The 5 Love Languages

Love is not just an idea, but an actual physiological effect.  When we fall in love with someone all kinds of crazy things happen in our bodies.  Love is chemistry in action.  Chemicals like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin and many other chemicals are released and manipulated in our bodies to cause sweating palms, butterflies, passion, and that top of the world feeling.   This is the love we experience when we meet someone we might want to spend the rest of our lives with.   For those of you married,  that "honeymoon" phase soon begins to fade, but that does not mean we still don't love them.  It just means the real relationship begins after all those chemicals have stopped making us go love crazy.  And relationships take work.  We also love our kids, friends, and relatives and these relationships take work too.


I was having a conversation with a couple a few years ago and they were telling me about this book they had just read to help cultivate relationships.  It was called the The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman and while it sounded interesting I never really pursed the topic further.  Since that conversation, I have heard the topic come up several times.  I still have not read the book, but there is a really nice site that I recently checked out that now allows you to see what your love language through a very quick questionnaire.

The concept of the book is that we all respond to certain expressions of love differently.   Love is about putting those people we care about above ourselves.  So if we put other's above ourselves, we might as well make sure we express our love in a way that make's our spouse or children the happiest.  Gary Chapman defined these expressions of love into 5 categories.

1.  Words of Affirmation
2.  Acts of Service
3.  Receiving Gifts
4.  Quality time
5.  Physical Touch

I took the questionnaire and you get a breakdown of you love language.  For me getting a new tie as a gift may not make me as happy as just sitting on the patio and spending some time in a deep conversation.   We are all different in what makes us happy.  Ultimately this is just a tool to help us interact better with the people we love and find out what makes them happy.  Take the questionnaire and see what your love language is.  this is also one for kids.  I enjoyed thinking about what I thought my kid's love languages were and then having them to answer the questions.  They surprised me a couple times.

5 Love Languages:  http://www.5lovelanguages.com/

My results

GMO Tools of the Trade: Agrobacterium

When making transgenic plants we need a delivery system to get a gene into a plant.  Biolistics using a gene gun is one way and explained in a previous post.   The other way is something nature has been doing for a very long time.  There is a special bacteria that inserts its DNA into its host chromosomes where it is incorporated into the genome. In nature, Agrobacterium tumefacians causes the disease Crown Gall.  Crown gall look like a big tumor on a plant and can infect grape vines, nut trees, sugar beets and other species.

Credit: Univ. of GA Plant Pathology Archive, Univ. of GA, Bugwood.org

Scientists figured out that Agrobacterium was causing the disease by getting it's DNA integrated into its hosts chromosomal DNA.  The plant would express that DNA just like it would it's own DNA, except these new genes told the plant to form this tumor like growths.

Agrobacterium seemed like a great tool to use to incorporate DNA the scientist chooses instead of the virulent DNA.   Agrobacterium has  a TI plasmid (Label C in the figure below)  that contains the bacterium DNA that will be incorporated into the target plant along with other DNA sequences the bacterium uses to actually infect the plant..  This small segment of DNA that is actually transformed into the host cell's chromosome is called the T-DNA, which is part of the TI plasmid.  So scientists just replaced the Agrobacterimum's infection causing T-DNA with a gene of interest.  The Agrobacterium is no longer pathogenic and cannot cause disease.  Just for those concerned, even in its pathogenic form it does nothing to humans except in a few very rare cases where an individual cases where a human is very immune compromised. .  And when a GMO plant is sold there is no Agrobacterium present anymore.

What is can do now is naturally insert a gene of interest into your target crop like rice, wheat, maize, soy, cotton, etc.  Usually it is as simple as just letting your target plant material soak in the Agrobacerium  for a defined amount of time.  That plant material becomes transformed with your new gene when the new gene incorporates into the target's chromosomal DNA.  Tissue culture techniques are used to grow the target material into a plant that we call a T0 plant.  The T0 plant will express the new gene that is now parts of its DNA.  When expressed that gene may protect crops from pests or give herbicide tolerance.

This ingenious system has been used for years to transform crops by biotech corporations and universities.  Biolistics in the form of the gene gun is the man-made form of transformation, but as a scientist I have found that nature almost always does things better.  Agrobacterium is a very safe, efficient, and natural system that Nature developed long before we even thought of the concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrobacterium_tumefaciens

Transfer of T-DNA into plant cell by Agrobacterium tumefaciens

• A: Agrobacterium cell
• B: Agrobacterium DNA
• C: Ti Plasmid

• _{a: T-DNA}
• _{b: vir genes}
• _{c: replication origin}
• _{d: opines catabolism}

• D: Plant cell
• E: Plant mitochondria
• F: Plant chloroplast
• G: Plant nucleus

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial day, a US federal holiday to remember fallen US military.  The day made me ask the question just how many US troops have died for this country.    If you  add up all the deaths from all the wars and engagements all the way back to the American Revolutionary war in 1775 to present day the estimate is over 664,000 combat deaths.  If you include all the fallen US citizens due to conflicts then that number jumps to over 1.3 million fallen Americans, with another 1.4 million wounded.  That is a lot of loss and affected families in this country.  So thanks to all those brave men and women and  who have sacrificed  for this country.  Your sacrifice is remembered not just this day, but is witnessed every day we enjoy freedom in this country.

This Memorial day I was just thinking of war in general and how ugly it can be.  I have no doubt that sometimes wars are inevitable and even necessary based on how our civilization behaves.   Humankind has always been good at finding better and more destructive ways to war.  We even have rules of war that define what should and should not be done in in war.  That doesn't even seem like it should be real when you really think about it.   For the foreseeable future humankind will continue to war and even when necessary it is not pretty.   Military personnel will die, civilians will die,  kids will be orphaned, wounds will not fully heal, and minds will be broken.  Death is certainly not the only consequence of war.   While I looked to see how many US deaths are from wars, I was wondering just how many deaths there have been worldwide.  I could find some data on some of the biggest wars.  Most of these engagements have a high and low estimate of deaths from military and civilians.  The mean estimate (between the high and low) of deaths from the biggest conflicts in the recorded history of our civilization is over 347 million people.   347 million !!!!     The 2014 population of the United States was 318.9 million and Canada is 35 million. In the world's recorded history the equivalent of the United States and Canada's population has been wiped out.  Humans have single handedly killed almost a continent of people.

Again I will not dispute the need for war in some circumstances.   We are wired to fight and protect.  There is good and there is evil.   War is a reality and so this Memorial day and all other's I remember the US soldiers that have given their lives for this country.  But I also mourn for our race and world who have destroyed each other for centuries.  I hope that one day, maybe still centuries from now our civilization will won't have to celebrate a "Memorial Day" because wars will be just a long forgotten memory.


References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualties_of_war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll

Aren't Premies Cute!

I hear the story from my parents a lot.  It was 1978 and I decided to come into the world early.  I was 5 weeks early and I was rushed from Petersburg, VA to Richmond, VA.  According to my parents, I only had a 50% chance of survival.  That was 1978 and things sure have changed for the better.

Just a few weeks ago my sister had her second child and I became an uncle to a beautiful new life.  The journey for this little guy was tough.   He decided that the world needed to see him early and he was born at 33.5 weeks.  He is still in the NICU, but is doing awesome and I have no doubt he will be coming home sooner than we think.

Oakley Wright 3 lb 8 oz.

I got to visit Oakley in the NICU and was amazed at all the babies that were in those special pods.   I saw a glimpse of those tiny little lives.  All of those new babies and new gene combinations that each have have so much potential.  But they were so tiny!  I thought back to my beginnings and wondered how things had changed since 1978.   I started looking at the science and I am glad that when it comes to premature babies we are in 2015.

Oakley was 6.5 weeks early and was well developed. With today's medicine he was put in NICU pod G.  There are pods A, B, C, D, E, and F as well and the babies get smaller and need even more care as you work back up towards A.  So that just shows that while 33.5 weeks sounds early, babies born this early are in relatively good shape the majority of the time.  The chart below shows that a baby born at 24 weeks has a 50% chance of survival so this is when things can get dicey.  In perspective though, 24 week babies have a 50% chance of survival, while in 1978 I was at 50% at only 5 week early.  That is awesome medical progression!

"Prenatal development table" by Mikael Häggström.Häggström, Mikael. "Medical gallery of Mikael Häggström 2014". Wikiversity Journal of Medicine 1 (2). DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.008. ISSN 20018762.  

After some digging I found an article showing differences in very premature babies in 1995 vs 2006.   One finding was that "survival to discharge from hospital for all admitted babies born between 22 and 25 weeks’ gestation increased from 40% (266/666) in 1995 to 53% (593/1115) in 2006, an increase of 13% (95% confidence interval 8% to 18%).
Short term outcomes after extreme preterm birth in England: comparison of two birth cohorts in 1995 and 2006 (the EPICure studies)


Another paper showed how far medical treatment has come since 1935 in the United States.  Just one highlight shows "the infant mortality rate in the United States showed a consistently downward trend between 1935 and 2000, with the rate declining from 55.7 per 1,000 live births in 1935 to 6.9 in 2000, at an impressive pace of 3.1% per year."  That increase in babies that get to go home with their family is awesome to see.
Infant Mortality in the United States, 1935-2007

Infants have a better chance now than they did even decades ago in the United States and other developed countries.  There have obviously been some advances in medical treatment.  NICU units and focused training have put infants in great hands.  However, in my opinion, one of the greatest factors is education.  It is amazing how we change our behaviors when we take the time to get the facts and understand all the issues.  So in a way this story is a plug for GMOs as well.  Finding the truth and reacting to that truth can change how we act.   In the case of infants, our culture is better educated on things like SIDS, prenatal care, dangers of smoking during pregnancy, the benefits of breastfeeding, etc.  There is no doubt that what we have done with this knowledge has decreased infant mortality and is a great example of why knowledge is one of the most powerful resources in humankind's hands.

For all those people who have put knowledge in the hands of doctors, nurses, mothers and dads, thank you.  Because of you we have many more babies that transform our world and I have a new nephew to spoil.

Get that measles vaccine!

I have and will continue to talk about GMOs because I really hope to tell the other side of the story.   I feel the positive and fact-filled stories do not grab the headlines as much as the negative propaganda that fills websites. When I surf the web, I often find another topic that grabs headlines with lots of propaganda I do not necessarily agree with and that is vaccines.  Should you vaccinate your kids or should you as a parent have the right to keep them vaccine free?

I personally think all kids should have vaccines.  Everyone is entitled to their opinions and I know that there are many that disagree with vaccines.  The only thing I can do is try to convince you otherwise through science.

In a recent Science publication, some great research shows a great example of why vaccines are so important.  The measles vaccine protects our kids from getting measles and, in my mind just as importantly, protects other family's children from measles.  If you choose not to get a vaccine, not only are you putting your own child at risk, but then you can get a lot of other people sick too.  We just saw the measles outbreak in Disney World not too long ago that is associated with well over 100 children getting measles.

According to WHO, measles is one of the leading causes of death in young children.  There are many people that will get  measles and recover, but measles is known to suppress the immune system.  It is like the immune system gets memory loss for a while and forgets how to fight infections.  The Science publication shows that if you had measles that period of a weakened immune system can last 2-3 years.  During that time people are much more likely to get other infections that can lead to death. So if you get measles and recover you may not be completely out of the woods.

The measles vaccine provides so many benefits.  Not only does it prevent you from getting the disease, but it prevents other infections from doing harm.  Let the numbers do the talking.  Before widespread vaccinations we are talking about 2.6 million measles deaths in 1980.  In 2013 it is there were only 145,700 deaths.  If that is not proof of the benefit of the vaccine I don't know what is.

References:
Science Abstract:   http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6235/694.abstract
Disney World Outbreak:  http://www.webmd.com/children/vaccines/news/20150316/low-vaccination-rates-likely-behind-disney-measles-outbreak-study
Facts on Measles:  http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs286/en/

Astrophotography Attempt 2: The Orion Nebula

It wasn't long after my very first picture of Andromeda that I had the fever to get another picture.  I just had the SV90 telescope on a simple aluminum tripod with the Nikon D90 DSLR attached.   I wanted to get a glimpse of some color. Most of deep sky objects like nebula and galaxies are not going to really show color if you just look at them through a telescopes eyepiece and if they do, it is faint.   Most often it is just a smudge of black and white.  That is where astrophotgraphy shines. The camera acts as an eye that gobbles up minutes and even hours of light so we can see the colors these beautiful objects really emit.

The Orion Nebula is so bright that the light it emits is visible as a light smudge to the naked eye on a dark night.   For someone that knows what they are doing it can provide a stunning photograph.  I didn't know what I was doing, but still managed to achieve my goal and actually pick up some color that I could not otherwise see just looking with my eye through the telescope.

This is a pretty bad picture of the Orion Nebula, but seeing an object in color made me that much more excited to learn how to do astrophotography.

GMO Tools of the Trade: The Gene Gun

I think I have pretty cool job.  I work in a lab with other amazing scientists making transgenic plants.  I hope the time and effort that goes into finding the right genes, making the plants, growing the plants, and getting seed into the farmers' hands are going to enable them to do their jobs more efficiently.  We all know that life throws challenges at us on a daily basis.  Farmers are no exception.  Some of their biggest challenges include weeds, pests, and diseases.  I, and all of us, do our job because we want to equip farmers with tools to overcome those challenges and continue to increase yields.

Lots of people I talk to want to know how we make transgenic plants.  There are many protocols that we use that vary from crop to crop and from company to company.   However all of these protocols are going to have a step that involves gene delivery.   In order to make a transgenic plant, we need to insert a gene of interest, say resistance to a particular insect, into the target's genome.

"Genegun". Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Genegun.jpg#/media/File:Genegun.jpg

Different types of delivery methods exist; there are two methods I have used in my career.  The one I want to go over in this post is the biolistic method that uses a "gene gun".  The gene gun is a very interesting invention.  What if you could propel DNA into a cell at such a high speed it would incorporate into the target cell's chromosome so that the transformed cells will express that new gene?  Some minds at Cornell University and DuPont did just that with a "gene gun."  There prototype involved using a modified Crossman air pistol to fire small tungstun particles that were coated with a lots and lots of copies of a gene.  The idea worked and the gene was expressed when propelled into onion cells.

The technology continued to advance and the gene gun was manufactured in some limited quantities.  One model involved using a modified 22 cal nail gun cartridge to propel the DNA.  As you can imagine, finding a safer alternative to explosive propellants was probably a good idea.  The gene gun I am most familiar with is the one pictured below manufactured by BioRad under contract from DuPont.   The propellant was indeed replaced with Helium.  The gene of interest is coated in gold or tungstun particles and loaded on a rupture disc.  The rupture disc is attached at the top of the chamber.  The plant material is placed under the disc in the bottom of the the chamber.  Close the door, build the pressure up, and Fire!  The pressure ruptures the disc and the DNA-coated particles are blasted down into the plant material.  From that point, the DNA will be incorporated into the genome of your target plant cells.  It is not the most efficient system.  Only some cells will be transformed and there are other downfalls.  However, I am always amazed at this piece of technology and the progression from prototype to the model that can still be found in some labs today.




Great youtube video showing how the gene gun is prepped:

Short youtube video showing the gene gun being fired.

Board Gaming: Forbidden Island

I love playing games with the kids, but if your kids or even friends and relatives are like mine, they can get competitive.  There are days I just don't want to play a game and hear the little guys cry because they lost to daddy.  We need days like that so they can learn to be a good loser, but sometimes I just want us all to have fun and be happy.  Welcome to the world of cooperative games.

Cooperative games have become some of my favorite ones to play.  Everyone must work together in order to complete a task and beat the game.  Everyone is playing against the game and not each other.  These games require good communication, teamwork and, of course, some luck.

In Forbidden Island, players are on an island that is sinking.  They must recover all four treasures on the island and get to the helicopter landing pad before the island sinks.  If the players are unable to get all of the treasure and get off the island before the the water claims the treasure, then everyone loses. You all win or you all lose together.

Forbidden Island Tin

First, the game comes in a beautiful tin with some great artwork.  I have seen this game in Target on occasion if your browsing the board game section.   The game "island" is represented by cards that show different locations on the island.  Some of the cards also show where the treasure is located.  There are four treasures and each treasure can be located in one of two locations on the board.  So if one location sinks, then you have one more shot at getting that treasure.

On a player's turn, they can take up to three actions.  They can move one space on the board.  They can give another player a treasure card. Eventually a player with 4 of the same treasure cards in their hand can move to a treasure location and turn the cards in to claim the treasure.  Another action is to shore up.  Since the island is sinking, the location tiles will take on water during the course of of the game.  This is shown by flipping the individual tile over.  If a sinking location takes on water again it is removed from the game and that location is no longer available.  So shoring up allows locations that are sinking to be flipped back over to their water-free side.  Players will constantly balance shoring up the sinking island, moving across the board to gain and give each other matching treasure cards, and then move to claim those treasures.  Finally, all players must reach the helicopter pad and get off the island with all of the treasure.  One other thing that makes the game cooperative is your role.  Each player has a special role like "Explorer" who can "Move and Shore Up Diagonally."  All the other players can only move and shore up horizontally and vertically. Since each player has one special skill, all players must take actions on their turn that cater to their strength.   After three actions, you get to draw a number of treasure cards that you will keep or trade to other players so that when a player has four they can retrieve the treasure.

After a player goes, the island has a turn.  The player who just finished their turn draws a certain number of of cards from a location card deck.  These are cards that match all all the island location tiles.  When a location card is drawn, the player finds the matching island tile and flips it over and it is one stage away from completely sinking.  In this location card deck there are special cards called Water Rise! cards.  These are the cards that really keep the game tense. When one of these cards is drawn, you follow the instructions on the card.  In summary, these cards are what signals the player to shuffle the location cards that have already be drawn and put them back on the top of the location card deck.  So location tiles on the board that have already been flipped are now on the top of the deck to be drawn again.  This increases the chances a location will completely sink and makes you really feel like you are racing the water overtaking you.  The water rise cards also cause the player  to raise the island water level represented by a rectangular counter.   As the overall water level counter rise represented by a higher number, more location cards must be drawn and locations flipped over on each of the island's turns essentially speeding up the sinking process.

Give Forbidden Island a try.  All of you will be working together in a tense race to trade cards, gain treasure, use you abilities to maximize the parties' chances, all while repairing the island just enough to accomplish your task.  In the end, teamwork pays off and everyone feels the accomplishment of the win or you learn from your mistakes and go treasure hunting again.

Good luck getting off Forbidden Island!

The types of cards and items found in Forbidden items

Bracketing the Moon

Taking pictures of deep sky objects turned out to be tough.  I had a ways to go and some more equipment to gradually collect before my pictures would improve.  The silver lining is that there is a target in the sky that is much easier to photograph because it is big and bright but most importantly it does not take multiple stacked photos or need long exposures.  The Moon is a beautiful target and I have even seen some great moon shots just holding an iphone camera to an eyepiece and snapping the picture.

The moon does not need a long exposure to get a good shot.  Usually you will not need over half a second of exposure and probably much less.  Every photo session is different and  conditions are going to vary.   Variables include the phase of the moon, the camera ISO, the base aperture, the sky conditions, and even where in the sky the moon is located.  There will be some trial and error to determine the best exposure.

This chart is a simple starting point on where you might start an exposure setting.  This is only a starting point to give you an idea of ballpark you will be in.  In my example pictures below I actually used an ISO 200  setting (instead of ISO 400) and my exposures were much shorter than in the chart.  I want to emphasize that the chart is nothing more than a guide to start with.  The atmospheric conditions, the telescope or lens, the camera, the ISO, and the position of the moon in the sky are all going to change the shutter speed you will need.

There is one trick I learned when shooting the moon that can really help out.  Most DSLR cameras will be able to bracket.  Go ahead and set your camera to whatever setting you are going to shoot your target.   In my case, I chose ISO 200 and a 1/200s shutter speed for a moon that is a little over half full.  Then put the camera in bracket mode and hold the trigger.  Bracket mean the camera will take a picture using the settings you wanted, but if you keep taking pictures it will add over and under exposed pictures.  In other words it will give a picture on each side of the original shutter speed.  My camera will only do a series of 3 photos.  So if I am in bracket mode and push the trigger 3 times I will get the expected picture (1/200s), an overexposed picture (1/50s) and one underexposed picture (1/800s).  The over and under exposed pictures are only over and under relative to the original picture settings.

Nikon D90 "BKT" button in middle of side camera

View when "BKT" button is depressed.  3 photos per bracketed session.

Bracketing helps find the right exposure quicker because the camera is automatically giving you three data points instead of you manually adjusting settings.  In my example the original setting does not look too bad.  The overexposed clearly looks washed out.  I personally like the underexposed the best as it shows detail a little better in my eyes.  The bracketing is a nice tool to see that my shutter speed should be somewhere between 1/200s and 1/800s and helps me quickly narrow down where my optimal shutter speed should be on a particular night.

Overexposed bracket photo ISO 200 1/50s

Original setting ISO 200 1/200 s

Underexposed bracket photo ISO 200 1/800 s

The Drone Bug

My son received a remote control helicopter last Christmas as a gift.  One winter afternoon, he asked if we could fly it. We charged the battery and went outside to try it out.  The next thing I know, I had run the battery dry before even giving my patient son a try.  I apologized when I realized how selfish I had been with his helicopter and we charged the battery back up so he could have a turn.

I never expected to have so much fun with a remote control helicopter.   I stated to research remote control helicopters and ultimately I saw the word "drone" and "quad" popping up more than helicopters.  I did more reading and saw a complicated landscape.  There were drones in all sizes, colors and costs and with all of the choices came just as many questions on the policies surrounding drone use.

We can touch on those another time, but for now my interest was peaked and I decided to try out a relatively inexpensive drone.  My first drone (sadly not the last) was a Syma X12.  This a "nano quad" drone which means it is very small, but maintains the same basic design of the many drones on the market today with 4 rotors.  Since it is so small, the battery is not removable and you hook a usb charger right up to the drone itself to charge it.   The battery life is pretty dismal at 5-7 minutes of flight time.   One of the benefits of the the small size is that it can be flown in the house.  In the house is where I recommend you fly it since any air currents can send it in unexpected directions.

While battery life is bad and controlling this nano quad is tough, if you learn to fly this little guy then flying a larger drone will be much easier when you upgrade.  If your'e into model aircraft, drones are the way of the future and very inexpensive models like the the Syma X12 can give you a taste of what the drone craze is all about.  Just expect to have many crashes in your future.

GMO Changing the World: Golden Rice

When you think about carrots what is the first thought that comes to mind?  I think of a snowman's nose first.  The second thing I think about is it will make my eyesight better according to the stories I heard growing up as a kid.  While probably not entirely true, it is a good tale to make kids eat their vegetables.  The tale originated from the fact that carrots are a source for your body to make Vitamin A which is associated with eye health.  In reality, carrots are full of beta-carotene which causes the orange color.  When we eat a carrot or other vegetable with beta-carotene our bodies can convert it to vitamin A.

Vitamin A is an important vitamin and in many parts of Africa and some other parts of the world, Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is a real problem.  VAD can cause blindness and death.  Children are especially susceptible to VAD when their diets are not sufficient.  According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 250 million preschool children are Vitamin A deficient. WHO also states on their site that an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin A deficiency children become blind every year with half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight.  All of these cases are preventable if only vitamin A was available in their diets.

This is when we are thankful for the people that take the time to help the world.   Over and over in history when great minds get together then great solutions are realized.  That is what happened when Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer invented Golden Rice.  Golden Rice is a transgenic crop in which genes from another species were inserted into the rice genome.   These genes were part of the beta-carotene biosynthesis pathway found in other species like daffodils.  In essence, rice would make beta-carotene and when ingested, the body had a way to make Vitamin A.    Let's go back to the carrot.  A carrot is orange and so you can probably guess what happens when rice starts making beta-carotene.  It turns orange!

http://www.goldenrice.org/index.php  (Golden rice on right)

Golden Rice continues to improve and Golden Rice 2 now exists that provides even higher levels of beta-carotene by using a gene from maize.  One of the reasons Golden Rice has advanced to where it is today is due to the help of Syngenta.  Syngenta and other biotech companies seem to get a bad rap in some circles who see them as the big corporations doing anything they wish.  The original inventors of Golden Rice realized they had a great invention, but they needed help in some other areas to continue to develop the rice.  Syngenta helped develop Golden Rice and Golden Rice 2 and then donated the events to the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board.  Syngenta did not keep the line for themselves for profit, but instead donated it for the good of the world.   The biotech companies are nothing more than people and these people care about the betterment of the world.

Golden Rice is a success story that can change the world.   It can provide children and adults the Vitamin A they need through their diet.  Some time is still needed before it is widely available in all the countries that desperately need it.  It also still faces resistance from some groups simply because it is GMO.

When something is proven safe and can prevent VAD for hundreds of thousands of people how can you really be against it?  It blows my mind.   There are all kinds of great resources on Golden Rice that go into much more detail.  Check out http://www.goldenrice.org/index.php for lots more information on Golden Rice and spread the word about stories like Golden Rice the next time someone opposes GMOs.


Resources:
http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/vad/en/

Fun Science: Film Canister Rockets

Kids love science projects especially when something explodes or goes in the air.  Science projects for kids get them excited in science while making teaching fun.  Here is an easy experiment for kids.

Step 1:  Gather the supplies.  Only three things are needed for this project:  water, film canisters, and Alka-Seltzers.  I found a bag of 15 film canisters on amazon.com for very cheap.  Alka-Seltzers can be found at any drug store.

Step 2;  Take the top off the film canister and fill it about one-fourth full of water.  Grab one Alka-Seltzer tablet and drop it in the canister with water.  Quickly put the cap back on the canister and place the canister cap-side on the ground.   Now just step back and wait.

Carbon Dioxide gas builds up and Boom!  Have fun with this one.

Astrophotography: Attempt 1

I was getting excited.   I now had a telescope and I had a Nikon D90 DSLR camera.  Hooking the camera to the telescope, pointing the scope towards the sky, and taking an awesome pictures should be easy.  I was about to find out that astrophotography is not easy at all.    The biggest challenge is the stars do not stay stationary in the sky.   Everything is moving or rotating in space including the Earth, the moon, and even the galaxies themselves.    Astrophotography requires long exposures in order to capture all of that light from an object light years away.  If you keep your camera pointed on a star for too long then the camera will actually capture the star's change in position.  Instead of  a pin point star, the star will be a line of light.  This is called a star trail and is not something we want to see when trying to image a deep sky object.

Special mounts are available to compensate for the movement where essentially the camera and telescope moves exactly as the stars do in the sky.  When I attempted my first photo, I just had a simple aluminum tripod mount.  Since I didn't have a fancy mount, my only other solution was to take a LOT of short exposures object.  Short exposures are not long enough to show any star's change in position and would keep the star trails away.

I decided I was going to see if I could at least get some kind of picture with my simple set-up.  I found the constellation Cassiopeia.  Constellations are like landmarks in the sky to help find other objects in the sky.  Cassiopeia points right to Andromeda, the closest galaxy to the Milky Way.   It is big and I was hoping for my first picture of it no matter how bad that might be.

http://earthsky.org/tonight/cassiopeia-the-queen-also-points-to-andromeda-galaxy

I found the smudge of light in the eyepiece of the telescope that was Andromeda and then started taking one second exposures.   A short exposure is not the best way to get a good image.  The longer the exposure, the stronger the signal and the stronger the signal the better detail you will get.   I knew one second exposures was not great but I was going to take a bunch of them and see what happened.  Since the galaxy was moving in the sky I had to constantly keep centering the image in the camera and taking a new exposure.  I took 300 one second exposure pictures and loaded them up on the computer to see what I would see..

I took all 300 photos and stacked them to get my first ever picture of an object in space.  It was pretty bad actually, but I was excited.  It showed me that I had a lot of learning and work to do, but I was hooked on exploring the beauty that we cannot see without a camera hooked to a telescope.

A poor attempt at imaging Andromeda galaxy

Board Gaming: One Night Ultimate Werewolf

I love boardgames and they have come a long way since the classics like Monopoly or Sorry!   A new era of boardgames have now arrived and there are so many good ones.  Sometimes you need a game that accommodates a large crowd,  is quick, is easy to learn, and most importantly is fun.  One Night Ultimate Werewolf is that game.


In this game, 3-10 players each take up a role that only they know.  Those roles are either a "Village" role or a "Werewolf" role and are represented by cards.    Players are each dealt a random role card and then 3 other random role cards are placed in a row in the middle of the table.  The game consists of a Night role and a Day role.  Before the game starts, each player looks at their card and places it back in front of them face down.  During the Night phase, all players close their eyes and as the night goes on each player will "wake up" and do or not do an action based on their card.  These actions could be switching one player's card with another, or looking at a center card.  After all players have completed a Night action then the Night phase ends and all players open their eyes.  We are now in the Day phase, and it is up to the players to discuss and figure out who is who with the goal to find out which player(s) are the werewolf.  Players decide on a time limit to deliberate.  We always set a time for 5 minutes and at the end of 5 minutes everyone points to a player.  The player with the most votes dies.  If the voted player was a werewolf then all the villagers win.  If all the players who were werewolves were not chosen and live then the werewolf team wins.

The role cards included in the game

The hardest part of the game is remembering what you need to do at what time for each role.  The game simplifies this by adding an app on your phone or tablet.   You can download the ultimate werewolf app on android or apple app stores.  You simply choose which cards you are using in the game and push play.  The app narrates and gives you directions like when to close your eyes, what you do when your role comes up at night, and when everyone can open their eyes again.  Then a timer starts and the app tells you to vote at the end of the 5 minutes.   The app lets you change narration voice and the timer amount.

Screenshot of the app

The game plays in 5-8 minutes.  You will spend another 5 minutes just talking and laughing about how the game went.  The game relies on some quick thinking and bluffing especially if you are a werewolf.  Information is valuable, but you have to be careful when and what you say.  The kids absolutely love this game as well.  Even my 5 year old thinks its a blast and is better than I imagined keeping his eyes closed during the night phase.

The one and only criticism I have is that some roles involve looking at another player's card or switching two player's cards during the Night phase.  Everyone else may have their eyes closed, but if you are in a squeaky chair or not careful, it can be easy to hear a loud player conducting an action.  Some music or other ambient noise can help out with this.

If you need a game that plays quick for a large group, I highly recommend checking this game out.

The GMO Scientists - Who Are They?

I did a quick google image search of "GMO scientist" and here is an example of a picture that shows up.  This one was from Shutterstock and shows a  scientist injecting vegetables with a syringe of  a colored solution.  The scientist has a mask on his face to imply that the colored solution must be some dangerous stuff.  This picture sums up what a lot of people imagine when they think of GMOs.   If you search for GMO information, these types of pictures outnumber legitimate information by a large margin.   Even though the picture is a pure farce, it put a negative first impression in the minds of anyone who is searching.  If I know nothing about GMOs and these are the first images I see, I naturally start to question and become uneasy on the topic of GMOs.



Yet this picture could not be farther from the truth.  I make genetically modified plants and injecting colored water into a plant is not how I do it (more on that on another day).  The other shocking fact is that I am not dressed up in some biohazard suit because what I do is dangerous.

I admit I did not know much about GMO food growing up either.  I grew up on a farm where my dad grew sweet corn and my grandfather grew strawberries.  As a kid I remember having a friend over and pretending the the corn fields were a maze to run through.   The strawberries were pieces of red candy that I would fill up on every May afternoon after school.  I did not think much about food, how it was grown, or the work that went into growing it.  My ignorance continued until one day in 1999 I had a taste of how cruel people can be.

I had decided to pursue my Master's degree in Crop and Soil Environmental Science.  There was a Virginia Tech research station not far from my hometown where I was going to do my research.  My research was on a virus called Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV).  This virus causes tobacco leaves to become mottled and deformed which reduces the quality and yield of tobacco that has the disease.  I was looking for new sources of resistance to TMV from other non-cultivated species of tobacco.  This meant I grew thousands of small pots of tobacco plants, inoculated them with the virus, and did a genetic study to see if any plants would resist the virus.  I had two greenhouses full of tobacco plants when I received a phone call from my adviser one Sunday night.

When that call came through I had just gotten back from a vacation with my family.  Life was good and my research was going well.  It is funny how your life (especially an emotional 21 year old) can flip upside down in a matter of moments.   The call from my adviser told me that someone had broken in the greenhouses and destroyed all my plants.  This was almost half a year of work that was destroyed in moments.  I did not know what to say or what to do.  Questions popped through my head in quick spurts.  Why would someone do that?  Can I still graduate on time?  How can I fix this?

I went to bed in shock and went to the research station the next morning to see the damage.  I used to have pictures, but I have misplaced them.  When I toured the greenhouse the glass was broken to allow entry.  My shock went to anger.  Before the vandalism, my tobacco plants were spaced side by side in in jiffy pots by the hundreds.  Instead of tobacco plants, I just saw footprints where people had systematically walked over every single plant smashing the jiffy pot, soil, and plants into a blob of mud in the water in which everything was sitting.

The research station I was working at did all kinds of research.  They were primarily a tobacco breeding station, but also worked on forage grasses, fruits, and berries.  Another project they were working on was a collaboration with a small start-up company that wanted to use GMO tobacco for the production of a medicine.  There were some small plots of this GMO tobacco on the station and evidently there were some people that did not agree with the project.

Come to find out the station was targeted because of the GMO tobacco from that small start-up.  Those plots were destroyed as well.  They had taken scythes and mowed it down.  It was our and the police's assumption these vandals had thought my plants were GMO as well and I had gotten caught in the crossfire of their hatred.

I spent days cleaning up the mess.  I had to gather all of the broken pots, plants, and mud up and discard it.  I relined all the bays with new plastic.  Thousands of new jiffy pots were filled back up with soil.  New tobacco seed was germinated and transplanted to the jiffy pots.  In the end, I managed to graduate on time, but a new world had been opened.  A world in which there were people in the world that used hatred and vandalism to distill fear and negative publicity towards GMOs.

The police never found out or caught the people that destroyed my plants.  These vandals came in thinking they accomplished their mission, but the only thing they did was make me want to find out more about GMOs.  Why would someone resort to such violence over plants?  They did not have their intended result with me.  Instead I became more interested in GMOs and understanding what they were and how they can hopefully change the world.  I have made transgenic plants for 13 years and believe in what I do and the safety of what I and the businesses hope to deliver.

The picture of the crazy scientist above is not a picture of who we, that work in biotech, really are.  We are ordinary people that have families.  I have 3 kids and the safety of my kids is more important than anything, just like anyone with kids will relate to.  I am not going to feed my kids something I do not think is safe and yet they eat GMO food every day of their life.  We are people and we care.  We care that the population is growing and will need more food.  We care that water is becoming more scarce and crops are harder to irrigate.  We care about finding solutions to help farmers have better yields.

The anti-GMO propaganda is everywhere from the same type of people that destroyed my plants all those years ago.  Instead of buying into that propaganda, find out who we really are and what we really do.  It is a transgenic world and there is nothing scary or unsafe about that.