My birthday and International Day of Climate Action

Friday was my birthday, and to celebrate I went bowling with a few folks from the lab. Saturday was the 350.org International Day of Climate Action. 350 ppm is the maximum amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that is compatible with life on Earth as we know it, according to American climate expert Jim Hansen. The idea is for people around the world to create elaborate displays of the number 350 and take pictures, which are distributed throughout the media. Hopefully those pictures will convince world leaders attending the climate conference in Copenhagen in December to agree on a powerful carbon tax.

An article in the New York Times mentioned that 350 ppm is an impossible goal to achieve, and so by publicizing 350 this movement is actually telling people that we've already blown it, so might as well enjoy life while we can. I think this is a valid point, but on the other hand the role of the 350 number was mostly to create a common rallying call for people who speak many different languages and provide a simple symbol of the climate change movement. The actual numerical value of 350 is not as important as what it symbolizes: a coordinated and passionate movement among people of all cultures on earth demanding action from world leaders to avoid catastrophic climate change.

I started Saturday by participating in a human thermometer on Baldwin Street to depict 350 ppm CO2. Somewhere between 50 and 100 people showed up for this morning event. Then I rode into town to the Dunedin train station, the site of the 350 food festival. I had only a few minutes to do a preliminary walk-around before the 350 riders bike ride began. We rode about 5k out to the Vauxhall boat club, snapped a few pictures with all the riders arranged in a 350, and then rode back to the food festival. There were hundreds of riders participating.

The food festival was similar to the usual Dunedin Farmer's Market, except there were additional workshops and a live band. I attended a workshop on beekeeping. At midday hundreds of people gathered in the garden in front of the train station for a photo taken by a guy in the bucket of a fire truck.

Here's a link to pictures on the 350 website. And here are a few I got myself.

Put the champagne on ice

This week I completed preparation of a variant of the DnaK protein doubly labeled with two fluorophores for FRET experiments. Unfortunately, I could not detect any FRET--reasons for this are 1) the so-called Forster distance for the fluorophores is too small for energy exchange at the positions they are located 2) the protein is not actually labeled with two active fluorophores 3) the protein is in too low concentration, a probable possibility since I lost most of it during troubleshooting of the preparative process. Disappointing, but I'm still optimistic I'll have it ready soon.

Today was a nice, relaxing Sunday. I began with a walk through the rhododendron dell in the Dunedin Botanical Garden. This week is the Dunedin rhododendron festival. I saw many pretty flowers and some really neat New Zealand parrots as well. I got a few pictures:



Then I continued on to the Otago Museum to see a special exhibition on West African art, music, food, and spirituality. An expert weaver was demonstrating his craft. The loom was a rather complex machine and it took me about fifteen minutes to get to the point where I thought I had an idea of how it worked. There was also an exhibit on how clay pots are made, and there was one interesting video showing a group of women making a pile of pots, covering them with dry grass, and lighting the whole pile ablaze to harden the pots.

From the museum I went to Kmart and bought a kite. The wind wasn't so strong today though, so I didn't get it flying for more than a couple minutes.

It is now exam season at Otago Uni, and most of the honors biochemistry students are really freaking out. The thing is that the exam period runs from last Friday until the middle of November. Some students have one exam now and another four weeks later. This seems incredibly inconvenient if you want to go home for the summer, yet most don't seem to mind. Apparently they intend on studying steadily for one class for weeks on end. And they're still going nuts! Some of them incessantly complain about how stressed out they are, yet they don't take any study breaks. All of this just boggles the mind because back home we had four days of reading period, then one solid week of exams. Having two exams in one day was not uncommon. A good 48 hours of intense studying interspersed with a naked mile or a polar bear swim was usually sufficient for one class. Students here are severely lacking in study skills and studying efficiency, and I think the Uni exacerbates the problem by giving them over a month to prepare. One week was plenty of exams--get it over with and go home.

This Saturday is the 350 international day of climate action. I will begin the day by participating in some sort of giant human scale at Baldwin Street, the World's Steepest Street which is a 1/4 mile from my house. Then I will cycle down to the Dunedin railway station to participate in the Spring Food Festival featuring Otago's best produce, beer, cheese, music, beekeeping, etc. At 10:30 cyclists in Otago are having a short 10k ride around the waterfront to rally the troops. In the evening is a showing of the film Food Inc. I'll give a full report next week.

In a shocking development last week, a student who I know in the biochemistry department was beaten unconscious by an intruder in her own home. She has no memory of anything in the past few years, including the biochemistry department, her studies, and her friends here. It's too early to say whether her memory will come back. Our thoughts are with her and her family.

Robo Rally

Last week I had a lab presentation, which has been posted here. If anything, you'll get the sense that I've been running many SDS-PAGE gels.

This weekend was the lab walk, dinner, and game night at Sigurd's house on the peninsula to celebrate three people's birthdays in October. We walked to Sandfly Bay, which I had visited a few months ago. There was quite a strong gale and so we learned why it's called Sandfly Bay--I was still grinding sand through my mouth on the drive back to Sigurd's place. The track down to the beach is a steep downhill through sand dunes, and when Sigurd started sprinting down we all joined him, which was super fun. At the beach we saw several sea lions and penguins; I got some dodgy pictures of the penguins using digital zoom. After hanging out at the beach for a while we trudged back up through the dunes and back to Sigurd's. I made pad thai which turned out quite well using this recipe. I had been practicing all week. We also had chicken casserole, sweet and sour pork, pizza, salad, and carrot cake. After dinner we all played Robo Rally, an obscure board game that Malcolm brought (He's a fan of many geeky board games and frequently travels to Cleveland, Ohio to participate in tournaments for the game "Advanced Squadleader," which is also a favorite of baseball pitcher Curt Schilling). Robo Rally is a very frustrating game in which you program a robot to turn and move along the board towards checkpoints, but are usually thwarted in your plans by conveyor belts, pits, crushers, and laser beams. Here are some pictures from the walk.



Here are pictures of some dishes I made last week. First is spaghetti--the sauce has mince, tomato paste, sugar, salt, garlic, oregano, and basil, then topped with parmesan. The sauce needed some white wine. Second is chipsi mayai rogo-style, which means fried potatoes, eggs, cheese, and tomatoes. Last is pad thai. I learned in my practice rounds that it is important to boil the rice noodles before you fry them, contrary to advice from the website linked above.