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.

Here's the amazing science lady who discovered quorum sensing: [link]

I met her! She is awesome.

You clearly have not read the Constitution. In it? A militia. Not in it? Science.

FTR, I saw what you did there, with the funny.

I think I ate too much brown rice. Again. Only I didn't realize that was the cause of my discomfort yesterday. Hello, fiber!

This has led to my not packing or doing laundry. But I did pick up a few more gifts before I got home, so that's something. I think it will have to be early rise tomorrow. Which means I should sleep nowish. Don't wanna.

Quorum sensing is too much like telepathy. It creeps me out. How do they KNOW?

I dunno. I know when there are too many people in an IKEA, everyone goes into a fugue state. Maybe it's like that.

The amazing thing for reals is that the squid figured this shit out. Squid are really smart.

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

That is amazing. Really.

The amazing thing for reals is that the squid figured this shit out.

Exactly. How does a squid get there?

The other amazing thing is that billytea's spidey sense did not alert him to this discussion.