Chocolate addiction is definitively global

In December, scientists unlocked the genetic code of  Theobroma cacao aka chocolate.The article from Nature genetics is fascinating. Criollo Cocoa is from Central America. Our dear chocolate went through 3000 years of domestication. From the Mayas to our supermarkets, cocoa has changed to vigorous and productive hybrids.  In this evolution, we lost the fine flavor of chocolate from the Criollo varieties. According to the article: “Fine-cocoa production is nevertheless estimated to be less than 5% of the world cocoa production due to the low productivity and disease susceptibility of the traditional fine-flavor cocoa varieties. Therefore, breeding of improved Criollo varieties is important for sustainable production of fine-flavor cocoa.”

Of course, 18 European countries did partner with CIRAD (a research agency designed to help developing countries develop their agricultural industries) for the love of cocoa. Today, Ivory Coast cocoa farmers are protesting against the UN sanctions by burning cocoa beans. Ivory Coast is the biggest cocoa producer in the world.  Farmers are losing their wages while cocoa has been at highest trading price for a year. This is done for the love of politics.

It seems that in 3000 years of domestication, nothing has changed. For the Mayas, cocoa trees were sacred and beans were used as currency.  Cocoa beans traveled from central America to Europe thanks to Christophe Colomb. The democratization of chocolate in Europe went along with chocolate slavery. The globalization of the chocolate markets goes with economic slavery. And our annual global binging of 3.7 million tons of cocoa comes with many genetics breeding and political manipulations. As a child our parents often told us to never forget that some children working in the cocoa fields never tasted chocolate. I know that fair trade is a drop in the ocean but sometimes a little is all we need to survive. Chocolate addiction is definitively global!!!

Astrobiology and Space Exploration by Lynn Rothschild

I got this link about Astrobiology from the Loom on Discover. 

It is a Free winter 2010 course from Stanford!!! 

A free access to 14 lectures about Astrobiology and Space Exploration by Lynn Rothschild!!Thank you to Lynn Rothschild! 

Let us explore…

Same Moonlight for our Dreams

"Lynn Rothschild is an evolutionary biologist-astrobiologist at NASA's Ames Research Center and a consulting professor at Stanford and Brown Universities where she teaches Astrobiology and Space Exploration. Dr. Rothchild's research has focused on how life, particularly microbes, has evolved in the context of the physical environment on Earth and potentially elsewhere in the solar system and universe."

Here

Learn from your DNA with 23andme

I was reading the article " One diabetes gene to explain it all". The author did talk about 23and me. And you know what, they are having a holiday sale!!! Yes you can have your DNA tested for health or ancestry at $99 instead of $499.Until December 25. There is a tiny asterisk about an extra $5 for 12 months subscription. So it is really  $159 total. To be honesty, the idea of knowing is so tempting...Seriously your DNA unveiled...
I had to share!

"23andMe, Inc. is a leading personal genetics company dedicated to helping individuals understand their own genetic information through DNA analysis technologies and web-based interactive tools. The company's Personal Genome Service™ enables individuals to gain deeper insights into their ancestry and inherited traits. The vision for 23andMe is to personalize healthcare by making and supporting meaningful discoveries through genetic research. 23andMe, Inc., was founded in 2006, and the company is advised by a group of renowned experts in the fields of human genetics, bioinformatics and computer science."

Stone Baby-Lithopedion

This post is for my dear father. At seven, I knew everything about natural childbirth. Sometimes I would see mothers give birth squatting in the hospital hallways. Childbirth was beautiful, real and so unreal. One day, I found out that my father did operated on a woman with a stone baby. Of course I begged him to let me see that stone baby. After seeing the stone baby,I was sad and amazed by biology. My dad told me that for decades the dead baby was in her belly, it became stone to protect her from infection. My dad was my super hero, he is a super hero. I told him that the stone baby looked more like a frozen chicken.  And when my dad ask for my treasure box to store his lithopedion. I felt like he made me his most valuable assistant. I was proud and more understanding of his passion for medicine.And when we moved, we took the stone baby with us. It became part of our family. I associated that stone baby with my father passion for medicine and it helped me  forgive his absences.Papa, I love you. You are the best!!!
More on Lithopedion

Stone Baby by Chad Nelson  

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

I finished it!!! It is an exquisite, sublime, deep and  rich novel. I want to thanks Emily and Katie for sharing this amazing book with me. It is better than a great movie. It is a learning experience with all the crispiness and crunchiness of  life. On top of it you have science, medicine and diseases. I was in heaven!!I grew up in hospitals and like many among us, I wanted to be a doctor. The author captured so many of my memories about sickness, death, migrations,exile and hope.It shows how intimacy is so powerful and mysterious. It is a great great novel, good job Dr Verghese!
"Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa. Orphaned by their mother’s death in childbirth and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution. Yet it will be love, not politics — their passion for the same woman — that will tear them apart and force Marion, fresh out of medical school, to flee his homeland. He makes his way to America, finding refuge in his work as an intern at an underfunded, overcrowded New York City hospital. When the past catches up to him — nearly destroying him — Marion must entrust his life to the two men he thought he trusted least in the world: the surgeon father who abandoned him and the brother who betrayed him.An unforgettable journey into one man’s remarkable life, and an epic story about the power, intimacy, and curious beauty of the work of healing others."

Life is an infinite sequence of bridges.

In high school mathematics had a huge place in my life.
I had dreams and nightmares full of numbers, trigonometry, sequences, series, geometry, and signs to the infinite. It was a constant struggle with victories and defeats. I was looking at mathematics as a reflection of my life. If I could not overcome difficulties and find the solution, I will never accomplish my dreams. I was not a brilliant student just smart and hardworking. And math was like a divine test that will predict which schools or programs will accept me. My future depended on mathematics. The best advice I had was from a teacher. He said that math is a reflection of my confidence that I have to work hard and trust myself because he believed in me. Bless his heart for that! 

My sophomore year in college; I was determined to thrive in math. So I could  prove to myself that I will be more than fine in life. And I did very well. For the first time I blossomed under that mathematical breeze. However I foolishly neglected other subjects because I desperately needed to conquer math's hills just once. Nevertheless nothing can take that victory away from me. 
And I realized that life was an infinite sequence of bridges. It is a succession of events that we do not control but we use probabilities to predict our actions. When we are young it is all about randomness and we learn from the results, then we know what to expect and predict more or less with wisdom. However it is a succession of bridges that we must cross because time does not halt for our consideration.
And no matter how you cross each bridge you will cross all of them. Sometimes we do not want to cross because the bridge does not look stable or solid, and we are afraid of the other side. Fog may blur our visibility, or sunshine may glare our sight but we will crossover like others before us. 

Our individual life is a singly infinite sequence but we must remember that Life is a double-infinite sequence. It means that “it has neither a first nor a final element”. So we must be gentle with ourselves and remember that we are children of the Universe. We must enjoy each step of the process and still believe, hope, dream, and keep faith.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Bridge
Pics:Uploaded on December 11, 2009 by Tall Guy

What about: How the Earth was formed?

This "what about" series  are for and from my seven years old son. Now that we have the continents down. He asked about the formation of Earth. And he wanted to know the cool details. Here is more for your little ones,when collision, accretion, and plaques tectonics are not enough to explain speculation of the early  Earth formation.  After my brief explanation, he said "Maman? The planet Earth is a giant sleepy volcano,made of hot hot lava, explosions can happen and God knows what happened for real". Well, I am definitively subscribing to few science magazines, such as Odyssey and Ask. Until that time I want to thank You tube...
 Enjoy!

Water Pasteurization Indicator (WAPI)

Some moons ago, I was a student of Dr. Metcalf. And I did learn about WAPI (Water Pasteurization Indicator). Dr. Metcalf, one of the original founders of Solar Cookers International (SCI). Solar Cookers International (SCI) is nonprofit, non-governmental organization that spreads solar cooking awareness and skills worldwide. Dr Metcalf did work on solar water pasteurization and solar cookers in developing countries. He did demonstrated that contaminated water need only be heated to 65° C to make it safe to drink, whereas it is commonly thought that water has to be boiled for up to 20 minutes to render it safe. So heating the water with a WAPI to 65° C (149° F) will pasteurize the water and kill disease causing microbes. The WAPI (Water Pasteurization Indicator) is a reusable, affordable thermometer using a wax which melts at 68˚C. 65˚C or 149˚F is the pasteurization temperature for water or milk, at which point all disease-causing organisms (bacteria, viruses, and parasites) are killed. Solar Pasteurization kills Giardia, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, cholera, typhoid, Shigella bacteria, rotavirus, and Hepatitis A virus. His PowerPoint presentation was impressive and interesting. Thanks to Petri film, he developed a portable microbiology lab and all the component fits in one medium plastic bag!!

Blue Gold from Sea water

 Summer is finally here! Along with the sunshine come the heat and the thirst that only fresh water can quench. Water is essential to life. It is the most precious commodity. Our need for water is infinite but our fresh water supply is finite. Even with his famous maxim: "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”, Mr. Antoine Lavoisier did learn from the philosopher Anaxagoras of Presocrats Clazomènes. He wrote to the 5th century BC that: "Nothing arises nor perishes, but already things are combined and then separate again.” The concept of conservation of energy is very old but we are still wasting our water.

From Earth to Space water is all we need. In Africa, severe droughts are venomously feeding civil wars, killing crops, and pushing people into exile for survival. Last month geologists stated that global warming was endangering the Lake Tanganyika. It is one of the planet’s most ancient and deepest lakes. It also happened to be one of the richest freshwater ecosystems in the world. And people all over south central Africa depend on fishing from Lake Tanganyika. So hunger and thirst will keep on preying throughout Africa.

However let’s not forget that "Nothing arises nor perishes, but already things are combined and then separate again.” That is why I am pledging every day to follow Mandela’s dynamic of forgiveness instead of dwelling on colonialism, imperialism, and their environmental degradation consequences. Yes, yes it was, it is but we are now and we must change. It is necessary to express emotions but actions of change will benefit North, South, East, West, Earth, them and us. And like Mandela said "Time is always right to do right".

Until that day, Engineers from UCLA proposed a new class of reverse-osmosis membranes for desalination. This membrane resists the clogging that happens when seawater, brackish water and waste water are purified. They are also working on bring that technology to the real world. One day, we will have Blue Gold from Sea water to quench our thirst, to water our crops and to keep on living. I am toasting to Blue Gold for all. A votre santé!!

Ecological economics after Island Volcanic ashes

In The Time, Europe's biggest tour operator reported that Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano has cost the firm $30 million. Each day did cost about 9 millions. Five days later the airfares are high. International airfares were pricey now they will be probably spicy, despite the Directorate General of Civil Aviation warning airlines against high fares. Globalization without airplanes is painful. For example Kenyan farmers have lost about $2 million a day on exported flowers for Europe. In contrast hotels, boats and buses benefit from this natural disaster. Worldwide airlines were facing a $2.8 billion in loss. Now they have to add 60,000 canceled flights.

On top of this, research scientists are telling us that global effects are unlikely. But at the same time, Icelandic Volcanoes can be unpredictable and dangerous. And if we use history has an indicator, Island’s volcanic activity in the 1783 caused major global climatic changes. It will be interesting to see what will happen.UCS climate scientist Brenda Ekwurzel said  that “Climate change isn’t just about the Earth’s thermostat. It’s about rapidly shifting our climate in ways we might not even be able to fully anticipate. The prudent thing to do is dramatically reduce our emissions to avoid finding out just how bad climate change could become."So let’s pray, then try to deal with the emission of released carbon dioxide, and find a way to balance our ecological economics. By the way Eyjafjallajokull means “the island's mountain glacier”

Please go to http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=88931.
Another point of view:
Great article about " a No Fly day".
(JOHANNESBURG, 26 April 2010 (IRIN) - Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano - unlike Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991, the 20th century's second largest eruption - will not contribute to climate change; on the contrary, by grounding flights over Europe for almost a week it helped save thousands of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions....The SO2 is converted into sulphate aerosol - droplets of highly concentrated sulphuric acid - which has a "long lifetime and reflects solar radiation". Reduced solar radiation lowers temperatures and changes atmospheric circulation patterns, but the "Icelandic eruption emitted 5,000 times less SO2 than Pinatubo, so there will be no detectable climate effect", Stenchikov said.)

From Dreams to Relativity theory: Albert Einstein

Today it is Albert Einstein's Birthday. 
Even if he was searching for laws that explain more of the universe. He was aware that it is all relative.

My favorite quotes from Albert Einstein:

• "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle;you can live as if everything is a miracle.” 
• "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." 

• "One cannot help but be in awe [one] contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structures of reality." 

• "The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our action, Our inner balances and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life." 
  

			http://txtwriter.com/Bookshelf/bookreviews/Einsteinsdreams.html
			EINSTEIN'S DREAMS Alan Lightman. Warner Books, New York, 1994.