Gufodotto would like you to read these:

Monday, December 24, 2007

Day 3: The countryside

Rieccomi qua. fra una gta e l'altra, ho parecchio tempo libero visto che gli altri si svegliano a tarde ore la mattina e invece io non resco a non svegliari al sorgere del sole. X cui, ho tutto il tempo x commentare le foto, uploadarle su picasa, e scrivere qua un breve diario.

Allora, l'altro ieri siamo saliti su una fuoristrada mercedes scassatissima - che qua pero' passa x 'relativamente nuova'. E ci siamo avventurati verso il lago Kivu, nella provincia Orientale, al confine con la Repubblica Democratica del Congo. La destinazione era Kibuye, una localita' bellissima ma prima di arrivarci, c'erano 126 km di tornanti e saliscendi nella campagna ruandese...

Il panorama e' a dir poco, affascinante, con colline (ma chiamiamole pure montagne) ripidissime e scoscese dappertutto. Eda vederle capisci come questo posto abbia la stessa densita' abitativa dell'Olanda: quasi dappertutto, le colline son coltivate anche nei pendii piu' scoscesi, a sfruttare qualunque spazio a disposizione. Stranamente, le coltivazioni a errazza caratteristiche del paesaggio italiao in sone simili (es Liguria) qua son abbastanza rare. Marie mi ha detto (mi par di ricordare) che molto semplicemente, la gente non c'ha mai pensato. Credo dipenda dal fatto che la occupazione Bantu' di queste terre sia un fenomeno abbastanza recente, 600 anni max. La foresta, originale o meno; che copriva le colline e' ridotta, ma ancora presente, contrariamente a quel che mi aspettavo dalla lettura di "Collapse" di Jared Diamond - mi sorge il dubbio che l'autore non abbia mai visto il paese, ma si sia basato su resoconti di terza mano. Ad ogni modo, la situazione varia da punto a punto, con le zone piu' impervie ancora inonse x il semplice fatto che con le pioggie torrenziali caratteristiche della zona qualunque coltivazione verrebbe dilavata a fondovalle. Ma vabbe', io non son un esperto nel campo. Ogni piccolo appezzamento e' diviso in lotti dove cose differenti son coltiva, e solitamente uno spazio e' riservato alle banane che sembrano essere lo staple food della zona.

La popolazione e' apparentemente quasi tutta lungo la striscia pedonale della strada, camminando da e verso le loro cse da fare... Le case son fatte x la maggior parte di mattoni cubici di fango, non cotti ma seccati al sole. Spesso le case non son neanche intonacate, ma la cosa piu' sorprendente che ho notato e' che nessuna ha un fumaiolo x espellere il fumo cosicche' questo percola dalle fenditure fra le tegole. Ora capisco gli sforzi dell'Onu a cercare di fornire questa gente dei fornelli 'puliti' x diminuire le malattie polmonari che apparentemente mietono antissime vitime.

La gente veste davvero modestamente, con magliette color della terra (rossa, argillosa), probabilmente di quarta o quinta mano, eppure parecchi vestono giacca e pantaloni con una dignita' particolarmente africana. Le donne, come in tutto il mondo, variano nel vestire piu' degli uomini, mentre i bambini x lo piu' vestono cose 'avanzate'. Non e' raro vedere bambini curvi sotto il peso di bidoni d'acqua, o tegole portate sulla testa, eppure si vedon anche bambini che giocano allegri in un canale di scolo (!) o inseguono le onnipresenti caprette al bordo della strada, alquanto pericoloso visto che le macchine sfrecciano a velocita' autostradali (nostra compresa, ahime', nonostante quel che si dicesse all'autista).

Avvicinandosi al lago, e risalendo verso quota 1500 m, la vegetazione cambia, con eucalipti (nativi o importati?) e conifere, ed altri alberiche in eurpa non vedresti mai nello stesso posto, tipo cactus. Il paesaggio qua mi ricorda della Sardegna in alcune zone montane, probabilmente solo perche' son le uniche montagne che conosco bene.

Il lago e' fenomenale, con le colline 'a gaussiana' che spuntano dall'acqua, peccato x l'aria sempre un po' fosca...

A piu' tardi x la visita in barca alle isole sul lago, inclusa quella con una colonia di pipistrelli frugivori (credo - spero).

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Day 2: Kigali

Secondo giorno, nella mattina ho fatto un giretto x il giardino mentre gli altri si svegliavano, facendo foto a piante, luertole e quel che capitava sotto tiro.

Poi, con Salvatore abbiamo deciso di fare un giretto nel quartiere. Credevamo di essere in una zona pos, a giudicare dalla casa dove stavamo e quella adiacente... Dallaltro lato, una setta di scamanati pregava ad alta voce e di tanto in tanto si scatenava in Allelujaaahhh da far gelare il sangue. A quanto pare, il Rwanda e' in preda ad una febbre religiosa... Ognuno sceglie la religione che vuole, se non piu' d'una... Boh...

Comunque, qualche passo oltre il cancello della casa, ed un altro universo comincia. La terra rossa, solcata dalle pioggie torrenziali, catapecchie di lamiera e legname recuperati, bambini scalzi che escon fuori dai vicoli x sfidarsi a vicenda a parlare coi due visi pallidi vestiti con colori sgargianti, che girellano baldanzosi sotto il sole... fatto sta che, in due o tre minuti, cminciamo a sentirci noi come auelli che vengon osservati, tipo le bestie del circo che vengon fatte sfilare nella strada generale... La gente e' comunque estremamente cordiale, e non ha problemi a parlare due o piu' lingue... alla faccia dell'Italia monoglotta, dove il 50% manco parla bene l'italiano... dopo un'oretta circa rientriamo a casa, non prima d'aver imboccato un paio di vcoli acaso ed esserci mezzi persi...

Nel pomeriggio, invece siamo andatoi a visitare la 'vera' Kigali...

a piu' tardi x il resoconto OK?

le foto le trovate su: http://picasaweb.google.com/gufodotto/RwandaDec07 e anche http://picasaweb.google.com/gufodotto/SalvaRwandaDec07 e http://picasaweb.google.com/gufodotto/FloraRwandaDec07

Day 1: the travel

Eccomi qua. proviamo a tenere un diario regolare del mio viaggio in Rwanda.

Allora, il volo e' stato abastanza uneventful, eccessivamente lungo e noioso. Speravo di riuscire a vedere l'Africa dall'alto ma, a causa del ritardo in partenza, il sole e' tramontato prima che si arrivasse sul Sahara. O forse c'eravamo gia' quando e' tramontato, ma c'erano le nuvole... pazienza. la cosa e' stata comunque interessante xke', x la prima volta, ho volato spra un'area del mondo non illuminata. In Europa, dove voli voli, sei sempre sulla testa di qualcuno che legge un libro sotto una lampadina, o guarda la TV. In africa, il niente... X quel che ne sapevo, saremmo potuti essere sopra l'Oceno Atlantico... ma avremmo visto pi' navi, mi sa... Invece buio assoluto sintanto che non siamo arrivati proprio sopra Kigali.

Una volta arrivati e recuperati i bagagli, si salta a bordo delle camionette (le classiche pick-up Toyota o Isuzu) o macchine (una Mercedes d'antan che la mamma di Marie si ostina a rianimare) e si va a casa...

a breve x il resto... ora vado a nuotare un po'...

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Again on Gorillas

Seen yesterday Long Way Down's Episode where they are in Rwanda. Ewan Mc Gregor goes through Rwanda by Motorbike and stops by the national Park to see the Gorillas.

I am not sure they would let 'normal people get so close to them, but if they do, I understand why the prices are so high. They will want to keep visits to a minimum (once a day, at dusk) yet have enough money to run the conservation program off it.

All in all, it seemed a pretty well-run operation, and since the experience must be soo fantastic I am reconsidering it. Trouble is, there may be not any ticket left for when we'll arrive there. Well, in case may be I'll come back another time.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Look out, there's a Lion behind that bus!!!


copy-paste from Null-Hypothesis , which dubs itself as The Journal of Unlikely Science. It came to me through the facebook group We're scientists AND we're sexy! Ok, I admit, I am a member of it. Yeah, right. Me. Sexy. Ouch! It Hurts.

I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat

By Jamie Lawson

Scientists in California have been busy flashing images at people again. This is a favourite game of psychophysicists the world over, being a nice way of measuring reaction times to... well, Visual Things. This time they’ve been looking to see if people pay more attention to evolutionarily salient objects like lions and impala rather than novelties like cars, tables and lamps.

The result will come as no surprise to the evolutionary psychologists in the crowd. When presented with pairs of images, each flashed rapidly and identical except for a tiny change, participants were much faster and more accurate at identifying changes involving animals (including humans) than those involving your aforementioned inanimate things, even if the animal was hardly visible at all. This also held true when a failure to notice the inanimate object in the scenes would normally be associated with sudden and messy death, such as is the case with cars.

The explanation? Well, back in the day, humans would have benefited from attention to things that they could hunt and eat (like impala) as well as to things that could eat them (like lions) and things that may have filled both categories (like... each other). Humans who ignored these objects moving about would presumably have died from either a) starvation or b) being killed and/or eaten, so a tendency to attend to animate objects became hardwired in to the human visual system. Things like cars, although life threatening, are just far too modern to have been incorporated.

So, the good news is that you are very likely to spot a big cat as it sneaks up on you with every intention of making you its lunch. Sadly, in moving to avoid it, you may just end up being crushed beneath the wheels of a bus you have entirely failed to notice. Ah well, swings and roundabouts, eh?

Has Evolution Stopped, for Homo?


Not at all. If anything, it seems to have accelerated over the course of the past 80.000 Years.

It's what The Economist reports in this article. The original piece of research can be found in PNAS.

Since I don't have time to comment today, just go and read it, it's free.

An interesting personal side-note on the article: it points out how two version of lactose tolerance arose independently in the Indo-European and the African Tutsi populations. So, may be my child(ren) will inherit both versions. I wonder if there are any studies around investigating the effect of the two mutations present at the same time in people's cells. Will they reinforce each other? Or will they have a completely different effect? I guess it depends on the detailed mechanism of action of the two... I'll have a look on the world wide wikipedia...

Friday, December 14, 2007

Does eco-tourism disturb Gorillas?

So, here's the fact: I am going to Rwanda (Yes, we know, Luca) next week, and once there my GF's family wants to take me to see the gorillas.

Now I understand that it's nice they're making a conservation effort, so that even if the thing is expensive (500US$/person) it's better than local people shooting the primates for food then clearing the forest for coffee.

But, as far as I understand it, Gorillas are a very shy kind of primates, and may possibly be ennoyed by the continuous stream of tourist, how much concealed they are...

I'd personally go and look at other primates, Chimps in primis as they seem much more active and humans. And I don't know why, but I believe they may suffer less from the human interaction.

So I ask to the primatologists between you, should I stay or should I go? What is your take?

Back in Blog!

Eccomi qua di nuovo. parecchio tempo passato dall'ultimo post. troppo ipegnato fra terminare l'articolo di lunghezza indefinita, che sembra tendere asintoticamente verso le 16 pagine perennemente in correzione, preparare i documenti x il Rwanda e tutto il resto. Includi nel mix una influenza davvero malvagia nell'ultimo fine settimana...

Ora tutto sembra finito, oggi e la prossima settimana dovrebbero essere piu' rilassati. mi auguro. a piu' tardi x un post meno vacuo.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

YouTube/FaceBook cross posting

Here's an example of what Internet 2.0 can do in terms of rapid dissemination of content: I join a group on facebook, where I see a youtube link which I promptly reference in my own blog: Cool uh? Not nearly as cool as the plant in the movie itself, though, a species of mimosa which folds her leaves when touched...



It apparently belongs to the Triffid family, of Sci-fi fame.

I, for one, welcome our shy motile plant overlords!!!

Thursday, November 29, 2007

100 notable books from the NY Times

Too many to post them all in here.

So go and check them out there.

Talk about Health and Safety

This movie shows how a railway can become... a market!!!

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The Decline and Fall of the Animal Kingdom

Carl Zimmer has a new story up on WiReD.

The Decline and Fall of the Animal Kingdom

Incredibly interesting piece detailing how the glorious animal kingdom decreased in size and importance in the last decades.

Courtesy of facebook which let me know about it.

from: here to: eternity

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Mac v PC

Daphne has a blog!!!

Full of pretty sketches!!! Go and check it out!!!

http://daphne-daphn3.blogspot.com/

Monday, November 26, 2007

My new camera has arrived!!!


I say goodbye to my old and battery-incontinent Nikon CoolPix 2100, who served me well for four years and still is in perfect operating conditions, exception made for the fact that a plastic flap has broken and she can't keep her batteries inside any longer. I will be happy to use it again underwater, if I only could find the waterproff case which costed me almost as much as the camera itself.

from now on, however, my main camera will be a Panasonic DMC TZ-3 (blue), one of the best long-zoom compact cameras one can find on the market.



very small ibn size, with hi quality Leica lenses and a formidable 28-280mm equivalent, it goes flawlessly from wide to tele. haven't had the ocasion to try it yet, yesterday I left the batteries to charge.

Tonight I plan on trying it out in some inside shots, followed by outdoor shots in the following days. But she'll have her camp day in one month, when I'll hop on the plane to visit Rwanda!

Mobius Transfrmations

This is an incredibly cool movie made I found on the Tube...



I apologize for my lack of postings, but although I was at home for one week due to a strike at work, I just didn't feel like posting. May be I didn't have anything interesting to say.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Monday, November 12, 2007

Rosario Elettronico.

And from the blog of the guy who was once my comic book pusher, comes the electronic rosario.

Sardinia is the 31st best preserved island in the whole world!!!

Vi giro una notizia riportata da Ila/Alice sul suo sito... ;-)

La Sardegna tra le isole meglio tutelate al mondo

La Sardegna risulta l'isola italiana meglio tutelata e più incontaminata in un monitoraggio con 522 esperti di turismo sostenibile, pubblicato sull'ultimo numero della rivista americana National Geographic Traveler. Lusinghiero il piazzamento tra le 111 isole prese in considerazione, sparse nei cinque continenti.
GeremeasCAGLIARI, 7 NOVEMBRE 2007 - La Sardegna è l'isola italiana più incontaminata. È la prestigiosa rivista americana National Geographic Traveler a certificarlo, con una speciale classifica pubblicata sull'ultimo numero.

La Sardegna si piazza al 31esimo posto nell'elenco generale che comprende le 111 isole più affascinanti del pianeta, staccando notevolmente le altre isole italiane. Il monitoraggio, effettuato in collaborazione con la George Washington University, ha coinvolto 522 esperti di tutto il mondo che hanno puntato la lente su tradizioni, cultura, paesaggio e ambiente delle isole selezionate. Il risultato finale è stato sintetizzato in un punteggio: 71 è il voto assegnato alla Sardegna, 87 quello attribuito alle Far Oer danesi, prime classificate. In fondo alla classifica, St. Thomas delle Isole Vergini e Ibiza con soli 37 punti.

National Geographic Traveler sottolinea come le isole siano "micro-mondi" molto vulnerabili ad inquinamento, cambiamenti climatici e "tourism overkill". È soprattutto il turismo "devastante" uno dei pericoli da cui guardarsi. È necessario piuttosto tutelare e proteggere le isole e promuovere un turismo responsabile. Non a caso svettano in classifica le "inarrivabili" Far Oer.

La Sardegna è descritta come una terra con montagne e villaggi nell'interno e chilometri di coste con lunghe spiagge. Senza dimenticare una "ricca e inusuale" cultura locale.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ed ecco la recensione di National Geographic:

Sardinia, Italy
Score: 71

"A rocky and mountainous interior dotted with remote mountain villages which preserve a rich and diverse cultural heritage. Miles of distinctive, unspoiled rocky coastline, with coves, caves, and long sandy beaches."

"A rich, unusual local culture. I particularly enjoyed the Ferragosto celebrations in Olbia. The local wine, cuisine, and handcrafts are all worth exploring."

"Countryside littered with debris. Poor transport networks and underdevelopment of tourist facilities. Aesthetic and cultural integrity of the island is good and needs to be protected."

Ed io aggiungo, alla faccia di Goletta verde che anno dopo anno continua a dare bandiere blu a sproposito a destra e a manca. Con la scusa che E. Coli non si vede le spiagge e le acque limpide di casa nostra vengon tacciate di esser piu' sporche di alcuni tratti devastati dell'Adriatico. Bah...

notare come la Corsica ottenga un punteggio anche piu' alto, 75, mentre capri becca un misero (x la fama che ha) 59.

Toyota Tundra - helping to make it the real thing

Toyota, which prides itself as the greenest car maker in the planet, launched its new HUGE Tundra pickup. Funny name, since thanks to the fact that Toyota, together with the Detroit block, is lobbying the US government not to impose too strict limits on car consumptions, the permafrost once common in the places the thing takes its name from will most likely melt away. Duh!!!



I guess they'll call the next model the Swamp... or something...

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Anatomy of a Balloon Animal

I am stealing this post from the beautiful Streetanatomy blog:

Anatomy of a Balloon Animal



Cut-Off from the grid...

Some people are resorting to cell-phone jammers, illegal in the states (and elsewhere too), to avoid being pestered by loud people conversing close-by.

So say the NY Times.

I believe that the right of a person to enjoy silence is stronger than the right of another person to communicate when it is not strictly necessary...

What do you think?

I want to do it too!!!

I want to climb the kilimanjaro like the NY Times correspondent.

Oh, and between the various news, the NY Times is now on Facebook.

Monday, November 05, 2007

Somewhere over the (B)rainbow

Colours light up brain structure

Neuronal circuits can now be seen in a multicolour 'brainbow'.

A mix of 5 colours can produce about 90 distinct shades.
A mix of 5 colours can produce about 90 distinct shades.


Nature (once again) has a wonderful paper about a new coloring technique able to randomly color every neuron with about 90 different shades so that their wiring can be seen more clearly.

Here it is, better written than I ever will be able to.

Did you really write that paper?

It happens sometimes that the job done by a single scientist get published with more than his name on it. He's usually the first author, except in Italy and other third world countries, where some professors pretend them to be on top. He's relegated to second place, unless the professor above has a favorite pupil who needs a push to get/stay into the tenure track.

Anyway, this post is not about unjust usurpation of authorship at the hand of elder academics. It is rather on the careless co-authorships practiced in some research groups, where all those belonging share authorships to any papers so as to augment their paper count in their CVs. Bad, bad practice indeed, especially when they happen to admit candidly during an interview "Oh, no, I didn't really know anything about that work, I was in the group so I got my name on it" - then why on earth did you insert it in your CV as relevant qualification, you dumb4$$?

I was shocked when a colleague recently said that after two years of work she had eight publications, plus countless posters and participations to meetings. needless to say, seven of those eight were of the aforementioned kind. And who on earth would care about which meetings and school you attended, unless you presented one at the first or were prized as best-in-class at the latters?

I try to put only first-author papers on my CV. which also implies it is desperately short. But at least I know I can defend that work with my claws, whereas if somebody is mifdly interested in me can always look up the other papers on pubmed or elsewhere and discover which fields I also happened to brush on. I probably know more than the average person in those, but don't claim nor brag to being an expert about them.

Why am I doing this post, you may ask? Oh, because Nature just came out with a similar theme this weekend. With a wider view than mine, in fact, covering the responsibilities of co-authors on the scientific accuracy of the papers, real-world cases and so on. Go and read it, it's certainly better than my rants anyway.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Hello Kitty, kiss your 4$$ Goodbye

I hope that removing the image I linked from here to this post of mine, traffic on this website will not be driven any longer by people looking for the pretty jap-cat... Let's see if it works...

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

I am a genius.

This morning, I open facebook instead of starting to work straight away. Bad guy...
I notice that a friend, who seems to have the typical feminine passion for tests, has just taken the IQ tests. I've always been skeptic about the definition of Intelligence tested by such tests, yet after lunch I have not much to do, and I start it. I see that it only gives you 15 minutes. Panic. but the questions are mostly boring math in textual form, so start picking them randomly... Out of four answers I will at least answer 25% of them correctly, no? So,l if they're difficult (and should be if they want to test your intelligence), you stand a good chance of getting a decent score anyway... I only stop (ten seconds each) to answer the one with pictures, unless they're too complicated... otherwise, random for those too...

Hit the submit button that there's still 9 minutes plus left. The machine asks me if i want to share the results with my facebook friends. Uhm, I don't think i want to share a 78 with anyone... so no, thank you. Skip it.

Here's the result: 119!!! Definitely above the average!!!

Now, either I really am a genius, or I have a big reserve of good luck (stored in my fat abdomen), or may be the results are not really objective. I start thinking that being facebook populated by americans, they would never return a number lower than 100 for fear of being sued by all the lawyers or lawyer-capable rich dumbasses who may get it. me included. Well, no, i would not sue them. I am not going to waste my hard earned cash this way...

Anyway, it was fun... Albeit quite silly.

When will we come to a decent definition of 'intelligence'? Such as "the ability of a men to whoosh a girl into her bed by the use of any possible mean, either verbal, vocal or corporeal".

Italians are quite honest, after all

The Economist publishes a summary graph detailing how often european people use undeclared labour to purchase goods or services.
Quite surprisingly, Denmark, The Netherlands and Sweden come to the first places... Rather than, say, Italy. Is iot that we really buy less 'grey' goods and services? Or just that Italian don't even perceive buying sunglasses from the senegalese street-kiosk and paying the car's mechanic cash without fiscal receipt as 'the same kind of thing'? Me thinks the second one is more correct...

Monday, October 29, 2007

Finally, house prices start to fall...

The bane of every young couple, their ability to buy a house to live in without wasting money on the monthly rent, has been getting worse and worse for the past years everywhere in Europe. Luckily, things are starting to change, with a contraction of prices close to 2% in most European states. If it continues that way, may be in a couple of years' time I'll start considering buying one - by that time hopefully we (marie and me)should be more financially stable and able to take advantage of an eventual free fall of prices.

Dog eats mobile phone

It happened to a friend of mine.

I am so tempted to give her a ring or two... :-)

Evolution

Here is my new Xmas present:


Evolution, by Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu (Auteur), Patrick Gries (Auteur), Jean-Pierre Gasc (Préface). I was in a library in Liege and saw it cover, a snake skeleton, and had a look inside. It contains a huge amount of beautiful photos of different vertebrates skeletons, shot in black and white against a dark background. Just wonderful. It's 50EUR, but what the hell...

Friday, October 26, 2007

Rwanda!!!

update, appena preso il biglietto, x la modica somma di 1080 euro tutto incluso. cioe', 16 ore di volo (a+r) e dunque un bel po' di carburante.

date previste x il viaggio, dal 20 dicembre al 12 gennaio. quasi un mese, eh eh eh... mi sa che la mamma di marie mi mette a lavorare nei campi x pagarmi l'affitto...

ecco qua la mappa x i curiosi che non hanno idea di dove sia: Rwanda

L'idea e' di andare a vedere la regione del lago kivu, coi suoi vulcani. Fra le altre cose.

Wish me good luck. Proprio ieri ho avuto un incubo in cui mi trovavo nel bel mezzo di una guerra civile. mado'. per di piu' peggiorata dal fatto che alcuni dei cattivi sembravano avere poteri paranormali - come se non fosse gia' abbastanza orribile sentirsi gli spari dietro

Tornando alla marzulliana realta', le foto le posto se rientro, sopratutto se riesco ad avere la nuova fotocamera dagli US, dove costano la meta' (anche includendo le tasse)

Ciao ciao.

Luca

Thursday, October 25, 2007

DMC-FZ18 Reviews, finally!!!


I have finally found some reviews of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18. Here, and here. I am sold. I am ordering it as soon as I can from the US, together with a DMC-TZ3 for my lady. I still can't understand why prices in the EU are so outrageous, with the TZ3 costing 400 Euros and well below 300 US$ on the other side of the pond. Even counting in taxes, it still makes no sense.



Stay tuned for my next pictures, probably starting with my trip to Rwanda at year's end.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Yesterday

I happened to listen to this song some minutes ago...
For the first time, I listen to what it said. Sad. Yet that's how I felt two years ago. Now things are different, may be better, yet I still feel something piercing my heart when I think back... So, here's to the past:

Yesterday
All my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
Oh, I believe
In yesterday

Suddenly
I'm not half the man I used to be
There's a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday
Came suddenly

Why she
Had to go I don't know
She wouldn't say
I said
Something wrong now I long
For yesterday

Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe
In yesterday

Why she
Had to go I don't know
She wouldn't say
I said
Something wrong now I long
For yesterday

Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe
In yesterday

(hum to "I believe in yesterday")

Not Alway Free market is the way to go...

At least, that's what the German government, publishers, retailers and consumers altogether say, defending a system threatened by the opening of discounting on german-language books in Switzerland. Until now, the price of a german book would have been the same whether you bought it in the shop down the road, online or... well I can't think of an alternative, but you get the idea.

This helped small sellers, and small publishers, to keep at bay big chains, fostering a wider, and arguably better, market.

What can I say? Good luck to the Germans. I will alway cheer on anybody who's pro-books.

Who would have thought so?


Once again, Carl Zimmer surprises us: I thought he was concentrating solely on his soon-to-come book on E. Coli, instead he's busy on many fronts, the latest of which to come to fruition to us non-paying readers is his NY Times piece on migratory birds sleep. Check it out, as it is certainly worth. I, in my humble ignorance, would never have though that a bird could fly non stop for eight days. now, that's ENDURANCE.

Monday, October 22, 2007

House prices from the satellites

Wow, this is very Web 2.0.


a website, http://www.housepricemaps.co.uk/, where you can check how much were the houses around yours sold for. Only if you're in the UK, at the moment. But one day, all this power will be at our fingertips for the whole world.

They are at it again...


I mean, trying to wipe out plasmodium malariae... or, at the very least the disease it causes, by using knock-out plasmodii cultured in live anopheles to create a vaccine. They extract them and inject them in humans. 65% success rate, high enough to make me consider sticking my forearm in one of the boxes where the mosquitoes incessantly buzz.

I wonder why don't they do like this, to vaccine people. I mean, it's not as if keeping mosquitoes alive is any difficult. just stick your arm in the box twice a day and they should have plenty of blood. so the vaccinated themselves shall provide the maintenance. Wanna see that, instead of genociding the anopheles as we already tried and still is advocated by Olivia Judson (who propose to use bio-engineering defective anopheles to do so), the buzzing insects will switch side and become our allies? Now, that would be cool. and perverse, sort of...

We are not happy with wrecking the ecosystem, we're recluting the worst components of it in our own personal army...

I really don't understand the talk of eradication, though. what the hell do they want to eradicate, with a vaccine? It would not be a problem if, like smallpox, the parasite went only from man to man. then, vaccine the whole population and the bug will not be able to jump any longer. But in a parasite which can affect more than one species, as Plasmodium can, what use would it be to vacinate all man? as soon as you stop, the reservoir of bacteria in cows, or camels, or whatever, will kick back. Ditto if you vaccine those species, unless you vaccine them all. I can just picture the hunt for the smallest african mammals in order to vaccinate them...

I am sorry, but it doesn't sound sound to me. I'd side with the 'control' side, for the moment being.

Where do you come from?

I have just discovered (thanks to my new friend massimo) an exciting and massive DNA-testing of people sponsored by the National Geographic: The Genographic Project. In practice, you subscribe, get e-mailed at your place a DNA-testing kit, then spit on it, send it back and they'll let you know where your ancestors came from. Of course you know who your father was, and your grandfathers and so on... But then? This way, if you're italian you'll discover that may be you're one of the few survivors of the pre-indo-europaean populations, or may be a late-comer born out of a barbaric rape following the Roman Empire fall. Who knows? May be this will be my Xmas present to myself. And may be I'll give one too, so that I'll discover when the common ancestor of Marie and mine lived. You never know, we may be cousins (yes, at the 7569th level may be).

Thursday, October 18, 2007

A hurdle on the road to personalised cancer treatment

The new Nature is out, (since a couple of days, in fact) with a nice piece on the difficulties facing the development and approval of biomarkers-based cancer diagnostic assays.

Quickly, they work by taking a broad look at the proteins (or RNA, or else) expressed in your body at the moment, and compare them with similar sample in healthy and sick people. if the fingerprints (protein prints, or RNA-prints, or else-prints) match, then there's a good chance that you may share the same medical condition.

Trouble is, these tests do not yet seem able to differentiate between different kind of cancer enough to be useful in suggesting a treatment. To do so, large, long, expensive clinical trials are necessary. And the companies that produce those diagnostics do not have that kind of money. Pharmaceutical companies do, and they also have some interest in this: with clear diagnoses and treatment indication,s their drugs could be given only to patients likely to responds. Of course, this means that they would sell more or less drugs than they currently do. It can go both ways.

However, there are good chances. If it is true that the UK government will soon require certainty of effect on drugs before re-imbursing them to the company, then such a test would act as a shield in those cases where the drug were not to work nonetheless. I guess a middle ground will have to be found, with the government accepting a certain rate of failure in the prediction of the treatment and therefore shouldering the price of ineffective drugs rather than unloading it onto an already unstable pharmaceutical complex. Whether you like them (us) or not, the world needs new medicine and that's the most efficient way to create them.

let's play

Thanks to Alice:

1 - Prendi il libro che hai più vicino, vai a pagina 19, scrivi la linea 11:
pagina 19 e' occupata da una figura... tipico.

2 - Se estendi il tuo braccio destro, cosa riesci a toccare?
il laptop, la bottiglia d'acqua, la cioccolata, la PSP nuova, l'ombrello, milioni di altre cose. questa scrivania e' ingombra. e poi ho le braccia lunghe.

3 - L'ultima cosa che hai visto in tv?
Il notiziario delle 7 della BBC

4 - Senza guardare, che ora è?
boh. 13.45?

5 - Adesso guarda, che ora è?
14.21 - sto perdendo tempo eh?

6 - Oltre al suono del computer, cosa riesci a sentire?
sibil-rozio del condizionatore. il ticchetio dei tasti. porta che sbatte. i tacchi di barbie girl.

7 - Quanto tempo sei stato fuori di casa la volta che sei stato più tempo fuori?
sei mesi. ma mi sa che l'abbandono comincia ora.

8 - Cosa stavi facendo prima di scrivere questo Journal?
leggevo gli altri blogs. invece di lavorare

9 - Cosa indossi ora?
camicia bianca con quadri marroni piccoli e leggeri, pantaloni in velluto a righe crema con sovra-toni verdicchi, maglione in lana verde. mutande rosse. credo... controllo. affermativo.

10 - Cos'hai sognato stanotte?
non ricordo.

11 - Quanto tempo hai riso l'ultima volta?
mezzo secondo.

12 - Cosa c'è sulle pareti della tua stanza?
due lavagne piene di formule e numeri. il bistrattato Credo della ditta. un calendario con avvenimenti fittizi. scritti da me. che si son poi avverati. scary!

13 - Hai notato qualcosa di strano ultimamente?
quando sto seduto, mi fa freddo alle gambe. x quello ho appena calato il giubbottone in pelle sulle coscie.

14 - Cosa pensi di questo giochetto di domande?
troppo lungo.

15 - L'ultimo film che hai visto?
South Park - Bigger, longer and uncut.

16 - Se diventassi milionario cosa compreresti?
Una casa in campagna dove passare il tempo a coltivare l'orto, e osservare animali ed insetti. e le piante crescere.

17 - Qualcosa su di te...
Strano ma pigro.

18 - Se potessi dare una cosa al mondo, cosa daresti.
Dinosauri.

19 - Ti piace cantare?
In macchina, visto che la radio e' rotta.

20 - Cosa pensi di Bush?
L'uomo tipico.

21 - Hai una bambina, senza pensarci, come la chiami?
Sara.

22 - Invece è un bambino, come lo chiami?
Paolo.

23 - Ti piacerebbe vivere in uno stato estero?
Ci sto in belgio. essendo appena rientrato da casa (Sardegna) non e' proprio il massimo.

24 - Cosa ti piacerebbe di dicesse Dio arrivato in paradiso?
Hai sbagliato la scommessa. Mi reggi sti fulmini nel mentre che li lancio?

25 - Chi vorresti che rispondesse a queste domande?
Chiunque capita nel mio blog e proprio non ha altro da fare.

Finito.

Ugly Scansion Microscopy...

Ugly Overload posts a nice link to an interesting yet disturbing set of Pictures from the Time and CNN.

Title, The Fascinating, Frightening World of Insects.

Everyone can find his less favourite picture here, mine is this one though:



the caption simply says: Dust Mites
Seen at a magnification of 350x, a group of Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus forage for human skin on a bedsheet.

Brr... The fascinating thing here is the fact that a whole ecosystem surrounds us in our houses, and we are mostly unaware of it. For this dust mites, my bedlinen are the equivalent of north american prairies for buffaloes, and my girflriend vigorously stirring them every morning a kind of atlantidean catastrophe brought about by a beautiful yet indifferent goddess :-)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Back to Blog

... and back to work too.

After ten days spent in Sardinia, between two weddings (again, my congrats to Giangi and Alessandra, and Miriam and Manlio - I reallly appreciated the parties)

Sardinia was wonderful this time of the year, with clear blue skies and a diamond sun shining. I even managed a brief escape to the sea, Platamona was clear as crystal and inviting...

Mostly, I messed about with old and new friends, and wasted some mornings looking for a gps/pda substitute to my defunct Mio. I ended up being disappointed and decided to try and resuscitate it. Hack!

In the next few days, I shall try to post something.

I am still working part time on my paper, may be i'll post some layman explanations since they keep coming in my mind and I can't fit them in the boring and uninteresting scientific style requested by todays publications.

Man, this sucks. You hope to be the next Carl Zimmer, instead you found yourself forced to be the next George Bush. Ok, may be not that bad, but definitely boring. Ugh!

Friday, September 21, 2007

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Gingerbread Haka!!!

a movie in tune with the rugby world cup



grazie a mio fratellino paolo.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Neglected Diseases

The new Nature is out. I've stolen the time to my paper-writing to read the brief news, if not the real papers, but really can't discuss them right now. Too damn busy...

Draft is due tomorrow and I am still adding data to the discussion and introductory session!!! Bad bad practice.

Anyway, nature you have to pay for, but you can get the Neglected Disease report for free. So, go and check it out.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

I fully agree

cut and paste from:

Belgium:Time to call it a day

Sep 6th 2007
From The Economist print edition

Sometimes it is right for a country to recognise that its job is done


Illustration by Claudio Munoz

A RECENT glance at the Low Countries revealed that, nearly three months after its latest general election, Belgium was still without a new government. It may have acquired one by now. But, if so, will anyone notice? And, if not, will anyone mind? Even the Belgians appear indifferent. And what they think of the government they may well think of the country. If Belgium did not already exist, would anyone nowadays take the trouble to invent it?

Such questions could be asked of many countries. Belgium's problem, if such it is, is that they are being asked by the inhabitants themselves. True, in opinion polls most Belgians say they want to keep the show on the road. But when they vote, as they did on June 10th, they do so along linguistic lines, the French-speaking Walloons in the south for French-speaking parties, the Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north for Dutch-speaking parties. The two groups do not get on—hence the inability to form a government. They lead parallel lives, largely in ignorance of each other. They do, however, think they know themselves: when a French-language television programme was interrupted last December with a spoof news flash announcing that the Flemish parliament had declared independence, the king had fled and Belgium had dissolved, it was widely believed.

Click Here!

No wonder. The prime minister designate thinks Belgians have nothing in common except "the king, the football team, some beers", and he describes their country as an "accident of history". In truth, it isn't. When it was created in 1831, it served more than one purpose. It relieved its people of various discriminatory practices imposed on them by their Dutch rulers. And it suited Britain and France to have a new, neutral state rather than a source of instability that might, so soon after the Napoleonic wars, set off more turbulence in Europe.

The upshot was neither an unmitigated success nor an unmitigated failure. Belgium industrialised fast; grabbed a large part of Africa and ruled it particularly rapaciously; was itself invaded and occupied by Germany, not once but twice; and then cleverly secured the headquarters of what is now the European Union. Along the way it produced Magritte, Simenon, Tintin, the saxophone and a lot of chocolate. Also frites. No doubt more good things can come out of the swathe of territory once occupied by a tribe known to the Romans as the Belgae. For that, though, they do not need Belgium: they can emerge just as readily from two or three new mini-states, or perhaps from an enlarged France and Netherlands.

Brussels can devote itself to becoming the bureaucratic capital of Europe. It no longer enjoys the heady atmosphere of liberty that swirled outside its opera house in 1830, intoxicating the demonstrators whose protests set the Belgians on the road to independence. The air today is more fetid. With freedom now taken for granted, the old animosities are ill suppressed. Rancour is ever-present and the country has become a freak of nature, a state in which power is so devolved that government is an abhorred vacuum. In short, Belgium has served its purpose. A praline divorce is in order.

Belgians need not feel too sad. Countries come and go. And perhaps a way can be found to keep the king, if he is still wanted. Since he has never had a country—he has always just been king of the Belgians—he will not miss Belgium. Maybe he can rule a new-old country called Gaul. But king of the Gauloises doesn't sound quite right, does it?

Monday, September 10, 2007

New Books

Carl Zimmer let us know that he's just finished editing the concise edition of "The Descent of Man" by Charles Darwin. So, I went off to amazon to buy a copy together with "Fish with fingers, Whales with legs", and... "Pearls Before Swine: Blts Taste So Darn Good"...

Here's the proof:

Open Orders
Order Date: 8 Sep 2007
Order #: 202-4890542-7183528
Recipient: Luca A. Fenu
View or change order
Items not yet dispatched:
Delivery estimate: 28 Nov 2007 - 30 Nov 2007
  • 1 of: The Descent of Man
    Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
  • 1 of: Pearls Before Swine: Blts Taste So Darn Good
    Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.
  • 1 of: At the Water's Edge: Fish with Fingers, Whales with Legs...
    Sold by: Amazon EU S.a.r.L.


The only prob is that I'll have to wait to get the others too, since Amazon does make you pay for delivery (differently from Play.com, where I usually buy my stuff). So the stuff will not come through before end of November!!!

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Beautiful Pictures



Produced with the 'processing' language, but most of all a keen artistic sense: http://complexification.net/



Thanks to Zimmer's latest post for the discovery.

...and the Big Cut&Paste

Turkish (self proclaimed) theoretical physicist accused of plagiarising papers.


According to Nature, the ArXiv removed their pubblications (70, 40 of which authored by one same guy - now that's a lot even for theoreticists), after ascertaining that they contained large sections from previous papers. two of the PhD involved had a host of papers in gravitational physics, but couldn't solve basic newtonian physics problems... Ugh!

The trouble began last November, when Salti and another graduate student, Oktay Aydogdu, underwent oral examinations for their PhDs. Although both had an extensive list of publications in gravitational physics, they struggled to answer even basic, high-school-level questions, according to Özgür Sariog brevelu, an associate professor at METU. "They didn't know fundamental stuff like newtonian mechanics," he says.

More worrying for me is that these people did actually publish their work on peer-reviewed journals, although Low Impact. Is this the kind of serious checks that publishers claim to offer when they oppose open publishing?

The Big Splash...

And the new Nature is out too, with a brief piece on how different sciences are homing in on the Dinosaurs' Asteroid Catastrophe, tackling it from various fronts and cross-fertilising each other with insights and suggestions on where and when EXACTLY this did happen.

I believe these links are freely available to anyone. If not, they should.

Climate changes, it rains more, snails die...

The new issue of Nature Reports: Climate Change is out.

Kind of confusing, in fact, to read in the same page of a species of snail going extinct because seasonal rains on the only atoll it leaves in are diminishing, while the next piece talks about increased rain due to Global Warming. Nothing strange, really, it only goes to show a point many scientist have made before: More energy in the atmosphere does not mean just hotter the year round, it means a more energetic atmosphere, therefore more storms, more rains, more extremes...

Like water in a bucket, which when still is flat, and when spun along the axis climb the walls following a parabolic shape, therefore higher on the walls and lower than still at the bottom.

So, may be the arid regions will become more arid, while the arctic regions will get even colder? I don't know. IANACS (I Am Not A Climate Scientist)

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

33!!!

I am 33!!!

The same age as Jesus Christ, yet I managed to avoid crucifixion, as a friend/colleague aptly put it.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Friday, August 31, 2007

Hey, The Economist talks about what I do!!!


They run a piece on animal testings, the good and bad of it and how companies and institutions are looking for alternatives.

Some of the passages I don't fully agree on:

In an ideal world, there would be no animal testing. It is expensive and can be of dubious scientific value, since different species often react differently to the same procedure.

Well, it still is the best we have at our disposal. Once we see that an animal is affected in a way which does not correlate well with humans, we usually look for the reasons, and if necessary take the species out of the pipeline for that compound. It's a win/win situation, except for the animals, of course. But even then, on average is a good deal for them.

As for animals used during experimental surgery procedure, well, it's not up to me to defend that field. I certainly hope that, if using aneasthetics does not invalidate the results, they will be administered, if only for 'humanitarian' reasons.

I get back to describing my attempts of saving as many guinea Pig as I can from being needlessly sacrificed.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Ali G and Noah Chomsky.

The poor old man can't grasp Ali jumping from branch to branch...

From the Desk of David Pogue

a whole series of new Chat/SMS abbreviations.

* GI -- Google it

* MOP -- Mac or PC?

* FCAO -- five conversations at once

* IIOYT -- is it on YouTube?

* DYFH -- did you Facebook him/her?

* BIOI -- buy it on iTunes

* CMOS -- call me on Skype

* GGNUDP -- gotta go, no unlimited data plan

* WLF -- with the lady friend

* JUOC -- jacked up on caffeine

* 12OF -- twelve-o'clock flasher (refers to someone less than competent with technology, to the extent that every appliance in the house flashes "12:00")

* SML -- send me the link

* RHB -- read his/her blog

* MBLO -- much better-looking online

* KYST -- knew you'd say that

* NBL -- no battery left

* CTTC -- can't talk, teacher's coming

* TWD -- typing while driving

* CMT (CMF, CMM, CMB) -- check my Twitter (Facebook, Myspace, blog)

* CYE (CYF, CYM, CYB)--check your email (Facebook, Myspace, blog)

And a few just for iPhone owners:

* SPLETS -- send pics later; Edge too slow

* CSVUI -- can't send video, using iPhone

* BPWMI -- boss playing with my iPhone

* SIK -- sorry, iPhone keyboard

* OOM -- out of messages (for iPhone users who haven't upgraded their AT&T "200 messages a month" plan)

Here's some special acronyms for oldtimers:

* WIWYA -- when I was your age

* YKT – you kids today

* CRRE -- conversation required; remove earbuds

* WDO? -- what are you doing online?

* NIWYM -- no idea what you mean

* NCK -- not a chance, kid

* B2W -- back to work

* AYD? -- are you drunk?

* LODH -- log off, do homework

* DYMK? -- does your mother know?

* IGAT -- I've got abbreviations, too

Ali G and Kent Hovind

Always from retrospectacle.

Way to go!!!


It's been a while since I've been to Retrospectacle.

And now I see this: Shelley reports of a psychotic patient who killed himself by slowly pushing a ballpen through his eye in his brain... Ugh!!!

Apparently, the guy stayed conscious all the way for four days before dying, but didn't tell the doctors trying to save him what he did!!!

Forecasting the weather 30-year in the future.

Again, from Nature, a reminders that thirty years ago Climate Scientist J.S. Sawyer predicted that with the expected 25% increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, the average T on the planet surface would go up 0.6 Celsius. The observed value has been 0.5. A remarkable prediction, especially considering that at the time we were thought to be heading into another ice age (which we would be, were it not for man's action, I guess). So, very few people gave credit to the thought of an inversion.

So, now what?

Cicadas attack Japan!!!


Nature reports that japanese cicadas have been descending in masse over the arcipelago, and they don't just make noise.

They also destroy the country's fiber-optic infrastructure, since they mistake the hanging cables for withered branches, and punch them with their ovopositors in order to put an egg in the cosy place.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Jewel Squid.


A wonderful picture of a deep-sea squid in Deep Sea News.

Despite its delicate, decorated appearance, this jewel squid was found 1,650 lung-crushing feet (500 meters) beneath the surface of the North Atlantic. Scientists on a recent deep-sea expedition found the squid, called Histioteuthis, along with an abundance of other species thought to be very rare, if not unknown, elsewhere. Jewel squid are known for their mismatched eyes, one of which is larger than the other to scope for prey in the deep's darkness.

Does the dissimmetry in the eye mirror an equivalent dissimmetry in the brain to better process the different input? I am surprised as I thought that down there no light would make it, so predators would rely on other senses to hunt their preys...

Monday, August 27, 2007

Why is Hello Kittty so popular?


I mean, I get cited in the PostDoc carnival, twice, and get an increase in traffic. Good. Except for the fact that most of the increase is for my citation of a NY Times article about police officers in SE Asia being forced to wear Hello Kitty badges of shame, when acting against the rules. So, I guess the conclusion is that Science is much much weaker than Cuddliness.

The best science book of my year



I just finished this book, and I must say that I loved it. The sheer breadth and depth of arguments treated in the book is mindboggling. The authors cover from the birth of the universe, through that of our planet, to Evolution, our role in the cosmos (or lack thereof) and our best survival strategy in a universe which, if not downright evil, is at least very uninterested to our existence.

Mind opening in so many levels, it really is the very first 'science' novel.

I was a bit skeptic about the alternating structure at first, one chapter of novel followed by an explanatory chapter of science. Yet it does pick up and work wonderfully, giving you a light and varied yet interesting read. 10+!!!

(ps: I am looking forward to read the next one, now.

Surfing mices!!!

who would've thought that mouses mice could surf? it's not only penguins who can!


which penguins am I talking about? these penguins:

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

ACS: Avogadro's out

From the skeptical chemist:

ACS: Avogadro's out

The ACS Nomenclature commitee plans to get rid of 6.0221415 × 1023, or better to relate it to the Planck Constant (h) and other fundamental numbers. How? My guess is as good as yours, but I put my money on the relation between the gas constant R and the Boltzmann constant kB:

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Narrativium rules!

I loved Good Omens, from Gaiman and Pratchett. The Discworld I could not bear, Pratchett's humour needs to be tempered by someone else hand, otherwise it's just too much.

RTight now I am reading "The Science of Discworld", and I'm too lazy to translate from Italian what I posted in a private forum: here it is. The final part is about Stardust, the gaiman-inspired movie which is getting very good reviews from both critics and audience.

Proprio ora sto leggendo "The science of Discworld", che e' parte racconto fantasy, con i maghi della Unseen University che creano x accidente il 'nostro' universo e ne osservano gli eventi, parte divulgazione con articoli di Ian Stewart e Jack Cohen (e Pratchett ovviamente) che trattano degli stessi argomenti in maniera leggera e molto originale. Son a meta' del primo e me lo sto godendo davvero, non vedo l'ora di attaccare il secondo e il terzo che ho comprato insieme.

riguardo Stardust, ecco un altro paio di reviews:

Da un sito amatoriale.

Dal sito di Sci-Fi Channel

NY Times

sembra OK.

su IMDB si e' beccato un gran bel 8.3.

here's the trailer:

(whenever youtube wakes up)

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Knights of the Order of Hello Kitty

(image from http://www.anime.com/Hello_Kitty/images/circle-01.jpg removed to avoid google-bombing)
The NY Times let us know that to authorities have decided to expose to public humiliation thai police officers who disobey the rules themselves by awarding them a compulsory Hello Kitty arm band. they hope that the threat of shame in front of others will work better than more formal warnings.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

P - h - D


It's done. Now I am legally a Doctor of Philosophy (edit: no, I am not - still a PreDoc). Not much to say about the viva, I did not really prepare for it and there was no need, at the end. It was just an informal chat on my work, mostly detailing small corrections to apport to the thesis.

Next step is? Who knows? Relax in Sardinia, celebrate, then... may be start to look for an alternative position. I have some idea in mind, I'll share them in here very soon, as I get some more details fleshed out.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

-2 to the Ph-Day

Only two days left before I face the panel, defend my thesis and hopefully get back home (via Brussel->Frankfurt) with three more letters in my business card.

To say the truth, i just want to get this over, I am not particularly tense for this, I just hope that the discussion will be interesting and science based, and I'll get back home with not too many corrections, so to improve the final version before sending it to the printer.

Today, though, is a day busy with other things. Have to get to brussel's midi market to get traditional sardinian sausages and cheese for my hosts in soton, then off to the station to grab my Euro* ticket. May be I'll pay visit to some friends having a picnic in Tervuren, if I don't feel to guitly. Otherwise, i'#ll read the final chapter of my thesis once more to preempt questions.

Failure to prepare is prepare to fail, said Gerry Halliwell.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

A Bug's Death

Olivia Judson, evolutionary biologist at the university of Oxford and author of the wonderful Dr Tatiana Sex Advice to All Creation book, proposes to infect the malaria-carying mosquitoes with a killer gene, to estinguish the species within twenty generations or so.

After one night spent listening to two mosquitoes flying round my ears, I'm with Dr Tatiana. Who's with us?

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Chiuso x Ferie


Truth be told, I'm on holiday from the blog 'cause I don't have much time to devote to it.

Too much stuff to do at work, and with only five days left before the Viva I really am starting to get skittish about it.

So, it's goodbye for the moment, and see you soon, after the exams and the well earned holidays.

I'll try to split the blog in two or three branches, one where I'll post about (my) science, the others i don't know yet.

If I blog, I want it to be not just a diary but somehow useful to people out there.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Pino e gli anticorpi - omaggio a bergman?

grazie a sassareserie x il filmato.

A new Contender

to the title of gufodotto's camera of the next years:


Panasonic DMC-FZ18
Tuesday, 24 July 2007 08:00 GMT

In addition to two new 'pocketable' compacts Panasonic has revealed the latest FZ series 'super zoom' model, the eighteen times optical zoom FZ18. This camera mates its (tiny) eight megapixel CCD to a lens which provides the equivalent of 28 to 504 mm on a 35 mm camera, plus it's optical image stabilization. Just like the compacts the FZ18 gets 'Intelligent Auto Mode' and automatic LCD backlight control. The FZ18 is (on paper) a compelling option considering how much glass you'd have to carry around to match it with a digital SLR (ignoring other factors such as high ISO performance, lens quality and focusing speed).

Jump to:

Press Release:

Panasonic’s DMC-FZ18




Snapped from DPreview.

Doing Yoga at your Desk

From the silly suggestions department:People who work at their desks all day tend to stay in one position for a long time. The exercises in these videos are designed to counter the effects of sitting at your desk. We suggest that you start with Part 1 below and then move on to Parts 2 and 3. Each video is about the length of your coffee break.Or, I say, just take a coffee break. This way you get to see Barbie Girl ;-)

read more | digg story

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Which super zoom digicam to choose?

Ok, here I am with my new dilemma. My old Nikon Coolpix is kicking the bucket, as the battery flap lost the hinge and keeps popping open. I love the camera but it's become unreliable, and frankly speaking I would like something which pucks some more punch, especially at the telephoto end. Plus, all the usual needs such as higher resolution (not really), better image quality and so on. A big lens would also helps in low light at short distances, I hope, another of the weak points.
Anyway, my alltime favorite was a konica-Minolta Dimage Z-X (X=2,3,5...) but apparently they're discontinued.

So I have to hunt for a substitute - my requisites are:

  1. at least a 12X Zoom, 'cause I want to take picture of squirrel far away. Plus, going to Africa in December, I don't want to have to get TOO close to lions and hippos to take a decent shot.
  2. AA Batteries, if I can, and SD Cards too. I don't want difficult and expensive proprietary formats such as xD cards (understood, Fuji and Olympus?) nor Memory Sticks (Sony? Drop them!). Ditto for batteries. If I run out of juice I want to be able to spend 10Euros for a new pack, not 40. Damn!
  3. Oh, Video + Audio (stereo if I am not asking too much) would be good, availability of an underwater case (although I can still use the old one for diving, if I can find the case again)
and now, the candidates:

There's also some unlikely outsiders:

As you may have noticed, most of them have SLR-like bodies but can't swap lenses. I am too lazy for this I just want a camera with a good zoom, for nature and travel pictures. Macro is important but am not an expert so manual modes and all those jargon-priority leave me baffled. I do not plan on printing the piccies but I definitely want to look at them on a 20" HD LCD screen. Other people would probably get my shows through Picasa.

Please help me out. I already have had some feedback but want some more unbiased, from expert and not so. Voice your opinion and thanks in advance!

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

New Bloggies

It's been a while since I've updated my blogroll.

I am inserting today one more link to a friend's blog: Emiliano is a guy from my birth-city, and he was my pusher for many years, when his bookshop was the only reliable source of comic book in the whole city. Of course you could get them elsewhere, but only there you had your pigeon-hole where he'd carefully slot the latest copy of DragonBall or Ranma 1/2. I still come around the bookshop every time I'm around there, although I rarely if ever get the time to read the stuff. Comics have bored me, sort of. The latest manga look boy-ish, Bonelli's are monotonous and badly told. Most likely, exposure to the broader stream of english literature opened my eyes on the real (lack of) quality of (some, most) comic books. Only the old glories I can keep reading, but it' most likely due to the emotions they re-awake in me than anything else.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Last Saturday? I was there.


I went to the Gentse Feesten, la festa di Gent, a huge musical festival, with five or more simultaneous concerts ongoing throughout the old city.

It's a very nice city indeed, although this saturday was a tad crowded.

Music was good (although I am certainly not the reference ear), I switched between three groups of friends, italians, colleague and some flemish friends of a friend - plus, this
friend of mine (Daniele) truly is a girls-magnet, and hooked up three very young and pretty italian-speaking (and -loving) flemish girls at a bar, just by standing there. What's the secret of his animal magnetism? who knows? Most likely, the fact that he's natural and outgoing. differently from me, introverse and grumpy at times.

Anyway, it was good, but I hope I'll get there sometimes soon with the same nice weather and less crowd, to have a look at the REAL Gent.

wanna see more pictures? have a look here (may be I'll be within the crowd, who knows?)

Non mi chiedermi

Just discovered this silly and funny song!!!



I know it's old but who cares! Here's the lyrics too:

Ciao, mi piacerebbe avere un telefonino che manda i messaggini con tantissimi caratteri
così potrei scriverti
"Ti amo" con un milione di "o"
e verrebbe pressappoco così:
TI AMO-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O

Non mi chiedermi di avere un equilibrio
anche in quei giorni
Non mi chiedermi di farti
lo stufato quando torni
Non mi chiedermi il teorema di Pitagora
non ho la licenza media
in prima mi bocciarono
Non mi chiedermi di avere gambe lisce come seta
la ricrescita è una piaga e non mi basta
una "lameta"
ci vorrebbe un diserbante dedicato
io ce l'ho
spero solo che rispetti il mio pH

Rit.
(Girl band)
Quanta spontaneità nei miei modi schietti
(Wooden Chicks)
le mie movenze e i completini perfetti
(Girl band)
o quando uno è naturale è naturale
(Wooden Chicks)
tra l'altro questo motivetto niente male


Non mi chiedermi l'orgasmo che non so come si scrive
Non mi chiedermi se ho sexy più la fronte o le gengive
Non mi chiedermi di coniugarti i verbi
non li so
"se li avrei saputi mo' te l'imparavo"
Non mi chiedermi di amarti con le tecniche orientali
Non cercare di sorprendermi all'incrocio dei miei pali
Non mi chiedermi di rivelarti dove ho il punto G
con il mio alfabeto arrivo fino a F

Rit.
(Girl band)
Belle ragazze con le gambe perfette
(Wooden Chicks)
noi siamo tope dalle vedute strette
(Girl band)
sinceramente non capisco chi ci biasima
(Wooden Chicks)
nei nostri play-back ci mettiamo l'anima

(Frankie Hi in rap)
Tu tipico prototipo di donna libera
tutta acqua e sapone non ti dai
nemmeno un'aria
tu così lucida ed estera
tu che sei più semplice di un
mosaico con una tessera
tu hai più colori di una gerbera
venere berbera
tu genuina come il barbera
tu che non mi dai mai l'idea
di aver la minima idea
di quel che dai

"Se saprei" parlare senza farti diventare rosso
"Se dovrei" vestire i panni senza toglierli di dosso
"Se potrei" dir cose meno imbarazzanti le direi
ma non sarei più gradita in una Girl...

Rit.
(Girl band)
Quanta spontaneità nei miei modi schietti
(Wooden Chicks)
le mie movenze e i completini perfetti
(Girl band)
o quando uno è naturale è naturale
(Wooden Chicks)
tra l'altro questo motivetto niente male
(Girl band)
Belle ragazze con le gambe perfette
(Wooden Chicks)
gagliarde tope dalle vedute strette
(Girl band)
sinceramente non capisco chi ci biasima
(Wooden Chicks)
nei nostri play-back ci mettiamo l'anima