cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

On a fall day, unremarkable by weather or holiday, the Cleric of Darwin set out on a Holy Mission. In preparation for the Mission, she and a colleague (sadly, not one of her brethren, but do not hold that against him, for he is truly a Worthy Individual) made an Arduous Journey from the Land of Cheese to the spiritually desolate Virginia. Though there were many trials and tribulations in the places of transport and temporary lodging, they successfully arrived at their destination.

After a too-brief period of rest, the Cleric, her companion, and several other co-employees of the Evil Empire made their way to the Gates, yea even into the Inner Sanctum, of The Enemy. The Enemy had been long engaged in a futile struggle with the Cleric. Many afternoons and nights had she gnashed her teeth and bemoaned her frustration with them to her Consort, her Brethren, anyone who would remain stationary long enough for her to speak her mind to them.

On this day, this auspicious day, the Enemy met their match in the Cleric. Deep in their stronghold, the Enemy put the Cleric to questioning. Long did they question her and detailed were their questions. Though they used many rhetorical tricks against her, they could not force her to forswear herself or offer a Confession of Inadequacy.

After this questioning, the traveling companion of the Cleric proved his mettle. Skillfully did he defend himself, yea even unto defending the ethos of the entire Evil Empire. He evaded the barbs and traps in the Enemy's conversation and did convince them of his expertise.

This chronicle has not yet completed. Refreshed by a lunch of trypophan-laced turkey and carrot cake, it is not yet clear whether the Cleric and her companion will continue in their bid to successfully escape the lair of the Enemy unscathed. If you have but a moment today, Gentle Reader, please offer a small prayer to the Almighty Darwin so that they may be buoyed by his Grace and use the Verbal Equivalents of the Chainsaw of Natural Selection, rather than the physical implementation of such.

Amen.

I'm so very glad that The Loom is back in Frequent Posting Mode. One of the things that I miss about graduate school is the constant barrage of new and exciting ideas, developments, experiments, and conclusions that happen in the science world. I had to teach myself Science as almost a foreign language and I miss translating in and out of it. This is why I like The Loom, The ESRC, and I depend on my still-in-grad-school friends for tidbits of amazing science.

I'm going to make a rather shocking confession at this point. Are you sitting down with a cold washcloth at the ready? Here it is: I THINK CREATIONISTS AND "INTELLIGENT" DESIGN PROPONENTS ARE DUMB!!! Yes, this must come as a complete surprise to everyone who's ever met me. I'll give you a moment.

Last night I slipped into Spiffy Science Fangirl mode when I read the article talking about an honest-to-Darwin transitional form from fish to tetrapod in the fossil record. I read that with great glee and had a few happy contemplations of the backpedaling and rhetorical nonsense that was about to be printed to "explain" how these new findings are propaganda or something else easily ignorable.

This article is even cooler. Now, I'm not just saying that because I'm more familiar with the techniques that are used in molecular genetics. Nor am I saying it because the article is written a bit more technically and it pinged all my Science Nerd receptors. No, I think that the concept of tracing a molecular receptor back through the evolutionary history, recreating the ancestral form, and then attempting to figure out the precise chain of random events that have led to what we see today is all sorts of nifty and something that I would love to work on someday.

Yes, it seems like a sketchy sort of scenario. "If this happened in just this way and then this other thing happened, why, then you could see this other thing and by random chance that's what we've ended up with today! See how simple it is?!" But, really, it's something that you don't actually have to take with that much faith. Yes, we're allowed to have both faith and knowledge of science. No, I'm not going to explode for saying "faith" and "science" in the same sentence and speaking positively of both. Just let it go.

The thing about random chance driving evolution is that we can't so much hit the Rewind button and see how it would play out. This is one of the things that ID folks have latched onto with an iron grip. They claim that everything happened so that humans would be created. No. Not true. We want it to be true, but it's not. But I'm seriously digressing.

The point I wanted to make about random chance and this article in particular is that the mutations mentioned in the lock-and-key mechanism started out as random, but are now standard. That's the driving force behind evolution. In many cases, the mutation will result in the death of the organism carrying it. Or that critter won't breed. Or they get buried and become part of the Burgess Shale. Or something. But when you look at a single protein, it becomes much simpler (and by "simple" I mean "requires years of work and lots of computer processing of statistics and more work") to understand how the process of random mutation can drive change.

Proteins are chains of amino acids. Amino acids are encoded by three DNA bases. If you change a single DNA base, the odds are good that you'll change the amino acid at that point. Sometimes, nothing happens - this is called a silent mutation. You have MANY silent mutations in your cells right now. I guarantee it. Sometimes something small gets changed that has a small effect on the protein's function, but it doesn't actively harm or help the organism as a whole.

Sometimes, though, a single base change in the DNA will completely change the activity of the protein. The wrong thing in the wrong place can have HUGE impacts on the function of the protein. Take sickle-cell anemia as an example. A single DNA base is changed. Suddenly, the red blood cells go from looking like jelly donuts to long, thin, flat plates that won't go through capillaries. A single point mutation, something that's utterly random, has sweeping effects.

Or you might have a mutation in the gene that controls alcohol metabolism. A single mutation there will either make it so that you get drunk exceptionally quickly or that your liver processes alcohol about 15 times faster than normal. If you mutate a single amino acid in the enzyme, you can force it to work faster or slower. Again, this is something that will happen randomly in a very small point and have huge effects.

And that's the point of evolution. A single individual will NEVER evolve. That's not how it works. It's a long series of little things that happen in the species as a whole over time. Some of these things are "bad", some are very "good". But just like the researchers in Oregon, we can take the baby steps back and piece together the clues that are still present in our proteins, bones, and physiologies. It's something that we CAN figure out. And that, to me, is the neatest thing of all.

*gets off soapbox*

The Almighty Darwin appears to have a rival.

As seen on my cool coworker's shirt today:
Stupidity is not a crime, so you're free to go.

*headdesk*
*facepalm*
*headdesk*

Stupidity may not be a crime, but in the church of the Almighty Darwin, it's blasphemy...

Woo-hoo! The Almighty Darwin has spoken. The cleric of Darwin rejoiced when reading the news on Nature: the gene pool is strengthened by the removal of the stupid. (If you have access to Nature Online, I really recommend reading the whole article. Here's the title and first line, anyway.)

Fertility fears hit Atkins diet
Would-be mothers who follow the Atkins diet may be reducing their chances of having a baby, warn researchers.

So, are my feelings toward the Atkins diet obvious yet? It's seriously one of the stupider fad diets to gain popular acceptance. Yes, you'll lose weight, but at what cost? I personally would rather not dip my kidneys in nail polish remover just so I can lose a couple pounds. Idiots.


Scorpio
Intense desires rule your actions today, and you're bound to make some passionate choices. You'll find that your energy is high, and that you are almost able to cast a spell on those you engage in conversation. (How is this different from normal?)

Daily Fortune
You will be fortunate in the opportunities presented to you.


I finally finished reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves. I laughed a lot. I also learned about some of the punctuation rules that I was never taught - mostly dealing with things like colons, semicolons, and dashes. While not as good of a style manual as The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, it retains enough nerdism to satiate the grammar nazi in me.

Here are a selection of quotes that made me laugh. This is not a complete list, and I recommend this book to anyone who cringes when they see something like, "wat r u up2 asl plz"

( god, I'm a nerd )

All things come to him who waits provided he knows what he is waiting for. - Woodrow Wilson

The above may be true. I am not certain, however, and I don't wish to get myself in trouble with either the Almighty Darwin or his superiors for hubris. That being said, I know exactly what it is that I'm waiting for this morning, and it's just not happening. I swear that I followed the protocol exactly! Why the hell won't the damn gel polymerize!?! Why?!? Oh my Darwin, why hast thou forsaken me?....

I found this article while reading Fark this morning. It made the linguist in me very unhappy. I started berating the poor computer, startling my coworkers, with expressions of discontent. English is a fucked-up language. All know this.

*infomercial announcer voice*But wait! That's not all! If you check CNN in the next 5 minutes, you'll see this fine gem. Great, just great.

So, it's really been a "grr..." sort of morning. I check my horoscope. I blink. I check to make sure I'm reading the right sign. I blink again. I read it out loud to make sure I'm not missing any words, "Scorpio: Emotions may get out of hand. Don't be the one to raise the volume. If anything, you should be a calming influence." Um, me? A calming influence? Somehow, I'm thinking that the stars are smoking the bad crack today...

May the Almighty Darwin smile upon me as I pray: let this experiment work the first time and data rain forth upon me. I promise to uphold the covenant between us through timely offering of sacrifices pleasing in your sight. I ask only that you look with favor upon me, your humble servant, in this endeavor. I am sorry for the times that I have sinned against you, when I have been arrogant and stubborn in my insistence that I can carry out research without your aid. Please forgive my past offenses and give your blessing to my current project. Amen.

IT WORKED!!! It worked, it worked *sings a happy tune* it worked, it worked!

*happy dance*

I finally got an experiment to work. All the times since we first noticed the phenomenon and tried to repeat it were miserable failures. Today it worked!! Praise be to the Almighty Darwin. He sees good science and smiles upon it!

...so now I just have to do the next 50 experiments that this one brings up, fix my committee, write that damn grant proposal, and continue on my way to a PhD....

but, for today, WOO-HOO!!!!