tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88529852012-01-10T15:37:33.826-05:00Steve Mount's personal and political views.<br>For science, see "<a href="http://ongenetics.blogspot.com">On Genetics</a>".Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.comBlogger741100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-62631199198931065262011-08-13T17:29:00.005-04:002011-08-14T10:25:10.657-04:00

I recently purchased an Alfa 1000mW 1W 802.11b/g USB Wireless WiFi Network Adapter from (also known as ASUW036H) from Amazon.  I posted a review there but it has not appeared, and I'm not sure it will, so I'm repeating the main points here.  The bottom line is that while it works, it is not easy to install and it won't work on future versions of the Mac OS. Recently, the signal from my home wifi

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-48840653496962837032011-08-13T11:00:00.001-04:002011-08-13T11:00:43.530-04:00

Yesterday, after I downloaded WinRAR (from Cnet, here), I found that I had also installed something called StartNow, a toolbar for my browsers that also changed my home page on both Chrome and Firefox. StartNow installed immediately after WinRAR  I did some searches and found that this has happened to others. What is strange about this case?  A few things.  First, both CNET and WinRAR have

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-79285643476356908652011-08-07T22:04:00.011-04:002011-08-22T06:03:48.029-04:00

The July 20 cover of the Brazilian news magazine Veja. A rough translation: "Taxes, currency exchange, the abundance of credit, oligopolies and consumer optimism combine to make Brazil one of the most expensive countries in the world." Janet and I have been tourists in expensive places before.  Paris, and Scandanavia in 2007 (especially Iceland) come to mind.  Brazil was never like this. 

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-55569645742408935702011-08-07T01:00:00.003-04:002011-08-07T01:03:38.026-04:00

I recently returned from my first-ever visit to the Amazon.  One thing that I noticed right away was the abrupt rising and setting of the sun.  It goes straight up or down, quickly.  This felt, upon my arrival from summer in Maryland, where evenings are long and sunlight lingers, like the flipping of a light switch.  I have an interest in naked-eye astronomy, and one of my favorite books is

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-89326578338471085032010-11-14T08:44:00.006-05:002010-11-14T10:10:47.072-05:00

From the Economist (A Russo-Japanese tiff):On November 1st President Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian leader to visit the [Russian-occupied, but contested, Kurile] islands, less than two weeks before he flies to Japan for an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. To rub in more salt, he posted Twitter snapshots of Kunashiri island and added: “How many beautiful places there are

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-76107073611638265982010-07-31T16:10:00.010-04:002010-08-01T10:33:15.565-04:00

Here we go again!It seems like only yesterday (but it was 1999) when it was common knowledge that investing in stocks was safe because, historically, the stock market always goes up. This was an oft-repeated piece of wisdom at the time, and my answer (although I usually kept it to myself) was to point out that it was 24 years between 1929 and when the Dow reached it’s pre-crash level. That’s

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-70970497177500565562010-07-31T13:28:00.004-04:002010-07-31T14:05:03.203-04:00

Some documents are timeless and important. The Kalven Committee's "Report on the University's Role in Political and Social Action," which was written in 1967 by a committee at the University of Chicago, may be one of them. I learned of the Kalven committee report from an interview of Jonathan R. Cole by Cat Warren in the May-June issue of "Academe," the magazine of the American Association of

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-18078521389387602252010-06-28T07:02:00.004-04:002010-06-30T06:34:33.278-04:00

I am married to an anthropologist (Janet Chernela). Last Tuesday, I went with her to AFI in Silver Spring to see a screening of "Secrets of the Tribe," a new documentary by Jose Padilha (whose past work includes "Bus 174" and "Elite Squad"). "Secrets of the Tribe" is a documentary about anthropologists focusing on the controversy surrounding Yanomami researchers. There are some very nice

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-13426321100850360212010-06-06T17:32:00.003-04:002010-06-06T17:48:16.304-04:00

Last weekend, Janet and I dropped in on our friend, Verna Gillis, and the Bradford Graves Sculpture Park. Playfully named "In the Middle of Somewhere," it's actually in Kerhonkson, New York. Although he worked primarily in limestone, what strikes me most is his juxtaposition of different stones with varied texture.I was also impressed by the setting (it was late afternoon on a beautiful day),

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-18352774516788171762010-05-26T07:14:00.004-04:002010-05-26T07:35:38.116-04:00

Janet and I attended the opening of the Maryland Women's Heritage Center yesterday. The official public opening is set to take place Saturday, June 19 (We were there as guests of our friend Jill Greenberg, the center's executive director.) Yesterday's events included brief speeches by Shoshana Cardin, Francis Glendening, Connie Morella and others. It was an inspiring occasion. It was nice to

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-53147558060236462432009-12-05T12:49:00.011-05:002010-05-04T14:49:48.400-04:00

- Barcelona, from the plane as we approached.I have a sabbatical this semester, and Janet has a research leave, so we're spending about six weeks in Barcelona. I have a visitor's affiliation with Eduardo Eyras, in the GRIB (Research Unit on Bioinformatics), in the PRBB (Parc de Recerca Biomedica de Barcelona). This has turned out to be a great place to be scientifically. Janet is working on

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-18761656008111711442009-11-13T06:33:00.003-05:002009-11-13T06:37:26.953-05:00

A new graphic by Clay Claiborne, Linux Beach Productions November 12, 2009circulate freelyThis arrived today by email. It's certainly something to consider.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-29208287327445256022009-03-07T14:00:00.004-05:002011-08-13T14:16:25.863-04:00

I recently had an adventure with a computer virus (Virtumonde/Vundo!). If I find the time, I'll blog about that separately (the bottom line is that Malwarebytes, run in safe mode, is what finally worked). This post is about the backup that I attempted once everything was working well again. I will discuss Lenovo's "Rescue and Recovery" which I used and Memeo Backup and AutoSync. Lenovo's

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-81584816735135534102009-03-07T11:30:00.000-05:002011-09-22T22:48:31.534-04:00

I found this blog entry in my drafts folder, last edited on March 22, 2008, soon after Obama's signficant speech on race (March 18). I'm not sure what kept me from posting it then, so I'm posting it now. It was a great speech, but it contains two things with which I disagree. The first is in the sentence "But [the story of Barack Obama's ancestors] is a story that has seared into my genetic

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-13216779443310097512008-05-05T00:59:00.010-04:002008-06-02T17:15:46.533-04:00

- Life is an adventure of our own design, intersected by fate in a series of lucky and unlucky accidents.Last Friday night, Janet and I met Sheila at Dukem restaurant on U street before seeing the movie "Patti Smith: Dream of Life," which was shown at the Lincoln theater as part of Filmfest DC. Over the past few years we've seen several excellent movies about aging rock stars (Leonard Cohen's

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-26284400388988834872007-11-30T10:15:00.000-05:002007-12-02T20:28:21.788-05:00

From the New York Times (Nov. 30):The system Facebook introduced this month, called Beacon, is viewed as an important test of online tracking, a popular advertising tactic that usually takes place behind the scenes, where consumers do not notice it. Companies like Google, AOL and Microsoft routinely track where people are going online and send them ads based on the sites they have visited and the

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-74316329456012580182007-11-15T08:25:00.000-05:002007-11-15T16:06:47.982-05:00

A story in yesterday's New York Times about the U.S. Bridge Federation's proposed sanctions against members of the U.S. women's team deserves attention. These women are being punished for holding up a small hand-written sign that says "We did not vote for Bush" at the world bridge championships in Shanghai. The USBF justifies itself by saying that a private organization can "control the speech

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-39217145659487176792007-11-13T23:24:00.000-05:002007-11-13T23:28:04.652-05:00

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-29327818936411566932007-11-10T15:22:00.001-05:002007-11-10T16:21:16.970-05:00

It was interesting to read two related technology articles in Thursday's paper. In the Times, David Pogue reviewed the new T-Mobile Shadow smartphone ("Reaching for Apple, Falling Short"). He loves the phone, but finds it completely ruined by terrible software. "Frankly, Windows Mobile 6 is a mess. Common features require an infinitude of taps and clicks, and the ones you need most are

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-35211470004578616352007-09-19T09:47:00.000-04:002007-09-19T10:12:26.494-04:00

The New York Times archive is now accessible to everyone online.So is the opinion page.This is great news. I had been looking for articles in papers other than the New York Times when I wanted to share them online (by posting, or by sending someone a link via email). That drill (read about something in the Times, find a similar story online in newspaper with open access, and then post or

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-51170361823288445222007-01-22T09:57:00.000-05:002007-01-22T17:03:34.086-05:00

Today's New York Times introduced "Sidebar," a new column on legal issues with "Fair Housing, Free Speech and Choosy Roommates." I'm impressed by the choice of this topic, which is at the confluence of several critical legal issues, and the author, Adam Liptak, does a very good job of explaining that. I suspect that I will become a regular reader of this column. However, his tone in one spot

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-30244703807597274782007-01-07T17:36:00.000-05:002007-01-07T17:45:52.644-05:00

These pictures were taken today (January 7, 2007) near my home in University Park, Maryland.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-60009478532527981642006-12-21T07:22:00.000-05:002006-12-21T07:35:52.198-05:00

I write this before dawn, and I know that the sun will go down again sometime in the middle of my work day. Today is the nadir. The winter solstice will occur today at 7:22 pm. Although I turned in my grades yesterday I am far from finished. The list of unfinished tasks, many urgent, many long overdue, is as long as it has ever been. I look forward to watching it grow shorter as the days

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1152590281273081062006-07-10T23:29:00.000-04:002006-07-11T11:18:58.346-04:00

This weekend, on my first run through the University Park town park after the storm on Tuesday, I noted 8 trees down. All were tulip poplars. Seven were uprooted like the one in our neighbor's yard (the other one had snapped off at 10 ft. or so above the ground). These are very big trees, like the one still standing in front of our house (seen just to the right of the house in the picture at

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1152129474189919012006-07-05T15:48:00.000-04:002006-07-05T17:44:42.523-04:00

We had an incredible thundershower yesterday afternoon that was very hard on our neighborhood. It struck right as the world cup match between Germany and Italy went into overtime (yes, we missed the end). Something extra special happened right around our house. There are six very large trees down within two blocks. The Bradford pear through which the power line to the house runs lost all of

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1151897574420387582006-07-02T23:05:00.000-04:002006-07-02T23:32:54.486-04:00

A few weeks ago Janet and I saw "An Inconvenient Truth", Al Gore's movie about global warming, at the E street cinema. The movie is the first I have seen that is adapted not from a book, a play or a television series, but from a slide show! It was very well done, and did not stretch the truth in ways that I feared it might. For example, while "warming can be predicted accurately based on

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1151771800626669932006-07-01T11:52:00.000-04:002006-07-01T12:36:40.736-04:00

In response to a recent Supreme Court decision, the Republican's are seeking political advantage by attacking the U.S. Constitution and American values directly. You can't make this stuff up! My source is the Washington Post but it's easy to find examples (Ronald A. Cass on Yahoo!, Slate). The decision is available online at the Supreme Court site (Go to opinions/latest slip opinions for the

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1146413197334557332006-04-30T11:18:00.000-04:002006-04-30T12:06:37.396-04:00

I live in University Park, MD, which is in Prince Georges county, the most affluent majority-black county in the country. University Park is a pleasant middle-class community immediately adjacent to both the University of Maryland and Hyattsville. It's a great place to live. It's safe. The azeleas are beautiful this time of year. Many of my neighbors work at the University. I very much like

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1142703784935973162006-03-18T12:40:00.000-05:002006-06-01T00:41:34.176-04:00

All sorts of confusion exists regarding the causes of the end of the cold war. I have always taken the view that setting a good example with regard to the free exchange of ideas and respect for human rights was much more important than Reagan's militarism. Giving credit to the latter for the fall of the Soviet Union has been compared to a rooster taking credit for the dawn. Now, Francis Fukuyama,

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1141313719518326192006-03-02T10:26:00.000-05:002006-03-18T12:46:05.190-05:00

Civilization is characterized by the existence of strong centralized governments that organize society and provide things that are essential for a civilized life. This basic fact of social science stands in contradiction to the neocon philosophy that less government is always preferable. I think that this tension between reality and neocon fantasy helps to explain why the aftermath of hurricane

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1136763382154451192006-01-08T18:27:00.000-05:002006-01-08T18:36:22.156-05:00

I am flattered that photographer Gurinder Osan chose to comment on my post. Certainly, as a wire photographer he often has a job to do and it may be that not all of his photos are art, but this makes it all the more impressive and laudable when they are. I note that the Kashmir photo made the New York Times' "2005: The year in pictures" as the lead world photograph. Also, it is worth noting

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1136740738991154312006-01-08T11:39:00.000-05:002006-01-08T12:21:01.463-05:00

Tom Giovanetti, who is President of the Institute for Policy Innovation, responded to my previous comment. Contrary to his implication, my comment about Ferrara is based entirely upon what he is quoted as saying in the New York Times (since Giovanetti did not address the substance of my remark, I wonder if he actually read it; I can imagine an aide using Google to find and comment on any blog

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1134842612958134902005-12-17T12:56:00.000-05:002005-12-17T13:05:28.260-05:00

An article in today's New York Times caught my eye (Times, Google). It begins with "A senior scholar at the Cato Institute, the respected libertarian research organization, has resigned after revelations that he took payments from the lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for writing columns favoring his client." Isn't this what the Cato Institute, The American Enterprise Institute, and other

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1134842135148493502005-12-17T12:51:00.000-05:002005-12-17T12:55:35.156-05:00

The fall semester is pretty much over, which means that I have a bit more time, so I expect to start blogging more. I say this even though I'm not caught up yet. There are still things on my list I should have done weeks ago, but the treadmill is clearly slowing.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1131511285823285162005-11-08T23:06:00.000-05:002005-11-08T23:41:25.876-05:00

We just saw "Good Night, and Good Luck," which does a good job of showing the democratic tradition of standing up to those who erode our freedoms while claiming to defend them. It is sobering to realize that as scary as McCarthy was, he was only a Senator. Today it is the Vice President who is working to keep torture legal. These policies aid our enemies, and damage the morale of our men and

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1129995797935690382005-10-22T11:40:00.000-04:002005-10-22T11:43:17.986-04:00

The photo that appeared on the front page of the New York Times yesterday is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Both Janet and I first mistook it for a painting. The caption is "A family in northern India had a makeshift tent yesterday, but with wintry weather near a crisis is at hand." The image is a classic composition of mother and child, surrounded by a white billowing tent and

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1129903097622681242005-10-21T09:31:00.000-04:002005-10-21T09:58:17.680-04:00

The Post reports this morning ("Aide says FEMA ignored warnings") that the New Orleans levees were breached on the morning of Monday, Aug. 29, as Katrina passed by. This news has come out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee investigation. I remember very well that the news on Monday evening reported that the levees had held. Only on Tuesday did we learn otherwise

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1125887022165728562005-09-04T22:07:00.000-04:002005-09-04T22:29:53.820-04:00

I have been using DirectNIC for my domain names for a while (see the problems I had in May), and service has been good. Thursday, I discovered that stevemount.org was not getting redirected to www.life.umd.edu/labs/mount/ and discovered the reason. DirectNIC is based in New Orleans. The impressive thing is that they had provided service that long (and it was restored by Saturday morning). So,

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1125191843849312472005-08-27T20:51:00.000-04:002005-08-27T21:17:23.853-04:00

We got a Roomba (robot vacuum cleaner) about six months ago. It does a remarkably good job of cleaning and it's very entertaining (a bit like I imagine having a pet trilobite might be) but I'm discovering that it's not a lot less work because it requires much more maintenance than our vacuum cleaner. This is where the power of blogs comes in (see my previous post). After opening it up for (

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1124933563985554022005-08-24T21:22:00.000-04:002005-08-24T21:32:43.993-04:00

Nature has an editorial in the new issue advocating Connotea and related services for sharing bookmarks. This is clearly something that is coming, but I'm not sure what form will ultimately be popular. I've been sharing my own links and key literature with students and others for while; I've noticed that other people do similar things and I have bookmarked some of them.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1124851258392325452005-08-23T22:28:00.000-04:002005-08-24T21:34:47.640-04:00

I try to stay away from the overtly political pages of the newspapers. Reading them can be a distraction, and it's not good for my digestion. But a recent development in the Cindy Sheehan story has made me angry. Apparently (I don’t listen to them or read them, so this is admittedly based on second-hand information), the Republican attack dogs (Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and other assorted

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1123993737564844592005-08-14T00:24:00.000-04:002005-08-14T00:28:57.573-04:00

The weekend that Janet and I spent in Rio is now two weeks ago, but I just posted the pictures. It's possible that they will be revised once Janet returns from Asia, but perhaps not (she will have new pictures!). My first flight into Rio was on July 14, at dawn, and I watched a layer of clouds stretching out to sea pierced by mountain tops, and then a valley looking like the caldera of an

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1123295359271360882005-08-05T22:11:00.000-04:002005-08-05T22:29:19.276-04:00

'March of the Penguins' is beautiful and romantic, a celebration of the ultimate altruism of parenting set in the beauty of Antarctica.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1123159962063768722005-08-04T08:49:00.000-04:002005-08-04T08:52:42.073-04:00

From the time it came out, everyone has been telling me that The Joy Luck Club is a great book. Janet has used the book for teaching and often refers to stories from it. In her nonfiction memoir, The Opposite of Fate, Amy Tan impressed me very much with her ability to see and articulate the truth of things. Finally, the idea of connections between mothers and daughter, "like stairs, one step

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1123105343353212082005-08-03T17:38:00.001-04:002009-03-07T18:38:32.997-05:00

I have yet to post my comments on Rio, so this is a bit out of order, but brief. I cannot remember the last time that I was away for this long (19 days), and I appear to have passed some sort of threshold regarding familiarity. American money looked a bit odd at first, and I stalled my car the first time I tried to drive it because the clutch action was unfamiliar. I also noticed things in my

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1122738446152095752005-07-30T11:42:00.000-04:002005-08-07T10:58:32.966-04:00

Janet and I spent wonderful week in Barra do Jucu, Espirito Santo, with our friend Lillian DePaula at her house near the beach. Her daughters Carmen and Joanna were visiting and her father, Paulo, lives next door, so we were actually hosted by three generations of a remarkably charming and engaging family. I went into UFES (Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo) with Lillian a few times (

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1122043907322050482005-07-22T10:48:00.000-04:002005-07-22T10:51:47.330-04:00

I spent an enjoyable week in Brasilia while Janet attended the Society for Conservation Biology meetings. It was a special pleasure to run into Eduardo Eizirik, a former student who appears to be doing extremely well in Porto Alegre. Brasilia itself was interesting. There is a political crisis underway, and I was struck by the observation that Brazil still has real news on television. Brasilia

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1121450384660794272005-07-15T13:53:00.000-04:002005-07-22T10:56:00.470-04:00

On Sunday morning (July 10) the phone rang and someone asked me to participate in a poll. I was asked the usual demographic questions, what TV I watch (none) and what I read (just about everything). Then, I was asked whether I remembered specific advertisements (no). Finally, I was asked, for each of several oil companies, whether I thought they were doing a good job, whether I trusted them,

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1120959933503246972005-07-09T21:37:00.000-04:002005-07-09T21:46:30.446-04:00

There is something wondrous and meditative about walking through my neighborhood near dusk this time of year. You never know where to look for the next flash of a firefly, but they keep on coming. It's a bit like the Leonid meteor shower. I noticed more of them before dusk than after, but later on they seemed brighter, and the crescent moon and Venus made a nice show for the walk back.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1119046438061968102005-06-17T17:59:00.000-04:002005-06-17T18:13:58.076-04:00

I would like to thank George Albaugh for calling my attention to two studies from Heilbronn et al. ("Alternate-day fasting in nonobese subjects: effects on body weight, body composition, and energy metabolism" Am J Clin Nutr. 2005, 81:69-73.[PubMed]. and "Glucose tolerance and skeletal muscle gene expression in response to alternate day fasting;" Obes Res. 2005, 13:574-81 [PubMed]). These papers

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1118944670324046002005-06-16T13:43:00.000-04:002005-06-17T17:45:05.786-04:00

We visited Rocky Mountain National Park following Janet's SALSA meeting. There were some problems with this little vacation: I didn't really have time for it; I had a sore throat and the rental car (a Dodge Neon) illustrated very well why American auto makers are failing so badly (my knee was in contact with the steering wheel, "blind spot" visibility was poor, using the remote lock always

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1118439230440731892005-06-10T17:28:00.000-04:002007-12-03T12:20:33.734-05:00

I just created a new group on Yahoo! This group, which is simply "fasting," is devoted to intermittent fasting and its effects on physiology and health. I expect that both practitioners of intermittent fasting and scientists with an interest in the physiological effects of intermittent fasting will want to join. The founding members are both practitioners and scientists. We are interested in the

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1117217264009826222005-05-27T14:07:00.000-04:002005-06-17T17:44:30.826-04:00

You might be having trouble with the links on my web pages. Here's why.Three years ago I purchased SteveMount.org, SteveMount.com and RNAinfo.org through Network Solutions. Each of these domains is redirected to other sites. The idea is that these URLs might be more stable than the URLs on the servers that host them, so I'll be able to move the site later if necessary. I am in the process of

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1116082152854670212005-05-14T10:38:00.000-04:002005-05-14T10:50:52.150-04:00

Yun Choi told me about a great site, the "Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager, which makes good use of Java to present statistics on (American) baby names. I was most surprised at how much the names I consider common (such as Janet, Linda, Nancy, Diane Bob and Steve) have declined in popularity and how rarely foreign names are given to children born here.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1114277531618094722005-04-23T13:16:00.000-04:002008-02-03T21:59:04.905-05:00

I will be going to a Seder tonight. Passover is late this year, and it is a rare year in that Passover comes after Easter. At the 1999 Drosophila Conference in Seattle the "fly board" first considered when to hold the 2005 Drosophila Conference. I thought I knew that Passover always follows Easter, so when someone (Elaine Strauss of the GSA) found that Easter was on March 26, I thought that we

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1112760124633154382005-04-05T23:59:00.000-04:002005-04-06T18:28:43.080-04:00

It has been known for a long time that caloric restriction (a significant reduction in food intake – to 60-70% of normal levels) prolongs life,and improves health in many species (even including yeast!). Many people are interested in caloric restriction (for example, a caloric restriction support group on Yahoo! has 1,687 members) but relatively few people are willing to actually follow such an

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1112625400998687132005-04-04T10:27:00.000-04:002005-06-17T17:49:31.720-04:00

Janet and I drove to New England for the weekend, to recognize her Aunt Diane's 90th birthday. Diane is healthy and energetic, and she was joined by a large group of loving family and friends. We drove up Friday evening, and stayed at the Heritage Inn in New Milford Friday night. Saturday was a wonderful day spent with wonderful company. I'm truly blessed to have married into such a great

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1111695240058495732005-03-24T15:12:00.000-05:002005-03-24T15:19:39.823-05:00

I have always been interested in the nature of genetic information, including its expression, transmission and change. After five months of intermittent blogging, it occurs to me that it would be useful to separate my personal diaries, opinions and recollections from commentary on genetics and genomics that might be of interest to students and colleagues. For that reason, I'm creating a new blog,

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1111295857370033192005-03-20T00:10:00.000-05:002005-03-20T00:17:37.373-05:00

Six flights above 8th Ave., off of 47th St., in a building that seemed like a residential building (and probably is) we saw "Burned Over", a thoughtful new play written, produced and performed by a group of twenty-somethings. Timeless religious debates are given life and tied to feminist issues. We see a graduate student writing emails to her major professor juxtaposed with her ancestors living

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1111259917788234432005-03-19T14:05:00.000-05:002005-03-20T08:22:47.640-05:00

I'm playing with my new phone and one of the first things I wanted to do was send pictures to the real world. The 169 page Samsung a670 user's guide is silent on this subject. Verizon's FAQ page saysCan I send pictures/videos to an e-mail address?Yes. All you have to do is type the email address on the addressing screen of your picture/video messaging phone. However, I could not figure out how to

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1111034076548427232005-03-16T23:06:00.000-05:002006-06-01T09:13:23.110-04:00

Janet is teaching a course entitled "The Amazon Through Film" this semester, and it's been a pleasure previewing films with her. Especially prominent is the Herzog film "Fitzcarraldo" and the Les Blank Film "The Burden of Dreams," which is about the making of "Fitzcarraldo." (Actually, we've been having something of a Herzog Blank film festival for months). By chance "The Burden of Dreams" was

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1110850747330377192005-03-14T20:33:00.000-05:002005-03-14T20:43:13.293-05:00

I really enjoyed the ISR Distinguished Lecture by Eric Green on Wednesday. It reinforced my excitement about the idea that having a dozen genomes will allow us to obtain qualitatively different information than we’ve been able to obtain from a single genome. In addition to the alignment-based methods he described, there is the (rather amazing) possibility of reconstructing the ancestral sequence

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1110760056533986562005-03-13T19:27:00.000-05:002005-03-17T13:41:14.786-05:00

When Janet and I got cell phones a few years ago we selected Sprint because of their true nationwide calling plan (no roaming charges). Janet was still in Miami and we knew that we would both be originating calls from a variety of places around the country often. However, the service to key spots, like my office, is not good. Calls are of poor quality, or the phone doesn't ring at all. So

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1109564668565295442005-02-27T23:21:00.000-05:002005-02-27T23:24:28.566-05:00

This was passed along by a friend. I'm sure that not everyone in Australia feels exactly this way, but I do wish that more people here had some perspective on what our government looks like to the rest of the world.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1107140477484887442005-01-30T21:50:00.000-05:002005-01-30T22:01:17.483-05:00

It's just a little more than a week since I submitted the renewal for my NSF Arabidopsis 2010 grant via Fastlane. The grant renewal was my primary focus between end of the Fall semester in mid-December and its submission. Because much of the important work (our in planta ESE assay and the characterization of SR protein genes) is not yet published, I focused on documenting our progress. It was

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1105324261331323022005-01-09T21:17:00.000-05:002005-01-09T21:58:04.650-05:00

I am grateful to Myles Axton for introducing the readers of Nature Genetics to his term for coding segments that are less than an entire exon, which is CROE (Touching Base, Jan. 2005). This word is an acronym for "Coding Region of an Exon" and can be pronounced as in "crow." I do indeed feel that such a term is necessary, and it was my appeal at the Drosophila ENCODE meeting (Dec. 5) that got

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1104936521258712012005-01-05T09:40:00.000-05:002005-01-05T09:48:41.256-05:00

The New York Times published another article on Dec. 31, "How Scientists and Victims Watched Helplessly", which explored the various ways it might have been possible to get word to tsunami victims in time and how it was that none succeeded. Reading it through, I'm a bit less bewildered and outraged, although the sense that opportunities to save lives were somehow missed remains.

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1104256676162127652004-12-28T13:25:00.000-05:002004-12-28T14:05:30.410-05:00

I am outraged and bewildered by the fact that the beaches of South India and Sri Lanka were not cleared by local police in advance of Sunday's tsunami. There were over two hours between the time of the 9.0 earthquake off of Aceh and the arrival of the waves. In a world or affordable international phone calls and instant messaging how long does it take for news to spread? Didn't international news

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1103517210888927382004-12-19T23:25:00.000-05:002004-12-20T22:43:13.033-05:00

The Fall 2004 semester is finally over. All of my grades, for two real courses and five others (mostly involving research of some kind) have been submitted. My goal for the next week is to get caught up on the many things other than teaching that I had hoped to do -- had promised to do -- during the semester. In some cases, these things are very late. I hope that one week will be enough. 50

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1101677022684330092004-11-28T16:17:00.000-05:002004-11-28T16:52:28.103-05:00

A few years ago I cancelled my Citibank MasterCard. It had been my first real credit card and I’d had it for almost 20 years. The cancellation was a consequence of my habit of reading fine print; I think it was the privacy policy that tipped the balance. I replaced the Citibank card with a Yale Visa card. I’ve used the new card for a couple of years and I’ve been happy with it. Last

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1100721756451414362004-11-17T14:49:00.000-05:002004-11-17T18:21:55.600-05:00

When I was a child growing up during the cold war we often heard that American science was better that Soviet science because it was free of political influence. While I have come to understand that true objectivity in science or any other human endeavor is probably unattainable and that there are many sources of bias (see, for example, Lewontin's article on dishonesty in science in a recent New

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1099934512107706342004-11-08T11:55:00.000-05:002011-12-03T00:58:03.977-05:00

We were very late. We had tickets for the 8:00 performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana at the Kennedy Center (The Choral Arts Society of Washington, including our friend Doug Gill, directed by Leonard Slatkin). It was 7:57. I was prepared to just stay home but Janet wanted to go for it. At 8:15 we were on our way. New York, 7th, Independence, slipping through yellow lights, expecting to be

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1099506336691824822004-11-03T13:14:00.000-05:002005-08-24T23:16:56.746-04:00

I'm now on the editorial board of BMC Molecular Biology(see www.biomedcentral.com/bmcmolbiol/).This is an open-access journal focusing on molecular biology.I have to admit that I read more articles in BMC bioinformatics,but BMC Molecular Biology looks like a place where articlesthat might otherwise go to journals I do read (RNA, MolecularCell, MCB) could be published. With Brent Gravely and

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8852985.post-1099250958118396942004-10-31T14:25:00.000-05:002004-10-31T15:00:20.163-05:00

This semester I'm teaching two full courses, which typically involves giving five presentations each week. I'm chronically behind on my sleep and chronically behind on work of all kinds. Given this situation, why am I starting a blog? That's a great question. On one hand, the answer is that I'm doing it because I can. I came across blogger.com and a few screens later, voilà, I had a blog. It's

Stevehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15264977010144529019noreply@blogger.com1