The HORROR
So, you know. Trying to be productive, get out of the house a bit. Take a walk up to the park to read for a bit, multiple forms of exercise, you know. Mind my own business, have quite a nice afternoon watching/listening to baby geese and turtles and Zen-ing out.
Then I see THIS THING.
Am now sitting in my air-conditioned home with cans of pesticide in reach ;)
Something's wrong with my Trillian thingy. I've been noticing for a while that 'no one' was on, but then this morning I get up and there's like a dozen message thingies telling me my contacts lists are unavailable, and it hasn't been telling me when I get email and it's been showing weird statuses for me...idk, might re-install or something, but if I'm showing up as 'offline' or something, that would be why :(
Finished Evolution's Rainbow. Awesome. I mean while I can't say I agree 100% with some of her ideas just yet (she basically admits that some of them are pretty radical and based on limited data), her methodologies are awesome imo. I don't know - it just seems like my education in biology was really biased, having read this. And I don't know why I didn't realize it before - how insanely focused so many of my textbooks were on the 'norm,' while at the same time my teachers (especially my really awesome teacher in high school) were telling us that the purpose of sexual reproduction is diversity. I mean, think about it - if ALL females are looking for the 'best' genes...that would weed out diversity, not encourage it. Plus she makes an argument that sex/gender represents a genetic polymorphism, not a binary; the binary system pretty much ends at the level of gametes, and body type/sexuality depends on possibly hundreds of other factors.
Plus plus, omg, re:this insanely annoying post, check this excerpt: "Well, it's now clear that the cell is not a unitary building block after all, but rather a partnership of many subunits, some of which have lived separately by themselves at some time in the past. The places within a plant cell where the green chlorophyll is located and photosynthesis occurs - the chloroplasts - were once bacteria that lived on their own. The places within a cell where our food is broken down and converted into energy (the mitochondria) were also once bacteria existing independently. The genes in our cells...are located not only in the nucleus, but also in other places that were once free-living cells. A cell is thus a partnership, and its overall genome is distributed across all the formerly independent partners and not solely contained in the nucleus.
"Biologists have been reluctant to think through what this partnership implies. If every one of our cells is a symbiosis among formerly free-living bacterial elements, then we are but clusters of bacteria ourselves. We're not only descended from bacteria - we are bacteria, a deeply humbling thought."
Come on, now. That's a badass thought. And in relation to my whole little worlds-within-worlds thing - idk, just think it's cool :) To me, it's not a 'humbling' thought so much as a comforting one - all life really is connected in a non-spiritual, non-hippie sort of way, and I think that's amazing :) ....that said, I don't want aforementioned BUG anywhere near me in any dimension, lol.
IDK. I think that too much certainty is attached to the 'rules' of biology, that scientists are trying to make things a little too clear-cut, so the ideas and open-ended questions in the book were just really refreshing, and kind of makes me wish it wasn't so pointless for me to pursue a degree - if just to have the opportunity to open discussions/find out more.
I feel like the BUG is in my hair.
Then I see THIS THING.
Am now sitting in my air-conditioned home with cans of pesticide in reach ;)
Something's wrong with my Trillian thingy. I've been noticing for a while that 'no one' was on, but then this morning I get up and there's like a dozen message thingies telling me my contacts lists are unavailable, and it hasn't been telling me when I get email and it's been showing weird statuses for me...idk, might re-install or something, but if I'm showing up as 'offline' or something, that would be why :(
Finished Evolution's Rainbow. Awesome. I mean while I can't say I agree 100% with some of her ideas just yet (she basically admits that some of them are pretty radical and based on limited data), her methodologies are awesome imo. I don't know - it just seems like my education in biology was really biased, having read this. And I don't know why I didn't realize it before - how insanely focused so many of my textbooks were on the 'norm,' while at the same time my teachers (especially my really awesome teacher in high school) were telling us that the purpose of sexual reproduction is diversity. I mean, think about it - if ALL females are looking for the 'best' genes...that would weed out diversity, not encourage it. Plus she makes an argument that sex/gender represents a genetic polymorphism, not a binary; the binary system pretty much ends at the level of gametes, and body type/sexuality depends on possibly hundreds of other factors.
Plus plus, omg, re:this insanely annoying post, check this excerpt: "Well, it's now clear that the cell is not a unitary building block after all, but rather a partnership of many subunits, some of which have lived separately by themselves at some time in the past. The places within a plant cell where the green chlorophyll is located and photosynthesis occurs - the chloroplasts - were once bacteria that lived on their own. The places within a cell where our food is broken down and converted into energy (the mitochondria) were also once bacteria existing independently. The genes in our cells...are located not only in the nucleus, but also in other places that were once free-living cells. A cell is thus a partnership, and its overall genome is distributed across all the formerly independent partners and not solely contained in the nucleus.
"Biologists have been reluctant to think through what this partnership implies. If every one of our cells is a symbiosis among formerly free-living bacterial elements, then we are but clusters of bacteria ourselves. We're not only descended from bacteria - we are bacteria, a deeply humbling thought."
Come on, now. That's a badass thought. And in relation to my whole little worlds-within-worlds thing - idk, just think it's cool :) To me, it's not a 'humbling' thought so much as a comforting one - all life really is connected in a non-spiritual, non-hippie sort of way, and I think that's amazing :) ....that said, I don't want aforementioned BUG anywhere near me in any dimension, lol.
IDK. I think that too much certainty is attached to the 'rules' of biology, that scientists are trying to make things a little too clear-cut, so the ideas and open-ended questions in the book were just really refreshing, and kind of makes me wish it wasn't so pointless for me to pursue a degree - if just to have the opportunity to open discussions/find out more.
I feel like the BUG is in my hair.