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I've been thinking a little about the fourth of July.  Being the son of a Marine and the brother of a Navy man, I guess it comes naturally.  The fourth of July is an interesting holiday- it is the one time we can all come together, as a nation.  Distractions that would normally divide us, our political, economical aspirations - the talking heads on radio espousing certain ideologies can all take a backburner to us realizing that we live in a great nation, a nation of opportunity. It's a nation that is free enough to allow us to have those aspirations and allow those ideologues to spew at us. Given enough determination, we have the ability to accomplish anything.
 
If given the opportunity, remember, cherish our servicemen and women, especially those currently deployed.  Remember - they deploy because your politicians sent them, not because they necessarily agree with the deployment.
 
So - my hope on the fourth is that you remember where you live, where this country came from.  Whether the small towns that built this country or the cities that now dominate, may you maintain the hope, take risks, be an American.
 
 

So - this is a family blog, not all science.  I thought I would share a recipe with you from Josh's father:
 
Pad Thai
 
Rice noodles (aka Rice sticks) ~ 500g
Shrimp/chicken/tofu - your choice of protein, any combination
Eggs
Peanuts (or almonds)
Garlic
Green onions
Bean sprouts
Mint
Lime
Chinese parsley/cilantro (depends on which part of US you are in)
Basil
 
Sauce
 
3 Tbsp each: Fish sauce, rice vinegar, tamarind sauce (or, surprise, ketchup!), soy sauce (shoyu)
1 tsp chili paste or ground chili flake (to taste)
1 tsp brown sugar (in a pinch, use white sugar)
1/4 cup of chicken broth
 
We like to serve this with a Gewurztraminer, but a pale ale will do well with this dish also.

This has been a poorly maintained, backed up family blog for a while - unlike the genealogy side of things, which has been robust.  The family news business has died off, so we will be 'taking back the blog'.  Carol and I are microbiologists, though in very different sub-disciplines.  We will start (trying) to post about 2 pieces a week from our disciplines or that we feel are of interest to microbioloigists, proteomisists, astrobiologists. The family stuff will still be around - familytree.turse.org and photos.turse.org

I am a Mac user. I also own an AppleTV and an iPhone. Mostly, this is because of ease-of-use (personal preference), but secondarily because I like media. I am an amateur photographer and enjoy the tools available. However, along with all of this media love, I have also been playing around with things like boxee, hulu, etc. This week, the interesting find was the iPhone application TV.com. This is an application that streams video from various media outlets (CBS, CW, etc).  I find this interesting because big media has actively sought to block streaming to my TV, using a device such as my Apple TV or a home-rolled media server.  What does big media perceive as the difference?  I still see your advertising - you're still being paid.  Anyway - check it out if you can put up with watching TV on a little screen. 

Very cool concept, though a little hard in the pocket:

Reportedly, LEGO even attempts to match an employee's features with their own minifigs. I think we've got a winner for the coolest business card ever. What kind of geeky business cards have you had? Let us know in the comments.LEGO Business Card, Feb 2009

You should read the whole article.

Finally, the popular press has begun to realize the state of US science, the cost to our economy. From CNN:

I know my students probably aren't feeling it - but I like teaching.  It's entirely selfish - I am able to feed off the students' energy and that keeps me energized, excited about my science.  It was a rough, uncomfortable beginning to the semester - first time I have taught via a remote system. Our school, WSU, is married to Blackboard for dissemination of materials to students.  I'm not really sure what they are using for video, but it was clear that my slides were not visible to my remote students. Do you have recommendation for remote learning?

We discovered the Westwood, NJ–Pascack Valley Blog with pictures of my great-great-grandfather, Aaron on it.  The cool thing were the details about his life in Westwood.

Carol Turse, Graduate Student School of Earth and Environmental Sciences Washington State University photo by Emily Taylor One of the big mysteries in the history of life on our planet is the evolution of organisms from unicellular to multi-cellular life. This transition occurred during the Cambrian Explosion and neither the conditions nor the critical variables are clearly understood. To make matters even more interesting, transitional forms are poorly represented in the fossil record. However, we are extremely lucky to have Pavilion Lake and the microbialites found here as putative transitional forms. These microbialites support a wide variety of bacteria including Cyanobacteria such as Fischerella sp., Pseudoanabaena sp. and Synechoccus sp. These bacterial species have been shown to engage in cell-to-cell signaling (bacterial gossip), more commonly called quorum sensing. This quorum sensing could be extremely important in understanding the evolution of organisms on Earth as well as those that might exist on other planets. Today I prepared four sets of microbialite samples from two different locations on the lake. The first three sets were from the Three Poles sample site and were collected at 36ft, 42ft and 84ft. I froze small pieces of these samples for later analysis via mass spectrometer and placed the rest in small beakers of a slightly acidic solution. This solution will dissolve the calcium structure allowing me to suspend the remaining microbes in a gelatin-type mix. The different sections of the microbial community can then be isolated from the gel and the DNA extracted for analysis. Another set of samples from Willow point was already suspended in gelatin, so I isolated all the layers in that sample for DNA analysis. In the past I have found several of the genes for quorum sensing in the microbial DNA and I hope this round of samples continues the trend!