Transmission

Transmission was the theme of the day. First I blew my mind thinking about salmon transmission genetics (genome duplication makes things complicated). Ah crap - I might actually end up using my master's in genetics.

See, the proto-salmon, the ancestors of all the moderns, went through a genome duplication event. Then they went back to being disomic (that's a pair of chromosomes instead of four which would be tetrasomy). BUT it wasn't a clean transition back, and you can still sometimes find evidence of the duplication because you won't see straight-up Mendelian inheritance patterns for a gene.

It's something important to take into account when you're doing salmon genetics, and it's something I might end up looking at as part of my study of rapid evolution, so I'm going to spend a good part of the weekend wrapping my brain around it...

Especially since a good part of my afternoon got eaten up sitting in on a meeting about a proposed cell tower. The powers that be (cell companies and university IT) want to put a cell tower on top of our building, but a number of us inside the building are concerned about being constantly irradiated by the output from the tower. I wasn't even aware until another researcher in the building brought around a petition and sent me some literature by email.

After a couple hours of haranguing, and hearing quite a bit of scary shit about what radio-frequency(RF) energy exposure can do, the basic decision was that we need more information on current levels before we agree to have a tower put on the building. But, ladies and gents, after what I heard today I would not recommend carrying your cell in your pocket or holding it right up against your head when you talk into it.

The IT guys seemed kind of put-out by how adamantly we opposed the erection of a new tower, but of course we want more data. We're scientists and we work 8 to 12 hours a day in that building. I don't want to get irradiated for the next three years anymore than I already am by all the existing wireless technology and lab equipment.

Look, we're all part of an on-going experiment as to the dangers of RF and cell phone usage. After today, though, I think I'm going to opt-out of being a lab rat a little more often and use wires. Except for texting, which is a communications requirement here.

So to end on a lighter note:
Text acronym of the week: WOMBAT

Waste
Of
Money,
Brains,
And
Time

As in: Politics can be a real WOMBAT.