Hazelnuts, anyone?

This week I attended a presentation entitled "1.4 Billion Reasons," a two-hour-plus epic event led by a young Australian named Hugh Evans and his Global Poverty Project (GPP). It was held on Wednesday evening at the Dunedin Town Hall, a large historic auditorium near the Octagon. Probably a few hundred people were in attendance, mostly students. After an introductory guitar performance and some opening remarks from the Otago GPP coordinator, the strapping Mr. Evans strode onto the stage with a big smile and friendly wave. His first question was "Why are you here?" and encouraged us to discuss the answer with our neighbor. Then he asked several attendees, including a 9-year-old, to come on stage to say why they were here. After the nine-year-old came up, Hugh Evans shook his head for the next thirty seconds and repeated "Wow that's amazing, that's amazing." He proceeded to tell a story about how he had traveled around the developing world with World Vision as a teenager and become inspired to "solve" world poverty. He went on to show statistics that suggested that the percentage of the world living on less than US$1.25 per day had been cut in half since 1950. A common theme of the talk was that we had made major progress in reducing poverty in the last 50 years and so we should be able to eliminate poverty all together within our lifetime. Of course the absolute number of poor people has dramatically increased in the last 50 years.

With oversimplified examples (focusing on Africa) interspersed among plenty of corny jokes, Evans told us how corruption and violent conflict have breeded severe poverty in the developing world. One comment I found insightful was that a critical barrier to advancement in the Third World is subjugation of women, who do the majority of work yet get the least reward in terms of property and human rights. He also revealed major problems with American budgeting priorities, with billions being spent on the Iraq War when only a fraction of that amount is needed for important development projects around the world. But overall Evans failed to provide us with a clear plan for eliminating poverty. Do we give money to governments or local NGOs, or do we send our own organizations to build wells and help farmers use more efficient agricultural methods? How do we end long-standing conflict among various groups like the rival tribes in Kenya? How are we going to deal with climate change and its affects on agriculture? What about population growth and the recent food shortages? It seems to me like poverty is a very complex issue and unlike global warming, there is not one clear solution. Finally, Evans had promised to tell us some new ways that we could combat global poverty in our everyday lives, but none of his ideas were particularly insightful: basically volunteer, donate, and buy fair trade products.

Today I completed the Snack Study that I was enrolled in to determine if hazelnuts have beneficial effects on blood lipid levels. Since I was in the control group and received no snacks over the three-month study period, I was given a two-month supply of hazelnuts. A previous study suggested that like many other nuts, hazelnuts are in fact heart healthy. On a related health note, I attended a interesting seminar earlier this week by a professor from the University of Washington on chemoprevention. He showed us study after study with evidence that taking regular supplements of folate, vitamin B, and calcium is actually harmful in terms of cancer and heart disease risk. Eating lots of fruit and vegetables, however, is beneficial. His hypothesis was that our body's homeostasis mechanisms are set according to the foods we eat early in life. So when people start taking supra-physiological amounts of one vitamin later in life, the body's natural homeostasis is overcome. Taking just one supplement can facilitate positive selection of cancer cells that are stimulated by the supplement.

Last weekend I went out with a couple guys from the lab to celebrate the publication of Peter's NMR structure of Psb27, a protein in Photosystem II. Peter's structure will be published back-to-back with a nearly identical structure from a German group that was sumbitted to Biochemistry on the same day! It was also Malcolm's graduation that weekend, and it was my 22nd and 5/6 birthday, so there really was a lot to celebrate.

Dancing enzymes

I've discovered a new hobby for myself--making videos of dancing crystal structures. This week was the debut for my first two films. Tuesday all of the fourth year honors students gave presentations on their research and since I am a one-year Masters student, I presented as well. Some of the dance moves in the video in the presentation actually resembled conformational changes of DnaK. As a present for giving presentations, all of the students received metal spatulas with their initals engraved in!

Then today I delivered a Biochemistry Department journal club presentation on cellulosic ethanol. I talked about a paper from a group at Cal Tech who engineered a group of thermostable cellulase enzymes. Currently we have only slow and inefficient enzymes for breaking down cellulose into sugars. In the video at the end of today's presentation, cellulase's dance moves are in no way meant to depict the function of the actual enzyme. Both presentations have been posted here. They are only in pptx format because converting them to ppt format disrupts a lot of formatting.

Southern drawl meets "i is the only vowel"

Building a house is amazingly fun. This Saturday we just about finished the wooden framework including wall panels, ceiling battens, trusses, and roof purlins. All day we climbed over the giant jungle gym/house in construction, nailing in various wooden elements. My hammering skills are improving markedly; now I can pretty much nail in from any angle if needed. Also, the winter chill seems to be mostly behind us; I worked up a pretty good sweat. The link for the Habitat for Humanity Blog.

On Saturday evening I went to dinner with friends Emma, Nick, and two girls from the University of Western Georgia. They are here on a six-week missionary crusade in connection with their college church group. They were very friendly (and their accent seemed very out of place in NZ) but halfway through dinner Nick brought up the subject of religion after we had thoroughly discussd beforehand that we would not do so. I felt like Jon Stewart screaming NOOOOO in an attempt to stop President Obama from a speaking blunder. So we had to talk all about good and evil and doing good works and evolution etc. etc. I can believe in some evil force that is forcing me to say "eh" with uncomfortable frequency in conversation these days. Fortunately there were no hard feelings and we all went to a DJ competition after dinner. From there I headed to the Otago Science Ball, which was a semi-formal event held in a big dance/music club south of the Octagon. There was good music, a pyrotechnics show, cheap alcohol, and good company. It reminded me of parties at Williams where you know most of the people there and there's a really fun communal atmosphere. But I also met several new people who in general were better traveled and more interesting to talk to than the majority of students I've come across. I didn't make it home until 4 am.

I've started a once-weekly African drumming class sponsored by the Otago clubs and societies organization. So far we've learned the three basic sounds on the drum and a couple of pieces. The drums are quite beautiful, made of either goat or cow hide.

The next few weeks will be busy as I start working in earnest on secondary applications for medical school, prepare for a biochemistry journal club presentation, and prepare for a formal research presentation as part of my MSc along with my other demonstrating, class, and labwork duties. However, I'm hoping to take a trip to the Abel Tasman track during the mid-semester break in a few weeks.