So Brad had a rule that whenever he got confused in his work, and things didn’t make sense anymore, it was time to go to lunch. After the lunch conversation got confusing, and things didn’t make sense anymore, it was time to go back to work.
Last week I attended both the first ever workshop on Virtual Tissues conveniently (for me) held at the EPA’s RTP campus (though it was a EC-US Task for on Biotechnology event) and a partial reunion of the Lunchtime! crew. Dr. Tighe and Tina were in town and we managed to make it to the Ale House, though with no Martha and Dr. Bunton busy dealing with fires in Conway, some of the old magic was missing.
Efforts to create virtual tissues are certainly ambitious. The idea is to create a sufficiently accurate simulation of biology that the effects of perturbations (such as a toxic substance) are emergent;, rather than hard-coded. There are numerous challenges ahead and it may or may not even be possible, but as I mentioned tot he Ale House attendee’s someone presented an extremely pithy pair of quotes. They may or may not be apocryphal (a word whose own meaning is apparently somewhat dubious), since I cannot find either quote outside of this pairing, but it’s certainly an entertaining idea relevant to ;any technology on the cusp of feasibility:
On October 9, 1903 two interesting things happened.
The New York Times wrote “Hence, if it requires, say, a thousand years to fit for easy flight a bird which started with rudimentary wings… the flying machine that will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years…”
On that same day in North Carolina, Orville Wright wrote in his diary.
“We unpacked rest of goods for new machine. We started assembly today.”
There are some things about North Carolina almost everyone knows, such as tobacco, basketball, and NASCAR. Then there are things that you only learn if you live here for a while; e.g. coleslaw is a condiment.
That’s right, any self-respecting North Carolinian restaurant serves a tiny cup of coleslaw on the side with every sandwich (and many other orders) so that you can put it on your sandwich if you care to. It actually works quite well because the cole slaw here is the best I’ve ever had: unlike its Midwestern brethren it contains only a bit of mayonnaise, and unlike the local barbecue it’s light on the vinegar.
Another, more interesting North Carolina “quirk” has to do with how I’ve used quotation marks in these last two sentences. Read the rest of this entry »
As described by the Detroit News, when legendary Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler (80% winning percentage) took over a struggling Michigan team in the late 1960′s, the more difficult practices and harsher coaching style drove 20-30 players to leave the team. For Michigan fans it is well known that he had a sign made reading “Those Who Stay Will Be Champions” and that he pretty much honored that claim by winning at least a share of 13 Big Ten titles in 21 seasons. What isn’t reported often is that one of the departing players added to the first sign: “And those who leave will be doctors, lawyers and captains of industry.” I think that’s an important part of the story. Read the rest of this entry »
It seems like we live in an age where it is more important for text to be copyright protected than grammatically correct. The New York Times, however, has a pretty funny article celebrating the proper usage of a semi-colon in a sign placed in subway cars. The article contains a tidbit about David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam serial killer who was, according to one columnist, “the only murderer he ever encountered who could wield a semicolon just as well as a revolver.”
The article also has a great quote from Kurt Vonnegut:
“When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life. Old age is more like a semicolon.”
Two men were arrested on Tuesday after pushing a corpse, seated in an office chair, along the sidewalk to a check-cashing store to cash the dead man’s Social Security check.
Clearly movies are educational after all. If these guys had only been fortunate enough to see Weekend at Bernie’s, or it’s sequel (which is currently earning 3.6/10 stars on IMDB) they could’ve avoided possible fraud charges.
My favorite part of the article is the detailed description of how the corpse was dressed: The late Mr. Cintron was dressed in a faded black T-shirt and blue-and-white sneakers. His pants were pulled up part of the way, and his midsection was covered by a jacket, the police said.
I’d like to think my roommates would at least go to the effort of putting my pants all the way on.
Chick-Fil-A Bowl president Gary Stokan: “We couldn’t find a better matchup between two teams so similar. Both have coaches named Tommy, both are Tigers, both are 5-3, both are second in their division, both are coming off big wins over their rival.”
It is my hope that by being shameless enough to go first, that everyone else will start blogging their publications as they come along. I want to know all about reaction-diffusion systems, nuclear field theory, granular matter, and whatever else comes up. At least, I want to know as much about them as fits into an interesting blog post. And who knows, maybe one of the world’s Nelly Furtado fans (she is the Matron Saint of Lunchtime! visitors) will be inspired to read a research paper…
To start things off, I finally got my first research paper from Duke published in a peer-reviewed journal — a mere 17 months after defending. Behold “Response to perturbations for granular flow in a hopper!” (Please note, the exclamation point is within the quotation marks only to conform to a grammatical rule I don’t agree with, and not to indicate that the actual title is exclaimed, although that would have been cool.) Read the rest of this entry »
In a very cool move by the currently ever-so-savvy NFL, the New York Giants are playing the Miami Dolphins in London this weekend. Much like the 2005 game held in Mexico City, the NFL is trying to broaden it’s audiences with actual, regular season games. Probably a much more effective tactic than the now closed NFL Europe. However, they may want to be careful about exactly who gets to talk to the press while the teams are in merry-old England.
Dolphins linebacker (and recent University of Florida grad) Channing Crowder claims to have learned just this Tuesday that English is, in fact, spoken in England. Other than knowing that Italy looks like a boot, he said “couldn’t find London on a map if they didn’t have the names of the countries… I swear to God. I don’t know what nothing is.” He does know Washington Redskins linebacker London Fletcher but according to Crowder, “He’s black, so I’m sure he’s not from London. I’m sure that’s a coincidental name.” The worst part is that it turns out that one of the wide receivers on the Dolphins practice squad, Marvin Allen, is black and from London. There is some debate as to whether or not he was joking, but it seems half-hearted at best.
Saturday night’s Michigan game was a blast — tied late into the fourth quarter. Illinois matched each Michigan turnover with several mind-numbingly bad penalties. All three of Michigan’s glamor offense players were injured for some or all of the game, though fortunately not superstar offensive tackle Jake Long. Both teams used two quarterbacks. Ultimately one of the wide receivers tossed the go-ahead touchdown pass. However, the highlight was that not only did I get to hear a commentor say “now we have a football game” about two-and-a-half hours in, but while discussing how University of South Florida (then #2 in both polls) had lost and Boston College (#3) had not played, a commentator actually said that BC would “slide into the 2 hole”. Given that Ann mostly watches football for the homo-eroticism, I thought that was absolutely classic.
Another classic that I observed briefly on ESPN was an Auburn kick return during the LSU game. After receiving, dropping, and recovering the kick, the return man turned his back to the oncoming LSU players and was joined by four teammates, two to either side. After swapping the ball, all five players ran in different directions. Unfortunately, I could only find what has to be the world’s worst Youtube video ever to show the play. Not only is the fumble edited out (Auburn fan?) but the actual yardage gained as a result isn’t shown. Assuming he got past the 25 yard line, I would think this would become a standard way to return the ball.
Hi Everyone. Sorry I haven’t posted anything in the long time. My apology is a post that even longer and more meandering than usual.
Posted by jwambaugh 
Last week I attended both the 
It seems like we live in an age where it is more important for text to be copyright protected than grammatically correct. The New York Times, however, has a pretty funny 
From the
In a very cool move by the currently ever-so-savvy NFL, the New York Giants are playing the Miami Dolphins 
