Last week, I wrote about our involvement in a ballet recital and how I had the opportunity to actually make costumes for 3 of my daughters for the recital. The post discussed Zoë’s skunk costume and gave a bit of information about actual skunks themselves. As stated in the previous article, my twins were cast as frogs in the recital. Upon hearing that she got the frog part, Briar immediatel... »
Whew, this last week has been a busy one. Our entire family is involved in the ballet recital, “Snow White”, and it’s been either ballet practice or recital rehearsal almost every day of the week. It’s truly a family affair; we each have a part in the play: Rob is Snow White’s father. It is quite a role and he is kickin’ ass! He actually has the biggest role in ... »
Almost every nightmare I have is somehow related to the sky. Whether it involves war, airplanes, aliens, or a massive storm out to destroy us all, the sky is always ominous and has such a frightening look to it that it sticks in my craw as the most memorable part of the nightmare. I was born in Iowa, grew up in Kansas, and now live in North Texas. Living my whole life in Tornado Alley, I guess it&... »
If you believe certain musical groups, everybody wants to live forever (while ruling the world?). Our fascination with immortality is such that it’s a hallmark of mythology. In our daily lives, we obsess over staying young and healthy (or at least many advertisers and marketeers think we do, or at least that we obsess over how to appear young and healthy). And as a species we’ve funnel... »
Sometimes as parents we say things to our children that unintentionally lead us down paths we had no idea we’d be taking. I had this happen recently with my girls. They had caught a butterfly while they were outside. They brought it in and asked if they could keep it. I told them that keeping a butterfly as a pet isn’t a very nice thing to do to a butterfly since they only live 2-4 weeks. That’s w... »
I’m doing a bunch of staining experiments at work right now. That means that, hopefully, in the next couple weeks I’ll get a bunch of pretty pictures to analyse. It also means that I had the good fortune to spend much of yesterday at the cryostat (basically a meat slicer designed to make incredibly thin, frozen, sections – or slices). Sectioning is a zen experience for me, much a... »
It was the night of February 27th, 2013. Rob and I were driving down a stretch of dark highway when it happened. As we crested a hill something strange appeared at the horizon: an orange, glowing, ovoid object slowly rising from the earth like a distant bubble of blooming magma – fiery and ominous. After the initial surprise of the unsettling sight I quickly realized that it was just the moon. But... »
Sometimes it seems like the “Age of Synthetic Biology” is actually the “Age of Writing Great Works of Literature Into DNA”. While the tools of synthetic biology increase the potential of genetic engineering by letting us finely control the genomes of experimental organisms, many of the demonstrations of how minutely we can write out DNA sequences have more to do with the we... »
