Lupus is a nasty auto-immune disease, wherein your immune system pretty much attacks tissues all around your body, resulting in painful inflammation and general badness.

I know a couple of people with lupus or (SLE - Systemic Lupus Erythematosus) and man! are they sick sometimes. And I go on complaining about my allergies. Anyways, I was reading around the Internet today and came across a new book discussing the daily ins and outs of living with the disease. But the passage the publisher’s blog highlighted was actually about the effect of lupus on relationships. And it’s bad. Treatment for lupus (steroids) makes you all bloaty, the disease itself is exhausting, can mangle your hips (via arthritis) and dry you out down there..all is just no good for the sex life. Indeed, five years after diagnosis, around 50% of women (who are more likely to have lupus) are divorced

So, you could say the divorce rate is 50% anyways and there are lots of other reasons for a marriage to break up in the realm of constant sickness. But then there’s a recent Norwegian report that found an increase in divorces among young couples after a diagnosis of cervical or testicular cancers; other non-sexy cancers, however, didn’t not raise the risk of divorce (read the full report here - warning pdf).

What’s the take home message here? Buy some lube? Try a combo of painkillers and caffeine for love-making? Sex is the most important part of a relationship? Er, no. But intimacy IS important. So when you feel like ASS and don’t want to have sex, communicate with your partner and find comfortable ways to be close. Like eating cookies in bed and watching Battlestar Gallactica. 

THE BEAGLE IN ALL HER ORIGINAL GLORY PAINTED BY OWEN STANLEY 1841

My first undergraduate research assistant job was in an evolutionary ecology lab: our lab truck (on which I learned to drive a stick shift) was a 1986 Toyota named HMS Beagle (it said so right on the license plate). I mean who doesn’t love the Beagle? Without it, Darwin might never have figured out his theory of natural selection...hence many, many biologists would be out of a job.

Some fine folks in the UK are trying to resurrect the Beagle in all its shippy glory (no rusted out trucks smelling of fish here). They are the people behind the HMS Beagle Project: an ambitious attempt to build a seaworthy replica of Darwin’s most famous vessel and retrace his steps around the world in a celebration of the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth.

Head to their newly opened shop, where the team have a delightful collection of t-shirts and mugs and buttons and tote bags, all which proclaim a true love of the Beagle. 

SAN DIEGO BURNING IN 2003 (PHOTO: DAVE KENDALL)

If you listened to the radio or watched the news this weekend, you probably heard the comforting voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger telling would-be fraudsters that attempts to take advantage of the California fire tragedy would “not be tolerated.”

But what if, er, there weren’t quite so many burned down houses around to fuel the insurance fraud and rip-off rebuild industries? What if the Californians took Australian advice (a people well versed in forest and brush fires) and...didn’t evacuate? What if they stayed behind and defended their homes?

It might sound kind of mad, but this practice, known as ”prepare, stay and defend” or “shelter in place” is underscored by the fact that most homes that burn during a large fire are not just consumed by a giant wall of flame. Instead, flying embers set especially burnable parts of the house alight when the front is still far away. These burning embers, which travel up to a mile, can be easily extinguished with a bucket or garden hose.

Encouraging more people to stay means that emergency services can concentrate on fighting the fires, not evacuating people. The recommendations don’t extend to the elderly and those with young children. And if you decide to go, go early. Last minute evacuations are lethal.

The real trick, however, is that “sheltering in place” is only really advisable when houses are adequately prepared for brush fires: ensuring access to water, building fire-stopping walls around property, cleaning property of excess flammable debris, keep tools for fire-fighting handy etc. In a place like Southern California, where fires aren’t exactly unusual, it seems that a little preparation would go a long way.

(PHOTO: NASA.GOV)

It’s traffic chaos in space today. The 23 year old space shuttle Discovery kicked off its 34th flight, in the shape of a maintenance mission STS-120 to the International Space Station. This mission will install a new component of the ISS called ’Harmony‘ and allow astronaut Clayton Anderson to return home to his family after 5 months in space. Not even 24 hours after Discovery blasted off, China’s first ever moon orbiter Chang’e 1 started its year long (don’t worry, unmanned) lunar mission. And who said space was huge and empty?

PS How chuffed do these astronauts look? Particularly Stephanie Wilson, third from the left. But then again, do you blame her?

(PHOTO: lcs9)

I don’t know where my interest in science came from. I can’t pinpoint one eureka moment in my childhood that made me so interested in all things science, I think it was just an organic process. But I can recall certain things that particularly stuck out, such as a series of trips to a museum exhibit in the Science Museum called Launchpad. The exhibit was in a huge hall with massive windows, and featured all sorts of interactive sciencey experiments you could do, like the big glass globe full of purple electricity, and I loved it. So I was really saddened when I went back a few years later to find Lauchpad smaller, shabbier and consigned to a basement. It was still full of kids having fun, but I can’t imagine it was half as inspiring as it was in its glory days. It’s being given a £4m revamp as I type, so hopefully it should be back to it’s old self in no time (and the big kid in me wants to go back and check it out), but I just read a news report that says that several science centres around the UK are facing a cash crisis, and that made me sad. As well as Launchpad, I was a massive fan of Vancouver’s Science World when I was little, and I think it too played a part in nurturing an early interest in science. Science centres are expensive to maintain and update and develop and run, but I personally think they’re very much worth the money. I just wondered what everyone else thought - did you like going to science museums or did you think they were naff and beneath you? Or did you love them too?

I really don’t know why Katie hasn’t blogged about this since she’s the comic genius that sent the precious youtube link my way that made my day.

James Blunt appeared on Sesame Street late August. And just as he started to strum the annoying first notes of “You’re Beautiful” - you know, the ones that make you want to punch his earnest sappy face through the TV screen - he took a hard right turn towards geometry and miraculously landed himself in one of my favorite Sesame Street skits ever. The premise is simple and absurd: Blunt’s upset cause he’s lost his triangle, and he’s so upset he has to put his emotions into song…

This shape was brilliant,
This shape was pure
I saw three angles,
Of that I’m sure…

Anyways, it’s WAY more catchy than the real version of the song where he sings about how “you’re beautiful” instead of his “my triangle, oh triangle, it’s true. I saw your shape in a crowded place, now I don’t know what to do.”

For the kid in all of us, let us toast to how Sesame Street continues to kick ass. It’s always good to see those childhood institutions stay so strong. 

No particular need for this, it’s just quite sweet - a little biology love song in French (dont worry, the translation is there on the right - even if it is a little haphazard). It harks back to one of the few things about school days that I truly miss - writing notes in class. My personal favourite is the smooching trilobites with highlighter hearts signifying the happy ending. 

So I have a total friend crush on Amanda Robb, who just wrote this op-ed piece in the New York Times about the battles over the State Childrens’ Health Insurance Program (S-Chip) and how the Democrats tried to lure Republican support by adding more abstinence-only sex ed. The D’s proposed an additional $28 million for the abstinence-only, bringing the total to $200 annually. This for a program that, by all evidence, totally doesn’t work at all, shocker, shocker, aghast, really?.

S-Chip failed in congress today (Bush had vetoed the bill and the house didn’t get the need 2/3 vote to override him). At first I was pretty cheesed (again), even though everyone expected this outcome. But now, after reading Robb’s piece, I am not so sure it’s a bad thing. Except that the abstinence “compromise” will probably be part of the next version, too.

And the really shite thing? With that $200 million, the government could buy an insurance for 150,000 kids. Fiscal conservatives might be afraid of state-funded health care, but they should be appalled by wasting that kind of money on an “education” program that does diddly squat (insert analogy to Iraq here). 

Chris Hadfield is a Canadian astronaut who sports a dashing mustache. He grew up on a corn farm in southern Ontario, and went on to dock with Mir in 1995. In 2001 he went out into space again for a trip to the International Space Station where he helped install the Canadarm2, a piece of robotics that makes most Canadians blush with pride and/or strike out into the air above them with a raised fist (ok. That might just be me). This made him the first Canadian to go on a spacewalk.

Here he is on youtube, describing the minute detail how toilets work in space - which let’s face it, is something we’re all curious and giggly about. The great thing is, I actually learned something. Like the fact that they freeze dry poo. Who knew??

So then they stockpile this freeze dried shit until they have enough of it tucked away to expel into space Hadfield explains in the video: “We put it in a little unmanned supply ship, and we undock it, and it burns up in the atmosphere.”

But here’s why we love our Hadfield. Cause he’s got a sense of humor, all the more sharp because of his deadpan delivery. “So the next time you see a beautiful shooting star going across the night sky...” he says, his finger tracing the motion of a streak of light in the heavens, ”that‘s what it might be.” At which point he has the good sense to look rueful.

(PHOTO: ERIK CHARLTON)

So I am all mindin’ my business reading news stories from the major wire services and I catch this report of a woman in Australia who fought off a Great White Shark attack with the paddle from her kayak. And I mean who DOESN’T love a shark attack story? The danger! The intrigue! The beautiful tropical waters!

So YAY! she lived and all is good. That is until I reach this line in the text, which comes practically out of the blue after listing another recent Great White attack:

“Sharks, even Great Whites, are protected in Australia.”

Now you might call me a little over-sensitive on behalf of the sharks (and I should also mention that I was terrified of sharks as a child - even in the pool, I thought they lived under the grates at the bottom of the deep end), but the subtext of that line is....OMG they PROTECT something that EATS PEOPLE, like, A LOT. WTF??????

Fuckers. I mean seriously. We don’t assign conservation status based on whether or not the animals like to chow down on human flesh (ie, whether humans are dumb enough to get in their territory).

Cause if that were the case, then we say SAYONARA to the Bengal Tiger’s endangered status...sorry, you just attack us human folk too much. Lions? Out. Of. Luck. Jaguars, you MUST be joking. I am mean sure, they’re pretty, but why don’t you just get a pelt or something. As for those gorillas...I mean PLEASE..if you poke them with a stick and threaten the females and babies, those things will pound the crap out of you. Better just let them die. 

Great White Sharks are protected because their numbers are dwindling. Just because they ain’t fluffy like a panda does not make them any less worthy of preservation.