Abraham Lincoln created the National Academy of Sciences.

Party of Lincoln, amirite?

is ita going to jamaica?

y'all I shopped for hours today with an adult friend and no kid. awesome!

Party of Lincoln, amirite?

If it was the current party, they'd still be amending the Emancipation Proclamation.

Party of Lincoln, whoot!

Apropos, actually, because we took the SO's folks over to the Presidential library & museum for Lincoln today. It was an amazing, amazing trip. His dad likened it to climbing Everest, and beforehand his mom really didn't want to because of his health, but they made it and it was grand. Somber, but grand. I am so glad they went. And I learned lots!

Anyway, in the Big Pharma column, there's def lots of bad for which I harbor resentment, but Big Pharma has funded me a bunch, albeit through their foundation's employee matching program. As a religious org we don't qualify for regular foundation support, but for their employees/retirees it's looser.

I've been writing about science funding, so am cranky.

Did i ever tell you people about the amazing Hawaiian squid?

Oh hey! I start my Official Guitar Lessons on Thursday next week!

Am nervous and excited.

Did i ever tell you people about the amazing Hawaiian squid?

I want to hear about all things squidtastic, but I especially hope this one is wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt.

Tell me about the Hawaiian squid!

And oh, awesome! Yay for you! I asked my socal peeps, but they couldn't turn up a teacher local enough to you, although they tried.

There is an amazing squid that lives around the Hawaii area over yonder. It hunts at night. It really blows for the amazing squid when there is little moonlight for to hunt by, so it gathers up all these bacteria in a pouchy thing. The bacteria then glow, when they're all scooped together in a tight bunch.

Then the squid uses the glowing pouch as a flashlight. It releases the bacteria in the morning, before it gets all toxicy.

This is a magical thing called quorum sensing. When the bacteria all get together, they sense a maximum density and then glow. When they are all spread out, they don't.

Science-type people have figured out how to shut off the quorum sensing mechanism in the bacteria, so they won't glow.

WHY? WHY?

I will tell you.

If you can do that with these things, then maybe, JUST MAYBE you can shut off quorum sensing in other things. Maybe you can shut off whatever it is that makes you get the e coli. You know, shit I'm not terribly familiar with since the article is not open in front of me. Maybe you can shut off mechanisms in cells that say, "HEY HERE WE ARE IN YOUR BOOB, THERE IS A LOT OF US! LET'S MAKE CANCER!" You know, that's a reach. But still, lots of bacteria getting together can make sick happen.

Quorum sensing and the figuring out how to shut it down is one of those awesome discoveries that happens when you spend a couple million on one of those silly wasteful squid studies that Sen. Coburn writes long rants against without actually looking at what the fuck is going on.

I'm rantypants tired girl.

Party of Lincoln, amirite?

The party of Lincoln bears no resemblance to the current crop of conservatives. Humanity and compassion have been tossed aside for corporate cronyism and family values that have little to do with the concept of charity.

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

The end of Lincoln's second inaugural address would be decried today as the fiscally irresponsible musings of a liberal. Why should government care for the widows and orphans because it's each individual's responsibility to provide for themselves and their families? Government of the people, by the people, and for the people? Just a nanny state that interferes with the right to make money at the expense of the public good.