat problem brewing beer this weekend; temperatures are difficult to keep constant while the mash steeps. They semi-successfully used a cooler, but we were curious what people did in ancient times (like, before thermometers). i looked up the oldest known beer recipe (via wikipedia, which feels a little like cheating), and jars are cited. We took this to mean clay jars, which can hold heat fairly well, but maybe also some sort of heatbox (proto-crockpot)?.

Regarding beverages in Sochi, it appears that Canada's Molson beer has set up a beer fridge at the Olympic village, and lets Canadian passport holders have free, unlimited access to the content. Talk about ambassadorship! Moreover, NBC has set up a private Starbucks for its journalists, with the alternative being McDonalds. Perks!

Kelly AT, sharing  ardent runner/cyclist/athlete woes of not being able to find jeans that fit due to musculature, sent this NYTimes article my way. This clothing issue isn't uncommon, my cycling partner Asuka and i have considered this as a possible business opportunity, but the article focuses on skiers. Favorite part? Upon hulk-smashing open/ripping a pair of jeans, " “ I drive them across town and my mother sews them for me,” said Hudec, who, it is worth noting, is 32."" Good for you, man, and it's nice to be so close to one's family.

In honor of a recent holiday, i offer up this excellent art project called Life Once Removed by Suzanna Heintz, who staged traditional family portraits with herself and a mannequin husband and child.

And because, darn it, i'm a virologist: this music video details the unlikely event that a.) there is ever a 'cure' for the cold virus(es), and b.) it anthropomorphically falls in love with the scientist who cured it.

surplus Giraffe, fish mobility, chili and frito pie, Russian Police Choir

Foremost (with particular notice to Brandon and Anne): bluegrass band Nickel Creek is re-forming, at least for a little while.  Of course, by the time i figured this out, their shows are completely sold out.

i'm sure you've all seen this in recent news; a kerfuffle is being made over a Danish zoo deciding that a young giraffe is surplus (well represented from the genetics standpoint), and harvesting him for meat. i personally don't see any problem with this (giraffes are probably expensive to feed [and lets note that 'cost of feeding a giraffe' will yield a completely different result than you'd think], and serve as part of the food chain outside of zoos all the time), but now can't get Disney's Lion King Circle of Life theme out of my head.

i have had at least one betta (B. splendens) fish at a time since early college. They have all had distinct, delightful personalities (yes, fish have personalities), and i've spoiled them as much as one can spoil a fish (in the non-senescence sense). My current betta is a red-and-teal veil-tailed male named Atreides of Wisconsin, and i think my PI just realized last week that i keep a pet fish in a jar on my desk (Atreides has been there for the last year, and a male red-and-blue betta named Atlas Ramses of Wisconsin lived there for about 4 years before him). Oops? He's pretty contained, and my desk is in an office and not the lab proper, so it's okay. It was suggested today that we make Atreides mobile via this nifty set-up, and i'd be sorely tempted if it wasn't quite so technical. Honestly, i'd like a version of that myself, for walking around outside this winter.

The NYTimes recently did an article on chili. As a native San Antonian, this is a topic very dear to my heart. For the record, chili does NOT contain beans, contains very specific brands of chili powder, and is occasionally served on rice (mashed potatoes or a slice of white bread also work in a pinch). i've also recently had Frito Pie on the brain; it's a common concession stand snack consisting of (Fritos) corn chips with chili, shredded cheddar cheese, onions, and (ftw) jalapenos. Ah!

Finally, let's talk for a minute about the Daft Punk's Get Lucky cover by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Choir (better known as the Russian Police Choir), as performed at the Olympic opening games in Sochi: please watch this. Kelly AT and i were curious as to how this came into being. Apparently, the group released a music video version in November, " most likely prepared for a Kremlin concert on November 10". Remarkable. Also, this Today article is hilarious and has a few embedded clips that are worth watching. Finally, from the biography portion of their official website, " By the prestige and the eclectism of its conductor, who mixes with great panache during the shows, the traditional melodies of the Russian folklore, the songs of the Patriotic War and the most famous classic airs or international varities (the Ensemble plays Bizet, Wagner, Mozart but also Michel Legrand, Francis Lai…) " .  So, perhaps we can credit conductor Major-General Victor Eliseev for this spectacular rendition.

broken in jeans, polar bear pictures, cards against science, negative zero

Briefly;

i was strolling around a favorite photography blog the other day and came across a link for this business, where you can purchase pre-worn(-in) jeans. It seems to work like this; a person purchases new jeans, wears them until they're of a particular state, then (with approval), the place buys them back and sells them as 'Butler' jeans. Ladies and gentlemen, i am impressed with the entrepreneurship on display here, and a little more than mildly astonished that this is a thing; i don't know that i will ever understand fashion of this manner. Granted, i frequently acquire my own jeans while thrifting, but that's pretty much entirely due to frugality. Also, by the time i have a pair of jeans in the worn-in state, they're about 3 washes away from disintegrating and i'm bummed 'cause i have to replace them.

Speaking of photography, what does it mean that upon viewing this photo series of an adorable polar bear family, my first thought was, 'What sort of zoom lens was that guy using?' (Or, alternately, what sort of invisibility cloak does he have and where did he get it? The fb page noted reports that "our indigenous guides bring us as close as 100 meters to the bears". Whoa.)

A labmate recently linked this article reporting a science version of Cards Against Humanity. For the record, while i appreciate the creativity/personality that CaH allows players to display, it frequently seems to devolve into an outrageous(ness)-escalation, which i appreciate far less. i had brief hope that the science version might be slightly cleaner, but then KateB noticed that one of the sample cards was "Watson and Crick slash/fic ". Yikes. i suppose Apples-to-Apples is it, then.

While walking through the Student Union the other day, i noticed this:
(i didn't get the chance to walk through later and see if it had warmed up to positive zero?)

trucks, vehicle thermometers, 12th man, and shoes

NPR's Linda Holmes posted this amusing article entitled, "I Like Big Trucks And I Cannot Lie: Cars, Trucks, and The Lady Brain" today. It's a humorous reaction to fluffy piece set out about a recent online survey where males and females rated the attractiveness of automotive drivers with regard to their ride. Best line from Ms. Holmes' response? Perhaps " Women do not actually mean "hot" when they say "hot." They don't mean lusty hot, or symmetrical-face hot, or big-shoulders hot. They mean "transported a bar cabinet to my door on his back" hot. They mean "carried a couch" hot. They mean "oiled my hinges" hot. (Hey. HINGES AT THE IMAGINARY CONDO. Don't be gross. This is for science.) ". Tracking the actual survey took a bit of googling, and i only came up with the press release, but it was done by Insure.com, "Insure.com surveyed 2,000 licensed drivers age 18 and over, split evenly between men and women and divided across age groups and regions. The online-panel survey was fielded in December 2013. ", and the whole reporting method is a bit informal.  The commentary on the Holmes piece is hilarious, and yielded this even further response. Also, this is not permission for anyone to ever call me Captain Pickup.

Slightly related, had a conversation last night regarding automotive thermometers (the sort that display the outside temperature). We didn't know where on a vehicle the thermometer would be placed that neither the heat of the vehicle nor sun/shade would affect it's measurement. The best hypothesis, in my opinion, goes to Rup with placement on the antenna. Doing some research, it sounds like somewhere near the front bumper is the most popular place possibly,  around/behind the front grill. This has variability with make and model of the vehicle in question (for my beloved truck, possibly in front of the radiator. For Bryan's  Toyota Corolla, it seems to be inside the grill, under the hood [and for that one, i found the replacement part long before the location]).

During the Superbowl last night, i was reminded that the Seattle Seahawks fans use the term 12th Man. This references the 11 players allowed per team on the field during a football game, and the fans being enough of a force to actually have an impact (a 12th man). The term is officially licensed to/trademarked by Texas A&M University; in 1922, a student player by the name of E.K. Gill suited up and stood at the ready during a incredibly injury-filled game -  a '12th man' ready to play at any time. To this day, all Aggies stand the entirety of football games, ready to be sent in. Anyway, while other NFL franchises have used the term fleetingly (and been called off by TAMU lawyers), the Seahawks settled out-of-court with A&M and are officially licensed to use the term.

This NYTimes article documents the incredibly long names of some Brazilians.

Kelly AT sent me this link today about recycling skateboards, one of which being to turn the decks into high heeled shoes?! Something to keep in mind if mine ever gets beyond repair, i guess. Also, KateB and Jack, this shoes+ design company has the most distractingly colorful  website i've ever encountered (and Kate! Unicorn shoes!!)

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.