Did I took the wrong path?

Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't have gone to biology, rather than chemistry, during my studies. It certainly seems so from my interests... just have a look at the previous posts in this blog... and the books I read, and those of you who knows me in person
know how much time spend wondering about dinosaurs and such stuff... a lot...

well, I wanted to do biology or physics but the first one wasn't very promising at my place, and the second one was out of discussion - no physics degree at my place, and not enough money to go anywhere else. So I did chemistry, good compromise in between the two and with good employment perspectives... and after the Comp Chem specialisation I've been slowly transitioning to biological sciences... with a computational twist all the way around...

who knows what the future holds for me?

The Black Death is back...

Here's an interesting piece from Tara Smith at Aetiology. A Plague outbreak in Republic of Congo... She already told us about a woman in california who got plague some time ago... Check out her blog 'cause it's incredibly interesting... (and she's pretty and has tattoos too) :-)

And if you want to help out with the outbreak, I guess you can do your part sending money to Medecins sans Frontieres...

did you ever wonder...

where your gills have gone, when your grand-grand-parents became ground-walking animals and didn't need them anymore? Until now, in my ignorant chemistry-oriented world vision, I assumed they became our lungs... but no, actually. they became our neck glands, and face muscles, and part of the jaw... I mean, how cool is that?

Can you clone schrodinger's cat?

Interesting idea, but I'd rather have started a Lorentz's butterfly farm to become all-powerful king of storms...

Remember, remember, the fifth of November...

I've seen this movie in the weekend... WOW! It does rehabilitate the wachowsky brothers in my view of the world. After the awful mess they made with the matrix... I don't remember the comic book well enough to say whether the plot of the movie was 'TOO" different, but it ceratinly did give me the same emotions. all the important parts have been kept, the action (esp the Kung-fu sequences) is not excessive, the acting is good, the sfx and scenery wonderful and the whole movie only drags a little in the third quarter... but I wholly recommend it!!!

my brain is wired the wrong way around...

hey, some people at UCL have discovered that we use the same part of the brain to speak different languages... it just switches back and forth from different modes... I could've told them so
from long ago, since now that I know english, every time I try to speak french
some english words trickle down with it... I guess my brain's switching system doesn't work properly... my parents would probably say that this isn't a surprise, either...

vroom!!!

and I've finally bought my own car... a second hand one, just to start... but not a city car, as it happens. after having tried the yaris didn't really like it...

so went for a 156 sport wagon...

juan, I'm ready to bet that I could beat you up the mountain with this... and don't worry, I'll let you have the cheese... but I have to admit I forgot to send it last time I went down. my fault. too much messing around to get the driving license done...

bye bye to everyone

Blog of the week

Darren Naish is a tetrapod paleontologist at Univ of Portsmouth, not far from where I did my own PhD (good old Soton). He has quite a few interesting things to say about rabbits (my friend at the rabbit's lair would love this, although he probably already knows) and many other tetrapods...

Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass

and now, it's time for a little cross-posting from pharyngula:

Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass

old, but always funny...

What am I reading: Updated

and here I am again... Recently, I have been catching up on my Science Fiction, ater so much time spent reading real science. so, it's been the time of Evolution, a majestic plot which takes something like one billion years to unwindle, following a dinasty of primates from small critters at the foot of dinosaurs to man, to an ending I don't want to reveal... it certainly is interesting, although some of the theories exposed inside I don't particularly agree with, especially after reading the red queen... but it's an interesting read, although may be a little below Baxter standards. Too much time is spent, in my opinion, on the 'human' persons (I actually skipped this part ah ah) and I'd have loved to see something more on the primeval mammals, who scuttled at the feet of dinosaurs since 200 millions years ago... but hey, may be I'll get to write my own book about them, one day...

the part I appreciated most where those about the Antarctica T-Rex (cool), but most of all the
brief story about the Jurassic Hunters, intelligent and self-aware dynosaurs who hunted diplodocus and made simple tools... I wish he could extend on them... and I wish I could know whether something of what we are doing now will be left over to be found by our successors in another hundred million years...

Now, I'm almost done with stephen johanson's book Lucy's Child: The Discovery of a Human Ancestor. I'm reading it in the italian version, though. excatly the same book I read when I was fourteen and started my long lasting interest in paleonthology/paleoanthropology...

Driving!!!

Hi everyone,

this is my first day as a commuter... well, as a car commuter, since until now I did the same
but by bus. so, to be sure I could find an easy spot to park my unwieldy Audi A4, I decided to get to work at... 6.30AM!!! OMG...

So, if you happen to pass in Belgium, be aware that the fifth Apocalypse Horseman has been unleashed!!! Wroooommm...

If you think that giving birth is too painful...

Think again.

and now I do understand a friend of mine when he used the expression "To suffer like a hyena"...

Hyenas really got the long end of the stick (pun intended)

And there's more...

Exactly as it says on the title, there's more than my driving license. Work is proceeding well, I'm building and veryfying new models regarding Cardio vascular effects of would-be drugs, and have also started providing service to some 'real' chemists. Someone from Spain asked my (my model's) opinion on the CV activity of four drugs. And one of them is seemingly active on two out of three indicators... my first useful and practical contribution to Drug Design, other than the Methodology Development which was my PhD's primary aim.

Back here again...

I'm back at blogging again. After quite a long iatus. that's a gap, for those of you latin-challenged... :-)

It's been a busy month, this one, have been back home and
very busy re-connecting with my friends, both old and new.

and I finally managed to cross the last line that divided me from Adulthood:
I've (at last) got a driving license now!!!

So beware citizen of Belgium, a new danger is roaming your roads...

First animal optimised for supersonic flight

Muton: sharovipteryx
- don't have time now to comment, but how cool is that???

For Your Children

Ehy, I just discpvered this fancy web-page from the Boston Children Hospital where young-fellow-toddlers can learn about latest development in bio-medical sciences...
some bio-themed flash games...
I hope you (or your children) will enjoy...

AvantNews

Have you ever had the curiosity of reading tomorrow's news... Today? well, now you can: have a look at http://www.avantnews.com/
I just got to admit I love it...

an example articles: Tactical Nuclear Weapons Approved for American Consumers

make sure you check the 'science' section, it's great. just an example: Most Studies Find Nothing, Study Finds

bye bye...

Luca

Back To Work

Here I am, back again... back, to work, and back from a very long weekend spent between Turnhout and BXL... Had lots of fun, and now, even if tired, I feel ready to tackle difficult scientific problems... but don't have one for the moment... am just trying to order some analysis to be performed on some sompounds here... need data to work on... it's all very new to me, sometimes I know what to do, sometimes I do not... That's why, at the age of thirty-one, I've been given a mentor, a colleaue of name Wendy... that reminds me of Betty, the graduate student who helped me move my very first step in research long time ago, when I was still working in Italy on my degree...

Ok, now I've got to do some literature on astemizole binding motifs... hopefully someone else in the world is interested in this and will have done some work on which to build upon... have a nice week, and a nice stay in this nest!

Luca a.k.a. Gufo Dotto

Starting to work

So, I'm starting to work, finally. I'm just tired of idling my thmbs to death... and the sunshine outside just gives me a ton of energy to spare...

what am I working on? as I previously said, the objective is to save rabbit lives (and coincidentally money) by keeping high the CV safety of drugs... keeping it simple, I'm now trying to play with some in-house data to see whether the various tests performed to assess CV safety really correlates to each other. wish me good luck...

What I am reading now...

I was almost reduced to despair, but I've just got a five-books strong delivery from play.com. First one to start was "Collapse" by Jared Diamond, the author of "Guns, Germs, Steel". Very interesting book but I put it aside when I started reading "The Truth About Dogs", by Stephen Budiansky: you can find them both in Italian language if so inclined, but as usual I strongly suggest
to read from the original... Traduttore, Traditore...

After these two, is time to get back to Quality Science Fiction with two books from Stephen baxter, "Behemoth" and "Evolution"; Whereas the first one follows the life of three mammooth, the second one is a 65-million-years-spanning epic tale about small critters born at the feet of dinosaurs in Ethiopia who became first monkey, then men.
Oh, and let's not forget the third divulgative book
I've received, "The red queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature", title which pretty much says everything
to those who know me :-)