Um. Apparently a MoMA exhibit titled the Typosperma project. According to the project’s website:

“The main idea of the ‘Typosperma’ project was to create some sort of new transgenic creatures, half (human) sperm, half letter. These imaginary creatures are cloned sperms, that typographic information has been implanted into their DNA.”

Now it’s not like the sperm are shaped like alphabets (like I envisioned). Instead the sperm have little bits of type (serif I’ll have you know) sticking out of them. One has the distinct curl of the bottom of the letter “y” poking out of its gut. Another has a touch of the letter “s” appearing in its flank.

You know when stuff is weird and you want to share it with people? Like weird food flavors ("Oh my god this tastes so GROSS. Here! Try it!!” sound familiar?) . That’s why I’m telling you about the weird letter sperm. I’m just putting it out there, like PB&J on a sushi menu.

You lucky bastard New York dwellers. You can go check out the work in person at the MoMA come February. I’m thinking it’s perfectly timed for that perfect Valentine’s day date… Nothing says romance and seduction like mutated sperm I tell you. 

Man oh man, if only they’d had this video when I was taking Cell and Molecular Bio in 1999 - it might have injected a wee bit of life into our 3 hour Thursday evening lectures (Anne and I resorted to pen wars to keep ourselves occupied).

Anyways. Please please watch the above. It’s like a ray of nerdy sunshine to the tune of a gospel choir, provided to us by Bio-Rad, who make PCR machines (I mean SHIT man, that is the best ad for lab equipment I have ever seen and I’ve seen a lot of them).

My favorite line: “It’s amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do...” Of course the chorus is pretty amazing too: “PCR when you need to detect mutation. PCR when you need to recombine. PCR when you need to find out who the daddy is.PCR when you need to solve a crime.”

Kary Mullis would be so very, very proud.

(Thanks Tom)

I was driving around Vancouver the other day and caught a snippet on CBC radio about new BC legislation designed to protect kids with serious food allergies; it’s called the Anaphylactic Student Protection Act and requires schools to educate and prepare staff for a student’s allergic reaction and try to limit contamination of potential allergens in cafeterias and classrooms. Check out the bill here. The bill was modeled on an Ontario law, Sabrina’s Law, named after 13-year old Sabrina Shannon who died in 2004 after eating french fries at her high school cafeteria that were likely contaminated with dairy.

While the laws are focused solely on education, cleanliness and treatment delivery, the radio show quickly turned to discussions of “banning” certain foods including peanuts, as many schools have already done (check out the nut free policy of Cliffwood Public School in Toronto - yikes!)

Now as many of you know, I am deathly allergic to peanuts and tree nuts. Fun for me. But I didn’t develop my anaphylactic reactions until I was 19 (and at a university ball no less; ask Anne about it sometime, she was there and she has pictures). During my elementary and high school years I used to just throw up. Gross, but not deadly.

So personally, I am a little torn about all this. Yes I want more things to be nut free and for, when possible, cafeterias and restaurants to try and eliminate cross contamination. Because if you try and eat out with me, you’ll know how hard that is. NO ONE will guarantee nut-free food. I usually just ask whether they put nuts in there ON PURPOSE, cause if not, I’m usually fine. I can taste traces for sure, but an eeeensy bit won’t kill me. And that is the difference between me and some of these super sensitive kids. I can take a little and not die. They can’t.

Should schools ban nuts and milk and eggs? Er..that’s tough. Public schools should be safe places, but we are dealing with invisible amounts of proteins here. When a child (or grown up) is that sensitive you can never be truly safe unless you control everything. In short, these kids are kind of screwed. So they survive high school - what about everywhere else?

But I think there is real hope on the horizon in the form of new food allergy treatments. Wesley Burks at Duke University has had some success with highly controlled feeding trials - where kids (and adults) essentially build up tolerances to peanuts by consuming ever greater amounts, starting out from 1/1000th of a gram. It might not “cure” the allergy entirely, but the treatment means that kids can withstand up to a whole peanut! before reacting. And that is the difference between life and accidental death.

There are also anti-IgE shots (that bind the antibodies that recognize allergens) that seem to increase tolerance (though some law suits over who owns the drug are complicating things); Burks and peanut research master Hugh Sampson at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC are working on peanut vaccines; Sampson is also working with his Chinese colleagues to produce a herbal mixture that seems to totally block allergic reactions (though it’s still in the mice stage).

What’s more, Gideon Lack at King’s College in London has begun a seven year trial to see if FEEDING peanuts to young and at risk babies/toddlers (who already have eczema) might actually prevent the development of food allergies - as all the advice to AVOID allergic foods in the first years of life has seemingly NOT worked.

Also, why not just have a petting zoo at every preschool? Kids would love it and studies consistently show that kids exposed to farms and farm animals are less likely to develop allergies. Better yet, why not just give every child pints of unpasteurized milk, as a recent European study found that ‘farm milk’ reduce allergies and asthma in suburban kids. Of course the same can be said for kids with loads of parasites...which is why some companies are thinking of using pig parasite eggs (that can’t survive and reproduce in people) to treat food allergies. All these treatments are essentially based on the hygiene hypothesis - if you keep your immune system busy with a variety of real threats from parasites, viruses, bacteria (even the “good” bacteria found in raw milk or yogurt), it will have less free time to go around attacking harmless foods.

So even though food allergies are seemingly on the rise, it’s a pretty good time to be born a nut sufferer, if you ask me.

After much talk and brain storming and fiddling in Adobe Illustrator and resizing and font play and dingbat obsessing and color tweaking I’m happy to report that our first batch of T-shirts are up for sale at the brand spanking new Inkstand.

I’m just as fiddly trimming my bangs and aren’t we all lucky that t-shirt designs don’t get shorter and shorter the more you correct them.

Without further ado, I present to you The Inkstand. With its rocking “Scientists are Foxy” shirts. We’ve got some more ideas up our sleeves (yes they’re science related but they include puns - oh yes, the wonderful pun). So do check back often. Pleeeeaaaase.

If you ever go to India, one of the things you’ll notice immediately is the death-trap-esque roads. I learned to drive in London, where drivers are not known for their sensitivity or gentleness, but the city streets pale in comparison to India’s highways. Auto-rickshaws abound, zipping between lanes, cows and pedestrians with gay abandon. Its not at all unusual to see a single motorbike carrying an entire family standing/sitting/riding, but hopefully that sight should become rarer. The Tata group today unveiled the world’s cheapest car - The Tata Nano. At a cost of just £1250 each, it’s designed to be affordable for families. But it’s not a naff family car, it’s really quite nifty and attractive. Tata’s Nano is reminiscent of a Smart car or the new VW Beetle, but a lot cheaper, and cleaner. Tata expect other car companies to follow suit, bringing lots more smaller, lighter greener cars to the market. Bring it on, I say, and do feel free to send me a test model should you feel the need.

My only quibble is that I do think the name is a bit unfortunate, hear nano think ipod, hear Tata’s think bosoms. But it’s a real bargain, and it’s cute, and if it provides an opportunity for people with very little money to travel more safely then we can overlook the name for now.

Photo borrowed from Wikipedia

Ever wondered if being beautiful would give you a head start in life? Or if being ‘pug-ugly’ gets in the way of wealth and happiness? Well, you’re right, according to this excellent article from The Economist. Particularly if you live in China, where a woman who’s been hit with the ugly stick can expect a 31% smaller salary. The effect in North America is less pronounced, a mere 6%, which still isn’t all that brilliant. The glass is definitely more full for those who are easy on the eye, as they get between 4 and 10 percent more money just for being pretty. And all because of an assumption that symmetry means beauty. Because of The Economist’s allergy to bylines, I can’t say who the article is by. But it’s well worth a read and worthy of a link. Enjoy.

PS This illustration is from the article online - it’s by Brett Rayder and I think it’s a bit brilliant. It bizarrely made me want to read the article more…

After all of Anne’s posts on cleaning your computer and spilling coffee on your computer, you might think that we are a bunch of clumsy destroyers. Indeed, we are. Anne loves to spill things on herself and anything in her vicinity****. I like to wash people’s electronic goods. Yes, that is right. I washed my boyfriend’s iPod, which was snuggled inside the front pocket of his red hoodie. Nice. I think this is payback for when he washed AND DRIED my favorite black silk sweater. Anyways.

The pod emerged from the Bosch completely dead. Boyfriend attempted to dry it slowly underneath some infrared heat lamps above our stove shelfs. Nothing. He set a timer to check on the sucker every couple of minutes. Nothing. Indeed it had been more than 4 hours since the incident, and we were on our way to buy a new one at an UNofficial Apple Store (we are to get an OFFICIAL Apple store soon - they are hiring on the Apple Jobs site for a Pacific Center-based store), when the boyfriend checked it and it was alive. A little steamy under the screen, but in perfect working order. Not to mention very very clean.

But it seems that his is not a miraculous story. According to this 2005 post from the UK tech site, The Register, iPod Nanos are pretty good at surviving the spin cycle. This is likely owing to their hardy flash memory (as opposed to the hard drive used in previous iPod Minis) and a really tight seal around the battery.

Indeed if you look up “washed iPod” on Google, you’ll get a ton of similar survival stories. It seems that waiting patiently until it is fully dried is the real key here and not trying to plug it in wet to your computer or power source. In any case, it’s alll kind of ironic given the flack that Apple gets for building such disposable small goods.

***Did I mention that Anne once dropped her Nokia phone in a vat of boiling curry at the Notting Hill Carnival in London? It survived for quite a few months afterwards and only smelled a little funny.

Dental floss is fabulous. And everyone should floss more. These are universal truths. The last time I went to the dentist I was asked did I floss, and I said with a sheepish smile ‘Not as much as I should, like most people I’d imagine’. With a totally straight face the hygenist said ‘Not like most people, no’. Ouch. Roundly judged. Deservedly judged, but ouch nonetheless. But I can honestly say that I didn’t know that by not flossing I was leaving myself open to a future of heart disease. That moves flossing right back up to the top of my new years resolution list, above being on time for things and remembering to send birthday cards in advance so that they arrive on time. Now, where did I leave that Oral B Satinfloss?

(PHOTO: PEETUR)

So says The Vinegar Institute (I was surprised it existed but now it seems so obvious really. The url is: http://www.versatilevinegar.org - Duh!).

See, January is National Clean Up Your Computer Month (again, who knew. But yes, such a month does exist). And what better ordinary ingredient to use to clean up your computer than vinegar. In their eager press release The Vinegar Institute (I don’t think I can ever say that without snickering) quotes the step by step instructions found in the book Extraordinary Uses for Ordinary Things:

Before you begin cleaning, make sure you have all pieces in the ‘off’ position.
Mix equal parts of white vinegar and water in a bucket.
Dampen a clean cloth in the solution and squeeze out the excess. Avoid spraying directly onto your hardware, as it could cause problems with your circuits.
Begin to wipe all pieces down (computer, keyboard, monitor).
Use cotton swabs to reach into those tight places, like between keys on the keyboard.

Now, I know my keyboard is filthy. Rather, underneath my keyboard is filthy what with a recent coffee spill (see: Laptop 911: how to save your computer from a coffee spill)and office cats who shed all over me and my desk. But I don’t know how I feel about using vinegar to clean my keyboard. Will there be a smell? So in search of the answer I poked around The Vinegar Institute’s website. And I was shocked by my vinegar ignorance.

(Also, I’m mentioning this now so you get ample warning. May, is National Vinegar month - don’t you forget it)

According to the Synovate White Distilled Vinegar Attitude and Usage Study from 2004 and 2005 there are three types of people in the world: Virgins, Visitors and Visionaries.

Virgins are the 33 million people who haven’t bought or used white distilled vinegar in the past year. Next we’ve got the Visitors, who make up the vast majority of Americans. Visitors are those who have purchased white distilled vinegar a maximum of two times a year and they’re “open to experimenting with various uses” once they hear about them. Now the Visionaries are real special. There are only 31 million of them in the US. These enlightened folks purchase white distilled vinegar three or more times a year and take it off the shelf monthly. They know to use vinegar to clean kitchen surfaces exposed to raw meat, clean house, get rid of unwanted grass (?), remove glass water rings on wood furniture (hello! I need to try this!! Apparently you rub the stain with equal parts white vinegar and olive oil which strangely sounds like a salad dressing… hmph), and get rid of funky smells. In addition to their varied employment of vinegar the true hallmark of a Visionary is that they “may even create their own new uses.” Whoa boy.

If this is all a big-time epiphany for you may I recommend the site’s ”Uses & Tips“ page.

(PHOTO: DONALD COOK)

So this year my dad and I are in charge of turkey duties. And we’ve decided to follow the recipe for cajun turkey from Hill Country Texas Guru Rebecca Rather’s new Pastry Queen Christmas book (all recipes so far excellent. Anna and I made the red velvet cupcakes with mascarpone cream cheese icing and nearly passed out after eating one).

I am dutifully following her recipe. So when she asked me to brine the bird in a brown sugar and salt solution, I followed her instructions. But then I started to wonder exactly what the brining was doing. I was reminded of all that cell osmosis stuff we were peppered with in cell biology classes and started wondering: is the brine isotonic, hypotonic or hypertonic? I would guess what with 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of brown sugar it’s hypertonic. But this got me confused because then osmosis should draw water out of the turkey into the brine solution and wasn’t the whole point of brining your bird to make it more moist?

After a quick google search it appears I’m not the only one thus confused. Enter many helpful websites, my favorite of which is ”Cooking For Engineers.” The Exploratorium has a good page on it too.

Initially when meat is placed int he brine, the cells int eh meat are less concentrated than the brine solution. So water flows out of the meat and salt flows in. But here comes the rub (or in our case Cajun spice rub). The recently migrated salt then denatures some of the proteins in the meat, and so the meat’s cell fluids become more concentrated. This way the levels of solute in the meat rise, and water is drawn back into the meat. Hence the end product of a more tender, salty, and moist meat.

I’m off to baste the sucker. Will update you on taste later.

Merry Christmas everyone! Happy feasting to you.