Science and Technology

this is crazzy

My friend Scott who runs LSC Products, has a new bike. Back 'in the day' Trimble bikes blew peoples minds with their monocoque carbon fiber design and unique profile. The brand has been all but lost for many years, but Brent Trimble is making bikes again. Developments in materials technology means that the fundamental design can be made lighter and stronger than ever before. This is a head turning bike in more thatn one way. Cyclingnews.com recently reported that besides Orbea, this is the only monocoque 29 inch wheel MTB currently offered. I have ridden this beast and am pretty-much infatuated with it. It really is a fun and fast bike to ride--I want one!

This is the only Medeterranean beach I ever swam at-- Lo Zingaro in NW Sicily. With nothing else to compare it to except Pacific coast beaches, it is the finest beach I ever had the pleasure to bathe at. Some beaches in Costa Rica were pretty nice too, but the Med is so calm, you could really swim through the reefs without being tossed by the surf.

Back the the topic point: Google Earth is so cool! On the left you see it as I did when I took the picture back in 2000, just before I ran down and dove in. On the right you see it from a satellite!...courtesy of Google Earth (38^o 7'14" N, 12^o 47'12" E)

This ladybug is especially beautiful for its uniquness. Look, its black with red spots! We found it in Emerson's room (with a lot of other ladybugs!). The molecular biologist might say that it's uniqueness is attributable simply to a recombinant set of genes, giving rise to this inverted color phenotype. Maybe it is a space alien posing as a ladybug. Maybe it's just special.

Here are reprints of my most recent publications in scientific journals:

2002 FASEB Manuscript: Oxidative Stress in Endothelial Cells Cultured Without Vitamin C

2002 Redox Report Article: Lipoic acid, Vitamin C and Nitric Oxide Synthesis.

2003 Biochemical Society Transactions article: A potential mechanism to describe how lipoic acid restores the age-related loss of endothelial nitric oxide.

2004 Current Medicinal Chemistry review: The theraputic and medicinal aspects of lipoic acid.

2006 Aging Cell article: How aging results in loss of endothelial nitric oxide production

Here's an interesting idea: Something you can do today that may change the world just a little bit!Update: I originally was alertet to this concept by an email from a friend. Since then, I have followed the program with varying degrees of stringency. At first, I begain to follow strictly. Lately, I find that with a busy schedule, it is faw easier to save a week's worth of mail and cram all of it into a couple of the 'prepaid postage' envelopes. Sure, it concentrates the burden on only a few of the corporate monsters, but the efect is the same--they pay! Here's the concept:

• Each year, 100 million trees are used to produce junk mail.

• 250,000 homes could be heated with one day's supply of junk mail.

• Americans receive almost 4 million tons of junk mail every year.

Does this drive you crazy? Read this and make the comittment. When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope. Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes. It costs them more than the regular 37cents postage if-and-when they receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage cost the them is around 50 cents and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes. Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. Otherwise include a note telling them to quit sending you unsolicited mail. Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin getting all their own junk back in the mail--and paying for it, twice!This 'service' also helps the USPS by allowing them to recoup the extra revenue. For more information about reducing or eliminating your junk mail load, you might check the following resources:

• www.remove.org
• www.fightidentitytheft.com