Dancing in the Rain(forest)

Happily, yesterday I managed to have a last bath in the gulf of Trieste. Gooood. A bit cold maybe, but gooood. I will miss this place. In fact, in the three years that I am here, I've never had the occasion to visit the Marine Reserve in the sea in front of the castle... what a pity. But if it's hot enough during this week, I'll see if it's still possible. Maybe I am given a last chance :-)

And don't miss the retort to the previous article! In a nutshell: we don't have evidence that the wizardy is an heritable monogenetic trait.

This is the first of a series of posts I will write about the strangest scientific articles you can find. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are completely crazy. I think that the idea behind this one is interesting, and the article is really short and clear, so check it out.

Do you want to know more about Mendelian genetics? Here you have the Harry Potter solution. Enjoy.

(Background music: Mike Oldfield, "Tubular Bells")
13 Oct 2005: beginning of the second course in exorcism. Place: Vatican, Athenaeum Pontificium Regina Apostolorum. No, it's not a joke. And Benedictus Decimus Sextus say that they are important for the Church, and they are doing a good job.
Ok.
I mean, the demonic possession is an important social issue, undoubtedly. Much more important than assisted procreation, sure. (for non-italians: some month ago the catholic church recommended their adepts not to vote at the referendum on the assisted procreation, with the aim of invalidate it. Only 20% of the italians showed up to vote.) Yeah. Who has never encountered a possessed one? I encounter dozens of 'em every day!
Obviously there are precise directives to distinguish a simple illness from a possession: the poor vict... the patient should at least speak in a language he/she has never learned (I can speak some ugro-finnic if my fever goes beyond a certain temperature...), show intolerance to religious symbols (I do...) and display some supernatural power (In this case why not apply for the 1000000$ J.Randy prize? It's a challenge: if you can demonstrate ANY supernatural power they give you the money, cash on the nail. I wonder why nobody has still retired the prize...).
Who has fixed these directives? Obvious! The Catholic Psychologist and Psychiatrists Association. I wonder if I have to expect a Buddhist Lawyer Association (they condemn you to prison in the next life?), a Muslim Engineers Professional Register (the bridge will stand if this is Allah's will), a Scientologists Taxi Drivers Guild ("meanwhile I drive, would you do a personality test?"), a Induist Journalist Literarian Circle ("what's the source of these news?" "Ganesh told me!"), an Animist House Cleaners Agency (they pray to the water they use to wash floors), etc...
Special guest at the exorcist's school: Father Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of the Vatican, the man who first said that Harry Potter was a satanist book, written to corrupt the souls of the children...
I mean, it's understandable that Amorth was enraged with K.K.Rowling. She stole him a very good idea, and has made a lot of money with it. The idea was about a school for magicians...

Ehm.. Just a slight disattention and I've deleted the Lisp system from my Mac... Lost the last 2 hours to reinstall it. Uff! All is working now, but I really have to pay some more attention. In fact I am also a bit puzzled: I was trying to take advantage of this situation by installing the latest release of SBCL (my Lisp implementation), but I found that it does not work well with SLIME (my Lisp interaction mode for Emacs) (yes, for many of you 'm talking chinese...). This is really curious, when I have time I should run some test. IF I will ever have time for this.

Mmmh.. Max Temp 18°C, Min Temp 11°C, Wind Gusts 44 Km/h... Seems that I were wrong... It's winter, indeed...
I unreasonably still hope for a week of sun. I want to bath again!

Finished, corrected, packed and finally delivered, with its beautiful 6 appendices. Stay tuned for the exciting (?) second run of corrections with the comments of the examiner. Now, I have to correct a couple of articles. Then, paperwork for the visa (american permits of stay). Then paperwork for the 75-hours job. Then...
Oh my, I want to do some research!!

And so is gone my hope for a last bath in the gulf of Trieste...
Summers so short and cold should be outlawed.

Is it possible that nobody knows the name of the sword gifted to Bastian in the Neverending Story? Don't look at me with puzzled faces. I know that there are no swords in the movie. The movie has only the same title and the same names of the characters, but it's completely different in all other aspects. And nobody knows that there is a sword and nobody knows his name. I've searched all the net. Has someone read the book?
I mean... It's a beautiful story: the sword is sealed with chains, and when there is the need the sword break the seals alone and jump in the hand of Bastian, and he cannot be defeated. Then the sword returns always in the scabbard, and the seal it's closed magically. But Bastian can use the sword only if she chooses to jump out. Until...
Oh, my. I guess I have to found a copy of the book.

Tonight there was the concert of the famous duo Demoliendo Tangos, in Muggia. Wonderful music, great atmosphere. It was difficult to dance, the floor was slippery. The best part: during the last song (in fact a beautiful medley) it start raining. Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.
Dancing a tango in the rain. Life is made to enjoy such moments.

Only 45 bibliography entries so far. Tomorrow I will surf the archives in search of some citable paper. Wish me good luck! (How I hates bibliographies!!...)

Just finished the most difficult part of the thesis. I mean, the acknowledgements. Indeed, it's the part that you have studied the least. Going for serious thing, now. I still miss a good quote for the beginning of Chap.3. This could take all night. Ok, first coffee, then...

It was a sunny afternoon in the late summer 2005 (i.e. today) and I was writing peacefully the conclusions of my PhD thesis in my cozy office on my little PowerBook G4. At a certain point I inserted an innocent-looking CD of mp3's in the Mac, and it suddenly turned off. Instantly. Black screen. Fan stopped. No sign of life whatsoever. Ok, don't panic (first rule for a good galaxy hitchhiker), try to restart. No answer. None. Don't panic, you've done a backup just few hours ago. Try again to restart. Niet, nada, nothing. Take out the battery, put it in again, retry to re-restart. Guess? Nothing. Ok, Don't panic. It begins to be difficult. Not panicking, I mean. Try to take out the murderous CD. Ops, the cd-rom has no mechanical part. Little panicking. Ok, more than little. In fact a massive crisis of abstinence from endorphins. Sweat. Panting. Tachicardy. Take the dead Mac and do what any good physician do when no else work. Shake it with all your force. Maybe crying, it works better. A little tiny part of the cd appears from the cd-rom. Take it out. Ok. I have the bullet, I mean, the cd out of the body, I mean... Ok. Ok. Ok... Turn on the Mac. It starts. Check for damage. Nothing evident. Put the cd inside again (I'm a physicist, I have to repeat experiments...). It works. Perfectly. Breath in... breath out... breath in... breath out...
And the third minute he resurrected from the deads. My savior!
Good time for a pause. Hell is round the corner. Take it easy.

An interesting but not nice at all effect of "extended phenotype" (see the omonymous book of R.Dawkins) is described in this and this posts. It appears that the Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite of cats and rats, can manipulate the behavior of its hosts. Rats infected by it, for instance, lose fear of the smell of the cats (the parasite can reproduce only inside cats, and a cat can be infected by eating an infected rat). Until now, nothing to be worried about. But the parasite can infect also humans, and it seems that infected human suffer the alteration of some psychological traits. I refer to the links above for the details. The contagion cat-to-human is mediated by meat touched by the cat, see here for details.
From a scientific point of view this is overly interesting. But the possibility of being manipulated by a microorganism makes me paranoid. Even because 30%-60% of the world population is estimated to be infected.

I was reading some blog post about the "debate" between scientists and creationist in USA (thanks, oh great FSM, blessed be his Noodly Appendage, that here in Italy creationist are in total minorance). Obviously not all religious people are creationists (as one of my christian friends point out, the catholic church recognise officially that there are no contradictions between their beliefs and the the scientific theories of evolution. I have still some doubt about this statement, but I recognise officially that I'm thick-headed, and my policy has always been that 'if they are not my enemies then they are my friends'), in fact I don't know personally any creationist (thanks to the Invisible Pink Unicorn, May Her Holy Hooves Never Be Shod). So this post is not about religious people, but about non-thinking people who really belives earth 6000 yr old, with an error of minutes. (As a comment, you can read the first 2 pages of "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gailman, if you can find it)
In fact all this querelle in USA reminded me of a couple of quotes in my quote collection. Amazingly, the first one come from the sunny California.

(The New York Times, October 22, 1985)

(Richard Dawkins)

Having an interest in biology allows me to find some neat-o thingies. I'm quoting literally from this post of this blog:
"The experiments also revealed a rather surprising effect: both men and women found it easier to have an orgasm when they kept their socks on. Draughts in the scanning room left couples complaining of "literally cold feet", and providing a pair of socks allowed 80 per cent rather than 50 per cent to reach a climax while their brains were scanned."
Ever been in bed with your girlfriend, when she suddenly says: "please, love, could you warm my feet" and then, before you can say anything, she places her frozen appendices on your thigh/belly? Should we consider it a sexual signal? "I'm doing it only because I want you, and such cold feet are really putting me down"?
Don't expect to walk away unpunished and with warm feet, girls. Revenge is calling...

This post don't even need any comment. If the trend that I see in research stay like that, the best minds will leave academic jobs for better salaried ones. This can be a lose-lose situation. But anyway who cares? With the majority of the population worring only about the color of the last model of mobile phone, or the last love affair of [insert starlet name here]. They should not call us "scientists", this is vague and inaccurate. Call us "monks". Ok, going for a slice of pizza, hope this can arginate the tide of sadness that I feel.

Lost many sleeping hours for the restyling of this blog. I find that the result is fairly good, and also the readability is not bad (though probably something more can be done about it...). Suggestion for improving are welcome. Volunteers are also welcome. Gifts and money will be appreciated too. :-)