Yes, I'm Alive!

Alright, I've been getting some flak for being lazy on my posts. (It is nice to know that someone is actually reading this.) It is well deserved. I have been a bit delinquent, but I am still alive. I finished reading "Next," which I enjoyed very much, as I anticipated. I think it is important to have books like that published to raise controversial issues and spur public debate. My favorite movie about genetic engineering is "Gattaca." "Next" was a much broader book and I think more up to date. I have also been reading a novel, bit by bit but I'll get into that later.

I have been very busy with holidays, caring for Addy, looking for work, and a few other time consumers. I hope to be back to a normal schedule of reading (and blogging!) soon.

Cheers!

I started reading "Next" by Michael Crichton. It is a novel all about the current and future realms genetics. It is really fun. It is hard to tell which parts of the book are actual events and which are made up. Some of it I know because of the genomics class I took at the UW, but there is alot that could have happened in the last couple of years. I am liking the parts about the stem cell debate. It should be a fun read.

What came first, the Chicken or the Ape?

I recently read the book "Why is a Fly Not a Horse?" by Giuseppe Sermonti. I really enjoyed it. It gets you thinking about genetics and evolution. He has a wealth of knowledge from a lifetime of work in molecular biology. He said as a student he was a great believer in evolutionary theory and the idea that with the proper environmental pressures new species could be created from old ones. However later in life he has come to look skeptically at the "Theory of Evolution." That species can and do change themselves in response to environmental pressures is a well documented fact, but the idea that all species diverged from a single organism, or even that any single species has diverged into two distinct species is still simply an idea with no hard proof.

I enjoyed the approach he gave in that he looked into what actually distinguishes one species from another. Of course we have had it drilled into our heads that it is all about DNA. However, there is more to life and the development of an organism than its DNA. There are other factors that determine how an organism will develop that the DNA cannot control. Without going into too much detail I will mention prion diseases (DNA determines the order of amino acids, but not the shape of the protein), bee and ant colonies (many distinct classes, but all have the same DNA), butterflies (it used to be a caterpillar?), other animals which have distinctive changes upon maturation but which can still survive and reproduce in conditions that prohibit maturity, and twins (definitely the same DNA, but not the same fingerprints).

Many other interesting facts and thoughts are explored in the work, and I would recommend it to anyone who has any interest in the realm of genetics and biology. I will also add that it is a translation from Italian and it is a little difficult to read.

This One's For You, Babe!

For Micaela's benefit I had to take the nerd test. Of course, she was right, I am the bigger nerd. However, I am not a Nerd King. This is my award. (I took the advanced test.)





I hope this satisfies you all.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

I've been in Seattle for several days now and it has been raining since I arrived. It seriously has not dried out enough to walk outside in socks. It just makes me homesick. At my house, it never rains for more than an hour at a time, and it is dry enough to walk on the porch after about 2 minutes. Sometimes, the water evaporates quick enough that you can even go outside in the rain and not get your feet wet. It is amazing! I'd encourage all of you to move to Colorado with us, but then we would miss the other wonderful thing about the area: the open space. Our city is quite literally surrounded by farmland. It is great.

OK, down to business. I finished reading "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters". It was an excellent work of non-fiction. It was enlightening and inspiring. As a father of a little girl, some of the facts came as a bit of a wake up call, but the advice and encouragement was wonderful and makes me excited to raise my baby. I would recommend this book to anyone. Not just fathers and not just fathers of daughters, but anyone (of course you must be mature enough to take the very frank nature of the subject matter) who wishes to understand better the relationship between men and women. It just really gets you thinking, in a good way. I'd love to hear comments on this, especially those of you who have read the book, but also all you daughters out there; what are your experiences? Discuss amongst yourselves...

Pottery Class

So, I came across a very interesting photo of myself as a child. It is very telling. This was the summer of 1978, so I was just over 1 year old. At first glance, this simply looks like a funny photo. A baby in an old tire swing being pushed in the backyard by his goofy older brothers.

However, if you look more closely, at my left hand, you will see something most shocking...

...a 9mm pistol. It appears that I owned my first firearm at the age of one! So, there you have it; it must be in my genes. There's just no fighting nature. 'Til next time, keep your eyes peeled.

Well, I finished another one. "The Tipping Point" by Malcom Gladwell was as interesting and enlightening as expected. There is some very interesting theory in their about what really makes a difference in affecting change. Sometimes it is the smallest of details that makes a big difference. I suppose this is not really a new lesson, though. Aren't we always told that it is the little things that count? There is also the oft' used analogy of a ships rudder as in the 1982 talk by Elder Thomas S. Monson, "Sailing Safely the Seas of Life" where he states:

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"As with the ship, so it is with man. The thrust of the turbines, the power of the propellers are useless without that sense of direction, that harnessing of the energy, that directing of the power provided by the rudder, hidden from view, relatively small in size, but absolutely essential in function."

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Gladwell illustrates countless examples of this same principle. It was a good reminder for me not to discredit the small details in life.

In addition to this book I have been listening to a few chapters of "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner which my wife Micaela got from the library. It is also a very interesting book which gets at issues on a deeper level. According to the book, economics is all about incentives and why people do what they do. Using this idea, the authors try to dig into the sometimes surprising and controversial motives for a lot of hidden or ignored activities. It is an interesting read in the least.

I also started reading just this evening a new book lent to me by my Mother-in-Law, Carol Johnson. The book is "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know" by Meg Meeker, M.D. It is the opinion of the author that the most important person in a girl's life is her Father. This has many consequences (some good, some bad) which she promises to explore in the book. She draws on her own experience as a daughter as well as her wealth of knowledge from observations and research as a medical doctor. I have never been a daughter (that would of course be impossible, even through the magic of modern plastic surgery), but I am a father of an incredible little girl (see previous post for picture), and so I am hoping to glean some pertinent advice from the book.

As always, if any of you have read, or are reading any of these books please leave a note with your own thoughts. My love to you all. Happy reading!