Monkey Flower

The orchid, genus Dracula simia, found in SE Ecuador. Named simia specifically because they resemble monkeys. I think they look a bit like squirrel monkeys...

Barry Lopez interviewed by Bill Moyers

Census of Life

There remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.

-- Albert Einstein

The Known Universe by AMNH

San Simeon Crow

Photographed with a Nikon Coolpix L100 Digital Camera
Photo ©2010 Universe 6

Cactus Flower

Photographed with a Nikon Coolpix L100 Digital Camera
Photo ©2010 Universe 6

A Snail's Journey

Garden Snail - Los Angeles, CA - May 2010

Photographed with a Nikon Coolpix L100 Digital Camera
Photo ©2010 Universe 6 PDXBuys

Garden Snail - Los Angeles, CA - May 2010

Photographed with a Nikon Coolpix L100 Digital Camera
Photo ©2010 Universe 6

The Human Genome and Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha (see box in upper right corner) is an amazing source of knowledge. I recently discovered that it knows all about the Human Genome Sequence too. If you type in a random genome sequence (for example, ACGTTGCAGGAG) Wolfram Alpha will convert the sequence to an amino acid sequence and then list all of the chromosomes which contain that sequence. It will also tell you all of the match positions and the names of the genes at those positions.  It just so happens that the random example sequence above does occur but is somewhat rare.  This sort of search reminds me of searching through a computer's memory for a particular hexadecimal sequence.  The sequence only has meaning in context -- it could be data or it could be program code or it could be garbage.  Perhaps someday we will read the human genome in a similar way.

Additional reading (an extremely interesting article on pseudogenes):
http://papers.gersteinlab.org/e-print/sciam2/reprint.pdf

The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. III

This classic book is a collection some of the Caltech freshman and sophomore physics lectures given by Richard P. Feynman, the Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology.  It is co-authored by Robert B. Leighton, CIT, and Matthew Sands (Stanford).  Originally published in 1965, this edition is the third printing from July, 1966.  It is a large format paperback in very good condition.  "Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics (he proposed the parton model). For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965."  In addition, he "assisted in the development of the atomic bomb and was a member of the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster."  (Source: Wikipedia)

Stephen Wolfram: A New Kind of Science