The Hoot

Y’s Jungle Gym

2010-11-27T23:00:00.001-08:00

At the Y’s Jungle Gym program, kids age 1-5 are set free to tumble across the facility’s big, padded mats, crawl through tunnels, or jump wildly in the Moon Bounce that’s almost always set up. There are balance beams for small daredevils, bikes and space to ride them in, and arts and crafts activities for the kids who get tired. Parents supervise and participate, and there are staff members about to provide advice on equipment and lead activities.

The Jungle Gym is a great way for pre-preschoolers to get their ya ya’s out, particularly on rainy days, and all the equipment might inspire you to play, too. No grownups in the bounce house, though.

Jungle Gym takes place each Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, 10:30am-noon at the Letterman Gym at the Presidio YMCA, 1152 Gorgas Avenue (at Marina Boulevard), in the Presidio, San Francisco. Call 415-447-9680 or visit ymcasf.org.

Amabile School of Music

2010-11-27T22:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.amabilemusic.org/Home.html
Taraval and 29th
Disney Song and Dance (Ages 3-6 and 7-9)

- Learn about the different Disney characters and the songs their sing. This is a dance and voice

training program that will encourage students to work together as a team and be able to act and sing

as if they were a Disney Character! Some songs include: "Be our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast,

"Friend Like Me" and "A Whole New World" from Aladdin and "Under the Sea" from The Little

Mermaid.

Toddler’s Class (Age 3-4)

- Toddler’s Class is designed for 3 to 5-year-olds to start having fun with elements in music. The class explores basic musical concepts such as pitch, dynamics, tempo, and rhythm. The class includes fun activities of playing musical games, puzzles, drawing, singing and dancing. It is the perfect music introduction class for your children. Click to see a sample class syllabus Toddler's Syllabus.doc.

insulin-signalling pathway has a role in male differentiation.

2007-05-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

The discovery of the role of Sry in male development was heralded as a great breakthrough and it became known as a classic master switch of development: XY vertebrates with functional Sry developed as males; those without it developed as females. Despite the initial excitement,however,working out what was upstream and downstream of this transcription factor proved very difficult. The insulin family signalling pathway comprises three receptors: Ir, Igf1r and Irr. Single mouse mutants at these loci do not show any abnormal sexual phenotype but, as the authors show by electron microscopy and histochemical analysis,XY triple mutants are completely feminized.
Despite the fact that sex determination mechanisms evolve rapidly, there is some degree of conservation in the pathways involved between invertebrates and vertebrates. As the insulin-signalling pathway is also present in worms and flies, Parada and colleagues call for using these organisms to identify further potential candidates in this pathway that have a role in male differentiation.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER
Nef, S. &Verma-Kurvari, S. et al. Testis determination requires insulin receptor family function in mice.
Nature 426, 291–295 (2003)
FURTHER READING Stadler, H. S. Modelling genitourinary defects in mice: an emerging genetic and developmental system. Nature Rev. Genet. 4, 478–482 (2003)

проект "Неизвестная планета".

2007-04-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

Международный проект "Неизвестная планета"

ВИКТОРИНА "Неизвестной планеты"

2007-03-12T13:07:00.000-07:00

Tonight we woke up at 4am from an eerie sound that seemed to come from outside. It turned out that our backyard irrigation system started working and the water pipes inside the house made the noise. The system is in place for two years now and never gave us any problem. Will have to investigate - here is a promising link.

New Skis!

2007-03-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

Those are my new skis Volkl Attiva AC2 - Contruction Double Grip LT Core 20/20 Sensorwood (156, 116-72-103, 13.0). I also have Nordica OLYMPIA SM 8 boots. I went to test them on Alpine Meadows resort this Sunday. At first I saw a very big difference in how easy the skis were to control. I was so happy that I decided to go on some black diamonds - the first one was not too bad and I got extra bold. The one called "Waterfalls" made me realize that I need to work on my technique A LOT. I still did not give up and went on "The face"- moguls on a steep slope. This was a big mistake - I have spent a lot of time and energy to crawl down. After this I skied only on blue slopes for the rest of the day. It was really good!

Рукописные памятники Древней Руси

2007-02-13T09:53:00.000-08:00

Открылся сайт gramoty.ru (не путать с gramota.ru!), представляющий вниманию ученых и широкой публики все ныне известные древнерусские берестяные грамоты.

Клуб выпускников

2007-02-12T20:06:00.000-08:00

МГУ

Belkin journal

Universe Review website

2007-02-11T15:20:00.000-08:00

This site has a great collection of pictures to illustrate biological concepts.
link

2007-02-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

Проблемы эволюции

2007-01-19T10:45:00.000-08:00

A site to read. Unfortunately loads very slowly...

Perl for fasta

2007-01-17T18:04:00.001-08:00

useful link

SF Public Library

2007-01-16T22:54:00.001-08:00

Search

Parkside
1200 Taraval Street (at 22nd Avenue)
San Francisco, CA 94116
(415) 355-5770
Days Hours
Sun 1-5
M 1-9
Tu 10-9
W 1-9
Th 10-6
Sat 10-6

Where to eat?

2007-01-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

MaggieMudd - no dairy!

Peru

2007-01-06T20:04:00.000-08:00

Peruvian Resources
Very good personal account of a
tour
Useful link-INDEPENDENT TRAVEL GUIDE TO PERU
Cuzco
Cuzco, the capital of Cuzco department in southern Peru, was the capital of the INCA empire from its beginnings in the 14th century until the Spanish conquest in 1533. A tourist attraction, the city is known for its Inca ruins and Spanish colonial architecture. Situated at an altitude of 3,416 m (11,207 ft) in a broad valley of the Andes, it is the busy hub of a thickly populated agricultural region where sheep are raised and cereals and tobacco are grown. The population is predominantly Indian, and the city, with its open markets, adobe houses, and narrow, winding cobblestone streets, is Indian in character. The area is subject to earthquakes
Inca Trail

The Inca Trail is Peru's best known hike, combining a stunning mix of Inca ruins, mountain scenery, lush cloud-forest and rich subtropical jungle. Over 250 species of orchid have been counted in the Machu Picchu Historic Sanctuary, as well as numerous birds such as hummingbirds, waterfowl and the majestic Andean Condor. The star of the Sanctuary is the spectacled bear - a shy, herbivorous animal that is extremely rare and close to extinction.

Essentially the Inca Trail is a mountainous jungle hike leading to the sacred Inca city of Machu Picchu. The 45km trek is usually covered in 4 days, arriving at Machu Picchu at daybreak on the final day before returning to Cusco by train in the afternoon.

Prices & Services
The Inca Trail can be hiked year round although the months of May till October are probably more comfortable since the weather is drier. June through August is the high season when reservations must be made well in advance.
If you are searching the web for information about the Classic 4 day Inca Trail you'll probably be overwhelmed to find hundreds of tour companies offering this popular trek amongst their services. Many of these companies are acting only as agents for the relatively few that actually operate the trek. Prices for the Classic 4 day trek start at about US$240 per person (including entrance fees and return on train) and can climb anywhere up to a staggering $1000. For a clarification of why the price can vary so much for walking the same 45km path see below:
The main difference between the various Inca Trail services are the number of people in the group, the level of comfort that you can expect, the quality of the guide, food and camping equipment and whether the company will actually guarantee their departure date, even if they can't find anyone else to fill up the group. The prices quoted below are to be used as a guide only and may vary considerably from company to company .
Prices for the 4 day group service Inca trail trek generally range between US$300 and US$400 per person including entrance fees and return on train (You can almost double these figures if you buy the trek with a tour agency outside Peru even though the service is the same). This price includes Peruvian sales tax known as IGV which is currently at 19%. A US$30 discount is offered to students who have valid ISIC cards and to children under 16 years old. This is the standard service offered by most tour operators in Cusco and offers the most economic way of hiking the Inca Trail as part of an organized group. Group sizes tend to be between 12 and 16 persons. Although services can vary from operator to operator, generally speaking, the following services are included: Bus to the start of the trek, bilingual guide, assistant guide for groups of 9 and over, entrance fees (US$60 adult or US$30 student), tent, sleeping mattress, cooking equipment, cook, meals, porters (to carry the tents, food and cooking equipment only) and return to Cusco on the Backpackers train service (currently US$46). The following items are not usually included: Breakfast on day 1, snacks along the trail, tourist bus from Machu Picchu to Aguas Calientes (US$6), meals on the final day apart from breakfast, porters to carry your personal items (can be hired separately for between US$60 and US$80 for the 4 day trek), entrance to the thermal springs in Aguas Calientes (US$3), any tips for the porters or guide.
Itinerary

Peru Treks - tour operator

Calle Garcilaso 265, Office 11, 2nd Floor, Cusco, Peru

Tel: (51 84) 805863

Web: www.perutreks.com

Small family run tour operator specializing in trekking in the Cusco region of Peru. Offer Inca Trail 4 day group departures on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Their 2007 standard 4 day Inca Trail trek is priced at US$350 (Jan) and US$365 (March to December). Excellent treatment of porters. Private treks to Lares Valley, Choquequirao, Salkantay, Ausangate & Vilcabamba. Can also arrange cultural homestays with local Quechua families in the village of Chinchero. Package tours, private treks, custom trips. Voted Best Travel Agency in Cusco 2006 by Peru's Ministry of Tourism. Recommended by the South American Handbook 2007 and Cusco & the Inca Trail Guidebook as well as by the South American Explorers Club. US$10 Inca Trail discount for SAE members

Mexico

2007-01-06T18:46:00.000-08:00

Teotihuacan is about 31 miles North East of Mexico City and has Piramide del Sol first century AD, Pyramid of the mood , Piramide de Quetzalcoatl. The rise and fall of Teotihuacan coincide roughly with the rise and fall of the Roman Empire beginning around 600 BC, and going into decline around 650 AD before the city was sacked, burnt, and abandoned.
Palenque is considered by many to be Mexico's most beautiful and alluring archaeological site. Palenque is reached from Villahermosa via highway 186/199. The trip takes about 90 minutes (140 km).

Between Palenque and Ocosingo is the beautiful 100-foot waterfall at Misol-Ha (20 km south of Palenque), and the breathtaking Agua Azul Natural Reserve (60 km south of Palenque). The reserve is a stunningly beautiful series of pools, ponds, and rivers bordered by tropical flowers and exotic dense jungle. The water is a deep blue and is ideal for swimming.

Thirteen km east of Ocosingo are the Mayan ruins of Toniná. The site has several large structures carved into a sloping hillside. Recent excavations have unveiled a large city-state that thrived between the years 500-800 A.D.

Chichen Itza is actually two cities: one that was ruled by the Mayas during the sixth to the tenth century; the other a Toltec- Mayan city that emerged around the year 1000 A.D. Most of the prominent buildings at Chichen Itza were developed during the city's "rebirth" under Toltec rule.

Need Yarn?

2007-01-06T14:55:00.001-08:00

Greenwich Yarn
2073 Greenwich Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
415-567-2535

ImagiKnit
3897 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
415-621-6642
www.imagiknit.com - online retailer!

Donner Ski Ranch

2007-01-06T14:27:00.000-08:00

is there snow?
Lift Ticket Rates
Weekends & Holidays All Day 9am - 4pm
Adult 13-61 $38
Child 6-12 $10
Senior 62-69 $25

Rental Rates
All Day Half Day (at 12:30)
Ski Combo/Adult-Youth $27 $20
Ski Combo/Child $15 $12

Lesson combo $60 package includes equipment rental, an “all chair” lift ticket, and a 1½-hour group lesson. Child 7-12: $46

Private Instruction
Individual instruction is the fastest and easiest way to learn snow sports. Private lessons start at $70 (1 hour) with an additional $20 for each extra person (up to three add-ons). This price does not include lift ticket or equipment rental. Add-ons are not available for lessons for children under 7.

Lessons meet: 9am, 10:30am, 12:30pm and 2:00pm

Future Vacations

2007-01-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

Explore Grand Canyon by Raft!

Grand Canyon Expeditions

"Thank you" In Chinese

2007-01-05T11:53:00.001-08:00

非常有趣

What is Culture anyway?

2007-01-05T09:26:00.000-08:00

What makes us human? Is it our culture? What is culture? Do animals have culture? It is interesting to look at what a primatologist have to say on the subject:

"....I define culture as
behavioral variation that owes its existence at least in part to social learning processes, social learning being defined as changes in behavior that result from attending to the behavior or behavioral products of another individual."
Susan E. Perry
More from her article:

Because imitation (copying of a model’s motor actions) comes so easily to human children, and because folklore about primates is riddled with “monkey see,
monkey do” stories, some researchers (e.g., the early Japanese primatologists) started with the assumption that imitation must be easy, a cheap trick for learning many new skills quickly....
[After reasearch was done: JS]

The general conclusion by the early 1990s was that copying motor actions was easy for humans, difficult for apes (although present at least in human-reared, i.e., “enculturated,” apes) and essentially absent in monkeys (Byrne 1995,
Tomasello 1996).
[Interesting!! JS]

..Huffman & Hirata (2003) found no consistent effect of group size on diffusion
rates, although they did find that innovations regarding food type and experimental tasks spread more slowly than do play and foodprocessing innovations.
[Cooking and sex books would be bestsellers if apes could read! JS]

Yoga

2007-01-04T14:30:00.000-08:00

Stanford
Tuesday
Yoga in Daily Life, Section 1, All Levels, STAP
Location: Hoover Pavilion, #400
Swami Satyambararanda
Dates: 1/9/2007 to 2/13/2007 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM

Thursday
Mid-day Yoga: Relax & Renew, Section 2, All Levels (STAP)
Location: Mitchell Building #A062
Moj Razmi
Dates: 1/11/2007 to 3/15/2007 12:5 PM to 1:00 PM

HIP link will expire!
YMCA Stownsetown schedule
Monday 6:30 PM Jeanie
Bija Yoga website 1348 9th Ave/Irving
Iyengar Yoga Institute schedule
Yoga for Scoliosis main page

Renaissance in Europe - Greek connection

2007-01-03T19:02:00.000-08:00

How good things come out of a bad thing:
In 1453, Constantinople fell to the Turks, ending the Byzantine empire. This date also marks the beginning of the Renaissance, since the waves of Greek refugees spread knowledge of Greek throughout Europe. Included with the newly available Greek manuscripts were the Corpus Hermetica, Plotinus, and the works of the Neoplatonists.

cell phone radiation

2007-01-03T18:54:00.000-08:00

link to ratings
LG1200 is 0.83 W/kg digital BEJLX1200 (1.5 and above is bad, 0.2 is very good)

History of Christmas

2007-01-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

In Soviet Union we did not have Christmas. But we did have the fir tree, the festive lights, and the gifts for New Year's Eve. Does every human culture have some "festival of lights" to survive the darkest time of the year? Was Jesus really born on December 25th, or was his B-Day moved to coincide with old celebrations of light? Were many other deities allegedly born at that time? How does our brain suffer from lack of sunlight at that time?

The festivities in the week following the winter solstice (after which the days grow longer), today called Shab-e Yalda in Iran, are a remnant of the culture which celebrated the birth of the divinity of light on that day. Yalda literally means "The birth of sun".

Similarities between Mirtha and Jesus:

Mithra (Avestan Miθra, modern Persian مهر Mihr, Mehr, Meher) is an important deity or divine concept in Zoroastrianism and later Persian mythology and culture.
The reforms of Zoroaster retained the multitudes of pre-Zoroastrian divinities, reducing them in a complex hierarchy to "immortals" under the supremacy of the Creator Ahura Mazda. In this scheme, Mithra is a member of the triad, protectors of the order of the universe. Mithra is additionally the protector of truth and justice and the source of cosmic light.
Mithra is not present in the Gathas of Zarathustra (Zoroaster) but appears in the younger Yashts of the Avesta. There, Mithra comes to the fore among the created beings. In the Yashts, Mithra gains the title of "Judge of Souls" and is assigned the domain of human welfare (which he shares with the Creator). He is then the divine representative of the Creator on earth, and is directed to protect the righteous from the demonic forces. As the enemy of darkness and evil spirits, he protected souls, accompanying them to paradise, and was thus a redeemer.

While in older Zoroastrianism Mithra is seen as a creation of Ahura Mazda, in later Persian culture, Mithra evolved to be an incarnation of Ahura Mazda.
By at least the 3rd century BC, Mithra was identified as the progeny of Anahita, a mother-entity who is not mentioned in the Gathas of the very early Avesta texts. The largest temple with a Mithraic connection is the Seleucid temple at Kangavar in western Iran (c. 200 BC), which is dedicated to "Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithras".

Mithra was born on December 25, of a virgin. His birth was witnessed by shepherds and magicians [magi]. Mithra raised the dead and healed the sick and cast out demons. He returned to heaven at the spring equinox and before doing so had a last supper with his 12 disciples (representing the 12 signs of the zodiac), eating mizd, a piece of bread marked with a cross (an almost universal symbol of the sun).
In America, Christmas was generally outlawed until the end of the last century. In Boston, up to 1870, anyone missing work on Christmas Day would be fired. Factory owners customarily required employees to come to work at 5 a.m. on Christmas -- to insure they wouldn't have time to go to church that day. And any student who failed to go to school on December 25 would be expelled. Only the arrival of large numbers of Irish and northern European immigrants brought acceptance of Christmas in this country.

Patagonia

2007-01-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

Torre del Paine link

To read (recommended by Stan)

2006-12-30T19:49:00.001-08:00

In Search of Memory, Eric R.Kandel The Emergence of a New Science of Mind
Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun

Our NY vacation

2006-12-28T21:29:00.000-08:00

Saturday 23th
arrival to Newark airport, Bob's parents met us and took to Teenek home.

Sunday 24th
to Upstate NY
dinner at Simon's

Monday 25th
Ski
dinner at Simon's
Tuesday 26th
Beacon Falls, CN
Marine Aquarium Norwalk, CN
Papya Thai

Wednesday 27th
American Museum of Natural history
Rubin museum of Art
Chineese restaurant
THURSDAY, 12/28
Guggenheim Museum
Frick collection
Ground Zero
FRIDAY 29th
The Cloisters link

NPR link

2006-12-21T14:09:00.001-08:00

Programs Archive

San Francisco Weather

2006-12-21T13:54:00.001-08:00

want to see?

Андерсен. Жизнь без любви

2006-12-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

We should see it sometimes link

Singing in SF

2006-12-20T11:42:00.000-08:00

A list of Bay Area groups

This sounds very interesting:
The Loose Canons (SF/Oakland): a 10 voice womens a cappella ensemble, sings intriguing songs from all over. Rehearse Sunday evenings from 6:30-9pm. Contact Jillian Tallmer, 415-668-2284, or YIDL@peoplepc.com.
Events: A Cappella Festival
2006 Bay Area Regional
Saturday, February 25th 8PM
PALACE OF FINE ARTS
3301 Lyon St, San Francisco
Tickets from City Box Office - 415-392-4400

SFRV are Artists-in-Residenc e with Seventh Avenue Performances and made its debut in 2004 with a sold-out performance of Victoria 's Requiem. Our concerts feature rarely performed choral works from the Renaissance and in 2005 the group began "The Polyphony Project", a five year program exploring Renaissance music by dedicating a year to each of the major Renaissance "schools"; during 2007 we perform music from the " English School " with these concerts:

TRINITY
(featuring the Short Services of Gibbons & Tallis & Parson’s First Service)
May 5 & 12, 2007 – 7:30 PM

THE REGINA MONOLOGUES
(featuring Elizabethan madrigals with readings from Shakespeare’s Sonnets)
July 28 & 29, 2007 – 7:30 PM

EVENSONG for ALL HALLOW’s EVE
(Our traditional Halloween concert features the Dirge Anthems of Morley & Byrd, other works)
October 27 & 28, 2007 – 7:30 PM

What to do in Upstate NY ?

2006-12-17T19:39:00.000-08:00

Canaan weather link
Ski Areas
1.Bousquet Ski Area - more info very small resort
101 Dan Fox Dr, Pittsfield, MA
(413) 442-8316
It a nice little ski area with beginner and intermediate trails.

2.Alpine Slide-Jiminy Peak more info
snow report
price: Adult 8h-$50, teen 8h-$40 trail map
37 Corey Rd, Hancock, MA
(413) 738-5500

3.I think it is same place as 2.Brodie Mountain Ski Area - more info
36 Williamstown Rd, New Ashford, MA
(413) 443-4752

4.Ski Butternut Ski Area & Ski & Board Shop- more
conditions
23 State Rd, Great Barrington, MA
(413) 528-2000

5. Otis Ridge Ski Area -
more
conditions
159 Monterey Rd, Otis, MA
(413) 269-4444
Double chairlift, T-bar, J-bar, three rope tows; patrol, school, rentals; snowmaking; cafeteria. Night skiing (Tues-Sun). Longest run 1 mile; vertical drop 400 feet. The remaining 10 trails are also "skiers' trails"--woodsy, lovely, with the feel of old New England.
All area adult $30 only.

6.Catamount Ski Area - more info
State Route 23 E, Hillsdale, NY
(518) 325-3200
Catamount again?
Route 23, South Egremont, MA
(413) 528-1262 - call

7. Berkshire East Ski Area - more info
S River Rd, Charlemont, MA
(413) 339-6617

8.Blandford Ski Area: Ofc - more info
41 Nye Brook Rd, Blandford, MA
(413) 848-2860

9.High Adventure Ski & Snowboard - more info
1054 Troy Schenectady Rd, Latham, NY
(518) 785-0501

Other attractions:
Dark Ride Project - Center for Robotic-Arts & Eric Rudd Studio
robots
While riding the Sensory Integrator in the Dark Ride Project, normal reality is taken away in order to allow a free fall into the reality of the artist. First the walls, floor and ceiling disappear; then the sense of place goes, as will the sense of time and distance...
General Phone: (413) 663-6662
Project/Reservation Office: (413) 664-9550

The Fields Sculpture Park

Ventfort Hall

Historic Deerfield

Survival of the fittest text

2006-12-16T22:43:00.000-08:00

If "survival of the fittest" has any validity as a slogan, then the Bible seems a fair candidate for the accolade of the fittest of texts.
-Hugh Pyper, "The Selfish Text: The Bible and Memetics".

More from his lecture:
..Western culture is the Bible's way of making more Bibles.
The intriguing questions then become how the bible alters its environment to increase the likelihood of its being replicated and why it has been so conspicuously successful in this... The bible must be read and must make itself read if there is to be reproduced. Its success in achieving this is what makes it an example of a highly adaptive active replicator.
In this view the biblical reader, then, acts as the site of transfer of the information contained in the text to the meme-pool in which he or she operates. The book itself encodes memes which once active in the mind lead the human agents of that meme-pool to produce more examples of the text. But like all memes, in Dennett's view, they encounter competition. People have a lot of other things to do with their time and energy besides copying bibles, indeed a lot of other texts to read. What has lead to the particular success of the bible in this competition for mental space?...
If the primary evolutionary drive is for survival, then a virus or a meme that 'persuades' its host that it is necessary to the host's own survival and therefore conveys a reproductive advantage will have an instant welcome into the replicatory machine....This has resonances with the account that Zygmunt Bauman offers of the whole enterprise of human culture. Culture, he claims, is a human construct designed to fend off the threat of death. It is a survival mechanism, which finds a way of promising a form of survival in the face of the inevitability of individual death. For Bauman, the Jewish tradition is the clearest case of the subsuming of individual death in communal survival. The individual may die, but his or her genes and memes will carry on. The duty of the individual then, in the sense of his or her best survival strategy becomes one of ensuring the survival of the group, not simply his or her own prolonged life. Christianity has adopted the alternative strategy of a promise of immortality, in that the believer's death is caught up in the context of the resurrection of Jesus. Both genetically and memetically, the afterlife of the believer is strictly irrelevant except in so far as belief in personal immortality act to sustain the continuity of the meme pool....

.....The propagation of the text, and the founding of new communities are also linked to the survival of the reader and his or her community, or meme-pool. The Hebrew bible is full of admonitions about the duty to hand down its teaching, and by implication the text, to the next generation. Secondly the text contains a strong message of evangelisation. The survival of the reader's community depends on the production of new texts and new communities. This complex of memes and of strategies forms a powerful ensemble to ensure the accurate transmission of the text....
The bible contains powerful instructions as to its own unique worth and the limits to be placed on the infiltration of foreign information or texts into the communities which propagate it. The whole process of canonisation, for instance, reveals a complex interaction between text and community which serves, for example, to oust the fledgling apocrypha and turn the community's attention to the ever-growing task of copying and commentating on the biblical text with an increased sense of its importance and of the need for its conservation....Even more amazing is the development of communities of those supposedly excluded by the text, the Gentiles, who find ways of identifying themselves as Israel and arrogating to themselves both the promises and the duties imposed by the text, chief among which is the duty to ensure the connivance and dispersal of the text. Here the 'gene-pool' of Judaism, with its claim of descent from Abraham, is replaced by a meme-pool, a claim of descent from Abraham's faith, a line of argument already presaged in the Old Testament itself....This is an astonishing success and one of crucial importance to the propagation of the text. The consequence of its incorporation into the canon of the Christian bible is an exponential leap in the number of copies produced. However, it may also be true that the text turns against the communities that have sustained it if that is to its advantage. The horrid record of Christian antisemitism shows the consequences of the reappropriation of the filter mechanisms for memetic purity being turned against the original host community as the bible takes on a new existence as Christian Scripture. A prime exemplar of the selfishness of the text might be seen in the reformation where the text operates to cause a major breach and disruption in the community which sustained it in order to take advantage of the new technology of printing through the propagation of a meme that removed the authority of interpretation from the institution to the individual and to the possibilities of reproduction within vernacular language communities. The peril of too close an association with the host community may be that the text will fall with the community that guards it. The success of the bible has been predicated on its ability to 'jump ship' when necessary.....
My own view.... is that the bible has so firmly entrenched a place in our culture that it is ineradicable. It is not a parasite but a constituent part of the great complex of meme complexes that can be designated 'western culture', part of the exosomatic genome of that culture's members. More than that, I see it ... as an indispensable source of what might be called 'memetic diversity.' In agricultural genetics, one of the most worrying trends has been the loss of diversity from the appellations of food plants and animals. .. Ease of marketing may well win out against nutrition. However, there is a potential disaster looming if the super variety is suddenly attacked by a pathogen or if there is a major climatic shift. A variety may be fit for the purpose and the conditions of the moment, but what if conditions change?

Here it becomes vitally important to maintain a 'gene pool' of wild relatives of the crop plants which may themselves have all sorts of drawbacks from the point of view of the technology of farming, but which have shown themselves able to fend for themselves in this competitive world over time. Such wild populations contain a huge diversity of genetic material maintained over time and a vast potential for diversity and for change. Can we view the Bible as a sort of cultural 'memetic reserve'? Parts of it may seem irrelevant, redundant, even detrimental to our survival, but it has kept going. As Medawar and Plotkin indicate, it may serve to maintain a memetic richness and complexity, a inexhaustible source of variety which may contain the unexpected counter to forces that threaten to impoverish our cultural lives.

Sand Dollars

2006-12-15T22:07:00.000-08:00

The sand dollars that we find on the San Francisco Ocean Beach used to look very different when they were alive. Most live sand dollars are found at depths of 30 to 40 feet (9-12 m).Their larvae travel many miles swept along by ocean currents.

Typhlonectes natans

2006-12-14T16:29:00.000-08:00

I have found this animal while looking for available sequences for gonadotropin-releasing hormone II in the Gene Bank. Try to guess where it belongs in the animal kingdom :)
We later saw it in the NY Central Park Zoo terrarium.
Neither worms nor eels, caecilians (not Sicilians) are members of an ancient family of amphibians. These animals went underground long before the dinosaurs appeared. Typhlonectes natans is one of the only ones that spends a great deal of time in an aquatic environment. This species is native to Columbia (South America), and grows to 18 to 22" in length. It is a dark grey- black in color.
There is no trace of limbs or pelvic or pectoral girdles left in caecilians.
You can find them in pet stores under the label "Sicilian Worm" or "Rubber Eel."link

Тщательные наблюдения показали, что детеныши обитающей в Кении яйцекладущей червяги Boulengerula taitanus (Caeciliidae) поедают ее кожу, которая в этот период меняет свой цвет и клеточное строение, набухает и становится мягче. В клетках верхних слоев кожи появляется много жировых включений.

Детеныш ползает по телу матери, прижимаясь головой к ее коже, и отрывает верхний слой эпителия при помощи нижней челюсти, вооруженной мелкими острыми зубами. Такое «вскармливание» дорого дается матери: за неделю она теряет примерно 14% веса, а детеныши за то же время вырастают в длину на 11%.

Shadow of reflection

2006-12-14T15:48:00.000-08:00

Very interesting artist, I liked the most this art work with a shadow of reflection.
How do you capture such a fleeting image?

Натюрморт с раковиной
Гилазутдинова В Н

South American Ornate Horned Frog

2006-12-14T11:56:00.001-08:00

pets

No 1

2006-12-14T11:33:00.000-08:00

So many people have blogs today that I should also give it a try. Let us see whether this will be the first and only record or there will be a continuation. It is not so easy to write in another language, but I will start in English – I still did not get the stickers for the keyboard!

Is every blog read by someone? Do people publish their random thoughts for themselves or for the world to read? Do they expect it to be some kind of legacy? Will this legacy stay there when the power is down and the server is not functioning? I do not think that posting my own ramblings collection would provide me with any answers to those questions. Rather I think having them in one place (as opposed to in emails to friends) would help me to organize my own thoughts, priorities and plan what to read and see in the future.