Month: May 2005

Allow me to add myself to the list of people who have themselves listed as the creator of a theorem/rule/postulate. Knowing all along that the theorem/rule/postulate is nothing but a bit o’common sense.

Anyways, here goes:

Weed’s Postuleom
It takes less talent & effort to critique than to create

So that’s it. That’s my epiphany!

Please remember to use my name accordingly when stating my postuleom. I’d hate to have my lawyers need to contact you…

My $.02
Weed

You know you want it.

Yanni Radio

All Yanni. All the time. Rejoice!

(Actually, I like Yanni. There are, however, certain songs that make me think a tooth extraction with a rusty nail might be preferable. I can usually fast-forward those on CD, but I can’t fast-forward a stream. Hey, there’s an idea…!!!!)

The interesting thing about science, for me, is the way knowledge progresses. Rather than starting out with the right answer, the scientist makes a hypothesis, and often it’s left up to other researchers to prove or disprove subsequent propositions until we have a really sturdy foundation.

One of my interests is ancient American history — the pre-Columbian stuff. The fascinating thing is how scientists are piecing together the history like a jigsaw puzzle. Much as ancient Greek history is only preserved in spite of — not because of — the intervention of European civilization, pre-Columbian American history is obfuscated due to the destruction of vital books by the ruling dynasties who’s orthodoxy demanded that heretical writings be incinerated.

Early America

Since I was a kid, scientists figured that most of the Native American population was descended from Mongolian stock. Common features, such as pronounced eye folds and similar skin coloration, led instinctively to that conclusion. The Bering strait offered the intuitive path, as North America and East Asia are connected by a barely-submerged land bridge which, in previous glacial times, would have been open savannah.

Unfortunately, fossil evidence was not enough to convince skeptics, who sometimes subscribed to the “island-hopping” theory for American colonization. Recent progress in the analysis of Mitochondrial DNA, however, has unlocked a treasure trove of genetic and genaeological data for scientists, simply by analyzing blood and tissue samples of living Native Americans, and the corpses of well-preserved ancient ones.

Mitochondrial DNA (mDNA)

In case you’re not familiar with mDNA, here’s the basic outline. The “mitochondria” of a human cell is basically its own little cell-within-a-cell. In 1960, mDNA was discovered, and by 1970 we’d established that mDNA were self-reproducing. That is, the mitochondria reproduce independently of the main cell, and when a cell divides, each half gets some of the mitochondria of the original host cell.

This is actually really important. mDNA are tiny, autonomous entities living within a cell. There is no code for their reproduction in stem cells. They are not subject to gene-pairing. They are not created from the famous “zygote” merging of a sperm and egg, but instead children get a few mitochondria directly from their mothers, and none from the father.

Each mitochondria’s DNA has only 16,569 “lines of code”, called “base pairs”. The practical ramification of such a small “program” (one of the smallest of all mammals) to manage these kinds of sub-cellular structures is enormous. We can map the entire thing, and we’re getting pretty far along on knowing what each pair actually does.

But what it does, or how it’s built, isn’t what’s so interesting to me in investigating pre-Columbian human migration patterns in ancient America. It’s how it reproduces.

mDNA Reproduction

A few years ago, Doug Wallace was doing some research on a debilitating hereditary disease which would often result in complete blindness. In the course of his research, he discovered that this disease was never passed down from father to child. This is a very unusual pattern, and appeared to violate basic genetics. It turned out this was the first-known disease which was purely a result of malfunctioning mDNA.

We’d known for years that fathers had no part in passing on mDNA to their offspring. All of a person’s mDNA — every last one — is a result of the egg acquiring a few mitochondria from the mother. This means that mDNA-based diseases will never pass from father to child. Only from mother to child.

Similarly, this means that “lines” of mDNA are “pure”. If only mothers pass on their mitochondrial DNA, it means my kids have their mom’s mDNA — not mine. And she has her mother’s mDNA. And her mother has her maternal grandmother’s. And so on. We can determine, exactly, the matrilineal heritage of any individual, and determine the ancestry of the mother back to common ancestors.

Mitochondria are remarkably resilient little creatures. They pass, largely unchanged, from generation to generation.

As a result of this behavior, given two people, we can find out if they have a maternal relationship to one another. And we’re assured of nearly 100% accuracy in that comparison. We can be positive that these two people, if their mDNA are similar, have a common great-great-great-something-grandmother.

Even if a small population is swallowed by a much larger one, that small population’s mDNA will remain pure. The only way it can entirely “die out” is if an entire generation of the matrilineal line (women children of women in the line) produce only boys, and no girls. The popular genetic concept of “Founder Effect” simply doesn’t apply. Their female descendants (and single-generation male descendants) may be rare, but will still exist, and in largely the same ratio as at the time at which they were founded into the community.

This is a staggeringly useful piece of knowledge. Europeans mostly have similar mDNA to one another. Asians mostly have similar mDNA to one another. Middle Easterners mostly have similar mDNA to one another.

You can take a blood sample from any human, analyze the mDNA, and figure out their matrilineal heritage with extreme accuracy. We have representative samples from just about every line on the planet, now. There aren’t really that many, and the lines are named for the regions in which that line is most prominent.

Effects of the Columbian Invasion

Before I talk about the Native American mDNA, though, I must caveat on what happened to their populations after Columbus arrived. The European conquerors were almost exclusively male. The children they produced with Native American slaves and wives were, obviously, of mixed genetic descent, with some Euro features and some Native American features.

But each child received a gift from his Native American mother. The gift was pure, unadulterated, remarkably homogenous Mongolian (Northeast Asian) mitochondria. The same as their ancestors before them for at least 10,000 years. Recent studies of “pure” Native American tribes demonstrate this to be overwhelmingly true even today. Those in the “pure” samples which did not have Mongolian mDNA had predominantly European mDNA.

Yep, the Native Americans uniformly came from Northeast Asia. The question is, when did they come over, and how did they get here? Although we have the Bering Strait theory to go by, which has explained the facts well for half a century, it’s not the entire story.

Recent Developments

The whole reason I went into that long background on mDNA was because I wanted to share a story with you, recently published on CBC News. First North Americans Few In Number. Without the contextual understanding of what mDNA is, and what it means for tracking populations, the story makes very little sense. So that’s why the long essay on what mDNA is, before talking about the recent article 🙂

Anyway, Jody Hey, a researcher on the project, mentioned that the “seed” population for the Americas was probably about 200 people, arriving somewhere between 8,000 and 14,000 BCE.

As I said when I started the article, the great thing about science is that we start with a general rule, and refine it as our understanding grows, until eventually we arrive at a sound model which explains all the known variables. It creates a firm foundation to support further efforts to discern the truth.

Even though there’s a discrepancy in dates between the mDNA-based model (8,000 BCE), and the “traditional” date of roughly 14,000 BCE, the really cool thing I see is that this is one of the early practical applications of mDNA for figuring out human migration patterns. We’ve been using this technique for years in accurately tracking animal populations. This discovery puts us a little closer to figuring out our common evolutionary heritage. It is an example of how new tools can validate old finding.

The truth rocks. The fun part is figuring out what it is.

The aliens are back in full force. You know how I know? Not because I have seen them. As a matter of fact I would just like to catch one of them in the act.

In my front yard, I have several flower beds. One of them has survived the grubs and has thrived. The beautiful gray/green ground cover has spread and flowers a beautiful little white flower by the hundreds!!!! For my lack of a green thumb, this is completely awesome.

But apparently, those little green men have been aching to do some crop circles….in the middle of the day. I came home to discover one of my three large sections of this particular ground cover had been trampled, in circles, exactly like crop circles.

A few minutes later, I go outside and the middle group of flowers has also been trampled.

Luckily, this particular plant is very hardy and also drought resistant. They started to stand themselves up again. But only a few minutes later, I’m headed somewhere and discover all three of my groups of grand cover have crop circles in them with very flowers left standing.

If I happen to catch any of those little green men (or neighborhood kids for that matter) they will be seen hanging by their toe nails from the pathetic twig of a tree in our front yard.

Who knows? It may be my own three year old. But as Joss Whedon would say, “GRRR ARGH.”

So I couldn’t sleep last night, and decided to pass the time in front of a computer. 4:30AM…

Kill thief with sword.

Discuss.

Here is a link to the few pictures i was able to take while over in Germany. I hope you all enjoy them. I will write back a follow up to the trip. Over all the trip was fairly uneventful. I worked alot. I averaged about 11 hour days. It wasn’t till the last day that i was able to get enought time to go and snap some photos.

JB

I believe there’s a serious flaw in the way that baseball standings are listed.

I’ve been following the Washington Nationals from a distance by reading the sports section in the paper. Each morning I turn to the standings to gauge where the Nats place in the National League East. The most important line in the standings is “GB” or games behind. This tells the number of games a team would have to win to pull even with the team in first place. Towards the end of the season, this becomes a magical number, because it’s based on a team’s winning percentage.

I believe the GB stat is misleading because a critical piece of data is missingthe number of games each team has played.

As of today the Nats are 2 games behind the NL East leading Marlins. Except that by adding up the games played, I see that the Nats have played 4 more games than the Marlins. Thus, the Nats are potentially 6 games out of first place. Or they could be 2 games IN FRONT of the Marlins.

Thus, I’m asking the baseball standing people to add a Games Played column to the standings.

Today I saw Star Wars Episode 3, Revenge of the Sith for the second time.. and, as I did the first time, I really Really liked it.

But, as Enterprise was last week, this was more than just a movie for me.

Sitting in the theatre last Thursday, I was giddy and excited, surrounded by 13 people that I knew, and a theatre full of people I had something in common with… we were all about to see, for the final time, a NEW Star Wars film.

I was born just a bit too late to remember Star Wars when it first came out.. but I know for a fact I saw Empire in the theare.. I just don’t remember actually seeing it.

By 1983, when Return of the jedi came out, I had already been Luke and Vader for Halloween, I had seen the first two a number of times, and I read the storybook for Return of the Jedi before I saw the film.

I know I saw it when it first came out, but the viewing I remember was on July 10, after my first Brother, Sean was born. I know I was entranced by the film.

By the next year, I was far more in to Transformers and Michael Jackson.. and then Back to The Future and Girls, and then making tapes of music and Batman, and T2 and Freddy, and well, somewhere I somehow kind of stopped really being a kid.. mostly.

I know that my first copies of the Star Wars trilogy that I owned were bootlegs from my buddy Josh’s Laserdisc, and that I finally bought a set of my own in 1994. I eventually learned to hate the ewoks and love Empire.. and when I watched the films, especially with others, I was a Kid again.

Then came 1997, the day before my Wedding, in the bitter cold on January 31 in New york, with Matt and my family and friends.. and I got to see Star Wars again, for the first time I could remember.. on the big screen. In the coming months I saw the whole trilogy… and I remembered why I was such a fan.. I got to be a kid again.

In 1999, I lined up for hours with my wife to get tickets to Episode 1, and brought a gaggle of friends. Episode 2 was a smaller goup, but was a needed relief only 9 months after 9/11, and again, for all the flaws of those two films, when I saw those big Yellow letters, I was transported to my childhood.

Last Thursday, I sat for the last time in anticipation of what might be to come. I had remained spoiler free and as I read the crawl and watched the fun action descend into an emotional climax, I let myself laugh and stare in awe like I did when I was 9, and I let myself get choked up by the experience.

Today, I watched it for the second time, and had for the first time what will be my experience with this film for the rest of my life. I was watching a film I already knew beat by beat.. and I loved it (see my review under Matt’s Review link) but it can never be as it was that first time.

I expect I will see this film at least 3 more times in the theatre before the run ends.. trying to suck the experience out of the film so I can remember when all I have is the DVD, what it was like on the big screen.

Now, like with Star trek, I know there is more to come. The films are being rereleased in 3d in a couple years, and there may yet be a TV show.. but no more new Star Wars movies.. and so, for me.. this is the end of an Era..

May the force .. well, you know the rest.

Put yer reviews of Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith here. Don’t read here unless ya done watched it.

My review? I’m not an artsy-fartsy type. I don’t like dramas. I like popcorn flicks with happy endings.

This is no popcorn flick with a happy ending. It’s dark, moody, and overwhelmingly depressing. Favorite characters die, those that live are permanently scarred, and it’s just a big downer. The first half feels like old-fashioned Star Wars. The second half feels like all the most glum parts of the series put together.

On the plus side, it sets up Episode IV very well, and I think Lucas had the right idea when he started this franchise 30 years ago. The first trilogy would never have sold. The Emperor wins. The remaining Jedi are in exile. Lucas would never have had the money to finish the series.

I think in the context of all six episodes, it’s an excellent segue to the next 3. Anakin’s downfall is complete. The only hope lies in the two infants. The film was amazingly well-choreographed, seamless with most visual effects (a few of the CG people stood out to me, particularly the clones), and although the dialog was stilted and forced here and there, I was almost moved to tears at a couple of points. I think Anakin’s transition to the Dark Side is a bit forced, as is the Emperor’s transition to the tremendously ugly man he becomes (WTH? Firing lightning turns you ugly?).

Lines that moved me (note: they are paraphrases, since I have only seen it once.)

“This is how freedom dies. To thunderous applause.” — Padme

Anakin: “You are either with me, or against me.” Obi-Wan: “Only the Sith speak in absolutes.”

George W. Bush: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists”.

Wait, no, that last line wasn’t in the movie. I strongly suspect Lucas is attempting to draw some parallels to current events in his work. The main problem I have with that kind of analogy is that Lucas leaves very little room for “gray” thinking in his movies: it is very black-and-white, on both sides…

Anyway, great movie, just a real downer. Like watching Fried Green Tomatoes or something. It’s a great movie, but the ending just sucks for people who like happy endings.

I must go home and watch IV, V, and VI now so that I don’t feel so down.

I don’t know how many of you remember John Foster, who lived on Triple Crown Ct. in North Potomac, MD. According to Bryan on our site, he passed away yesterday due to a brain aneurism.

I knew John from the time I was twelve to when I was nineteen. He was one of the first people on the block to befriend me as I entered a new school toward the end of sixth grade at Darnestown Elementary. We haven’t seen each other at all since high school, really. We went our separate ways after Jr. High, always maintaining an amiable relationship, but not hanging out together or doing stuff together like we’d done in junior high.

Nevertheless, he and I were the same age. Now he’s dead, and I’m not.

I’m not one to offer inflated praises of people, living or dead. I have no idea what kind of life John lived, or even where he lived. I don’t know who he’s survived by. And I’m not sure I’d really have wanted to, after having not spoken for such a long time.

Yet, in the back of my mind, in the part that keeps track of people who’ve known me for a long time, I feel like I’ve lost a friend.

My heart goes out to the Fosters as they grieve. They were always nice to me, except when I let my stepfather’s dog crap on their lawn. John was fun to hang around with, except when he and Mike Schroeder, who hated me in school, got together and I attempted to hang out or play with them.

I was the cheerleader. John was the football player. But we got along.

Life goes on, but slightly the poorer for knowing that someone I cared about at one time, whom I’d gone far too long without seeing, will never be seen again.