I told my mom I'm picking up martial arts the other day and she said "you know, your grandfather was a practitioner of the White Crane." A gong went off and the camera went for a rapid zoom up of my face. "What? Grandpa? ... White Crane?" I asked her if uncle Jeffrey had learned his martial arts from grandpa because I once taunted him about his ( Read more... )

It's kind of harrowing to be thinking about starting a family while taking a genetics class. I ran into "Williams Syndrome" the other day which entails a roughly 25 gene deletion in chromosome 7. This mutation results in a constellation of symptoms including interest in music, elfin facial morphology, lax tendons and poor spatial perception among ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

The little engine that could, but didn't, stalled at a 38 degree incline at the foot of an Issaquah hill, not due to mechanical failure, nor the lack of gas, but for a lack of motivation in its 4 valve heart. The driver read its temperature, double checked its dip stick and could find no wrong with the little engine that, in theory, should still ( Read more... )

A quiet Japanese man lives around the corner with his wife and young son. He wears his hair long and never really smiles. I'd see him squinting at me sometimes when I walk the dogs or when he walks pass my street on his way to the basketball court. I imagine him to be a pretty good basketball player. I hear things about people who plays ( Read more... )

There was an elderly man at the store across the isle needing some help. He asked a girl if she works there, to which she replied she doesn't then walked away hastily. He strolled away and approached middle aged woman and asked, "I'm wondering if you can help me with something". She said "Sorry, I don't work here", and walked away all the while ( Read more... )

textbooks, it's an industry

seedy underside

not the only one with concerns about our textbooks - college textbooks are in the same boat:

For those of you that have young kids, I have a gripe you may identify with. I've been helping my 9 year old with his homework. It doesn't seem to matter what subject, but these textbooks that our kids are ( Read more... )

Aw man. Neil A Campbell of "Campbell and Reece" biology book died in 2004 of heart failure. That's a sad day for biology text books. I think I have that last book (7th edition) he manuscripted. I was going to write him a letter and see if he would look into putting together a Genetics book. I am upset.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2954204/Read more... )