I have a terribly sore painful throat right now - probably a result of lecturing at the top of my voice for two and half hours combined with a pharyngitis causing virus. My throat probably looks like this:


What is worse is the nagging feeling that I didn't really give an interesting lecture. I wasn't feeling the joy I usually do and totally violating my personal rule of presentation zen. I was miles away mentally, worrying about my lab assays and data analyses while I was lecturing. I didn't connect with the students. As a result, I feel very fake and very ill right now and down in the dumps.

Maybe it's the impending cold or maybe it's just a realization that I didn't get all my energies out there conveying a simpler message to the students - always a sign of bad and graceless teaching. I feel as if I misused the time of those 25-odd students in the class. They definitely deserved a better lecture than this.

Sincerely yours,
Swimming-in-misery-and-throat-inflammation.

I am very depressed that my workplace decided to cut down all the full-grown trees in front of my office and build an ugly cement rink and footpaths that were completely unnecessary. It is true that some of the employees complained about suffering falls in front of the building because of the uneven footpath. Instead of advising caution while walking, recommending sensible footwear and non-invasively fixing the few uneven concrete slabs in the walkway, my workplace, in its infinite wisdom, hired an industrial-scale landscaping crew/demolition squad, dug up all the grass and uprooted the mature trees that had probably grown there for nearly 40-50 years, judging by their girth and root-size.

The trees brought character to the building and filtered light through their beautiful foliage. When they turned, they were awe-inspiring and soothing to the senses. More importantly, they were part of the natural air-quality control near the periphery of the campus where employees, who are probably blind to the ill-effects of smoking, continue to smoke like chimneys and blow out puffs of smoke all through the day. As far as I know, these four trees were causing no structural damage to the building. I would be interested in hearing why exactly they needed to be chopped down and uprooted for no reason other than to satisfy some dull and unimaginative aesthetic.

The "tree of life" - a sad-looking evergreen at the centre of the Kaminski gardens in the campus was structurally damaged during the October snow storm a couple years back. A million emails were sent out to the employees and everyone else to assure people that the pruning of that tree was only made in the good faith that it would grow again. However, there has been no word of explanation, or even acknowledgement that cutting down four healthy trees is a sizable and real concern.

It is not enough that our recycling program is so patchy, that the employees misuse paper as if it grows out of thin air and that we "are proud to partner with" coke. Now, we go and cut down trees that have slowly grown over 40-50 years. All of this, compounded, makes me think that we are a cancer fighting institution only in name. Through our actions, we are indirectly destroying the very environment that contributes to our state of health. Our non-existing conservation strategy and poor decisions subtly have a detrimental effect on the health of our neighbouring communities.

Deforestation can NEVER be justified by some perverted notion of aesthetics or urban planning. I am sorry, but whoever argues that landscaping justifies cutting down full grown trees is an environmentally oblivious selfish human.

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PS: The official suggestion box comments have been ignored since June. I'd be glad to hear what logic they could possibly have for cutting down the trees.

Love Love Loving it!





The matching Chrome Android theme:


This is probably the first time a theme has instantly appealed to me so much. I am digging that green/grey/microchip design. Would be even more smashing if it were peachblow/grey/microchip...

A guest messaged me to say:

Hey. I just wanted to say thank you for writing about how to read LD blocks. My teacher failed to mention the details and you have solidified what I thought was going on. Thank you again

How cool is that?! I am so glad at least one person found the post on how to interpret LD maps and blocks useful!

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The post on how to interpret and read Linkage Disequilibrium maps and blocks:

Back in the 1940s, this Phillip Morris advert interrupted TV programming and annoyed the heck out of people:

{Though why anyone would want to follow that creepy looking "doctor" in his rickety car just to see him smoking is beyond me... unless you are a shoddy-noir fan.}

Fast forward to 2010 and this is what is happening, quite literally, in our backyards.

::Download Flash Video::

From

We saw a similar disturbing story last year:


Full marks to whoever sees the ominous similarities here.

I was going to preach on pedantically about how the Center for Disease Control (and Prevention) -- CDC has come out with findings that show that 1 out of every 3 of us are going to get Type II diabetes in 2050 (1) and how eerily similar is the fact that, currently, 1 out of every 3 of us is clinically obese (2) - 5% of which is directly and squarely attributable to soft drinks, colas and other dodgy carbonated what-nots (3, 4). I was also going to throw in research findings about how sweetened beverages cause diabetes, metabolic syndrome (5), hypertension and cardiac diasease (6) and finally, how obesity and diabetes are increasingly being linked to an increased risk of cancer as well as poorer cancer-related outcomes (7, 8).

But I guess, we will all be cold in our comfy plus-size graves by then. So, I am just going to splash this post with some time-machine acccelerant and serve up the punchline from 2050.



However, feel free to ignore this post and all the evidence and drink up those colas. Because you see, history does repeat itself and it will probably be 2050 before we will get to see the surgeon general's message on cola cans, pepsi cans and other members of this aggressively marketed ilk.

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The full-text of all the references for the pedantically inclined:

1. The CDC diabetes prediction making news-waves: Boyle J et al. Projection of the year 2050 burden of diabetes in the US adult population: dynamic modeling of incidence, mortality, and prediabetes prevalence. Population Health Metrics. 2010;8(1):29+. Available from: . PDF Link:

2. The dramatic obesity charts, statistics and trends in the US:

3. National Cancer Institute's report on where all the excess energy-intake in the US population is coming from. PDF Link:

4. A systematic review of all the epidemiological studies, clinical trials, prospective studies and retrospective studies that have investigated the associations between obesity and the consumption of carbonated drinks (and yes, the vast majority of the reliable studies have very consistently damaging findings against cola): Woodward-Lopez G et al. To what extent have sweetened beverages contributed to the obesity epidemic? Public health nutrition. 2010 September;p. 1-11. Available from: . PDF Link: ::READ PDF::

5. Hu FB et. al. Sugar-sweetened beverages and risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes: Epidemiologic evidence. Physiology & Behavior. 2010 April;100(1):47-54. Available from: . PDF Link: ::READ PDF::

6. Chen L et. al. Reducing Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Is Associated With Reduced Blood Pressure: A Prospective Study Among United States Adults. Circulation. 2010 June;121(22):2398-2406. Available from: . PDF Link: ::READ PDF::

7. Renehan AG et. al. Interpreting the epidemiological evidence linking obesity and cancer: A framework for population-attributable risk estimations in Europe. European Journal of Cancer. 2010 September;46(14):2581-2592. Available from: . PDF Link: ::READ PDF::

8. Pal SK et. al. Impact of Age, Sex, and Comorbidity on Cancer Therapy and Disease Progression. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2010 September;28(26):4086-4093. Available from: . PDF Link: ::READ PDF::

Bonus reading: The guide to healthy-eating from Harvard:

A recent debate on (e:dcoffee)'s journal - (e:dcoffee,52972) about smoking prompts me to remind everyone about how evil smoking actually is. Did you, for instance, know that:

Approximately, 30 percent of all cancer is caused directly by smoking. It is a risk factor for cancers of not only the lung, but also the larynx, the oral cavity, esophagus, bladder, kidney, pancreas, stomach and cervix.

And if that was not enough, 100% of Smokers inevitably end up with either emphysema or chronic bronchitis.



Admittedly, cancer is a rare disease, but 30% of all deaths due to cardiac disease is also directly attributable to smoking. Cardiac disease is the #1 killer in this country.

Children exposed to secondhand smoke in households are more likely to get asthma, chronic respiratory disease, middle ear infections and cardiac disease as adults, . More than a 3rd of all the children who have ever tried even one cigarette will become regular daily smokers before they leave high school.

US spends at least $100 billion every year for health care addressing smoking-related issues in its hospitals and clinics. The state makes payments of over $20 billion in smoking-caused Medicaid payments every year.

It is SO hard for me to sympathize when someone defiantly brings up smoking as an excusable recreational habit instead of feeling guilty about it. I just cannot see their point of view and maybe deep inside, don't want to. It is on par medically with all of the other hard drug addictions, simply because of the massive medical and financial impact it causes. As I write this, some MORON smoking in my building and hanging their cancer-sticks out their window is causing smoke to drift into my living space. You will excuse me if I feel this intense urge to go right up to them, scream in their face and choke them to death.

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• Blatant admission: All of this is completely plagiarized from various sources on the net. It is comforting to know that infinitely wiser people have arrived at these various damaging conclusions against smoking and that it is not some personal ill-supported propaganda of mine. Google each sentence on this blog and you will likely find a million peer-reviewed research documents in support.

My flat is in a dreadful state of preventable clutter and it's annoying! There is always this small corner in my flat that has a big laundry box with piled up papers, journals, books and whatnots. I am determined to get rid of that pile today. I really like the idea of a floor level "bookshelf".



My floors are not grey but they are due for a thorough cleaning and polish. It's been 7 months since I polished them last.

And now I just want to sleep for 100 hours.
Good Night.

One of my three faithful readers thinks I sound like a super-boring, pedantic, self-aggrandizing and basically, obnoxiously patronizing prick on my blog.



Yes, thanks very much mum, for sharing all of that. Your honesty is refreshing.

What I really want is this. The design screams "Education!!" - like no other tablet can.


Plus of course, I want to able to toss the laptop on my desk in moments of frustration and not have to repent later. And how cool is that 180 deg swivel camera?!

So instead of this conversation:

Me: Mum, it's snowing here!
M: Really?
Me: Yeah! Look! *Twist Twist*
{Major twisting, silent cords tangling and..}
Me: Damn! Sorry. Unfortunately I cracked my LCD screen with the power plug. Let's talk later.

I could have this one:

Me: Mum, it's snowing here!
M: Really?
Me: Yeah! Look! *Swivel Swivel*
M: That is lovely! Are you wearing a sweater? I hope you are wearing a muffler. Did you have some tea? Are you eating well ... or anything at all? I can clearly see your bones sticking out.
Looks like you have a cold...
Me: Wait. How can you see all that when you are looking at the snow?
M: Don't change the subject.
Me: Damn! Sorry. The connection is awful. Let's talk later.