Oh hi there, Legend of the Seeker. It's you or NZ's tectonic drift...
Ugh. FOR THE LOVE OF WOMEN.
I've also had the strangest sleep cycle ever. 7pm-12am Friday night/Saturday morning. 9am-12pm Saturday. Wonder when I'm going to bed tonight. I envy people who can spend their time efficiently. Why am I unable to do so? Wah.
By the way, Bridget Regan had a baby December 28, 2010. Who knew! Both baby girl Frankie Jean and mom are happy, healthy, and lovely. I couldn't be more thrilled for her. It's nice to see an actor with talent in performing, producing, and living. Way to go for being well-rounded!
Oh, let's not forget:
I kinda love it when strong women love.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
A Sad Poem
I'm tackling my first ecology paper. It's for my evolutionary paleontology class, but the material is along the lines of what I want to pursue as a major - it's not molecular science. But as I sit down to read through the papers relevant to my topic, I find it difficult to think critically. I find it difficult to think as a scientist and synthesize something novel rather than memorize facts. Without my knowledge, I've been training for the past 4 quarters to be a test-taker in my chemistry and biology classes. I've been training my mind to think as an engineer - here is a problem, let's find a solution. Or, I have been thinking about love, honor, bravery and the antiquity of classics for SLE. Perhaps I have been thinking this way my entire life, since I can't trust my high school to have challenged me any differently. Neither of trains of thought make me ready to write this paper, and this frustrates me. Realizing that I don't know how to think in my field threatens me.
Sometimes, I catch myself by surprise and look into my brain to see what my thoughts were for that moment, and I'm disappointed to usually find nothing. Sometimes, I can feel the air rattling around my skull. Sometimes, I catch myself thinking about myself - entirely narcissistic. When I look back at my creative efforts, I'm most proud of my personal essays, many of which so clearly reveals my self-understanding, or my technical inventions, some of which I like to think outmatch others with the same level of experience. But to be a higher thinker who might some day join the ranks of professional scientists and philosophers? I'm so grounded in myself that throughout my life I have built a golden heart (if I would ever boast about anything, it would be that I have a heart which genuinely cares) but a bronze brain. There is nothing critical or analytical about it. Frankly put, I feel dumb.
I'm not just comparing myself to my professor who has had 30 years of thinking experience on me. I'm comparing myself to my peers, too, whose ability to question the world around them and then to offer analysis is astounding. I wish I could do that. I wish I could offer an analysis on something more scientific than the beauty of women and the validity of art, both of which comes from depths of great feelings.
Let's all write a sad poem in our journals and move on.
Sometimes, I catch myself by surprise and look into my brain to see what my thoughts were for that moment, and I'm disappointed to usually find nothing. Sometimes, I can feel the air rattling around my skull. Sometimes, I catch myself thinking about myself - entirely narcissistic. When I look back at my creative efforts, I'm most proud of my personal essays, many of which so clearly reveals my self-understanding, or my technical inventions, some of which I like to think outmatch others with the same level of experience. But to be a higher thinker who might some day join the ranks of professional scientists and philosophers? I'm so grounded in myself that throughout my life I have built a golden heart (if I would ever boast about anything, it would be that I have a heart which genuinely cares) but a bronze brain. There is nothing critical or analytical about it. Frankly put, I feel dumb.
I'm not just comparing myself to my professor who has had 30 years of thinking experience on me. I'm comparing myself to my peers, too, whose ability to question the world around them and then to offer analysis is astounding. I wish I could do that. I wish I could offer an analysis on something more scientific than the beauty of women and the validity of art, both of which comes from depths of great feelings.
Let's all write a sad poem in our journals and move on.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Beautiful Distractions
Yes yes, I know I haven't written in a while. I had more or less moved temporarily to Facebook postings, mostly because I wanted the recognition and response from the public whenever I posted something that so, "expresses myself." In any case, there are things not to be shared, and even I have to censor myself sometimes in public settings. Rarely, mind you, but I do.
This is a three day weekend, and I had somehow slept 14 hours. Thank goodness for that. Now I'm desperately trying to piece together a new outline/draft of my evo-paleo paper, and forced to bash my brain against the table and gaze at beautiful lesbians while I'm at it. Very difficult to concentrate, very difficult to make any headway at all, and very distressing and blissfully painful.
I mean really, here's a sample of what I mean.
The series is much more graphic than this - it's rated NC-17, so full frontal, kinky sex between any and all sexes in generally violent situations. Basically TV porn. They never should have let me get my hands on it. I don't appreciate the violence so am basically watching for Gia and Lucrettia. But now I have to watch the Xena series to get more of Lucy Lawless, and I'm afraid that might tear at me all the way to spring break. Ugh.
Speaking of women, I really can't get enough of her: http://dorothysurrenders.blogspot.com/
My question to myself is, has my lesbian deficit been satisfied for now? How did deficit ever accumulate without my notice? What am I going to do from now on to make sure I get my daily dosage of lesbianism? It's not easy, I assure you, to try and focus on fossils when there are live, lithe, beautiful, sweet women gazing out of YouTube at you, especially nowadays that the media have included so many lesbian characters in mainstream television. Thank God I don't have a TV, but the accessibility of the internet makes my life more difficult each and every day. I'm a little tempted to go ask my male friends what do they do when their libido rears its drooling head and I have a term paper to write. But I know they'll just laugh at my hypocriticism and tell me to go fuck somebody, which I am not planning to do. Because I am a woman, and we women have feelings, which can get in the way of just plain fun.
No, seriously, how am I suppose to focus on phylogenies when I have Elizabeth Mitchell looking at me?
This is cruel and (un)usual punishment. Wahh.
This is a three day weekend, and I had somehow slept 14 hours. Thank goodness for that. Now I'm desperately trying to piece together a new outline/draft of my evo-paleo paper, and forced to bash my brain against the table and gaze at beautiful lesbians while I'm at it. Very difficult to concentrate, very difficult to make any headway at all, and very distressing and blissfully painful.
I mean really, here's a sample of what I mean.
The series is much more graphic than this - it's rated NC-17, so full frontal, kinky sex between any and all sexes in generally violent situations. Basically TV porn. They never should have let me get my hands on it. I don't appreciate the violence so am basically watching for Gia and Lucrettia. But now I have to watch the Xena series to get more of Lucy Lawless, and I'm afraid that might tear at me all the way to spring break. Ugh.
Speaking of women, I really can't get enough of her: http://dorothysurrenders.blogspot.com/
My question to myself is, has my lesbian deficit been satisfied for now? How did deficit ever accumulate without my notice? What am I going to do from now on to make sure I get my daily dosage of lesbianism? It's not easy, I assure you, to try and focus on fossils when there are live, lithe, beautiful, sweet women gazing out of YouTube at you, especially nowadays that the media have included so many lesbian characters in mainstream television. Thank God I don't have a TV, but the accessibility of the internet makes my life more difficult each and every day. I'm a little tempted to go ask my male friends what do they do when their libido rears its drooling head and I have a term paper to write. But I know they'll just laugh at my hypocriticism and tell me to go fuck somebody, which I am not planning to do. Because I am a woman, and we women have feelings, which can get in the way of just plain fun.
No, seriously, how am I suppose to focus on phylogenies when I have Elizabeth Mitchell looking at me?
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| Re-blogged from Dorothy Surrenders. |
Monday, January 31, 2011
Cuckoo
I went to a really interesting talk today, skipping the last part bio42 lecture. A guy from the UK was presenting his research on the visual capabilities of the cuckoo birds.
Cuckoo birds have a unique reproductive method wherein their eggs are parasites in other birds' nests. The cuckoo bird waits for just the right moment, as the host mother bird lays her egg and slips away, to quickly fly in, kick out one of the native eggs, and lay her own egg. When the cuckoo's egg hatches, it pushes all the other eggs or chicks out of the nest, becoming the center of attention for the host mom who will devote all her energy into raising this one invasive chick. Sometimes, the chick can become obscenely different from its host breed.
This provides a fascinating research topic centering around bird vision and their ability to identify alien eggs from their own. The scientist performed a study where many eggs from three different hosts (at least, as he presented) were imaged and given a score in 10 different categories (color, size, spotting, etc), and plotting them on a graph with 10 dimensions. Some host breeds are polymorphic, meaning between individuals of the same species there will be a variety of egg coloring. For that particular breed, the greater the distance of each egg from other eggs on the graph, the greater the polymorphism. Yet at the same time, through some analysis I can't remember, the more polymorphic a host species is, the less discriminating it is in identifying cuckoo birds' eggs. They have found that the reverse is true. Not only egg shell, but chicks within, can mimic their host, and the probability that the cuckoo bird lays its egg in the nest of the polymorph that matches it is entirely random, in which case the host mom does reject the invading egg.
There are many different types of cuckoo birds, most of whom reproduce in this parasitic manner. The cutest one, I think, are the cuckoo finches.
My questions are:
I went to the new physics library before lab today, and browsed through some interesting books on evolutionary computation, and did a brief Wikipedia search on that and genomic computation. I think if I have time, I would definitely sit down and see if I can't learn some of that. But for now, physics reading.
Cuckoo birds have a unique reproductive method wherein their eggs are parasites in other birds' nests. The cuckoo bird waits for just the right moment, as the host mother bird lays her egg and slips away, to quickly fly in, kick out one of the native eggs, and lay her own egg. When the cuckoo's egg hatches, it pushes all the other eggs or chicks out of the nest, becoming the center of attention for the host mom who will devote all her energy into raising this one invasive chick. Sometimes, the chick can become obscenely different from its host breed.
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| Re-post from Scientific American |
This provides a fascinating research topic centering around bird vision and their ability to identify alien eggs from their own. The scientist performed a study where many eggs from three different hosts (at least, as he presented) were imaged and given a score in 10 different categories (color, size, spotting, etc), and plotting them on a graph with 10 dimensions. Some host breeds are polymorphic, meaning between individuals of the same species there will be a variety of egg coloring. For that particular breed, the greater the distance of each egg from other eggs on the graph, the greater the polymorphism. Yet at the same time, through some analysis I can't remember, the more polymorphic a host species is, the less discriminating it is in identifying cuckoo birds' eggs. They have found that the reverse is true. Not only egg shell, but chicks within, can mimic their host, and the probability that the cuckoo bird lays its egg in the nest of the polymorph that matches it is entirely random, in which case the host mom does reject the invading egg.
There are many different types of cuckoo birds, most of whom reproduce in this parasitic manner. The cutest one, I think, are the cuckoo finches.
My questions are:
- how do obscene difference between host mom and chick affect their survival rates? Does the larger chick demand more resources from the mother, thereby making it harder for her to sustain herself? Does the mom's inability to support such a large chick decrease the chick's chance of survival?
- my personal answer to myself is that this one invasive chick is replacing 3~4 other chicks, so perhaps the mom would still be able to sustain herself and the chick
- would it be useful to paint our own egg, each time controlling for all but one of the 10 factors upon which we are collecting data, and placing it into the hosts' nests? Would this kill off the cuckoo's population? Would they toss our egg out? Can birds detect that this fake egg is fake, and comes from an entirely different species?
- what other ways can hosts discriminate eggs? is it through sight alone?
- it's uncertain if birds can smell, and birds generally don't discriminate on size of eggs because larger eggs might have better chances of survival, so they don't want to make the mistake of tossing out one of their strong eggs. and it might not be size that they detect, but area.
- why can't hosts discriminate against chicks, especially when the chicks grow to be so obviously different?
- mother hosts might be hyper-stimulated by food begging to be able to identify that the chick isn't from the same species. evolution might not have progressed far enough wherein host birds can discriminate beyond the egg shell.
- another person pointed out that the speaker had mentioned that some cuckoo produce eggs whose new born chicks are very similar to the host bird's chicks. does this not indicate that the host birds can discriminate against chicks?
- host birds sometimes do abandon nests when there is only one chick, identifying that the nest had been invaded by cuckoo. but beyond that, he's not sure, and more research should be done.
I went to the new physics library before lab today, and browsed through some interesting books on evolutionary computation, and did a brief Wikipedia search on that and genomic computation. I think if I have time, I would definitely sit down and see if I can't learn some of that. But for now, physics reading.