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Not too long ago, I had linked in a previous post the story of one Manuel Uribe, the fattest man in the world. At the time, he was 550kg (1102 pounds). (Compare this with Jon Brower Minnoch, the heaviest man ever, who weighed in at 635kg, or 1400 pounds!)
Well, he's making news again, as he has managed to lose 200 pounds in about a month and a half. Now the article says that he weighed 1235 pounds, which of course is nastier. Either way, he lost about 5 pounds a day, if this is to be believed. Of course, he wants to lose another 770 pounds.
I encourage you to follow the link and closely examine his photo. (Click on it for a larger version.) What is evident about him from the photo?
Go ahead. I'll wait.
You're back? OK, this is what I saw:
- He's wearing a sheet.
- The sheet covers a huge bulge which may either be his stomach or testicles, you decide.
- He's doing a full split.
- His foot, ankle, calf, and knee are all the same size.
*Shudder*
That was a quote from a very very bad ninja movie I once saw. There is a scene in which a ninja has his head severed by a non-ninja, yet the head floats after the attacker to kill him. Seriously.
I read this article almost 2 months ago, but figured everyone here would be so interested since you all love ninjas more than your mothers. It's about how the 'last ninja' will choose his successor sometime soon.
The article also details one student's quest to earn his fifth level. The challenge? He must kneel with his head on the ground, eyes closed, and dodge a sword attack directed at his head. Who holds the sword? The Grand Master himself.
If that is all it takes to achieve fifth level, then I have lost respect for ninja. I was able to dodge sword attacks while bound with electrical tape and blindfolded at the age of 3. And not just one sword attack; fifteen. From 6 men, all at the same time. And I grew up to be a scientist, not a stealthy assassin. Amateurs.
There was an interesting piece of news that I noticed yesterday. Namely, a 25 year-old Chinese woman killed her husband with a sword because he refused to cook her dinner.
She says it was an accident. If that is true, then it sucks to be her (although it may suck more to be him): no guy in his right mind would ever marry her now. At 25 she is a spinster for life.
As far as I know, Yilin doesn't own any swords, but I haven't thoroughly checked her apartment. I will do that today while she is at work. ;) Naturally, any martial arts weapon will raise a red flag. It's not like I would be digging through drawers and say, "Clothes, clothes, clothes... Nunchakus, clothes, clothes. Phew! No swords here!" (I realize that nunchakus are Japanese, and that not all Chinese people know kung fu, although the Boxer Rebellion would suggest differently.)
I think I am safe for now. I suppose that once I get married I will really have to start worrying. Then she will have me trapped and I will be unable to escape spousal abuse. Perhaps I will buy swords of my own...
Today is the first day of summer. It is also the longest day of the year, in terms of daylight; i.e., it's not actually longer than 24 hours. Well, daylight savings time (the last Sunday in October) is actually 25 hours long because we change our clocks back one hour.
But, hours aside, do you know what this means? The fact that it is the summer solstice?
It means that the days get shorter from here on out and it's almost ice climbing season!!! Yes, my calendar currently revolves around Martin Luther King, Jr Day. That's the day when ice in upstate New York is as solid as it gets and the climbing is good through March.
I cannot wait for winter!
Finally, after about 3 mostly frustrating years (give or take a few weeks) I have been able to partly answer one of the two major questions I am addressing for my thesis. I am happy, tired, excited, relieved, motivated, and depressed all at the same time. The moment seems very anti-climactic, but I am glad that it has occurred.
There are some experiments in the works that will hopefully allow me to fully answer that question, within a month or two. As for the other major question, well, it is unlikely that I will be able to easily answer it without answering the first question.
I know, I am being vague, so let me explain the biological phenomena I am investigating and the questions I seek to address. The following is an excerpt from my Thesis Research Advisory Committee (TRAC) Meeting last December. It is incredibly information dense as the whole thing is supposed to be a summary of my thesis up until that point in time crammed into the miniscule length of 5 single-spaced pages.
The sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system is responsible for maintaining homeostatic function within the body as well as performing nonhomeostatic functions such as the "fight-or-flight" response to life threatening situations. This system uses a 2-cell circuit to relay signals from the central nervous system to the periphery. Sympathetic preganglionic neurons (SPNs), whose cell bodies are located in the thoracic level spinal cord, project axons to the prevertebral and paravertebral sympathetic chain ganglia, where they innervate postganglionic cell bodies. The postganglionic neurons innervate target organs, such as the heart, lungs, and liver.
During development, the SPNs begin as a subset of the postmitotic motor neuron precursors that migrate from the ventricular zone to the lateral horn of the thoracic spinal cord. Most of the motor neuron progenitor pool adopts a somatic motor neuron fate, while the SPNs migrate to a more dorsal location and form the intermediolateral column in mouse and the column of Terni in chick. Downregulation of the transcription factor Hb9 is required for SPN specification and their characteristic migration.
Antibody against Phospho-Smad1/5/8 (PS1) specifically marks developing SPNs in chick and mouse embryos. BMP ligands function by binding type II and type I BMP receptor complexes, initiating a cascade of phosphorylation. In vertebrates, the type I receptor phosphorylates a positive Smad which then translocates to the nucleus to regulate transcription. Therefore, the presence of PS1 is indicative of active transduction of a BMP signal.
There is a correlation between the extent of SPN axon projection and SPN PS1 immunoreactivity. PS1 appears in SPN nuclei only when some axons reach the sympathetic chain. This raises the possibility that the SPNs are not receiving a BMP signal from the spinal cord, but rather from the periphery, despite BMP5 expression by the SPNs in chick and BMP expression in the roofplate. This peripheral signal is possibly from the sympathetic postganglionic neurons (the targets of SPNs), which require BMP signals from the dorsal aorta and express BMPs themselves.
We have also confirmed that embryonic chick and mouse SPNs are responding specifically to BMP signals. The SPNs of conditional BmprIa mutant mice, which lack receptor expression in the developing spinal cord, never stain for PS1 or nNos, and Isl1 staining is significantly reduced. Additionally, when the BMP-inhibitor Noggin is misexpressed in the spinal cord of chick embryos via electroporation, PS1 staining is lost in the SPNs. Therefore, loss of function and gain of function experiments support a role for BMPs in SPN development.
Taken together these observations raise several questions about the source and identity of the BMP signal. For instance, is the BMP originating from within the spinal cord or from peripheral tissue? If the signal is local in origin, why do only SPNs respond to it? If there is a peripheral signal, is it the BMP, or might it be a requisite non-BMP cosignal? Is there a difference between initiation and maintenance of the BMP signal? If the signal is derived from the periphery, are somatic motor neurons, which also project axons outside of the spinal cord, also competent to respond?
There you have it. My two main questions are:
1) What is the source of the BMP signal?
2) Which of the (many) BMPs is it?
My recent breakthrough addresses the first question. I have determined that the BMP signal is from a peripheral source. Our biggest candidate for the source is the sympathetic ganglia, where the sympathetic neurons reside (those neurons being the target of innervation by the SPNs). The other experiments I have in the works will (hopefully) indicate whether this hypothesis is true.
If all of that doesn't make any sense, well, sorry. I know that a picture is worth a thousand words, and if I posted some drawings/photos it would help make it easier to understand. I also realize that Biology is a language that only those trained in it can speak. Someday I will translate my research into English for my friends and family who don't speak Biology and give them a short talk with pictures to illustrate my points. However, that could take months to put together if I assume no more than high school level Bio taken more than a decade ago.
If someone asks you what I study, you can say one of the two following sentences, depending on your level of understanding and/or ability to memorize:
A) He studies developmental neurobiology.
B) He studies the development of a population of cells in the spinal cord during embryogenesis.
That's as simple as I can make it, although it reveals no details whatsoever. You can also tell people that my research will help victims of spinal cord injury live longer healthier lives. That's potentially true. Perhaps. ;)
Yilin and her mom (perhaps I should say 'my future mom') have returned from Paris. Their plane was delayed, but that was the only snag in the their voyage back to NYC. I made them dinner, and had it waiting for their arrival at Yilin's apartment. We ate, they told me about Paris, showed me some photos, showed me stuff that they bought, and they even gave me gifts!
I was surprised when Yilin gave me a gift: a Netherlands soccer jersey! Bright orange, baby. It's not particularly Parisian, but it's a lot easier to get in Europe than it is in the US. I don't think she should've spent that much money on me, especially since she felt that she should've bought more than one pair of shoes there. However, I think it was a much wiser use of Euros than a pair of shoes, regardless who gets to wear it. (If you don't know, the Dutch won their first match, and as far as I am concerned, will win the rest of them!)
Also, I was even more surprised when Siska (Yilin's mom) gave me a gift. That I was not expecting at all. She bought me a watch, something that I don't have. (Well, I have a wristbandless digital watch that was purchased in Chinatown for $5 over 6 years ago, which occasionally works and accompanies me on hikes.) It's a big, stylish Diesel watch. This morning, I put it on while getting dressed, and felt ashamed of wearing a t-shirt with it as it is too nice a watch to be worn with a t-shirt.
Alas, I suppose this means that I will have to start wearing shirts other than t-shirts.
Nah. ;)
As I may or may not have mentioned, Yilin is in Paris with her mom. They left on Friday and are scheduled to return Tuesday next week. As such, I am free! Ha ha!
This past weekend seemed rather different, being a free man. I walked around Central Park and shot a roll of film (yet to be developed), went climbing at the 'Gunks with Rob, Claire, Eric, and Colleen, and of course went to Claude's. However, as much as I enjoy these activities, something seemed amiss.
This week I have been working, doing some leisurely reading (a while since I have had that opportunity), watching some crap on TV. I went and saw "The Omen" opening night with Katie, had dinner with Hyunmi and Katie last night, and just been bumming around.
I have come to the realization that I miss Yilin greatly. I can't believe I am even saying something like this on my blog, but it's true. It's all I have been thinking about the past few days. As such, there really is nothing else for me to talk about here.
Except the World Cup, which starts tomorrow. :)
I am fairly confident that I have figured out a way to watch the games on my computer. There is a peer-to-peer (aka p2p) TV program called 'TVAnts' that allows users to watch digital television feeds over the internet. Like any p2p program, the more people watching a channel, the better your streaming connection. As many of the channels are international (China mostly, but from all over), it will be a matter of looking to see which is the most watched channel during one of the World Cup matches and tuning in.
Why do I say "most watched channel"? Because it is estimated that 3.5 billion people will be watching the final. That's over half the population of the entire world. Think about it: more than 1:2 people will be watching the same event at the same time, glued to television sets everywhere. Amazing.
So, in the grief that accompanies the absence of my betrothed, I will drown my sorrows in soccer and beer tomorrow at noon, cheering loudly as Germany drubs Costa Rica.
Note: The following is a theory that arose in a discussion of why Girl Scout Cookies have the names that they do. Anyone who has read or knows about this, please let me know. I have yet to research it myself.
Growing up, I remember how great it would be the (few) times my brother and I could convince my mom to buy an over-priced box of Girl Scout Cookies. My favorites have always been Caramel Delights, with Grasshoppers coming in a close second.
What struck me as odd was seeing a box of Caramel Delights a few years ago, but noting that they weren't called "Caramel Delights," but rather "Samoas." My first response: WTF is a Samoa?
And what the heck is a Tagalong? I have a vague recollection of that cookie, but certainly not that name. (I am also not sure Thin Mints were "Thin Mints" but rather "Grasshoppers".)
It was joked that in Connecticut, there was a movement to remove us from racial or ethnic sounding food, as my friends here in NYC had always eaten "Samoas" and had never heard of "Caramel Delights". Who in Winsted ever heard of an ethnic restaurant besides all-you-can-eat Chinese? Taco Bell? Italian certainly. Samoa cookies??? No.
My friends thought we were/are too white for our own good. Perhaps, but I don't see the need to have a different name for a cookie based on the region of the U.S. in which it is sold. That just smacks of... something bad, particularly when the name in question is ethnic.
Is my memory distorted or what? Correct me, my faithful readers. Those who grew up with me in Connecticut, come to my defense (if that is possible). The responses of current or former Girl Scouts are given more credence.
