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30/04/2008
Connections
Just had a lovely work dinner. Our charming guest of honor Dr Bargmann gave a fascinating talk this afternoon. Amongst a dozen of achievements, she discovered a gene that makes worms sociable.
!!
A glass or 2 later, I was bullshiting as usual, about kindergarten philosophy, fruitfly free will and worm consciousness. I even asked her about those flatworms!
It was only *afterwards* that we figured out she was Richard Axel's wife! Lucky I didn't say anything too far out :P
21:35 Posted in LABourious | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
29/04/2008
Freaky Little.. Flatworm!
Imagine you're clipping away, scattering toe nails everywhere.
Then slowly, each of these filthy (ex) parts of you spontaneously grow into your identical twins.
Freaky.
Well that's flatworm for ya.
Flatworms are truly wonderful creatures, despite their reputation.
If you cut their heads off, they'll just grow a new one back.
In fact, you can put one on a chopping board, dice it into hundreds of little pieces, and each bit will grow back into a full worm~!!
But that's not all.
Some guy back in the 1950s trained flatworms to avoid light by pairing light with electric shocks. He then chopped the buggers into 2 halves and let them grow back into 2 whole worms.
The old tail grew a new head... AND knew it should avoid light!!
Memory storage *outside* the head??!
Totally crazy stuff.
You could even transfer such learning and memory by mincing trained students and feed it to new students!
No kidding. I was hysterical after reading this.
Funny how scientists just sorta "forgot" about these experiments, cos hardly anybody under the age of 75 are aware of them now.
Well may be in 50 years' time, the next next generation too would look back at my work and go, Jez what a nut case what was he thinking!
Source: Durham University
23:15 Posted in LABourious | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
24/04/2008
It's Complicated~
I never quite trust my eyes, not that I could see very well in the darkroom.
Propping my X-ray film up against the red light bulb, I searched and searched.
Nothing.
There was nothing on it. Where is that signal I saw last time?!
Why?
I couldn't swallow it. There was no chair in the room, so I sat on the floor.
Damn it.
5 minutes later, I picked up myself and did another round of film development.
Still nothing, even the positive control was blank.
Pheww..ww...ww.
The experiment didn't work. That was a false negative!!
Repeat again~
00:35 Posted in LABourious | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this
17/04/2008
Once in a Lifetime
I'm slightly tipsy.
Alcohol is fueling my sense of euphoria and it's freaking FANTESTICLE!
YES! YES! YES!
Science never has mercy. Either you're right, or you're not.
This afternoon, I think I'm on the right side of destiny.
Jumping with joy screaming on top of my lung, I couldn't help running round the water fountain outside our institute's entrance.
I just couldn't contain my excitement!!
I can't I can't I can't contain it!
@!!@@!#@##T%^&%^&E@##%&^*(&*OFGHFAWERTE%E^&JRTGB!
Fucking hell. YES!
Fucking hell it's WAY BETTER than SEX!
I've been waiting for this MY freaking WHOLE LIFE!
YES! YES! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This afternoon, we might have unlocked one of the brain's secrets.
This afternoon, we might have answered the question of how the brain stores memory.
I won't be able to sleep tonight.
I'm JUST TOO DAMN EXCITED!~!!
Hopefully, I'll be able to repeat my experiment.
Hopefully, everything will go as planned.
HaHaHa! My team might *REALLY* be on route to Oslo for the ultimate gong of scientific glory :D
Fucking Hell~ Yeah.
Of course, I could be wrong, we've had so many near-misses after all.
If I fell, I hope I'll be able to get back up.
But for scientists, a Eureka moment of this magnitude is truly, truly, once in a lifetime.
00:05 Posted in LABourious | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this
15/04/2008
80 yo Virgin
Sorry, molestation small children doesn't count ;P
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13/04/2008
The New New Sound of Science
Us scientists are supposed to be geeky and nerdy. Female members included.
But all I could only think of is a fit brunette wearing sexy dark-rimmed glasses when I listened to this editor of Cell magazine seducing white blood cells.
"B cell progenitor" has never sounded so naughty before :P
(no that isn't her...)
(yes even i don't understand this gibberish)
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12/04/2008
Who's Afraid of Wikipedia?
If wikipedia has fallen into the hands of an oppressive draconian homophobic teenager-butchering regime, then just like in Iran, there would be no homosexual in it.
Oh of course wiki is none of that. It has listed 6 gay men from China!
Woohoo. News of the World, isn't it?! Headline:-
"Communist Chinese government has successfully eliminated air pollution by exterminating homosexuals and stray dogs ahead of the Olympics."
But no. Somebody didn't do their job right. 6 left! There're also 5 gays in Hong Kong~!
Only 11 out of 2 billions Chinese made it to the bloody list?! Where the heck are those brilliant butt fucking artists? Musicians? Dancers? Designers? Multi-talented pretentious queenie cliches? All cowards?!
Well, you may say that nobody ever care enough to write. Wiki is user-driven after all.
Fine. I'll do it! I went into the Hong Kong list that "has been requested to populate" and added every famous gay I know. Roman Tam, Danny Chan, Chet Lam, Anthony Wong Yiu-Ming, Anthony Lun, a Grasshopper, Wyman Wong, etc.
I even created entries for photographer-cum-director Yonfan and pioneering gay right activist XiaoMingXiong specifically for this purpose.
We need role models!!! Visibility!!!
Survey after survey, the ONE deciding factor in influencing people's attitude towards homosexuality is to KNOW somebody personally who is gay.
In any case, my listing wasn't a witch hunt or outing exercise. Many of my entries are openly gay, openly hanging out at gay bars, or for christ sake, have fucking boyfriend! They just don't say it out loud.
But no, that's not enough wikipedia said. They want written PROOF.
So I could have slept with all of the above, sucked em dry ride them high and they still won't be "wiki-gay".
Judy Foster had a daughter with another woman for >10 years is still not a "wiki-lesbian"
Fucking tight wiki-arseholes.
I wrote to Yonfan and never got a reply. Danny's fan just deleted my LGBT tag saying it's only a rumour. Danny's surviving relative who once confirmed his homo inclination is now "not sure".
Ever wonder why there're so few role models for us benders? Because some people still think homosexuality is so perverting so threatening so disgraceful that we have to be kept invisible, AND WE LET THEM!
Guess what. XiaoMingXiong, author of the definitive "The History of Homosexuality in China", Hong Kong's 1st ever gay right activist, has just died in anonymity.
XMX is just his pen name.
This is the who guy dared to use his personal fortune to print and distribute AIDS leaflets in the early 80s when colonial HK police force still raided gay bars regularly. This is the one who dared to open a gay "minority right" column in City magazine when sodomy was still punishable by imprisonment.
Not even the Godfather of gay HK had the gut to come out. What's the chance for the rest of us?!
Leslie Cheung come back to life NOW~!! Nobody ever has a spine anymore.
00:35 Posted in HomoNATural | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
07/04/2008
Help~
Help~ something is happening to me! I watched a whole basketball game!! lol What's going on?! It was such a good game too, not to mention we *won* the national college championship! 1st time in 20yrs...
Did I say "we"?! Oh dear. I meant er Kansas... er Jayhawk :-P
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06/04/2008
Beijing Olympic Torch
Trouble in London?
Ha. Wait til you get to San Francisco on Wednesday!!!! They vow to “build on the message that’s been delivered in Paris and London."
(who's stupid idea was it anyway?)
NPR: Activists Target San Francisco's Olympic Torch Visit
[4/9/08: funny how this Nazis-inspired famous relay turned into a chicken run at SF]
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05/04/2008
Vainpot For Sale
Ever since I moved to KC, I find my soul much in demand. Random people from work & play just keep asking me to join their fellowships. Methodist, Baptist, Buddist all competing for my blogspirit. What's going on!? Have I become a recruitment challenge or some sort of conversion trophy?
May be I should auction off my "faith" on eBay. Yeah, just let all those voodoo organizations battling it out. $1M for my church attendance for a year. Do your best/worst to convince me of your particular brand of superstitions.
However, it looks like some very clever bloke from Crooksville has already beat me to it and took the joke one step further~
03:10 Posted in Medieval | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this
04/04/2008
If I have Kids
I hope they will dream big.
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02/04/2008
Kansas City melting (2)
00:20 Posted in Medieval | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
01/04/2008
Kansas City melting (1)
We've had a crazy winter here in KC. I didn't know it really can get below zero Fahrenheit here. Snow storm, black ice, u name it. Saw some amazing icicles everywhere, even off vehicles' number plates dangling like a beard! Wish I had a camera w/ me all d time...
12:00 Posted in Journal | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this