Best. Show. Ever.

Despite the typically bleak, rainy and shite Glasgow weather (and me forgetting my jacket and wearing my converse, pretty much the worst wet-weather shoes ever), this could not have been a better show. It was always going to be awesome, since Radiohead are one of my all time favourite bands and I’ve wanted to see them live since I was about 15, but they totally blew my expectations away.

And the set list was awesome (see below). A fantastic mix that included pretty much everything off In Rainbows (and even one off the second CD) and a bunch of my favourites from OK Computer, Kid A, Bends and Amnesiac. They also managed to get most of In Radinbows out of the way by the end of the set, leaving the steamy heaving crowd to lap up two encores full of classics (including Paranoid Android, Karma Police, 2+2=5 and Idioteque). Although I have to admit it was a little cheezy starting the show with track one off the new album. But that’s just me being a geek.

Set list: (courtesy of Ateaseweb)
01 15 Step
02 Airbag
03 There There
04 All I Need
05 Nude
06 Arpeggi/Weird Fishes
07 The Gloaming
08 The National Anthem with Hunting Bears outro
09 Faust Arp
10 No Surprises (Thom: “There was a guy showing me his nipples in that one”)
11 Jigsaw Falling Into Place
12 Reckoner
13 Just
14 Bangers and Mash
15 Everything In Its Right Place
16 Fake Plastic Trees
17 Bodysnatchers

Encore 1
18 Videotape
19 Paranoid Android
20 Myxomatosis
21 Optimistic
22 Karma Police

Encore 2
23 Like Spinning Plates
24 2 + 2 = 5
25 Idioteque

And the stage was very…well…Radiohead. Instead of the band being lost in a big empty black square, they had a huge 3D matrix of dangly light things which were extremely trippy but way cool. It wasn’t so over the top that it distracted attention from the band, and lighting design complemented each song beautifully.

Great gig.

Have been house-bound for the past few days trying to finish my last masters project report, so obviously I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time on YouTube. Here’s a vid that’s a particular fav of mine at the moment. It’s the music video for You! Me! Dancing! by Cardiff indie-pop band Los Campesinos. Beautiful piece of really fun futuristic-yet-retro animation.

The dangers of genetic manipulation have never seemed so real to me.

(www.xkcd.com)

After several years of sitting on a dusty miniDV tape, I finally got round to uploading this short film made for the Mothra Student Film Festival at my old uni back in 2004. I made a bunch of short films for this festival, but this is definitely my favourite. Based on an idea spawned one drunken night many years ago, it was written by myself and a couple of good friends, and filmed around the uni campus over the space of about a day.

Inspired by the live thesis efforts of Attila at Pimm which I have been following recently, I’ve decided to go ahead and post an online version of my own MSc thesis on the identification of stem-like cells in the thymus of mice lacking tumour supressor gene p53.

One of my very first posts was about putting a thesis together into a single PDF file, so hopefully this provides a physical illustration of the end result.

As an aside, chances are a thesis PDF is going to be friggin massive (mine was >300Mb), so I thought I would briefly mention a further nifty programme for PDF editing on a mac that converted my mofo of a thesis into a more manageable size for distribution.

PDF Compress is a simple, fast and easy to use programme that converts big bulky PDFs into much smaller files, without excessive loss of resolution, in one easy step. My original 300Mb thesis PDF was downsized into a much sleeker 1.3 Mb PDF that is easily sendable or uploadable.

While the programme is only a trial version, you can cheekily request further trial licenses when the original one runs out. Although if you’ll be using it regularly I’d suggest buying the license (around US$35).

Kapai.

Have had some quality family time in recent weeks, with Mum and Dad having flown over from NZ for a visit. Needless to say, I was completely spoiled: presents from home (mostly Marmite), lots of eating out, and 4 nights up in the highlands courtesy of Dad’s credit card.

Was also quite fun showing them around Edinburgh and taking them on a tour around campus. A particular highlight (for me…at least) was showing them my lab and our fancy new SOLEXA DNA sequencing machine. Although trying to explain how it works and why it is so awesome over dinner that night was a bit more challenging.

So in between dragging them around all the tourist sites in Edinburgh and showing Dad the finer points of british ales I have had little time to read anything going on in the world of science and thus have had a brief hiatus from blogging. But now I’m back, in all my intermittent and semi-regular blogtastic glory.

Apparently the US presidential candidates have better and more important things to discuss then the future of Science in the US. (HT to Kiwiblog for the vid)

*disillusioned sigh*

Hadn’t seen this for ages and ages, hat tip to Chocolate Bobka for the trip down memory lane…

This is effective teaching at its best. Complete with the catchy tunes, bright colours, and general epilepsy-inducing flashiness that only someone on a lot of drugs could come up with. Sigh, those were the days.

Some poor kid back in NZ became the latest victim of video game imitation violence as some joker, possibly trying to recreate the popular Sega game Sonic The Hedgehog, hurled a live hedgehog at him. This from the BBC:

“It hit the victim in the leg, causing a large, red welt and several puncture marks,” said Senior Sgt Bruce Jenkins, in the North Island town of Whakatane.

And you gotta love this quote from the same copper:

The police spokesman said the suspect was arrested “for assault with a weapon, namely the hedgehog.”

Tragically the poor, defenceless (well…) hedgehog did not survive the ordeal. God speed little guy.

Like most sciency types I know, I love talking about my research. The slightest provocation can launch me into a coma inducing rant about the minutia of my field (which has successfully terminated my chances of picking up non-sciency girls on a number of occasions). The normal responses to this rant (when the listener is still conscious) can be grouped into two categories.

The first response is the good one. It’s the one where my head grows to about 10 times its size as the listener goes on to commend the noble nature of my research and how the world needs more people like me interested in making a difference and not caring about money (one of which is true, one of which is not. I’ll leave you to decide). This comment is especially good to receive in front of any girls I may be trying to impress because then I can start acting all modest, yet still maintaining an air of selflessness about what I do. Chicks love that stuff.

Unfortunately, this response is usually followed by a second. The “I feel your work is important because my mum/dad/brother/sister/best-friend-forever died of cancer recently” response. I’ve had this said to me a number of times and never know how to reply, so an excruciatingly awkward moment of silence always ensues. This one is particularly bad to receive in front of any girls I may be trying to impress because it shows how I am both insensitive and slightly awkward.

I’m one of the fortunate few who hasn’t had cancer affect anybody I’m particularly close with (knock on wood) and thus haven’t had to deal with the raft of emotions that people go through when the disease makes an appearance in their or their loved one’s lives. Aside from my general awkwardness, I think the fact that I haven’t had intimate dealings with cancer is partly responsible for my inability to talk about it at a personal or caring-and-sharing level. But it’s not the only reason.

This is exemplified by something that happened to me yesterday. A colleague from uni back in NZ was recently diagnosed with cancer, so myself and another expat living here in the UK decided to send her a card, and this is where I hit a brick wall. What do you actually say to someone who has cancer?

Sorry you’re dying? Get well soon? Hope you like wearing hats?

Turns out I’m not alone here. Talking about cancer, even for doctors who have been doing it for longer than they care to remember, is not easy. At the end of the day, I think this really comes down to confidence and sensitivity. Talking about death is something people usually tip-toe around, and is definitely the sort of thing I try to avoid, but in order to get at the crux of why I research what I research I think I need to pluck up the courage to change this. While the charities that fund cancer research publicise the importance of this research at length, I think it is much more important for the people like me who actually do the research are able to discuss its practical and individual relevance.