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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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

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.

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

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…

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...

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.

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!

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.

Godzilla, meet your next opponent. Check it out.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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...