AAAAA

Just read a blog of Yang, Hengjun, 卖鹅蛋的婆婆说，美国人都要饭qule, feel sad about the story. Remind me of the typical Chinese saying "Mei Fa Zi A"….it’s the story since the beginning of human history, selfish gene and competing for limited resources…if it could still be called human, what’s the difference from animals?

"She’s such a nice bird."
"She must be if she goes out with a worm like you !"

我希望做一只大青虫，趴在绿油油的叶子上，看辰光日月，听万籁天音。。。从春天到夏天，秋天到冬天，永远不蜕皮，不羽化，就做大青虫，饮朝露， 食夕蕊，思考生命与死亡，上帝与虫，直到有一天，被一只偶然经过的翠鸟衔走，作她的胃中物。。。然后又变成鸟粪，回到大地。。。不，我的一部分变成了鸟的一部分。。。如果鸟被人吃了，我就会变成人的一部分，人最终也会回归大地。。。如果我不被吃掉，那就继续作大青虫，继续思考与享受。。。

看手指，炒股票

自从基因被发现以后，短短五十年，已经被应用于各个领域，如犯罪鉴定，疾病诊治，追宗问祖，改良农作物，以致创造新物种。凡此种种都暗示着基因在生物体内无以伦比的作用。尽管关于基因和环境谁更重要的争论一直都没有停止过，生物学家所揭示的片断信息却不断让我们感到无奈的宿命。其实我们早已熟悉的血型论，星座论，以及网上五花八门的心理测试未尝不是民间生物学研究的尝试，如果这些观察再系统一些，精确一些，就是科学家言了。

坊间有荤语称睾丸是男人的发电机，生物学家已经找到了一些证据：男性激素睾丸酮水平高的人往往更自信，喜欢冒险，警觉高，反应快，自然性欲也强， 这是因为这些行为都是适应生存竞争的，而性总是与自然选择联系着。在发育之初，睾丸酮会影响一种叫Hox的基因，这个基因不但促进男性性腺的发育，也会影响手骨的发育，第二指和第四指的长度比例(2D:4D) 就受这个基因调节。所以，雄激素越高，2D:4D就越小。最近英国的一个研究组在雄性激素水平，2D:4D比值和股票操作员业绩之间建立了相关：2D:4D就越小，业绩越好。

这种手指骨的标志已经被用于预测运动员在竞争性体育运动中的表现，象足球，橄榄球，篮球，滑冰。这可是个选择职业的标志，就像某些公司按血型招人一样，什么职业不需要竞争呢？尤其是那些赚钱多的行业。而且这可能给女人投资一个暗示，是不是潜力股？先看一看男朋友的手指。这种手指骨的标志在鸟类也是存在的，这种特征就像孔雀的羽毛一样是某个跟性与生存竞争相关的基因关联的，它随着进化的河流一直保存到人类。其实，没有这个体征，你也不会选错人，性激素水平高的人还有很多吸引人的地方，在几万年前，因为勇敢机智反应快，他大概是个好猎手，能搞到许多肉，也就能搞到许多女人。不过现代男人的性欲不断下降，精子水平也在下降，赚钱能力或者创造力是不是也在下降呢？

晚上闲看到中国剧作家沙叶新的博客，发现其文章用了不少暗语，似乎是以前宣传的白色恐怖时代，不过他的文章还能发表，只要用暗语绕过去，可见还是宽容了许多。。。淋巴腺涨“——“零八宪章“， G安——国安，六点水时代——江泽民时代，SH帮——上海帮，达*赖*喇*嘛——达赖喇嘛。。。真是有趣。。。人都喜欢听好听的话，喜欢听批评的人很少，D也不例外。。。倒是美国人不把批评当回事，有则改之，无则加勉。。。实在不值得跟自己意见不同的人过不去。。。杨恒均的翻墙论也很有意思，人与人交流最大的障碍是自己心中的块垒。。。

从独立中文笔会可以窥见中国自由派知识分子的思想，从乌有之乡可以窥见中国保守派知识分子的思想，我要分析一下他们的沟壑是否不可跨越。。。

I just finished Harold Varmus’s autobiography book ‘The art and politics of science", and learnt many interesting stories on cancer research, such as the discovery of oncogene, proto-oncogene, and the Nobel Prize of the discovery. He is a great lucky scientist who not only succeeded on science but also on politics. The cancer research since 1970s has progressed a lot and many of the cancers have been curable or at least the survival rates are improved a lot. The research really helps to improve human living , that’s another sucess after the infectious diseases in the 20th century.

Here is another story caught my eye today.  The gun is coupled to a natural citizen of the cell, who gain access to it easily and after come in, he bends the trigger and kill the cell. The theory is based on knowledge that tumor cells selectively take up large amounts of vitamin B12 and produce significantly more of the B12 receptor than normal cells. The study is not a new one but is progressing from mouse to dog and soon to human, that’s a long way of invention new drugs.

From all the stories, I learnt that cancer is a randomly-happen disease mainly because of the gene changes in the genes, which change the behavior of normal cells, and there will be no single therapy that can cure all the cancers, each cancer is specific, we have to find out what’s wrong first, however there are always common pathways for group of patients with similar clinical signs. In another word, one gene can lead to different cancer, and one cancer can oringinate from different genes.

The new study have shown that esophageal cancer is correlated with alcohol consumption in "flushing people". "the flushing response is a clinically useful biomarker of genetic susceptibility to esophageal cancer risk from alcohol."

在春天的寒气里，我们去纽约看了几个艺术博物馆，metropolitan, moma and guggenheim…在欧洲看过了许多博物馆，已经不是很新奇，即使面对层出不穷的现代艺术，都有似曾相识的感觉，moma的建筑风格和收藏品和慕尼黑的现代艺术馆很象，不知是谁抄谁的。。。这里有个风趣的有创造力的艺术家的展览，Martin Kippenberger令人印象深刻。。。guggenheim的建筑是蜗牛形的，上面大，下面小，一个滑车沿着钢管滑行着。。。最有印象的是被子弹射穿的一千零一夜，象灵牌一样整齐地排列在架子上，神庙，阿拉伯文，意大利文，弹孔，一千零一夜的故事，被暗杀的学者。。。你看到的是人类社会的荒谬吧？

Today’s record: 36 laps=1800 yards=1 645.92 meter=1.022 727 272 7 mile, 59 min

我们的话题涵盖的是童年，亲人，理想，爱好，居然爱好世界和平都出来了。。。不过VV好像没写太多， 她的故事可比我多多了。。。她越来越轻，我越来越重，她的方向是天堂，我的方向是地狱。。。

VV’s version:

1. People say a girl’s best lover is her father. This is especially true for me, especially after my father started to live in another world 2 years ago.
2. In primary school, I (thought I) wanted to become a scientist.
3. In middle school, I (thought I) wanted to become a teacher, like my father.
4. In high school, I wanted to study philosophy.
5. In college and afterwards, well, I had no idea what I wanted to do except for what I didn’t want to do.
6. I tried to become a free lance writer once, and gave up within 2 years.
7. I tried to become a good bridge player once, and gave up within 2 years.
8. I’m currently interested in photography, but who knows how long this enthusiasm will last.
9. This morning I thought of counting the number of books I’ve read, and quickly gave up this idea (good for me).
10. It was only known to me recently that my online id came from a misreading of the title of a perfume.
11. My all-time favorite writers are Yukio Mishima, Oscar Wilde, and Scott Fitzgerald.
12. I wanted to learn piano when I was little. My parents couldn’t afford to buy a piano, so they got me a mini-sized accordian instead. Years later when the economics becomes better, my father bought himself a piano and started learning it by himself when he was 70.
13. One of the best memories of my childhood is when the electricity went out, my father would play er hu — a notoriously sentimental string musical instrument similar to violin in some ways, but with 2 strings instead of 4, and sounded completely differently — in the balcony, and I would sit beside him and listen. The total darkness under the night sky was perfumed with the the music in its purest form, infusing me with a kind of nostalgic feelings though I didn’t even know what that word meant at that time — even in Chinese.
14. Being the only child of my parents, I often wished I had siblings.
15. My grandfather died long before I was born. The first time I saw his picture was sometime when I was 13. I got to know his name at that time.
16. I was once a salesperson. What might be funnier or weirder is the fact that I sold absolutely nothing during those two months — and the product I was trying to sell was not called "absolutely nothing".
17. I like glam rock and gothic music.
18. I like film noir movies.
19. Oh about books, probably I should mention Hagakure. It’s a cool book, in case you haven’t heard of it (which implies that you haven’t watched the movie Ghost Dog).
20. My favorite math books include Enumerative Combinatorics volumes 1 and 2 by Richard Stanley.
21. My favorite bridge books are those written by Terence Reese.
22. My favorite play is defending, and the very top one on my list is called "Defend with Your Life".
23. My favorite games include origami, sudoku, tetris, and a lot of other silly things.
24. I believe in the existence of some kind of god but no particular one.
25. I love world peace.

GG’s version: 

1. I started my journey since I was 3 years old, when I walked away from the kindergarten for 2 miles under the summer sun…ended up with shock the 2nd day almost to death.
2. I enjoyed climbing up to higher places such as hills, peaks, house roofs, and mounted chairs.
3. I liked to play with girls more than with boys, because I can get admiration without challenging other Boy Kings.
4. I was a fan of detective stories in primary school, and I listened to others to tell me the stories but never contributed one; sometimes I exchanged with apples or pears for stories.
5. I’ve been shy since I was a child, but I liked playing practical jokes, such as making a funny drawing of a classmate’s face on the blackboard.
6. I liked drawing and was thought to be the best in my class in school and also a good face model for drawing class. However I was bored with the training later and never come back again.
7. I enjoyed reading history books from my father’s collection and I was especially good at memorizing dates and places of historical events like Pi for others, which made me number 1 in every historical exams.
8. I’ve become narcissistic since I was a teenager, always dreaming being loved by everyone around.
9.I wanted to become a doctor when I was pressed to speak out in front of the class when I was 6, and wanted to become a geologist when I was in high school, and wanted to become an archeologist when I was in medical college or an anthropologist when I was in graduate school, and philosopher or writer the left time, but ended up with a pseudo scientist at last.
10. Travel around the world is my dream, the hero I admired is Marc Polo, I’ve been to 95 cities in 18 countries now, and the most impressive one is crossing Russia on Tans-Serbia train in 7 days.
11. I have primary love of arts, philosophy and literature, but never devoted so much energy to improve.
12. I love reading and reciting books on philosophy, history, art, literature and politics, but hardly get any clear comprehension except the evolution. The author I like most are Stephen Gould and Richard Dawkins.
13. I am not good at games like chess, cards, Mahjong, or any game with competition, I feel nervous and could not concentrate while playing.
14. My number one hobby is philately, I stared collecting since I was 5, I still remember the first stamp I had. And I made my own simple stamp albums of several versions, the last one I used before the commercial one was made of wasted movie films when my father worked at movie issuing company. The most fun I had when I was in college was to go to the park for stamps sales, and I got all the aesthetic knowledge then from day to day organizations. I found out then that foreign stamps were much more better than Chinese one, on both design and print.
15. My number two hobby was to go to the secondhand bookstore every weekend when I was in college.
16. I visited secondhand craft shops when I was in Sweden, and collected lots of glasses and ceramics designs, but later gave away all of them.
17. The places I visited most are botanical gardens in every city I’ve been stayed. I walked and meditated and talked with the plants there in every season. And I collected some leaves too.
18. The country I love most is Italy, I’ve been there for 5 times, and have been most of the cities. Pompei and Florence are my favorites.
19. The cites I love most are Barcelona and Prague, they have all the romance and creativity you can imagine.
20. I joined a chorus group on Russian songs while in Beijing, and even learned a bit Russian. I subscribed a musical journal called "Selections of Broadcasting Songs’ while in college, and I taught myself to sing by listening to the radio. They are not popular songs but rather national and western classic, I liked classic music and listened lots of chamber music while in Germany. I’ve been able to play harmonica since I was in school, and bought a teaching course while in college and again last year in US but hardly find any time to practice, so still primary level.
21. I had difficulty of communicating with my father, and seldom talked to him or called him dad which made me bad at social skills till now. I am quite closed after school age, and become better after the abroad experience, but come back sometimes.
22. I had a deep affection of my elder brother while I was in school and college, he loves me and supports me all the time until now, we have 8 years of difference. I remembered when he went to college in another city, I saw him come and go away in the railway station every time, and I am happy and sad for his every vacation home. He is much more opened, charming and intimated than me.
23. My mother is a strong woman and she lives for her dream and never give up, I inherently get her character which makes me go through all my living.
24. I once learned Japanese, Russian, German and Italian besides English, but never kept one except English. I felt shamed of not being able to speak well of them when once I met a Canadian girl in Sweden who spoke fluent Mandarin only 2 years after her staying in Shanghai.
25. The philosophers I love most are Diogenes of Sinope and Arthur Schopenhauer.

“一切欲求的基础是需要、缺陷，也就是痛苦，所以人从来就是痛苦的，他的本质就是落在痛苦的手心 里的。如果相反，人因为他易于获得的满足随即消除了他的可欲之物而缺少了欲求的对象，那么可怕的空虚和无聊就会袭击他，即是说人的存在和生存本身就会成为 他的不可忍受的重负。所以人生是在痛苦和无聊之间像钟摆一样来回摆动着，事实上痛苦和无聊两者也就是人生的两种最后成分。” _____叔本华

 
刚读完了书Reader, 感觉理解更深刻一些，因为作者表述的很多心理描写在电影里是很难表达的。一方面，Hanna的行为是为了掩藏自己的羞耻之心，从拒绝被西门子公司提升，而去集中营做看守，到后来拒绝被电车公司提升作司机；以及在法庭上拒绝验证笔迹而包揽责任；因为看不懂Michael早上留的字条而对他发火。。。而且她在被囚禁之前从未努力改变过这种现状。羞耻之心因人而异，她是如此强烈以至于些许改变可能都令她难堪，也只有最后Michael的朗读让她找到了自我解决的办法，在那之前Audio book大概还不存在。。。另一方面，Hanna坚持自己的公平，在法庭上她不愿意为自己撇清责任，但要实事求是，也不愿意承担歪曲的指控；在法庭上多数被告都是跟律师配合，讲究策略，趋利避害，尽力为自己解脱罪责；Hanna则是勇敢的承认事实，这自然侵犯了其他被告的利益，结果引火烧身，加上她决不泄漏内心秘密而为自己辩护，最终被重判。掩饰自己的弱点也成了她一生为之斗争的目的，所有痛苦的根源，最终因为不能被人理解而自杀，因为只有死神愿意接受一切。。。Michael一生都纠结的是自己是不是背叛了Hanna, 是不是对Hanna的死负责。他既爱她又不能完全接受她，在他后来的所有关系中，他始终不能摆脱她的影响；因为Hanna象他的父辈们一样曾经在战争中对人表现的冷漠无情，他又不想拥抱她。。。对Hanna是个悲剧，对Michael也是个悲剧，作者大概表述的是这是这代德国人的宿命。作者提到最多的被Michael朗读的一本书是希腊史诗奥德赛，不过Hanna和Michael长途跋涉的结果却不是大团圆。。。

昨天看的New York Stories，今天看的Vicky Cristina Bacelona，Woody Allen把对琐碎生活的观察以他独特的方式表现出来，展示了人与人之间的复杂的关系和情感，虽然情节简单，但他的对话幽默，机智，充满了张力，很有戏剧感，而又言之有物，深入人心，引人共鸣与思考，回味无穷。。。母子关系，情人关系，夫妻关系，三角关系。。。在不停的对话与对话中，在不断的旁白与旁白中，你为什么始终会被Allen的作品所吸引呢？因为他作品的主题就是我们每天经历的生活，relationships…好奇心驱使你想知道别人怎么想，怎么处理与别人的关系，并比较自己心里的答案。。。Allen据说是坚持看心理医生的，他居然同时患有幽闭恐惧症和广场恐惧症，他自己的生活就是处在错综复杂的关系中，可以说他的作品表现的就是他自己的生活。。。这么微妙，这么有趣，这么于我心有戚戚焉，好导演的表现力就在这里吧。。。

"Canadian poet Christian Bök plans to encode his verse into DNA that will sit within the genome of a live bacterium. He tells Nature why he wants to create an organism that will translate its own poetic response." _Nature, 2009, 485:35.

"How will the poem be encoded? The poem can be most easily encoded by assigning a short, unique sequence of nucleotides to each letter of the alphabet, as Wong has done. But I want my poem to cause the organism to make a protein in response — a protein that also encodes a poem. I am striving
to engineer a life form that becomes a durable archive for storing a poem, and a machine for writing a poem — a poem that can survive forever. "

Can you imagine thousands of years later, aliens found the poems style in DNA or protein? And human language, maybe just a junk for them too.

Today’s record: 36 laps=1800 yards=1 645.92 meter=1.022 727 272 7 mile, 57min

每当游完1mile 的时候我都感觉自己还是象20年前在运动会上跑长跑那样有毅力，跑的不快，游的也不快，只是耐力好。。。游了这么长时间，是该提高技术的时候了，准备找点资料看看。。。 我们游泳小分队决定增加运动项目，有网球，力量，跑步。。。

What can I do if I failed to be a scientist? 想捐点精子，不过恐怕已经没什么活力卖不出去了。。。想去做调酒师，又不会俚语黑话。。。开个酒吧胆子又小。。。对了卖饺子还行，准行啊！想起上大学时学校周围好多饺子店，这里一家都没有，东北人也不少，中国人一聚会就包饺子，为什么没人做呢？要做就做个高档的，比法国菜还贵，还讲究，光饺子馅就有上千种，面粉也有whole grain, whole wheat之分，形状也有十二生肖，十二天宫，十二花季之分，做法也有蒸的，煮的，炒的，炸的，烤的，涮的。。。再搞点花样，就镶个金丝边，嵌着块钻石。。。来点高雅的，就开家书店，又卖花，又卖咖啡，还卖收藏品，从老家搞点鱼化石阿，刀币阿什么的。。。要不就做流浪汉，或者云游修道士，周游世界。。。要选个落脚的地方，就去埃及吧，那的人热情还不排外，又是热带，不工作也可以在树上摘果子吃，饿不死。。。

Today’s record: 36 laps=1800 yards=1 645.92 meter=1.022 727 272 7 mile, 56 min

VV最近贴了很多黑白照片，很像是年代久远或是记忆深处的某个片刻，宁静而深邃。。。早上坐在Finagle里面吃Bagel喝咖啡，看着窗外静静的街道，已经是10点，行人不多，几辆黄色的铲雪车从街角轰轰扫过，像是放大了的Wall-E，一个白色的出租车正试图从雪堆里开出去，前轮打着空转，灰蒙蒙的天空下，Bank of America大楼上的美国旗瑟瑟地飘着。。。雪天里的十字路口，四角的建筑物，街口的红绿灯，黑色的铁轨，绿色的地铁车厢，笨拙的行人。。。一口咖啡下去，眼睛睁开了，再一口下去，瞳孔放大了。。。这街景算是留在我的记忆里了，变成黑白照片储存起来，象很多我见过的十字路口一样。。。小时候从家到学校路过一个十字路口，有市场，电影院，医院，粮站，我还记得一次骑车撞了一个抱小孩的妇女，被骂了一句，负疚地走开。。。在那个小电影院看了很多外国电影，五分钱一张票，能记起的有阴谋与爱情，三十九级台阶，卓别林的喜剧。。。在那个医院偷看过死人，一个喝敌敌畏自杀的男人，也在那里修过牙。。。拐角也有卖吃的，我还记得卖发糕的老回民的面孔，那时经常的早餐就是油条豆浆豆腐脑烧饼，就象现在吃Bagel喝咖啡一样。。。城市中心的十字路口是另一个我经常去的地方，四角的建筑有书店，旅馆，副食店，百货大楼，中间有个转盘，小时候，那里很大，记忆里也就很大，那里是集会的必经之地，节日游行，耍高跷舞龙，公审大会。。。第一次参加环城长跑也在那里经过，得到的奖品是一块手帕，我还珍藏在家里。。。此后我的记忆便游荡在四方。。。无数的广场，街道，十字路口，无数的瞬间。。。