A Rant

Okay. I suck. I know. I haven't really posted anything of sustenance in a while. I'm pooped. All I have been doing is making, thinking, eating sandwiches. I am glad I am creative with them. Sheesh! I finally did get a half day off yesterday and got to see some of "real" Florida. It was nice. It rained a bit though. Oh wells. I did get to see something besides the inside of the shop and the drive to Mom's. I am really excited though.... Hubby comes on Thursday!!! Woohoo! I get to see him for a few days. He leaves again on Sunday, but I am still so happy to see him. It has been 3 LOOONNNGGGG weeks. Even though we talk like 10 times a day, we are both still very excited. I won't get out of the shop much, but at least I get to hang out with him. Sorry this was a useless post. It's just nice to get it out of my system.

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Pseudo-Hiatus!

Ok ok... I have been really trying hard to avoid this word, but it appears I may have to be honest with all my bloggy buddies. The next 2 weeks are going to be a big (BIG) struggle for me. I really have been trying to post more, but it is hard and there is a really good reason for it. I can't divulge the details right now, but it's a really REALLY dramatic change and even though it has nothing to do with the blog, it is still having a serious affect on my time. Yes, I know I still have time to go to the beach, but that is different. That is super valuable Nick and Mimi time. I hope you all forgive me for being a slacker... especially on the cusp of my one year bloggiversary.

By the way, I will have something exciting planned for May 3rd. Potspoon!'s birthday will be celebrated, even if nothing else goes up. I will still post (I hope), but sporadically. And my next COPD post is almost done. Again, I just really want to get all the info in there and with not too much time I am going between an elementary book and a post-doctoral dissertaion in my writing style. Not good. Ay, me.

Pretty much (as if it weren't obvious), my posting frequency will be erratic. The posts will seem short. It's only temporary.

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Lack of Latino Education

Okay, I was going to do my post on fossilized fish brains, but then I saw this article and I had to post it. I don't really know what to post, but mostly I am disheartened with the fact that so many Mexican-American students have perceived barriers in their minds that stop them from pursuing a higher education. Note to all, I am an Hispanic-American, but not of Mexican descent, but this article still seems to ring true for so many. Only 57% percent of Mexican-American Students graduate high school and even fewer (a piddly 11%) go to college. The cause for this? Many students think they will not have the same opportunities as most. This is horrible, but I can't say I am not guilty of this same train of thought occasionally.

Having dealt with prejudice first hand (believe it or not, racism and prejudice are still alive in many parts of the country) I understand why you wouldn't have the self esteem to continue. When people assume you can't speak English because you have a weird first name even though you went to American schools your entire life and you have had people tell you that Hispanics are only good for digging ditches and picking tomatoes... you get a little disillusioned. Never mind the fact that until they KNEW what your first name was, you were considered so bright and so polite. It's hard being brought up to believe that just because of your name, people may not even interview you because of preconceived notions of the Hispanic populous. I'm brown and I'm female... I'm really out of luck now...

This is horrible and I cannot even believe that here we are in the 21st century and we are still bringing each other down just because of our race/ethnicity/cultural upbringing. I thought I lived in America. You know, equal opportunity for all and all those other stupid clichés. This study makes me realize that it isn't just me making a big deal out of it. This really is going on. I have so much more to say, but I am afraid I may scare off my normal readers.

Sorry about the rant. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

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Sunburn... ow!

Yesterday was a beach day. Today...ow. Well, let's just say that even with SPF 45 reapplied liberally, when you live at 18 degrees North latitude, sometimes the sun is a bit intense. Luckily, my Latin gene pool allows me to still look tan and not like a tomato even though it still hurts a bit. In the end it was a productive day, so not too bad for February.

So what causes sunburn anyway? Ah yes, there is always a reference to science! Sunburn is caused by UV light. If your body cannot produce enough melanin (pigment that acts like nature's sunscreen), you burn. A pale person can burn in 15 minutes while a dark person can take hours to burn.

Well, I was out for hours and I'm somewhere in the middle. And it burns. The worst of it is the major effects won't be noticeable till 24 hours after the exposure. Pretty much means I'm still cooking. I have already taken a few cool showers (I have a cistern so please don't gripe about water conservation) and applied liberal amounts of Aloe vera to my poor shoulders. I knew I kept that smelly succulent around for something.

Do you have any sun-damage horror stories?

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A Little Late on the Uptake

Remember the weird little invertebrate I posted about in January? The new species of carnivorous sea squirt was written about yesterday in ScienceDaily. I feel sad because this is where I get my inspiration for a lot of my posts. I hope this isn't going to be a usual thing. I really enjoy their site for articles, but if I am finding out about these things from other sources much earlier, I may have to rethink using them as a source. Obviously I get a lot of the same news from other places... However, some of those other places are oddly slow for certain things as well. Discovery News did an article yesterday about the woes of tequila. Sound familiar? Obviously these people need to read their inboxes a bit sooner if little blogs the net over are posting news more timely than the big papa sites. Or maybe I am being persnickety today and need to calm down. Today is a beautiful day. I should go outside and check my tomatoes. Sorry about the grumbles.

Update: 3:33 pm

ScienceDaily just (as in a few hours ago) posted about olive oil cancer research done by Catalonian Institute of Oncology and the University of Granada... since they were my source for my other olive articles about the exact same thing, I can only assume they are recycling articles for better readership.

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More on Synesthesia

If you don't recall, a while ago I did a post on people who see color for words, smell days of the week, etc. This "condition" (another word I hate because it doesn't seem that serious to me) is called synesthesia and it appears that scientists are closer to figuring out what exactly causes it. It is known to run in families but the genetics behind it aren't understood.

Recently, scientists think they have found the genes linked to this. Why am I posting such a little blurb?

I suppose this goes back to earlier posts I have done about genetics. Mostly they were about tampering with bacteria and making beer good for you. One post was a Debate! about designer babies.

Fig 1. There is nothing wrong with having different genes than everything around you. You just stand out a bit more.

I have a hard time with certain genetic ventures. I am not a big fan of certain types of bioengineering. Some of the stuff is ok. I can deal with more nutritious rice. Designer babies and finding a "cure" for something that isn't really debilitating (like synesthesia) bothers me. I say this because as someone who is dubbed as having a "disorder," I honestly used to have days where I had dreams of nothing more than never having another mood swing again.

I have longed for the days when there would be a magic pill to fix me so that I could finish school— without kidney or liver problems. However, the more soul-searching I do, the more I realize that without my condition/disorder/whatever I would not be the nutty, artistic, music playing, science geek that I am today. Yes, at times I consider my disorder debilitating and in those instances I turn to drugs (prescribed of course)— but do I want it to go away? Would I have the same sense of adventure? Same need to explore? Same insatiable curiosity? Same passion? Probably not! Would I feel guilty about passing on this genetic trait to a child? ABSOLUTELY, but that is my call to make, not anyone else's.

Fig 2. Rawr! I needed to vent

I didn't mean to turn this into a rant, but sometimes I think that while the science is good, the wording and reasoning why is flawed. I know that studying the genetics behind this will give us better insight to how we function as the amazing machine we are and this will lead to insight on other things that may not have otherwise even been discovered... I just don't want to alter my genes to fit in.

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Misinforming the Masses

Not that I do an excellent job with my posts or anything, but my local newspaper is a Pulitzer Prize winning paper, so I expect better from them. I was doing laundry and picked up an old paper at the laundromat. The article I started reading was about sea turtles in the Virgin Islands. I understand that it is written for the common "non-science-geek" person to understand, but just because they aren't scientists doesn't mean you omit information! There was one instance where they mentioned that the green turtle hangs out in seaweed. Ok. Sounds nice. But if the point of the article is to educate people, tell them the truth. They don't hang out in seaweed, they hang out in "turtle grass" ...a grass! Sure I could get even more technical and mention that in specific it is Thallassium species that they prefer, but it is NOT just seaweed. Argh. This is just one example of many that really upset me. I think I got upset because I had just mentioned to my husband earlier in the week that the Daily News really needed a science writer. This proves my point.

To make matters worse, there was an article done about my job, but they couldn't even quote us right. It mentions that Carmen said that about 10-20 local butterflies emerge from their coocoons from our breeding program a day. Cocoons?!?!?!? Carmen or ANYONE who works there would NEVER say cocoons unless we were talking about the few moth species we have here. We say chrysalis or pupae. Did Carmen maybe have a slip of the tounge? No way. This is a woman who wanted to scratch out the word cocoon from a book in our gift shop for kids. It was Diego and the Blue Morpho or something and shows kids that the morpho has a cocoon. NOT A COCOON.

I am sorry Daily News, but if you are going to try to teach your readers about science, how about you find a REAL science writer!

ARGH AGAIN!

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