Did dinosaurs have increased telomerase activity?

Today in the news an article discussed the discovery that dinosaurs and birds shared similar proteins are and closely related. And it was only a coincidence that I had just mentioned, a few days earlier, a question here I had about whether dinosaurs had telomerase.

The question originally came about when I was trying to list several possible reasons that many dinosaurs were really large. One possibility was that they lived a really long time, and similar to reptiles, could just keep getting bigger. Obviously there were limits to this but still. And it also occurred to me that some sea birds, which are long-lived, have high telomerase activity. Hence the question, did dinosaurs have increased telomerase enzyme activity? Could an prolonged life span have allowed them to grow to a large size?

And remember, its just a hypothesis and nothing more. What if?

- Just a peasant

Picture from the California Academy of Sciences website (This link should be correct now)

エヂソンの母とどして。 (Edison no Haha and Why?)

Another funny program with Misaki Ito (伊東美咲). She really is a good actress and seems to find good scripts. But besides being very entertaining (and having Misaki Ito!!) the story of Edison’s Mother (エヂソンの母) brings up an important issue – curiosity. More importantly, the drive to satisfy curiosity. How can you not have curiosity? And how do you nurture curiosity in others? Everyday I wake up my day usually begins with some burning question. Here’s a partial list from the last year or so:

At what point did viruses evolve? How did the first cellular plasma membranes form? When did the cytoskeleton arise? Is the solitary nature of orangutans genetic? Could a long drought and brush fires have contributed to the demise of mastodons in North America? What makes ‘Broken-Heart Syndrome’ more serious in older people than younger people? Why do people differ in their attraction to acoustical sounds? Does blue light (long wavelength) from a digital alarm clock disrupt melatonin production during sleep compared to red light (short wavelength)? Why does the heart rate of an animal under anesthesia suddenly jump when the first incision is made? Did dinosaurs have the telomerase enzyme?

What force is causing the acceleration of expansion in our universe? Given the relationship of energy and mass, how does it happen that the production of a high energy gamma ray does not decrease the mass or atomic number of an atom? Why do the North and South magnetic Poles exchange positions every few hundred thousand years? Could this change have an effect on our global atmosphere? How can parallel universes have different laws of physics if they were created from the same set of physical laws?

What caused the collapse of Minoan civilization? When the water ran out, where did the millions of Mayans go exactly? What technology was used to build Nan Madol in the South Pacific? Why do actors’ facial expressions look more realistic when they talk to a person or a puppet instead of an imaginary, blue screen character? Why do CGI shadows usually look fake?

Why is Misaki Ito so awesome? どして。 (^_^)

Some of these questions already have answers and some don’t – not yet. Exploration. Discovery. Intellectual enrichment. These are things that make life worth living. Sometimes they’re tedious and sometimes they’re fun but for some people they hold great value. I know they do for me. Oh - which just reminded me that I need to write a research proposal this week.

Incidentally, I also tried to fly when I was a small boy. I jumped off the roof of our house with an umbrella. I thought holding an umbrella would slow my descent but I was wrong. I ended upside down in the bushes with lots of scrapes and a terrible headache. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

- Just a peasant

Heads in the Sand

This BBC article relays the message from the IMF over concerns about global food shortages. Cited are concerns from the IMF chief that "Thousands - hundreds of thousands of people will be starving. Children will be suffering from malnutrition, with consequences for all their lives."

The article then lists the reasons for food shortages: “Food prices have risen sharply in recent months, driven by increased demand, poor weather in some countries and an increase in the use of land to grow crops for transport fuels.”

Really? So they don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that oil is at $112 a barrel? They don’t think that has any bearing on the price of food? You know - the fuel for tractors, combines, local transport trucks, milling operations, processing equipment, ocean freighters, fishing vessels, pesticide production, etc, etc. They don’t think those costs have increased significantly as the price of oil has risen?

Of course not, the problem is all those people converting their land to alternative fuel crops. And it’s all those starving people – because we’ve never had starving people before. But this whole absurdity actually began if you believed, for one moment, that the IMF really cares about starving people as humans, deserving of compassion, rather than just a social upheaval threat to governments and institutions that owe the IMF money. I guess it’s also just as shocking that this article was spawned in a ‘business’ section.

Is this the sum of our human civilization? That we let people starve to death as a result of market forces or political leverage? Nobody should be starving in the 21st century.

And incidentally, that brings up oil in Iraq. The Bush administration once reasoned that as security improved in Iraq, profits from Iraq oil production would be realized, and this would then allow the joyful, liberated people of Iraq to repay the US for the cost of the conflict. So just yesterday President Bush insisted that security has greatly improved but I note that the cost of the Iraq war continues to spiral upward. Where are all those revenues then? Or maybe the check is just in mail – I imagine the Iraq Postal Service is a bit slow these days.

- Just a peasant

Photo of starving human beings in India from The Peace and Conflict Studies Program at the University of Colorado.

Drawing, drawing

It sure seems like I spend a lot of time drawing these days. Not only that but I had to start thinking of music composition again. And then there’s the sound effects too! I do admit now that making a video game is harder than making a board game.

But it is still fun and challenging. Anyway, I think drawing stuff for children brings out my more gentle nature which is a good thing.

- Just a peasant

Illustration - part of my character cast

War also destroys ethics

Moral superiority, in times of war, is an illusion because violent conflict always has the dubious effect of reducing the honor and ethics - of all opponents - to the exact same level.

- Just a peasant

Photo by Adrian Bailey at University of Pennsylvania Baboon research website

The Casual Glance

For me, glancing at a mirror is no casual event. And it’s not just because I’m no longer part of the cool crowd; the young and immortal crowd. I haven’t looked easily at a mirror since I was 23 years old - because of her.

I knew her for a week and we had a great time. She was very beautiful with full, soft lips and dark seductive eyes. I can remember her smile when she listened to the cicadas, buzzing loudly in staggering rhythms, out in the lazy summer afternoon. I remember her making love to me; her long black hair brushing against my chest and abdomen. I remember how the light, from the street lamps outside her apartment, would sneak past the curtains and highlight the curves of her body. Then casually I hit the road again. I had music to play.

Three months later, I was a thousand miles away in another state when I heard about her from some friends. If it had been just a normal suicide, ending in death or a long hospital stay, maybe it would have just passed me by as a sad tremor – or a tragic coincidence. As it was, she slashed her face quite violently. And it also seems my name had figured prominently in her episode. She had not been as casual as I.

Did I care about her? Of course I did. My lovers have never been casual to me. I hate one night stands. But you see, I have never felt that I was very important to other people. Friends to them sure, but vital to their lives? No way. Not me. I’m just a guy. I’m not casual - I’m disposable. Why would they even notice if I left? If I had known then, what I know now, I would have invited her along for the journey until she tired of me. Until she became bored with me and needed to dispose of me. I would have held her hand until she needed a new lover. I wish I could tell her how sorry I am. I just didn’t know that I mattered to her.

So what did she see in the mirror? What was it that had to be so terribly disfigured? What was it she saw that so offended her? Every so often, when I look in the mirror, I have to wonder what it was. I can't help but wonder. What was it? And sometimes it is even more difficult to look in the mirror, because as hard as I try - as hard as I want to - I can’t remember her name.

- Just a peasant

Photo by Tzu-yen Wang