Food Inc.

What's going on in America's kitchen?

This is an interesting video. Helped me take another step to reducing my ignorance. Didn't think the gloomy music was entirely necessary but overall a good flick...

Our government has been dominated by the industries that were meant to be regulated. People with expertise in industry some how turn out to be very good regulators.
Centralized power used against farmers, workers, consumers.
Veggie libel laws. Cheeseburger bills. Kevin's law.
It costs more to eat healthy. The carrots need to cost less than the chips.
Eat foods that are in season.
Only eat beef once a week.
Shop at farmer's markets.
Grow a garden.
We have to start demanding good wholesome food.

It was interesting to learn the impact corn has. Cows should not be forced to eat corn.

Contributing Author

Scientific Papers of which I am a contributing Author.

Full-length Characterization of Proteins in Human Populations.
C-peptide microheterogeneity in type 2 diabetes populations.
Population Studies of Vitamin D Binding Protein Microheterogeneity by Mass Spectrometry Lead to Characterization of its Genotype-Dependent O-Glycosylation Patterns.
Population Studies of Intact Vitamin D Binding Protein by Affinity Capture ESI-TOF-MS.

The Greats

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Romantic-era_composers

This is a good wikipedia article that lists many of the well-known composers from the 18th and 20th centuries.

Its nice to hear a tune from Beethoven, Pachelbel, Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky and Chopin. Unfortunately, this is almost the extent of my knowledge of good classical music.

Fast Genome Sequencing

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/1005/revolutionaries-science-genomics-gene-machine.html

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/140/the-gene-bubble.html

How much time and money has been spent on figuring out how to sequence the human genome? It was completed in 2001 and surprisingly humans only have ~25,000 genes. That's 3.5 billion bases. Nowadays many scientists are trying to do it faster and cheaper but to what avail? Even after a fast and cheap method of sequencing the human genome is developed we are many years away from knowing how it will cure diseases.

Dr. Weil - Integrative Medicine

This is the way medicine should be. Take a look at mind, body, and spirit - a hollistic approach. Why not first use natural healing sources, plants and our own body, then look to conventional medicine. There are many natural treatments available that may have not gone through rigorous clinical trials but are nonetheless beneficial, he says, "The greater the potential of a treatment to cause harm the stricter the standards of evidence that should be held for efficacy".

http://www.drweil.com/

Whey protein

What exactly is whey protein? Is it that beneficial? Does one manufacturer really differ from another? How much of it can the body utilize/absorb? Is casein bad for you? What amino acids should be in high quantity in the whey protein you buy?

Google search: whey protein composition or amino acid composition

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

http://www.wheyoflife.org/faq.cfm#1

http://classes.ansci.illinois.edu/ansc438/Milkcompsynth/milkcomp_protein.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/a-cure-for-cancer-eating_b_298282.html

Milk proteins contain whey protein and casein. Whey protein is mainly composed of beta-lactoglobulin, alpha-lactalbumin, and bovine serum albumin. The amino acid sequence can be found here. http://www.expasy.ch/

Books I've read recently

Shopclass as Soulcraft

There are serious unexpected ramifications for taking shopclass out of the public school system. My dad is a shop teacher at Powell Jr. High so this book caught my attention. It is intellectually stimulating. The author is a motorcycle mechanic with a Ph.d. in political philosophy.

The New Glucose Revolution

Control your health and weight sensibly and scientifically.

Reflections of Christ #2

http://anothertestamentofchrist.com/

Health Care Reform

http://radicalprescription.com/

What is the answer? Lower costs and reestablish a proper relationship between doctor and patient . This can be done effectively and logically. This website gives radically simple and straight to the point solutions. Instead of asking if a socialized or nationalized system will work, ask if our current nationalized program is working. It is not. Obama has required the white house to read Atul Gawande's article about the medicare corruption in McAllen, Texas. The problem with this article is that physicians are not subprime-mortgage lenders and patients are not profit centers. "Single-payer proponents (largely the political left) draw their arguments from a paper by McKinsey & Company. Single-payer opponents (largely the political right) point to a report by Benjamin Zycher for the Manhattain Institute. It argues that a single-payer system would increase costs". Both of these approaches are insufficient to say the least.

Inappropriate but funny (and interesting from an etymological point of view)

Synonyms for toilet:

ablution, bedpan, bog, can, chamber, chamber pot, chemical closet, comfort station, commode, earth closet, garderobe, head, hopper, jerry, john, johnny, johnny house, Jordan, latrine, lavatory, loo, pot, privy, throne, thunder mug.

I'm going to…

build an underwater log cabin'..

consult with Take-Two!

cut some cord.

Drain the main vein

Drain the trouser snake

drop some wood.

Drop the kids off at the pool

drown the seamonster!

Empty the barrel

float a boat.

get a grip on one.

go deep sea diving.

go for a grunt.

go make a stinky.

go pinch a loaf.

go prarie dogin.

lay a little cable.

Lighten the load

lube up the rusty star fish.

make a deposit.

my office.

Parallel park my breakfast

Point percy at the porcelain

relax the kitten

see a man about a horse.

see the vicar

shake the presidents hand

shoot some torpedo’s.

strain the spuds

take a stock market!

take the browns to the super bowl.

Take the kids to the pool

the bog - I've got Frenchman's breath.

The dogs barking at the gate

the Thinking Tank

throw another log on the fire.

What I do for work

We immobilize an antibody to the affinity pipette which then allows us to extract the protein from human plasma or urine. This allows us to assess variations in human proteins among and within

populations using mass spectrometry. It can facilitate

clinical proteomics in discovery and validation of protein biomarkers

that can be used for early diagnosis of

cancer, monitoring of disease progression, and assessment

of therapy.

http://www.populationproteomics.org/docs/Nedelkov%20et%20al%20MCP%202006.pdf

Secrets Revealed

I never thought this moment would come but here it is. I've made fun of many people for a long time for creating blogs but I've just realized how I can benefit. I intend to use it as an online journal to keep tract of random facts I find interesting. I image it may evolve into a lot more than that. Maybe I'll post my opinions on various subjects...I'll call it "The Jason Daily - Secrets Revealed" or "An Ignoramus's View of the World" or "Jason - Exposed". If you want to know what goes on in my small brain you can check out my blog!

Longest solar eclipse today (India)

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/07/the_longest_solar_eclipse_of_t.html

Vitamins and Politics

Have you ever been confused about reccomended daily intake values of vitamins and minerals? Don't know what international units (IU's) are? Check out this website, http://www.dietitian.com/vitamins.html and this one, http://www.netrition.com/rdi_page.html and maybe this one, http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/ but remember the government has some incorrect DRI values, e.g. Vitamin C.

Ever wondered what is really going on with US politics? This is an interesting nonpartisan video, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7886780711843120756 but be careful not to fall in the rabbit hole.