If you’re still interested in weighing in on whether the academic meetings in San Diego should go on in the wake of fires in Southern California, Terra Sigillata has a thread on that very subject.
I promise the small meeting I’m planning to attend won’t clog up the freeways.
So while most of my fellow undergraduates were leaving town to go somewhere, anywhere, other than Morris for fall break, I had to stay behind. Sure, staying in Morris is not really all that bad, I mean, some people actually live here (sorry Professor). But I will be honest-it really is not on my list of top places to live. It is just, well, boring. I had to stay behind because I had some animals I had to take care of, and I will admit, I was looking forward to spending time lying in bed, working with my horses, and catching up on my senior seminar. Little did I know exactly how much time I would spend doing the first, and hardly any of doing the latter two.
Yep, this break I got floored with a virus. AND I literally mean floored. We shall call it the flu, because I had all the flu-like symptoms. Headache. Swollen lymph nodes. Achy neck and back. Fever. Achy stomach. Dizziness. So I spent a wonderful Saturday doing all the things a person my age would love to do, and then spent Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and some of today confined to my bed. Sure, you can say,
well you slept through most of it, so it couldn’t have been all that bad
But believe me, what little I was awake for was horrible. Mostly because it was absolutely gorgeous outside, I didn’t have any classes to attend, and yet my body was waging a war inside of me.
So, I understand the basic principle of how viruses work, but how can one virus have a multitude of diverse symptoms? What’s with the headache, and the achy joints? Do viruses affect neurons the same way they can affect other cells? Do they even invade neural cells?
(via Green Tea MN)
How strange that I haven’t heard anything about this new movie coming out this Spring — I guess I need to watch more TV.
It’s a heretical documentary/comedy by Bill Maher called Religulous, combining “religious” and “ridiculous”. I’m not seeing much of a buzz for it on the web just yet — a brief mention by Chris Hallquist, placeholders at IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, a quick blurb on RD.net, and this short interview with the ever-annoying Larry King.
I’m so disappointed, though. They didn’t contact me through a proxy and interview me for a movie with a different name. Don’t they understand how these things are done?
See that little thermometer to the right? It says we’ve met our challenge of raising $20,000 for school kids. However, I actually picked a number of projects that required more money than that, and we still have 3 projects that are not fully funded — and they’re the embryology/developmental biology grants! We’ve got less than a week left, so it would be very nice if people would kick in the last few donations to complete these last few requests.
We’re very, very close and time is running out. Let’s get all of the projects fully funded!
While the Weekly World News may be on the verge of extinction (although it still seems to be surviving online), at least Pravda labors on to deliver the truth…
Recent studies of Australian scientists indicate that Atlanteans, the people who lived on a legendary island first mentioned by Plato, may have been the ancestors of dolphins.
Huh. Like we’re supposed to believe a bunch of Australians.
Homer Jacobson wrote a paper 52 years ago in which he speculated about the chemical conditions underlying the origin of life. After discovering that the paper is frequently cited by creationists, and after reviewing the work and finding multiple errors, he has retracted the paper. Good for him. It won’t matter to the creationists, though; this paper will continue to get cited and mangled and misused.
The writeup makes an excellent point.
It is not unusual for scientists to publish papers and, if they discover evidence that challenges them, to announce they were wrong. The idea that all scientific knowledge is provisional, able to be challenged and overturned, is one thing that separates matters of science from matters of faith.
Yes. Science has an integrity and dedication to the honest evaluation of the evidence that religion lacks.
The beginning of this week was fall break at our college campus. We had the weekend off as well as Monday and Tuesday. Since I had been planning to return home to northern Minnesota for the first time since moving down to west central Minnesota in August, I decided to take Thursday and Friday off also. The few days I spent away from this desolate prairie wasteland and back among the conifers and lakes were phenomenally enjoyable.
This is my first year of college away from home and a long way from home it is. I remember the first few weeks I was down here, only vaguely though, a lot of adapting has taken place since then. The three-day dragged out orientation process for freshmen and transfer students at the end of August was intensely boring. I had been informed by mail that my presence was required but it would have been great had I known what it entailed and that I very well could have gotten away with not attending (this sounds negative, I know, but I’m sure some of you can relate). I remember the immense amount of time and effort it took to meet new people and figure out who to make friends with. Luckily the homework load had not picked up yet and there was plenty of free time to devote to this. Did I mention I had never bought my own groceries before coming to college? The first night I went to buy food I had no idea what I needed to sustain myself in a semi-healthy manner. The first five items I put in my basket had something to do with hotdogs. I’ve since learned a few things about grocery shopping and cooking. Although the first weeks were uncomfortable and sometimes frustrating, it was well worth the effort to take them on.
The drive home was long and rainy. There were a few deer that crossed as I approached them but staying attentive kept my vehicle intact. My lily plant sat quietly on the front passenger floor and when I inadvertently opened the glove box on its head I caught myself apologizing. Talking to a plant seemed odd to me so I ignored it and its personal temperature preference for the rest of the trip.
When I finally got home just before midnight, I sat in my living room with a bowl of soup, quietly but excitedly looking at everything I hadn’t seen for a while. The pictures hanging on the wall, the bookshelf filled with various things, the scent of my dad’s cooking brought forgotten memories rushing back to me. The plant atop the bookshelf with vines that had hung down half way in August had now reached the floor. My dad, who was sitting in his recliner on the opposite side of the room with his own bowl of soup, talked about things that had happened while I was gone, the new addition on the back of the garage, why our silverware was different, and how my aunts and uncles are doing.
The weekend flew by quickly and before I knew it I was sitting in neurobio again yesterday morning (we have wednesday discussions in the cafe now so PZ can get coffee). The time I spent among the seemingly infinite number of trees and lakes in northern Minnesota was enough to keep me going until I can go back again. For now it’s just good to know that everything I call home and everyone who means the most to me are still up there, safe and sound.
The Minnetonka school district is one of the best in Minnesota, with an exceptionally concerned and active set of parents and teachers who work hard to keep informed and support their schools. They established an organization, TonkaFocus, to oppose creationism in the schools and attempts to demolish their international baccalaureate program, a very smart move — pro-science parent activism is always something to encourage.
Minnetonka was also the home district of Dave Eaton, an ID sycophant who was a crony of the odious Cheri Yecke, and who was responsible for some of the shenanigans in our state’s last attempt to get some decent science education standards. He’s gone, fortunately, but one of his pals, Bill Wenmark, is still on the Minnetonka school board.
But, we hope, not for long. He’s up for re-election on 6 November.
School boards should be places for people who know something about education and who want to improve schools for our kids. Creationists who want to damage science education and make our kids more ignorant do not belong on them, and Bill Wenmark is one of those wackos who wants to inflict his religious vision on other people’s children — he needs to be replaced on the school board. Greg Laden has more on Wenmark, who doesn’t particularly like TonkFocus or the ACLU or legitimate science education. I have to second Greg’s suggestion:
Minnetonkans! Vote for The Other Guy!
The Seed editors asked us to reminisce about our quaint experiences with computing in the Old Days. Old nerds are so pathetic.
I’m much more enthused about an event in future computing: Leopard is coming out tomorrow! Laelaps has an anticipatory video of what Leopard is going to do to Windows — haul it up a tree and eat it for lunch.
