It’s Alive!

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, here’s my latest article written for Null Hypothesis, which takes a brief look at the tip of the iceberg of biology behind the bizarre rituals that entail human dating behaviour. 

It’s Valentine’s day again, and as a single guy it really is my prerogative to go on a bitter and cynical rant about how lame the whole thing is and how it’s pretty much lose-lose for guys whether you’re in a relationship or not. But, that sort of spleen venting is done to death at this time of year in almost every single medium one can think of. Instead, I decided to do something a bit more constructive so have written an article for Null Hypothesis which takes a fleeting glimpse at some of the science behind dating behaviour. Unfortunately, I didn’t finish it till late and it hasn’t been edited and put up on the site yet. Woops. 

However, I did manage to find a couple of interesting links for Valentine’s Day show-and-tell. Firstly, for all you weird coupley-type people, here’s something different you can do together tonight (or as a back-up option for the evening since you probably forgot to make dinner reservations again and everything is pretty much booked up). The Queens Of The Stone Age are running a youtube make-out competition to coincide with the recent release of their music vid for Make It Wit Chu (clip below). All you have to do is record yourselves making out to the song and then post it on youtube for all to enjoy. Not surprisingly, as of today, nobody has posted an entry yet. 

And then for those that, like me, will probably be spending this Valentine’s Day at home with their arm around a bottle of beer/wine/scotch/all of the above, then here’s a list of recommended anti-valentine’s day movies to keep you mildly entertained and to drown out the noise of that annoying couple you live with “celebrating” Valentine’s Day in the next room. 

It’s that special time of year again, when we all sit under a phylogenetic Darwin Day tree exchanging Darwin Day gifts to celebrate the birth of Science’s version of Jesus Christ. Like many, I always struggle to find that perfect Darwin Day gift, which is why I was totally stoked when I stumbled across this!

Can you imagine anything cooler to have sitting on your lab bench or on the dashboard of your car than a Charles Darwin bobble head? They’re only US$17 and are being sold through Southern Illunois University. I know what I’m hoping to find under the tree this Darwin Day! 

One of the things I miss most about New Zealand (aside from the weather and the fact that it’s summer there right now while I’m stuck in the eternal Scottish winter!) is the music. While at uni I was a DJ/presenter for Radio One, the Dunedin branch of the BNets, a bunch of alternative and indie stations with a big focus on local music. And because NZ is so small the music community is very tight, meaning that I personally knew a lot of the artists involved and was consistently getting new and fresh music coming across my desk.

Now that I’m literally on the other side of the world, I can’t help but feel slightly removed from all this. But thanks to teh internets I am able to stay somewhat informed and share the awesomeness with others. So, I will be posting up a NZ music video (most of which are independently made on amazingly low budgets but with pretty impressive production value) every Friday as a regular feature. The first one is by a cutsey-pop group from Auckland called The Brunettes who were recently signed to Subpop records. These guys have been around the NZ indie scene for a few years so it’s great to see them making it big over in the states. Plus the lead singer, Heather, is probably the most beautiful girl in the world. This song is called Her Hairagami Set and is off their new album Structure & Cosmetics which came out last year. Enjoy.

Below is the lay-abstract from a recently completed project as part of the masters year of my PhD here in Edinburgh. It is pretty much the culmination of 10 weeks of solid immunohistochemistry on mouse fetuses (feti?). While Wnt activity is well established as a major component of forebrain development, it’s actual interactions are less understood. This project aimed to elucidate the link between Wnt and Gli3, on of the myriad factors known to interact with Wnt. (Got my grade back today. It is good. I am pleased.) 

Canonical Wnt signaling exhibits a dynamic pattern during forebrain development and is disrupted in the extratoes mouse mutant 

The brain is one of the most complex organs in the human body, made up of a number of interacting regions. The most easily recognisable of these regions is the folded structure that takes up most of the room in the skull called the forebrain. The most evolutionarily advanced region of the brain, it is responsible for processing the enormous amounts of sensory data acquired by the five senses and mediating the appropriate cognitive and physical responses. Even more impressive than the functional power of the adult forebrain though, is the fact that it develops from no more than a single sheet of cells in the early embryo.

The process of going from this early neural tissue to the complex adult forebrain is regulated by a large number of interacting genetic pathways that are highly conserved across species as divergent as the fruit fly and the mouse, indicating their importance in brain development. This evolutionarily importance is reflected in the severe brain abnormalities observed when the function of some of the key genes is lost. One of these genes, Gli3, plays a vital role in the correct formation of the top part of the forebrain and is associated with human syndromes such as Pallister-Hall syndrome and Greig cephalopolysyndactyly syndrome when mutated.

This research project presents a detailed analysis of the activity of a specific genetic pathway, the Wnt pathway, known to be very active in the development of the top part of the forebrain, and how it is affected by the loss of the gene Gli3 in a mouse model. Our results show that the loss of Gli3 function causes a vast reduction in the activity of this pathway, shedding light on how the loss of Gli3causes the characteristic structural brain abnormalities at a molecular level, which in turn provides valuable information for understanding the basis of the human syndromes associated with loss of this gene. 

I was forwarded a story today about an Iranian engineering PhD student at Memorial Uni in Newfoundland who received a jail sentence after demonstrating a phenomenal lack of self restraint by kissing the exposed breast of a female student in an elevator.

Mr. Azarsina, a PhD student in engineering at Memorial University, admitted kissing the top of the woman’s breast while the two were on an elevator at the St. John’s school on Sept. 27. 

And what was his excuse?

Mr. Azarsina said he didn’t realize the seriousness of the offence in this country.

“You can’t expect all males to control themselves when the breasts are out,” he said. 

A classic case of cultural misunderstanding? Although there’s no excuse for being so forward (he should at least have asked her out for a coffee first), I think three months in Jail is a little bit harsh on the poor guy. A hefty fine and disciplinary action by the university would have been well deserved, but doing time behind bars? At least he’s learnt his lesson now. Breasts are for looking at and not for touching. At least, not in an elevator.

A mate sent me this today, knowing my love for sports and all things manly.

Stumbled across these guys randomly on Scivee the other day. They call themselves the Galileo Players and they’re hilarious.

Some not so recent photos from the Mars Rover have been reported which almost seem to depict a human-looking figure.

Some have claimed that this image is big-foot. I, however, have a different theory…

Probably the funniest SNL sketch since “dick in a box”. Embedding has been disabled unfortunately so here’s a link to it instead.