shlominator

Wow, it's been a while. A lot's happened, but most of you who read this know what most of that is. Yep, I got married. It's hard to believe. I had such an awesome time seeing all my friends and family here and in Israel, and of course, seeing my beautiful wife in her wedding dress. Amazing. We're still dealing with a lot of wedding related stuff, such as thank you cards and buying stuff.  

So, in other news, I've been working on a paper. I wrote an almost complete draft of the paper, but it's kind of on hold now until I do some additional experiments. I'm aiming to defend in November or December, in fact I'm trying to set the date now. I'm also looking for a postdoc now. And I got 2 interviews lined up now in (drum roll please) LA! Yeah, Laura and I are both excited about the prospects of coming to LA. I've been gone for a long time, and I've never lived as an adult (in the Real World) in LA. I'm looking forward to it. Except for the traffic. And losing my say in the next presidential election. But that's a small price to pay  to come back to LALA land.

I just finished reading a book by Francis Collins called "The Language of God." Francis Collins was the director of the Human Genome Project and he is also a devout Christian. He explains how one can reconcile a faith in God with what science has discovered. The man really knows his science and I learned a lot about stuff like the stem-cell controversy and the genome. But his theological arguments didn't really convince me. I recommend it though; I found it enjoyable. Now I'm reading a book by Richard Dawkins who's the guy Collins criticized repeatedly in his book for being a very antagonistic atheist. This book is called "The Ancestor's Tale" and it's modeled after "The Canterbury Tales" and is an overview of many modern and ancestral species.

That's about all.

Ok, I finally got around to posting these. Thanks again to everyone who made it out here. I had an awesome time!

So, I think I'm about done with my current research project. Not that I'll get a paper out of it. Not that I'll find an answer to the question (actually two other labs already found the answer, which is why I don't care anymore). But I'm done and that's great! Now I can focus on another project that I really am interested in. I have a committee meeting in exactly a month and maybe then (hopefully) I'll get the answer to the most important of scientific questions, "When can I leave?"

I've already begun teaching myself a new electrophysiological technique called patch clamping. Basically it involves taking a high-resistance glass electrode and using it to suck up a little "patch" of cell membrane. The suction creates a high resistance giga-ohm seal on the patch which virtually eliminates the noise from other channels in the cell membrane. This allows you to focus only on the channels in the patch and ignore everything else. Of course it's possible that channels outside the patch can communicate with channels inside your patch through the interior of the cell. This is not a bad thing necessarily if you're interested in these matters, but if you want to eliminate that source of variability, all you have to do is rip the patch off the membrane. Now your patch is isolated from the cell, and what was the inside of the cell is now on the outside of your electrode. You can also have the outside of your patch be on the outside of your membrane, which is what I need for my experiments.

The reason I want to learn patch clamping, besides the fact that I'll need it for when I'm a postdoc, is that I want to do something called "single-channel recording." If you lower the expression of your channel of interest enough then the density of channels on the cell membrane will be low enough that on-occassion you'll pull a patch containing only a single channel. The recordings I've done until now involve millions of channels in the membrane and the current traces are smooth and continuous in nature. However, a single channels' currents are discrete in nature, that is a channel is either open and passing a specific level of current, or closed and passing no current - there is nothing in between. Single-channel recordings allow you to investigate matters that aren't amenable to many-channel recordings, such as the actual mechanism of channel activation.

What else? So, my 81 Tercel, Bopper, which I gave away to one of my friends 3 years ago, was given away to another one of my friends. He already has a 73 El Camino which he does all his own work and he's very psyched about Bopper. I got to drive her around a few days ago and we passed by some girls and he yelled out the window to them, "Hey check it out! An 81 Tercel!"

So on Friday, I got this email from our tech at work that there were plastic serological pipettes all over the floor in the lab. When I came in to work I discovered some more in my part of the lab. It was real weird, because nothing else was awry in the lab. Since it clearly looked like vandalism, my boss called the building maintenance guy over and they both agreed that while this was a relatively innocuous thing, we ought to still call in campus security and file a report. Long story short, we find out that the custodian had done it, because he was annoyed that we throw these things (long,pointy plastic tubes) in the trash where they can tear holes in the bag. So out of anger, he just removed them from the trash and threw them on the floor. My boss was really pissed off with this guy, because we had no idea what was on these pipettes - I even passed the Geiger counter over them to be sure they weren't radioactive. Since this was a big no-no, he fired the guy.

Yesterday around 1pm, I come in to work and discover that there is a HazMat van and a cop car outside. When I get to lab, it smells like something burnt and my boss is there talking with the same cop as the previous day. Turns out that our water bath in the tissue culture had dried out and the secondary thermostat had failed, and the entire thing had caught fire. A postdoc and grad student in our lab had just happened to be around at that time and smelled the smoke. The flames were already several feet high and charring the cabinets when they got to it, but the postdoc put the fire out with the extinguisher and the grad student pulled the fire alarm. If the fire had occurred only several hours earlier, it would have been much much worse. Our boss has warned us about this very thing several times in the past, but I guess we figured if the water level's just kept full then you can just leave the thing on. It's not just us, though, every one of my fellow grad students who I've relayed this story to told me they always keep their water baths on. Anyway, I've learned my lesson, I'm never letting a water bath run overnight again.

Why do they call being in debt, "in the red" and the converse, "in the black." In theory both colors could be viewed negatively. Red symbolizes blood, so being in the red, could mean you're bleeding, your (financial) life is ebbing away. But black can be viewed as a negative color as well. Nightime, sadness, depression. Just wondering.

Yeah, I know I'm terrible at this, but I'm seriously ALWAYS at work. Work consumes me!

Anyway, instead of an update of what I've been up to, which I'll still do (hopefully) -I want to list all the books I remember reading in 2006. Maybe some of you will find them interesting and maybe others of you can recommend some more reading to me. Anyway, here goes in reverse chronological order:

1) A Briefer History of Time - Stephen Hawking
Much easier to understand than it's predecessor and updated with recent findings.

2) Science on trial, the case for evolution - Douglas Futuyma
I found this in my department on the give-away book shelf. This was written more than 20 years ago, by a guy who was recently chair of our ecology and evolutionary biology department. It's very easy to follow and the points it raises about creationism are still pertinent.

3) Letter to a Christian Nation - Sam Harris
I heard about this guy in another book I read and recommend, "What we believe but cannot prove," a collection of vignettes by renowned scientists. When I read his vignette, I remembered that I had actually met him once. We both interviewed on the same weekend for the neuroscience program at UCLA. This ("Letter..") book is written as a letter to Christian fundamentalists, but it can also be taken as a criticism of organized religion as a whole. It's short and very entertaining.

4) In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz (Living on the brink of disaster in Mobutu's Congo) - Michela Wrong
I got this years ago, but I'm only getting around to finishing it now. The war in the Congo was huge and involved about 10 countries. It was known as Africa's world war. So learning about the Congo is a good way to start learning about that part of Africa.

5) Wicked - Gregory Maguire
As you probably know, it's the book the play's based on. The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Quite weird and unsettling. Reading it is something akin to being blindfolded, thrown in the back of a pickup truck and driven down a windy dirt road for hours before being tossed in the middle of nowhere. But I think that was the intended effect.

6) The Ends of the Earth (A journey to the frontiers of anarchy) - Robert Kaplan
My roommate in Berkeley left this behind when he moved out in 1998. I only got around to reading it now. This guy's a journalist who traveled to a lot of back alley parts of the world and just wrote down some of his thoughts. It's interesting reading something like this 10 years after it was written knowing what's happened to the world since.

7) Every Spy a Prince (history of Israeli intelligence) - Dan Raviv, Yossi Melman
Another old book (1990), but it's still really cool. It's interesting seeing how politics can affect intelligence and vice versa.

8) Understanding Iraq - William R. Polk
Short book covering it's history from prehistoric to now. It's very informative, even though the author is clearly against the war, so it's not exactly objective.

9)Six Days of War - Michael B. Oren
Very good history of the 6 day war seen from all sides, Israel, Arab, US, and Soviet Union.

10) Collapse - Jared Diamond
Pretty good, but I liked GGS more.

So, I finally did it. I voted Republican for the first time. And right after I was done I pulled out my lightsaber and slew two dozen Jedi children.

Michigan's election basically revolved around four main issues: 1) Stopping Canada and other states from dumping their trash in our landfills, 2) Sexual predators and how best to track them, 3) Outsourcing, and 4) Who's been shaking hands with George Bush? I thought it would be funny to combine them all into one ad.

"Dick Devos [gubernatorial candidate] is standing with Bush to hold Michigan back. (show picture of the two shaking hands - ooooh scandalous!) Devos' company incorporated itself in Bermuda to avoid paying Michigan tax and with the money he saved he paid off sexual predators to outsource our children to Canada in return for their trash! Is this the kind of Bush-loving, tax-saving, child-pimping, trash-hustler you want for governor? Jennifer Granholm [current governor] won't pimp your kids for Canadian trash. Born and raised in Ontario, she has hands-on experience with both Canadian trash and Michigan children, and she knows our children are worth at least twice as much in Canadian trash as Dick Devos sold them off for! And Jennifer Granholm has never shaken hands with our President and she never will - she'd rather handle trash or Michigan children. So, this November, the choice is clear. Vote for Jennifer Granholm and keep our children safe, our sexual predators under constant surveillance, and Canadian trash in Canada."

I was just thinking the other day about my other brain. It turns out that there are about a billion neurons in our digestive tract. That's 1% of the number in our brain. What's cool is that the digestive brain can function largely independently of the rest of the body. It receives only 10% of its input from our other brain and when the main input line, the vagus nerve, is cut, you can keep on digesting food almost as if nothing's happened. Why does the digestive brain need all this processing power? Well, it regulates the pumping and digestion of food through our intestines as well as the secretion of enzymes - a quite complex process apparently. I was wondering, how much of the processing power of the neurons in our digestive tracts is necessary and how much is redundant? That is, do you think there is enough spare processing power in the digestive brain to support conscious processes? Do you think that our intestines can think? I wonder if people who really know how to meditate can get in touch with their inner digestive stomach? I wonder what's it's thinking? What if my stomach brain has a totally different personality from my head brain? What if my stomach self thinks that my head self is an idiot, and has already figured out all the outstanding problems for my PhD? Hmmm, now that's food for thought.

This weekend I went to yet another retreat, this time for the MCDB (molecular, cell, developmental biology) department. This time I gave a talk. I was limited to 15 minutes, but it was even less because I wanted to reserve time for questions and for showing off pictures of all the lab members. But every time I practiced it went over 15 minutes. The guy who went before me is another grad student in the lab and he got cut off because he went over. So when I went up and talked pretty fast and managed to finish with several minutes left over. After the talks I played Bocci (sp?) Ball - first time. Later that evening we took on the professors in Trivial Pursuit and got our butts whupped. My boss is unbelievable at this game - although this being the latest edition he didn't do as well as on the earlier edition. That time, it was him against everybody else and he kicked butt; this time he had several students and faculty on his side. 

I got back today and then I went to a cider mill with Laura and her mom. We also went to the hardware store and bought lumber for a sukkah. Yeah, we're building a sukkah - I don't remember the last time I did that. You can read about all that stuff if you want at her blog (kalanit_ayelet) - there are pictures from the cider mill there as well.  

So, I was wondering something. You know how cement trucks have that big rotating tub in the back? Well, of course the reason it has to keep rotating is to keep the cement from solidifying, right? But then, what happens if a cement truck breaks down? Does it have to dump all it's cement on the street or does it just let it all harden and render the truck useless?

So, Friday was my birthday. Laura got me two shirts and a CD to help me learn Arabic. Her parents got me a gift card for Best Buy which I used to make our place wireless. I can finally use my desktop to surf the net, which I haven't been able to do since we moved here in May, on account that the cable doesn't reach all the way to the office where it is. My parents and my aunt gave me money, so now my financial state of affairs is rosier. 

This past weekend I went to a neuroscience retreat (hopefully my last). It was a lot of fun. I heard talks on epilepsy, deafness, neural regeneration, circadian rhythms, mental illness, the history of michigan neuroscience, brain recording, etc. etc. The most interesting talk was by my former neuroanatomy teacher. He works now for one of the exhibition companies that does those Bodies exhibition, where they exhibit real, preserved bodies. I didn't know what to think of it before, but after seeing the videos, I'm convinced it's a great idea. I can't think of any better way for people to learn about human biology and disease than by seeing these bodies up close and personal. 

After the talks, we had dinner and then my friend and I played a game of beer pong with the director of the neuroscience program and another professor. It was a very close game, but we won. I told the director, "Does this mean I can graduate now?" and he said, "How about 2 out of 3?"

That's about all.

Today, I start my 7th year of graduate school.  Yeah, that's right - SEVENTH!!

Where's my degree? 

What's a degree? 

Eh, whatever. Who cares. They have to let me go eventually, right? Right?! 

Anyway, what else is new. I just completed my second lab notebook - how symbolic is that? Hopefully, I won't get to see the end of this next notebook.

Ok, enough about work and on to happier things. Today I'm going with Laura to see a Tigers game. My friend gave me two tickets. The Tigers are actually doing very well this season. They've been horrible for the last 6 years I've been in grad school. 

I saw "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World." It's a shame that they took something with so much potential and just destroyed it. Absolutely horrible. Don't watch it.

That's about all.

Long time no update. Lessee. This week I had to borrow Laura's car because my brakes were leaking. I took it to the shop and they said the leak's in the ABS unit which would cost a grand to replace. They said it was just a slow leak and that I should keep an eye on it and top off the fluids when they get low. I think it's getting close to the point where I'm going to have to look for another car. Now my car has: a broken tape deck, a broken antenna, a broken speedometer, a banged up front end, a brake leak, and loose engine mounts. But it still gets 35 mpg! Not bad for a 93 Prizm. 

This week Laura's great uncle died. We were there in the hospital with him before he died. Today was his funeral. It was all the way in Battle Creek in a military cemetery. We got to see Laura's uncle and her cousins whom we haven't seen in more than a year - and her grandparents whom I haven't seen in 2 years. 

So, I was thinking this week about my politics and if I have really become a republican over the past few years. I mean, so what if I support the war in Iraq, does that really make me a Republican? So I thought to myself, "Can I name 10 things I dislike about Bush and the Republicans?" And I can!
1.  Environmental record, Kyoto, etc.
2.  Fiscally irresponsible (if you cut taxes, you ought to also cut spending)
3.  Embryonic stem cell research opposition
4.  Gay marriage opposition
5.  Signing statement controversy
6.  Domestic surveillance controversy
7.  Guantanomo bay
8.  Torture controversies
9.  Rendition of prisoners to secret prisons (5-9 irk me because of the separation of powers issue; maybe he should have the power to some or all of the above, but he never asked for congressional sanction)
10. Not raising the minimum wage 

Things I support:
1. Bush Doctrine
2. Invasion of Iraq
3. Israel policy (specifically, not pushing for a peace deal while Islamofascists are still in charge of the West Bank / Gaza)
4. Tax cuts
5. Drilling in the Arctic and off the coasts
6. War on Terror prosecution (no attacks on US soil in almost 5 years; they've got to be doing something right)
7. Attempted at least to fix Social Security

That's all I can come up with now. So it seems like it's 10-7 against the Republicans. However, I think that 1and 2 off the second list carry more weight than the other issues.

Quick update for the week. So I went up to the northern part of Michigan with Laura for vacation. We drove up to the top of the Leelenau Peninsula and checked out a lighthouse there. We hiked the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. We got cherry pie from Crystal Lake. We tried to avoid angry Christians yelling about Hell in downtown Traverse City. We played mini golf. Had a picnic on Lake Michigan and it was like 100 degrees. 

Took my car to the shop this week and between that and Traverse City and Lansing and providing for the two of us for the last two months that Laura hasn't been working - I'm in the red now. I confessed as much to a former postdoc of my lab who's here from Argentina for a month and he said, "Why don't you just go into debt then?" I'm like, "Huh?" and he says, "Sure, all my friends do it. They drink fine wine and buy nice cars and go into debt, what's the big deal?" I'm like, "No thanks."

Today, Laura and I had lunch with a rotating student in our lab and then we saw a Hindi movie. 

Laura was reading this paper yesterday by this Rabbi Gottlieb guy who got his PhD in mathematical logic. Basically his paper is an attempt to logically explain why everybody should be a Jew. I decided I'm man enough that I can challenge my lack of faith, so I read it. He makes some good points, but it definitely doesn't add up for me. On certain points such as the uniqueness of the Jewish survival for the past 3 millenia, he challenges the reader to come up with a naturalistic explanation. He builds some strawman arguments and knocks them down and then declares that there is no such explanation and that the only explanation is G-d. 

Even more ridiculous is his argument that the revelation of the Torah at Mt. Sinai really happened. Does this argument involve archaeological evidence? No! He basically says, to paraphrase, "1) A lot of people believe this, 2) This was an event that was witnessed by an entire nation, 3) There is no way a rumor of such of an event could evolve into a belief held by millions of Jews (and billions of Xians and Muslims) if it didn't actually happened. Ergo, it happened. He distinguishes this kind of event from other miracle stories such as Mohammed talking to G-d or, Jesus walking on water, since that was witnessed respectively, by only one person and a very few people. Whereas the revelation at Sinai was witnessed by an entire nation. 

So what? I can come up with a plausible scenario as to how such an event can become accepted even if it didn't happen. Let's say 100 years after Sinai supposedly happened, the Jews are living in Israel. And the government they're living under controls all the media and effectively runs a police state. The government declares orally and in writing that this event happened. Further, they arrest and kill those who are skeptical of this story. The remainder of the people will come to either: 1) Believe it, or 2) Not believe it, but keep that to themselves. So this story gets handed down from parents to kids and over time people forget about that police state, but remember the story. That's more plausible to me then the story actually being true. He even admits that a lot of Chinese people believe that what happened at Tianemen Square is that the students fired first and the police responded. Most Chinese don't have access to media outside of the control of the government, so they take this as fact. Is it so hard to believe that the same thing didn't occur in Ancient Israel?

I guess the point I want to make is that you can't prove religion. It's based on a gut feeling. Not believing in G-d is based on a gut feeling too. This guy is trying to pretend he's a scientist and apply the scientific method to his faith and he fails miserably.

Had my interview with the hearing guy yesterday. I went into it thinking that I'd feel really dumb at the end of it, but I actually felt smart. There were at least two occasions when I raised a point that the professor hadn't thought of. I guess I've actually learned something in the 6 years I've been here!

Today, Laura wanted to go to a Chabad service for Shabbat. Now I haven't been to Chabad for several years now (a lot of water under that bridge), but how can I say no to her, she's too adorable! So we went to Chabad, and I got called up to say the blessing for the Torah. I must've done such a good job that I was then asked to lead the prayer service. Laura really enjoyed that - and I kind of liked doing it as well. The rabbi asked if I was in town visiting and I said I've actually been here for several years already. Overall, it was very weird for me, but I'd be willing to go again.

Today we're travelling up north for some vacation time. We'll be in Traverse City, in the northern part of the state (about at the ring finger of the oven mit that is Michigan). We plan to do some canoeing, weather permitting and check out the Sleeping Bear Dunes.

I finally emailed two professors concerning a postdoc. My boss thinks I can finish up in a year. The question is will I be a doctor before my wedding or will I be writing my thesis on my honeymoon?

So one of the profs I'm interviewing with studies ion channels expressed in hair cells in the inner ear. The other studies locomotion and drug addiction in microscopic worms called nematodes. These worms are really cool because their entire nervous system is exactly the same between animals unlike higher animals. So you can do cool things like fry a single neuron with a laser and see how it affects a neural circuit and the animal's behavior.

In other news, today I found out that yet another lab has beat me to the punch and published on what I've been toiling away for the past 2 1/2 years. I feel like the marathon runner who comes in last place but still has to finish the final lap. I can take my time now - I have no one to beat now!

All this chaos in Israel compelled me last week to read a book on the history of Israel, which I've had since before my bar-mitzvah but I've never bothered reading. That propelled me into reading this other book on the history of the Israeli intelligence agencies. Awesome book. I learned that the father of Israel's nuclear program is none other than Shimon Peres. I never thought much of that guy, but now I have a deep respect for him. And you know you gave Israel the reactor that we used to develop the bomb (not that we have one)? France, yes that France!

So, I'm in Lansing right now, here to provide moral support while Laura takes the bar. That and vandalize the Michigan State campus, of course!

Today I did a lot of stuff, except work. Laura and I checked out the Ann Arbor Art Fair and bought some garden ornaments. We had a buffet lunch at an Indian restaurant. I reread some papers at work and helped a rotating student with her work. After work we went to an Israeli rally in a synagogue outside Detroit. There were over 4,000 people there. It was very moving. Here's some pictures.

Here's something I got from popt. It's a list of all the states I've been too.



create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

I had a rough week. See, I work my butt off, and I still seem to be falling behind. As of April, my boss and I thought that we were really close to writing a paper. My first first-author paper. I'd started writing it too. Then my boss went to this conference in Italy and discovered that two other labs are competing with me on this very thing and coming to opposite conclusions. So since then I've done all sorts of control experiments and I'm beginning to disbelieve all of my previous data. Now I think that the other labs are right, but it seems everytime I'm close to being done, something else comes up.

There's also stuff with my dad too that's upsetting me, but I don't want to get into that. Also, my fiancee is studying for her bar and stressing about it a lot, which is rubbing off on me a little.

Furthermore, I read way too much news for my own good, and it's been a depressing week. I have tons of family in Israel and I'm worried about them. I also feel bad for the poor Lebanese and Palestinians that have to suffer because of forces outside their control. As for Iraq, I think there's a certain level of stress associated with supporting a President and a war when both are so unpopular and not going that well, but one which you feel in your heart is a good move.

The good news though is that Laura (my fiancee) and I went to Ikea a few weeks ago - the first one to open in Michigan and we got a bunch of really cool and cheap furniture. Yesterday, I went to Mongolian BBQ with Laura and her mom, and the day before I went to a journal club and learned about research my friend is doing that could potentially cure deafness. Ok, that's about all for now.