revival, like the phoenix: Random non-pathology and only peripherally related t

It was such an epic thread before, but it simply swelled beyond the capacity of SDN to handle it. So now, it must live on.

We need this:

Not this:

ACtually, it didn't really swell beyond capacity. There are other threads which are longer and don't have the problem. There was some kind of glitch in there that made it malfunction, not sure if it was because we merged another thread in there or what.

Personally, I am so overwhelmed with all the hope, audacity, and change in the air today that I am feeling ill.

While the national election result wasn't a complete surprise (I'd been following the guys fivethirtyeight.com - strong work), I was surprised at the total failure of my local downticket race candidates to find any success. I guess I shouldn't be surprised the republicans took back Delay's old district from a reasonably bipartisan incumbent Dem by running a relatively unknown insider who looks vaguely like a rodent. I suppose I also shouldn't be surprised the anti-science, anti-reason Republican incumbent on the state board of education, who lacks a college degree and homeschooled his kids, kept his job too.

So it goes.

Personally, I am so overwhelmed with all the hope, audacity, and change in the air today that I am feeling ill.

Click to expand...

I too am feeling ill, but that is probably because maintenance decided they wanted to paint half my office today. Apparently they do not plan to paint the other half. They also used some sort of extremely strong adhesive for the baseboards; between that and the paint fumes, I don't know if I just LOOOOVE thyroids or if I'm high.

Random enough?

Mmmm pretty random, and the mention of thyroids is pretty peripheral... so I think I'd have to say:

If this was a premed thread with a bunch of n00bs someone would now step in and post the picture of the rabbit with the pancake on its head. n00bs love that picture.

Mmm I hope my incessant meme-bombing isn't drawing any ire.

Speaking of ire, I thought I'd repost this here. It seems some kids at Rice are stealing yet another one of my ideas before I could get it to a competent IP lawyer...

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6097749.html

Disease-fighting beer? Rice students seek perfect brew By JEANNIE KEVER

Forget dashing to Spec's for a six-pack. Head instead to a science lab at Rice University. On second thought, maybe you shouldn't. The brew in the second-floor lab in Keck Hall isn't exactly ready for prime time. Unless, that is, you're interested in bits of DNA, genetic sequencing and scientific breakthroughs, with the ultimate goal of creating a beer that might fight cancer, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. It started, as so many great ideas do, as a joke. "But then we found that we'd be able to do it," said Thomas Segall-Shapiro, 20, a junior biochemistry and bioengineering major at Rice. "That's when we got sold on the idea."

BioBeer -- a more consumer-friendly name than the original Frankenbeer moniker -- will be brewed using yeast genetically modified to produce resveratrol. Resveratrol, a naturally occurring compound found in red wine and a few other foods, has been shown to have cancer-fighting and cardiovascular benefits, at least in mice. "We're all about spreading the health," joked Rice junior Taylor Stevenson, another member of the team.

International competition

The students will take their preliminary work to Cambridge, Mass., this weekend for the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, where student scientists from around the world showcase new ideas created from interchangeable parts of DNA.

They don't have drinkable beer yet, although Joff Silberg, assistant professor of biochemistry and cell biology and one of the group's faculty advisers, said they should by the end of the semester. Not that they'll be tippling, of course. Only one member of the team, senior Sarah Duke, is old enough to legally drink.

Everyone, however, understands that the idea of brewing a healthy beer has drawn attention to what nonscientists might otherwise see as an impossibly wonky endeavor.

A project of their own

The idea surfaced as students relaxed after last year's competition.
(Rice's entry, which didn't win, was a bacterial virus that fought antibiotic resistance.) Peter Nguyen, who is working on his doctorate in biochemistry and cell biology, recalls the scene this way: "Grad students had a couple of beers. Undergrads just had water, I guess."

Nguyen, acting as a mentor to the team, suggested adding resveratrol to beer. "Everyone was just chuckling," he said. But he was only half-kidding. He thought it was possible.

Powerful experience

By last spring, a core group of students agreed. The iGEM competition stresses student-led research as well as interdisciplinary work. "It's a really powerful experience to give them," Silberg said. By May, work began in earnest. Most of the materials -- chemical solutions, pieces of DNA, common lab bacteria -- were available from scientific suppliers. But making beer required something else. Brock Wagner, a Rice University alumnus who owns Saint Arnold's Brewery, donated the yeast.

A key ingredient of beer along with water, fermentable sugar and hops, yeast is responsible for converting sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Students are working to modify the yeast with two sets of genes, including one that will allow the yeast to metabolize sugars and produce an intermediate chemical. The second set will convert that chemical to resveratrol.

That should result in a healthier beer, produced at no additional cost, said Stevenson.

Why beer? Stevenson points to the numbers: Americans consumed 20.5 gallons of beer per capita in 2005, but only 2.5 gallons of red wine.
Clearly, the students reasoned, beer drinkers were their target market.

Offering proof

As the competition drew closer, students began working longer hours.
"We're burning some oil on this one," Stevenson said. But most teams in the competition won't have their project completed by the presentation, set for Friday and Saturday, he said. The idea is to offer proof that it will work.

In the lab, everyone played a role. David Ouyang, 19, a sophomore from Katy, reached under a hood to stir bits of DNA, invisible to the naked eye, into a solution of bacteria. Around the corner, Arielle Layman, a junior biochemistry student from New Jersey, packed test tubes of DNA particles into crushed ice.

Nguyen, who does his own research in the Silberg lab, stood in the background. "I live here," he said, gesturing around the lab. "So I'm here to tell them what they need to do." In Cambridge, however, it will be their show. Most of the students will go on to graduate school, said Beth Beason, lecturer and lab coordinator in the department of biochemistry and cell biology.

"This gets their foot in the door."

[email protected]

Brought to you by the HoustonChronicle.com

yaah said:

If this was a premed thread with a bunch of n00bs someone would now step in and post the picture of the rabbit with the pancake on its head. n00bs love that picture.

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I love google...

Having never seen this picture, I just cut and pasted rabbit with the pancake on its head" into image search.. and bang.. hundreds of images..

Including a painting of a rabbit with a pancake on its head..

which is painted by a guys who apparently paints famous people with pancakes (and other food) on their head...

SO for no reason.. (other than it is random) here is John McCain with a pancake on his head..

I'll see your single pancake and raise you a short stack:

I give that show 5 thumbs up!

SeenTheLight said:

In the spirit of the randomness of this thread (and its predecessors)...I recently discovered this cool show called "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". Check it out on www.hulu.com. All the episodes are there.

The show is so wrong...which makes it so awesome!

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I think I'm going to make pancakes for dinner.

pancakes
http://www.youtube.com/v/dJUvPZI3Cr4

Thanksgiving plans? What happened to all my fellow PGY1s?