parasiteboy meets frau rockt

2009-10-18T14:46:00.001+02:00

What’s happened since the last post??? Well, the last post was right before the Italian odyssey. How did that go? I spent one week in Turin at the meeting of the European Society of Evolutionary Biologists (yes, I am a member). The conference was both interesting and disappointing. Given that there were 1400 participants, most people could not give a talk. On the positive side, though, most of the talks were of high quality and I really learned a lot. It was humbling going to a conference full of so many extremely clever people, most smarter than me, the humble parasitologist. As for my research, I presented, along with 800 other people, a poster. That was disappointing because, as there were several hundred other posters, people didn’t take much time to stop and discuss my work. I actually spent more time discussing my long forgotten PhD work with a few French acanth researchers than my current work detailed on my poster. Oh well. I’ve decided that the next conference I go to will be much smaller. A colleague of mine says the next international fish parasitology conference is somewhere in S. America…

After “working” in Turin, my holiday began. I flew to Rome to meet Ines and my parents. We spent several days in Rome taking in sites like the Vatican, the Spanish steps, and the Colloseum. Rome was less dirty and more charming than I anticipated, and it is certainly a must-see for any world traveler. But the most memorable part of the visit to Rome was the brutal heat. I’ve spent the last few summers in N. Europe, so I although I yearned for scorching summer temps, I was prepared for the 30 plus degree heat. I am just glad that my folks survived the hikes around Rome without passing out from heatstroke. After thoroughly exploring the treasures of Rome, we headed north to Florence, hometown of Michelangelo. Florence is all about Renaissance art…too bad that we were all sick of the Renaissance after Rome. Nonetheless, we did go to see Michelangelo’s Dave, which was deserving of its reputation. It’s a breathtaking piece of art. We also visited the church in which Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli were buried, which shows what an intellectual center Florence was. After a couple days in Florence, Ines flew back to Germany. On the same day, my sister arrived from Spain, and it was great to see her. The last time we had seen each other was in New York for Christmas 2006, but that doesn’t mean that our sibling rivalry has been settled and forgotten. Whenever she got a bit snotty I had to reestablish my authoritative position as older brother and smack her around a bit. She puts up more of a fight than she used to . The evening before we left Florence, we had a memorable dinner at the corner restaurant Quattro Leonies. The whole fam was tipsy enough after two bottles of wine to engage in a group hug…there’s just something about Italy. The next stop on our trip was Five Chimneys Bed and Breakfast in the Piemont. This little B&B caters to Omahans, of all people, because the Italian owner worked in Omaha for 13 years before getting fired. The newspaper in Omaha did a story on his B&B and he’s been inundated with Nebraskan guests ever since. Situated between the Alps and the Mediterranean, it is in the middle of red wine country. Our host took us on two very nice excursions, one to the mountains and one to the sea. I particularly enjoyed the trip down to “La Cinque Terra”, the five lands. These are 5 little villages located along the Med that look as if they’re about to fall into the sea. They were so charming that my mom wanted to puke, literally…ok, maybe it was sea sickness rather than charm. The highlight of our stay in the Piedmont, however, was not the excursions; it was the food. The wife of our host was a master chef, and she treated us to the best of Italian cuisine. On our first evening, we had a 5-course meal (yeah, 5!, appetizer, pasta, meat dish, cheese, dessert). My dad picked up numerous tips, while I picked up a few pounds. Our hostess went all stereotypical Italian mama on me. She didn’t ask if I wanted seconds, she just piled it on.

Reality was waiting for me after returning from Italy. At the end of September, our Institute was visited by the scientific advisory board. Every two years, the board writes a critical report about the research we are conducting. Their job is to decide whether we deserve the generous government funding we receive. In the summer, we wrote a long report detailing all the spectacular research we’ve done the past two years, and during the board’s visit I, among others, had the job of convincing the board that we’re gonna keep doing great research the next two years. I was surprisingly nervous before this talk to the board, as I felt like my job depended on it. In the end, though, it proceeded like most other talks. All I can do now is hope that the talk was well-received. If not, then I should probably start looking for new work…

So what’s up next? Experiments, yes, but more importantly another fantastical trip. Ines and I are trying to put together a holiday in India. My brother has been in Chennai since September, and we are keen to visit him. Exciting.

2009-08-22T16:27:00.002+02:00

Summer is the time to travel. Tomorrow, I am headed to Turin in Italy to attend the meeting of the European Society of Evolutionary Biology. Must be a small meeting, or? How many evolutionary biologists can there be? A lot it seems; 1200 participants are expected, so this will easily be the largest meeting I’ve ever attended. Hopefully, a few of those 1200 nerds will take a few seconds to glance at my poster. After the conference, I am heading to Rome to meet my parents. Yes, my parents are braving a trans-Atlantic flight to do something they’ve always wanted to do, visit Italy. We plan to see Rome before heading to Florence and Tuscany. Although Italy is sure to be interesting, I’m mostly looking forward to seeing my parents. Actually, this will be my second rendezvous with Nebraskans this summer. I met my old high school/college buddy Ben Retzer in Berlin a few weeks ago. Ben was in the UK to attend the wedding of his fiance’s sister. As he and his fiancé were in neighborhood, they decided to visit Berlin, and I was more than happy to meet them for a weekend in the capital (I’ve often written fondly about my trips to Berlin). Two things I will remember about that trip. First, if you are ever in a bar with psychedelic decorations (i.e. mushrooms sprouting from the ceiling), do not give the bartender free reign to mix the nightcap; it will surely contain too much whiskey. Second, it was a bit weird to be with Nebraskans in Berlin. While Nebraskan dialects and mannerisms are not unusual for me, on a subconscious level I just don't expect to encounter them when I am with my girlfriend in Berlin. It was a sort of reverse-reverse culture shock…my original culture visited me in my adopted culture. Nothing bad about it, it was just a bit strange.

2009-08-16T19:00:00.000+02:00

The last two posts have clearly dealt with the theme “rock ‘n roll”, so we are due for a post about parasites. A very exciting experiment of ours came to an abrupt, unplanned end last week. Some background…As a model system we are working with a tapeworm that uses sticklebacks (small fish) as intermediate host. This worm invades the body cavity of sticklebacks and then grows voraciously. The mature worm is so large that it distends the abdomen of the fish and can account for up to 50% of the fish’s weight. A large size benefits the worm, because larger individuals produce more eggs in the next host, fish-eating birds. However, to achieve such prolific growth, worms seem to suppress the fish’s immune system. In a wormy world, this might be risky. By suppressing its host’s defenses, the worm potentially opens the door for other parasites, which might be competitors or on their way to different host’s (e.g. predatory fish). To test this scenario, we infected fish with two tapeworm strains that differed in their growth rates, and then placed the fish in cages in the lake. We intended to leave the fish in the lake until September, so that they would be exposed to a whole summer’s worth of parasites. However, two weeks ago, we observed a spike in fish mortality. So, before our whole batch of experimental fish died off, we decided to undertake an emergency dissection. Unfortunately, the majority of the institute’s technical staff has chosen mid-August for their holidays, so we had to process all these fish with less help than accustomed or expected. Here’s the rough procedure: kill the fish, check the skin, fins, and mouth for ectoparasites, weigh and measure the fish, take a fin clip for DNA identification of the fish, open the body cavity and check for our nasty tapeworm, weigh any worm that is present, take the spleen and head kidneys for possible gene expression studies, dissect the eyes for flukes, squeeze the liver, gonads and intestine for endoparasites, and, finally, freeze the rest of the carcass so the muscles and gills can be checked later. Each little fish requires a lot of work; just checking the eyes can take up to an hour. We had to put in some night-shifts, but we managed to finish the last fish late Friday night. After this dissection-marathon, I’m looking forward to resting my back and not opening another fish eye for some time. I am convinced that the whole effort will yield some very interesting data. Which brings me to a metaphor: big experiments are like binge drinking. We tend to remember the positive parts of it (good data or a nice buzz), but not the negative (an aching back or a wicked hangover).

On another, less-interesting work theme, much of my time has been consumed by report-writing. Every two years, the institute is evaluated by a board of international experts. Essentially, it is the board’s job to assess whether all that government money produced some high-quality research, and it is our job to convince them that we have done lots of spectacular research. In a long, boring report, we detail our work, results, and future plans. I imagine that most of the board members barely read the report, instead browsing through the publication list, checking in which journals we published and how often. Nonetheless, the time devoted to this is excessive. We had two epically long (3-hour) and boring meetings (shoot me) to discuss the content and outline of the bloody thing. And guess who was elected to proofread the 40 page report? Yeah, damn my good English.

2009-07-19T13:25:00.001+02:00

I’d been living in Plön for about 1.5 years in the same flat, so naturally, I was getting restless. I moved at the beginning of July to a new apartment. It’s a bit bigger, a bit cheaper, a bit closer to work. But that ain’t so exciting. More entertaining is that, while sorting my junk, I found a DVD with most of the files from my old desktop. I’ve only owned one desktop in my life, and I received it as a gift before heading off to college. That computer, and its monstrous 10 GB hard drive, got me through a 4-year bachelor program. After leaving for Finland, the computer collected dust for several years in my parent’s basement before it was given to charity. But before donating it, my brother burned all my old files on a single DVD and sent them to me. I never really sorted through them, but upon finding this DVD during my move, I had a look. The music was most interesting (this blog is supposed to deal with rock ‘n roll, you know). I had this computer during the lawless Napster days, so shortly after hooking up to the dorm network it was full of miscellaneous obscure mp3s. Browsing through this music nowadays brought about a variety of reactions, ranging from “oh man, what was I thinking” to “awesome, I remember those guys”. A few examples falling in the first category: Bloodhound Gang – Bad Touch (in my defense I was still a teenie when they released that one), Evanescence – Bring me to Life (damn the radio senders still spinning this!), a thrash metal cover of Welcome to the Jungle (I don’t even like the original), a number of unreleased Limp Bizkit tracks (it took me longer than most to outgrow the Bizkit), and Hot Action Cop – Fever for the Flava (that’s probably the low point). Although the presence of such tracks on my old computer causes me shake my head, it also makes me smile. It’s about the memories; nothing says turn-of-the millennium like radio rock hits from Breaking Benjamin (remember them? I didn’t until hearing their songs). Happily, not all of the old archive was so embarrassing. Here’s a short coolest-of list: Ben Kweller – Wasted and Ready, Basement Jaxx – Where’s your Head At?, The Distillers – City of Angels, The Darkness – I believe in a thing called Love (this was nearly assigned to the embarrassing list, but it’s so kitschy it’s cool), Liars – Mr. You’re on Fire Mr., Our Lady Peace – Superman’s Dead, Prodigy – Baby’s got a Temper, Sev – Same Old Song (they were on the Farmclub, remember that short-lived program?), Rorschach Test – Fornicator, Sleater Kinney – More than a Feeling (any Boston cover is bound to be good), and VAST – Free. I can’t really claim to have an emotional connection to any these songs. If I did, they probably would have successfully migrated to my next computer. Actually, I’m glad they didn’t make it, because going through the old files was like opening a time capsule from 2002. Reveling in such musical nostalgia inspired me to go out and download some cool skins for Winamp (it still whips the llama’s ass).

2009-06-14T20:07:00.002+02:00

Ines and I survived Rock Im Park last weekend. Some background…Rock Im Park is the smaller sister festival of Rock Am Ring. The same bands play both festivals over the course of 3 days, albeit in different orders. Rock Am Ring is bigger with nearly 80,000 attendees, while Rock Im Park tallies 60,000 visitors. Taken together, this is by far the biggest rock festival in Germany, and one of the biggest in Europe. MTV Germany even broadcasts parts of Rock Am Ring live every year. Given the huge audience, they manage to attract numerous big-name acts every year. This year was of course no exception, but, as I hinted at in the previous post, many of the headliners were not exactly the freshest faces. Nonetheless, I was excited to see many of the top bands of my adolescent perform in one place. I was not disappointed. In fact, I felt like I made up for lost experiences. As a 17-year-old I watched clips from Woodstock ’99 (it was pay-per-view, so I only got highlights and news reports about the carnage), and longed to be there right in the middle of the mosch pit. Several of the headliners from that show played in Rock Im Park last weekend, so, although there was no mass destruction and I avoided the mosch pit (too old), I feel like I finally experienced my own delayed version of Woodstock ’99.

After flying from Hamburg to Nürnberg, I arrived at the festival in the late evening, just in time to catch the first and probably most intriguing headliner, Limp Bizkit. Though I didn’t know it beforehand, the band has been reunited since the beginning of this year. After something like 5 years hiatus, they couldn’t expect much resonance with the audience, or? Well, apparently, because they put on a great show. Fred Durst wore his signature red hat, and Wes Borland, the guitarist that had left the band, jumped around stage in an extravagant, clown-like costume. And the crowd sang along with every big hit (e.g. Nookie, Rollin’, Faith, etc.). It was like they were never gone. With this Bizkit comeback, I finally understand why people go to the concerts of reunited, dinosaur bands. It’s not about the music; it’s about memories. Seeing Limp Bizkit reminded me of rocking out as a teenager.

Saturday was the first full festival day for me, and from 2 in the afternoon until 1 in the morning I was watching bands. Here’s the rundown…Dragonforce (80s metal and bonus material in Guitar Hero III), Shinedown (terrible radio rock), Juliette Lewis (boring), Razorlight (surprisingly energetic), Papa Roach (points for persistence, but really why are they still around?), Placebo (not bad, not great, but that’s also my opinion of their music), and Killswitch Engage (who knew that a metal band guitarist could rock out wearing a cape and an Football Club Nürnberg scarf?). Saturday’s headliner was The Killers, and Ines and I secured a position in front of the stage. The Killers released their first and best CD at about the time that Ines and I got together, and ever since we’ve both been big fans. However, being more of a hard rock guy, I was not expecting a high-energy show from these indie boys. I was absolutely wrong; The Killers were probably the highpoint of the weekend. Ines and I danced through their 1.5 hr set to all the songs we knew (which were all of them). Ines described it correctly when she said that they write indie-rock anthems. Indeed, when the fireworks went off during the last chorus of “When You Were Young”, it felt like an anthem worthy of 60,000 spectators. Check it out (that's Rock am Ring, not Rock im Park, but you get the idea). After The Killers we ran over to the extremely crowded second stage and caught the last song from Marilyn Manson. As the crowd started to disperse somewhat, I secured a good position for Korn, the final act of the night. For years, I was a huge Korn fan; one of my fondest teenage memories is travelling to K.C. to see them play for the first time. This show was a bit different, though, because Korn has shrunk in the past years. One guitarist left the band after becoming a born-again evangelical and the drummer has retired due to an injury. But the remaining three members are soldiering on and still performing. For the most part, they played the familiar classics (e.g. Freak on a Leash, Blind, Falling Away From Me). The only surprise was a very cool cover of Pink Floyd’s “Brick in the Wall”. While it was fun to jump around to the old favorites and to watch the band perform (they still appear to have fun playing, even after 16 years), I can’t imagine anything of new and interesting coming from Korn in the future.

Sunday was the final festival day, and the most memorable thing about it was not some performance, but the weather. In the middle of the afternoon, during Flogging Molly’s entertaining set, it started pouring. Luckily, Ines had a press pass (and so did I, because I was her guest), so we could retreat to the press center. The rain only lasted about a half an hour before giving way to blue sky. The weather remained friendly for most of the rest of the day…but not the whole day. At dusk, after The Prodigy finished their set, which was cool but not mind-blowing, it rained in sheets for about 5 minutes. What was essentially one rain cloud soaked thousands of people to the bone and turned the festival into a muddy mess. The timing was terrible, because the sun set shortly after this drenching and the temperature dropped (I later heard that this June weekend was the coldest in 30 years). Now, if Ines and I would have done what was in the best interest of our health, we would have left immediately. I, however, wanted to watch the last headliner, Slipknot. As these crazy guys come from Iowa, I had numerous chances to see them when I lived Nebraska, but for whatever reason, I never managed. Thus, I didn’t want to forgo my chance to see them at Rock Im Park, even if Ines and I were wet and freezing. Slipknot’s show, like their music, was fast and furious. The masks, the rapid fire drum beats, the hard-core fans screaming along with every chorus…it all gave the show energy. Because of the cold, you could see the condensed breath with every scream of lead singer Corey Taylor. More accessories were employed than I expected…flamethrowers, pivoting percussion sets, and an upside-down drummer during the final song. For me, it was worthwhile to suffer through the cold, though I did feel guilty for making Ines, who was wetter than I was, suffer through their whole set. Nonetheless, it was a fitting end to a wild weekend. Unfortunately, reality cruelly returned several hours later, as I got up at 5 to catch my 7 am flight back to Hamburg.

2009-06-03T08:29:00.002+02:00

The last two weekends have been great, and next weekend is looking very promising. In the German calendar, May is full of holidays, and the past two weekends have been extended by Feiertagen. Two weeks ago, I spent a 4 day weekend in Leipzig. Ines and I did not have any problems filling the time. We visited the fairgrounds, watched the final episode of Germany’s Next Top Model (mostly Ines), saw the new Star Trek movie (surprisingly entertaining), cooked Lasagne (my attempt at a romantic dinner), went kayaking on the Leipzig canals, and attended a very eccentric party organized by an art school. This past Monday was also a free day, so Ines drove to Plön for a 3 day weekend. Ines and I normally see each once every two or three weeks, so being together on two consecutive long weekends is quite an exception. But we didn’t get bored. We went to see Angels and Demons (in English!) and we watched a straight to DVD Futurama movie (not bad, but not grand). We also took advantage of the unusually warm and sunny weather. We spent an afternoon at the Baltic Sea, which is the number one holiday destination for Germans (the water is still damn cold), and we also tested the water in the Plöner See (also damn cold). So, after two great weekends, we should get back to normality, right? Nope. Ines got accredited to report at Rock im Park next weekend. And guess who her “plus one” is? So, next weekend I am flying to Nürnberg to attend one of the biggest rock festivals in Europe. It lasts 3 days, and the list of bands is impressive: Limp Bizkit, Korn, Marilyn Manson, Papa Roach, Slipknot, The Prodigy, The Killers, and Placebo among others. Many of these acts actually achieved their peak popularity during my teenage years (e.g. Bizkit, Korn, Manson), so I was surprised that they managed to score top slots. Nonetheless, I am excited to see them all in one place. Will they play old hits? Or new stuff that hardly anyone knows? I suppose that will have to be the topic of the next post...

2009-04-26T12:16:00.001+02:00

So, yet again, a month has gone by between posts. I suppose I’d never survive as a professional blogger. At least it was a busy and enjoyable month. At the end of March, Ines came to spend two weeks in Plön before starting her new job at news.de. That was like being on holiday. I quit working at 6 to come home and spend time with my girlfriend, and I didn’t do any work on the weekend. Makes me wonder why I chose this crazy profession…

Over the Easter holidays, Katri, a friend from Finland, came to visit Ines and I. We started in Hamburg on the Thursday before Easter and visited the world famous Reeperbahn. The highlight of the evening was Ines getting her picture taken with Germany’s most famous drag queen. Rarely have I seen her so excited. The next day we drove to Leipzig and spent Friday and Saturday experiencing all that the city has to offer…shopping, sights, cocktail bars, vegetarian restaurants, etc. On Easter Sunday, sleep-deprived and hungover, we drove to Ines’s sister in Ebersdorf in Bavaria to celebrate her 40th birthday. The weather was sunny and the atmosphere relaxed, but I had the feeling that Katri was intimidated by Ines’s rambunctious and talkative family members.

On Tuesday morning, I took the train back to Plön, but my stay was short. The next day I flew from Hamburg to Riga for the 3rd meeting of the Scandinavian-Baltic Society of Parasitologists. Sound exciting? Well, it was and wasn’t. It was exciting because I was invited to give a plenary lecture, thanks to my PhD advisor who was on the scientific organizing committee. I practiced quite a lot for my first invited talk at an international meeting, and I think it paid off. After my 30-minute talk about complex life cycles, I received quite a lot questions, and later that evening I even had beers with two of the other invited speakers. So I managed to spark some real interest among my colleagues. In any case, Tellervo, my former advisor, appeared more than satisfied with my performance. And what about the not so exciting part of the meeting? Well, quite a lot of parasitologists still do mind-numbingly boring research, particularly on the veterinary side. For example, there were presentations about the morphological systematics of some blood protozoans and the prevalence of fox tapeworms in Latvian raccoon dogs. These are studies with a narrow audience addressing small questions, and they are difficult to sit through. When I have to listen to these kinds of talks, I am glad that I am no longer working in a classical parasitology lab. Though I still consider myself a parasitologist first and then an evolutionary biologist, I am glad that the academic environment that I am in nowadays gives me a broader perspective and motivates me to tackle big questions.

2009-03-30T08:52:00.002+02:00

I work at a research institute. That means that I have the luxury of focusing on research, and I don’t have to teach or deal with needy students. However, each year, we run a 2-week practical course, in which we the researchers supervise students in “real” research projects. Of course, we have the ulterior motive of finding good students to work in the lab. The course is really a fantastic opportunity for any student interested to see how science actually works. The students get handed a novel, untested topic, unlike most lab courses in which the experiments have already been done millions of time, and they are then sent off to answer their question with all the institute’s facilities at their disposal. The students learn methods that I was never exposed to in my entire 4 years of undergrad work. They sequence DNA, measure gene expression, record immune activity, etc. The course probably costs the institute about as much as a small luxury sedan.

Last Friday was the end of this year’s practical course…what a relief. I worked with two girls that came across as neither motivated nor particularly bright. Not that the interaction was all negative. Sometimes it was quite humorous. They were not very comfortable with English, so we tried to communicate in German. My German ain’t bad, but I would say that it isn’t sufficient to clearly describe biological concepts such as host-parasite co-evolution, hermaphroditic mating strategies, and gene flow. Thus, we often found ourselves in the weird situation where I would explain something in English and they would respond in German. In the end, though, regardless of which language I used to explain something, the point never sunk in. They never grasped the goal of their project. While it was fun to try and share some of my eclectic knowledge (I even gave an ad hoc stats lecture during the course), I really don’t like the feeling of talking to a black hole. Perhaps, I was a poor teacher, but even after two weeks of poor teaching the point of the work should come across. That’s what I dislike about teaching; it requires patience and lowered expectations.

2009-03-15T13:12:00.002+01:00

Yet again, several weeks have passed between posts. The last two weekends have been full of excitement, leaving no time to write, so I’ll compensate here with a long post. Two weeks ago, I was in Hannover visiting Claudia and Rico. I know Claudia and Rico from my stay in Finland, and I wanted to visit them ever since moving to Germany. The timing just never seemed to work out though. Then, at the beginning of February, Claudia sent me a clandestine email invitation to Hannover for Rico’s 30th birthday. Of course, I couldn’t say no to that. Two old friends from Finland also made the journey to Hannover to celebrate, so it was like the good ol’ days in Jyväskylä (no rock hour at Sohwi though). I had heard that Hannover was a boring town, but that was not the impression I was left with after my visit. We went out to a couple nice bars and clubs, even had a late-evening Döner (good, but not as good as in Leipzig). Between Friday and Saturday nights on the town, we took in the sights…which didn’t take that long, as there isn’t that much to see in Hannover. My personal highlight was the slanted elevator in the city hall, i.e. it doesn’t move directly vertically, but at an angle. We also spent a lot of time watching videos on youtube. Here's a highlight.

Last weekend, I traveled to Leipzig to visit Ines. On Friday, she had to DJ, and I accompanied her to the gig. The place was relatively empty and between 3 and 4 I started nodding off. This must be an indication of old age or of a long-lasting hangover from the Hannover weekend. The next day, we visited a farm house with our gay neighbors in a village near Leipzig. Those two wacky guys want to buy this dilapidated place and fix it up. I don’t really understand their motivation for this undertaking. Besides the social stigma of a gay pair living in a small village, they would need to invest a fortune into fixing it up. Ines and I spent the rest of the weekend watching movies and lying around. I finally saw Slumdog Millionaire, which deserved to win best picture. Both Ines and my mother think that I look like the main character. Besides our shared lankiness, I don’t see the resemblance…does anyone else? We also watched a Swedish vampire flick called ‘Let the right one in’. I would also recommend it to anyone looking for a novel take on vampire stories.

After the lovely weekend in Leipzig, I went to Berlin on Monday for the Max Planck Symposium for Evolutionary Biology. The goal of the conference was to explore how the Max Planck Society might encourage evolutionary research in the future (the Darwin year was likely also a motivation). To that end, there were a number of well-known speakers in the field of evolutionary biology. The schedule is shown above. Here’s my spontaneous take on the conference…Dieter Ebert’s talk was good, and the only one that dealt with parasites in depth, but I already knew much of the story he told. To me, his research shows how nature should work, as the results always seem to fit theory nicely. I can’t say that about my work. I also enjoyed Richard Lenski’s talk. He has been following the evolution of 12 E. coli cultures for the last 21 years. That’s about 45,000 bacteria generations. Sounds boring right? Definitely not, because the critters keep doing new stuff. The 12 bacteria lines have all evolved similar new traits; sometimes the same genetic changes are involved, whereas in other cases totally different genetic mutations produce the same trait change. Hopi Hoekstra told a similar tale about beach mice. These mice have colonized sandy beaches in the southern US and are lighter than their grassland-inhabiting progenitors. The change in pigmentation has occurred more than once (e.g. on the Gulf coast and the Atlantic coast), but different genetic mutations are involved. I find it very cool that there are multiple ways in which the same trait can change. This may really speed up evolution, because an adaptive peak can be climbed in several ways. Another highlight was the talk from Svante Pääbo, head of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Pääbo is always in the headlines for his institute’s attempt to sequence the Neanderthal genome. This whole effort has only become possible within the last year or two, as a new generation of sequencing technology has matured. From a few very well-preserved specimens, they get tiny amounts of degenerated Neanderthal DNA. They estimate that at most 4% or so of the DNA extracted from the bone is actual Neanderthal DNA. The rest is from bacteria and fungi. The big news: 63% of the Neanderthal genome is in hand. It will be very interesting to see what kind of insights into human evolution come out of this massive undertaking. The most entertaining talk of the conference, perhaps the most entertaining talk I’ve ever seen, was given by Robert Trivers. He has been a pioneer in the study of social interactions (e.g. cooperation and deception). He colorfully discussed a paradoxical observation: self-deception is widespread in humans. Deceiving others has obvious potential advantages (e.g. lying on a resume to get a better job), but what do we gain by deceiving ourselves? Well, self-deception in humans is decidedly in one direction, towards a positive self-image. We consistently rate ourselves as better than we actually are. For example, in surveys, when asked how we rank in our given career field, 80% of people consider themselves to be in the top half (in academia this stat is apparently 94%...we believe we’re good at what we do). Obviously, this is discordant with statistical reality, as we can’t all be right. This kind of self-inflation may help us to deceive others. We can state that we are good at something, and honestly believe it. There is no need to deal with the physiological and mental challenges of being a good liar. It is rather shocking how deep-seated this self-love is. Psychologists have, for example, found out that we subconsciously like the letters in our own name, particularly the first letter. We even tend to live in places that start with the first letter in our names. So, statistically, there are more Floyds, Freds, and Francines living in Florida than in Texas. But in Texas, there are more Tims, Toms, and Tammys. The trend is, of course, weak, but I find it amazing that there is a measurable effect at all. We are fascinating animals, and I always will wonder how important consciousness is relative to the powerful subconscious processes affecting our decisions.

2009-02-10T08:44:00.002+01:00

On Friday, I went to see one of the best live acts of our generation: Mindless Self Indulgence. They were playing in Hamburg, and Ines bought me a ticket for my birthday. I first saw mindless self indulgence (hereforth MSI) when I was 17…unintentionally. Nate, a high school buddy of mine, and I drove 3.5 hrs from Omaha to Kansas City to see Korn and Staind. In the late 90s, both those bands were at the peak of their popularity, and they had no trouble filling the mid-sized arena in Kansas City. MSI scored the opening slot on that tour, though they probably weren’t even listed on the ticket. Why MSI opened for Korn is still a mystery to me, because their music, a mix of punk, hiphop, and electronica, did not fit into the whole nü metal scene. Not surprisingly, their performance, both music and stage antics, was not warmly received by the metalhead audience. I didn’t give the band a second thought, as I was too excited to see Korn for the first time. I re-discovered MSI in college, thanks to Napster. Back then, even obscure music was freely available via a quick, innocent, illegal download. On a whim, I downloaded MSIs first and only major label album “Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy”. Shortly thereafter, I and my whole circle of friends were MSI fans. Their music is simply infectious…after a required acclimatization period. Their live shows are similarly memorable. This was clear after seeing MSI as a headliner in Omaha’s greatest rock ‘n roll venue, the Ranch Bowl (which unfortunately no longer exists). Few bands bring so much energy to their live performance; you can get a taste of this by just searching for ‘MSI live’ on youtube. So, now 7 years later, I was interested to see if MSI still could rock the house and whether they could excite a German audience. Yes they can and yes they did. The show included, among others, flying karate kicks from the drum set, insulting the audience, excessive use of the word scheisse and a long strip tease. Ines’s cousin came with me to the concert, and though she did not know MSI’s music, she said that it was one of the best concerts she’d ever seen. The band is obviously still winning new fans with their live shows, because a large portion, if not the majority, of the audience was composed of teenagers. These are kids that were still in elementary school the first time that I saw MSI! Made me feel old…so old that I watched the show from the back of the club, sipping a beer, instead of jumping around in the middle of the audience. To make up for that, though, Ines’s cousin Alex got us autographs from the guitarist and singer. Cool.

2009-01-24T11:32:00.002+01:00

The news of the week has to be the start of Obama’s presidency (beautifully documented here). The inauguration was aired live in German TV, and I did watch it. I was still at work at the time of Biden’s oath; then Ines called and told me to run home to watch history. Yes, it seems my German girlfriend was more enthralled by the inauguration of America’s first black president than I was. The inauguration and speech were standard fare in my opinion. We already know the man can give a brilliant speech. What impressed me most, even more than the complicated live translations of Obama’s eloquence, was how happy my fellow citizens looked. America is supposed to be in dire straits at the moment, right? It seems the Obama idiom ‘yes, we can’ has really found an audience. Obviously, every new leader brings along promises to change the status quo (at least in some regard) and make things better. The special thing about Obama is that people believe his vision; he will succeed in revolutionizing America. I don’t mean to be cynical. I think the man will be a clever and capable leader. However, macroeconomic trends, institutional malpractice, and overindulgent lifestyles cannot be inspired to change overnight. So, I hope that he manages to maintain the contagious optimism, even after the honeymoon is over.

An interesting tangent to the Obama-mania, is the frenzy of Bush-bashing. Since the democratic takeover of Congress in 2006, it is as if we forgot about Bush. Those elections were interpreted by many as a rebuke to Bush, a beginning of the end. They effectively crippled his policy-making ability, forcing him to pursue a more moderate agenda the last few years. And when he stops unilaterally invading countries, it is easy to forget that he was a terrible president. Indeed, it seems that journalists and historians just cannot wait to list Bush as the worst president of all time. Justifications for that opinion are abundant: two endless wars, disrepute abroad, record deficits, increased domestic poverty, human rights violations, etc. He was, in any case, the worst president in my lifetime (though there are only four other competitors). Particularly summative is this 2001 article from the Onion, America’s finest news source. Scary how clairvoyant a fictional media outlet can be. As an aside, check out the article on the bottom of the page "Rural Nebraskan Not Sure He Could Handle Frantic Pace of Omaha".

2009-01-12T19:36:00.001+01:00

I just turned 27. Happily, I still feel too young to have a mid-life crisis. Nevertheless, birthdays remind us that we are always getting older and never younger, which is probably why they seem to become more depressing each passing year. Generally, I try to ignore my birthday and treat the day like any other. This is a somewhat difficult strategy to maintain in Germany, though. The Germans, at least in my opinion, like to celebrate birthdays. For instance, a typical birthday party includes food, often a full meal with dessert, and drinks, all paid for by the person having a birthday (which seems backwards to me, but who am I to question cultural norms). It is also quite common for the bday boy or girl to bring cake to work and then be congratulated for surviving another year. In our department, we keep track of everyone’s birthday, and shortly before the date, money is collected for a small gift. So, given that I would receive something from my colleagues and my cake obligations, it was impossible to ignore that it was my birthday.

That said, the day was pleasant and not really depressing. I even took care of something that I had avoided for months; I had a wart removed. Warts are caused by viruses. As a parasitologist, I realize and understand that my body is a suitable host for a number of creatures, but I got tired of serving as host for these bloody viruses. The wart was on my finger and removing it was an entirely inelegant procedure. The doctor gave me a numbing injection and then just tore it off, leaving a large hole in my finger. I had the feeling that I could have done the same thing if given enough whiskey and knife. Nonetheless, even I found the whole experience somewhat disgusting. To share that feeling, I posted the picture showing the aftermath of this operation. Gross.

2008-12-31T20:29:00.002+01:00

The last post of 2008…hopefully it doesn’t suck. The holidays come unexpectedly every year, but especially this year. A large experiment prevented me from doing normal Xmas stuff, like visiting a Xmas market, drinking Glühwein, and actually going shopping (the internet saved me). So I never really got into the Xmas mood. On the 22nd, after 3 long days of dissecting the copepods, I finished working for the year (at least in Plön). The next day was spent traveling. I went by train to Leipzig, met Ines, and then we drove to her parents in Spechtsbrunn. The next day, Santa came to visit, as he traditionally does in Germany. All I actually wished for Xmas was a few quiet days, much to Ines’ displeasure. Well, I must have been good this year, because in addition to some quiet, work-free days, I got some new underwear, a new guitar hero game, and a new cell phone (it even has a camera…what a technological upgrade for me!). As far as I could tell, everyone in Ines’s family was more than satisfied with their gifts, so I am left to conclude that Xmas was a success. Ines got a new video camera from her family. She has been happily filming everyone. While I am glad she is enjoying herself, I cannot shake the feeling that there are going to be a large number of embarrassing recordings of me in the near future. The scenery in Spechtsbrunn was also appropriately wintery. Despite temperatures well above 0 in most of Germany, there is a decent amount of snow on the ground in Spechtsbrunn. We even went sledding. After Xmas, Ines and I came back to Leipzig and were both immediately sick. I spent an evening puking my guts out, but then made a relatively quick recovery. Ines, on the other hand, has had a cold that she can’t seem to shake. I actually expected to get sick during the holidays. Once the stress of work is gone and I finally relax, I get sick. That is just what happens. Anyways, now we both seem to be in good enough condition to orderly celebrate the New Year. We are going to our neighbors for a James Bond-themed party. I asked the party hosts, why James Bond? As a big fan, I was curious about the inspiration behind the theme. Sadly, there was no real inspiration; they admitted to having hardly ever watched a Bond movie. It was just a good way to get people dressed up. Yeah, so Ines and I (and friend Lena) are bringing in the New Year in style (pictured).

2008-12-14T14:26:00.002+01:00

Many parasites have complex life cycles in which they require their current host to be eaten by the next host, e.g. a tapeworm cyst in an undercooked sausage. To facilitate transmission between hosts, parasites often alter the behavior of their hosts. For example, an infected host may not hide as often uninfected hosts or they may not act afraid of predator odors. These behavioral modifications presumably increase the parasite’s chances at getting eaten by the next host in its life cycle. There are a lot of examples of this phenomenon, and besides making for good cocktail party conversation, this is a fascinating and active area of research in parasite evolutionary ecology. All 3 of the papers I published in 2008 deal with host manipulation. I’ve been working in this field since I got into professional science; my undergrad thesis was on the photic behavior of amphipods infected with duck acanthocephalans. For my stay in Finland, I did not plan to do any work on host manipulation. I intended to learn how to make molecular phylogenies. I did a bit of work in this direction, but the endless pipetting associated with DNA work bored me somewhat. With the blessing of my advisor Tellervo and the urging of my collaborator Otto Seppälä, I planned some small experiments dealing with host manipulation. Those initial experiments snowballed and eventually became a major component of my PhD thesis. We somehow squeezed 4 manuscripts out of that work (2 published this year, 1 coming out next year, and a fourth hopefully next year too). While I am proud of this work, I think that I am sick of host manipulation. Maybe it was the painful peer-review process that did it to me, but maybe it is simply time for something new. I have worked on host manipulation on and off since I started in science 5 years ago. Next year, I want to focus on a whole new direction. Lately, I have been trying to understand the evolutionary forces acting on larval parasite growth and development. This is extremely interesting, but it is actually quite similar to the whole manipulation business, i.e. host manipulation usually only begins when parasite’s reach a particular developmental stage. The new field that I intend to delve into is the evolution of mixed mating in hermaphrodites. All tapeworms have both male and female sexual organs, and can thus fertilize their own eggs or accept sperm from other worms. Fertilizing one’s own eggs is generally a bad idea, because it represents an extreme form of inbreeding. In the tapeworm I am working with, it has been shown that inbreeding is costly; inbred worm eggs hatch very poorly. Thus, worms should avoid fertilizing their own eggs. They don’t, however. Even when a partner is present, worms still self-fertilize a small portion of their eggs. This seems wasteful, so it is puzzling why they do it. Starting next year, I intend to work towards an explanation for this paradox. Consider it a nerdy new year’s resolution.

2008-12-05T17:27:00.001+01:00

I missed yet another Thanksgiving. As a kid, I thought Thanksgiving was just the prelude to Xmas, but as I aged, I realized what a great holiday it is. No presents or religion to complicate things, just food, family, and football. Lovely. It also prevents (somewhat) the annual Xmas hysteria from amalgamating prematurely. Unfortunately, without the time off from work, Thanksgiving has become just another day of the year for me. On Thanksgiving, I worked until about 8 helping our potential PhD student analyze some data (yeah we seem to have finally found one, but that’s another story)…didn’t leave much time to cook a turkey. In 2006, I actually gave my interview talk in Plön on Thanksgiving, which might make it my most stressful, yet memorable, Thanksgiving. Now that Thanksgiving is over, we can all focus on the obligatory Xmas shopping. I really dislike the mandatory consumerism in which I partake every year; I just do not want to go shopping. Moreover, I believe it has gotten more challenging in recent years. For example, I have to ship presents to my family in Nebraska, which limits the size of gifts that I can buy. The list of people that require a present also grows from year to year. My girlfriend’s family now is included on that list, which is a pretty sure sign that this relationship is more serious that I ever imagined. It is not just finding the right gift for the right person. It is also finding time to look for gifts. Stupidly, or diligently depending on your perspective, I started some rather large experiments last week that will run until Xmas and involve about 2500 copepods. All that copepod infecting, checking, and dissecting doesn’t leave much time for Xmas shopping. I am convinced that the answer to my problems lies on the internet. Quick and easy point-and-click shopping. Hopefully, I can manage to do it soon, so that everything ships on time. It is quite embarrassing saying ‘um, your gift is in the mail…merry Xmas’. As a follow up to the previous post, I am happy that Obama won. Amazingly, he even won Omaha, so my vote mattered! I have a renewed faith in democracy and my landsmen. That is like an early Xmas present.

2008-11-04T08:33:00.002+01:00

Back in fall 2004, I had just arrived in Finland, and was surprised to see how much of a topic the U.S. elections were. I wondered, why are they so interested in American politics? After all, Americans don’t pay much attention to the domestic politics of other countries. The majority of Americans probably have no idea who leads Germany, China, or other large, “important” countries. It just doesn’t affect them. So, I naively thought that Europeans would show, at the most, mild interest in the U.S. elections. I was wrong. Interest was intense. Many people told me how they thought the American elections would affect them (military and environmental issues were often cited in this regard). As an American, my opinion was often sought. Who would win? My answer was usually something like this: the last four years were not good ones (wars started, reputation destroyed, worsening domestic situation), and I imagine most people will realize this and vote for Kerry (or against Bush…however you want to see it). In the end, America proved me wrong. I lost a lot of faith in my countrymen because of that election, and at that time it was hard for me to be proud of my citizenship. I kidded with several people that now I have to stay abroad for the next four years. I never expected that joke to be a kind of prophecy. I have in fact lived abroad for Bush’s entire second term. In 2006, much faith in my countrymen was restored when the Democrats took over Congress. People seemed to finally realize that the "Bush doctrine" was not good. So, finally, Election Day 2008 is here, and everyone seems excited about it. People have again been asking for my opinion. Who will win? I say Obama, but I normally add the anecdote about the 2004 elections. My prediction was wrong then, and it could be wrong again. To be honest, my residence abroad is primarily because of love, not as a protest against Bush’s politics. This time, however, if we end up with a McCain-Palin White House, then I am really going to consider staying in Germany. No joke.

2008-11-03T08:34:00.001+01:00

Two weekends ago was Ines’ birthday, and we hosted a party to celebrate. Everything went more or less according to plan; the guests came, ate, drank, and were merry. Between 1 and 2 most people started going home, which was a surprise. I expected that the party would move to a club. At least, a few years ago this would have been the case (this could be selective memory at work, though). So, I couldn’t help but wonder are we getting old? No more desire to dance the whole night through? When I am completely honest with myself, nowadays I would often rather get a full night of sleep than party like a rock star.

Nonetheless, the party-lust has not been completely vanquished. Time to time, I really want to just go out and have fun. This week, Ines provided me with an extreme example how to do this. She and a girlfriend went to Belfast to see Oasis play. A flight to Dublin, bus to Belfast, one day there, and then turn around and go back…all to see a band that peaked in popularity 10 years ago? She isn’t even a mega-Oasis fan. I thought they were crazy, and I believe that I said once or twice “aren’t we too old for such trips”. Obviously, I am with a still young and spontaneous woman, and I love it. She pushes me to do things that I wouldn’t do when left to my own devices. That keeps me from worrying (and complaining) about getting old.

2008-10-18T12:33:00.002+02:00

We are still in search of a PhD student to help me unravel the mysteries of life cycle evolution in parasites. Our top candidate took a position somewhere else, so, a while back, I was forced to return to the original applications we received. Some were really bad. Just to demonstrate this, here are some real examples of stuff that was in CVs and cover letters:

I send you CV

The valuable keywords that inspire me to go ahead with my allotted task are “Determination, Dedication and Diligence”

For me 'Science is the Life time mission'.

Sir, working in the field of Molecular Evolution is my burning dream.

Inspiration is an instinct behind every successful effort and this can be achieved by functional objective of doing work, gain vital knowledge so as to make significant contribution to the field of biology.

I believe that if we believe on self, honest to time for work with full determination then surely this time also remain honest from its side and gives us uncountable strength in completion of that work.

i am hard working person and will do my work with enthusiastically. i shell be very thank full if u give me a chance to do work under your kind control and experienced environment. I believe studying and developing new and different strategies that help us in finding the logical answers to the hidden queries would be quite fascinating

As mentioned on the link I am sending my CV along with my CV I am also sending my all necessary certificates.

I am very interesting to your tapeworm parasitology position
Because of gene flow may limit the genetic differentiation and some genetic marker has deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. Only with DNA marker we may be hard to uncover the evolutionary parasitic mechanism through individual tapeworm and host based approaching.

I couldn’t write such nonsense if I tried. Who knows, maybe they just stuck their CV into Google translator and sent around whatever came out. In any case, this gibberish reinforces the lesson I’ve learned: it is bloody difficult to find a good PhD student.

2008-10-12T11:00:00.001+02:00

Last weekend, I visited Ines. It was something of a special occasion because I had not seen her in a month and because it was a holiday weekend in Germany. We spent one day of the long weekend in Berlin visiting a friend of Ines’. Berlin is probably my favorite city in Germany, and as usual, I was not disappointed by this visit. The city is just so vibrant and alive. The cafes and bars are generally well-populated with young people (not like the retirement community that is Plön). Moreover, you can do all kinds of cool stuff. When I was in Berlin with Ines and friends in early September, we started the evening at a kitschy Arabic café where we smoked shisha, before having dinner at an Italian pizzeria (horse meat on my pizza!), and then ended up in club, frequented by Americans, in which a British electro duet was playing. You can’t do that in many other cities. The trip this past weekend was considerably more laid back. Ines met up with several friends from her school days, so there was a lot of reminiscing. Happily, beer, the ultimate foreign language enhancer and social lubricant, helped me converse in German. A 3 am currywurst completed that lovely evening in Berlin. Multi-culti restaurants, indie discos, greasy fast food joints that never close, kitschy cafes, laid-back and tolerant attitudes…these are some of the cool things that I associate with Berlin and with living in Germany in general. I think I would really miss this stuff if I move back to the U.S.

2008-09-27T18:35:00.001+02:00

Last month I dissected nearly 300 copepods that had been in the freezer since June. Freezing specimens is great because it allows you to procrastinate and put off data collection until you have nothing to do (which of course never really happens). So, I spent a whole week sitting at a microscope, which of course was not easy on my back. I have convinced myself that the ordeal was worthwhile, though I am not yet sure if the data is that spectacular (at least spectacular enough for the effort of dissecting 900 copepods). Main result: a lot of worms can share a single adult copepod and not increase the risk of host death or suffer from reduced growth rates. This is interesting because it suggests that the worm is exploiting its host well below a “risky” level. I suspect that the worms do this to enlarge their host range (so they can infect both small and big hosts), but I cannot rule out the possibility that they do it to reduce their developmental time and thus be transmitted earlier before their hosts die a natural (not parasite-induced) death. Perhaps I need a mathematical model to separate these two hypotheses. Lately, I also collected some cool data on tapeworm growth in copepods. There appears to be genetically based variation in worm growth, which is hard to explain. If there is directional selection on growth, i.e. faster is always better, then there should not be much variation at all because selection should have “picked” the best genotypes. I am still working hard trying to get at the potential costs associated with parasite growth rates. This is probably gonna be the first manuscript I produce from my work here, but I am still testing some alternative hypotheses. Excited to get the data. Yeah, sometimes science is exciting, at least for those doing it.

Onto something of more general interest, or perhaps not. Rock. The last three CDs I bought were all electronic-oriented: Mindless Self Indulgence, Ladytron, and the Japanese Popstars. Mindless Self Indulgence is one of my favourite bands. As a teenager, I saw them open up for Korn and remember thinking ‘what a stupid band’. When my musical tastes widened in college, I downloaded (those were the lawless Napster days) their first album (30 tracks arranged in alphabetical order). I and several of my friends were hooked for life. Ladytron is an indie electro band from England. ‘Destroy everything you touch’ was their hit, and their new album is full of similarly catchy melodies. Finally, the Japanese Popstars was an impulse buy in Dublin. They are an Irish band (which makes their name confusing) that is straight electronic, yet with funky enough beats to keep them out of the ‘techno’ bin. After all this electronic kick, I thought to myself ‘man, don’t forget about the guitars’. Therefore, I ordered some pure rock/metal albums to stay true to the musical roots. They are the latest from Slipknot and Every Time I Die, as well as the debut album from Scars on Broadway. The strange thing is that from all these albums, I had listened to about one song from each. I never used to buy an album before listening to at least half the songs, usually via downloading. Perhaps I have gotten too lazy or scared to download music, or perhaps I just started spending money more freely since I finished my PhD. Weird…I have not given up the student lifestyle altogether (I still eat a lot of frozen pizza and live in a cramped little apartment with crappy furniture), but more and more I realize that I have an adult lifestyle. Perhaps maturity is something inevitable. I just hope that I don’t start enjoying music considered ‘oldies’, ‘classics’, or ‘easy-listening’.

2008-09-20T13:31:00.006+02:00

I spent last week in Norway on "business". Actually, it was the most holiday-like business trip I ever took, as promised by my colleague. We went there to catch sticklebacks infected with a particular tapeworm (Schistocephalus). People here have been working with this parasite for several years, and it is my duty to carry on that research. Unfortunately, the worm seems quite rare in N. Germany, though all the necessary hosts occur in adequate abundance. So, instead of catching several thousand fish to find a few German worms, we went fishing in Norway. We visited a colleague of ours in Bergen. He has consistently found a high prevalence of infected sticklebacks in several freshwater lakes in W. Norway. Apparently it was a good year for worms, because it was actually difficult to find uninfected fish. The worms grow extremely large relative to their hosts, and they cause fish to have highly distended abdomens, so the infected fish can be clearly recognized. Such a virulent growth strategy probably helps the parasite get to its bird final hosts. We managed to smuggle about 300 fish back to Germany, at least half of which were infected. Next week we'll begin the big dissections. The fishing was made even more enjoyable by the scenary around he field site (pictured). In W. Norway, the mountains meet the sea, a lanscape which usually leads to a lot of rain. But we had nothing but sunshine for 4 straight days. Yep, very holiday-like indeed.

2008-08-29T08:41:00.000+02:00

It may seem like I forgot that I have this blog. I didn’t. July was just very hectic. My excuses for not posting thus far in August are ending an experiment and attending a gay wedding, but those are admittedly bad excuses. July started out with a trip to Switzerland. I visited a colleague in Zürich and gave a talk about complex life cycle evolution (to a huge audience of about 20 people). The opponent at my PhD defense works in Zürich, and after my defense he offered his lab facilities to me if I can secure some funding. I would have nothing against moving to Zürich, but we’ll see if I manage to find funds in the coming year or so. Zürich is consistently rated as one of the best cities in the world to live in, and my impressions give no reason to doubt this…nice landscapes, beautiful architecture, reliable transportation, nice Swiss social benefits etc. The strange thing was that I barely heard any German there. Apparently, 21% of the entire Swiss population is foreigners, and in a big city like Zürich that number is probably higher. That definitely gives the city a cool, cosmopolitan feeling.

After Switzerland, it was back to work for a week, before the next trip. Ines and I went to Turkey for a week long tour. We did a package bus trip, because we did not have time to plan a trip ourselves (and we were a bit lazy too). We flew to Istanbul and then took a bus to most every tourist site in west Turkey, mostly ruins from Antiquity, but also some beautiful hot springs and a beach or two. After a week of riding the bus, we flew from Antalaya back to Hamburg. The highlight of the trip was probably Istanbul. It is a huge city with a rather convoluted history due to its geography; it is a gateway between Europe and Asia and thus a boundary between the Christian and Islamic worlds. The history of the city was not the only thing that impressed us. We were also struck by the vibrance of the city. There just seemed to be a lot going on. Unfortunately, we only had one day there, which was not enough to really experience the city. Consequently, shortly after the trip began, Ines and I decided that this was our first and last package tour. We just missed the freedom to set our own agenda. Every part of the trip (food, hotels, destinations) was well planned, making the whole thing rather stress free. Even a case of food poisoning (involving me) could not disrupt the group’s itinerary. At the end of the trip, Ines and I both had positive impressions, and would someday like to return to Turkey.

After Turkey, Ines and I returned to Ploen together. I, naturally, went back the lab. While I was working, Ines was terribly bored in Ploen, so she invited some friends of hers to visit. To be specific she invited a couple and their 3 year old daughter (Ines’ godchild). Now, let me just say that my apartment is meant for one person. When Ines stays with me, we manage, but on a more long term basis, we would need a bigger place. Given that we crammed 5 people into my little flat, the whole visit was a bit stressful. As an aside, I would just like to emphasize how happy I am to have no children.

The day our visitors left, Ines’ parents arrived. The next day the four of us (me, Ines, and her parents) flew to Dublin. This was probably the most proper “adult” holiday I ever had, and was accordingly one of the most expensive. We stayed in a nice hotel (instead of a hostel), rented a car (instead of trying to get around via cheaper alternatives), and ate out twice a day (instead of going to the supermarket). That said, Ireland was pretty cool. We spent the first day in Dublin. My personal highlight was a trip to the Guinness brewery and of course drinking a few pints of the world famous stout. I have to say, the Guinness did taste better in Ireland, though some subconscious bias may shaped my impressions. The next day we drove into the Wicklow mountains south of Dublin to visit some ruins from medieval Ireland. Everything was how you would imagine it…stone ruins, green meadows, bogs, rain, and of course sheep. On the third day, we drove all the way across the island to the east coast to see the Cliffs of Moher. I was surprised how small the island is; it only takes about four hours to drive all the way across. The cliffs themselves were impressive, but teeming with tourists. Actually, Ines and I both thought that the whole island was like a big tourist attraction, but this may have been because we basically just did the stuff in the tourist book. The most negative thing I can say about Ireland is how similar it is to America. The greasy food, big cars, citizens that talk without hesitation…all very American. Of course, that is not inherently negative, but when I travel abroad, I want to experience something novel and exotic. When I want American culture, I’ll visit Nebraska.

So, that was the summer holidays. Now it is back to work until Xmas. Hopefully, I manage to collect some interesting data about parasite life history strategies.

2008-06-10T20:11:00.002+02:00

When I tell people what the weather is like in Nebraska, I like to mention that tornadoes are common. Tornadoes are rare in most of Europe, so the idea of being confronted with severe weather year after year is a bit strange for people here. I assure them, though, that tornadoes affect very small areas and therefore rarely do any damage in highly populated areas. I might have to stop saying that for awhile, because on Sunday a tornado touched down in southwest Omaha. Here is the article from the local paper. In my 22 years of living in Nebraska, I cannot remember another tornado that came this close to my parent's house. A few miles further north, and the tornado would have touched down on top of my parent's house. Wild.

2008-06-06T20:02:00.002+02:00

No risk, no fun...so they say. Several researchers here at the institute are doing experiments in which they erect fish enclosures in the Groesser Ploener See, the large lake in Ploen. Basically, they raise the fish in the lab, then stick them in these enclosures in the lake to see which parasites they get and how well the reproduce. While erecting the enclosures for this year's experiments, they came across a WWII-era bomb (see pic). Apparently, towards the end of the war, a whole heap of ammunition was dumped in the lake, and bombs and other explosive knick-knacks periodically wash into the shallows. The chances of this bomb exploding were very slim. It had been underwater for over 60 years. Nonetheless, bombs in the lake do add a tad bit more excitement to experiments in fish evolutionary biology.

2008-05-25T16:53:00.000+02:00

When I was 12 or so, I tried out for a 'select' basketball team for the first time. A select team was composed of the best 10-12 players out of all the kids trying out, unlike the teams in which everyone could play no matter how terrible they were. This was how I crossed paths with a real basketball guru, Herb Welling. Herb was my coach for the next 2 years, before I went to high school and joined the school team. He was not a stereotypical coach; he was a big guy who, as far as I could tell, rarely held down a steady job. Nonetheless, he probably knew more about basketball than anyone I ever came across. As a team, we were a mix of urban and suburban kids, and we definitely did not belong to the elite teams of the city. Like most of the basketball teams I ever played for, we didn't have a winning record (hmmm, maybe that’s why I’m not in the NBA…). Herb got us involved in urban (=black) leagues deep in N. Omaha. Playing against the inner city teams was a great experience. Basketball games there were not just a competition, they were a community gathering where people could yell, hoot, holler and make any noise they wanted. It was like the stereotypical black-white difference in the expression of religious faith (bombastic versus solemn) was transferred to the basketball court. Herb also got me to five star basketball camp. Five star is a set of week-long summer basketball camps that take place all over the country and attract some of the best high school players around. Herb was always involved in the camp in some way or another. He wasn't really a coach there, more of an assistant, helping out wherever necessary. I got the impression that he just wanted to be there so as to soak up the atmosphere. With his blessing, I went one summer to the five star camp. I just remember bits and pieces of my week there. I remember being tired the whole time (it was outdoors in Virginia in summer...brutally hot and humid). I remember the 'all-star' game at the end of the camp. The best players in the camp (better and more athletic than I could ever hope to be) had a dunk fest. It was amazing. I wish I still knew the names of these players, because most of them were gonna end up playing for D1 colleges. I also remember being rather terrified and intimidated the whole time, a feeling of inadequacy that is not too different from my current stay at Max Planck. Back to Herb, he is currently enjoying his moment in the sun. A new type of dribble drive offense, which appears quite chaotic at first glance, was making waves in the coaching community. Herb, being the junkie that he is, figured out this offense by endlessly watching video tapes. Then, he made an educational video demonstrating the offense using teenagers from Omaha Central. That video is the hottest selling basketball video on the net. His video sells more copies in a week than famous coaches like Roy Williams and Bill Self sell in a month. Amazing. Here’s the story from the Omaha newspaper. I almost want to buy the video based on how Sports Illustrated described Herb. In the video he wears a purple t-shirt and the well-known magazine compares him to Grimace, the McDonalds figure. Funny, but maybe not worth the 80 bucks for the video.

2008-05-20T13:15:00.001+02:00

Hiring someone seems like a trivial task, but lately I have discovered how difficult a job this really is. A few weeks ago we posted an advertisement for the PhD position that we hoped would have been filled a few months ago. Curious readers can check the ad out here. So, the past weeks, I’ve been receiving CVs in my email inbox. Most of them are rather good, yet not outstanding. That is what makes this so difficult…how can you differentiate all these people with good grades and varied experience in research? Somewhat unexpectedly, the majority of the applications are from East Asia, mostly India, but also China and Pakistan. These applicants have respectable CVs…but in the wrong field. Most of these people are working in applied fields like molecular biology and biotechnology; none of them seem to have much background in evolution. So why would they be interested in my basic research? My only conclusion is that they desperately want to come to work in the west. Though this probably sounds prejudice, I doubt I’ll give them that chance. I think I could only hire someone after actually meeting and talking with them. This is only reasonable, because I’ll be working closely with this person for the next couple few years. Next week, I think I’ll make a short list and try to invite some people to give talks. We’ll see how that goes…

A miscellaneous addition to this post, I watched a great movie last weekend, Bubba Ho-tep. This is a strange, yet awesome movie, and it happened to be on TV last night when I came home from Edgar’s Cocktail bar (“hippest” bar in Plön). The story is brilliant. Elvis is not dead; his impersonator is. Elvis stopped performing after his career peaked, let himself be replaced by a gifted impersonator, and then lead a quiet life outside of the limelight. Now, he is stuck in a Texas retirement home, depressed, impotent and waiting for death. What could bring back a little rock n roll back into his life? A soul sucking mummy. Yeah, awesome. As residents start dying in their sleep, Elvis teams up with Jack to stop the mummy and thus be free to die with an intact soul. Jack is a black retiree living in the home, who believes he is JFK (they painted me this color!). More awesome. Elvis is played by Bruce Campbell, a cult hero for his performances in Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. It comes highly recommended from me (as if that meant anything).

2008-05-14T19:42:00.000+02:00

I think we skipped spring here in Germany. A couple weeks ago, I made the yearly decision to switch from wearing my winter coat to wearing my rain jacket. This is always a tough call…is it gonna stay warm enough or is it get really cold again? This year, though, I seem to have switched directly from a winter jacket to no jacket at all. As soon as I began to wear my rain jacket, it was so warm that coats of any kind became unnecessary. So, I ask, what happened to spring? Not that I’m complaining, the warm temperatures are enjoyable (though they also hamper productivity…who wants to work when the sun is shining?). It is just peculiar to go from a winter jacket to t-shirts in a matter of weeks. I expect those kinds of apocalyptic weather swings in Nebraska (they had quite a nasty snow storm a few weeks ago and now it is tornado season), but not in boring, predictably dismal N. Germany.

In any case, with warm weather, people begin to strip off their layers of clothes, making their figures more and more visible. Most of my adult life, I have inhabited so-called college towns, in which a substantial part of the population was rather young. Thus, at the risk of sounding chauvinistic, summer was always a pleasant time of year to observe women in far more revealing outfits than one was accustomed to after a long winter. Now, though, I am living in Plön…population 13,000, hardly anyone between the age of 20 and 30, and a disproportionate number of people over 60. Not much to get excited about. In fact, in my subjective opinion, I find the residents of Plön to be rather unattractive. Maybe in small towns there is less incentive to stay fit or to wear clothes bought in the last decade. I could imagine that there is a real relationship between average attractiveness and city size...though I’m too lazy at the moment to search the literature databases for such a study.

2008-05-03T14:52:00.003+02:00

For any parasitologists (or science enthusiasts) who happen to read this, I am posting this link to a recent paper on which I am a co-author:

http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/f702328nx6kr1245/?p=bec052f2f425413a80c77da159041deb&pi=0

I really can't believe we got this experiment published in Proc. B. So, out of pride, I felt compelled to post this.

2008-05-03T14:35:00.001+02:00

One great thing about Germany is the overabundance of holidays. They have not given up their religous holidays, even though, like most West European countries, the population is relatively secular. In the U.S., it seems like we just forgot about a lot of holidays, probably in the name of productivity. There were actually two holidays in Germany on Thursday, himmelfahrt (religious holiday) and labor day (secular). Labor day here is something like a father's day, in that men can do whatever they want, and, not surprisingly, they want to get wasted. Traditionally, groups of men carry around cases of beer on carts, all the while drinking and being merry. In Finland, the first of May is also a labor-day of sorts called Vappu. However, the workers are not the only ones celebrating on Vappu. High school students are graduating, and they wear horrendous white hats to mark that achievement. So how do many Finns spend their labor day? They pull out their old white graduating caps and get obliterated. It might be the number one drinking holiday in Finland, though a lot of boozing happens on midsummer as well (secret confession, I did not drink on either of the two Vappus I spent in Finland...oh, the regrets). So, after experiencing labor day in both these countries, I have to ask myself, why is the American labor day such a sober holiday? That social stigma associated with alcohol in America just won't go away, even on holidays. If anyone is curious, I spent my labor day in the lab. I started an experiment a while ago that involves daily duties, namely checking to see if my animals survived the previous night. Though parasites are cool study organisms, they unfortunately are not great drinking buddies, so my labor day was a sober one.

2008-04-19T16:28:00.002+02:00

For all those folks that have lived in Jyväskylä, only to eventually leave, here is a nice video to bring back the old memories. In my opinion, a video shot in winter would have been more appropriate.

2008-04-10T19:35:00.001+02:00

My you tube debut...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJwkRfe1IO4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3Fzx3CzlqE

Videos are mine, but they were posted by Frosty.

2008-04-09T08:21:00.000+02:00

I have now been back in Germany for about a week following a successful trip to Nebraska. Overall, mission accomplished. I relaxed, spent time with my folks, saw old friends, partied a bit, soaked in March Madness, ate various fattening American foodstuffs, and I even saw the migrating sandhill cranes. As with previous visits, there was a pleasant mix of change and familiarity. My parents house is mostly as I remember it, but with some new floors, countertops, appliances, etc. Friends are still friends, but with perhaps more or less hair. Roads have widened, but they still lead the same direction. Our cat got lazier, but is just as irritable as ever.

My favorite part about visiting home is re-discovering things that I have missed. I've long since become accustomed to living in Germany, and I don't spend much time longing for things that are uniquely American. After awhile, the things that I miss become difficult to even recall. So, when I return home, I am constantly proclaiming "oh yeah, I remember this!". Take, for example, drinking fountains. These water dispensing devises are ubiquitous in America, but unheard of in Germany. Now I admit that these things are probably extremely unhygenic, but they are certainly convenient for quenching a spontaneous thirst when on-the-go. Actually, Americans must hate being thirsty, because drinks there are enormous (in many cases bottomless) and cheap. The first morning in Nebraska, I went to the gas station to buy some coffee; the smallest size available was 16 oz (about 0.4 L). That is a lot of damn coffee. The same overindulgence applies to soda. In a restaurant, you can get as much soda as you can drink for less than two bucks...here you would generally pay over two euros for exactly 0.4 L of soda. Though I tried to avoid too drinking too much soda, I did enjoy some old favorites that are unavailable in Germany...mountain dew (so ungodly sweet), dr. pepper (so unique), and root beer (most Germans I know hate it, but why?). America also remains king of processed foods, some of which I truly miss and thus happily devoured while home. Here are a few examples with parenthetical help for anyone that hasn't been in the U.S: doritos (nacho flavored tortilla chips), mac & cheese (just as it sounds, macaroni covered in unnatural, liquid cheese), frozen waffles (warm waffles just a toaster away), and toaster strudels (some kind of fruit-flavored jelly in a flaky pastry). I should actually take the effort to remember this stuff, because "things I miss" is something of a small talk topic. I should also note the cultural, not just culinary, differences for use in casual conversation, but perhaps that is a topic that could be given attention in a separate post...

2008-03-13T19:40:00.001+01:00

The visit from the second prospective PhD student was in some ways far more successful than that of the first one, though the end result was about the same. This student actually survived two full weeks of working with me, and we did some fairly tedious, boring work (depending on your prospective), stuff that will, apparently, drive many people to flee. He could handle our tiny animals, which was a necessary skill to demonstrate. Such skills, however, are only part of a PhD; there is an academic component as well. Unfortunately, he did not convincingly demonstrate his abilities in this regard. From the outset, it was clear that he was a really shy guy. Though this is not necessarily a bad thing (lots of intelligent people are withdrawn), it made it difficult to evaluate whether he understood what I was telling him. After spending a lot of time giving monologues, I began asking questions, perhaps excessively, so as to get him to open up, share ideas, and demonstrate understanding. On his last day in Plön, I even had a colleague help me in this task of pestering him with questions. All for not. His responses remained limited to things like 'interesting', 'yes', 'maybe', etc. We were really left with a difficult decision; he could manage with the system, but would he be able to develop his own ideas and pursue them semi-independently? Well, luckily, in the end we didn't have to make this decision. He emailed us and said that he had decided against doing his PhD in Plön. So, happily, we avoided a tough decision, but, unfortunately, after taking about a month of time to deal with unsuccessful prospective PhDs, I am back where I began. Oh well. Perhaps Frosty is right (see comments on previous post), I may be a tapeworm nazi that no one can bear working with. Strangely enough, just last week, we received another unsolicited application of a prospective PhD student keen to work with Schistocephalus. He'll visit next week. Hopefully, I won't collect my third strike.

In other news, for those that are not already aware, next week I'm flying to Nebraska to visit my folks. It has been over 2 years since I was there, so I am pretty excited about it. This trip was quickly put together; I just bought the ticket about two weeks ago. A few of my experiments did not work, so instead of trying to start new ones, I simply decided to take two weeks and fly to Omaha. It is a bit strange actually. Instead of taking a vacation because I had planned to or because I felt as though it was earned, I am taking a vacation because it is convenient…there is time to get away, so I'll take advantage of it. A bit weird, and I actually feel somewhat guilty about it, which is probably not healthy. On the other hand, my timing is pretty good. For the first time in two decades, Omaha is playing host to some opening round games of the NCAA basketball tournament. My Dad, being the high roller that he is (sarcasism intended), managed to score some tickets for me. So, instead of watching the games via a low quality stream over the internet, I will be there in person! Very cool. This won't, however, help me fill out the my brackets for the family pool, which Ines will probably win again this year.

2008-03-10T12:53:00.003+01:00

Check this out. Apparently, there is a law in Germany that states that only people with doctorates from European institutions can call themselves "Dr.". So, for example, someone with a PhD from the U.S. can be charged with providing a false identity, when they introduce themselves as Dr. whoever. Good thing I got my degree in Finland, so I am not breaking any stupid laws on the rare occasions that I use my hard-earned title.

2008-02-15T09:38:00.001+01:00

I had a strange experience last week. Last Monday, an Italian guy arrived in Plön to spend 2 weeks working with me. He had contacted us and expressed interest in doing his PhD in Plön on parasites. Prospective PhDs in our department are required to spend 2 weeks in a practical course, in which they more or less have the chance to exhibit their capabilities. For example, to work on parasites, one must be able to manipulate and handle very small organisms. So, I was given the task of assessing whether this guy could work with our in-house tapeworm species and their miniscule planktonic hosts. We knew the answer to this question after two days, not two weeks, and it was a resounding NO. Just as a side note, it is really difficult to keep someone occupied for 10+ hours a day, especially when you have to show them how to do everything. Management is much more difficult than you'd think. Makes me glad that I usually work independently. Anyways, the Italian and I spent two days sorting and infecting copepods, work that involves moving small amounts of liquid (containing living things) between containers. This is typical, mindless work for me, but he was having a tough time with the little beasts. I pointed out his mistakes, which probably didn't help his self-confidence. But, hey, this isn't Kindergarten...it's science and it should be done right. On Thursday morning I came to the office looking forward to another hectic, managerial day. Instead of finding a motivated Italian, however, I found a note on my desk that said "I have realized that I am not interested in this type of research and have decided to leave. Here are the keys". Quite a surprise, especially since he was supposed to present his Master's work to our department that morning. Actually he had to give this presentation to receive reimbursement for the trip (the Institute reimburses invited speakers, but not students). Thus, by skipping out of it, he essentially forfeited the money for plane and train tickets to and from Plön. Stupid decision. Even stupider considering that his return plane ticket was 2 weeks away, so he must have had to find someplace to stay for a week and a half or buy a new ticket. I hope that his straightforward explanation for leaving (i.e. not interested in the work) is actually the honest truth, and that my perhaps dictatorial managerial style was not responsible for his departure. In any case, next week we get another potential applicant, also from Italy strangely enough, so I have another chance to try being a manager.

2008-02-02T15:25:00.000+01:00

Time to say something about rock n roll. Sometimes, when doing mindless work, we listen to the radio in the lab. Though the banter of radio DJs can often be annoying, it does give me a chance to learn German as spoken by the young, cool kids. For example, the phrase "geile Mucke" can be heard relatively frequently. Basically, this translates to something like cool music. To my foreigner ears, though, Mucke sounds a lot like Mücke (the u and ü are bloody difficult for me to distinguish). Mücke is mosquito. The adjective here, geil, literally means horny, though nowadays its use is more akin to the word cool. So, when I hear geile Mucke, it is easy for me to think horny mosquito and not cool music. Yeah, language can be endlessly entertaining. The other night I had a long discussion with a colleague about the use of formal and informal forms of the German pronouns for you (Sie and du), but that topic could be a whole post in and of itself.

Back to the point, I have some geile Mucke to share. In the last few weeks, I've bought (or received for my bday) a number of CDs. Top of the list: HORSE the band. I got their "new" album (from early 2007), and it is great. It is hard to imagine a better mix of 8-bit nintendo sounds and death metal. Though that may sound awful, even Ines admitted that their track "Sex Raptor" was nearly spinnable. High praise indeed. I also finally bought their Pizza EP, a record featuring all pizza-themed songs. There is even a tribute to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; we all know how much they love pizza. As an aside for any German readers, the actual CD looks like a pizza, which raises the possibility that die Ärzte stole this idea for their recent album. I also bought the debut album from Polkadot Cadaver. This outfit rose from the ashes of Dog Fashion Disco. Happily, the eccentric and creepy tones of DFD live on in Polkadot Cadaver. If you want to impress (or alienate) your friends with some original music, this band would be an appropriate choice. I also picked up few albums that would appeal to a more broad audience. For example, the new Tegan and Sara album is a mainstay on my mp3 player. The songs are clever, punchy, and great for singing along. I must admit that enjoying a girl, indie pop band is something of a guilty indulgence. Also along the lines of pop indulgences would be the band Freezepop. Strangely enough, I first encountered this band in Guitar Hero. For whatever reason, playing the electronic chords on their track "less talk, more rokk" (which obviously originate from a synthesizer, not a real guiter) suckered me into buying their album. While entertaining, I wouldn't rate the album as a must-have...like HTB. Two other recent buys: Fair to Midland and Shiny Toy Guns. Though I got the CDs in the mail earlier this week (there would be no way to buy these CDs in a German shop, let alone in Plön), I haven't had time to listen to them yet. I discovered these bands on myspace, so there is a certainly a chance for disappointment. If you want to know if this Mucke is geil, then you are gonna have to write me or berate this blog with comments.

2008-01-24T19:49:00.001+01:00

I spent two days last week in Liverpool. I was visiting two professors at the University there to discuss projects in Ploen. Basically, they are writing models about how the complex life cycles of parasites may have evolved and we are trying to test them empirically. Though I spent most of the time discussing parasites and evolution, I did manage to wander the city for a couple hours. Liverpool is one of the two European Capitals of Culture for 2008. However, after visiting the city, I'm unsure as to why. In my humble opinion, it didn't have the charm of older European cities. With the exception of the many typical, red brick buildings (often run down, see pics), there were a lot of 60s and 70s style buildings that have not aged well. In my opinion, Liverpool is a cultural capital simply because the best band ever came from there. The Beatles formed in Liverpool, and a number of entrepeaneurs are keen to take advantage of this...Beatles shops, museums, statues of Elanor Rigby, clubs that still boast "The Beatles played here". The poverty was also palpable, at least in comparison to places like Leipzig. The city (the whole region) has suffered from the slow draining of manufacturing jobs.

Other observations...a major similarity to the U.S.: unfriendly border officials. A major difference to the U.S.: language. I noticed a number of colorful phrases used by my British hosts, but unfortunately only managed to remember a couple. For example, jacket potato = baked potato, rat run = back-alley shortcut.

2008-01-22T19:22:00.000+01:00

In a previous post, I wrote that "Guitar Hero" is crazy addictive. Here is the statistical proof.

2008-01-06T13:49:00.000+01:00

So it has been a couple months since I've posted anything. Here is my first excuse: science is hard. Yeah, I spend a lot of time in the lab. Some of this is simply the professional environment I'm in...people here in Plön spend a lot of time working, more than was the case in

Finland

. But some of the extra hours I put in because I'm still new on the job and I feel like I have to prove myself. I don't know if this pressure is real or simply imagined, but want to produce some tangible results quickly to show that I am capable of doing the job they want me to do. I also spend a lot of time in the lab because there is really nothing else to do in Plön (pop. 13,000...but there’s a movie theatre!). At least Plön is scenic…the picture is the view from my 14^th floor apartment.

To stay in touch with the title of this blog, maybe I should say a few things about the project I'm working on. The project is called "evolution of complex parasite life cycles", and essentially we want to understand why parasites use so many hosts in their life cycles. Parasites commonly have up to 3 hosts, but why they do this is a bit of an evolutionary conundrum. That is, wouIdn't it be easier to survive and reproduce when only one host is used? Well, parasites that add a host to their life cycle that's higher on the food chain (e.g. a bigger fish) may actually be able to grow larger and produce more offspring. A parasite that adds a host lower in the food chain may be able to increase their probability of transmission if the new host is frequently eaten by the old host. Though interesting, these ideas are difficult to test because most parasites have set life cycles, so there is no variation that can be used to design experiments. Instead, an indirect approach is necessary, such as examining the costs and benefits of parasite traits likely related to life cycle evolution. In this vein, I plan to examine the growth strategy of a particular tapeworm species in its different hosts. Here are some of the questions I hope to test…Does faster parasite growth increase the likelihood of host death? Natural death or death by predation? If it is costly to grow fast, what do parasites gain by growing fast and large? Do these costs and benefits apply to every host, or just some of the hosts a parasite uses? Is there any flexibility in parasite growth rates and what factors influence this? By pursuing these questions for the next 2 years (maybe more), I hope to further our understanding of how parasites divide up their life cycle (why do they grow a lot in some hosts, but not much in others?). In about a week, I'll go to the U.K. to discuss this project with some professors that are mathematically modelling the evolution of complex parasite life cycles, and, who knows, maybe we'll come up with some fantastic ideas and I'll take a whole new approach to the project.

What else has been going on the last couple months?? Ines has been furiously writing her Diploma thesis. Her deadline is in a couple weeks. Afterwards, she will be a high-earning, diploma-carrying journalist! Maybe then I could quit my job, and become a professional blogger. Or better yet, a profi gamer. I got completely addicted to Guitar Hero over the Xmas holidays. For those who don't know, Guitar Hero is a playstation game in which, using a guitar shaped controller, you have to press buttons and strum chords to the rythym of different rock songs. Here in Plön, I'm going through withdrawl. I felt a bit bad about my addiction, because I actually gave the game to Ines for Xmas. I was hoping that it would add to our playstation-based party games, such as singstar and eyetoy.

We spent New Year's in Leipzig, which was a blast. Ines and I went to a party at a friend's apartment. After midnight, we went dancing in the most famous indie club in Leipzig. Good food, cold beer, loud music. A good way to start 2008. Hopefully this year will be as a good as 2007. Though in retrospect I did manage quite a lot last year (finished my PhD, started a new job, published 4 papers, learned to speak German...at least a bit anyways). I didn't make any resolutions, but maybe I should have resolved to be a better blogger...

2007-10-27T18:39:00.000+02:00

Ines and I visited Ines' cousin Alex in Hamburg yesterday. It was the first time I was in Hamburg, with the exception of a few transfers at the main train station. I had high expectations because Hamburg, the second largest city in Germany, is considered one of the hipper cities in Europe. I'm not so sure if we partied in the hip, cool parts of Hamburg, but we at least experienced the most famous. We went out on the Reeperbahn last night. Numerous bars, discos, fast food joints, sex stores, and strip clubs are located along the Reeperbahn and its surroundings. Just like Las Vegas, the whole area appeals to that part of us that just wants to get drunk and be naughty (I was neither drunk nor naughty last night, for those wondering if this post would get a bit more sordid). Though it doesn't have as much of an international reputation as Amsterdam, Hamburg is famous for the conspicuousness of its prostitutes, and perhaps the most interesting sight in this regard was Herbertstrasse (see the wikipedia link above). The street is blocked from view by a wall. Behind the wall and along the street sit prostitutes in tall glass windows lined with red lights. Only males above the age of 18 are allowed in; women cannot go and gawk at the hookers (and they also prefer to have only serious male customers on the street). Actually, last night felt more like a sight-seeing evening than a night out. Next time, hopefully, we'll find some of those ultra-hip clubs and avoid the tourists. The city is less than 2 hours from Ploen by train, so the next time could be rather soon.

Also, just as a follow-up to the last post. I discovered another thing that makes N. Germany like America. The bars and restaurants here offer pitchers of beer, something that I have not seen outside the U.S. before. I'm happy that this wonderful aspect of American drinking culture (there aren't that many) has been adopted somewhere outside the States.

2007-10-21T18:29:00.001+02:00

As a warning, this post may involve some over-generalized stereotypes that some will disagree with. If you don’t like agree with me, comment or start your own blog. After such an ominous forewarning, you may expect me to write something stupid, like Nobel winner and DNA pioneer James Watson recently did. For those that don’t know, he inferred that blacks were inherently less intelligent than Europeans. Oops. No surprise that he was then suspended from his position at Cold Spring Harbor. Nice to know that a Nobel prize doesn’t give someone unbridled freedom to say whatever offensive thing they want. I’m digressing. This is the thought I wanted to share: regional cultural differences in Germany have taken me a step closer to America. After leaving America, I spent over 2 years in Finland, a land known for the quiet, withdrawn nature of its citizens. Finns just are not big talkers. Adjusting to Finnish culture was not difficult for me, because I was never very good at forcing petty small talk, a skill that’s often expected of Americans. From Finland, I moved into another stereotypically quiet culture, Germany. The Germans, though perhaps more outgoing than Finns, also tend to maintain a social “wall” when meeting new people, and cheery American yammering is often met with suspicion, even if it is well-intended. In my experience, this has been kinda true. Germans, like Finns, tend to be pretty quiet unless you know them, but my experiences are largely confined to Leipzig. It has been two weeks since I moved from Leipzig, in East Germany, to Ploen, in North Germany, and my opinions about the German character are changing. Here, most everyone in the office says “good morning”, which was not the case in Finland. When I go jogging, the people nod and perhaps utter a greeting, something that never happened in Finland or in Leipzig. Two days ago, a little old lady kept telling me how nice it was that I held the door for her. In Finland or Leipzig, I expect I would have received a “kiitos” or “danke”, but nothing more. A realtor that I met with in Ploen was more than happy to discuss various things about America (e.g. dollar to euro exchange rate, weather in Florida), instead of getting straight down to the details. Such social interactions, in my opinion, are more typically American, so, by moving here, have I entered a culture more compatible with my own? I have to admit that the difference between Leipzig and Ploen may reflect differences in city size than regional differences in culture, i.e. small town folk are just uber-friendly. Seems like I need to consult more Germans on this…maybe they could tell me an appropriate way how to end this post.

2007-10-16T21:04:00.000+02:00

I feel like I'm moving up into the scientific big leagues. Some of the work done here (not mine) is of interest to a general audience, i.e. it does not strictly revolve around exotic parasites. How do I know that laypeople are interested in this research? I saw this article on the msn homepage after signing out of hotmail this afternoon. Some of my new colleagues published a very interesting study on how gossip affects people's willingness to cooperate. It seems that a comment or "gossip" about someone can be more important than that person's actual behavior with regard to forming an opinion about the person. To me, this suggests that we can be rather shallow and lazy creatures. Instead of forming an opinion by honest observation, it might just be easier to trust the gossip we hear. Though I'm working with worms and not humans, my work isn't likely to turn up on msn.com or any other website for that matter. However, if it does, this blog will be the first to break the story.

2007-10-14T17:38:00.000+02:00

It has been quite a while since a post…3 weeks to be exact. Those three weeks can be broken into 3 distinct phases: (1) travelling with my parents, (2) preparing to move from Leipzig to Ploen, and (3) moving to Ploen and starting my new job. So, obviously there has been material for me to blog about, but I’ll simply say that an overabundance of anxiety has proven an effective obstacle to more prolific blogging. Anyways, I’ll try to report here and give some reflections on the last few weeks following my PhD defense.

After my defense, we had quite the party, as would be expected, lasting until well after 3. The very next day Ines, my parents, and I took the train from JKL to Helsinki at the unfortunately early hour of 1 p.m. (I slept off my hangover the whole way). The rest of that weekend was spent seeing the sites in Helsinki before flying to Berlin on Sunday. On Monday, I showed my parents around Berlin, and we took in the major sites. For both my parents, Berlin felt somewhat unreal. The history there is so fresh...and no city has a history like Berlin. Since I’ve been there several times, my fascination with the city’s cold war history has been partially replaced with my enthusiasm for its nightlife and overall vibe. Nonetheless, it was kinda fun to share in my parents’ astonishment while touring the city. That evening, we took the train to Leipzig. After a morning spent seeing Leipzig, we headed south to Sprechtsbrunn, Ines' home town. We arrived in the evening to meet Ines' parents. A homemade sign hung from the door and said (in english) "Welcome for Dr. Dan, his parents, and our Ines". Awesome. The crash of cultures that Ines and I feared was certainly dampened by our good friend alcohol. Language barriers really do get much lower after a few glasses of wine. Actually, I think the whole experience of dealing with language barriers made a big impact my parents; it was probably the first time they’ve been in a situation where they just cannot communicate. Of course, Ines and I spent the night translating back and forth, which also kept the conversation dynamic and humorous. The next day, we drove to Dresden. The entire old town in Dresden is a UNESCO world heritage site, perfect for touristy Americans keen to experience old Europe. The last stop on the trip was Prague and more touristy excursions. Besides a bit of trouble finding the hotel and some heavy rain during our city tour, Prague was relatively enjoyable.

My parents flew from Prague back to the States. I went back to Leipzig to think about the next phase of my life: a move to Northern Germany and the tiny city of Ploen (13,000 inhabitants). I spent a week in Leipzig trying to get my head about me…it took a surprising amount of time to actually realize that the PhD thesis and defense were finished and behind me. While soaking in that realization was (and is), naturally, pleasant, I began to focus on moving and beginning a new job. I must admit, I was sad to leave Leipzig. In the 9 months I lived there, I managed to become comfortable in Germany and I developed a fondness for the city. Such is life though. Moving and leaving one’s comfort zone are sometimes unavoidable, often unpleasant, but also frequently beneficial. For example, if I never left Nebraska for Finland, then I would not have met Ines and we would not have a blog with the ludicrous title “parasites and rock n roll”. The worse part is not what I left behind in Leipzig, but who. Ines has to stay in Leipzig to work and write her thesis. So, for the second time in our relationship, we are separated by some distance. On the positive side, the distance between Ploen and Leipzig is much shorter than between Finland and Germany.

For those who don’t know, the reason I moved to Ploen is that there is a research institute located here, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology. For reasons which are still not entirely clear to me, this prestigious Institute offered me a post doc position for an undetermined amount of time. I’ll be studying the evolution of complex life cycle parasites using a particular tapeworm species as a model organism. Actually, the topic fits my interests very well and it’s related to my previous research, so that is probably the reason for their job offer. Hopefully, I’ll be able to work here for a couple years, but one can never know. At the moment, I’m just trying to stay positive in the face of all the unfamiliarity (a more positive thinker would say novelty): new colleagues, new boss, new city, new lab system, new expectations. Ines is, of course, keeping me focused on the opportunities, not the challenges, presented by this new situation. I can never thank her enough for that.

2007-09-21T16:35:00.001+02:00

The defense is over! Wow, what an experience. There were points in which I didn't have a good answer for the opponent's questions, but, overall, it was a good discussion. I'm glad to have it behind me. Now comes the party. Juhu!

p.s. there will be no post tomorrow. Surprise.

2007-09-21T08:07:00.001+02:00

It is about 3 hrs before my defense and man am I nervous. Ines says that my eyes look bad...large, dark rings, like a raccoon. But what can you expect? This is a stressful experience. I suppose if it were easy to get a doctorate, everyone would do it. I try to talk myself down "c'mon how hard can a two or three hour discussion be? Besides you spent three years thinking about these problems." Unfortunately, reasoning with myself seldom helps at this point. I'm gonna be nervous no matter how confident I am or how confident I can talk myself into being. The only real solution to such a problem is go through with the event itself. And so I will in about 3 hours.

2007-09-18T18:25:00.000+02:00

There is no place like Nebraska. Though this was a recruiting motto for the University of Nebraska, it could apply equally well to this wacky story. A state senator in Nebraska is sueing God. After reading the article, it is still not very clear to me as to why he is sueing God...something about language use in some other case. Actually, the point does not need to be clear. All I needed to know was that it was Ernie Chambers. I'm from Nebraska, I already know he's crazy. This guy only wears t-shirts, has a show on public TV in which he rants about societal injustice, and made enough enemies in the senate to have a law passed to implement term limits (because they wanted to stop him from continually being re-elected). When I lived in Nebraska, I never had anything against the guy. In fact, I thought it was probably a good thing to have an angry black man to stand up against all those honkies in the Nebraska state legislature. Maybe he would keep some balance. However, after being through more than one of these ridiculous episodes (he plays the race card a lot...that gets tiresome), he has lost all credibility to me. Is he really changing anything or helping anyone by sueing God (who I imagine won't appear in court)? No. At least the incident is not only sad and pointless, it's also a bit humorous. We Americans love to blame our problems on other people and sueing is the way to do it. And when you can't find a mortal being to blame, why not pin your bad luck on the big kahuna?

2007-09-16T11:21:00.000+02:00

There is a certain amount of narcissism involved in maintaining a blog (i.e. please read about me and my opinions!). Thus, I will not feel too guilty or self-involved posting this link. It is the university’s press release announcing my thesis defense. The page is all in Finnish with the exception of my thesis abstract. I must say, when I see announcements about my impending thesis defense, I start to get both excited and nervous for the actual event itself. The reality of it all is slowly seeping in.

2007-09-12T21:19:00.000+02:00

From the cartoon, you may be able to guess what I did today. That’s right, I started to clean my desk in preparation for moving out next week. In the region above and around my desk, a considerable amount of entropy has accumulated over the last few years. ..scattered papers, folders with meaningless labels, equipment borrowed from other people 2 years ago, specimens unsystematically piled together, etc. The most interesting part of this activity is seeing how my work haphazardly proceeded the last couple years. By haphazard, I mean that my work was never clearly directional; I didn’t start with a clear plan about which questions I wanted to answer and what my ultimate goal was. To some degree I regret this, because it may have been more productive to have one well-construed project to pursue. It would have given me some boundaries. Instead, I had the freedom to pursue any zany idea that popped into my head (which I often did), regardless of whether or not it was good. The zeal of youth, which is fading, was party to blame for this. As I went through some of this stuff on my desk, I saw the manifestations of this zealousness, i.e. various ideas scribbled on scraps of papers. I could see and realize how much time I spent on ideas that simply didn’t result in anything tangible (besides my indecipherable paper scribblings). But that is how science goes. There is not usually a straight, clear path to any goal, and the failed, underdeveloped, and outlandish ideas are probably always gonna outweigh the genuinely good ideas.

2007-09-10T20:34:00.000+02:00

A museum dedicated entirely to parasites? Yep, one exists in Japan. Check it out. I would go there just so I could buy stuff in their shop. Particularly exciting is the keychain with a seal nematode inside (Anisakis). Cool.

2007-09-09T21:01:00.000+02:00

The intellectual showdown we've all been waiting for...baby humans vs baby chimps. Who performs better in simple tasks? Some researchers recently set about to find out. Turns out the humans outperformed the chimps (hurray for our species!). What I find amusing though is the thought that they were probably kids in this study who couldn't figure out these various tests. How would that make their parents feel? Would they tell their son or daughter later in life that, when you were 2 years old, you couldn't outsmart a monkey? I'm glad I wasn't subjected to such a tough comparison early in life.

2007-08-28T16:09:00.001+02:00

I'm flying to Rovaniemi, Finland tomorrow for the meeting of the Scandinavian-Baltic Society of Parasitology. Three days of talks about parasites taking place on the arctic circle. Should be fun. I'll give a talk about how parasites alter the behavior of their hosts through time. The talk is right after a coffee break, so if I notice people nodding off, I'll know my talk is very, very boring. Let's hope a few people stay interested. I'll be in Finland most of September, so I may not be posting too often.

2007-08-25T19:05:00.001+02:00

Ines and I were at the Games Convention here in Leipzig yesterday. It is the biggest games fair in Europe and it was wild. Tony Hawk was even there promoting his new game. Things sure have come a long way from Pong. I was a rather big "gamer" until high school, but after I went to college there just seemed like too many other things to do (note: there was one exception, Conker's Bad Fur Bay for N64...we played that game, perhaps the best of all time, quite frequently in the dorms). In college, I started to view video games as a time waster, something more for bored kids than high-strung students. So, I have not really been paying too much attention to the gaming world. Yesterday, though, I saw how much the industry has grown. The graphics are wildly life-like, most everything can be played multiplayer online, there are controllers with built-in motion sensors, and many games push the boundaries of decency (to view one game, Ines had to show her ID to prove she was 18). All the attending "gamers", mostly male of course, were being wooed by the game designers and console manufacturers. For example, at the booths of many games or demos, scantilly clad women were willing to (read paid to) pose for photographs with any given nerd. It was like a car show for geeks, but cool none the less. In fact, Ines and I want a Wii after playing one for all of two minutes.

2007-08-22T08:47:00.000+02:00

When it comes to human behavior, I have a tendency to look for biological explanations, i.e. it's in our genes. Not that I discount cultural explanations, but they just seem weaker in my eyes. I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise...I am a biologist and I like to think most traits evolved to serve some kind of purpose. Anyways, in the nature vs. nuture continuum, I would suppose that something like color preference would lie on the nuture end of things. I mean, why would someone's favorite color be innate? Well, here is an interesting piece of research that shows that females have a clear preference for red/pink, yet males and females do not differ in their preference for blue. The study was conducted using adults, so genetic and environmental influences are indistinguishable; they need to do a similar study using infants to show that the preference is innate. Nonetheless, I find it fascinating that pink may be inherently more attractive to females, which would just further demonstrate the extent that our biology unconsciously affects our decisions. Makes me almost feel a bit guilty that I bought a pink shirt awhile ago.

2007-08-20T10:00:00.000+02:00

The other day, I was watching a nature documentary on deep sea research. Of course, it was very interesting, because our knowledge of this ecosystem has exponentially increased over the last few decades. In this show, the researchers were studying the ecology of whale falls. Whale carcasses are like oases in the desert of the ocean bottom, and a wide variety of bizarre critters seem to find their way to the buffet. Amazingly, some described species of worms seem to be found exclusively on these rare but bountiful sources of food. There are many valid and interesting research questions being asked about whale falls, like how these critters manage to find whale carcasses and how they travel the vast distances between carcasses? While I find these questions intriguing, I could not help but wonder about the logistics of this work and how it is funded. After working in science for a good 6 years or so, I’ve learned this fundamental lesson: money does not come easy for basic research (i.e. research that doesn’t obviously have an application that will benefit people). There are lots of curious scientists that want to do basic research, and they all tend to think their ideas are interesting and exciting enough to deserve loads of funding. But, like most any other pursuit, there is never quite enough money to go around and make everyone happy. I’ve accepted that, and it is part of the reason that I try to do research that is relatively light on spending, e.g. paying my salary and buying me a bit of equipment. My applications appear to have a good profit ratio in the eyes of the granting agency (hopefully); they think they will get a lot for their money. To do this kind of deep sea research, on the other hand, the budget must be huge. There are projects in which dead whales were towed out to sea, and then regularly visited to study the progression of the ecosystem on the carcass. To do something like that, you need to pay for a ship (a big one), deep sea submersibles (which I can only image are expensive), a crew, numerous scientists and graduate students, and the equipment for the any desired analyses (e.g. DNA sequencing of collected critters). And you got to pay for those ocean voyages a couple times per year. What do the funding agencies get in return for this huge investment? Well, they will be acknowledged in a variety of papers reporting the expedition’s discoveries, perhaps even in rather good journals given the uniqueness of such studies. Nonetheless, that hardly seems like a reason to fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars. Actually, I think the clearest justification for this work is that it captures people’s imagination. If they can make a TV show out of it, some non-scientists must find the work fascinating and worth doing. That can not be said about most basic research, which is almost totally inaccessible to non-scientists. Just take the name of my thesis for example. Does this seem inviting: “Larval life history, transmission strategies, and the evolution of intermediate host exploitation by complex life cycle parasites”? Sometimes I think, not too seriously, that I should have been a paleontologist, my dream job when I was a dinosaur-crazed 6-year old. Then I’d be able to receive grants to travel to Siberia, East Africa, China, etc. to excavate dead animals and go on TV to tell people about my amazing discoveries. But then I wouldn’t get to work with living worms, a much more exhilarating, although equally useless (in the eyes of laymen) experience.

2007-08-17T19:56:00.000+02:00

We had a surprise visit from an old friend of mine this week. Eliot, an acquiantance from my college days, wrote me an email on Monday saying "hey, I'm in Germany, where do you live?". I was a bit shocked, but happy to find time to host a wayward American. He happened to be in Berlin, which is just an hour from Leipzig, so on Tuesday afternoon I picked him up from the train station. You can read about some of our activities on his blog, which happens to be much more active than this one. Ya see, Eliot is an internet "somebody", just check out his list of blogging and editing duties. Other internet nerds know of him, though they may have never met him in the flesh. In fact, he was in Germany to attend a computer camp and learn about hacks, new technologies, and other things that he explained, but I didn't really understand. He did manage to enlighten me in one respect though. Apparently, during my three years abroad (yeah it was 3 years this month), I have picked up some kind of indistinguishable accent...not American, not Finnish, not German. Oh well. I'll start to worry when Germans tell me that I speak funny English.

2007-08-08T19:28:00.000+02:00

This is interesting. Exertion sweat (from exercise) has a chemical composition different from stress sweat (from anxiety). The stress sweat seems to result in a worse smell. I reek regularly of both varieties, but I think the stress stench will be more common in the next 2 months. I'm rapidly finalizing my thesis and preparing for the events and party thereafter. I think it is a bit like planning a shotgun wedding...

2007-07-28T17:33:00.000+02:00

This comic is dumm, but hilarious. I think I would react in a similar way...

2007-07-27T15:32:00.000+02:00

This post was inspired by Ben's comment on the last post. He was disappointed that McBain's experiences with lab safety did not make Nature's "Best of Simpson's Science" list. That reminded me of this picture I saw in a recent issue of TIME magazine. It comes from a peculiarly-titled website called icanhascheezburger.com. Though you wouldn't know from the name, it is a site that collects pictures of cute cats with clever captions (actually they are pretty funny...and adorable). Anyways, the TIME article notes how undisputably weird, quirky sites like this are becoming a thing of the past. The author argued that contemporary internet phenomena are almost inevitably homogeized and commercialized, because, well, nowadays the internet is a part of mainstream culture. The pure geekiness is being squeezed out, i.e. no more "all are base are belong to us". I suppose I am not enough of a computer dork to comment on the validity of that opinion, but I am nerdy enough to write a post that finds a common thread between cats, the simpsons, and a respected, weekly-news magazine.

2007-07-26T14:45:00.000+02:00

For those who love The Simpsons, check this out. Science in The Simpsons...on this blog we obey the laws of thermodynamics!

2007-07-24T16:22:00.000+02:00

Some researchers spent the last 20 years trying to write a computer program that is unbeatable at checkers…and they just succeeded (see here). While this is interesting, I find the predictions in this article amusing. They are predicting that chess will take another 50 years to “crack”. Who actually wants to spend the next few decades trying to write an unbeatable chess program, one that always plays a perfect match? Hopefully, and I don’t know this, they are just waiting for computing power to reach a level capable of analyzing all the possible moves. Seems like something that would have been useful during the cold war…

2007-07-22T11:20:00.000+02:00

Yesterday and the day before, I had my big german test. I assume that I passed, but I have no idea about the grade (the oral part necessitates rather subjective evaluation). Anyways, according to the German government, my knowledge of the German language is now sufficient to integrate into German society. Yeah, we will see. The test marks the end of my formal, classroom German education. From now on, TV, radio, internet, and the street will be my teachers. Luckily, some aspects of German language manage to keep me interested in learning, e.g. how many words have seeped into the international conciousness (see here).

In an unrelated note, Ines was on TV last night (MDR) because she bought the new Harry Potter book. She was briefly interviewed (about 4 or 5 questions), but only 7 words actually made it into the final cut of the report. Too bad, she had a wild theory about how the series ends...

2007-07-14T11:17:00.000+02:00

This is pretty interesting. In ancient China, war tended to coincide with extended periods of cold climate, which naturally resulted in reduced food availability. If people are starving, it is very easy to imagine them taking up arms and trying to acquire food/land by force. Thus, this result is not particularly surprising. What I find interesting, though, is how these presumed “resource wars” may contrast with several recent conflicts. The cold war, for example, was a fight over an ideology. Similarly, the war on terrorism/drugs are also, on some level, ideological wars. People are supposedly fighting over ideas, not the basic elements of subsistence. On the other hand, power seems to be a the underlying motive in every conflict. Those in power, i.e. the winner, can decide how to control resources and which ideological message to convey. Is it overly simplistic to say the cause of war is simply a struggle for power? Probably, but it seems to make sense to me.

2007-07-10T08:11:00.000+02:00

Memories in music

Have you ever noticed how music can define generations? What would the 70’s have been without funk, the 80’s without electro and punk, or the 90’s without rap? Well, now that I’m a twenty-something, I can reflect back upon the music and memories in my life. I’ll do this theoretically. If I were to make three mix CDs that defined three of the last “blocks” of my life, here is what they’d be.

CD 1 – High school (in no particular order)
1. Metallica – As the bell tolls. Metallica was one of the first bands I discovered as a teenager, and I always thought “Ride the Lightning” was their coolest album.
2. Prodigy – Smack my bitch up. When I was 16, I tried to buy this album at NFM (for all the Omahans), but they wouldn’t sell it to me because of the explicit lyric sticker (needed to be 18).
3. Offspring – Gone away. Any number of Offspring songs could’ve made the list. I was tempted to take “Pretty fly (for a white guy)”, but thought it was too obvious.
4. Korn – Blind. The first track from Korn’s first album is a classic. I must have heard it a thousand times in my high school’s weight room.
5. Zebrahead – Get back. Some fun pop metal that today sounds, well, so 90s.
6. Reel Big Fish – She’s got a girlfriend. Ska enjoyed a brief surge in popularity in the late 90s, and RBF were a favorite in the genre (swing music also had a resurgence, with less penetration into youth culture)
7. Powerman 5000 – When worlds collide. A prominent group in the nu-metal wave with no staying-power in the long term (their second album was supposedly scrapped by the label for being too crappy).
8. Hed p.e. – Serpent boy. Of all the bands that tried to fuse rap and metal, this one probably managed it make sound most genuine. I liked to call it ghetto metal.
9. Limp Bizkit – Counterfeit. Though I can’t say it too loudly in public these days, I will admit in private to being a Limp Bizkit fan as a teenager. I had to be. They were huge. This song, their first single ever, was never popular, though I thought it described well all the phony people I had to go to school with.
10. Deftones – My own summer (shove it). Because of the chorus (“Shove it!”), I wanted this to be our class song.
11. The Urge – Liquor store. Do I even need to explain why Liquor store would be a favorite for bored teenagers?
12. Green Day – Nimrod. This is the song that turned me onto Green Day, possibly the best pop-punk band ever.
13. Static-X – Push it. I secretly wanted hair like frontman Wayne Static. Also, I always remember how a fan graciously requested this song at one of their shows by screaming “Push the F*#@ing it!”.
14. NIN – Closer. This was one of the first songs I managed to download in mp3 format (the very first was Blur – Song2).
15. 2 Skinnee J’s – Riot Nrrrd. A song written by nerds for nerds that just rocks. Besides one of the two J’s was the son of my high school counselor.
16. Korn – Falling away from me/Freak on a leash. Korn is the only band making it twice onto the list, and these two songs probably mark the peak of their popularity. I was a huge Korn fan. I had to support the leading musical alternative to boy bands like N’Sync.

CD2 – College (again no order)
1. Mudvayne – Dig (or -1). Mudvayne took over Korn’s place as my favorite band in college. I would always listen to them when I needed to vent some anger (which was often, I seem to recall).
2. Slipknot – Wait and bleed. Slipknot was around when I was in high school, but I only became interested in college when I discovered the like-minded band, Mudvayne.
3. System of a Down – Sugar. Another band I was listening to in high school. SOAD’s popularity peaked, though, when I was in college, so I think of them as a post-2000 band.
4. Ill Nino – Revolution
5. 36 Crazyfists – Turns to ashes
6. 40 Below Summer – Step into the sideshow
7. Boy Hits Car – As I watch the sun fuck the ocean. The music produced by artists 3 to 7 just fit this transitional period, from nu-metal to the more metal/hardcore that dominates heavy music nowadays. Also, these bands are rather obscure, reflecting my increasingly eccentric taste in music at the time.
8. theStart – Gorgeous. This band is a bit of an outsider on the list, but I was really into theStart’s modernized take on new wave. Actually, more of Ines’ taste than mine.
9. Deadsy – Mansion world. An electro-rock band fronted by Cher’s son, how could you go wrong? Coolest live version of the Star Wars theme I’ve ever heard.
10. OTEP – The lord is my weapon. The angriest female front woman in the world, and I was digging it in the summer of ’01, the last summer I spent suffering under my parent’s roof.
11. Primer 55 – Anti-social. Chorus: “Sorry I’m anti-social, but people just make me sick”. Yeah, I was often of this attitude, especially in the presence of suck-up pre-med students or arrogant Frat boys and Sorority girls.
12. Xandria – Child of the blue. An obscure German band I found via mp3.com. Who would have thought that I’d now be able to buy their CDs in the store…in Germany?
13. Rorschach test – Fornicator. I don’t know any other songs from this band, but this song was played now and then on the Uni’s radio station. With the hook “that’s why they call me, Fornicator!”, how could a male, college student not love this track?
14. Atom and His Package – I’m downright amazed at what I can destroy with just a hammer. Frosty’s theme song.
15. Mindless Self Indulgence – Faggot/Bitches/Planet of the Apes. MSI’s major label debut was 30 tracks listed in alphabetical order. That kind of peculiarity led to MSI being a favorite band in my circle of friends. I can’t describe the music; you just have to experience it.

CD3 – Finland and beyond
1. Dog Fashion Disco – Sweet insanity. Honestly, DFD should be on the college list. However, I enjoyed sharing DFD with unsuspecting Finns, so I put this band here.
2. HIM – Join me in death. Before I knew I was headed North, I did not know HIM was Finland’s biggest pop culture export. In your face Sweden!
3. Nightwish – Nemo. When I arrived in Finland, this song was on top of the charts. A goth-metal band topping the charts? Yeah, I had definitely arrived in a foreign country.
4. Lordi – Hard rock hallelujah. This song is ridiculous, but after winning the Eurovision song contest, the monsters of Lordi were treated national heroes.
5. Timo Rautianen – Hyvää paiva. The last Finnish band on the list is the first one I saw live in JKL.
6. Rammstein – Amerika. In Europe, unlike the U.S., this band is not a one-hit wonder. Anyways, their attempted lampoon of the U.S. always makes me laugh.
7. HORSE the Band – Bunnies. Nintendo meets death metal. They have perhaps the funniest lyrics that can’t be understood because of the screaming delivery.
8. The Blood Brothers – Spit shine your black clouds. This song is on the Young Machetes CD, probably my ‘07 album of the year (though it came out in late ‘06…can’t catch the new releases as quick as I used to).
9. Tub Ring – The promise keeper. Similar to DFD, perhaps even quirkier at times, their eccentric, creative style forms to my musical tastes. They’ve been a fixture on my mp3 player, so I’ve spent a lot of time jamming out to their music while doing mindless lab work.
10. Modest Mouse – Float on. A particular American (not me) in JKL had quite the affinity for MM, and was always willing to talk to you about how great the band is.
11. The Sounds – Living in America. The chorus “we’re not living in America, and we’re not sorry” just resonates for an ex-pat. Also, Ines regularly plays this track when she spins, usually before or after Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America”. Cool.
12. The Faint – Agenda Suicide. I was listening to the Faint in college. After all, they came from Omaha, my hometown. The discovery that this home town band had a fan base in Europe, though, rekindled my interest in this band. P.S. Ines also usually spins this track.
13. Wir sind Helden – Denkmal. This song, because of Singstar on Playstation, was the first German song in which I learned (most of) the lyrics. Also, we recently saw them live in studio, giving a radio concert.
14. The Killers – Smile like you mean it/Somebody told me. These songs will always remind me of Finland and more importantly my very special blog partner, Ines.

This is the 100th post on the blog!!! Wohoo!

2007-07-06T20:10:00.000+02:00

Ok, there hasn’t been a proper post for a long while. I could use a variety of different excuses, e.g. work, german learning, TV, playstation, beer, etc. I have to be honest, though, laziness should probably be at the top of the list. It seems to be monsoon season in Germany, so it isn’t like I’ve been working on my tan. Let’s just call that break a summer blogging holiday, and get on with this post. Ok?

What the heck has gone on the last couple weeks? The biggest milestone for me is that I handed in my PhD thesis. Yippee! Unfortunately, though, that yippee still has an asterisk next to it. The thesis needs to be reviewed, revised, and then defended before I’m Dr. Benesh (or Dr. Dan as Ines’ friends favor). Also, I’ve been going through the usual cycle of manuscript submission and subsequent rejection, so I can’t claim that my professional life is without disappointment and failure. Ines has also made some big career moves lately. She got a job working for the TV show “unter uns” (not the soap, but the talk show) finding guests and more or less keeping the whole thing organized. Right now, it is part-time, but in the fall it’ll be a full-time gig…pretty cool.

Other stuff…last weekend Ines and I had holiday. It was not a proper holiday, i.e. 2-3 weeks away from work, like a typical summer vacation in Germany. Nope, we just took a 4-day weekend, but it was nonetheless cool. We visited the Rhine Valley, saw the Loreley, tasted some fine German wines, and went inside the world’s largest wine barrel (Dürkheimer Riesenfass, toll). Perhaps the most memorable part of the trip, though, is one of the places we stayed, a village called Frankenstein. How awesome is that? As you can see from the picture, this simple fact kept us amused (ok, more me than Ines). After visiting the wine region, we drove to Kassel to check out the Documenta in Kassel, the biggest art exhibition in the world. One of the more famous “pieces” at the exhibition was from an Asian artist that planted rice fields on a hill in front of an old palace. When we saw it, the ground was completely dry and the rice plants were dying. At least these misplaced rice fields were somehow more artistic than the paintings of black lines on a white background. Yeah, I don’t understand art at all.

2007-06-18T15:40:00.000+02:00

Godzilla, meet your next opponent. Check it out.

2007-06-13T20:47:00.000+02:00

I found this mind-blowing. Teenage Americans, on average, expect to earn well over $100,000 per year as adults, a number way out of touch with reality. Here is the article. The age range in this survey was from 13 to 18, and I must admit that I didn't have much of a clue about money in the real world when I was 13. By the time I was 18, though, I had worked numerous low-paying jobs, and I knew that money doesn't come easy. I suppose kids that are not as negative as I was (or perhaps not as realistic) don't let these kind of real-world experiences destroy their dreams.

2007-06-01T19:19:00.000+02:00

I still tend to get angry at this kind of stuff, even though I should just shake my head. There is a creationist inspired museum opening up in the U.S. Here is a story about it. It drives me crazy that the people preaching this stuff say there are using the same facts as everyone else. The earth is only 6,000 years old? Dinosaurs were in the Garden of Eden? Though I don't know many geologists or paleotologists, I imagine only a tiny fraction would hypothesize that dinosaurs and humans co-existed a few thousand years ago (and I imagine all of those would be bible thumping conservatives working in private, Christian universities). At least there are no public funds going towards this thing; its built by private donations. I have to admit it is scary that someone can raise 27 million dollars to build a museum based on an allegorical story.

2007-05-28T14:22:00.000+02:00

The wave gothic festival was in Leipzig this weekend. I'm not sure, but I believe it is the biggest meeting of its kind in Europe. Long story short, there were a lot of interesting people in the city. Check out some pictures here. Ines' cousin is a participant in this gothic culture and we went with her to one of these gothic parties this weekend. It was rather cool...music you would almost never hear in a club, lots of interesting people to look at. Though there were many ridiculous outfits, the most humorous thing I observed at this party was in the bathroom. It was perhaps the first time I observed competition for mirror space in a men's bathroom. The gothic guys had to check whether their black lipstick and eyeliner still looked ok. Maybe we can think of this as a step toward gender equality...

2007-05-24T20:57:00.000+02:00

Disney Movies and German Bureaucracy

I remember that in my primary education (and beyond) tolerance and appreciation for cultural diversity were major topics of societal concern. The main points were and are obvious. Don't categorize people. Do be racist. Everyone should have an equal shot. Stereotypes are wrong. Now, if I take these lessons and apply them to my experiences in Germany, then I should be able to debunk many of the common, German stereotypes. Beer-drinking, sausage-eating, well-organized, unfriendly skinheads. I'm not actually gonna address any of these prejudices/exaggerations. Instead, I'm just using them to bring me in a roundabout, incoherent way to an absolutely true stereotype: the bureaucracy in Germany is extensive and intolerable. Today, I was at the immigration office. I had been there once before to ask about the documents I would need to produce to get permission to live in this country. After compiling this mass of documents, I returned to the office in the hopes of easily procuring a residence permit. The first step was to wait 3 hours before being able to talk to anyone (when I arrived they were in the 40s and I pulled number 129). Upon finally talking with someone, it turns out that the application is still not complete. Luckily, I can send the papers without actually waiting in the office again. However, I have to wait a few months before my application is actually processed, and when it is, that's another trip to the immigration office. If Ines didn't come and vouch for me, I'm certain it would have been much, much more difficult. While this doesn't seem so bad (perhaps such bureaucracy is only ruthlessly imposed on immigrants), I think such extensive paperwork is an endemic part of German society. Doctor visits, driver's licenses, work permits, housing contracts...they all seem painfully complex to me. Oh well, you just can't fight the system.

Onto the next, unrelated topic...a short story. Ines and I watched "Bend it like Beckham" on TV a few days ago. It's a Disney movie, so it has a 99% chance of having a predictable happy ending....and that's what happened. Anyways, during the happy climax, two lead characters are kissing, lovingly but not erotically, and rubbing their noses against one another's face. Ines turned to me and said "I want to do this with you". Almost simultaneously, perhaps as the word "want" was escaping her lips, I let out a magnificent sneeze (the hay fever has been nastly of late). As I wiped the snot from my nose, I turned to her and asked if she wanted to reconsider. All she could do was laugh. What is my point? Life is not like a Disney movie, but sometimes it can be funny anyways.

2007-05-20T00:40:00.000+02:00

If I were more creative I could come up with cool lyrics like this...

What are you gonna wear to the impending rapture? -Tub Ring

Spit shine your black clouds. -Blood Brothers

Roaring with whispers, tiny bunnies, those fucking bunnies. -HORSE the band

No prophet has ever been accepted in his own village. -Kaddisfly

Get up off this Wisconsin Death Trip. -Static-X

I was gonna write more, but some seemingly good ideas turn out to have limited substance, i.e. I can recall anything else as I sit here...

2007-05-17T21:19:00.000+02:00

I have something on my Xmas list: http://www.zygotegames.com/pu.html

2007-05-13T00:40:00.000+02:00

This should be interesting. I drank three biers earlier in the evening and now I'm enjoying a cocktail. It is some orange juice mixed with Mexican booze my sister gave me (a booze for average, poor Mexicans, i.e. something like tequilla but more likely to make you go blind). Anyways, I just spent the last 3+ hrs watching the eurovision song contest. For the amusement of visitors to this blog I will try to write a post about this event without pressing the backspace key. Starting now. Serbia won the event, tak,ign over the poisition from Lordi, last years winners form my adoptemd home land, Finalnd. (man this is terrible after one senctence). Me and everyone that was watching the event with me felt the song was rathger terrible. It wasn't pop, it wasn't rock , what wsa it? I don't know. But I do know that it wasn't too interesting or particularly beuatiful. Actually, Ines and I sent in a votr fro the Ukraine; theyre contestant was a drag quessn the played a eurotrash, 90s dance song (in german, actually). While it was also not a attravctive soneg we gound it more entertaining that the Servian dong. But as usual, our musical tastes are not matched byu the masses. Actually, this was the first time I wastched a full eurovision cong contest. but I imagine that most other ones alwao work like this. The best song doesn't win, but some unexpected song manages to attract the attendion to european voters. For example Loradi did this lats year. Theyre song was not good, but it was new and interasting, so pepole voted for them. While I didn't find the song from servia intersting , others must have, so they voted fro it. This lead s to the essential poroblem of understanding what people like and why.l I don't have this skill; I don't know what people like. What I kilke other people don't, so I wisely never pusued a jo in marketing. But after watching a eurovison contest in which artists try to make people form many different culttures ahappy, I can see how diffecult a job talent scouts have. Ok, at this point I feel that it is prudent to use the backspace button again. So what is the point of this post? Erasers are a necessary tool in writing a coherent post? What do people want in their pop music? Why can't marketing be a backup career for me? No. This post is simply to entertain. As the organizers of the eurovision song contest know, this is easier said than done.

2007-05-10T21:12:00.000+02:00

There's a lot of weird stuff out in nature. Here's an interesting example...ducks, yeah those boring, cosmopolitan waterfowl that old folks like to feed, have bizarre genitalia. Males, for instance, have giant penises. Naturally, they're not on display too often, so few folks are actually aware of this. Recently though an article on the presumable causes underlying this morphology was printed in the New York Times. Forced matings, a.k.a. rape, is common in ducks, so female oviducts seem to have evolved to prevent fertilization occurring during these events. The long phalluses of males are presumably a counter adaptation to the labrythinth like female genitalia. While the sexual selection in Anatid waterfowl is certainly interesting, I was particularly fascinated by this reaction to the article. A NY gossip site put up a blurb on duck dicks, in which some interest was expressed but it was clearly overshadowed by tone of disgust. Actually, I am quite familiar with this type of reaction. Tell "normal" people about something strange in biology and the typical reaction is "ewww, gross". To be honest, this gets a bit tiresome (especially from wise-cracking family members), and it is one reason that I'm reluctant to discuss my work openly. I wonder why this is the case and if this has to be like this. I think part of the problem is that people have an incredible tendency to personify things. Ducks have huge dicks and a third of all matings are males raping females, that's not how it works with people, so this has to be weird and somehow disgusting. I am not saying that these thoughts are conscious, but this type of subconscious logic could definitely be an obstacle to understanding the biological world. I, on the other hand, don't react to "disgusting" biological phenomena like this, but instead I ask why. Why does this look like it does? Why does it operate like that? If there are some reasonable answers to these types of questions, maybe people won't dismiss things as simply gross, but fascinating. So would more scientific education change the way people react to nature? Probably. But would people still react to my parasite stories as disgusting? Yeah, definitely. I just have to accept that the vast majority of the population finds my line of work inherently gross.

2007-05-09T14:45:00.000+02:00

Well it has been awhile since a proper post. The combination of thesis writing, German learning, financial planning, occasional exercising, and managing immigration beauracracy hasn't left much time for blogging. I came across this today, and found it to be very interesting. Physicists recently described the largest supernova ever observed. Ok, actually, on the surface this is not so exciting. I mean, how can I be excited when I barely understand what a supernova is? Well, what I do know is that stars explode at the end of their life cycles in dramatic, powerful events dubbed supernovas. Normally, the amounts of energy emitted in such events are indescribable to normal, non-physicist minds. For example, a supernova may emit energy which is equivalent to a hundred billion hydrogen bombs or it may emit that equivalent to a hundred trillion H-bombs. Yeah, I get it, they're powerful beyond imagination. However, this article gave a rather innovative example of how powerful this particular explosion actually was. There is a star relatively nearby (7,500 light years, i.e. traveling at the speed of light, we would need 7,500 years to get there) with properties similar to this recently-described, huge supernova. If it were to explode in a similar fashion, the earth would be bathed in near perpetual light. As the article states, we could read comfortably in the middle of the night. The idea of a star exploding in a distant solar system giving the earth constant daylight, is pretty mind-blowing. Makes ya feel kinda small doesn't it?

2007-04-28T20:38:00.000+02:00

I don't laugh out loud very often when reading a band interview, but I had to laugh several times during this interview with HORSE THE BAND. I wonder if anyone can be so crazy or if drugs need to be involved...In other news, I bought the new NIN CD. The CD actually changes color in the heat. Very cool.

2007-04-25T21:13:00.000+02:00

Honeymoon phase

Today begins a honeymoon phase. I came back to Leipzig from Finland on Monday and Ines returns from Bonn late tonight. We have not seen each other for over a week, which is the longest we’ve been apart since we moved to Leipzig. This time apart was just long enough to ensure that we’ll start a small honeymoon phase tomorrow. What is the honeymoon phase? It is the time in a relationship when things just feel new, good, and exciting, at least that’s my definition. The relationship between Ines and I has been characterized by numerous honeymoon phases. As with most relationships, our first honeymoon phase started shortly after we met in Finland. Because we came from different countries, different cultures, different academic fields, there was always something indescribably fascinating about our time together. Ines was studying intercultural communication at the time, and quickly found the appropriate term to define this state, i.e. honeymoon phase. According to her textbooks, intercultural relationships are often characterized by a honeymoon phase in which both persons find the other interesting and exotic simply because they come from different cultures. Eventually, the honeymoon phase ends and is replaced by more difficult stages in which cultural bridges must be crossed and communication must be more efficient. Naturally, Ines and I both experienced such cultural and/or linguistic difficulties. But on the positive side, we’ve also had many honeymoon phases. This was largely a consequence of us living in two separate countries for about 1.5 years. When we visited each other about every other month, a new honeymoon phase began. During the limited time of each visit, the everyday annoyances could be ignored and we could just enjoy each other. While this may sound tolerable, a long-distance relationship can’t last forever; moving together or breaking up are the two eventual options. Of course, I’m glad that we represent the former. But I’m also happy that there is still the possibility of some short honeymoon phases every now and then. I suppose it is like many other things in life: there needs to be a good balance. In this case, between spending time together and time apart.

2007-04-13T19:49:00.000+02:00

The past few years as I’ve gathered experiences and seen more of the world, I’ve come to support a rather disheartening hypothesis. Economics makes the world go round (not literally, figuratively). I’m of course not the only one of this opinion (stereotypes would suggest all Americans are cold-blooded capitalists), but it does not seem to be an opinion I should hold. After all, I’m a biologist who has never taken a business class or had much interest in money. How did I reach such a conclusion? I guess I just started to notice that many major events, controversies, and conflicts have financial undercurrents. Why did the U.S. win the cold war? More nukes? Hardly. Socialism, in a pure form, just isn’t economically viable, so the Soviet Union collapsed. Interestingly, economics (via high oil prices) is nowadays driving a Russian resurgence in power. What is the source of conflicts in Africa? Groups are fighting for limited resources (Darfur isn’t exactly a farmer’s paradise), not different ideologies. What has fueled China’s rise to near super-power status? Cheap labor fueling an economic explosion. Dido in India. Ok, these are easy examples, and I admit that the idea that “economics drives everything” is a gross oversimplification which ignores a lot of political and moral issues. In any case, I read something the other day that brought this little hypothesis to a much more personal level, and this is what I intended to write when I started this post. The concept of biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels has been gaining support of late; turning crops into gas should, naturally, put a dent into carbon emissions. Most people, including me, agree that is a good thing. What I didn’t think about, though, are some of the economic repercussion of this. Increasing biofuel production will increase the demand for these crops driving up their price. That’s economics at its simplest. You may be tempted to now think, I’m not a farmer and I’m not keen on vegetables, so who cares? However, one of the crops being used to produce biofuel here in Europe is barley. Barley is, of course, a necessary ingredient in the production of that most important of fermented beverages, beer. Biofuel production increases, demand for barley increases, barley prices increase, beer becomes more expensive to produce, I pay more for a six-pack. What an unforeseen chain of events, at least for me, the economically clueless. But I think this connection between global warming and beer prices may convince some of the people skeptical of my initial hypothesis.

And for those who are curious, Ines won the March Madness pool. My brother and I were so ashamed, but my dad offered warm congrats.

2007-04-06T17:45:00.000+02:00

Over the past few months, I've been devoutly learning the German language. While I'm in not at all "good" or even "ok", I can make it through a simple, slow conversation. In any case, my plight has given me a new appreciation of German and any pop cultural references to it. For example, the pop cultural library that is The Simpsons (best show of all time) made what is probably the most clever reference to a German I've ever heard, and I'll reproduce it here to brighten the day. In the episode "When Flanders Failed", Homer is enjoying the failure of Flanders new store, The Leftorium. Lisa, expecting a higher moral standard from her dad, asks “Dad, do you know what Schadenfreude is?”. Homer, ever annoyed by Lisa's judgmental nature, replies sarcastically, “No, I do not know what Schadenfreude is. Please tell me because I’m dying to know.” Lisa then explains “It’s a German word for shameful joy, taking pleasure in the suffering of others.” Homer responds with “Oh, come on, Lisa. I’m just glad to see him fall flat on his butt! He’s usually all happy and comfortable, and surrounded by loved ones, and it makes me feel…what’s the opposite of that shameful joy thing of yours?”
“Sour grapes.”
“Boy, those Germans have a word for everything.”

Homer is sure right about that. Germans do have a word for everything, at least I feel that way learning vocabulary. Too bad sour grapes isn't one of them.

2007-03-26T20:36:00.000+02:00

Ok, I don’t want to simply provide yet another update in our little family march madness pool (though I will), so I will present two intriguing moral dilemmas I’ve come across during the past weekend. The first one is presented here, and it deals with the philosophical concept of utilitarianism. It is a very simple moral philosophy: do the actions which bring about the most good for the most people. Seems like it should work pretty well most of the time (c’mon everyone take a piece of the pie!), but there are some counterexamples which show that the theory is not perfect. The classic example is when a morally confused person (i.e. anyone besides religious zealots…they always know what’s right) is confronted with a difficult choice: kill 1 person to save many people. Utilitarianism demands that the unfortunate, innocent person be killed to save the lives of others. People, naturally, have a hard time saying “yeah, no problem, give me the gun and let’s get this ugliness behind us”. It seems our emotions get in the way of cold, hard reason. Take those emotions away, postulated the psychologists and neuroscientists, and you have moral agents acting entirely through reason (I, Robot anyone?). Long story short, this seems to be the scenario in a group of patients with damage in areas of the brain critical for emotional responses. Wild. I find any kind of study that can provide scientific insight into moral questions absolutely astounding. These kinds of questions have been debated for centuries by philosophers, politicians, and religious leaders, but just now are we beginning to understand some of the biological foundations of these issues. Like I said, wild.

The second “dilemma” is for the vegetarians and animal rights activists out there. The American bison, or buffalo, was nearly exterminated by men in the 19th century. At its low point, there were only about 1,000 individuals left; before humans settled N. America the population size was probably in the millions for several thousand years. Nowadays, buffalo numbers are increasing, but not because the great American plains are being restored to prehistoric conditions. Nope, the population is growing because people have developed a taste for buffalo meat. So the moral question thus becomes is it better for a species to go extinct than to be sustained purely for consumption? I got no answer to this one, but I did find it rather intriguing. Maybe it is a good conversation starter for the next vegetarian you meet…

Finally, as promised, the madness update. I was leading our pool through the first 3 rounds of the tournament (from 64 to 8 teams), but then everything went to hell. My predicted champion, Kansas, lost and I ended up only picking 1 of 4 teams in the Final Four (Florida). My dad is now in the lead, and Ines is in second (she picked all 4 teams in the final, unbelievable). I can’t catch either of them. I just have to hope the right teams win, so that I don’t suffer the embarrassment of finishing dead last.

2007-03-21T20:22:00.000+01:00

An update on March Madness. After last Sunday, only 16 teams were left (the sweet 16). I picked 11 of 16, including the quasi-cinderella team (UNLV...the runnin rebels!). So, my brackets are probably the best I've had in years. I'm even leading in the family pool! Of course, by writing this, I'll probably jinx myself...so if Kansas loses in this round (I picked them to win it all, foolishly perhaps), I deserve some of the blame. In any case, I'm looking forward to the madness starting up again tomorrow!

2007-03-17T10:46:00.000+01:00

This post is about an American tradition: March Madness. I will refer to wikipedia to define this annual event. I quote “The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is a single elimination tournament held each spring featuring 65 college basketball teams in the United States. Colloquially known as March Madness (as the tournament takes place mainly during the month of March) or the Big Dance (as opposed to the now smaller and less prestigious NIT), the tournament takes place over 3 weeks at sites across the U.S., and the national semifinals (the Final Four) have become one of the nation's most prominent sports events.” So there be the basics, but why is this tournament considered “Madness”? In my opinion, the number one reason for the “madness” is that the tournament is single elimination. You lose, you go home. There are no round robins, no opportunities to play a bad game. Every year, in true David vs Goliath style, some underdog teams will play above their level and knock out some of the best teams in the country. There are always surprises, and they are always exciting. The madness is exacerbated by the fact that an incredible number of people are betting on this tournament. Actually, this gambling is generally accepted, or at the very least ignored. Here is how this works. Before the tournament, one predicts which teams will win each tournament game. One can then put money into a communal pool (often through work or amongst friends), and at the end of the tournament the person or persons with the best brackets wins the money. The consequence of this is that you start cheering for teams you have never heard of nor cared about. Last night, for instance, I was rooting for Winthrop to beat Notre Dame. I don’t even know where Winthrop is. Total madness. Well, yesterday and the day before were the first two days of the tourney, and 64 teams were reduced to 32 teams. In my pool, which is just for pride and mostly composed of my family (my Dad almost always wins), I am currently in first place. I expect that I won’t stay there for long. There's too much madness yet to pass.

2007-03-14T20:04:00.000+01:00

From time to time, I check in on the evolution vs. creationism debate. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps, I keep expecting creationists to "see the light", and realize that evolution is the best scientific explanation we have for the biological diversity and phenomena we observe today. Anyone that disregards evolution is ignoring over 100 years of scientific work...which is fine, just be willing to acknowledge that and say that your beliefs are entirely faith-based. I really hate it when people try to mash together a literal interpretation of the bible and scientific reality. Here is a awful example of this from youtube. It seems that some people are convinced that dinosaurs and people co-existed at sometime. Unbelievably, this video has been "favorited" over 100 times. I only managed to listen to this guy for 5 mins, much more and I may have jammed a pen in my ear to dull the pain.

2007-03-04T16:37:00.000+01:00

The lazy blogger

We had a party last night, so I’m not in the best condition today. Thus, instead of trying to write something interesting myself, I’m going to direct you to some cool posts on other blogs. The first is here and is about the capture of an adult colossal squid. Basically it just shows some amazing pictures, so it is good for lazy blog patrons. I’ve added a picture showing the hooks that this beast has in its tentacle suckers, and one showing what these hooks probably do to spermwhales making a meal out of these squids. What an amazing animal; a testament to out vast ignorance of what lives down in the deep oceans. The second post can be found here. It is about some of my favorite critters: parasitic worms. A new molecular phylogeny of the platyhelminthes (flatworms) has been published. Phylogenies are hypotheses about the relationships between species, and they are often built using DNA data. Here the goal was to examine the deep evolution of parasitic worms, i.e. how they evoled a parasitic life style, how they added hosts to their life cycle, and how they radiated in a staggering variety of animal hosts. For lay persons, the post gives an interesting overview of the natural history of these fascinating animals. For parasitologists, there is a surprise at the end of the post…in the re-printed phylogeny, it seems the trematodes, a huge group of parasites, are not monophyletic. I’m guessing it is due to the limited sampling of species in the study, not biological reality, but I will have to actually look up that paper to see if this is how the results were interpreted. I also recommend following the link about the discovery of tapeworm life cycles. Apparently, tapeworms were discovered by a German doctor with the name Kuchenmeister (literal translation: cake master). Good that he didn’t take up the family profession…

2007-02-26T20:25:00.000+01:00

I was initially very suspicious about Wikipedia. I mean how well could "internet users" write an encyclopedia, a compilation of tedious academic documents? Actually, after some reports suggested the Wiki entries are approximately as good as actual encylopedias, I started using Wikipedia. Quite frankly, I've become a believer. Wikipedia is a very useful resource. Now people can forget about the validity of the site and start debating new issues such as entry relevancy. Check this out if you are bored. I found it slightly entertaining...

2007-02-21T18:43:00.000+01:00

Wormy world

This blog is titled “parasitesandrocknroll”, but it has been awhile since either parasites or rock n roll has been the topic of a post. Well, there was a bit about R n R in the last post (i.e. nine inch nails). Anyways, it is definitely time for a post about parasites! Most people think that maintaining biodiversity is a good thing. We tend to feel bad when things go extinct, with the exception of dangerous diseases like smallpox. Cute or furry animals are especially high on the conservation list. However, if we want to conserve biodiversity as a general goal, regardless of the creature’s charisma, we would more or less be protecting parasites (and by extension their hosts). Parasites easily outnumber free-living species. That can serve as a nice anecdote at your next dinner party…”by the way, did you know that there are more parasitic animals than free-living animals?”. It may impress your friends, though it would probably kill most conversations. Anyhow, let me provide some evidence to back up this claim. Traditionally, species have been determined by noting and describing clear morphological differences between them. Sounds easy, but this can be exceedingly difficult when looking at 2 mm long worms. Nowadays, though, it is relatively cheap and easy to sequence a critter’s DNA and assess whether there is gene flow between different morphotypes (critter’s that look different). Broadly, if there isn’t any evidence of gene mixing, you can be rather sure you have different species. I have two friends/colleagues that work in parasite systematics that have used this approach. The first I knew in Nebraska and examined a particular parasite that had been found in many different fish species…suggestive that it is actually many parasite species. Well, after looking at the DNA, there turned out to be 5 or 6 new, previously unrecognized species. The other friend worked on tropical fish (snappers (pic) check ‘em out) from the Great Barrier Reef. Same story. He examined an understudied group of parasites both morphologically and molecularly, and turned up 11 new species. These stories are definitely not unusual. Parasite species diversity is just grossly underestimated. Think about it this way. There are about 40,000 described species of fish. Each fish species will probably have a few unique parasite species; some will harbor an incredible diversity of parasites. For example, in one fish species in one lake, there may be more than 40 different parasite species capable of infecting it. So how many parasites are there? No one knows, but we can be sure that most animals on this earth are parasites. Indeed, we live in a very wormy world.

2007-02-18T11:21:00.000+01:00

Miscellaneous

To follow up on the last post, it seems that the readership of this blog is rather limited. So if nobody reads this, I can treat this blog as a kind of lonely throne, from which I can espouse any kind of vulgary that I please. I could say the most offensive thing in the world without reprisal!! But then, the question arises, what is the most offensive thing in the world? I suppose everyone could come up with some revolting, yet slightly entertaining, idea. Just think about it…

I titled this blog “Misc.”, so to continue with that theme, I’ll move on to a completely unrelated topic: Trent Reznor is an evil genius. I was never a big nine inch nails fan, but I respected and enjoyed some of their music. Well, I have a new found admiration of Reznor’s genius, the brain behind the band. The marketing campaign for NIN’s new album, dubbed “Year Zero”, is absolutely brilliant. First, at recent live shows, fans “found” USB drives in the venue’s bathrooms. On the drives was a new track from the NIN album, and, of course, it quickly circulated around the internet. What a clever and cheap marketing campaign; no need for you Myspace. Even more scary brilliant, though, is this aspect of the marketing. Apparently, on t-shirts sold at the concerts, there is a scrambled message that leads to a particular website describing a government conspiracy to poison the drinking water. The conspiracy deepens from there. There are a whole series of connected websites which present a grim picture of the near future: no civil liberties, a brutal church state, holy war. While the owners of the website nor the label would give away any information about relations between the sites and NIN, Reznor released a brief yet tantalizing statement about the concept behind the new album. Check it out and feel free to get sucked into the conspiracy. It is hard not to admire the unbelievable creativity underlying all this.

Finally, to add to the miscellaneousity (not a word) of this post, I found this article very interesting. It seems that the emotion of sympathy is strongest when associated with a single case or person. That intuitively makes sense; a murder or missing person case of a single, high profile or beautiful person usually makes more news that the multiple larger-scale atrocities going on around the world. To quote a Marilyn Manson song, “The death of one is a tragedy”. So we can strongly sympathize with a single person, yet our feelings don’t scale up to higher numbers. The visceral reaction from the death of 10,000 people or 100,000 people doesn’t really differ. Since I’m a scientist, I’m used to looking at numbers and letting them largely determine my conclusions. So 3,000 Americans have died in Iraq, well over 200,000 thousand have died in Darfur. Shouldn’t I consider Darfur a bigger tragedy worthy of more attention? I think this research suggests that these kinds of questions are not valid. For whatever reason, human emotions are not governed by numbers, so you just can’t rank tragedies. Well, I suppose the conclusion here is that morality issues are incredibly difficult.

2007-02-11T20:21:00.000+01:00

Death to the blog

There has been a serious decline in the number of comments on the blog (even those of the perverse and anonymous sort). From time to time, in my more depressive moments, I wonder about the reasons for this trend. Is there no one reading? Are the musings posted here so irrelevant they elicit no response? Did this blog already become dull and uncool? You may be saying to yourself, “c’mon man, the blog was never cool”, and you’d be right. I acknowledge this. What I am hoping, though, is that the blog can maintain a neutral level of coolness, not being described as “lame” nor “bitchin”. Is that too lofty a goal? To be average? I, like so many of us, need reassurance that my aspirations are being achieved, at least a little. Thus, the occasional comment from any devoted readers will reassure me that the blog is at least “average”, and it will keep me from falling into a deep depression induced by blog failure. So to elicit some comments, I present a topic and some examples. Here we go: Ideas that seem good while intoxicated…

-using any pickup line ever conceived
-speaking another language
-calling all the phone numbers in your mobile
-singing karaoke
-singing to your girl- or boyfriend
-opening that bottle of vodka
-quitting your job to become a freelance artist
-writing an animated novel
-starting a pet store
-loaning money to a friend so s/he can start a pet store
-stealing signs or any other kind of petty vandalism
-making pancakes
-sledding
-starting a blog

I’m sure there are plenty of other “good” ideas that are had when inebriated. Please enlighten me and other readers by posting them. And if you can’t think of anything at the moment, perhaps you aren’t in the right state of mind. That’s easily ameliorated though…cheers!

2007-02-08T08:44:00.000+01:00

I´m back!

I wanna say sorry that I haven´t posted anything in the last months. There are several reasons for my absence. 1. I had to study for the final exams (in fact, I still do) 2. laziness 3. I have to do all the decoration in our new apartment.

While Dan is sitting at the dining table studying German (He does that every day in the morning. Just as if he was in class. I´m very impressed.), I go to hardware stores (German: Baumarkt) and buy stuff. With stuff I mean things I would´ve never dreamt of buying. I remember the days when I went shopping with my mum and she wanted to stop "quickly" at the hardware store. We ended up being there for two hours and I was bored like hell. The only thing I was a little bit interested were the posters (boygroups, maps and half naked superblondes). However, now I´m really into hardware stores. Here is just a small list of things I bought in the last weeks: a kitchen sink, a board for the kitchen sink, a small table, loads of screws and dowels, a 100-pieces handcraft set (with hammer, pincers, etc.), wooden bars, curtains, potting soil, etc.

Now I´m getting on Dan´s nerves with my (almost) everday excursions to the hardware store.

You will ask: What are we supposed to learn from this post?

The answer: Don´t even try, you´ll be like your parents anyways?!

No, there´s nothing to learn from it. I just wanted to say, I´m back online and trying to post more details of our glamorous life in Leipzig :)

Take care,

Ines

2007-02-07T20:06:00.000+01:00

Today, I'm gonna do some free advertising for www.despair.com. The idea of the site/company is to satirize motivational posters or slogans. These "demotivators" present a cynical yet hilarious portrait of human existence, from realms as diverse as the business world to relationships. Here is just a smattering of posters from the site. I think my favorite is "Individuality"...so true.

2007-02-05T20:45:00.000+01:00

Nothing like some liberal political cartoons to put things into perspective. The first quip is the best: we keep sending heavily armed 19 year olds, but the violence is increasing! Baffling. Yeah, when you put it like that, it does make a bit more sense...if only in an ironic, cynical kinda way.

2007-01-31T19:44:00.000+01:00

Here is a mind-blowing statistic: only 27% of American citizens have passports. Everyone knows the stereotype…Americans are terribly reluctant and perhaps even frightened to leave their country and experience other cultures. While there tends to be a shred of truth in many stereotypes (otherwise why would they exist), I didn’t realize how true this one was. I would have guessed this statistic to be somewhere between 40 and 50%. I apparently overestimated my countrymen’s desire (capability?) to travel abroad. On the other hand, it does explain the occasionally baffling stupidity of Americans concerning events, places, cultures, etc. outside the U.S. Here’s an example from my own personal experience. I was preparing to leave Nebraska and head for Finland, so I was canceling various services, such as the phone, TV, internet, etc. It was typical for these people to ask why I was ending the services, and my reply was always that I was leaving the country. Generally, that was a satisfying answer for most people, but some particularly curious people asked further questions about where I was going and why. After telling one particularly bright service agent that I was going to live in Finland, he gave this bamboozling reply (as best as I can recall): “what, is there a war going on there?” Stereotype confirmed.

2007-01-27T22:06:00.000+01:00

After a few great party experiences with the Singstar videogames, Ines decided that a Playstation 2 was a worthwhile investment. So, since around Xmas we have had a playstation. The only games we had, though, were the Singstar games, and I'm just not in the mood to sing most days (generally my blood alcohol level is far too low). This weekend we decided to experience other PS2 games, so we went to the video store and rented a game called Rayman: Rabid Rabbits. I really don't know the premise of the game, but the object is essentially to complete a variety of mini-games involving crazy rabbits which scream and try to smack you with various household objects, e.g. plungers, spatulas, shovels, etc. In general, I think the game is pretty fun and hilarious. Check out this video on youtube to see some scientific facts about these wacky bunnies. You'll see that the common theme is "they can dance". Awesome.

2007-01-23T21:59:00.000+01:00

Forgot the pic for the previous post.

2007-01-23T21:25:00.000+01:00

Decorate (in the imperative)

When I moved into my KOAS (student) flat in Jyväskylä 2.5 years ago, it was white, painfully white. The building was only about 2 or 3 years old, so it hadn’t seen much wear and tear, and the current residents weren’t big decorators. However, when I left this fall, there was all kinds of junk up on the walls; the place had taken on a personality of its own. This always seems to happen. I never have any pre-conceived idea of how to decorate a living space, but eventually, with some living, the white on the walls disappears. In other words, in my experience decorations happen, they aren’t planned. After moving into this new flat, though, I’ve realized (and been told) that this is very much a student’s approach to interior design. There can be design schemes, developed around different pieces of furniture, intended to produce various states of being in different rooms. For example, the living room isn’t just the place where the TV should be (like it was in my house). Nope, the living room should somehow have a fun, yet relaxed atmosphere created via its decorations, regardless of the presence/absence of a TV. See what I mean? Decorations are intended to produce different feelings, emotions, fung shui etc…it isn’t just about covering the white of the walls. Though I write as if I actually understand this issue, I would be quite the liar if I claimed full comprehension of the psycology of interior design. I don’t really know what colors induce what feelings, what colors go well together, how furniture may complement wall paper, etc. Think of it this way, I am that male stereotype with poor taste. Because I can’t comprehend these things, it makes it difficult for me to relate to Ines’ desire to decorate things in certain ways. When my opinion is asked, I usually don’t have one, thus my typical, unsatisfactory answer “I don’t care”. This reply is unsatisfactory because, apparently, I’m supposed to know what looks good and why. Moreover, I should have a better answer because I’m decorating my own living space, so it should have a bit of my personality infused into the decorations, right? Well, as I mentioned above, my personality seeps into decorations over time, gradually. It can’t be planned I have never put together a scheme which is somehow an expression of my personal identity nor will I probably ever. Anyways, I’m rambling as if I was charged with the complete decoration of our flat from day 1. This was not the case; it was more or less done for us by two gays friends of Ines. These guys decorated before we even moved in, and before I ever saw the flat itself. In the picture, you get a sample of the creativity they brought to this project. I was pretty nervous about the complete lack of control I had, but overall I think they did a good job (though I can’t say I’m a fan of pastel purple, see pic). From this whole mind-boggling experience of decorating a living space, I’ve learned at least 1 thing: I like symmetrical things and dislike asymmetrical things. Whether this lesson actually helps reduce the stress and confusion involved in the next design project, only time will tell.

2007-01-18T17:57:00.000+01:00

My sister sent me this interesting article on the money spent in the Iraq war. No wonder the U.S. is running record deficits. Seems like an economics 101 student could've done a better job managing this thing...

2007-01-17T21:59:00.000+01:00

The perils of being offline and writing while distracted

Let's explain the title. Right now, I am watching a Jackie Chan movie on german TV. I don't understand much because everything is in German, but it isn't as if dialogue is integral to any of Chan's movies. Then again, I do miss Chan's fractured English providing occasionally unintended comedy. The point, though, is that I am writing this while distracted, which guarantees that I will jump between topics or trail off, you know how it goes...

Ines and I were talking today about how over the last month or two we have failed to communicate with any number of people we should stay in contact with, e.g. how's so and so? no idea. Though we do have a variety of things consuming our time, the primary reason (besides laziness) that we have fallen out of contact (if you want to put it to that) with different people is that we have not been connected to the internet as frequently in the last weeks (also my excuse for a slow blog). In Finland, whenever I was at home, I was more or less online. In those days, Ines was also online to talk with me. Since we were both online rather often, we chatted periodically with various people. Now, though, I am not online as often because there are other things to entertain me here in Germany besides the internet, e.g. TV, playstation, my girlfriend. And, since I'm right here, Ines can communicate with me directly without the need for messenger. So....I was distracted by a pretty good car chase in the movie and forgot how I was gonna end this post. Maybe I'll just say that Ines and I wonder how everyone is doing even though we don't ask it as frequently as we should.

Next time, I think I'll watch the Simpsons and try to write something without pressing the delete button once. Then we can see how completely incomprehensible life would be without erasers.

2007-01-14T21:22:00.000+01:00

We just returned from NYC and moved into a new flat in Leipzig, but instead of regailing y'all with travel tales or a description of our new flat, I'm just gonna post these two pics of us at the Statue of Liberty. Why would I do that? Because I be too lazy to write a genuine post. But I do have a topic for you, the reader, to consider...which candies are better, M&Ms or Skittles? Who wins the contest of the brightly colored, circular candies?

2006-12-23T19:47:00.000+01:00

Sorry for the lack of blog activity the last few weeks. I´ve been in Finland the past 2.5 weeks working (most of the time...there were a few parties in that span of time). Being away from a computer has more or less resulted in a dead blog. It seems that traveling (and not being bored with a computer) is bad for maintaining a blog. Trust me, I`m not running low on wacky ideas and irrelevant opinions. It is just time; that`s my excuse. My blog-partner is also too busy, though she just finished her job in Kassel, so maybe you`ll be hearing more of her wild ideas next year. Speaking of next year, Ines and I have packed all our things and have left Kassel. Next year we start a new existence in Leipzig. More adventures to come...

Until we`re ready to blog about those adventures, we wish everyone a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!

Dan and Ines

2006-12-14T21:22:00.000+01:00

Here is the best headline I've seen in recent memory: World's tallest man saves dolphins in China. Check this out.

2006-12-05T12:37:00.000+01:00

This may be the warmest Autumn in the past 500 years in Europe (see here). And I just bought a new winter jacket this year...