The Mongoose is a member of the family that includes ferrets, weasels and martens. It is a rather small, weasel-like carnivore native to Africa, southern Europe, and Asia. It is famous for its snake-fighting abilities, where it is almost always victorious because of its speed, agility and timing, and also because of its thick coat. The mongoose is resistant to alpha-neurotoxins contained in snake venoms. It has been shown that the mongoose acetyl-choline receptor (AChR) does not bind alpha-bungarotoxin (BTX) [Barchan et al., PNAS 89, 7717 (1992)]. The most 'famous' mongoose is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi in The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.

Snippets:
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Digipac®: CD packaging consisting of a sturdy plastic tray and high-quality cardboard. Alternative to Jewel Case. Allows more fancy cover designs. Usually more expensive than the Jewel Case.
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Video: Taxi Driver (1976). 114 min. w/ Robert DeNiro, Cybill Shepherd, Jodie Foster. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Set in NYC during the dangerous 70s. The lonely, mentally unstable, psychotic cab driver Travis Bickle (DeNiro), in looking for his own identity, feels he needs to "sweep away all the scum from the streets." After a failed date with a beautiful political campain worker (Shephard), he arms himself and decides to violently 'rescue' a child prostitute (14-year old Foster) from the street. Film noir. Great cast, great acting. Disturbing story.
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The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, is recognized as one of the most important university museums in the country. The museum hosts Asian, African, European, and American art. Click here for links to the Permanent Collection.

The building was designed by world-renowned architect I.M. (Ieoh Ming) Pei, who also built the East Wing of the National Gallery in Washington DC, the Pyramide du Louvre in Paris, France, the Hancock Tower in Boston, and the Javits Convention Center in New York City. The museum building looks like a giant sewing machine and overlooks the valley and Cayuga Lake.

Other Links:
Other buildings by I.M. Pei
Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Architects LLP. w/ lots of pictures

Snippets:
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Book on Tape: Michel Ondaatje. The English Patient. [Abridged] (1993). Read by Michael York. 3 hours.The book on tape helps understanding the intertwined story better. Good abridgment: contains all parts essential for the story and a lot of beautiful passages.
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Video: Churchill - The Finest Hours (1964). 111 min. Narrated by Orson Welles. Academy Award nomination in 1964 for Best Feature Documentary. Biography of Winston Churchill mostly from original film footage. Gives a good overview of Churchills life, and also the key events in both World Wars. Contains plenty of Churchill quotations. Well done.
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An intriguing thought from 'The English Patient' by Michael Ondaatje: "Tell me, is it possible to love someone who is not as smart as you are? [...] Could you fall in love with her if she wasn't smarter than you? I mean, she may not be smarter than you. But isn't it important for you to think she is smarter than you in order to fall in love? Think now."

Snippets:
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Video: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994); 123 min; w/ Robert De Niro (The Creature), Kenneth Branagh (Victor Frankenstein), Helena Bonham Carter (Elizabeth); directed by Kenneth Branagh. The Classic with a great cast.
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Video: Young Frankenstein (1974); 108 min; w/ Gene Wilder (Dr. Frederick Frankenstein), Peter Boyle (The Monster), Marty Feldman (Igor), Teri Garr (Inga); directed by Mel Brooks. Very funny! Teri Garr looks like an earlier version of Lisa Kudrow.
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Video: The Fall of the House of Usher (1960); w/ Vincent Price. Thrilling horror movie after the novel by Edgar Allan Poe. A young suitor comes to visit the family of his bride-to-be in the House of Usher and tries to rescue her from the madness of her brother. Well done, even though the story itself is a bit slow.
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Book: Michael Ondaatje: The English Patient (1993). The intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Complex story. Jumps between times and places. Need to pay attention to detail. Need to read slowly! Full of many hidden treasures.
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Video: The English Patient (1996). 162 min. w/ Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas, Willem Dafoe. Directed by Anthony Minghella. Received 9 Oscars, including Best Picture. Gripping. Tragic. Sad. Deviates from the book in many points, but in itself a good movie. Great cast.
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Video: Rebecca (1939). 130 min. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. w/ Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Restored version. Based on the novel by Daphne Du Maurier. Young, inexperienced girl marries the rich widower Maxim de Winter, but soon realizes that the 'shadow' of de Winters first wife, Rebecca, is all around. First hour is much too slow and, though Fontaine's acting is superb, her role is annoying. Olivier alternates between macho, temperamental, and depressed. Overall a good movie, but story could just as well have been told in less than an hour.
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Video: Girl, Interrupted (1999). 127 min. w/ Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg. Directed by James Mangold. Girl (Ryder), after attempting suicide, checks into a mental hospital and quickly makes friends among the patients. But she learns that she needs to make a choice between them and the 'sane' world outside. Good movie, dramatic at times. Good tempo (most of the time). Plot reminds of 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest'. Jolie is quite scary and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
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Dynamic Planet Blog
TOC: Table of Contents
October 2003

1.) Brown Dwarfs
2.) Virtual Observatories
3.) Alexander the Great
4.) Robert K. Merton: The Matthew Effect in Science
5.) More on Dido & Aeneas
6.) Roger Bacon
7.) Funny computer stories
8.) Khaos / Erebus / Elysian Fields
9.) Some numbers about Blogs

Some numbers about Blogs: NYT October 23, 2003: 'Blog Bog and an E-Mail Pony Express' by Pamela LiCalzi O'Connell. Recent study by Perseus Development, a research firm and maker of software for surveys: 66% of the 4.12 million Blogs, created on eight leading blog-hosting services, have been "abandoned'', i.e., not updated for at least two months. 1.09 million of those were one-day wonders. Fewer than 50,000 of the sites in the study were updated every day. The typical blog is written by a teenage girl who uses it twice a month to update her friends. However, only blogs on eight leading blog-hosting services were studied. According to Perseus's research: 2002: 1.62 million active blogs, 2003: 3.3 million. In 2004: 5.86 million predicted.

Snippets:
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Video: The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization. PBS Home Video (2000). 165 min. History of ancient Greeks with focus on Cleisthenes, Themistocles, Pericles, and Socrates. Informative, but too long.
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Video: Naked Lunch (1991), 115 min. Based on the book by William S. Burroughs; w/ Peter Weller (Robocop), Judy Davis (Deconstructing Harry), Roy Scheider (Jaws); directed by David Cronenberg (The Fly). Music by Ornette Coleman. A drug-addicted pest-control man drifts into the hallucinatory world of 'Interzone'. Imagination and reality melt into a horror trip. Surreal, weird, great special effects with lots of bugs and phantasy creatures. Just don't watch it while you are eating.
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Glossary of Greek Mythology:

Khaos (Chaos): Greek goddess; was the first of the Protogenoi (ancient elemental gods); the female personifcation of air; also means lower atmosphere of the earth - air, mist and fog; her name means "gap", i.e., the gap between earth and sky. Others say that Chaos is the void which came into being before anything else, or a shapeless and confused mass of elements.

Erebus (Erebos): Greek god; the male personification of darkness; his thick mists of darkness were said to envelop the edges of the world; husband of Nyx (Nox, =Night). Erebus' name was often used to describe the cavernous underworld of Hades.

Elysian Fields (Elysium): happy otherworld for heroes favored by the gods; final resting place of the souls of the virtuous; paradise of the heroes, either in the Underworld or in the far West.

Other Links:
Theoi Project: A Guide to Greek Gods, Spirits, and Monsters


Snippets:
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Video: The Piano (1992). w. Holly Hunter, Sam Neill. Slow. Boring. Depressing. Waste of time.
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Book on Tape: Jules Verne: Around the world in 80 Days (originally published in 1873). The English gentleman, Phileas Fogg, his servant Passpartout, the Indian princess Aouda, and the detective Fix travel around the world in most unusual ways for the purpose of winning a wager. A classic book with a couple of suprises! A good read. Other stories by Jules Verne.
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David Pogue (NYT, October 16, 2003) amused us by reciting a couple of short, but 'effective' funny computer stories:

"Hello, Apple? My cup holder broke off." "Uh, sir, that's your CD-ROM tray."

Or this: "Hello, Dell? My mouse is squeaking." "Squeaking?" "Yeah — and the funny thing is, it squeaks louder the faster I move it across the screen!" "Ma'am, why are you dragging your mouse across the screen?" "Well, I saw a message that said, Click HERE to continue!'"


Snippets:
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Video: 'Tut: The Boy King' (1978). Hosted by Orson Welles. Warner Home Video. Objects from King Tut's tomb filmed in the National Gallery in Washington DC (on loan from the Cairo Museum). Archeologists Howard Carter and Lord Carnaravon discovered these treasures of ancient times in 1922/23.
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Video: 'Joe versus the Volcano' (1990); w/ Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. When a hypochondriac is told by a physician that he has a 'brain cloud' and only six more months to live, he accepts the offer to jump into a volcano on the remote tropical island Waponi Woo. During his trip he learns to enjoy life. Cheesy, but funny! Unconventional characters. Meg Ryan in three roles, you can hardly recognize her!
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Video: Great Souls: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn --- Voice of Truth (2002). 56 min. Biography of the Russian writer who was a Gulag prisoner, was sent to labor camps in Siberia, and finally set the stage for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Major books are 'The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956', 'The First Circle', 'Cancer Ward ', and 'The Red Wheel'.
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Book: Aldous Huxley: Science, Liberty and Peace (1946). Harper & Brothers Publishers. Huxley was a visionary, forseeing many of the problems that the science and technology race in the 20th century has brought up. To him, applied science aids a few people seeking control over the masses. He especially refers to the science that is conducted for warfare, and discusses the social impact of the atomic bomb. Short book (86 pages), but addresses a lot of very relevant questions!
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Notes on Book 'Calendar' by David Ewing Duncan (1998):

Roger Bacon: Franciscan friar (c.1214 - 1292); interest in mathematics, optics and general sciences; one of the first scientists at the end of the Middle Ages; wrote his 'Opus Majus' in 1266; it contained, among others, the idea of a reform of the Julian Calendar, since it was off by one day every 130 days; dispatched the book to Pope Clement IV, who unfortunately died suddenly in 1268, driving Bacon's ideas into oblivion; it took three more centuries, until Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585) finally fixed the calendar in 1582.

Length of the (tropical) year: 365d, 5h, 48min, 45sec

Lunar month: 29d, 12h, 44min, 2.9sec

Julian Calendar (Julius Caesar): since Jan. 1, 45 B.C.

45 B.C. is known as the 'Year of Confusion'. Length: 445 days

Gregorian Calendar (Pope Gregory XIII): since 1582; Gregory eliminated by papal bull the dates October 5-14, 1582

The Gregorian Calendar is off from the true solar year: 25.96768 sec per year

Other Links:
Roger Bacon: Friar Bacon His Discovery of the Miracles of Art, Nature, and Magick
Roger Bacon: Biography
Catholic Encylopedia: Roger Bacon
WSHU: Engines of our Ingeniuity: The Temptress Moon on 1/24/03


Snippets:
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Friends of the Western Buddhist Order (FWBO): international network dedicated to communicating Buddhist truths in ways appropriate to the modern world. Other Links to FWBO.
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Bas Hoeben's Photo Gallery dedicated to The Art of Black and White Photography
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CD: Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool. Recorded in New York, New York on January 21 & April 22, 1949 and on March 9, 1950. First released in 1956. Remains one of the defining, pivotal moments in jazz. Three sessions where the sound known as 'cool jazz' was essentially formed.
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Video: Eastern Philosophy. Cromwell Films 2002. Part 1: Confucius, Shinto (50 min). Part 2: Hinduism, Buddhism (50 min). Part 3: Judaism, Islam (50 min). Informative overview, but -of course- far from comprehensive.
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Index Librorum Prohibitorum = Index of Prohibited Books = 'list of forbidden books' of the Roman Catholic Church; the first catalog of banned books to be called an index was published in 1559. Publication of the list ceased in 1966, and it was relegated to the status of a historic document. The Index of 1559 (in Latin). Some more information here (including 20th century authors). Index Expurgatorius = list of books allowed only in expurgated form.
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CD: Eric Dolphy: 'Outward Bound' (1960); Dolphy plays alt saxophone, bass clarinet, and flute; Freddie Hubbard on trumpet; also contained on the Dolphy compilation 'The Complete Prestige Recordings' (1995).
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Aristarchus of Samos (c.310 - c.230 BC): proposed a heliocentric universe; of his original works, only 'On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon' survived. His heliocentric treatise is known to us through references by Archimedes. Copernicus, in his famous 'De revolutionibus caelestibus' gave Aristarchus credit for his idea (although interestingly it was crossed out shortly before publication).
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Video: So I married an Axe Murderer (1993). 93 min. w/ Mike Myers, Nancy Travis, Anthony LaPaglia, Amanda Plummer. Funny, creative guy falls in love with mysterious woman from a butcher shop, who he supects is a bloody killer. Sometimes rather poor acting, especially at the beginning. But has some very funny moments!
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CD: Latin Quarter: Mick and Caroline (1987). Intriguing lyrics and music. WWW: Latin Quarter (German and English)
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CD: John Coltrane Quartett: The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions (1995). Two sessions recorded May 23 and June 4, 1961 at the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Coltrane's first recording for Impulse. Trane's Quartett is supported by a brass orchestra that, among other distinguished musicians, includes Booker Little (tp), Freddie Hubbard (tp), and Eric Dolphy (as, bc, fl). This studio recording was made just a few months before the legendary recordings at the Village Vanguard in November 1961.
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Video: Metropolis (1927). Directed by Fritz Lang. w/ Gustav Froehlich (as Freder Fredersen), Brigitte Helm (as Maria/The Robot (AKA Futura)). Silent movie. Story of a revolt of the Working Class against the Upper Class of the city Metropolis. The pacifist leader Maria is abducted and exchanged by a robot who then leads the revolt. Great science fiction movie with unbelievable special effects, considering it was filmed in the 20s.
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More on Dido & Aeneas:
1.) Dido and Aeneas: Aeneas is the Trojan equivalent to the famed Greek hero Odysseus (= Ulysseus).
2.) Bulfinch's Mythology
3.) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) painted 'Dido Building Carthage; or, the Rise of the Carthaginian Empire' in 1815, which can be viewed at the National Gallery, London. For this and other Turner paintings, also see WebMuseum , Paris.
4.) Carthage Empire: about 800 BC the Phoenicians (Queen Dido) established Carthage on the edge of a region in North Africa that is now Tunisia. The city became the commercial center of the western Mediterranean and retained that position until overthrown by Rome.

Robert K. Merton (1910-2003): 'The Matthew Effect in Science'. Science 159, 56-63 (1968). Article about the reward and communcation systems of science. Highly productive scientists that study at one of the major universities gain more recognition than equally productive scientists at a lesser university.

Merton, a sociologist at Columbia University, New York, NY, received the National Medal of Science and is perhaps best known for having coined the phrase "self-fulfilling prophecy" (= a prediction that, in being made, actually causes itself to become true). Merton developed this concept out of his interpretation of W. I. Thomas' "definition of the situation," i.e., "If men define things as real, they are real in their consequences."

Other Links:
Garfield Library (UPenn): Robert Merton
Wikipedia: Robert K. Merton
William Isaac (W.I.) Thomas: California State University, Dominguez Hills
W.I. Thomas: The Unadjusted Girl (HTML Text)


Snippets:
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Book-on-Tape: Miles Davis: 'Miles: The Autobiography' [Abridged]; Quincy Troupe (Contributor), Levar Burton (Reader); book published in 1989; MD tells the story of his musical career, but also talks about family and personal matters, including his drug and alcohol addiction.
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Video: Mummies and the Wonders of Ancient Egypt: Hieroglyphs. A&E Home Video (1996). Hieratic: ancient Egyptian cursive writing; derived from the earlier, pictorial hieroglyphic writing. Hieroglyph: from the Greek word for "sacred carving".
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Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.): Son of Philip II of Macedon. Was tutored by Aristotle. Unified the divided city states of Greece and conquered, among others, Persia and Egypt; marched all the way to the borders of India before he retreated. Through his journey the Greek language and culture was carried into the eastern Mediterranean and into Mesopotamia. Alexander's conquest was described by Flavius Arrianus (Arrian, circa 87 - after 145 A.D.), in his 'Anabasis' (translated into English by Aubrey De Selincourt in 'The Campaigns of Alexander' in 1958).

Other Links:
Alexander the Great at Livius.org
Alexander the Great on the Web

Snippets:
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Video: Alexander the Great (1956) w/ Richard Burton (Alexander), Claire Bloom (Barsine). Mediocre story of Alexander's life and battles, especially the conquest of Persia.
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Virtual Observatories (VOs): allow new ways to analyze astronomical data:
- GAVO (German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory)
- NVO (National Virtual Observatory)
- SkyView Virtual Telescope
- Astrobrowse
- NASA/IPAC Extragalactic database

Other Links:
'Google fuer Sterne' by Stefan Schmitt. DIE ZEIT 04.09.2003 Nr.37 (in German)

Brown Dwarfs (originally called black dwarfs): Objects that, when formed by condensation out of a cloud of hydrogen gas similar to stars, do not accumulate enough mass to generate the high temperatures needed to sustain nuclear fusion at their core. They radiate energy through gravitational contraction. Mass approx. 13-70x Jupiter. First Brown Dwarf, Gliese 229B (GL229B) was discovered in 1995 by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Other links:
The Discovery of Brown Dwarfs by Gibor Basri. Scientific American, April 2000
Wikipedia: Brown Dwarfs


Snippets:
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Video: The Blair Witch Project (1999); w/ Heather Donahue, Joshua 'Josh' Leonard, and Michael 'Mike' Williams. Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. Tagline: In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittesville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. One year later, their footage was found (IMDB). I am split on this one: on one hand it's great to see a movie that can scare you without any special effects; on the other hand the movie drags out too long on the same cheap thrills. I bet the scare was more dominant while the film was still in theaters, and everyone believed is was truely the 'real' footage of three film students.
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Video: The Color Purple (1985); w/ Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey; director: Steven Spielberg; based upon the novel by Alice Walker. The decades-spanning story of Celie (W.G.) who grows from a suppressed girl to an emacipated woman. Good story, but too long, and too sappy!
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William Gibson: Author; father of 'cyberpunk'; coined the term 'cyberspace'; first novel: Neuromancer (1984).
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Book on Tape: 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley. Unabridged. Read by Peter Firth. 6.5 hours. Sterling Audio (1992). Book originally published in 1932. A vision of a future world, where the 'ideal' society achieved 'happiness' through genetic cloning, abandoning criticism, and constant dullness by taking psycho-stimulating, anti-depressant 'Soma' tablets. A must-read!
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Dynamic Planet Blog
TOC: Table of Contents
September 2003

1.) Soviet Army Memorial in Berlin
2.) Adult peristence of head-turning asymmetry
3.) Robert Kanigel: Apprentice to Genius
4.) Virgil: The Aeneid
5.) Total solar eclipse in New York City 1925

The last time a total solar eclipse visible from New York City (and Connecticut, Rhode Island) was on Saturday, January 24, 1925, just after 9 AM. It was a cold, clear day, and the city was covered by snow. Observers were stationed at every other intersection between 72nd and 135th Streets to determine the most southern part of the 'belt of totality'. Totality could only be observed above 95th to 97th Streets, so residents of Brooklyn, southern Queens, Staten Island, and much of Manhattan missed the full spectacle. Nevertheless, Millions of people witnessed the Eclipse. They crowded onto roofs, bridges, and the upper floors of skyscrapers. Open spaces in the city's northern reaches were mobbed by eclipse gazers, who braved the 9-degree cold to watch as the moon's shadow gradually cast the city into morning twilight. Streetlights across the city flickered to life. Skyscrapers blinked in empty streets. At the Bronx Zoo, herds of deer raced in panic. At 9:11, the sun disappeared completely. ''As the black ball of the moon settled over the fiery sphere of the sun, the brilliantly shimmering corona came into sharp relief against the dull sky.'' The sun reappeared about 30 seconds later.

Other Links:
Solar Eclipse Newsletter Vol 6(2), Feb. 2001 (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
Eclipse Home Page by NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center
Path of the 1925 solar eclipse at Dave Owen Home Page


Snippets:
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Video: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1988). Wonderworks Family Movie. Award-winning BBC production. Very close to the book.
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Three famous men died all died on the same day, on Friday, November 22, 1963: John F. Kennedy (assassinated), Aldous Huxley, and Clive Staples Lewis.
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Virgil (70-19 BC): The Aeneid (written 19 BC). A brief summary can be found here. The Aeneid is an ancient Roman Epic about the adventures of the Trojan hero, Aeneas, who was destined to go to Italy and set up a new kingdom after Troy fell to the Greeks. On his way, Aeneas encountered many problems, but through many trial and errors he completed his journey and became the true founding father of Rome. On his way one of the people Aeneas meets is Dido, the young Phoenician queen and builder of Carthage, who falls hopelessly in love with him.


Snippets:
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Video: Moby Dick (1956). After the novel by Herman Melville; directed by John Huston; w/ Gregory Peck (Captain Ahab). The tale of hunting the White Wale.
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Video: The Matrix (1999). w/ Keanu Reeves (Neo), Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus), Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity). Finding out about the true nature of 'reality'.
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Carrie-Ann Moss also played Natalie in the movie 'Memento' (2000).
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Internet Broadway Database: Comprehensive history of shows produced on Broadway, including historical information about theatres.
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Online Bible Study Aids: including online bible versions, commentaries, dictionanries and bible concordances.
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Video: Wag the Dog (1997). Directed by Barry Levinson; w/ Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Anne Heche. Plot: Before elections, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to "fabricate" a war in order to cover-up a presidential sex scandal (IMDB). Plot is a nice idea, but after a half hour becomes repetitive.
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Book: C.S. (Clive Staples) Lewis: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950). Oldest volume of 'The Chronicles of Narnia'. The four children (Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy) enter the land of Narnia, and help the lion Aslan to free the country from the terror of the White Witch.
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Book: Sue Townsend: Adrian Mole. From Minor to Major. The Mole Diaries: the first ten years (1991). Incorporating 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4' (1982), 'The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole' (1984), 'True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole' (1989), and 'Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians' (1991?). First two parts are hillarious, don't bother with the rest.
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Video: Monster's Ball (2001) w/ Billy Bob Thornton (Hank Grotowski) and Halle Berry (Leticia Musgrove; Academy Award Winner Best Actress). Directed by Marc Forster. Plot: A Death Row prison guard in the Southern US quits his job, then falls in love with the wife of a black man he has executed. Movie is breathtaking at times. Weird plot. Good movie!
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Henry Purcell (1659-1695), one of England's greatest composers. Epoch: Middle Baroque. Opera: Dido and Aeneas. Purcell wrote only this one full opera, a short work supposedly designed for a girls' school.
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Notes to 'Apprentice to Genius' by Robert Kanigel (1985):

Chain of mentors

James Shannon: director NIH

Bernard B. ('Steve') Brody: anti-malaria drugs, drug metabolism

Julius Axelrod: drug metabolism

Solomon Snyder: opioids

Candace Pert, Gavril Pasternak, Diane Rusell: opiods

Terry Moody: bombesin receptor; Michael Kuhar: autoradiography in brain

Sol Snyder was the youngest full professor in the history of Johns Hopkins Univ.; 'idea man', rarely working at the bench. Snyder has reputation of 'stealing' other researchers results; very competitive, always trying to scoop them; e.g., competition for publishing the enkephalin story first after hearing about it from a different froup at a conference. Snyders approach: do it quick, don't spend too much time on details; conflicts with Pasternak, who was opposite.

Julius Axelrod was at first a technician under Brody, then moved on to get his Ph.D.; always working at the bench; he discovered COMT; considered a pioneer of modern neuroscience; won Nobel Prize in 1970.

Candace Pert co-discovered opiod receptors by binding studies (1973); used the antagonist naloxone as ligand.

Pedro Cuatrecasas: discovered insulin receptor by binding studies.

The book opposes various scientific approaches:

sloppy and fast vs. carefully and slow

idea man vs. bench man

take a flier (i.e., pursue your best guess first) vs. systematically trying everything

keeping things simple vs. trying to cover every aspect

Candace Pert one-liners:

"And what do you do besides standing around looking adorable?"

"Manic depressive psychosis is like diabetes of the dopamine receptor"

...the brain is "a little wet minireceiver for collective reality"

"You can't be secretive. [...] You have to surround yourself with the smartest people your ego can stand, then concentrate on the work, not on who'll get credit for it."

Snyder/Pert: Choose your problem with exquisite care, distinguishing those that are merely interesting from those that are important as well.

Snyder: "One experiment in the lab is worth a week in the library." So don't think about it too much. Just get hysterial and do it!

Snyder, even years after working with Julius Axelrod, would sometimes ask: "What would Julie do?". He wouldn't waste time on the trivial or the impossible. He'd keep it simple. He'd do it fast. He'd take a flier.

Albert Lasker Award for Basic Biomedical Research; is the 'American Nobel Prize'; Snyder has won it in 1978 for the opiate/enkephalin story; Pert was upset because she was not included, even though it was her work. Pert wrote a book (Molecules of Emotion) which is largely autobiographical.

Robert Merton (1967/1968): The Matthew Effect in Science: "Them that has, gets"

Most important U.S. schools: Harvard, Columbia, Berkeley, Princeton.


Other Links:
Bernard B. ('Steve') Brodie:
NIH/Stetten Museum of Medical Research
International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics
Lasker Foundation
BASi

Julius Axelrod:
Profiles in Science/National Library of Medicine
Nobel E-Museum
NIH/Stetten Museum of Medical Research

Solomon Snyder
Candace Pert

Lasker Award
NIH/Stetten Museum of Medical Research


Snippets:
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Database: Gene Knockouts from the online journal 'Frontiers in Bioscience', a non-profit organization created by scientists for scientists for fostering international scientific communication and for providing scientists, physicians and patients with a diverse array of information, tools and techniques.
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Video: The X-Files (1998). w/ David Duchovny (Agent Fox Mulder), Gillian Anderson (Agent Dana Scully), Martin Landau (Alvin Kurtzweil, M.D.). Mulder and Scully try to unravel a conspriacy around a dangerous alien virus.
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Onur Guentuerkuen, Nature 421, 711 (13 Feb 2003): Adult peristence of head-turning asymmetry. A preference in humans for turning the head to the right, rather than to the left, during the final weeks of gestation and for the first six months after birth constitutes one of the earliest examples of behavioural asymmetry and is thought to influence the subsequent development of perceptual and motor preferences by increasing visual orientation to the right side. Interestingly, twice as many adults turn their heads to the right as to the left when kissing, indicating that this head-motor bias persists into adulthood. Of 124 kissing pairs, 80 (64.5%) turned their heads to the right and 44 (35.5%) turned to the left (ratio ~ 2:1), which is statistically significantly different from 50% (1:1). Funny, what some people do research on!

The Soviet Army Memorial in Berlin was built shortly after World War II, long before the Berlin Wall was raised. However, the memorial to the Soviet forces ended up just West of the dividing line. The memorial is located adjacent to the German Reichstag which was the scene of heavy fighting during the Soviet capture of Berlin. It is flanked by two T34 tanks, said to be the first to reach Berlin. The curved structure itself is created from marble presumed to be taken from Adolph Hitler's Chancellery ("Reichskanzlei"). At its focal point is a bronze statue of a Soviet solder holding a child in one hand and a sword smashing a Nazi swastika in the other. The stones from Hitler's Chancellery are engraved with the Soviet sickle-and-hammer design along with quotes from Stalin. The monument was guarded around the clock by the Red Army until German reunification in 1990.

Other Links:
Berlin von A bis Z: Sowjetisches Ehrenmal (in German)


Snippets:
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Video: Subway. The Empire Beneath New York's Streets. Hosted and narrated by Jack Perkins. A&E Home Video (1994). Documentary about the history of the NYC subway.
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Timothy 'Tiggy' Ticehurst. Painter born in Kent, UK, in 1965. Lives and paints in NYC. Sells his art on the street near the Metropolitan Museum. Previously worked under the names Timot and Timotoo.
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Restaurant: Blue Room. 1 Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA. Serves a world of ethnic entrees. Buffet-style brunch. Dinner.
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Movie: The Perfect Storm (2000). Directed by Wolfgang Petersen; w/ George Clooney (Captain Billy Tyne), Mark Wahlberg (Bobby Shatford), Diane Lane (Christina 'Chris' Cotter; Bobby's girlfriend on shore), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (Linda Greenlaw, fellow skipper). Fight of the Gloucester sword-fishing boat Andrea Gail against the 'storm of the century' that took place off the New England coast in 1991; book by Sebastian Junger; film is based on a true story (even though no member of the ship survived to tell the story).
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Video: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). First volume of J.R.R. Tolkiens fantasy story. Movie is rather disappointing.
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Music: Stina Nordenstam. Swedish singer; similarities with Anja Garbarek. Voice not particularly interesting, but music is intriguing through its strangeness. Stina's web site is very well designed. Requires Shockwave Flash plugin.
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Music: Skin. Former singer of British punk band Skunk Anansie. Album: Fleshwounds. Softer than S.A.
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Book search engine: Fetchbook. com. With price comparison. Used and new books. Good!
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Jefferson Davis (1808 - 1889): Only president of the Confederate States of America
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Video: The Civil War 1861-1865 (1991). Dan Dalton Productions. Dramatic recreation of events through use of historic still photographs and early cinematic dramatizations of the war. Story of the war is told within 90 min; some of the film clips are repeated on several occassions throughout the film.
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Dynamic Planet Blog
TOC: Table of Contents
August 2003

1.) Laser
2.) Brain Teaser: Cork in Glass
3.) 'Cavendish Experiment'
4.) Brain Teaser: Cork in Bucket

Cork in Bucket: Brain Teaser from Braingle

Question:
A cork, say from a wine bottle, is held by a robotic clamp at the bottom of a bucket of water and released the moment the bucket is dropped off the side of a tall building. What will happen to the cork during the fall? Will it float to the top of the bucket normally, slower than normal, faster than normal, or not at all? Assume that there is no air resistance to slow the bucket down.

HEY! DON'T JUST LOOK AT THE ANSWER! THINK ABOUT IT!

Answer:
The cork will stay at the bottom of the bucket and not float up at all during the fall, since the cork, the bucket and the water all fall at the same acceleration g (neglecting air resistance as all good physics questions do). The buoyant force of the water does not push the cork upward in this case since in free fall the buoyant force is zero. In other words, a cork only floats up when the water around it is heavier and pushes it up. In free fall the water is weightless, as is the cork and bucket, so there is no force to push the cork to the top of the bucket.

Snippets:
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ARIN WHOIS Database Search by the American Registry for Internet Numbers: Find out who an IP address belongs to.
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Video: Amelie (2001). w/ Audrey Tautou. In French with English subtitles. Introverted Paris girl spices up other people's boring life. Worth seeing!
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The 'Cavendish Experiment' can be used to determine the gravitational constant of the earth (G) using an apparatus (torsion balance) designed by geologist John Mitchell (1724-1793). It was first used and improved by Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) who, in 1798, used the results to calculate the average density of the earth. This allowed calculation of earth's mass ("weighing the earth") and G.

Other Links:
- The Mitchell-Cavendish Experiment by Laurent Hodges, Iowa State University.
- Measuring the Mass of the Earth by Donald G. York, Univ. Chicago; contains experimental setup and calculations. (requires Adobe Acrobat)

Cork in Glass: Brain Teaser from Braingle:

Question:
If a cork is put into a glass of water, the cork will almost always drift to the side of the glass. There is one simple way, however, to get the cork to float on the surface in the center of the glass. What is it? Water, the glass, and the cork are all that is required.

HEY! DON'T JUST LOOK AT THE ANSWER! THINK ABOUT IT!

Answer:
The reason that a cork drifts to the side of a glass is that it floats to the highest point. Since water "clings" to the glass, the highest point is around the edge of the water. To get the cork to float in the middle of the glass, all you have to do is fill the glass as much as possible. The water will form a convex shape above the glass, with the highest point at its center. This is where the cork will settle.


Snippets:
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Richard Feynman: Six Easy Pieces (Audio of physics lectures given in 1961/1962): When you take an apple and magnify it to the size of the earth, then the atoms in the apple are about the size of an apple.
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Notes to Book: Curt Suplee: Physics in the 20th Century (1999)

Laser = light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
Precursor: Maser = microwave amplication by stimulated emission of radiation

Microwaves have longer wavelengths and therfore less energy than visible light

Einstein: Atoms can emit photons in two different ways: spontaneous (e.g., sun, light bulbs) and stimulated (maser, laser).

When an atom is excited by a quantum energy that exactly corresponds to one of its specific allowed energy states (postulated by Niels Bohr), it absorbs the energy, but then almost immediately sheds it by emitting a photon. Variation of effect: If an electron is already in an excited state and then struck be a photon of excactly the right energy, it emits two photons. The new photon is identical to the first; each quantum of radiation is perfectly matched, meaning the new photon is exacty in phase with the one that stimulated its emission: 'coherent'.

Snippets:
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Video: "Cassatt" (Portrait of an Artist Volume 2: May Cassatt. Impressionist from Philadelphia. Produced by WNET/Thirteen for 'Women in Art' (1977), 30 min. Cassatt was, after Whistler, the most important American Impressionist Painter; she spent much time painting in Paris; she was a close friend of Degas; they thoroughly critiqued each others work; especially known for her mother-child portraits.
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Video: Big. w/ Tom Hanks. A 13-year old boy makes a wish at a fair and slips into the body of a grown-up. Funny; childish at times; Hanks plays the role real well.
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Brain-Teaser: The Flash Mind Reader. Can you find out how it works?
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Design: Ritzenhoff (in German). Lots of pictures.
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Designer: Michal Shalev, b. 1958 in Tel-Aviv, Israel; carpet and textile designs, also curtains, paper products, porcelain and shower curtains; has been working closely with such German firms as Ritzenhoff, Karstadt, Rosenthal, Design House since 1994.
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Metric System Prefixes: Exta = 10^18, Peta = 10^15, Tera = 10^12, Giga = 10^9, Mega = 10^6, Kilo = 10^3
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Dynamic Planet Blog
TOC: Table of Contents
July 2003

1.) Herman Hesse: Siddhartha
2.) Geometric Brain Teaser
3.) Mortimer J. Adler: Aristotle for Everybody
4.) Brain Teaser: Coffee with Cream