"An Italian court has cut the sentence given to a convicted murderer by a year because he has genes linked to violent behaviour — the first time that behavioural genetics has affected a sentence passed by a European court…."____Nature News
基因的研究已经影响到生活的很多方面，甚至司法审判，这是个很有意思的案例，不管支持还是反对。。。有精神病的人往往被免于刑事惩罚，正是基于生理的原因，基因的研究把这一范围扩大了，尽管有些人看起来正常，他们是很危险的，但是减少处罚应该与诊断治疗联系起来，否则它更容易被滥用。。。
偶然看到这个网站，发现美国也盛产巫医，骗子，William Rader 居然用胚胎干细胞静脉注射治疗几乎所有现代医学尚无法治疗的疾病，包括唐氏综合征，即小儿痴呆。。。在东欧国家取自8周的胚胎的细胞（实际上已经不是胚胎干细胞了，不知来自哪一个器官），被运到德国增殖，然后运到多米尼加，中国，俄罗斯的诊所移植给病人。。。号称治愈了很多不治之症。。。看了他的宣传片发现病例介绍含糊其辞，而且淹没在强大的背景音乐之下。。。BBC对此也有报道。。。看看主页上的病例介绍：
Luca’s mother - “I was told by my pediatrician my son Luca had Down’s Syndrome and that their was nothing that could be done. After his stem cell treatment a miracle occurred, he eventually became completely normal in appearance and his I.Q. actually tested higher than average for his age”.
After 15 years of research, the papers on the oldest known skeleton of a potential human ancestor, 4.4-million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus from Aramis, Ethiopia was finally published on the new issue of Science. (Science 2009, 326, 5949)
一个生活在4.4百万年前东非丛林中的女子，身高120厘米，体重50公斤， 有着黑猩猩一样的体型和大脑，但是能直立行走。。。她也许是人类的祖先。。。比Lucy还要早。。。进化论又加了新的一页。。。
挖骨头真是个令人向往的工作啊！埃塞俄比亚真是个宝地啊！
"Here the balance of “inductive inquiry” (I2) and “hypothesisdriven” (HD) approaches becomes the
crux.The I2 approach, in its most pure form, entails adventure into uncharted territories—neither guided nor bridled by hypothesis. The HD approach is built on scholarship and smarts and is fundamentally driven by theory. If X and Y facts are understood, this knowledge should facilitate the hypothesis essential for solving the unknown Z. Scientists, just like most people, are far more comfortable with the known than the unknown. If one can embark on an adventure with known variables in pocket, the comfort factor alone will nudge the endeavor in favor of the HD direction….Bottom line, conventional wisdom almost always prevails—this, I advise, is something you will have to constantly fight in order to carve out a truly innovative career in science….Any research endeavor we might choose to pursue is, of course, an I2/HD blend. As articulated by Charles Darwin,
“Let theory guide your observations,” otherwise one “might as well go into a gravel pit and count the pebbles and describe the colors….Does science feel like a job, or is it the case that vocation matches
avocation, such that you can’t wait to get to the lab, such that it does not feel like work at all? If so, nothing can stop you and may you indeed “stay, forever young.”"
___from Mcknight SL. Unconventional wisdom, Cell, 2009,138,817
据说，家乡发现了最早的霸王龙(１．２亿年前的早白垩纪)化石。。。原来还是英雄出没的地方呢！难怪匈奴，鲜卑，突厥，蒙古争相逐鹿于此。。。是恐龙大仙在作怪。。。
9是我最喜欢的数字，今天就是良辰吉日了，09年9月9日，连哈佛自然历史博物馆的馆长都要提一下这种迷信。。。今天很幸运地见到了久仰已久的两大牛人James Watson和E.O.Wilson，他们在这里讨论过去，现在和未来。。。很大也很小的题目。。。这些问题可能几十年没有改变， 不过答案可能变了，因为他们都变老了。。。这两个人就像House里的Dr.House和Wilson，一个风趣，一个单调。。。一个是爱因斯坦式的大科学家，一个是科学普及专家，普利策奖得主；两个人都是动物系出身，不过一个不断地变化冲浪，开创分子生物学，神经生物学，另一个则是醉心于蚂蚁的社会学研究。。。James的自传就叫“Avoid Boring People and Other Lessons from a Life in Science”。。。两个人性格不同，他们对问题的看法也不同，一个激进，一个保守，一个关心科学的新突破，一个关心人类的命运。。。两个人都曾是哈佛的年轻才俊，如今都功成名就，曾经的敌人，现在的朋友。。。
A person is a scientist when and only when he makes a important discovery, and one discovery is enough…__E.O. Wilson
You’ve never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient…__James D. Watson
今日体检，记录一下结果：
total cholesterol: 149 mg/dl
TG: 87 mg/dl; HDL: 58 mg/dl; LDL: 74 mg/dl; total cholesterol/HDL ratio: 2.6
fasting glucose: 89 mg/dl
看起来很健康。。。问题是为什么看医生会紧张，当然我看病人也紧张，看生人就紧张。。。
如果没有路标没有参照，你在不熟悉的路上会怎么走呢？凭感觉？一个样本不大的不是很客观的研究说，人本能都是绕着圈走的。这个如果是真的话倒很有意思，就像人为什么会重复犯同样的错误一样，这种看似随机性的现象好像并不随机。。。电子是绕着原子核转的，人也是绕着ego这个核转的。。。想象着，上帝做了两个陀螺，随地一撒，他们就永不停息地转起来了，然后就有了小陀螺。。。几十亿陀螺。。。转啊转啊。。。
今天读到一篇文章反映美国医疗界的问题：ghostwriting； 药厂写好综述文章，送给医生发表在学术杂志上，从而影响其他医生的判断，以促进自己药品的销售。。。 药物大多有正反两方面的作用，夸大正面，减少负面的报道，在文章上是很容易的，尤其是综述文章，对于有争议的药物。。。除非有大量的副作用病例出现，否则也不会东窗事发。。。这就是科学与商业的矛盾之一。。。ghostwriting不就是枪手文章吗？
最近，一个体外实验证明手机辐射可以降低精子活力，增加氧自由基，破坏线粒体，DNA。。。
"Specifically we recommend that men of reproductive age who engage in high levels of mobile phone use, do not keep their phones in receiving mode below waist level."
珍爱精子，远离手机。。。
In this new study, they found mutations for RA in twins. "The advantage of studying twins is that they start out with the same genetic information, so differences in the way the genes act can be attributed to differences in the person’s surroundings. Those differences could cause a random genetic mutation, or affect how DNA is packaged."
No one has the same genes even for twins. Once they were separated after the same cell stage, they go different path…even they share more similarity than others, the mutations or modifications of genes happens every moment, which affect their body, look, temper, character et al. Genes or environment, which is more important? It’s hard to say, but they could change or affect each other in either way… It’s not impossible in the near future to change your personality as you wished or your enemy wished, the war between "good and evil" will never end too, with the new possible weapons…
Just read a breakthrough on stem cell research that muscle stem cells could be induced to regenerate under drugs…..I saw movies of Frankenstein recently (1931, 2007), which could be true with the new technology of stem cell research. It takes 150 years to realize a imagination, and the speed is faster and faster. ….I was thinking to make a brain, the movie has gone further, just put stem cell in a tank, and a human or monster came out!
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？
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."
350 million years ago, sex already exsisted, this is the new evidence found by scientists.
Today’s record: 36 laps=1800 yards=1 645.92 meter=1.022 727 272 7 mile, 56 min
VV转给我一篇写的不错的东西，生动讲了生物文学家对待试验动物的看法。。。让我也想一想自己每天做的事情。。。我对付过的动物有: 青蛙, 小白鼠, 大白鼠, 狗, 大白兔, 恒河猴, 猪。。。上大学的时候，老师都是留日回来的，就跟我们讲，日本人在作动物实验前要为它们鞠躬以感谢它们为人类做出的贡献；所以我每次做实验杀生之前也会动一下恻隐之心，不过时间长了就跟刽子手一样冷漠了。在北京的时候用猴子做帕金森氏病模型，研究所有个专门养猴子的工人老刘，瘦瘦的，带着黑边塑料框眼镜，穿者白大衣，每天跟猴子交流，也受猴子的感应，行为举止越来越像猴子，也对猴子有了很深的感情，每次要杀的时候，他都会很难过。。。可是人类就是这样的，和其他动物一样，为了自己的利益还是得牺牲它们，想起一个关于牧羊猪的电影，不过像这样逃过枪口的聪明的名猪是少之又少。。。在瑞典的时候有个国防部的项目，把猪放在靶场里然后放炮，然后我们把她的脑子取出来研究有没有病理变化；研究起源于退伍士兵得老年痴呆的比较多，可能跟年轻时的枪炮噪音造成的微度脑创伤有关；为什么用猪呢，因为人们认为猪跟人比较接近。有一天，研究室外面站了一群示威的人，我记得有一张poster上画了一只小猪用两手努力地想撑开栏杆；后来听说是主持这个项目的教授得到了基金，他的敌人，竞争者就把这个消息捅给了动物保护组织。。。不过我们还是照杀不误。。。
在医学院里，动物实验是家常便饭，关于吃动物的故事也很多。。。不过我只吃过兔子和大白鼠，对照组的动物一般是没有用药的，我们把死后的动物扒皮，去内脏，在冰箱里存起来，直到够多，或者自己用电炉子炖，或者拿到饭店去叫他给红烧了，那时宿舍走廊里都是肉味飘香。。。还听说过学长的轶事，一次做胃大切手术后的死狗被一位同学收藏起来，回家炖了吃了，大概是麻药没有清除干净，据说吃后脸色铁青，赶紧往急诊室跑。。。
关于杀动物的方法也是五花八门，搅动脊髓，拉颈椎，耳静脉注射气体，铡刀（guillotine）切头，麻醉药过量，二氧化碳窒息。。。现在一般的研究机构都有动物保护条例，都要求尽可能地减少动物的痛苦，尽可能地减少动物用量；但是实验室里的老鼠们的命运还是等待屠戮，只能盼望赶上个好试验，死的快一点，不知他们作何感想呢。。。
UK issued Dawin 200 years stamps this month. The theme is on evolution of course.
The genome sequencing of mouse, human, dog, rhesus macaque monkey, chimpanze have been fiished, and now mitochondria Neaderthals from 30000 years ago. The dream in Jurassic Park may come true soon…
"A complete mitochondrial (mt) genome sequence was reconstructed from a 38,000 year-old Neandertal individual with 8341 mtDNA sequences identified among 4.8 Gb of DNA generated from 
0.3 g of bone. Analysis of the assembled sequence unequivocally establishes that the Neandertal mtDNA falls outside the variation of extant human mtDNAs, and allows an estimate of the divergence date between the two mtDNA lineages of 660,000 ± 140,000 years. Of the 13 proteins encoded in the mtDNA, subunit 2 of cytochrome c oxidase of the mitochondrial electron transport chain has experienced the largest number of amino acid substitutions in human ancestors since the separation from Neandertals. There is evidence that purifying selection in the Neandertal mtDNA was reduced compared with other primate lineages, suggesting that the effective population size of Neandertals was small. " (Cell 2008, 134, 426.)
Neanderthals have been studied for many years, but there are many breakthroughs last year, which was turned into a feature article in National Geography. VV was fasinated by this story, and became to realize how mean we human are. Old stories, new stories, why people like stories? Archiologists build old stories about past, biologists build new stories about livings and diseases, novelists and artists build stories about life of past, now and future. So what’s the purpose of the stories? Curiosity? Entertainments? Selfish gene? Matrix order? or the destiny of human: what? when? where? who? why? how?
九月的一天，温和而晴朗，一个个蚂蚁窝前格外热闹，一群群蚂蚁振翅飞向空中，这里面有雄蚂蚁，雌蚂蚁，这是他们一生中最激动的一刻：成年礼，雄蚂蚁追逐着一只只雌蚂蚁交配，然后会纵欲过渡而死；雌蚂蚁则筑窝开始新的生活，变成蚁后，生出工蜂为自己服务，然而新殖民地并不容易建成，大部分雌蚂蚁会被捕食，幸运的则开始新的生活，也许是不幸的生活，尽管君临天下，衣食无忧，却变成产卵的机器。。。直到终老而死，新的雄蚂蚁和雌蚂蚁会开辟新的殖民地，如此周而复始，基因传递下去。。。人类未尝不是如此，我们都是基因的载体，传宗接代真是个愚蠢的想法，因为染色体会随着交配不断的被稀释，1/2， 1/4， 1/8，1/16。。。。可以想见孔子的300代曾孙恐怕跟孔子没什么相似性了，基因们则幸福地在人群里窜来此窜去，复制自己，永生不死。。。我们都是基因的奴隶，即使一些人逃离了这个循环，整个人群还在继续，除非种族灭绝。。。基因为什么喜欢复制，无限制地传下去呢？ 这个机制是自发的吗？或者只是一个偶然, 世界还有其他的运作方式。
蚂蚁们在Labour Day这一天还是很兴奋，就象人类在婚礼上很兴奋一样，蚁后的生活也许丰富多彩，可以听音乐，讲故事，作数学，谈经论道，防止宫廷政变。。。幸福地唱着小黑奴之歌。。。拉拉拉。。。
I am reading two books at the same time, one is "Journey to the Ants, with dominated organism ants, and "The tale of Genji" with beautiful human characters. Both succeed in the evolution game, but show different organizations and structures. "…socialism really works under some circumstances. Karl Marx just had the wrong species."
There is a movie that bees become human and they try to kill all human; in fact it’s always the case for human thinking, what if we become of ants? Can we learn from ants?
忙碌中来到了新年，看VV摄影入迷，收获颇丰，我也作了许多模特，留下了些历史的影子，等着它们发黄。。。我的实验也越来越让人兴奋，终于在这里完成了些自己满意的工作，是该离开的时候了。。。我觉着自己一直在向着自己的理想行进，从未间断过，似乎那是命中注定的，有神在引导一样，尽管我对神没什么认识，也没什么敬拜。。。
送走了惆怅的VV，我们又开始了各自的长途跋涉，期望着在新的一年在那个城市会师，然后幸福地生活。。。
My professor in China sent me a bad news on our grant application of NSF; though it’s an interesting and novel proposal with strong theoretical and experimental bases, 3 out of 5 reviewers gave positive support while the other two refused. However when I read what the 2 negative reviewer wrote, I cannot help complaining that their critics are not based on the true facts but ignorance, what can I say of these specialists of knowing nothing new and made their illogical arguments on a shallow paper…
A new research found the rule of rainfall changes in China during the last 2000 years by analyzing the "signatures" of two forms of oxygen in the stalagmite in earth layers. And even connected the weather change with the fall and rise of dynasties, not only in China but also in America and Europe…That’s possilbe since the social structure is mainly depend on food and agriculture, especially before the industrical revolution.
I listen to the ipod very often recently since VV gave me. And I keep on listenning "Kill Bill" all the day, seems it stimulates my morale and drive away the laziness, I felt more efficient not only in work but also in rest while walking on the road…It’s like a drug…the secret might be in the style of this music is very rhythmatic and make the neurons to oscillate and fire together, which make the transmission more efficient. This also made my mood better…
Now in every bus station with shelter, you’ll find a poster on BIDMC, not the good one, but try to make it notorious…
There are some genetic diseases that are recessive, that means you need two copies of mutation of this gene to get disease, but in some case you benefit from the mutation if you only have one mutation copy, and the other copy is normal. These diseases genes with heterozygote advantage are:
sickle-cell anemia against malaria
cystic fibrosis against typhoid and tuberculosis
triose phosphate isomerase deficiency against oxidative stress
VV likes to eat dark chocolate because she likes the bitter taste. And research recently found that "6.7 grams of chocolate per day, corresponding to a small square of chocolate twice or three times a week" can reduce vessel inflamation, which is the key for later cardiovasular diseases.
I am working like a machine this week, time on, time off, all day long to finish my full plans…and then thinking stops, though not the swimming. I feel being numb, yet still respond to stimulates now and then, with smile and posture and some sloppy words…there’s still a paper to be finished, two books to be read, and 3 travel blogs to be written…and I need to sit down to make plans for the exams…
however, it’s not difficult to find something intersting everyday, like this new view of life and disease reported. That’s something worth to celebrate, like periodic table of elements discovered by Dmitri Mendeleev. The author claimed 68 molecules as building blocks for life, and encourage researchers to intergrate the knowldge we have gained at a expotional scale.
"The physical sciences developed the periodic table of the elements to convey the composition and relatedness of matter. A related construct for biology may provide a more balanced view of the cell and its biochemistry. The four fundamental components of cellular life are derived from 68 molecular building blocks. Unlike the genome and proteome, the glycome and lipidome are not directly encoded by DNA. Nevertheless, the glycome and the lipidome contribute to the pathogenesis and severity of an increasing number of diseases, and are usurped by pathogens as receptors for infection. Scientific discussions that encompass these components remain relatively infrequent in the protein centric world of cell biology. Some scientists lament the ‘complexity of the molecules’. Yet our alphabet of 26 characters, let alone Chinese characters, is rather easily assimilated. Imagine a world in which each of us knew only a fraction of the alphabet." __Jamey D. Marth
People are looking for this day when human brain and computer communicate more directly than talking through fingers, and envolve together, which may change the world completely…the new research in UK has just made a promising progress. The cultured neurons are connected by electrodes to a robot, and the signals can be received and sent feedback to avoid collision. I remembered from an exhibition in Museum of Science in Boston that a paralyzed patient could control the keyboard of a computer through a chip implanted in his mortor cortex. But this research seems make more reduction than before, which could be used as a model for neuronal circuit studies.
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