The psychedelicatessen

started a food blog.

2008-09-01T14:52:00.003+10:00

im going home tonight to make something pretty damn scrumptious, so to prevent the case of further ado that i have been experiencing for the past few months, i have created a food blog.

this way, i can photograph and post complete with recipes, and no need to ummm and ahhh and procrastinate thinking about how good it would be to have a food blog to share my vege masterpieces.

its done. done. done.

Otherwise... I now have tickets to see the Dandy Warhols on the 5th of November, though i am a little upset that i missed out on tix for MGMT. Its extremely apparent that MGMT's album oracular spectacular was produced by the guy from the flaming lips; its absolutely BRILLIANT and mixes an ecclectic sound selection resembling ween, the stones and a bit of funky-as disco.

NICE!

thinks, thoughts and hippy hair

2008-06-30T12:01:00.002+10:00

ive got the flu... fantastic timing just 1 week after getting my septum pierced.
I sound like a drag queen... perhaps i should take up a temporary position as a phone sex operator, or put on my dominatrix heels and some tiny shorts and go dancing out at the beat tonight... ooh baby!!

pumpkin and Risoni, with silverbeet and fetta

2008-02-03T16:12:00.000+10:00

yummo!! I thought this one up for lunch!

1/2 a jap pumpkin, small cubes.
1/2 bunch of silverbeet
3 stalks of eschallots
2 small blocks of fetta
4 cloves of garlic
juice of 1 1/2 lemons
pepper and salt to taste
4 tbs extra virgin olive oil
500gms risoni pasta

Cook the pumpkin till done. lightly steam chopped silverbeet. Crumble in fetta.
crush and finely chop garlic cloves, thinly slice eschallots. combine garlic, eschallots, salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice.

Cook risoni till al dente, rinse well in cold water. Add to pumpkin mix, pour garlic lemon oil mix on top.

Mix till well combined.

Serves a shiteload of people, and goes well with a nice white wine.

its been too long

2007-11-01T07:35:00.000+10:00

its been too long
since ive had the taste of a girl on my lips, soft hands linked as we walk down the street, oblivious to the stares around us.

Its been too long
since ive had time to myself, to spend time with another, talking, reading, sharing a laugh, while outside it rains.

its been too long
since i heard those words from someone, knowing them, sharing them, talking about the future, but do i believe them?

there comes a time, sometimes, where fierce independence brings nothing,
there comes a time, sometimes, where opening up could bring new experience,
there comes a time, sometimes, when you really need to know what they really mean

its been too long.

This winter thing is giving me the shits.

2007-06-23T11:49:00.000+10:00

What a ridiculous idea for a season. If anyone were smart enough, they would make temperatures under 19 degrees celcius illegal in Queensland.
If i wanted to freeze every time i went to the toilet, or to the shops, or tried studying, or went to work, or came home from work
Then I would have moved to Melbourne or something.

The only good thing about a 13 degree maximum is that I can make use of those groovy vintage woolen coats my mum used to wear in Europe. Everything else about it sucks though.

Either winter is getting colder, or im getting woosier every year. I think it may be the latter.

when a problem comes along

2007-04-23T23:11:00.000+10:00

YOU MUST WHIPPET!!

finally, joyously and bloody well about time! yes, Devo the whippet is now a new addition to the family at 35 Devonshire.
He is a timid (but secretly naughty) 11 month old fawn/brindle and he has absolutely no problem camouflaging himself in the drought-dried grass and shrubs in the backyard. Infact, I thought we had lost him a few times.

He also has immaculate taste, as he has chosen my rolled up green flokati rug on the bay window seat in my room as his preferred sleeping arrangements.
I would not be surprised to have him demanding to be fed from my bessemer kitchen bowls in later months. (unfortunately for him, that is not going to happen.)

hes had a nap in all the chairs and couches, but isnt too big on sleeping on the bed. That will have to change, as no whippet of mine is going to be excused his duty as a hot water bottle during the winter months.

He needs to be taught basic obedience and also how to walk on a lead... perhaps in a few months when he is ready he will make a superb personal trainer.

bloody hell

2007-03-01T16:50:00.000+10:00

its been far too long since ive posted on blogger... ive been posting a bit on my myspace blog but still...

i guess the only explanation for this is 1) i stopped posting before exams started and 2) i started reading robert jordan right after exams finished.

robert jordan is eeeeeeeeeevil. im almost finished book 7 of the wheel of time and wont be able to read more until uni holiday. im so bloody addicted.

ive been doing alot of darkroom work, learning the basics and techniques, making some nice prints, looking at having a gallery showing later on in the year... laz at work thinks it a great idea as we can use it as a fundraiser for the xmas party and people can buy my work.

dropped chemistry and took up biochemistry as my major, with a molecular biology co-major.
this basically means i get to do alot of genetics and other such groovy stuff, and develop a strong bond with multi-coloured highlighters.

ive already got 6 assignments for one subject this semester... how groovy.

and yes, ive already started the first one.

havent been riding much lately due to unforeseen girly bad stuff, and will not be able to ride for a while yet. very pissed off about that.
so, im getting a bit podge... which to everyone else means im still able to wear a single digit size of clothing, but to me means that im getting podge and not feeling at all good about it.

being 27 seems like its going to be difficult... at least my dreads are all natty now and dont need heaps of taking care of.
hopefully i'll be able to get a dog soon... woo is going to england for 2 years at the end of this year and im going to need a friend.

...i havent been the same since my teenage lobotomy

2006-10-28T22:52:00.000+10:00

Final exams for second year coming up, been a recluse and studying my arse off.

I find listening to the classics (Ash, Weezer, Ween, Primus, Nirvana...) is fantastic for being studious :)

*reminisces about being 16 and jumping around like a crazy teenage girl in the mosh pit @ livid, adoring ash, crowdsurfing to kung-fu and dreaming about giving tim wheeler a big kiss...*

crazy monochrome avian bombers

2006-10-01T21:05:00.000+10:00

magpies: giving you more excuses to practice sprinting in the spring.

please refer to the nice big scratch on my back as an example.

if the budget holds up...

2006-09-26T10:26:00.000+10:00

if im a good girl and stick to my current savings plan, i should have this peice of sex on wheels for xmas...

http://www.yeticycles.com/Bikes/Bikes575.cfm

if i get some more hours in a few weeks time for the holidays, i should have it even sooner...

looking forward to breaking my neck and assorted limbs on my uni break :)

funny spam emails

2006-09-25T12:17:00.000+10:00

have you seen a horses dick? you can have one with virility patch RX.

sorry, but i dont think too many women are going to be impressed with a guy who turns up with a severed horses penis in his pocket, while his own member is more like a belly-button.

automaticpushbuttonremotecontrol- syntheticgeneticscommandsyoursoul

2006-09-18T20:42:00.000+10:00

nothing quite like a monday night in with a tomato and olive pasta, a well aged merlot

And Thunderdome 11.

They dont quite make gabber like that anymore...

Electronic spectra of benzene...

2006-08-17T03:29:00.000+10:00

The near UV spectra of benzene...

i have not done this much "math" for YEARS!
everything seems to be about right... which is strange because i was shit at algebra since grade 9, but for some reason this stuff is working out.

of course, if we were to think about all this in minimalist/reductionist terms, ockhams razor would apply and the simplest explanation would be that i am completely and utterly blitheringly wrong.

toombul to redcliffe... WOOO!

2006-07-04T13:38:00.000+10:00

last sunday i did my first epic bike mission... toombul to redcliffe return, 85kms, by roadbike, in 4 hours.
got lost a few times on the way, and took a few long detours, but all was good and i surprisingly dont feel achy or stuffed at all.
a great and speedy ride.
quite looking forward to a few more epic bike mishes, and a 100km ride at some point in the next few months. just for fun. just for something to challenge me. just because i can.

in other news, im still extremely shitty with a few people regarding the incident a few weekends ago, especially seeing i havent spoken to them. will hopefully get to air my discontent to a person tommorow sometime, because i like to think i can pull my friends up and call them selfish assholes when the occasion calls for something to be said. i also hope that all this can be righted before the party on saturday night, of which i sorta am not looking forward to due to a certain few people who might be attending. one of which is a guy from work who asked me out and now im feeling ***REALLY WEIRD***.

apart from that, i completely aced the practical section of biochem last semester, which i was really surprised at, but have not gotten results for subjects and finals for the semester yet... this is shitting me a bit. as i would like to know how i did.
i hope i get them before saturday, so i can either drown or celebrate.

i just fell off

2006-06-26T12:27:00.000+10:00

my bike... didnt get unclipped in time.

lucky it was right outside my house and no-one was watching :D

guess it had to happen sometime :P

i missed a doof for this??!!

2006-06-25T17:20:00.000+10:00

last night was possibly one of the most infuriating nights of my life.

ive rehashed the story so many times to so many different people that it tires me to even think about it... but basically what happened was that i went to a going-away drinks party for a friend at the pavilion, everyone ended up totally sloshed, one of the guys ended up sick and passed out in the gutter and most of the people there didnt give a fuck, because they were either too self-absorbed or high... and the ones that were high were trying to hide the fact that they were high... for what reason, i dont know. its not like anyone would have asked them for more than a hug.

it basically ended up with tyson going nuts and getting REALLY angry at the situation, milla and dan trying to keep phil awake and coherent, and i ended up taking phil home and making sure he had enough water to drink and that he got home alright.

mill and dan ended up walking home around 1:30 because they got fed up. when i got back to the drinks, everyone was so selfish i ended up walking home

alone

at 2am

from west end to ashgrove.

what sort of friends let a girl walk home at 2am on her own?

and i missed a doof for this shit??!! im so pissed off!

yep

2006-06-16T17:14:00.000+10:00

my brain REALLY hurts.

one down

2006-06-15T20:38:00.000+10:00

three to go.

new bicycle

2006-06-11T22:51:00.000+10:00

ok, so i thought the day would never come... i swore that it wasnt my style and i couldnt imagine ever enjoying one...

on thursday i went out and did what many people had heard me say i wouldnt do.

i bought a road bike.
yes, one of those streamlined ones with curvy handlebars and skinny tires, where lyrca and tight fitting clothing is the only option.

no!!! i hear you exclaim... why did you do it? are you forever to forego the whims and wonders of the wild wide open rooty hillsides and terrorising passing joggers as you fang down the sometimes grassy but mostly gravelly side of the bikepath out to the gap?

have no fear... the mountain bike is not out of fashion with me, nor will it ever be. infact after i get my imac, a super squidgy smooth riding super suspension XC MTB will be for me!

its just riding the fucker out to walkabout creek and back home on the road is an absolute BITCH.

the road bike is *VERY* nice to ride... still pretty wobbly on the uphill, but geeeeeeeeeeeez it can go fast!! infact, now that i have something thats not so heavy, that ride to redcliffe is sounding like a plan! and mt cootha is first on the list for a spare weekend. quite looking forward to getting fit and healthy and sexy buns again...

and i wore lycra every day from day one... so nothings changed there :P

there are important differences between corresponding catabolic and anabolic pathways.

2006-06-04T19:15:00.000+10:00

very important differences...
one of them makes my tea, the other one drinks it.

actually, thats not true.

boys

2006-05-21T18:44:00.000+10:00

they get on my nerves... all of them (except for the 3 or 4 straight ones and all the gay ones) are giving me grief like you wouldnt believe.

actively seeking my princess charming, waiting for her to sweep me up off my feet and rescue me from the fire-breathing boy-gons.

very dissatisfied with the way the playing field has been tending; thinking maybe if i try some reverse psychology and play with the guys that the girls will suddenly come out of the woodwork... also thinking that if it doesnt work (which it never does) im stuck with some whingey creepy guys to deal with.

so, im sending out an SOS: if you havent got boobies then im not interested in anything more than talk, shopping or talking shop.

in other news, the cameraholics fair was on today and i was very norty and bought a new lens for my mamiya.

but it was cheap so im not feeling too bad ;)

oh puhleez...

2006-04-30T23:15:00.000+10:00

if i have to hear/read/see anything from someone who had never picked up a camera in their life before digital (and have all of a sudden become a 'photographer' overnight) say something along the lines of "its the lens that makes the photo" or "the newer and more expensive your camera is, the better your pictures will be"

I WILL SCREAM!!

case in point was earlier on when someone said that the lens makes the photo, that if you put a shit lens on a good camera you will get a shit photo... and then went on to say how amazing it was that someone could use an old brownie and take a great photo.

no shit sherlock... its not the equipment thats to blame, its the idiot standing behind it that has no idea that is to blame.

taking 3000 photos of the same bloody thing from minutely different angles and then picking the best 50 to put online does not make one a photographer...

geez... im a spring chicken in the land of photography, i wouldnt dare call myself a photographer, and yet i am starting to relate to how all these older, experienced traditional professional and hobbyist photographers are feeling now that there are suddenly millions upon millions of 'experts' shooting out advice when they have no fucking idea how to actually take a photo.

much ado about alot of things

2006-04-26T22:16:00.000+10:00

so where do i start? well, midsemesters are in full swing and in just over 10 hours i will be in my first biochemistry exam... to be followed up 3 hours later by my first organic chemistry exam. got 63% on molecular biology exam for very minimal study beforehand.

the only one that worries me is the inorganic chemistry exam on the 4th of may... heres why.

sometime around the start of this month, say, the 5th of the month, i came home with my broken down scooter on a maxi taxi ($25 poorer) to find an express-post envelope from the real-estate agents that manage the house we live in.
of course when one sees these envelopes one opens them. one does not expect for the letter inside to inform you that you have exactly 3 weeks to find a place and move out because the owners have suddenly decided they want to renovate and put the house on the market. (yeah, suddenly, as if you wouldnt be thinking about it for months in advance...)

funnily enough, the two exams i am having tommorow are exactly 3 weeks from the date of the letter and were technically scheduled for the day we had to move out. i wasnt going to stand for this if it was just the owners wanting to renovate, so i rang them up and told them i couldnt do that day because i had 2 exams and could we please extend the lease a week.
it was all fine. so woo and i had to start looking for a place to live.
with only 2 weeks that were 'useable' (easter long weekend just happened to occur during those few weeks!) we set about house hunting.
actually, a relatively painless experience given the extreme lack of properties available at the time... sure, there were some real shitholes that were too small to breathe in (and hence way too expensive) but in less than a week we had found a gorgeous house not far away from where we currently live, and much closer to where we do all our grocery shopping.
two applicants for it, and we were the lucky ones. so, the big day is in a week...
hold on you say... you are moving house on the 3rd and have an exam on the 4th?

yeah. so now you see why im worried.
im going to be so bloody tired and have no time to study, not to mention that there is no way im going to have everything moved and this place clean by the 3rd... but, supposedly i cant defer the exam because its not a medical reason.
well fuck that, i cant MOVE any other day, how is that any different? its an unavoidable circumstance, at least i let them know 2 weeks in advance! if worse comes to worse i can always pretend i threw my back out moving house and get a medical certificate (which will be bullshit as i have a prac the day after which i will need to attend!) i dont want to do that because its just lame and i dont want to have to pretend anything.

going to speak to student admin tommorow and see what my options are with deferred exam due to unavoidably having to move house!!

other than that, ive picked 5 pumpkins, which means that the 4 that are left have exactly 10 days to grow before i pick them and turn them into pickles.
woo is on holidays up in the tropics with todd and im plenty jealous... its freezing here (but supposedly its raining there!)
work has finally moved out to murarrie. goodbye to $5 of fuel every week and a half, its probably going to be more like $15 of fuel every week and a half....

actually...

2006-03-24T17:44:00.000+10:00

if just one person would ask me how i am going id be happy...

instead, i get everyone rambling on about how they are going.

much as i am always a happy listening ear, right now i wish everyone would just fuck off unless they want to take an interest in what i have to say for a change.
just for 5 minutes, thats all.
then they can go on rambling about their stupid little lives again, and i'll be all ears.

crystal field theory

2006-03-23T21:58:00.000+10:00

its week 4 already and im really enjoying this semester... if there was ever a time for more chemistry, its now.
im doing 2 pure chemistry, 1 biochemistry and 1 molecular biology subjects... such a huge workload.
uni is going great!

so why do i feel so shit?

im feeling pretty down, feeling kinda depressed... ive got the 'my friends are all sick of me and trying to avoid me' thing happening in my brain, even though i know its bullshit as they are all working and busy like i am and the logical part of me knows that they dont have time either and arent ignoring me.

im feeling fat and frumpy, and particularly unattractive... maybe its time for some new clothes, but everything is so tarty and girly and i cant afford to shop at nelson molly and dogstar all the time... stupidly my brain believes that i could lose a dress size or 2... actually, so do i... maybe if i could do a proper shop and stop eating out all the time i might lose some weight.

i have all these ideas swimming around my head, but i havent taken a photo in weeks... the darkroom is almost finished and i wont have anything to develop in it!

and to top things off, im dying for a cone!!!

at least the study is going well :)

my first musing as a motorcyclist - or - i just copped my first bastard

2006-02-15T12:17:00.000+10:00

it truly is no different, really, to being a pedal powered cyclist.
it seems that 2 wheels = 4 wheelers automatic right to be assholes.
case in point:
as i was riding across the bridge to get to west end, doing 50km/h, keeping a safe distance behind the 4wd in front (who was braking erratically) and keeping to the side to avoid the large truck coming up on my right, i was rudely hollered at by a couple of young 4-wheelers who told me to learn how to drive...
they then proceeded to do 10km/h over the speed limit, brake very quickly, swerve across 2 lanes without indicating and then jump back into the middle lane just in time to run a red light... if only i had a video camera attached to the front of my scooter.

perhaps they were giving me an example of what NOT to do, but its more likely that...

some people just need to learn how to drive.

T-Max sucks macadamia nuts

2006-01-23T13:23:00.000+10:00

i hate hate hate hate hate kodak T-max films... the most stupid, difficult to load roll films in the entire universe.
cracking macadamias with your teeth is easier than putting this shit on a reel!!
T-max is also stinky to work with and turns your developer bright purple...

in other news, i found myself a shop up the coast with a little stash of rodinal developer...*ooooooooooh!!!*

getting my dreads this saturday... so excited!!

excess weekends

2005-12-19T16:37:00.000+10:00

wether it is because i have had an excessive weekend, or just need excessive weekends, my weekend was excessive.

didnt get to chris' 21st gangsta party, kinda feeling bad but there was no way for me to get home...
went and sat around at jyames instead and talked about his upcoming (maybe) big promotion, his upcoming big macintosh (yay! a convert!) and basically got told that the bike ride i had asked him wether he wanted to join me on was cancelled because HE wanted to go riding ALONE. gee thanks.
very pissed, very stoned and very stabbed in the back with a blunt pencil... you would think he had the decency to sharpen the damn thing first...
its ok, but its not ok... im holding my breath and overlooking it because even though he has been acting like the worlds biggest asshole these past few weeks, i know he isnt. its just that time of the year again when he becomes the worlds biggest brown-nosing twatt and does everything thats "cool" because that way he doesnt need to think for himself. You know that time... summer party time... suddenly hes in live with all the people he bitches about to me for the other 8 months of the year. much as this sounds like a scathing bitch session, i really am overjoyed for his good fortune in hopefully securing a VERY BIG break for the future, getting a management position is no laughing matter and is going to mean some pretty impressive skills for any resumes in the future!

saturday morning consisted of a hangover from the previous evenings frivolity, coupled with extreme nervousness and lack of anything particularly outstanding to wear.
Yep... i had a date.
a particularly moreish young man that i had met the previous weekend while i was out at showgirls with kirsty... yes, i met this guy in a strip club and we then proceeded to spend the entire time at the strip club commenting on the social and economical conditions that drive girls to become strippers. i could have offered some personal insight but chose to keep my mouth firmly shut. anyhoo, we then spent most of the night discussing issues of worldwide repute in the valley before i went home.
the date went pretty well, he came and picked me up and did some grocery shopping before going to new farm park and having a tapas picnic under a nice big shady tree. we talked about everything and nothing, wiggled our toes in lush green grass and smoked a nice spliff and got mellow. it started raining pretty hard so we walked back to the car, dumped the picnic stuff, went walking barefoot around the park and waited for one muthafucker of a storm to sweep over the city... absolutely beautiful! went up to bowen tce and sat looking over the city waiting for the storm to roll in, then sitting there while the storm did its thing...
i was extremely drenched by the time i got home... all in all a fabulous first date!
hes 22, very metro, very intelligent, very sweet and for some reason im just not sparking! i dont know what it is but it could have something to do with the fact that i really want a girlfriend. a definite attraction to the same sex tends to put a damper on things. still, im going to see him again sometime this week and see how things go from there... hes a really very cool very trippy guy and id like to give it a chance.

saturday night was pretty boring... cooked some dinner, watched some dvds, smoked a spliff and then stayed up all night watching teenage fanclub programming rage. spent a bit of time reminiscing about ye olde indie days and singing along to all the songs i know and love and havent heard in such a long time...
note to self... buy some teenage fanclub albums!!!

ursula finally came home on sunday after spending who knows how many days at todds.
we spent sunday cleaning the house without a vacuum cleaner and doing a bit of grocery shopping.
sunday afternoon spells cocktails at the pavillion, and 4pm was the start time for some serious work colleagues cocktail debauchery. had a good crowd turn up, a few of them i wasnt expecting.
about half of us stayed out until 11pm, drinking drinking drinking and eating curry for dinner...i have no idea how much i had to drink but i do know that i feel extremely crap today so it must have been alot.
either way it was a pretty good night!

i guess this is what normal people who dont work every weekend get up to on their weekends... excess weekends lead to excessive weekends... dammit... i wish i hadnt put myself on the roster so much.

phully sic weekend bruz...

2005-12-06T23:45:00.000+10:00

what can i say?
earthcore was an absolute blast! truly the best fun ive had in years! (well, it had been 2 years since i had been to an earthcore...so...) danced the entire night away, completely high on life and caffeine.
and took a crapload of photos in the process! (provia 100 on medium format... kiss kiss kiss... i love it i love it i love it!!)
its true... TLR's make people smile :D
the venue was absolutely stunning...unbelieveable views all around and the trees and wildlife were amazing... not to mention the people!! everyone was just so happy to be there and so friendly... not a hint of the usual clubbing come-ons, which is quite refreshing!
a great mix of music... the highlights for me would have been propellerheads, hired goonz, peretz (very strange but rather surreal mix of music and vocals...) and of course, hallucinogen/shpongle/simon posford...
i ran into some people i hadnt seen in years, and quite a few people i wasnt expecting to run into at all!
about 1/2 the people we came with dropped pills at around 9pm, and spent most of the night on the ground, doing the usual things they do when they are chopped (i.e. not a damn lot) funnily enough they were all the first ones to leave... 7:30am... boy did they miss out!!! strange how the sober/straight ones had all the energy to go till the end!

took monday off work, and good thing too... i could hardly walk i had been stomping so hard! it was a real mission to get to the shops and buy milk! stayed at home reading all day... (Peter F. Hamiltons new one... judas unchained, the sequel to pandoras star... yes, its kick-arse sci-fi, but nowhere near as scary!) then watched some SBS... i finally got to watch an episode of queer as folk!! seeing as how ive missed most of season 5, im going to have to buy the series on dvd... yes, i know its just a well-filmed and written gay soap opera... but dammit! im addicted :D
also watched a pretty cool swedish film called "making babies" which had the most awesome, realistic and hillarious sex scene in it (yes... just the one) which brought a smile to my face just thinking about the times id done it in the kitchen :P

back to work today... still smiling and happy... until the boss comes in and tells us that bianca is coming back tommorow...
:(

one day i'll probably buy an old hasselblad...

2005-11-25T02:24:00.000+10:00

DAMN!! i love medium format... *sigh* oh what an addiction i have thrust upon myself...
oh what a stupendous amount of money i will be spending to get my earthcore slides developed.... provia 100 is an absolute gem on skin tones!

i bought a new scanner today (among other things) which does medium format... hence i am completely and utterly in love with medium format... wait until mum and dad see the pics ive taken!!
and yes, one day i WILL buy a hasselblad!

very lame...

2005-11-19T17:59:00.000+10:00

very very fucken lame...
my sister had organised a party for my finishing exams, and carlys graduating tonight...
the boys organised their housewarming party last night...

needless to say when i turned up to their party last night everyone was off their tree, drunk as skunks and peaking off their nuts.
so...
today comes along and one by one they all text us to let us know they cant make it to our party because they are too fragile from the night before...

im pretty upset, and very dissapointed...
because its every day that carly graduates uni, and every day i finish exams...

friends like these are worth less than enemies - enemies would at least show up in the hopes they could ruin your night.
i dont even know why i bother.

exams are over... for now.

2005-11-17T12:49:00.000+10:00

ahhhhh... finishing exams feels so sweet when you have actually been trying hard to do well.
i feel a deep sense of contentment and happiness. i think im ready to tackle 4 subjects and 3 nights work per week next year...

oh yeah...and another thing...

2005-11-06T00:08:00.000+10:00

i feel that i did quite well in my cell/molec biology exam:) i blatantly guessed only 2 questions and answered the essay questions as well as i could.

WOOHOO!!

new old camera

2005-11-06T00:05:00.000+10:00

new old camera
Originally uploaded by asterope*.

in finally gave in on thursday and put a bid on a mamiya c330... the bidding ended just as my exam started, so i was pleasantly surprised, 2 and a half hours later, to find that my first bid was the highest bid :) i picked it up yesterday and have been playing around with it all day...

if you think my nikkormat is old, think again... this is FULLY manual, it hasnt even got a light meter... ive had to think sunny 16's all day! im very much looking forward to the learning/study this manual camera is going to force to me to do!!

such an amazing viewpoint, having a waist-level finder which you look down at, focus and compose all from above!
square format seems to be a very natural and un-restricted format to compose photographs and portraits, its such a refreshing change from 35mm!

at first i was worried as many people told me that this camera was heavy... well, carrying it round today, both in hand and on a strap around my neck, i have come to the conclusion that it really is not that much heavier than my nikkormat and 105mm lens, and is MUCH easier to hold and work with!

ive run a roll of agfa apx 400 through it today to check for mechanical problems and to see if there are any light-leaks or exposure problems.
handy that i have run a roll of proper black and white film through it, as wednesday was the day i picked up my 35mm darkroom colour/b&w enlarger... with 'bonus accessories'.

i had no idea what the bonus accessories were and wasnt too fussed about them really, because $51 was a pretty good deal on a colour/b&w enlarger.
when i found out what the 'bonus accessories' were, i was absolutely chuffed!
film developing tank, safelight, tongs, film squeegee, print developing trays, hanging clips, print masking easel, the jobo colourbase print developing system with extension tanks (!!!!) and colour correction charts...
this ridiculously expensive amount of darkroom equipment in excellent condition for $51!!! all i need is a timer, thermometer, a few measuring cylinders and a changing bag to have everything i need to get my darkroom set up under the house at my parents place.

dad is going to be so happy, and i expect hes going to spend alot of time borrowing my cameras and hanging out in the darkroom.

and now i have something to pass my uni holidays with, unlike last year when i was bored shitless for 4 months!

extracellular matrix

2005-10-29T03:59:00.000+10:00

my first exam is in 5 days... ive studied long and hard for it, and i still dont feel like any of it is going to stick... and then i have 2 weeks to study for my next exam!!

been staying up late, reading and taking notes for days now... dont sleep before 4am, up at 10am... im thinking this will continue for 2.5 weeks yet.

im thinking of the six-pack of bitburger, stick of weed and delicious curry i will have when its all over...
thinking of the medium-format camera i'll be buying, and all the photos i can resume taking when its all over...

keeping my head down, my mind active and my thoughts all over the place... its a trying time but im sure i'll come out in the end.

recipe for the perfect study weekend...

2005-10-15T20:42:00.000+10:00

1 packet of savoury snax
1 packet of fruit rings
at least 3 bottles of red bull
several cups of tea
1 packet of cinnamon crunch bickies
assorted textbooks
assorted lecture notes
a pen
a highlighter

use as needed, and try to forget that theres a doof on.

on the other hand

2005-10-10T00:25:00.000+10:00

im glad to hear that its not something you are willing to try again any time soon... so i guess you have some rational thought left.

i have no sympathy

2005-10-10T00:05:00.000+10:00

for those who choose to take certain "medications" with MDMA.

let me be more specific... i have no sympathy for young guys who take viagra/cialis with MDMA in the search for a buzz.
*clap clap clap clap clap* you deserve to have a migraine for putting so much strain and pressure on your own body by mixing a familiar high (MDMA) with something that is definitely not meant to be taken by you. way to go on severly fucking up your chemistry.

i have even less sympathy for those who take the above mixture without knowing the effects and side-effects of the prescription medication in question (do your fucking homework before you swallow a pill)

and i have nothing but contempt for those who do the above because their friends say that its a pretty cool thing to do.

*riotous applause* i havent ever thought of you as an idiot, my friend; but your appearance and explanation of your previous evening has given me the opportunity to observe how you will abuse drugs (which is very unlike you) when peer pressure is involved. bravo bravo!!!

*the crowd goes wild*

you deserve a fucking migraine.

the first christmas beetle of the summer

2005-10-06T22:41:00.000+10:00

the first christmas beetle of the summer
Originally uploaded by asterope*.

summer is here again... no longer need i suffer the cold of winter (yes, i know how stupid that sounds as i live in queensland)

today hit 33 degrees... and its only the start of october... WOOHOOO!!! hot summer here we come!

i wonder how much im going to like bicycle commuting in the summer time?

they dont call it a drought for nothing, dickhead.

2005-10-01T16:15:00.000+10:00

heres me, watering the poor thirsty garden with last nights bathwater... only to find the stupid rich bastards living in one of the apartments next door washing his stupid car again... like he does every single fucking weekend.

australia is in the throes of one of its most severe droughts and this bastard is washing his car again??
i conserve as much grey water as i possibly can to water my plants and veges, i cant believe that someone has the nerve to just waste water like that.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!! i hope the plumbing in his apartment shuts off for no aparent reason and he shrivels due to dehydration... see how that feels you greedy fucker!

the snoring lady

2005-09-29T00:54:00.000+10:00

the lady next door, also known as "the snoring lady", is so drunk that she cant breathe... she snores every night, and cant breathe most of the time, but tonight is much worse.
which means that if she doesnt roll over onto her side soon, i wont be sleeping tonight.
oh well.

ad nauseam

2005-09-17T19:19:00.000+10:00

to continue to the point of nausea.

kind of like im feeling right now...

weekend off

2005-09-09T13:58:00.000+10:00

finally... a weekend off!!

oh how joyus is the weekend in which you need not do anything but swim and shop and take lots of photos of bugs and flowers... got my 28mm today so i'll be doing some landscape too.
its dads birthday today, and we have bought him a set of harmonicas, as he used to play the harmonica and its about time he got back into it.
looking forward to seeing mum and dad and googz, going up the coast and getting some sun.

stupid tourist pedestrians and meat pies...

2005-08-29T13:58:00.000+10:00

had an awful ride home last friday night when some zeta-male thought it would be cool to show off to his friends by pushing me while i was waiting at a traffic island on my bike...
i pushed him back and told him to leave me alone.
he didnt like the idea of a girl standing up for herself so he threw his meat pie on me, then called me a lesbian.
i said "at least im getting more pussy than you are" and rode off, much to the amusement of his mates.

stupid touristy pedestrians with too much alcohol and not enough brains.

had my first midsemester this morning, i think i did ok, but i feel totally drained and not wanting to go to work this afternoon. my entire day has gone and i dont know where its gone to.

its official!!

2005-08-23T13:48:00.000+10:00

the 55mm micro-nikkor i recently purchased is the GREATEST thing since sliced bread.

i have truly been going nuts with this thing when i havent been studying, or when i have been procrastinating, and i have a HEAP of films to scan and post on flickr...
this lens is truly awesome!

in other news, jyames finally bought a bike... WOOHOO!! so i now finally have someone to ride home with of an evening! riding with someone makes the trip much faster and more enjoyable :D plus... you can race eachother because theres no-one on the road at 1am!!

55mm 1:3.5 micro-nikkor

2005-08-17T02:30:00.000+10:00

just recieved this goody in the mail today... all the way from the USA... what an amazing lens!

so now... 50mm standard nikkor, 55mm micro nikkor, 105mm nikkor, 90-230mm hanimex zoom... hmmmm... whats next in my quest for photographic perfection?

keeping in touch with really old friends

2005-08-03T10:32:00.000+10:00

i kept getting messages and phone calls from a guy named justin since monday... i was a little freaked out. i had met a justin on the weekend but had given his friend my number... so i was hoping it wasnt him because that would have been rather creepy.
but the back of my mind had other inklings... what if it was....
lo and behold, i get another call from him and who should it be but my dear old friend justin from school. Justin who went off to sydney and became a dj for triple j and then a station in townsville before i lost him in the static of FM radio...
justin who was my first pash and the chewy passing incident which was plastered all over the school within half an hour.
justin who was pretty much my best friend before he went to another school...

he had called my mum and got my phone number... bless him :D

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!! how amazing... i have been thinking about him for the past few months and how good it would be to catch up, and he calls me! hes living on the coast with his boyfriend and seems to be pretty happy... cant wait to see him again!

i do love catching up with old friends :D

people

2005-07-25T14:37:00.000+10:00

are obstacles which add fun, frustration or funny words to a cyclists day.

cars on the other hand are evil and the opening of doors is to be avoided at all costs.

much ado about tea

2005-07-25T10:23:00.000+10:00

wow... its monday morning, how the hell did that happen?
where did my weekend go, if indeed i had one, or if i have had one at any time these past few years?
*thinks, and shakes her head*
nope, i havent had a weekend for a few years, next question please.

skipped uni this morning, i hate monday morning lectures and the bastards that invented them... i know i should have gone and i feel pretty bad for not doing so. must make a concerted effort to go to monday lectures from now on.
i guess it wont be as hard to get out of bed in about a months time when the sun is up at 6am and its warm enough to ride to uni without my fingers or knees freezing.

hmmm... so whats been happening...hmmm.
lots of photography has been happening, though i think that i shall have to limit my creative exploits to a few hours every weekend so that i can fit enough study in for the semester. Im taking a calculus subject... this from a person who cant even remember how to do basic algebra, so thats going to be interesting and very study-intensive. i think i need to find a study group!
i should be studying for my stats exam on saturday... geez i HATE stats! i hope i pass though.
i cant believe just how crap i feel today, and im not getting home till after 1am, then have to be at uni at 8am tommorow.
perhaps i just wont sleep, thats probably a better option.

discussing issues of world-wide repute...

2005-07-20T13:47:00.000+10:00

discussing issues of world-wide repute...
Originally uploaded by asterope.

but more likely just discussing formula 1.

taken on the 1st january, 2005, in my backyard, using a nikkormat ft2, with fuji superia 400.

yes its true...

2005-07-18T11:36:00.001+10:00

its waaaaaaaaay too cold to be at uni... or indeed anywhere out of bed today.

dammit its cold

2005-07-18T07:10:00.000+10:00

back to uni... semester 2 starts.

i get the whole week of uni, with three 8am starts and one 9 am start. BASTARDS!
its not so bad when the weather is warm, but you try getting up at 6am to have breakfast and get ready to cycle all the way to the city at 7:30 every morning.

brrrrrrrrr... its too damn cold and i just want to go to bed :(

hedphuq

2005-07-08T01:18:00.000+10:00

havent written for quite a while...hasnt been too much to say... i guess thats because its all going into pictures.

check my flickr for more... www.flickr.com/photos/asterope

in other news, i have been cycling EVERYWHERE and i am looking GORGEOUS because of it!

a bit of self-love never goes astray :D

windy weather...

2005-06-23T13:02:00.000+10:00

yesterday i rode to the gap, for no reason other than a good bash around some bike tracks.
today, i dont know if i will ride anywhere... its so windy!
and cold!
and even colder because its windy!

ignorance is not an excuse

2005-06-16T02:20:00.000+10:00

ignorance is not an excuse
Originally uploaded by asterope.

unless you are a uni student, or you work at QML.

especially if you work at QML.

getting stressed out

2005-06-07T11:55:00.000+10:00

so, its come upon me.
the stress that comes with final exams for the semester.
studying my arse off, so i can go to sydney for a concert this weekend... and right now i dont even feel like going :(

excuse me for a moment...

2005-05-29T02:56:00.000+10:00

will you two please shut the fuck up???!!!

oooh... new gadgets!

2005-05-21T02:02:00.000+10:00

oooh... new gadgets!
Originally uploaded by asterope.

yummy yummy apple technology!!

the postman delivered my 40gb ipod photo on thursday, i am now a certifiable macintosh geek.

Love is a tender kiss

2005-05-18T11:51:00.000+10:00

Love is a tender kiss
Originally uploaded by Amelie -.-.

digital biology

2005-05-15T21:59:00.000+10:00

http://www.digitalbiology.info/

CONCEPTS FOR A DIGITAL BIOLOGY (by Chris Zeller?)
Every scientist should seek simplicity and distrust it (Alfred North Whitehead)

The purpose of this essay

The purpose of this essay is actually of philosophical nature in the sense of Wittgenstein, who claims that philosophy is not just the exposition of a system of thought, but rather serves the clarification of terms. Information is a term that needs clarification badly. If there is no simple comprehensive definition, an explanation could be based on evidence provided by facts in the fields of computer programming and molecular biology.

Information

A string of digits can represent digital information. The information can be regarded in two different ways. One way is purely quantitative; it measures the amount of predictability in a entirely statistical way irrespective of its meaning. There is a mathematical information theory dealing with quantitative information.

The other aspect of information is semantic; it deals with the meaning of information. If one tries to analyze a string of letters one can decide about its meaning only if one understands the language used in writing it. A string of letters always contains statistical information and sometimes it has a meaning adding to information semantic dimension. In a information system meaningful information answers a question or advises the system as to what should be done

The strategy

The basic biological information is digital. The nucleic acids, the “molecules of genetic information” are digitally organized; they consist of chains of just 4 different units (nucleotides).
Information on computer programs and data are fed into a microprocessor in binary digital form (a string of “0” and “1”). In the computer all the details necessary for a full description of its functions and structures must be unambiguously and explicitly defined.

If there is a program associated with biological information, we still do not fully understand the way it operates. A comparative study of the data processing system of a simple microprocessor like the Motorola M6800 with the digital structures of a living cell like the bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli) might be useful in helping to get a clearer view on the structure of a information system

AN ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SYSTEM

The task of a Microprocessor

A programmable (digital) microprocessor is designed, obviously, to run programs. A program is designed to instruct the microprocessor how to perform a task. The task has first to be formulated explicitly and unambiguously by a task manager and then translated by the programmer into a sequence of instructions and data in a language the computer can work with (machine code). The result of the data processing must eventually fulfill the objectives of the task. If it achieves that, it makes sense, it is meaningful,

Programs and codes

An active program, a sequence of instructions, is resident in the sequentially arranged memory cells of the microprocessor. When working with program instructions, we can not get around explaining different codes. A binary (dual) code uses only 2 types of digits: 0, 1. it is, as we shall see, directly compatible with the microprocessor hardware. The hexadecimal code as used in the assembler languages utilizes 16 types of digits; 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A(10), B(11), C(12), D(13), E(14), F(15). It is easily converted to binary code. In order to make it more readable, an assembly language program replaces hexadecimal numbers with mnemonic expressions, which show the action of instructions. The M6800 assembler instruction consist of several parts. The first part represents the operator (the action to be taken); the following parts refer to the operand (the object of the action). The operand consists of a number or the address of a memory cell containing a number. The M6800 assembler instruction “ADD A $A1B2” means “add the number contained in the memory cell with the hexadecimal address A1B2 to the content of the accumulator “A”. (The accumulator is a hardware device of the microprocessor). The operator code contains implicitly the type of the memory address of the next instruction. “ADD A $A1B2” is equivalent to BB’A1’B2 in hexadecimal and 1101’1101’1010’0001’1011’0010 in binary code of the machine language. A machine language instruction (or an assembler instruction) together with its memory address is the basic unit of a program. A program is a sequence of instructions.
Attached to the accumulator there are a number of condition codes. The “Z” code indicates that the content of the a accumulator is zero. One may compare 2 binary strings by subtracting one from the other. The zero condition code is set (1) if the two strings are equal. The checking of a condition code is usually followed by a branch instruction. If the condition code is set, then the program will not continue at the next instruction but at an address pointed to by the branch instruction.

In a programmable computer the program is first stored in the storage memory of an external device like a tape or a disk. The program has then to be transferred from the external storage device into the working memory of the microprocessor. The memory transfer is not affected by the semantics of the data. Just looking at the mnemonic code we can easily identify operator and operand, but how does the microprocessor recognise in a long string of binary code an operator representing the beginning of a instruction? The answer is given by the protocol which consists of a trailer heading the data to be transferred from the external storing memory to the working memory. An external signal activates a program which reads the trailer information and starts the program at the memory cell pointed to by the protocol.

High level programming code like the one used in Pascal or C are structurally far away from machine language but are much easier to use, since they are made to resemble natural English. These codes have to be translated into machine code by programs called compilers.

The microprocessor does not “understand” the data it has to process, but it behaves as if it did. It mechanically applies the code for the identification of an operator an and performs the operations as instructed, whether it makes sense or not; that means whether the objective of the task of the program is fulfilled or not. What has been coded by the programmer has to be decoded by the microprocessor and the code must be the same.

The microprocessor hardware
A microprocessor is an electronic device that is able to interpret and execute program instructions. The microprocessor is made up of small building blocks that are able to perform the basic logical operations. They are integrated circuits, called gates (containing each a few transistors). They accept two or more voltage inputs and generate one voltage output. The devices are electronically managed in such a way, that only two voltages are possible, low (about 0 volt) and high (about 5 volt). The low voltage represents logical 0 and the high a logical 1. The logical OR operation is performed by an OR-gate. It is made in such a way that, if at least one input is high the output will be high. The logical AND operation is performed by an AND-gate. It is made in such a way that only if both inputs are high the output will be high too. The NOT-gate turns the output into the opposite of the input. 1 becomes 0 and vice versa. All logic or arithmetic functions can be performed by combinations of gates.

Memory
With regard to the programmability the gates are combined to those functional units which are required by a program. The most important functional units are the memory cells of a memory bank. The program wants to read data from memory cells and write them to others. In order to do so we have to be able to select them first. The memory is an array of addressable (numbered) memory cells. In the M6800 microprocessor there are two sets of parallel lines servicing the memory cells, the buses. One bus carries the data. it consists of eight lines. The other bus carries the addresses and consists of 16 lines. Each memory cell has access to both. A specific cell can be selectively activated when its address appears on the bus. Data on the data bus are either read from or written to a selected cell depending on whether a special command line, which is also connected to each cell, is either low or high. A clock holds the two states alternatively high for reading or low for writing.
Decoders

A logical circuit which brings about a selection is called a decoder. A pattern of eight binary units, as it appears on the data bus, may represent one of 28 = 256 different possible patterns: 00000001, 00000010, 00000011, 00000100, 00000101. As a consequence decoding can select one of 256 different commands. A 16 bit address can select 216 = 65536 different memory cells. An instruction is interpreted by first selecting the first byte (the operator) of an instruction. It contains a code for the action to be executed (command code). The second and sometimes the third byte of an instruction contain the address code for the object of the planned action (the operand). The number of bytes of an address is implicitly contained in the operator instruction. The codes are assigned by the designer of the microprocessor architecture. He is free in the choice of the address and command codes. There is no compelling reason to choose for the operation “ADD A” the code “BB” and not “FB” or something else. The programmer has to know, however, the meaning of the code.
Data manipulation.

The M6800 microprocessor uses two special memory cells, the accumulator registers to perform arithmetic and logical operations. If two numbers have to be added, one is put into the accumulator A the other into the accumulator B. The “ABA” instruction adds then the content of accumulator A to the content of accumulator B and leaves the result in accumulator A. There is no instruction for a multiplication in the M6800 but a small set of assembler instructions suffice to perform a programmed multiplication. A 16 bit multiplication requires 25 programming steps. Hardwired circuits of the microprocessor can be replaced by program instructions and vice versa. When hardware is relatively expensive and software relatively cheap one would of course minimise the use of hardware. A program of a microprocessor is usually structured; the main program calls subroutines which deal with particular aspects of the entire program. There are pre-programmed microprocessors. All instruction and addresses are integrated in a hardwired memory. A fully hardwired system is an automat, it is not anymore programmable. There are dedicated microprocessors where most instructions are hardwired but a few signals are still selecting certain functions. This is done by pressing buttons of a washing machine for example. More extreme types of dedicated microprocessors operate robots. They are equipped with sensors which read the value they need straight from their environment.
Interaction with microprocessor environment

The microprocessor provides input lines which signal to the microprocessor that data are ready to be transferred from the environment. These signals can force the microprocessor to activate a program which is associated with this particular line.
When a program and data to be used by the program are transmitted from the storage memory to the microprocessor working memory an input protocol is required, which makes sure that the first bit of the first operator of the first instruction is placed at the address of the start of the program. Transmitting to another place would garble the whole program. The protocol determines a reading frame. The external data contain data sequences indicating begin and end of a message and the address of the first instruction. Control lines between microprocessor and the external device, for example a tape, makes sure that both are ready when transmission starts.
Data processing and information

Decoding turns the relevant data that enter the microprocessor into meaningful information. Software and hardware have of course to agree about the meaning of the code, otherwise the processor cannot be told by the program how to process the data.

BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS

The central dogma of molecular biology maintains that the flow of genetic information is passed from DNA through a process of transcription to RNA and from there through a process of translation to the proteins.

The basic genetic information system
Nucleic acids

Nucleic acids consist of a sugar phosphate backbone with purine or pyrimidine bases attached to the sugar molecules. The basic element of nucleic acids consists of a phosphate a sugar and a base is called a nucleotide. The bases of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) are the purines guanine (G) and adenine (A) and the pyrimidines cytosine (C) and thymine (T). The sugar is a desoxyribose. The picture of the two strands (the backbones) forming a spiral held together by hydrogen bonds between a purine and a pyrimidine is well known. We characterize a strand of DNA nucleotides by the abbreviation of their bases. The double strand may look like the following:

….CATTCGTAC…..
….GTAAGCAGT….

The two strands are complementary. In a base pair there is always a purine base connected to a pyrimidine base. The first base pair in our example the pyrimidine C of one strand is attached to the purine G of the other strand. If one strand is known the sequence of the other follows automatically. The length of the strands is measured in base pairs. DNA molecules are very stable. Information is stored in DNA as sequence of base pairs. When the structure of DNA was discovered the possibility of automatically forming copies of the strands suggested itself.
In the RNA molecule in contrast to DNA the sugar of the backbone is a ribose and not a desoxyribose and the pyrimidine base thymine (T) is replaced by uracil (U). The RNA molecule can present itself not only as straight string, it can also be folded back on itself in different ways. According to their base RNA sequences can form loops by complementary base pairing.

A CCUGGG UGCAU…… the underlined U is not paired to a
A AAC
C GGGCCC GUGUA….. complimenting base
U C A
UAA

Polypeptides and proteins

Chains of amino acids, (polypeptides) are structured on different levels. The primary level is characterized by the particular sequence of the amino acids. On the secondary level the chains are arranged in the form of sheets or in form of a helix. On the tertiary level the chains fold up on themselves (similar to RNA). This is a result of the affinity of the different amino acids to each other and to an aqueous surrounding. Each polypeptide has its own three dimensional structure. In a protein several polypeptides are joined together (quaternary level). The versatility of their structure reflects the numerous functions of the proteins. One of the most important function is the function of an enzyme. Polymerases are able to recognize complicated patterns of base sequences in nucleic acids. They can function as a address decoding device during the process of transcription. Enzymes may be folded in such a way that they form a niche accommodating to a variety of specific smaller molecules. Once the niche is filled the overall structure of the protein may change with consequences for its function. Some protein structures have the ability to organize themselves into certain shapes like sheets or tubules.

Transcription.

The transfer of information from the storage memory (DNA) to the working memory, the messenger RNA (m-RNA) consists in a process of direct copying. Free floating RNA nucleotides can find their way and bond to the complementary DNA strand.

…..CATTCGTAC….. copied DNA strand
…..GTAAGCAGT….. complimentary DNA strand à downstream direction
…..CAUUC
G incoming RNA nucleotides to be attached
U
C
A…..

This process requires the help of RNA polymerase an enzyme that pushes the two strands of the DNA molecule apart, in order to make room for the incoming RNA nucleotides and at the same time initiates the attachment of the RNA nucleotide to the complimentary DNA template. The same happens to the next incoming RNA nucleotide, which is then bonded to the ones already attached. The DNA molecule is not transcribed as an intact whole but in smaller pieces of about thousand to several thousand base pairs. The RNA polymerase has to find the exact place (address) where to begin transcription. The sites of the start are marked on the complementary DNA strand. We find at a location 35 base pairs upstream from a start site a sequence like TTGACA and 10 bases upstream a sequence like TATAAT. These marks define the promoter regions.

There a many promoters in the DNA storage molecule corresponding to many functional units to be transcribed. The RNA polymerase consists of several proteins. One of them is called s (sigma). There are different types of s’s. Transcription is initiated by binding a s of the polymerase to a promoter sequence and there by selecting the promoter to be used. As soon as that the first nucleotide has bonded the s component is dropped and the polymerization reaction continues. The polymerase moves along the DNA and releases a string of mRNA until the polymerase encounters a transcription terminator DNA nucleotide sequence. The result of the transcription is the messenger RNA (mRNA) …CAUUCGUCA… in our example. The transcription is also regulated by enhancer and repressor proteins, which determine whether the RNA polymerase can dock or not on the DNA template and so initiate transcription. In more advanced organisms enhancers may connect to the polymerase molecule and at the same time to a DNA sequence at a different location. It appears that the molecular context of the promoter can play a role in transcription

Translation.

The central dogma of molecular biology requests that the information presented in the sequence of base pairs is used to form a sequence of the amino acids which make up a polypeptide. In order to do so other RNA structures are used like the ribosomes, they consist of r-RNA molecules and proteins. There are two ribosomal subunits which bind to the mRNA during translation. In the chain of nucleotides that make up a mRNA, the ribosome has to find a correct site the translation initiation region (TIR) and initiate translation there. During the initiation phase the smaller of the two subunits recognizes and binds to a TIR of the mRNA. One mRNA string may contain several TIR and several ribosomes may start translation at the same time. A set of adapter molecules, the transfer RNA (t-RNA)’s which bind to the ribosomes do the decoding. They translate triplets of bases into amino acids. For the possible base triplet there are different t-RNA molecules At one end the t-RNA presents three bases the anticodon, the other end the acceptor selects the appropriate amino acid.

…CAU UCG UCA… base triplets of m-RNA called codons

GUA AGC AGU anticodon of t-RNA
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
his ser stop histidine and serine are two of 20 amino acids which are used in proteins.
Stop is a nonsense codon, which stops translation and marks the termination region.

Translation must start at the first base of a anticodon otherwise an entirely different sequence of amino acids will result. The start point of translation determines the so called reading frame.

…CAU UCG UCA
AUG CGU CA… translations starting one base pair downstream
met ala change amino acids to methionine – alanine - …

Triplets of 4 different bases give 64 possible codes but only 20 are required. The genetic code is redundant that means that one amino acids can be coded by several codons. After the initiation stage of the translation the amino acid chain is elongated. The larger ribosome subunit joins the smaller one so that the mRNA is held between the two subunits. The ribosome moves along the mRNA and adds one amino acid to the next according to the sequence of base triplet of the mRNA and concatenates them with peptide bonds. This process is catalyzed by the large ribosome subunit itself. Several elongation factors are involved in forming an amino acid chain. Finally the termination region of the RNA is reached where release factors are bound to the stop codon and cut off the amino acid chain. If several ribosomes are included in the process of translation of one mRNA then several amino acids chains or peptides are produced.
Comparison between an electronic and a basic genetic information system

There are some basic requirements for data processing, which are the same in both a bacterium and a microprocessor:

Addressable storage and working memories.
Transmitting and copying of data
Address and data decoding mechanisms.
Data processing machinery

The close functional analogy of the different steps of data processing in both systems may appear surprising. The storage memory of the microprocessor (tape or disk) corresponds to DNS of E. coli. The working memory, the memory cells of a microprocessor correspond to the mRNA. The function of the decoding circuitry of the microprocessor is carried out by the adapter molecule tRNA The accumulator, the arithmetic and logic unit correspond to the ribosomes.

The main differences between the two systems lay in the representation of information. In the microprocessor all information used is presented by bit patterns which can be transported from one place to another as electric signal on conducting lines. Since the task of a program is known before it is started, all information required can be transmitted usually in one single string. If data have to be entered later during data processing they can be imported from outside with the help of a protocol which consist of signal lines and software guidance. The address decoding and data processing are done by simple logic devices. The programs are often very complicated. There may be many alternative paths of processing depending on the results of intermediate results. For example, if a intermediate result turns out to be negative then the program may continue at one module, if it is positive at another. Never the less, they still can be expressed in the form of bit patterns. The definitions of the data and address codes are not the task of the program though they are integral parts of an information system. The designers of the hardware and of the software are responsible for the definitions. To use a program language and to design it is not the same. To use a microprocessor code and to design it is also not the same.

In the living cell the software is incorporated in the hardware: the molecules. Genetic information can not be loaded into the hardware it is already there. The definition of data and address codes too is "hardwired" in the molecules; the designing of codes has already happened. The information must be copied from DNA to RNA through close contact of a DNA string with building blocks of RNA (nucleotides). The data processing, the translation of the information of the RNA nucleotide sequence into amino acid sequences requires a direct contact with tRNA molecules. Functional units of mRNA are transcribed from a DNA strand and translated into polypeptides. The selection of what is transcribed is influenced by the environment of the bacterium. For example: the transcription of the information leading to the cleavage of the sugar lactose into galactose and glucose is negatively controlled. If there is no lactose present in the environment a repressor molecule does not allow the RNA polymerase to dock on the DNA and blocks so transcription. Regulation makes sense: in the presence of lactose the repression is inactivated. If there is no lactose available there is of course no need of the biochemical machinery to split it. The DNA polymerase by itself is not very specific. If there are no regulatory proteins, neither positive nor negative ones, unspecific sequences of nucleotides could be selected for translation into polypeptides. One would expect therefore to find polypeptides or proteins without useful properties. That this is actually the case has been shown by experiments designed to prove, that the presence of a particular antibiotic in the environment of a bacterium does not induce resistance against this antibiotic. There is convincing evidence for the existence of resistance in some individuals before they came into contact with the antibiotic. There are always apparently useless proteins around, which can only be detected when the environment changes and as a consequence they become useful. They constitute a supply of new material for evolution.

The main task of data processing in E. coli is the production of polypeptides at the time they are needed in order to keep the metabolism of the cell going. There is mainly one job the ribosomes, the executive part of the information system has to carry out: the formation of polypeptide chains by connecting the selected amino acids. The selection of which data have to be transferred and translated and when a polypeptide needs to be activated, the regulation of the genetic expression is a much more demanding procedure. The regulation of gene expression is carried out at the stage of transcription of DNA to RNA, at the stage of translation of RNA into polypeptides as well as at other stages later on. Each regulatory factor restricts the opportunities of genetic expressions and makes them at the same time more specific. The information system of E.coli consists of a large number of self-contained dedicated informational units There is no main program with subroutines in the information system of E.coli.

As a matter of fact genes are not just sequences of DNA nucleotides, but small dedicated informational units including addresses (promoter), and regulatory support systems, which result in the formation of specific proteins at the time they are required.

The origin of a biological information system
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The code is the kingpin of the data processing in an information system. In a microprocessor the code is built into the hardware and the programmer has to abide by it. But how was the genetic code in a biological information system generated? To answer this question, one has to go back billions of years, to the gray zone between biology and chemistry. In a prebiotic time one would expect a macromolecular evolution. In chemistry not all combination of atoms and molecules are possible. Thermodynamic constraints stereo chemical consideration and parameters of the environment determine the structure of the molecules. There are chemical reactions which consume, others which produce energy. Some time, nobody knows when, chains of nucleotides must have appeared. Most probably RNA began to acquire importance before DNA and proteins existed. A lot of experimental evidence has been collected which postulate a RNA world. It appears that the roots of the elements of an information system can be found there. It appears that the most important ribosomal function can be carried out without proteins.

Formal constraints for a genetic code.

The genetic code was cracked by backward engineering; that means one knows the result and tries to find out how that result could have been achieved. One assumes that the code evolved step by step. The first thing that must be decided on is its basic structure. Is the code is to be based on one bit like in a computer where it consists of one bit that may assume the two values “0” and “1” , or should it be based one two three or may be four bits? The nucleotide message to be coded offers four possible values (the four different bases). For our backward engineering intellect it is obvious the code needs three bits since we need at least three bit with four possible values each, to code for 20 amino acids. A code with two bits and four values per bit could code up to 8 amino acids. A code with four bits and four values per bit could code up to 128 amino acids. The number of bits restricts the possible number of amino acids. Evolution selected the three bit code certainly before "knowing" how many amino acids would be required by biology in future. One has to keep in mind that an information system requires two types of codes, one to determine the address of a location in the memory and another to select the action to be taken by data processing mechanism. Since a message has to be located before an action can be taken, the code for finding a memory location, that means that during evolution, the starting point of transcription has probably been implemented before the actual translating code needs to be worked out.

Evolution of a genetic code.

Scientists studying the properties of the RNA world have found that certain folded chains of RNA can act as enzymes (ribozymes). The large unit of the ribosome contains a RNA sequence that functions as peptidyl transferase which joins amino acids into polypeptides. The smaller part of the ribosome is involved in both initiation and termination of the translation. There is evidence for a reduplication process of RNA without a code. There is a hypothesis suggesting the two ends of the t-RNA, the anticodon end and the acceptor end (to which amino acids can be attached) have developed separately (and probably by a the tactics of trial and error joined later to form an adaptor molecule). The first codes evolution has to select would most probably be an initiation and the termination code. If we study the a table of the genetic code we find that the triplet “AUG” is the unequivocal code for methionine and ad the same time marks the initiation of reading a mRNA string of E. coli. The very similar three letter triplets UAA, UGA, UAG are stop codes. A triplet anticodon site on the “anticodon end” of a t-RNA precursor could be established by the selection of these codes. Initiation and stop codes produce a fixed reading frame for reading a string of nucleotides, which is obviously a prerequisite for the selection of a genetic code. It would appear the selection of amongst redundant triplets could make it easier to find codes for further amino acids.

After the RNA world had expanded and DNA as a new carrier of information was established, the promoter sequences had to be introduced as addresses for the selection of the DNA sequences to be transcribed and translated. An address code had to be found for the recognition of addresses laid down in DNA by polymerases. That means a analog pattern of a protein configuration has to recognize a digital pattern of base sequences of DNA. There are models that show how this can be achieved (DNA binding domains of proteins).

The suggested consecutive steps in the evolution of the genetic information system seem to propose some guide lines. Each step should contribute to the stability of the system if further steps are to follow. It has to abide by rules of physics and chemistry and the restrictions established by the previous step. Each step constrains the possibilities of the next one. According to this view, evolution results from balance between constraints and new opportunities for selecting a further step. A biological information system is a collection of a large number of individual small systems. Each of them must have passed through its own evolutionary steps. It took evolution about 1.5 billion years of trial and error to achieve cells of the organizational level of E.coli

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MULTICELLULAR ORGANISMS

Eukaryotic cells
E.coli belongs to the prokaryote organisms, which lack a nuclear membrane, cytoplasmic organelles and a cytoskeleton. The chromosomes (DNA molecules and associated proteins) are the only larger structured elements floating within the cellular membrane The study of the genetic information system of bacteria like E.coli deals mainly with the chemical properties of nucleic acids and proteins and their metabolic functions. Structural aspects of the cell play a minor role. The bacteria are immensely successful in coping with the most diverse environmental conditions. However, evolution did not stop here.
In eukaryotes, the chromosomes are enclosed in a nuclear membrane. DNA is therefore separated from the ribosomes, which are situated in the cytoplasm, the fluid between the cell membrane and the nuclear membrane. The genetic information system works in two different compartments. The transcription of genetic information takes place in the nucleus and is therefore separated from the translation into polypeptides which is carried out in the cytoplasm. Mechanisms of transport of molecules through the membranes are called for.
All cellular membranes are phospholipids double layers. Each layer consists of two molecular sheets of phospholipids. The fatty acid tails of both sheets point to the center of the double sheet. Proteins and other molecules can be inserted between the phospholipids. The nuclear membrane consists actually of two membranes held together by a system of nuclear pores, which supervise the molecular traffic between nucleus and cytoplasm. Proteins that have to enter the nucleus, (like DNA polymerase) contain amino acid sequences that represent nuclear localization signals. Proteins that have to leave the nucleus contain amino acid sequences that represent nuclear export signals. The signals selectively permit the transfer of proteins. The molecular traffic involves energy transfer. Small proteins with signaling sequences carry out this function. Some of them happen to be very similar to the elongation factors, which support the formation of amino acid chains in E.coli. RNA molecules like mRNA, t-RNA, r-RNA have to be exported through the nuclear membrane as RNA protein complexes. The nuclear export signals of the protein help with the transport of RNA.
The nuclear envelope, which restricts the free movement of molecules within the cell, leads to the invention of a signaling system. A signaling system consists of signals and complementary receptors. During evolution, such matching pairs must have been found. In fact, whole families of matching pairs have been selected by evolution. We have seen that regulatory factors restrict transcription and translation. The pores further restrict the flow of information from DNA to RNA to proteins. Restriction means more specific action; it means a selection of molecules, which are allowed to pass a barrier. Beside the nuclear membrane there are other membranous organelles forming compartments in the cytoplasm. Signals play also here its role in transport through the membranes. Most of the ribosomes are attached to the endoplasmic reticulum. Another one is the golgi apparatus a site of sorting of proteins and lipids. The cytoplasm of eukaryotes contains a cytoskeleton, a network of protein filaments, which structure the shape of a cell and may enable the cells to move.

The first primitive forms of life emerged probably 3.5 billion years ago. It took evolution about 0.5 billion years to pass from prokaryote to eukaryotic cells. About 1.5 billion years later the first multicellular turned up. The time estimates of evolutionary periods are of course very tentative. Nevertheless, it is still not without interest to realize, that the time that passed from the arrival of the first forms of life to the appearance of the first multicellular organisms was probably longer than the period required for evolution of the entire multicellular world with all its intricate and apparently intelligently adapted biological structures. One has to bear in mind that during the first 2 billion years all the basic digital cellular strategies of life was established.

MULTICELLULAR INFORMATION SYSTEMS

The development of a multicellular organism
Development is a indispensable process in the creation of multicellular organisms. It is a step by step progress, each step building on the previous one, starting with one cell, the egg cell. There are of course forms of life where the power to regenerate makes development from an egg obsolete. The Banana trees are propagated by cuttings. One finds in some fruits still seeds or rudiments of seeds. Some cultivars show more, others less and wild bananas always have seeds. Single cell organism like protozoan are highly organized cells with many efficient organ-like structures (organelles). Cell division produces here other single celled individuals complete with all their organelles. Modern unicellular species have evolved from simpler forms, but there is no real development. Their size is very limited and so is the variety of environments in which a species can thrive.

The development of multicellular organisms starts with the division of a single cell, whereby each daughter cell obtains the same genetic information. This process repeats itself many times. The cells adhere to each other with the help of cadherins and other proteins like members of the Ig super family, which are inserted in the cell membrane. As a rule, cytoplasmatic molecules of the first cell are not homogeneously spread throughout the cell. Consequently, different daughter cells obtain different cytoplasmatic molecules. During development cells differentiate, they produce different proteins, among them regulatory molecules. They are activating the transcription of different regions of the DNA of different daughter cells, which therefore display different genetic activities. An early cluster of cells arranges itself in orderly way. Different cadherins keep different groups of cells in different aggregations together. The cells organize themselves into three layers: the germ layers. The ectoderm and the endoderm are formed first. In between the two, the mesoderm splits off later on. Early in evolution, there are organisms, which consist just of ectoderm and endoderm, in later stages a third layer in-between, the mesoderm evolves. From these early stages, the very different forms of the animal kingdom evolved The genetic outfit and the morphological constraints of early cellular aggregations had to be in place before multicellular organisms could use them in their development. The ectoderm and the specialized cells being derived from it, form a protective shield around the multicellular organism. Actually, it represents a third barrier between the genetic information and the body's environment. The first two are the cellular and the nuclear membranes. It would appear that there is a general strategy of evolution to use the interface between an organism and its environment as a tool to render it more and more independent of a the environment.

Eukaryotic cells, have during their evolution, acquired a system of signaling which allows specific molecules to pass through the nuclear membrane. Similarly, Multicellular organisms during their evolution have acquired strategies of passing specific molecules through the cell membrane. The cell membrane contains receptors, which accept specific signals from other cells and the signal-receiving cell responds by regulating transcription in a specific way; the cells carry out an instructions. Multicellular organisms are confronted with an extra cellular but also an environment of the cells within the body. The signaling between cells in a multicellular organism and its environment becomes as evolution proceeds very complicated. There is ample evidence, however, to show that multicellular organism use the same basic genetic information system as unicellular ones. We have seen, that in E.coli each "gene" represents a complete dedicated information system, and that there is no higher ranging master program. The "genes" are activated when and where they are needed. "When" means at what developmental stage and "where" means in which cells. The factors that switch on the transcription of a string of DNA nucleotides of one cell, and with it its expression may come from other cells with other levels of differentiation of the same organism.

The recognition of a signal by a receptor depends on a match between protein structures. Two structures of protein shapes match; match well, or not so well. The strictly digital aspect of recognition, where a signal is either recognized or not recognized, is here fuzzy. This fact may speed up evolutionary processes in an unspecific recognition system, where the signaling structures fit only loosely the complementary structure of a receptor may be a preliminary step, which can be modified by evolution to produce a more accurate mechanism.

Genes not only produce enzymes and regulatory proteins but also structural proteins. The bigger and the more complicated a species becomes, the more important structures become, whether they are within cells or around them. Here digital mechanisms loose their direct and exclusive grip over molecular and cellular digital interactions. Many molecules or even cells have the property to aggregate by them selves in specific patterns, depending on their own structures and the condition of their immediate environment. Sheets or tubes are examples of selforganising structures, but there are many more. D' Arcy Thompson's marvelous "On Growth and Form" shows how physical forces determine the growing body's shape.

Information systems in multicellular organisms.

The size and the complexity of multicellular organisms call for more powerful and specialized signaling procedures, especially in animal life. Multicellular organisms have to defend themselves against microorganisms, viruses and foreign intruding substances. An outer cover, the skin and associated layers protect the body. However, there is always a way to invade it through an entrance like a mouth and the gut which is lined by a soft layer of tissue. The immune system deals with these emergencies. The protective outer layers form a barrier between environmental conditions and the genetic information system of multicellular organisms. The basic genetic information system has to react to the environment. Multicellular organisms collect signals from the environment through sense organs. Nerves convey the signals to the central nervous system where they are processed and answered by appropriate reactions. In both of them in the immune system as well as in the nervous system, secondary information systems evolved on top of the innate information systems. In these adaptive information systems, each individual is able to extend in the course of its development the innate system by a process that very much resembles learning.
In the following, the immune system and the nervous system can of course not deal with the necessary facts that could explain their functioning. Emphasis is put on the demonstration of the implementation of the basic principles of an information system.
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THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
The innate immune system

The defence against foreign agents, the so called antigens, is carried out by the immune system. Some types of immunity is found in all multicellular organisms including plants. The innate immune system comprises all immune responses which are under direct genetic control. A very basic defence is performed by phagocytes, cells that have the ability to engulf adverse intruders and digest or destroy them. In roundworms and vertebrates we can find natural killer cells. These cells express on their surface receptors which are able to recognize characteristic molecules on the surface of microbes. The recognition triggers immune responses. The complement system, another defence mechanism, consists of a number of proteins. Some of them are able to attach themselves to a microbial surface and together with other complement proteins attack the cell membrane and eventually kill the microbe. The lymphatic system is a system of vessels that collect tissue fluid (lymph) and returns it to the blood. Lymph nodes are interspersed along these vessels
The adaptive immune system

In mammals and in birds a second line of defense is established during the individual development of an organism. It is called adaptive immunity. B-lymphocytes and T lymphocytes are specialized cells of the adaptive immune system, charged with the protection against protein antigens. Phagocytes like macrophages and dendritic cells act as antigen presenting cells (APC). Within these cells proteins derived from engulfed digested viruses and bacteria, but also from the metabolism of the cell itself are broken down into peptides. Immunodominant peptides are those, which can be embedded in a cleft of a MHC protein molecule and then be brought to the cell surface for presentation where they act as coded address of the APC. The term MHC stands for “major histocompatability complex” because these molecules were first found in tissue transplantation studies. MHC proteins are found in all nucleated cells of mammals.

The main players on the immune scene are derived from self renewing stem cells. They share the genes with all other cells of a multicellular body. The lymphocyte stem cells live in the bone marrow. The differentiation of B cells takes place in bone marrow, while the T cells move to the thymus gland. During development into prelymphocytes a drastic change of the genes responsible for the expression of antigen receptors occurs. Only a selection of small parts of these genes are transcribed and translated in various genetic recombinations in each individual cell. The variety of antigen receptor proteins produced is so big, that practically all possible antigen matches are realized. During maturation, the cells proliferate and those that cannot express the antigen receptors die. At the end of maturation, one finds an enormous number of genetically different lymphocytes with structurally different antigen receptors. Since the production of receptor molecules happens independently from the presence of antigens, many of them will produce antigen receptors, which are of no later use and die. Immature lymphocytes bind strongly to self-antigens (antigens derived from the corresponding cells themselves) and will die by apoptosis (regulated cell death). Lymphocytes that do not bind strongly are selected to survive. The mature lymphocytes multiply and move from their place of origin into the periphery of the lymphatic system where they meet antigen presenting cells like macrophages and dendritic cells, which have during their voyage through blood and lymph systems collected antigens and present them now. There are most probably several slightly different antigen receptors which may recognize the same antigen presented by a MHC.
The recognition of antigens on an APC by mature leucocytes induces the immune response. Various receptors on the surface of the T cell join corresponding molecules on the surface of the antigen presenting cell. Together they organize an immunological synapse. Molecular interactions in the synapse induce a signal to genes of the T cell which start to secrete cytokines. The T cell then differentiates into either T helper cells or T killer cells and launches a clonal expansion, each clone with its own antigen specifics properties. The T killer cells kill the infected cell to which their TRC molecule has attached; Helper cells activate macrophages and B cells. The immune responses of the B cells is the production of antibodies. They are glycoprotein molecules that a secreted by the B cells and are able to neutralize antigens in the body fluids. B cells are able to deal with protein and non protein antigens. In order to handle protein antigens however they have to contact T helper cells. While active leucocytes are short lived, each type of T and B cells produce also long-lived memory cells, which survive for many years in different tissues, where they respond readily to secondary attacks of the same antigen that caused their selection at the end of their maturation.
As new native T and B cells are continuously formed, the genetic differentiation keeps on producing specific antigen receptor proteins. The genetically newly rearranged receptors represent the storage memory of the immune system. The final selection of antigen receptors out of the many possibilities offered by the storage memory serves as the working memory. The key element in an information system is the code. The role of the code is played in the immune information system by the immunological synapse. It mediates between the cell on which it is displayed and the cell carrying a corresponding receptors. The recognition represents the process of decoding. It triggers the required immune responses (data processing). The development of each leukocyte is in itself the development of a small information system. The memory cells form a reservoir of the working memory. The whole system would not work, if the cells involved would not move at the right time to the right place. This is made possible by addressin molecules expressed on endothelial cells in different atomic sites and homing receptors (members of the Ig super family) on the lymphocytes.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
The innate neural information system

The neuron consists of a main body and one main extension, the axon. In some neurons, the bipolar neurons there are two axon-like branches. The axons and the main body are provided with additional extensions, the dendrites, which receive signals from other neurons. The axon sends signals to other neurons or to effector organs. The signal consists in a train of electric pulses of varying frequency. The signals are either on or off, depending on whether the neuron itself has received appropriate signals through its dendrites. Neural information systems occur in all multicellular animals. Signaling is the most characteristic ability of neurons. Neural signals connect sender and receiver directly. In this respect, the neural information system behaves somehow like a hardwired addressing system of a microprocessor. Extremely primitive animals like sea anemones are equipped with neural information systems at this level. Without interconnections, these discrete information systems spread over the surface of their body. Very soon in evolutionary history, the discrete systems join to form a system of peripheral nerves distributed throughout the whole body connected to a central neural system consisting of collections of cell bodies. Smaller collections of neural cell bodies are the ganglia. Afferent (incoming sensory) neurons send signals from sense organs which receive impulses either from external environment or from the internal environment (body temperature, state of tension of muscles, pain etc) to the central nervous system. Efferent (outgoing motor) neurons send signals from the center to effectors, organs like muscles or glands. In vertebrates, the central nervous system is derived from an embryonic neural tube and consists of a prominent frontal part in the head, the brain and the spinal cord, which runs through the whole length of the body. During early development, neurons acquire their characteristic shapes. The dendrites connect to the body and axons of other neurons with the help of synapses. The presynaptic neuron is the one that sends a signal across the synaptic gap to the postsynaptic neuron. There are signals that activate and others that inhibit. The sum of all signals a postsynaptic neuron receives decides whether it sends off its own signals or not.

The signals passing through the axons are electric currents and are very much the same throughout the whole nervous system. In the innate neural system the neural net is hardwired. Neurotransmitters influence the specificity to the process of transmission. Specific receptors of postsynaptic cells recognize specific neurotransmitter molecules provided by the presynaptic neuron. A recognition produce effects that differ widely in their biochemical mechanism, duration of action, and physiological function. There are three classes of receptors. Ionotropic receptors directly open an ion channel that is part of the receptor macromolecule. These transmitter-gated channels produce the fastest and briefest type of synaptic action, lasting only a few milliseconds, on average. This fast synaptic transmission mediates most motor actions and perceptual processing within the nervous system, Other neurotransmitters mediate longer lasting effects that pass through a receptor gate and activate signals within the postsynaptic neuron. They may last from seconds to minutes. The longest lasting form of synaptic transmission involves changes of gene transcription, changes that can persist for days or weeks. These more permanent actions are thought to involve many of the same type of receptors involved in the shorter-term modulatory actions of transmitters. However, they require repeated stimulation.

A reflex passes a neural signal directly from a sensor to an effector. The stretching of a sensor in a muscle causes a sensory neuron to send a signal to a motor neuron in the spine. The motor neuron in turn causes the muscle to which it is attached to contract. The monosynaptic reflex shows the basic function of a hardwired information system: An incoming signal translates directly into a signal of an efferent neuron. The sensory neuron can connect to a motor neuron and at the same time to an interneuron that may inhibit the contraction of a different muscle. In this case, the signal passes through more than one synapsis. Such an arrangement is meaningful, when the two muscles are antagonistic like a bender and a stretcher, which should not contract at the same time. Reflexes are completely hardwired information systems.
The development of the nervous system.

The first rudiments of the nervous system of many animals including vertebrates, arthropods, worms, appear very early during embryogenesis. A region along the longitudinal axis of the embryo separates itself from the remaining ectoderm and forms an elementary nervous system. Its cells still resembles the epidermal ectoderm. In vertebrates, it forms a dorsal tube with a head and a tail end. The cells start differentiation by forming an axon that grows towards its target, for example a developing leg. At the tip of the axon of an effector cell, a growth cone follows a path to the target. The growth cone is both a sensory and a motor structure. Some of the navigational aids are the chemically similar to the ones found in lymphatic system, where lymphocytes have to find an appropriate region for maturing. Others are cell adhesion molecules, which mark the path. There is a lot of detailed experimental evidence for the existence of a very specific guiding mechanism in which both, the growing axon and the target cell play their role. The growth cone moves to the vicinity of the target cells. The development of the junction between a motor neuron and the precursor of a muscle fiber, a myotube has been thoroughly researched. Once a growth the cone has reached a myotube it starts to develop a morphologically unspecified contact. This contact leads finally to the formation of a synapse. Specific synapses must also develop between neurons and interneurons. The synapse is the defining feature of a neural interaction. The establishment of synapses is the prerequisite for addressability of the neurons. The growing embryo produces a surplus of neurons competing for targets. The target cell secretes limited amounts of neurotrophic factors (NGF). There are different NGF’s for different targets. Only those neurons survive which are able to attach to a target. The neurons have a built in suicide program (apoptosis), which starts when the neuron does not obtain enough NGF. In addition, surplus synapses become obsolete too. We have to bear in mind that the first contact between growth cone and myotube happens when the two have reached a specific stage in their development. The afferent neurons start at sensory cells in the periphery and grow towards the central nervous system and find their way by guiding system and eventually find their specific target.

The hierarchic organization of the neural information system.

The hierarchy of the sensory visual system represents a well studied example for the hierarchic structure of a vertebrate neural information system and it shows at the same time how signals are processed. The retina of the human eye contains about hundred million light sensitive cells (rods and cones), while the optic nerve holds about one million nerve fibres. The light signals impinging on the retina are obviously pre-processed before thy leave the retina. The process of pre-processing is organized by its histological structure. Bipolar cells join at one end the sensor cells of the retina and at the other end the ganglion cells which form connections to neurons of the optic nerve. Horizontal interneurons connect a certain area of adjacent sensor cells with bipolar neurons.

They organize two types of receptive fields in one the centre reacts to relatively dark sensory inputs as compared to a lighter surround; in the other the centre is relatively light and the surround darker. This arrangement increases the contrast of the sensory input. A layer of interneurons at the other end of the bipolar cells, the so called amacrine cells, connect an area of bipolar cells with the ganglia cells. The amacrine cells are thought to be involved in the generation of directional selectivity (vectors). There are other types of ganglion cells in the retina. Some have big others small receptive fields and others respond to colour. The connections between sensory cells and different types of ganglia are hardwired in appropriate ways. It appears that the retina by itself is able detect a moving object at least in lower vertebrates.

Projection neurons (bipolar cells) connect visual sensors directly to the ganglion cells of the retina. From there projection neurons carry signals via several relay stations to the cerebral cortex. At each station horizontal interneurons integrate signals and send branches of to effector organs and projection neurons further up to the brain. The primary visual cortex has a layered structure with a prominent white stripe corresponding to a layer of axons of layer cell bodies of integrating neurons. It is the primary site of visual data processing.
The developmental stations reflect evolutionary stages. At early stages in evolution they have more important visual function; later these functions were more and more delegated to later stages in particular to the primary visual cortex. The frog’s retina recognises moving objects. A frog would starve with lots of dead flies around it, but eagerly tries to catch a moving crude dummy. The frog’s retina seems to be able to perform the vital task of getting food; this ability is not found in visually higher developed vertebrates. While in birds the colliculus (midbrain) is anatomically prominent and plays an important role in the visual system, in mammals many functions are reduced in favour of the primary visual cortex. The visual receives signals at one side and passes them on to a following level; during this process the shape of an image gradually obtains a more detailed structure. The higher up one goes in the evolutionary ladder the more distinctly a hierarchical neural organisation expresses itself.

Not only the retina is mapped to the cerebral cortex, there is also a topological map of the sensory input of the surface of the body projected to the neural cortex. There is also a topographic map of the motor output; the neurons which innervate the muscles are arranged here in a pattern reflecting the pattern of the muscles of the body.

The adaptive neural information.

In the vertebrate neural information system there is no clear separation between innate hardwired connections and connections programmable during development. Studies on development show that connections between visual images on the retina and the actual seeing can be installed during the development of an individual organism. If young kittens are prevented from opening their eyes for a closely defined period after birth, they do not develop proper vision. The time factor and the contact with the environment are vital for the postnatal development. If the kittens are blinded during any period later, their vision is not impaired. The observation of the process of imprinting is also clear evidence for the fact that a specific visual images serve as clues for environmental interactions. Just after birth hatching ducklings become fixed on an object as a code for recognizing their mother. Some birds learn to recognize the voice of the young birds even before they have hatched. The programmed concretions are set up together with growing nerves and are therefore closely linked the anatomical development of the nervous system which in turn depends on an individual body as a whole. A programmed neural connection is the address of the postsynaptic neuron.

The development of a hierarchically organised neural system depends on the possibility of programmable addresses, since new addresses have to be established on a new level. A later point in time will then be instrumental for the specificity of the selection of a contact. The establishing of a code in the adaptive phase of neural development has the character of learning.

The individual development replaces evolution as creative element in the formation of the anatomical structures and neural connections. Of course the genes still provide the necessary proteins but they do not determine the details of cellular interaction. The genes, rather than determining which cell does what at a certain point in development, the momentary cellular situation instructs the genes by signals to deliver their product. This is very clearly demonstrated by the events at the synapses. We should therefore not talk of the genome as a blue print and also not of a manual of construction of a higher organism. The genes represent the starting point of the adventure of individual development and provide the tools for it.

Signal and codes.

Signals and codes; both depend on pattern recognition. Signalling and coding is directional. There are a sender and a receiver; a source and a receptor. The sender has to recognise the receiver. The receiver must be addressable. A signal is simple; there is a one to one correlation between signal and address. The code is composite it is an array of similar elements that can be arranged in different ways. Each arrangement points to a different address. An address code is established by a source selecting a suitable target. Selection during evolution results in a hardwired connection. If selection occurs during the individual development of an organism the address is programmed. Selection is a learning process. A code is just a label for an object like a molecule, a molecular structure, a cell or maybe even an organ or an organism. The recognition of a coded address is its decoding it usually triggers a signal which serves the purpose for which the address had been selected. Signal and receptors, though they have to match structurally have originated independently. There is no general coding system (in contrast to microprocessor codes) but millions of dedicated codes selected during evolution and development. The result of this set up is the possibility of the flexibility of the system.

The neural code defines the address of a neuron which consists of all the synaptic contacts which are necessary for the sending of impulses along the axon and dendrites to a postsynaptic neuron. The code serves its purpose only within its anatomical context; that means the specific origin of the signals from the presynaptic neurons and eventually the sensory cells that were involved in the primary signals. This provides the neural signal its semantic component and turns the signalled message into information.
In the cerebral cortex signals not necessarily trigger an action they may contribute to the formation of an address on a higher level. If also other axons converge repeatedly and simultaneously fire on a single neuron they can form a specific synaptic pattern, a code for the address of an associate cell. The strictly ordered anatomy of the brain determines which neurons have a chance to associate with each other. The further upwards signals move in the hierarchy the more hardwiring is being replaced by programming of interneural connections.

The memory

The process of recognition requires memory that defines what is to be recognised. The memory is situated between coding and decoding.
The m-RNA acts as coded working memory in the genetic information systems. The base triplets are recognised by the t-RNA. The process of recognition is a process of decoding and it results in the translation of a triplet into an amino acid which is joined to the previously translated amino acid.
In the adaptive immune system the antigen receptor on a t-cell is the coded working memory. The recognition of the presented antigen is the decoding. As a result of decoding the t-cell starts to secrete cytokines and to differentiate into t-helper cells, t-killer cells and t-memory cells.
In an innate neural information system the interneuron carries the signal from a sensory neuron to the effector. The interneuron is a memory cell since it remembers (hardwired) how the signal is processed. The same happens to a programmed memory code; it finds the addressed neuron and it triggers an effector neuron for example a motor neuron.

The adaptive neural information system is organized on top of the innate system and uses its functions. Innate reflexes can be modified by efferent signals from higher levels. Conditioned reflexes displayed by Pavlows dogs are examples of such a modification. The salivation reflex makes them salivate when food is presented. A sound signal produced always at feeding time can after some time trigger salivation even without the presentation of food.

In a hierarchy of memories, the decoded memory can be a part of the address of another memory higher up step by step. Finally signals reach the topological maps in the cerebral cortex. The anatomy of the cerebral cortex is built in such a way that functionally related areas are also topographically adjacent, what means that meaningful connections are likely. Adjacent to the topological maps are areas where association between different muscles are organized which could lead to coordinated muscular motor programs. In a similar way sensory maps facilitate the formation of complex sensory situations. Populations of the appropriately coded individual memory cells form an image of the entire internal and external world.

The higher up one goes in the hierarchy the less the memories are reflecting sensory situations and motor programs, the addressing does not anymore trigger a physical action. One moves here in the region of what is colloquially called “The memory”. From the point of view the general structure of an information system “The Memory” does not to differ from lower level information systems: it is basically a system of coded references.

In the world...

2005-04-25T10:04:00.000+10:00

In the world...
Originally uploaded by rav_rav.

a truly magical place

im all sooky

2005-04-21T00:22:00.000+10:00

its that time of the month, i have an exam next week and i have no time to study, and now jyames informs me that "everyone" is going to a doof on sunday night down in nth NSW... the doof that i knew about a month ago and was itching to go to but couldnt find anyone who wanted to go.

and lucky me has to work on monday... why... how convenient!!

im feeling very sooky because EVERY time i have time to go out, everyone else is either too busy or too poor.
but EVERY time everyone else has time to go out... im busy or working or have exams.

im serious... it goes like this... a month ago i was itching to go out to the valley and have a boogie, but everyone i called (around 10 people) were either busy, or working, and most were broke.

2 weeks later the girls get together to go out on a saturday night, and they ask little old me if i would like to come.
well, i cant... im working and have a fucking exam to study for.

*sigh* i should either get used to going out alone or get myself a better schedule.

psychology

2005-04-17T01:25:00.000+10:00

studying for my 30% midsemestter which is on momday morning.
who could have thought psychology could be so damn interesting...

currently studying learning and response mechanisms, riveting stuff.

actually, my head hurts and im procrastinating. ive been studying for over 7 hours now.

spade and shovel

2005-04-13T21:08:00.000+10:00

spade and shovel
Originally uploaded by asterope.

this is a classic photo, taken on my old nikkormat FTn, around 1996.
i cant help but laugh when i see this picture:)

cram-sesh

2005-04-13T09:49:00.000+10:00

still no sign or a peep out of ame, jyames seems to be quite happy though. we seem to be finding eachothers casual company enjoyable again.

got a psych exam next monday, 30%. i have alot of study to do this weekend i think. its multiple choice, which while i do like as its easy and requires no writing, is annoying when the question/answers are worded strangely or there is more than one viable answer for the question... no part marks makes for much annoyance!

starting the stats project soon, and also doing an essay on 2 historical statistical figures. then of course there is the exam...

2nd chemistry midsemester coming up... more study to do!

such a busy booky life!!

a little happiness in the sorrow

2005-04-08T12:55:00.000+10:00

jyames is not pissed off!! yay!!!

guilt and sorrow pt.2

2005-04-08T12:20:00.000+10:00

it seems that no-one is happy about the situation that has passed.
sis is pissed with me and thinks im a hippocrite (about what, i do not know)
ame is pissed off because she didnt get me all to herself last night, which she has no right to be because she could have just said no to jyames joining us. she now tells me that she thinks this whole thing was premeditated and that i organised it with jyames somehow... the only thing i was premeditating last night was to get some sleep before uni!!
i think jyames is pissed off because he felt left out and used, but i cant tell wether he was upset about it or happy about the situation anyway (its a pretty good 25th birthday present!!)

and i am unhappy because one of the biggest milestones of my sexual life has just happened and it was ruined straight away.
the one time anything spontaneous happens to me and it all goes down the shitter. i shouldnt be feeling bad or guilty or crap about this... i should be feeling "wow! that was so cool!" instead im feeling "this should never have happened..."

i spoke to carly about it and she thinks that ursula is probably feeling so pissed off with me because now she knows how i felt when she would bring strange guys home and wake me up in the middle of the night. its intrusive and makes you feel uncomfortable... but i learnt to deal with her boyfriends, first time anything happens to me in this house and i get my throat ripped out.

im pretty sure now that even if i have the chance to do something like this again, i wont take it... too many people ruined it for me the first time, who says it wont happen again? Its always bad being the bi one, you try have a good time but just end up hurting everyone in the end.

update on guilt and sorrow

2005-04-08T11:30:00.000+10:00

seems i cant do anything right... woo is seriously pissed with me and thinks im the worlds biggest hippocrite, ame is upset because she had to share me and didnt want to, and jyames is pissed because he felt left out and like a dick on legs...

i think if i let this whole thing get to me like its starting to, then im going to be scarred for life and probably never have sex again...

i cant ever do anything right :(

great feelings of guilt and sorrow

2005-04-08T02:53:00.000+10:00

i just had my very first 3some... you would think that would be cause for happiness and joy.
im feeling very guilty as my sister has told me i am the biggest hipocrite in history... and i feel it too.

though strangely enough, i was trying to be very accomodating to her bringing a different guy home every night... if you bring them home then let me know so i can go stay somewhere else. sure it pissed me off when i was awoken from my sleep thinking that the house was falling down, but... she brought them home and i tried to put up with it.

the first and last time i bring someone/s home i get called the worlds biggest hippocrite and any happiness i may have had has just gone down the drain...

i dont think im a bad person, it was a spur of the moment thing... but i sure feel like the worlds biggest asshole.
im pretty sure shes not going to talk to me for a while, maybe years, and will probably move, or ask me to leave.
i understand... maybe i am a bad person.

Amee and Asterope do breakfast

2005-03-24T13:12:00.000+10:00

finally, i get to have an eat-out breakfast!! ive only been craving one for... oh... 2 months!
bonus that i got to have one with a foxy lady such as amee... shes cute... id like to plant lips with her again ;) maybe more if i could find the time!!!

anyhoo... its beerfest at uni today, so im writting this a little bit pished on asahi (yum yum good beer!)

the guy @ butter beats in the valley today was an absolute condescending prick... when he asked if i was looking for something i said "yeah, just browsing the psy section" he asked if i found anything i liked i said no. he then proceded to tell me how they have the new infected mushroom, where i cut him short by telling him i really didnt like infected mushroom, he then proceeded to tell me about the new vinyl section, which i had a look at and there was crap all. he then asked me if i was going to the doof on this weekend and i said no, he then asked if i even knew there was a doof on this weekend and i said yes, but ive only got one weekend off for 2 months and i need to see my parents thankyouverymuch, and proceeded to walk out the door.

stupid prick.
it seems that you get ostracised for not liking infected mushroom in this town... i guess its because infected mushroom is all they have ever heard.

bleagh

2005-03-23T14:46:00.000+10:00

thanks to 2 people at work, i had a day off yesterday.

yakking my rice.

thanks alot...

we interface

2005-03-01T01:25:00.000+10:00

first day of uni today... hmmm... what a jip. QUT is such a posers uni, its sad really.
who the fuck turns up to uni in tiny white shorts, too tight top and stilletos anyway?

well, you do if you go to QUT!!

in other news, i came across x-dream's album "we interface" while on the way to work... and seeing as how i have been wanting to get my hands on it for quite some time now, i went ahead and bought it. yes i did.

how AWESOME is this album!! a little less industrial but much more elektro than irritant... with wicked sci-fi (psy-fi) lyrics!

i would kill for a week off

2005-02-23T12:55:00.000+10:00

its true, i would absolutely kill for a week off.
uni is going back next monday, and im taking 3 subjects as well as working ~35hrs a week.
basically means 2 full time workloads, im going to be so damn busy that i really wish i had taken a week off recently.

oh well... no time to freak out about it now, ive got to get into it!

more hilarious stupidities as performed by my sister

2005-02-22T13:05:00.000+10:00

it was not 2 days ago when we were driving down from the coast that my sister said "hmmm, we'll be getting bills soon, id better do my budget so i have enough!"
to which i replied "yes, we will, theres cable and phone due, maybe a power bill too"

so 2 days pass and the bills come in. i work out how much she owes and i tell her so, saying that i can spot her for now but i need it soon as its going on my credit card.

she replies "WHAT?? why didnt you tell me we had bills? when did you find out we had bills?... oh man... ive got so much to pay off on my credit card and i havent even paid for my insurance or RACQ yet... i cant afford bills!!! im going to have to borrow money from mum and dad!!"

hmmm... strange. she only go ther credit card 2 weeks ago... how much could she have to pay off?
I thought i would pursue this enquiry a bit further.

"how much do you have to pay off on your credit card?" i asked.

"well, i just went and joined a gym today, so ive got to pay that off" she replied

"and how much was that?" i asked. She had been speaking to me about going to a gym, and i thought she was going to be paying monthly. couldnt amount to much...

"$700" she replied "why did i have to join today... i didnt know we had bills coming!! i cant get a refund either!"

at this point i got a little bit pissed. "well, you know all these bills come out of my credit card and it adds up to interest that has to come out of my pocket..."

at this point, she went psycho. speaking to me in that annoying condescending way that she does when she thinks shes right and im being stupid.

"oh no... dont you try and make me feel guilty about not having any money, its not my fault. i didnt know there were bills coming! and what about you? you never have any money... you spend your money so stupidly and irresponsibly, you cant talk...." and so on and so on.

im not trying to make you feel guilty, dearest little sister, seems your doing a good enough job of that already... turning things around because you know you fucked up.

I asked her for examples in the past few months to back up her statement. she didnt have any, but insisted that she was the logical spender and that i should just shut up.

lets look at my recent expenditure shall we?

a new laptop backpack, so i wouldnt have to kill my back from walking to work with my satchel on, after seeing my sister and hearing all her whinging from having a sore back and visits to chiros and massage. An expensive bag i know, but it could hardly be called a splurge when its for my own health. And yes... it came out of my savings for just such a purpose.

2 tops and a pair of pants = $50 hmmmm... yes... very very expensive *rolls eyes*

$100 = her birthday presents. a camera bag for the expensive digital she has been leaving lying around, and some nik-nax. because shes my sister and i love her.

$300 = rego. a killer for anyones budget. happens every 6 months you know. once again, a dig into my savings.

Christmas = well, we all know about that.

plus the usual paying rent and bills and food and petrol that happens in day to day life.

yes, im such an illogical and irresponsible spender, especially seeing as i will be back at uni next week and having nothing to spend anything on (i.e. my savings account is going to be well stocked for earthcore this year, not to mention having enough for a complete overhaul for the bug.) as i will have my head buried in books and no time to go out.

But of course, im the illogical one, im not the one that goes and spends $700 when i know we have bills.

cherry has time-out

2005-02-20T22:13:00.000+10:00

took cherry up to parents place this weekend. this was originally planned as the precursor to my selling or parting her out.

it seems my parents got other ideas when they realised i made it up the coast with no hitches, no noises and a back seat full of parts. they were wondering why i was going to sell a perfectly functional car just because its got a fucky clutch.

so cherry gets some time-out and a few months of respite under my parents car port.

complete with a new clutch and all the rust repairs she can handle.

seems like shes going to stay mine for just that little bit longer:)

fuck you my dearest, fuck you

2005-02-18T12:53:00.000+10:00

dont try telling my sister that you are tired from walking to work every day (6kms) in the hottest part of the day (2:30pm)
because SHE used to walk to the station (2kms) every day (at 8am) and back (at 5pm) for a total of 4kms when the temperature is NOT 30 degrees, with a very heavy backpack on her back.

of course EVERYTHING that my sister does is so much more difficult than anything that i do

so so tired

2005-02-18T11:35:00.000+10:00

this whole walking to work thing is really wearing me out.
perhaps it wouldnt be so bad if i didnt have to do it at 2:30 in the afternoon when its 30 degrees...

im feeling super sick today :(

356 b

2005-02-16T03:17:00.000+10:00

porsche 356b cabrio, slate blue, tan top, fully badged, over-riders and stock wheels with nipple hubcaps. TOTALLY RETRO... UNBELIEVABLE CLASSY.

i saw this beauty on the way to work yesterday, the 3rd one i have ever seen.

made me feel a little better, as 2 of my fish died.
you cant help but feel a little special when youve seen such a beautiful porsche.

everyones an open book

2005-02-16T03:01:00.000+10:00

sinfest
Originally uploaded by asterope.

so why do we feel the need to talk so much?

cherry, my bitch... how i sap my energy for you.

2005-02-09T23:24:00.000+10:00

very depressed at the thought that i may have to sell cherry.
infact, i really cant think of selling her.

i would rather walk/take public transport than sell her to buy a newer normal car.

so, what do i do... do i sell her and save up to buy a newer car
or do i keep her and save up to buy a newer car
or do i keep her, buy a bicycle, and save up to fix her really really well?

right now im liking the bicycle idea as it will keep me super fit and give me a hobby to work on the car.

i live in the city... i dont need a damn car. all i need a car for is to get home at night (ive got lots of ppl who dont mind giving me a lift) and to get around in the rain (theres busses and taxis for that)

imagine how much money i will save not driving around... well over $3000 per year!!

which means that in 1 year, i could save up enough to buy a newer car and FIX cherry!!

in 2 years i could save up enough to buy a nice newer car and fix and PAINT cherry!!!

thats it... im getting a bike!!!

the difference between science and religion

2005-02-09T02:02:00.000+10:00

science is the study of the pure structure of the universe... everything that can be "seen" (detected/created/destroyed) is believed.

religion is the study of the creator of the universe... never seen, but fiercly believed.

religion seems so irrational when seen through the eyes of science

science knows no boundaries

2005-02-09T02:00:00.000+10:00

Dolly expert is to clone embryos
The creator of Dolly the sheep has been granted a licence to clone human embryos for medical research.

Professor Ian Wilmut and Kings College London scientists will clone early stage embryos to study motor neurone disease (MND).

This is the second time the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has given such permission.

Critics maintain that testing human embryos is immoral. Others question the potential benefits of the work.

Professor Wilmut said it will mean MND can be studied in unprecedented detail.

Therapeutic cloning for research has been legal in the UK since 2001 and it would be only the second time the authority has given consent.

Our aim will be to generate stem cells purely for research purposes
Professor Wilmut

The professor's team was the first to apply for a therapeutic cloning licence in the country.

Up until now, scientists have wanted to create cloned embryos to see if they can be grown into tissues to repair damaged body parts.

But Professor Wilmut's proposal is different as he does not plan to grow healthy replacement tissue.

Instead he aims to deliberately clone embryos that have MND from patients who have the condition.

Professor Wilmut, of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, says cells from the embryos can be used to study how the disease progresses in very close detail.

He also said the cells can be used to try out new drugs to see if they stop the disease from progressing.

MND is caused by the death of cells - called motor neurones - that control movement in the brain and spinal cord.

Muscle weakness

It affects about 5,000 people in the UK. Half of people with MND die within 14 months of diagnosis.

Weakness in the muscles that supply the face and throat also cause problems with speech and difficulty chewing and swallowing.

The aim is to study what goes wrong in the nerve cells of patients suffering from MND.

This is a very exciting development
Professor Roger Pederson, Cambridge University

Patients groups said studying human embryo cells might provide more information than animal experiments alone.

Those opposed to the research said the work is unethical, unnecessary and a step toward full blown human cloning.

However, Professor Wilmut has previously stressed that his team has no intention of producing cloned babies, and said the embryos will be destroyed after experimentation.

He said: "Our aim will be to generate stem cells purely for research purposes."

The MND Association has endorsed the project.

Professor Roger Pederson, professor of regenerative medicine at Cambridge University, said: "This is a very exciting development. It will enable the disease to be studied throughout its development.

"It's very likely to work."

He dismissed concerns that the technology might be used to clone a human being, saying there were strict UK laws that prohibited the transfer of any such embryo to a woman's womb.

All human cloning is intrinsically wrong and should be outlawed
The ProLife Alliance

But Dr Donald Bruce, from the Church of Scotland's Technology Project, said unless there was a global ban on cloning there was still a threat.

"Science does not know any boundaries."

A spokesperson for Comment on Reproductive Ethics (CORE) said: "Human cloning remains dangerous, undesirable and unnecessary.

"Alternative therapies and research with adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells are already providing safe and ethical solutions in this field of medicine."

Julia Millington of the ProLife Alliance said: "All human cloning is intrinsically wrong and should be outlawed.

"The creation of cloned human embryos destined for experimentation and subsequent destruction is particularly abhorrent.

"We all welcome advances which enable scientists to halt the progression of motor neurone disease but not at the expense of human embryos."

Professor Richard Gardner, chair of the Royal Society working group on stem cell research and cloning, said the United Nations was meeting to discuss the form of a political declaration on human cloning.

"As national science academies all over the world have stressed, we want to see the message made clear.

"Individual countries should be allowed to make up their own minds about therapeutic cloning, but extending these techniques to attempt to produce a cloned baby is scientifically unsafe, ethically unsound and socially unacceptable."

girl with hair ribbon

2005-02-03T11:27:00.000+10:00

girl with hair ribbon
Originally uploaded by asterope.

its done, done, done :D

when packaged foods attack!!

2005-02-03T01:07:00.000+10:00

who could have thought that cottage cheese could be so deadly?
i have quite badly sliced two fingers on my right hand trying to get the lid off a tub of low fat cottage cheese.
what could bring such a packaged health food to execute such a vicious attack? could we be seeing even more serious attacks from heavily guilt-ridden foods in the coming months?

the only thing we can do is watch and wait... and maybe use gloves.

almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea

2005-01-27T01:31:00.000+10:00

in 2 days i will be 25.
i have nothing to show for it
i dont know how i feel about that.

3-2-1 Lets Jam!

2005-01-25T01:01:00.000+10:00

tonight i finished watching the entire cowboy bebop series, possibly the best anime i have ever seen!!
i guess you could say i have been glued to the couch for the past 7 hours... addictive and imaginative stuff!

what's your cowboy bebop theme song?

words of advice for young people

2005-01-20T11:51:00.000+10:00

word of advice for young people:

always look out both sides of the car and check all your blind spots when reversing and trying to avoid your neighbours very badly parked car.

it also helps not to think about how much his visitor snores at night and wether you will be getting any decent sleep tonight.

next doors ex wife

2005-01-18T23:36:00.000+10:00

snores like a fucken huge pig set to repeat...
ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!

i havent slept very well in 2 weeks, can you tell?

karma

2005-01-10T09:28:00.000+10:00

karma will come to those who take from others.
you will be found by your own concience and leveled to the ground by your own pathetic life.

came home from cocktails with the girls last night to find my palette, apron and 3 brushes outside the neighbours house.
walked in the gate and i find my paints and brushes and marvin the martian case gone. ursulas was also stolen, which was also full of paints.

so obviously some dipshit that likes to paint walked past our place, saw we had paints and paintings, and decided to nick off with our equipment.

HOW LAME. fuck you very much i hope your karma eats you up and you die on your own vomit.

girl with hair ribbon

2005-01-05T12:09:00.000+10:00

girl with hair ribbon
Originally uploaded by asterope.

finally gotten off my bum and started this painting!
finally!!

now to finish it (shouldnt take too long... what with 3 colours, black and white to work with!!!) and figure out where its going to hang... i suggest the living room :D

a little cheesed off today

2005-01-04T13:54:00.000+10:00

when a person you consider to be your closest friend stuffs you around for something as small as going down to the park to whack a ball around... you get a bit narky.

lets just say its been the past 2 days that i have been supposedly supposed to go have a little practice at hitting a golf ball with my friend, and he keeps changing his mind.

well, if you dont have time for me, i dont have time for you.

then again i am just a bit tetchy at the moment and i will probably feel better later. for your sake i hope you stick to sunday morning golfing with bbq breaky or the shit is going to severly hit the fan my friend.

mushie mushie monday

2004-12-20T22:16:00.000+10:00

a great evening:D

carly came around with cowboy bebop (a very cool anime series) and we watched a few episodes.
made dinner which i havent been able to eat :(
also, when i finally got up to cover the back of the bug so it would start tommorow, i discovered that the tarp is seriously ummm... burnt.

heheheheheheh nice one jyames :P

everything on the tv looks like a cartoon, the gekos as feeding off my vibe and my laptop is breathing. seriously.

i love mushies :D

whack-fuck and mushies

2004-12-19T19:44:00.000+10:00

a great end to a shitty week.
firstly, our weirdo moved out the day after i asked him to leave.
its sad that it turned out like that, but you have to feel comfortable in your own home.
so... its just back to sister and i until such time as we find someone cool.

woo and jyames bought me a set of golf clubs for christmas... VERY COOL!
now i have no excuse not to have a game of whack-fuck.

went up to nambour today, visited mum and dad and googzie. it was good to see them again :D
and on the way home we stopped off at the spot, and whilst it had been quite obviously raided a few days ago, we still managed to find 10 or so lovely fungi in 5 minutes, with no rain and a very raided paddock.
its going to be a good season methinks.

to deny intoxication, is to deny what makes us human

2004-12-14T01:47:00.000+10:00

found this on the MAPS website:

New Scientist

November 13, 2004

The intoxication instinct

From alcohol and cannabis to cocaine and LSD, it seems there are no limits to our appetite for mind-altering substances. What is it about human nature that drives us to get out of our heads, ask Helen Phillips and Graham Lawton

Helen Phillips, Graham Lawton

IN THE Smoke Shack, a "head shop" in Nelson, British Columbia, the air is thick with marijuana and the atmosphere is mellow as the staff stage a demo of their dope-related paraphernalia. The clients range from tourists and business types to the dreadlocked and dishevelled. All walks of life are welcome.

Over the border in the US, the police call to the man in the car for the last time. If he doesn't step out they will shoot. He stays put - maybe because he's embarrassed about being caught naked from the waist down, clearly aroused. Or maybe he's just too high on methamphetamine to care.

High up in the mountains of Peru the men brew coca leaves into a tea. While they don't approve of the habit of snorting the powdered extract, the tea gives them a mild buzz that helps fight the headaches and nausea of altitude sickness. Up here, cocaine is part of life.

Lounging in a restaurant, two old friends share a second bottle of wine, sinking lower in their seats as they enjoy the numbing haze and warmth it creates. Later they'll order brandy. The bartender pours himself a cup of coffee. It's going to be a long shift.

As diverse as these episodes are, there is a clear common thread running through them: the pursuit of intoxication. Since prehistoric times, humans have been seeking out and using intoxicating substances. Most people who have ever lived have experienced a chemically induced altered state of consciousness, and the same is true of people alive today. That's not to say that everybody is constantly fighting the urge to get high, nor that intoxication is somehow a normal state of consciousness. But how many of us can claim never to have experienced an altered state, whether it be a caffeine kick to help us get going in the morning, a relaxing beer after work, a few puffs on a joint at a party or the euphoric high of ecstasy?

In the present prohibitionist climate it is difficult to talk about the use of psychoactive, literally "mind-altering", substances without focusing on their harmful and habit-forming properties. And it's true that excessive use of consciousness-altering drugs, both legal and illegal, is bad for individuals and bad for society. People who seek intoxication are taking risks with their health and flirting with addiction. Drugs can lead to crime, violence, accidents, family disintegration and social decay.

Nonetheless, intoxicants remain a part of most people's lives . And indeed most of us are able to consume them in moderation without spiralling into abuse and addiction. Take alcohol, for example. Its potent psychoactive properties and potential for wreaking havoc are well known, yet the majority of people still drink and enjoy it without becoming alcoholics. There's also ample evidence that, despite public health campaigns and the threat of severe penalties, millions of people every year join the legions who have experimented with illegal substances, from cannabis and cocaine to ecstasy, amphetamines and LSD (for a guide to the most commonly used psychoactive drugs, ).

It seems that intoxication in one form or another is universal, a part of who we are. "It's a natural part of consciousness to change one's consciousness," argues Rick Doblin, who runs the not-for-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in Sarasota, Florida. But why is it that we choose to alter our state of consciousness by dosing our brains with chemicals?

The answer is straightforward. We seek intoxication for a simple reason that we are almost too scared to admit - we like it. Intoxication can be fun, sociable, memorable, therapeutic, even mind-expanding. Saying as much in the present climate is not easy, but an increasing number of researchers now argue that unless we're prepared to look beyond the "drug problem" and acknowledge the positive aspects of intoxication, we are only seeing half the story - like researching sex while pretending it isn't fun.

A full understanding of intoxication, and the quest to achieve it, could have numerous pay-offs. For one thing there is the prospect of better ways to tackle abuse and addiction. There are also good reasons for studying intoxication as a phenomenon in its own right. What is it about psychoactive substances that we like? What do they tell us about who we are? Is there a way to get the good without the bad? Some researchers believe that such enquiries will lead to a new understanding of the human mind, including the mysteries of consciousness , or new treatments for mental illness. Others go as far as to argue that it is time for society to accept that intoxication is an inextricable part of human nature, and find a way to let us explore it openly.

The quest to understand intoxication wasn't always so constrained. Back in the 1950s, 60s and early 70s, many scientists took a very personal interest in it. In those more liberal days, researchers such as physician Andrew Weil, latterly of the National Institute for Mental Health in Maryland, and ethnobotanist Terrence McKenna charted the effects of many drugs, tested them in the lab and in the field, explored their mind-altering qualities first-hand, documented their use in different cultures, and suggested that many of the compounds had medicinal benefits.

Many of these pioneering researchers came to the conclusion that seeking intoxication was programmed into human nature. As Weil pointed out in his 1973 book The Natural Mind, from an early age children experiment with spinning around or hyperventilating to experience mind-altering giddiness. He suggested that when we get older, this quest to alter our feelings stays with us but we pursue it chemically as well as physically.

The spirit of personal research, however, was largely quashed in the late 70s and 80s as a US-led "war on drugs" took hold. Drug research became dominated by the "addiction paradigm", with pleasure and benefits strictly off-limits. "It was so controversial it had to be shut down altogether," says Charles Grob, director of the child and adolescent psychiatry department at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California, whose interests lie with the potential medical use of psychedelics.

But some researchers carried on regardless. Ronald Siegel, now a psychopharmacologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, was one of them. As a psychology graduate student in the 60s he busied himself with studying pigeon memory. One day, a fellow student was arrested for marijuana possession, and his lawyer asked Siegel what he knew about the drug's effects. Not much, as it happened, so he brewed up an extract and watched what happened when a pigeon got stoned.

Ever since, he has been fascinated by intoxication, what it is and why we and other animals seek it. He managed to keep studying "controlled substances" such as LSD, mescaline, PCP, cocaine and psilocybin in his clinic, in animals and in volunteers, all legal and above board. He's passed out, thrown up, been attacked by intoxicated animals, and even been shot at by drugs barons - all in the name of research. And he has gained a unique perspective, spelled out in his 1989 book Intoxication: Life in pursuit of artificial paradise, which is being reissued next April by Park Street Press of Rochester, Vermont.

Siegel believes there is a strong biological drive to seek intoxication. "It's the fourth drive," he says. "After hunger, thirst and sex, there is intoxication." Whether we are seeking pleasure, stimulation, pain relief or escape, at the root of this drive, he says, is the motivation to feel "different from normal" - what has sometimes been called "a holiday from reality". Some people reach this state through travel, books, art, roller coasters, sport, religion, exploration, love, social contact or power. Others use intoxicants. "It's the same motivation," says Siegel. "We wouldn't live if we didn't seek to feel different."

One of the main "different" feelings we want to experience is pleasure. Pleasure, neuroscientists believe, is the brain's way of telling us that we are doing something that is good for survival, such as eating and sex. The circuits that create the feeling are driven by natural opioids and cannabinoids. No surprise, then, that we have a penchant for putting versions of these chemicals into our brains.

But the equation is not quite as simple as chemical in, pleasure out. At last month's Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, California, neuroscientist Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor described preliminary work showing that rats given a natural cannabinoid, anandamide, seemed to become unusually partial to sweet tastes. Rats primed with anandamide had higher pleasure responses to sugar than unprimed rats. It seems that the cannabinoid may not just be pleasurable in its own right, but also enhances other pleasurable experiences, making the world seem a generally more likeable place. Perhaps this is one aspect of the well-known "munchies" effect of marijuana, they conclude.

A related idea is that some people take psychoactive substances to suppress "negative pleasure". George Koob, a neuroscientist and addiction specialist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, has proposed that the brain has a natural system for limiting the amount of pleasure we can feel. He argues that pleasure has to be transient or humans and other animals would get so absorbed in it that they would succumb to the next predator that came along. Koob thinks that the brain has a way of bringing us down - a kind of "anti-pleasure" mechanism if you like. What if this system goes into overdrive? "Some people seek excessive pleasure because they are born with too much anti-pleasure," he says. "They may take drugs to feel normal."

But there is more to intoxication than simply massaging our pleasure circuits. Some altered states, Siegel believes, have a utilitarian value. Just as many animals naturally seek medicinal plants such as antibiotics or emetics, we seek to medicate our minds. When we are agitated or in pain, emotionally as well as physically, we seek substances that tranquillise and sedate. When tired or depressed, we seek stimulants. According to some researchers, including Grob, this medicinal use is an underlying thread running through all forms of intoxication.

The drive to medicate mood is pervasive throughout the animal kingdom, Siegel says, and he and his colleagues have documented thousands of examples. Elephants, for instance, enjoy the taste of fermented fruit. They will usually just browse it, but if they lose their mate (elephants usually mate for life) they may seek oblivion in an alcoholic fruit binge, even drinking neat ethanol if researchers provide it. It's hard not to conclude that, like humans, they are drowning their sorrows. Stress can also lead animals to take intoxicants as a form of escape. When stressed by overcrowding, elephants are more motivated to seek alcohol. And fear can take its toll too. During the Vietnam war, Siegel and his team filmed water buffalo grazing on opium poppies to the point of addiction. And animals don't just take downers: there are numerous reports of goats guzzling stimulants such as coffee beans and the herbal amphetamine khat.

Medication with uppers and downers may be fairly easy to understand, but there are other intoxicants whose attractions are harder to fathom. These are the hallucinogens, which can't easily be explained in purely survivalist terms. Most animals actively avoid this category of intoxicant.

Despite this, some researchers believe that psychedelics can have a medicinal effect in humans. Doblin, for example, argues that the drastically altered states they induce can play a role in maintaining mental health. Hallucinogens - and to some extent cannabis and MDMA - allow us to escape, temporarily, from a reality ruled by logic, ego and time, and explore other aspects of our consciousness. "The brain functions best when it has access to altered states," he says.

This might sound like hippy mumbo-jumbo, but there is plenty of evidence in the medical literature that hallucinogens are effective against mental illness, including anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism and heroin addiction. Most of this research was done in the 1950s, but the field is now showing signs of a revival. Grob recently received approval to test psilocybin as a treatment for severe anxiety in terminally ill cancer patients, and there are ongoing studies in the use of psilocybin for otherwise untreatable cases of obsessive compulsive disorder, and MDMA for serious post-traumatic stress disorder.

Medicinal properties notwithstanding, there are other ideas to explain why people take psychedelics. Siegel found that he could persuade monkeys to voluntarily smoke the hallucinogen DMT when they were in a situation of severe sensory deprivation. He had already trained three rhesus monkeys to smoke for a reward, to study the effects of nicotine. When he laced their smoking tubes with DMT, they briefly tried it, then avoided it. But after several days in darkness, with no stimulation, the monkeys began to smoke DMT voluntarily. They ended up grasping at and chasing non-existent objects and hiding from invisible dangers. "This was the first demonstration of a non-human primate voluntarily taking a hallucinogenic drug," Siegel says. "We share the same motivation to light up our lives with chemical glimpses of another world." Boredom it seems, will drive animals to experiment, even when the experience is not altogether pleasurable.

The same drive to seek novelty or stave off boredom could explain why people take drugs that have overwhelmingly negative effects. PCP, for example, which some consider to be the most dangerous illegal drug, is a "dissociative" . Among its myriad effects are numbness, loss of coordination, paranoia, hallucinations, acute anxiety, mood swings and psychosis. But for some people the altered state is clearly worth it - PCP was hugely popular in the US in the 1970s. "People seem to say they liked feeling different or funny," says Siegel. "When there's nothing else to do, people will take anything to feel different."

In some ways novelty-seeking is a basic behavioural drive. Literature on child development reveals that once infants are no longer sleepy, hungry or thirsty, they will explore and seek new experiences. They wriggle their limbs, put things in their mouths, touch things, taste things and bash things together. Without this drive, they wouldn't learn anything about the world around them. Perhaps this spirit of exploration simply continues into adulthood in a different form.

There's another drive, too, that probably plays a role: risk-taking. For some people taking risks is itself pleasurable. According to Koob this might come from a slightly different brain system to the pleasure circuits. For animals that forage, there is always the risk of being attacked by a predator. In other words there is a conflict between seeking new foraging sites, or novelty, and risk. Evolution has got around this conundrum by making novelty rewarding and pleasurable in its own right.

Pleasure, excitement, therapy, novelty: seen in this light, the pursuit of intoxication looks very different from its standard portrayal as a pathological drive that must be suppressed before it leads to harm, addiction and squalor. Yet the mainstream debate on drugs, alcohol and tobacco seems unable to acknowledge that there is anything positive at all to say about intoxication. Instead it is locked into a sterile argument between prohibitionists and those who want to reduce the harmful effects by, for example, making heroin available on prescription. Both groups start from the belief that psychoactive substances are inherently harmful but disagree on what to do about it.

Some activists, however, are starting to argue for an entirely different attitude to intoxication. One prominent critic of the debate is Richard Glen Boire, director of the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics in Davis, California. He believes that intoxication is not just a part of human nature, it is a basic human right. "Why should it be illegal to alter your style of thinking?" he says. "As long as you don't do any harm to anyone else, what you do in your own mind is as private as what you do in your own bedroom." Boire advocates changes to the law that would allow people to experiment with psychoactive substances at home or in designated public places. "It's the right of people to explore the full range of consciousness, and our duty as a society to accommodate that," he says.

Some scientists are moving in the same direction, arguing that instead of suppressing, medicalising and criminalising our basic drive to experience altered states we should apply ourselves to making it safer, healthier and less squalid - in short, to taking the "toxic" out of intoxication.

The approach favoured by Siegel is to tweak existing drugs to make them better, with shorter effects and no addictive potential. "What it would be like," he says, "if we had a drug like alcohol, which didn't lead to violence, fetal damage, liver failure, that was safe, wouldn't lead to drink driving and never gave you a hangover. What would be wrong with it medically? Maybe we'd even prescribe this alcohol substitute to help people relax." We could even design entirely new chemicals that allow us to experience all the pleasures, thrills and adventures of intoxication without the downsides. "This is not science fiction," says Siegel. "Civilisation will eventually take this direction." Perhaps this would be the greatest contribution a full understanding of the intoxication instinct could offer - a spur for society to move beyond the irrational position of sanctioning caffeine, alcohol and tobacco while fighting a "war" against other psychoactive substances. David Lenson, a social theorist at the University of Massachusetts in Amhurst and author of the 1995 book On Drugs, makes this point by comparing the war on drugs with efforts to eradicate homosexuality: both are based on an incomplete understanding of human nature. Siegel, too, sees an analogy with sex. "We can't be expected to solve the AIDS problem by outlawing sex," he says. "We have to make drugs safe and healthy, because people are not going to be able to say no."

A window on the mind

DRUGS provide some of the best evidence we have that the mind is the brain; that our thoughts, beliefs and perceptions are created by chemistry. Take a drug, particularly a hallucinogen, and any of these can change. This means these drugs can be scary and need to be taken with great care and respect. But it also means they have the potential to reveal some of the deepest secrets about our minds and consciousness.

A century ago, psychologist William James experimented with the anaesthetic nitrous oxide. Our normal rational consciousness, he said, is just one special type of consciousness, while all around it, "parted from it by the filmiest of screens", are other entirely different forms of consciousness, always available if the requisite stimulus is applied.

Others meticulously described the effects of inhaling ether, chloroform and cannabis, and the strange distortions of time, perception and sense of humour they induced. More curiously, they also described changes in belief, and even in philosophy. When Humphry Davy took nitrous oxide in 1799 he ended up exclaiming that "nothing exists but thoughts". Others made similar observations and found their views profoundly shifted by even brief forays to the other side of that filmy screen.

This raises the peculiar question of whether what James called "our normal rational consciousness" is necessarily the best state for understanding the world. After all, if one's view of the world can change so dramatically with the aid of a simple molecule, how can we be sure that our normal brain chemistry is the one most suited to doing science and philosophy? What if our brain chemistry evolved to help us survive at the cost of giving us false beliefs about the world? If so, it is possible that mind-altering drugs might in fact give us a better, not worse, insight than we have in our so-called normal state.

Take the common hallucinogenic experience of losing our separate self, or becoming one with the universe. This may seem, to some, like mystical hogwash, but in fact it fits far better with a scientific understanding of the world than our normal dualist view. Most of us feel, most of the time, that we are some kind of separate self who inhabits our body like a driver in a car or a pilot in a plane. Throughout history many people have believed in a soul or spirit. Yet science has long known that this cannot be so. There is just a brain that is made of exactly the same kind of stuff as the world around it. We really are one with the universe.

This means that the psychedelic sense of self may actually be truer than the dualist view. So although our normal state is better for surviving and reproducing, it may not always be best for understanding who and what we are. Perhaps we ought to try doing science in some of these intoxicated states.

This was just what psychologist Charles Tart of the University of California, Davis, suggested in 1972, in the journal Science . He likened different states of consciousness to different paradigms in science and proposed creating "state specific sciences", new sciences which would be done by scientists working and communicating in altered states. These new sciences might only have limited application but this makes the point that our normal state may not be the only way to try to understand the universe.

Since Tart's work, most psychedelic drugs have become prohibited and research has largely been stifled. Perhaps one day, when prohibition is abandoned, scientists may once again take up the promise offered by those tiny little chemicals that can tell us who and what we are.

Under the influence

HOW common is the use of mind-altering substances? Accurate figures are hard to come by, largely because most psychoactive drugs are illegal and the task of keeping tabs on the legal ones is monumental. But it's safe to say from the available figures that the use of mind-altering substances is a widespread - if not near-universal - human experience.

According to the latest drug data from the United Nations (World Drug Report 2004 ), about 185 million people worldwide have used an illicit substance in the past 12 months. That's around 1 in 20 of the adult population. With 146 million users, cannabis is by far the most popular, followed by amphetamines (30 million), cocaine (13 million) and ecstasy (8 million). Despite prohibitionists' best efforts, these figures have remained unchanged since the first World Drug Report in 1997.

Illicit drug use in western countries is higher than the global average. According to the 2003 US National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 19.5 million Americans had taken at least one drug, mainly cannabis, in the 30 days before the survey. That's about 1 in 12 of the "adult" population (aged 12 plus). An even higher proportion report having taken illicit drugs at some point in their lives. According to a recent survey, 77 million Americans, a third of all adults, have used drugs at least once (Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental , vol 17, p 140).

And illegal drugs are just the tip of the iceberg. The World Health Organization estimates that there are 1.3 billion tobacco smokers worldwide, 30 per cent of the adult population (World Health Report, 2003). Alcohol use is even more prevalent. In the US, a relatively sober country, just over 50 per cent of adults have had at least one alcoholic drink in the past month. In the UK, 88 per cent of people drink at least once a month and 48 per cent drink at least twice a week. Outside the Islamic world very few people abstain completely. The figure is 20 per cent in Canada, 9 per cent in Germany, and as low as 4 per cent in some Nordic countries.

Of all the world's psychoactive substances, however, none can match the reach of caffeine, the only universally sanctioned drug both legally and culturally. Its main source, coffee, is immensely popular, with 79 per cent of the US adult population drinking it regularly, according to the US National Coffee Association. Add to that all the tea, chocolate and caffeinated soft drinks consumed in the world, and it's fair to say that caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive substance on Earth. The majority of us are probably under the influence of caffeine most of the time.

Overall, it's hard not to conclude that the vast majority of people are current or former users of psychoactive substances. The clinching figure, of course, would be one for "lifetime abstinence", the percentage of people who have never, ever taken anything that alters their consciousness. But it appears that no one has ever worked out such a figure, perhaps because, to all intents and purposes, it is zero.

Out of it: A cultural history of intoxication by Stuart Walton, Penguin Books (2001); Street Drugs by Andrew Tyler, Hodder & Stoughton (1995)

oh, and just adding one thing

2004-12-13T23:51:00.000+10:00

i went on a date with lauren on saturday night. it was pretty good :) im going to see her again!
im just a bit reserved because shes very lesbian (as in all men are bastards) and i love men.

just because i love women, doesnt mean i cant love men.

still, im not looking for anything serious so im going to see how things go:)

weirdness

2004-12-13T23:13:00.000+10:00

so we have had our new housemate move in... not really my prefered choice but we needed someone and they were looking.
anyhoo...
i now feel so uncomfortable in my own house that i went out so i wouldnt be here when he got home. this is a joke, i should not feel this way because of a housemate. they have lived here all of 2 days!!

so why do i feel like this? a few things spring to mind.

one of the first things he said to me was "i can see alot of vw conversations from now on" fair enough. but the vw conversations have really been excessive in the past 2 days and i dont breathe, sleep and eat volkswagen. i love my car but im not that obsessive. i think its going to get on my nerves.

about an hour after meeting him, he started talking to me about meat, and steaks and slaughterhouses and how they kill cows and how cool it is. he then stopped himself and said sorry he shouldnt be talking about this to a vego... man i am fucken disturbed. i was cooking tofu this evening and he was talking about how he likes big juicy bloody red steaks. then saying how he was going to cook one tommorow... i didnt think i would be this weird about meat eaters. i dont know how i am going to handle having meat in the fridge.

speaking of fridges, hes going to go out with his next pay and buy a nice big fridge... so we can have 2 fridges!!
then after that hes going to go out and buy a big tv, or maybe a data projector! i can see our power bills doubling and i for one am not paying for power i do not use.

i started making dinner when i got home this afternoon, so he started making dinner as well. i left the kitchen because i cannot STAND having someone else cooking when i am cooking.

and finally, i have an inkling that he is homophobic. i was watching queer as folk and he seemed very strange after that. he may hate guys, but everyone wants a bi girl and i have heard enough about how he likes to pick up younger girls at schoolies. he feels a bit creepy because of that...

ursula has been hiding herself in her room with her current piece of meat/fuck, so she has left all the socialising to me. thanks alot.

im being polite, im not saying anything, but im giving it a week, i doubt im going to feel comfortable at the end of it.

looks like we need to find another flatmate.

seems blogger deleted one of my posts!!

2004-12-03T11:52:00.000+10:00

anyhoo... i got asked out to dinner by one of the girls that came around and had a look at the room.
she said she couldnt accept the room, but would i like to go out to dinner with her sometime?
i said yes, that would be lovely. and stayed happy all day until i had those stupid noodles.

i must be giving out "the vibe".

i paid $9.50 for a bellyache

2004-12-03T11:02:00.000+10:00

stupid singapore noodles, nothing but a bellyache which i had to put up with for 4 hours at work. and i still feel like shit.
grrrrr

acid ponderings

2004-11-27T15:33:00.000+10:00

To ask is to receive
so tell me, my friend;
Is my mind antimatter?
Whats in my head?
(other than a moving
mandelbrot set...)
Am I alive?
or perhaps I am dead?
what strange thoughts Ithink
when im out of my head.

nude sunbathing

2004-11-25T13:00:00.000+10:00

teeheehee:)
im sunbathing in the nude in my own backyard!
this is great!

The psychedelicatessen

started a food blog.

thinks, thoughts and hippy hair

pumpkin and Risoni, with silverbeet and fetta

its been too long

This *winter* thing is giving me the shits.

when a problem comes along

bloody hell

...i havent been the same since my teenage lobotomy

crazy monochrome avian bombers

if the budget holds up...

funny spam emails

automaticpushbuttonremotecontrol- syntheticgeneticscommandsyoursoul

Electronic spectra of benzene...

toombul to redcliffe... WOOO!

i just fell off

i missed a doof for this??!!

yep

one down

new bicycle

there are important differences between corresponding catabolic and anabolic pathways.

boys

oh puhleez...

much ado about alot of things

actually...

crystal field theory

my first musing as a motorcyclist - or - i just copped my first bastard

T-Max sucks macadamia nuts

excess weekends

phully sic weekend bruz...

one day i'll probably buy an old hasselblad...

very lame...

exams are over... for now.

oh yeah...and another thing...

new old camera

extracellular matrix

recipe for the perfect study weekend...

on the other hand

i have no sympathy

the first christmas beetle of the summer

they dont call it a drought for nothing, dickhead.

the snoring lady

ad nauseam

weekend off

stupid tourist pedestrians and meat pies...

its official!!

55mm 1:3.5 micro-nikkor

keeping in touch with really old friends

people

much ado about tea

discussing issues of world-wide repute...

yes its true...

dammit its cold

hedphuq

windy weather...

ignorance is not an excuse

getting stressed out

excuse me for a moment...

oooh... new gadgets!

Love is a tender kiss

digital biology

In the world...

im all sooky

psychology

spade and shovel

cram-sesh

a little happiness in the sorrow

guilt and sorrow pt.2

update on guilt and sorrow

great feelings of guilt and sorrow

Amee and Asterope do breakfast

bleagh

we interface

i would kill for a week off

more hilarious stupidities as performed by my sister

cherry has time-out

fuck you my dearest, fuck you

so so tired

356 b

everyones an open book

This winter thing is giving me the shits.