In honor of pollen, a haiku:

Promiscuous plants
Propelling plumes of pollen
Promised potential

That last line was suggested via by new friend on Twitter, @amfulay… thx! Other suggestions were “Perturbed Proboscis” from @stalwartEd and “Pale Powdery Paint” by @binghypo. Leave your own suggestions in the comments.

I know, I know, some of our friends elsewhere in the world are saying that they have allergies and pollen too, surely our NC event can’t be that bad. Ha! Here are some pictures to show a typical day during pollen season.

The wetlands of the NC Museum of Life and Science had a thick coating of pollen floating on the surface. With a little help from the wind and the ducks, beautiful swirls of pale yellow began to appear on the watery canvas.

Not snow, nor volcanic ash, but pollen deep enough to reveal the paths of those who visited the lemurs.

A neighborhood car with its daily (!) coating of powdery pollen.

After you take a look, tell me about your own office space. What makes it “yours”?

Here’s what we’ve been up to while I’m trying to do all that reading. Spending time at the awesome Duke Cancer Center. Mark just finished 168 pills of chemo (his “weapons of ass destruction”) and 28 days of almost daily radiation. Some folks are curious about how all this works. So here are some links to help you understand what has been going on in Mark’s body, and what “radiation” is all about. It’s really pretty cool.

click the image to see the video (not able to embed in my blog)

If you are really curious (and I know a few scientists in my family who are), you can download the 43-page PDF with all the details, including the detailed mechanism of action, a diagram of the molecular structure and the metabolic pathway of capecitabine to 5-FU (and the requisite mind-numbing list of potential side-effects). Come on, you know you want to read it. Download it here.

In addition to the chemo, Mark has had radiation treatment. Here’s an animation of how the Clinac linear accelerator works. If you are really interested in the physics, read here, here, and here or you can email me. But I think it is pretty cool that there is a linear accelerator in there! This first animation shows the target area as the head region. But it still gives you an idea of how the machine turns. You can’t actually see the rays, this animation just demonstrates how it works.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here is an actual video of a machine (without a patient). The machine turns so easily, even though it is very large.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s Mark, waiting for positioning.

Here’s the “command central” for the technicians:

The software is programmed to open the multileaf collimater fingers in a pattern that allows the beam to leave the machine in a specific shape that the oncologist has programmed for Mark’s body and tumor. On the left you see the photo of the shape the machine is opening to (the gold sections are the collimator fingers that slide in and out, the white area is the open section which shapes the beam). On the right you see the shape of the beam superimposed on Mark’s radio-images (from the on-board imaging apparatus).

Note the cute little figure that reminds the technicians which way the image is facing. See the red nose? So, this setup is for the radiation to enter from the patient’s right side.
The technicians line up the image of Mark on the bed of the machine, with a CT scan (with contrast) taken at the beginning of the treatment, and which was used to set up the software. When everything is lined up, they give him the ol’ zap. Well, actually, he gets the radiation three times… once from each side, and once from above. The positioning actually takes longer than the dose of radiation.

Our machine was the “Green Machine” (there is are four machines, all different colors). The machines aren’t actually painted different colors, it’s just a way to keep everything organized and easy to identify. The Green Team of Eddie and Jen was awesome. Here we are with them on “graduation” day.

Duke’s Rad Onc department is really and truly RAD!!!!

Now, Mark gets 4 weeks off until a new round of CT/PET scans and consultation with the Medical Oncologist, Radiation Oncologist, and most importantly, the Surgical Oncologist. At this point they will decide when he will have his surgery to remove the cancer. After that surgery, he’ll have some more chemo. The type and duration will depend on how things go with the surgery. At least, that’s the plan for now! Stay tuned for updates.

Jeff Houck, a reporter for the Tampa Tribune suggested an award for best quote of the year be given to Richard Fisher (director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division) for a response he made when being interviewed by NPR (October 2009) about the heliosphere (the ribbon of hydrogen that surrounds our solar system): “We thought we knew everything about everything, and it turned out that there were unknown unknowns.”

Houck rephrased this as: “We don’t know what we don’t know until we know that we don’t know it.”

Houck went on to cull 50 items of discovery from 2009 and list them for us to be amazed by what we’ve learned this year and to remind us that there is a lot we still don’t know. I’m copying the list here, since I don’t know how long it will be accessible on the AT&T news site (where I located it, via Mark Traphagen’s HT). [UPDATE: Jeff provided the link to the original article in the comments, click here to read it. It's worth the trip because he includes links to the sources of his choices. Also, the Tampa Tribune requested that I not include the entire list, so I have now edited out a significant number of items. Check the original article for the entire list.]

This list also makes me wonder about the folks who chose to study these things. And, here’s to the PhD students and Post-docs who are doing so much of the research and went without sleep (surviving on coffee and leftover colloquium food) for days and months and years to bring this knowledge to us!

I particularly like #10.

1. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
2. Grumpy people think more clearly because negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking.
3. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
4. Analysis of Greenland ice samples shows Europe froze solid in less than 12 months 12,800 years ago, partly due to a slowdown of the Gulf Stream. Once triggered, the cold persisted for 1,300 years.
5. One mutated gene is the reason humans have language, and chimpanzees, our closest relative, do not.
6. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
7. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
8. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
9. Babies pick up their parents’ accents from the womb, and infants are born crying in their native dialect. Researchers found that French newborns cry in a rising French accent, and German babies cry with a characteristic falling inflection.
10. Surfing the Internet may help delay dementia because it creates stimulation that exercises portions of the brain.
11. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
12. Scientists have discovered how to scan brain activity and convert what people are seeing or remembering into crude video images.
13. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
14. Hormones that signal whether whales are pregnant, lactating or in the mood to mate have been extracted from whales’ lung mucus, captured by dangling nylon stockings from a pole over their blowholes as they surface to breathe. (This method could allow scientists to study whales without having to slaughter them.)
15. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
16. The blue morpho butterfly, which lives in Central and South America, has tiny ears on its wings and can distinguish between high- and low-pitch sounds. The butterfly may use its ears to listen for nearby predatory birds.
17. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
18. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
19. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
20. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
21. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
22. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
23. A massive, nearly invisible ring of ice and dust particles surrounds Saturn. The ring’s entire volume can hold 1 billion Earths.
24. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
25. Seven new glow-in-the-dark mushroom species have been discovered, increasing the number of known luminescent fungi species from 64 to 71. The fungi, discovered in Belize, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia and Puerto Rico, glow constantly, emitting a bright, yellowish-green light.
26. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
27. ——————-
28. Communities of 850 species of previously undiscovered insects, small crustaceans, spiders, worms and other creatures were found living in underground water, caves and micro-caverns across Australia.
29. The human body emits a glow that is 1,000 times less than what our eyes can detect.
30. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
31. Cockroaches hold their breath for five to seven minutes at a time through a respiratory system that delivers oxygen directly to cells from air-filled tubes. One reason they hold their breath may be to prevent their bodies from getting too much oxygen, which could be toxic to them.
32. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
33. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
34. Nearly all animals emit the same stench when they die, and have done so for more than 400 million years.
35. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
36. A new species of giant rat was discovered in a remote rainforest in Papua New Guinea. At 32.2 inches from nose to tail and 3.3 pounds, it’s thought to be one of the largest rats ever found.
37. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
38. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
39. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
40. The speed of U.S Internet broadband lags far behind other industrial nations, including Japan, Finland, South Korea, France and Canada.
41. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
42. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
43. A group of deep sea worms dubbed “green bombers” are capable of casting off appendages that glow a brilliant green once detached from their bodies. The tactic is believed to be used by the worms to confuse attackers.
44. A flesh-eating pitcher plant that grows more than 4 feet long can swallow and devour rats that are lured into its slipperlike mouth to drown or die of exhaustion before being slowly dissolved by digestive enzymes.
45. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
46. More than 350 new animal species were discovered in the eastern Himalayas, including the world’s smallest deer and a flying frog.
47. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
48. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
49. - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
50. Watermelon is more efficient at rehydrating our bodies than drinking water. It contains 92 percent water and essential rehydration salts.

Greetings!
On the way to work this morning I heard a report on consumers having a stand-off with retailers about the level of discounts expected. Consumers are refusing to buy items until a 50% if not 70% discount is offered. Forgive me. I just can’t stay quiet on this issue. I can understand if you want to skip this newsletter. Honestly, I am speechless and saddened. I am sympathetic to the tight financial times we are in. I am not a rich person. Far from it. This is rather about how I value my fellow man and planet. This about our obsession for “something for nothing” about turning a blind eye to what is ultimately exploitation and degradation. This happens on all levels: global (China vs USA) and local (WalMart vs mom & pop stores). I think discounting actually further impoverishes people. Rather than hearing my thoughts, please consider the following article.

Why a Low Price Isn’t Always a Good Deal
Interview With Ellen Ruppel Shell, author of Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture

By: Krista Walton | Source: AARP Bulletin Today | July 9, 2009

“All you can eat!” “Buy one, get one free!” “Thirty percent off everything in stock!” “Forty-eight-hour sale!”

Shop. Shop. Shop. Americans march to sales pitches. Many of those scurrying to be first in line don’t question whether they’re getting a good deal. And if they are getting a good deal, at what cost to others does it come?

Ellen Ruppel Shell is a self-described cheapskate. But one purchase-three pairs of tube socks for $5-made her begin investigating how anything could sell at such an incredibly low price. The result is her new book, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture [read an excerpt from Cheap]. Shell, a correspondent for The Atlantic and author of The Hungry Gene, not only uncovered dire consequences for consumers and workers in this country and around the world but also adopted a whole new approach in her own shopping. To start with, she now buys free-range organic eggs.

Shell spoke with AARP Bulletin Today about why $5 for tube socks isn’t such a great deal after all.
Q. What’s more important to a shopper-price or product?
A. Price is the biggest trigger, not the product itself. That’s what is really remarkable: We love the deal, we cherish the deal, we go for the deal, and often we care much less about the purchase itself. Studies have shown that there are actual psychological changes in our brain when we buy something. We get the biggest jolt from making the actual deal, and often when we bring that product home, we’re much less happy either with it or with the ownership of it.
Q. How did the price of tube socks make you question the high cost of discount culture?
A. I was buying tube socks for my kids at a discount store, and it just freaked me out that I could get three pairs of tube socks from China for $5. What does it mean when making fibers, producing socks with them, shipping the socks all the way from China, and then putting them out on the store floor-where the store space costs money and the employees checking you out at the register need to be paid-adds up to $5 for three pairs? How could these prices be so very, very low?
Q. Isn’t cheap good?
A. Well, no one wants to pay more money. I mean, I’m the biggest cheapskate that walked the earth. When I say that I adore getting free parking, I mean it! But I realized I was making a mistake by cruising for half an hour to find free parking. I was wasting gas and wasting my time. We really devalue our time. Marketers count on the fact that we’ll devalue our time.
Consider how long you spend driving to a discount store-which in the case of places like IKEA is an average of 50 miles. And then add the time you might spend assembling what you bought. And the fact that you got something that you probably won’t be able to pass down to anyone. All of that should be added to the cost of your purchase.
Q. Do really low prices come with social consequences?
A. Absolutely. I went to China twice while writing this book, and the conditions for workers there are not ideal, to say the least. I visited Taizhou, an hour’s flight from Shanghai, where thanks to low-cost production the air quality was so bad my eyes stung the minute I got off the plane. My guide, a high school teacher, showed me polluted ponds where frogs, mutated by the toxic metals and chemicals pouring into the water, had only one leg. In those same ponds, women washed clothes and kids played. Those kids also worked dismantling high-tech devices shipped in from the United States, Japan and elsewhere-computers, cell phones, et cetera-which they “mined” for metal. One way to do this was to use an acid bath to leach out the gold from, say, a pile of cell phones, resulting in extremely toxic fumes.
Q. What do American companies do about it?
A. While I was in Shanghai, I tried to get in touch with the American Chamber of Commerce [AmCham] to discuss their view on workers’ rights. They declined to get back to me, but AmCham-which represents Nike, Intel, Microsoft and Wal-Mart, among many other companies-lobbied assiduously against regulations that would enforce worker protections. For example, one regulation would guarantee workers a binding agreement to ensure timely payment at a minimum rate. AmCham threatened to curtail investment and lay off workers in China if reforms were instated.
Q. Has discount culture contributed to the current economic crisis in this country?
A. Well, we live in a culture that insists that we can have it our way immediately, at all times, whatever it is we want. This culture encourages consumption, and low prices have made everything seem within our reach. That perception got us deeply in debt. Over 60 percent of us own houses, and we used them as piggy banks, taking out loans based on the value of our house or the projected value, all fueled by the idea that we needed objects and we could buy them cheaply if we just had a little more money.
Q. Was income increasing to finance greater consumption or repay new loans?
A. By 2008, the inflation-adjusted median family income had dropped by almost $1,200 from the 1970s. At the same time, spending increased by over $4,600, while corporate profits doubled. How is it possible that our inflation-adjusted incomes are going down, but we’re spending more and corporate profits are doubling?
Q. What’s the answer?
A. Part of that is that while consumer goods got cheaper, we were neglecting our wages and benefits. I can’t really emphasize that enough. What helped keep those wages and benefits low without us revolting and protesting was the decline in prices of consumer goods. We could get T-shirts for really cheap, so it seemed like everything was OK, when in actuality the price of many of the things we must buy, like education and health care, soared. We have these very enormous and growing costs on big purchases, and we’ve kind of been distracted by the low costs of small purchases.
Q. But isn’t high-quality stuff often priced beyond the reach of most people?
A. There’s this false dichotomy between quality and price, the idea being that you have to pay a very high price for quality. That wasn’t the case 30 years ago. You weren’t necessarily looking for the lowest price, but you’d get quality for a reasonable price, and you’d also get reasonable service at many places. Once, you could go to a mid-priced store and be served by knowledgeable sales people. You would stand in the dressing room and they’d bring you stuff, and they’d tell you what they thought-whether you liked it or not!
Q. Is that impossible today?
A. We could demand that kind of service for a moderate price, but we’ve been trained to assume that that level of service has to come with a high price. Our expectations have been lowered. Brent Hull, a Texas-based architectural designer [quoted] in the book, said to me, “We don’t think we deserve quality anymore. We think that’s only for rich people.” There’s some truth to that.
Q. How can we be smarter shoppers?
A. Well, my book isn’t a consumer’s guide, but I can tell you how writing it helped me. I completely changed the way I shop. I try to think first about what it is I want in a product, whether it’s a sweater or a chicken or a bicycle. What is it that I value? What do I want? Do I want this thing to last? Do I care? Am I thinking in terms of the environment when I buy this thing? Sometimes I am and sometimes I’m not. I’m not perfect.
I try to think about all those things before I look at the price. Then if I look at the price and it’s more than I want to spend, I rethink the purchase. Do I really need this thing? If I can’t buy something that’s of quality, maybe I should wait until I’ve saved enough to buy it.
Now, for example, when I buy eggs, I buy the free-range organic eggs. They are more expensive than the regular eggs, but only by a little, and for some people that would be a deal breaker. For me, I can afford it.
Q. What kinds of things should we be buying?
A. I would like people to challenge their assumptions about what gives them value in life. What gives them a kick? What do they really enjoy? And what do they think it is worth to them? People should also think about whether they’re being taken advantage of by this system. Are they getting what they want in terms of their benefits and pay? Are they feeding into the sweatshop mentality? If people were really informed about the personal consequences and the consequences for the world community because of these extremely low prices, they may think twice.

Here is another interesting article to read:
Why Big Shopping Bargains Are Bad News For America
Like I always say, it’s not just about what people deserve, but about what kind of person I want to be. I want to buy local as much as possible and pay honest and ethical prices for the things I have.

Sincerely, Jill
Jill DiMauro
Proteus Bicycles

I’ve started to think twice about what food I buy and where I buy it (we participate in a meat-buying club with a local farmer and buy as much as we can from the Farmers’ Market). Now I need to broaden my thinking to question just how a store can sell a full-sized, nicely knitted, Christmas stocking for just a dollar.

If you live near College Park, MD, stop by and tell Jill I said, “Hi!” You will find some terrific bicycles, top-notch mechanics, and a few friends.

Just a few days after returning home from SBL, my husband was diagnosed with colon cancer (T3). These things often come as a surprise, but we knew that because of family history, this was always a risk for Mark. Fortunately, we live just down the road (literally) from Duke and they have one of the best cancer centers in the US. Mark will be undergoing daily radiation for 5 1/2 weeks, along with chemotherapy to target the tumor and make it more sensitive to the radiation. After a break from the radiation, he will undergo surgery to remove the section of his colon with the cancer. So far there is no indication that the cancer has spread to lymph nodes. We are very grateful that we will be able to travel, as planned, for Christmas to see friends and family and that the radiation treatment won’t have to begin until January 4.

I’m not going to journal about this on my blog. I won’t be giving updates or “processing” here. If you are so inclined, you can check out the Facebook group that Mark is keeping updated with details (and some pretty hilarious gallows humor).

This post was just the easiest way to let my readers know that the next few months will probably hold some uncertainty for my work, research and writing. But I won’t be completely offline and I’m still working on projects. Life goes on, and both Mark and I know that we want to keep moving forward with projects, life, and family even as we have some unwelcomed doctors’ appointments on the calendar for the next few months. We do appreciate the care and encouragement that friends have shared with us.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled blog.

Hanukkah is probably the Jewish holiday with which non-Jews are most familiar. While it is celebrated close to Christmas, it historically predates Christmas and is a very different celebration.

OK, so, we need to get some background reading for the history behind Chanukah/Hanukkah. For this, we’ll first look to 1 Maccabees. The book is considered Deuterocanonical scripture by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, while the Protestant tradition and modern-day Judaism hold it as an Apocryphal book. In any case, the events recounted are corroborated by other historical records. This book was originally written in Hebrew–we know this because of the Hebrew idioms that are translated in the text, although we don’t have any original manuscripts still in existence. What we do have are Greek manuscripts and translations. So, let’s look at an English translation (if you want Greek, let me know).

Hanukkah celebrates the victory of the Maccabees over the Syrian-Greek rulers of Jerusalem and (most importantly) the subsequent re-dedication of the Temple in 165 B.C.E. We’re going to follow the story of Judas Maccabeus, who (along with his father and brothers) led the resistance against the Hellenization of the Jews. The story climaxes at the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus IV Epiphanes when he offered to Zeus sacrifices which were abominations according to Jewish law. Ready?

I’m going to link to the New American Bible, NAB, since it is available online.
Introduction to the Book
1. Introduction: Hellenism in Asia Minor (1 Macc 1:1-9)
2. The Maccabean Revolt (1 Macc 1:10-2:70)
3. Leadership of Judas Maccabeus (1 Macc 3:1-9:22)

If you are “hooked” you can continue reading the rest of the book:
4. Leadership of Jonathan (1 Macc 9:23-12:54)
5. Simon, High Priest and Ethnarch (1 Macc 13:1-16:24)

James McGrath via Phil Plait first pointed out the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar for 2009, which began today at The Big Picture. Below is today’s image (check the site every day for more amazing images). James has a nice montage of a few of last year’s photos here.

You can view the 2008 calendar here.

I never get tired of looking at these images.