You say tomato... (QUIZ answer)

...I say mitochondria!

photo by Louisa Howard, via Wikipedia's extensive mitochondrion entry

Am I right?

Dead ringer.

=)

And that makes Olivia, of Beasts in a Populous City fame,

the WINNER!!! Woo-hoo!!! Nice work, chica!

ALL of your guesses were most delightful

and imaginative and made my day. THANKS!!

So, if you don't know, mitochondria are cellular organelles in eukaryotes,

and are frequently called the power house of the cell.

It's where most ATP molecules in your body are made,

and ATP is your body's ultimate energy currency.

And the reason dark meat is dark,

is because they are muscles the animal uses a lot,

so they need more energy (mitochondria) there.

Example:

Turkeys walk and scratch the ground a lot,

but fly seldom and briefly,

so their legs are dark meat,

& the flight muscles (breast meat) are white.

The wiki entry on re: mitochondrion is extensive, if you want more.

So, do you ever see things in certain ways

because of what you do for a living or as a hobby?

If you recall, do tell.

xobb

you know you're a biologist when... (QUIZ!)

this tomato (etc.) sandwich makes you IMMEDIATELY think of what?

Specifically, the tomato slices....

So much so that you have to take a photo,
despite tremendous hunger and bad lighting. =)

And, of course, the indefensible power nerdery of it.

Feel free to guess wildly if you have no idea.

'Cause you know I love that.

xobb

music, biology, and earworms

So, GREATLY appreciated the recent blog post title by Hipster Birders, "Rock me, Ammodramus" about the sparrows they'd been seeking. SO much so that I had to comment. And got this in reply:

"We've been really wanting to see the Ammodramus sparrows since we've moved here,

and I've actually been singing that tune for weeks."

So, THAT brought up this topic: music, biologists, and earworms.

And reminded me of years ago, when I was being hounded by Hemizonia.

This is the genus of a common plant at my research partner's and my study site.

EVERY DAY, once that plant (tarweed) bloomed,

and I passed it on the way to our study site,

the Hemizonia record would start spinning ROUND and ROUND in my head

to this tune--substitute "Hemizonia" for "Paranoimia"

(specifically it's the singers that come in 1:25 into the video):

Made me wonder just how many of us, during whatever obsession (required or otherwise) we're enduring, have had songs adapted by our brains into something subject-relevant, then repeated again and again.

This was not something I TRIED to do.

I didn't search my mind for song lyrics and compare them to
the myriad biological terms I have in my brain.

It just happened.

Thankfully, I DO enjoy the above song.

Tho' what was in my head was mostly just those voices,
repeating Hemizonia, over and over. And over.

hee.

Well, I suppose that's just one of the dangers of knowledge.
You never know where it will take you.

Has this ever happened to you? Do tell. =)

And now, this biologist, must break away to dance in her kitchen.

=) bb

woo-hoo! A biologists St. Patricks Day MUSIC video.

100% heaven.

Stuff like this makes me LOVE people. =)

GENIUS! (and nice voice!)

=)

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!!

xoxobb

P.S. from the video's author, some metadata (that proves JUST HOW nerdy we all are):
Uploaded by cadamole on Mar 16, 2012

"I'm resurrecting this nerdy drinking song from last year...

As many of you perceptive viewers noticed there were a couple

alcohol-induced scientific errors in my last version of this song

(gold star, perceptive viewers!) -- so I thought this St. Patrick's day

would be a perfect time to correct them."

P.P.S. From the first version, the accompanying text and lyrics. =)

"A 200-year-old Irish classic!
Lyrics:
In the year of our lord eighteen hundred and eleven
On March the seventeenth day
I will raise up a beer and I'll raise up a cheer
For Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Here's to brewers yeast, that humblest of all beast
Producing carbon gas reducing acetaldehyde
But my friends that isn't all -- it makes ethyl alcohol
That is what the yeast excretes and that's what we imbibe

Anaerobic respiration*
Also known as fermentation
NADH oxidation
Give me a beer

[CHORUS]

My intestinal wall absorbs that ethanol
And soon it passes through my blood-brain barrier
There's a girl in the next seat who I didn't think that sweet
But after a few drinks I want to marry her
I guess it's not surprising, my dopamine is rising
And my glutamate receptors are all shot
I'd surely be bemoaning all the extra serotonin
But my judgement is impaired and my confidence is not

Allosteric modulation
No Long Term Potentiation
Hastens my inebriation
Give me a beer

[CHORUS]

When ethanol is in me, some shows up in my kidneys
And inhibits vasopressin by degrees
A decrease in aquaporins hinders water re-absorption
And pretty soon I really have to pee
Well my liver breaks it down so my body can rebound
By my store of glycogen is soon depleted
And tomorrow when I'm sober I will also be hungover
Cause I flushed electrolytes that my nerves and muscles needed

Diuretic activation
Urination urination
Urination dehydration
Give me a beer

[CHORUS]

Happy St. Pat's"

*sigh* =)

hazards of being a biologist and a foodie...

 
... just now I was listening to a food show and looking at biology blogs.

Right as I was staring at a big picture of a spider, Lynn Rosetto Casper says "Slice those babies up, fry 'em and eat 'em."

Before I knew it, the image of slabs of giant spiders plopping into a hot, oiled cast iron pan appears in my head.

oog...

And it's not even 7 a.m.


Hm, and now I've passed it on to you.

So... to make up for it, here's shots of TINY tiny turtles, one of which is 2 inches long and looks like a circular saw. SO CUTE!!!

=)

New Camera

And, FYI, I've tested our new little Nikon Coolpix (a.k.a. camera much easier to have with me in the field than my Nikon D50), and it seems to work like a charm.

The very first photo our camera takes: Scout on bb's lap.

Our little black kitty which the camera did NOT see to focus upon in the 1st 2 shots. A DARK cat. The 2nd attempt to focus, the camera put up a grid of rectangles to indicate the focused area, divided into two columns of three rectangles, and every rectangle EXCEPT the one on Bucky was highlighted.

He's our little invisible/silent assassin ninja kitty. =)

I like that picture 'cause he looks like a muppet.

So, this means I may be able to take some shots in the field next week and get them to you BEFORE the memory card for my cell phone (so many steps to get those photos OUT Of my phone!) arrives in the mail. =)

UPDATE on Mother Nature is Trying to Kill Me

There's a tiny chance of rain and I'm praying it happens: was again attacked by nature at the end of last week and again only got home thanks to allergy pills and nearly lethal amounts of coffee.

Eyes were FREAKY puffy and red yesterday morning, frightening poor Bear.

Spent yesterday getting symptoms to go away, staring out the window spaced out on allergy pills. AND washing my field clothes to get rid of the pollen.

I'm MUCH better today, tho' still scratching at red dots on wrists, some of which were from dropping to the ground to catch/rescue a small lizard and thus impaling my wrists on a bed of thistle... Oops. =)

Garden Update

K.

I have TODAY ONLY to plant ALL my garden plants

(tomatoes, peppers, basil).

Check out how CRAZY tall that one tomato plant got. Jeepers!

The rest of my garden will appear via seeds at a later date.

Just to freak you out (as it does me), a reminder:

bb's garden SEVEN DAYS AGO.

So, wish me luck! =)

You know, if you feel like it.

I've recently decided I don't like bossy blogs or tweets ("follow this person" "vote for my kitty in this photo contest" "put ur right foot in, put ur right foot out, put ur right foot in, and shake it all about").

For some reason my reflexive response to these is always  is "No!"

Even if it's "Go here and click on the SAVE ME button to become immortal, perfectly healthy for all time, and infinitely powerful and good."

No!

Maybe because I was the baby; kinda resistant to being bossed around.

  

=)

ANYhow, what's going on in your neck of the woods?

Any cool gardening/nature haps?

=)

xoxobb

P.S. Since I'm in true confession mode, I CANNOT take Facebook quizzes (which is a good thing) 'cause frequently the grammar is SO BAD it makes my head hurt. I'm sure if I was a bigger person, I could get past it, but I'm not really motivated to spend more time on Fb anyhow... How 'bout you? Any of your electronic media buttons getting pushed?

George Clooney or tadpoles? YOU make the call...

  
Perusing blogs this a.m. (wide awake at 5 a.m.) I happen upon this post about a vampire frog, which reminds me, a tadpole was in my dream last night. Honestly, I had to think back to yesterday to assure myself I'd not seen a tadpole during the day (uh, it's JANUARY, folks).

Yeah.

And I saw a George Clooney movie, The American, on the big screen last night.

And I dream about tadpoles.

=)

A biologist's brain. Go figure. =)

biobabbler