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.

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!

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.

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.

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…

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...

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Forgot the pic for the previous post.

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.

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...

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.

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?

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