Interesting news this week: pirates off the coast of Somalia took an American ship (the Maersk Alabama), but the situation has been resolved. The crew of the ship acted quickly and disabled it so that the pirates wouldn't be able to sail it. So three of the four pirates hopped in a lifeboat with the captain of the Maersk. After a while at sea, US Naval forces showed up (the SEALs), ready to rescue the captain. At least one of the pirates had an AK-47 assault rifle aimed at the captain's back, so the commanding officer gave the order to fire. Three Navy snipers dropped the three pirates at the same time, one head-shot each. The captain was rescued, safe and sound.
I have two main thoughts about the whole situation. The first is that it breaks my heart that things are so bad in Somalia that people are having to resort to piracy to make a living. The country basically has no government, and hasn't for a while. There is no easy solution in sight. Even sadder is that these men lost their lives essentially because of the situation they were in.
However, these men did have agency and they used it poorly. The life of an American citizen was in danger through no fault of his own. So my second thought is that how impressed I am with our military men and their skill. They took care of the situation quickly and efficiently, and saved the life of the captain. This is the sort of thing that you read about in a Tom Clancy novel, not hear about in real life.
So I'm glad the captain is ok, that the SEALs are awesome, and that the crew were quick on their feet to prevent bigger problems. But I'm also wondering, what can be done to help the Somali people and prevent this sort of thing from continuing/happening again?
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
More cool science pictures
I found these pictures a while ago and thought they were pretty awesome. They come from National Geographic's Best Science Images of 2008. Basically they provide further validation for studying what I study.
(Note: this is sort of a cop-out post meant to take care of something that I had backlogged for a while. I've got something better [a real post] coming down the pipe, have no fear.)
(Note: this is sort of a cop-out post meant to take care of something that I had backlogged for a while. I've got something better [a real post] coming down the pipe, have no fear.)
Friday, March 20, 2009
Happy first of spring!
I'm glad I got the other shots yesterday, because these made a nice comparison. Perfect timing!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Spring is coming...
And I'm very excited. Those are some of our daffodils that are coming up. Sweetness!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Open mouth, insert foot.
I've been volunteering at a hospital on a weekly basis for the past seven or eight months. It's been a good experience--I enjoy spending time at the hospital and helping out in small ways (it also gets me some of my requisite volunteer hours for medical school). One of my responsibilities is to help move patients from their beds or stretchers to the CT beds so that they can get scanned. Tonight was one of the funniest moments that I've ever had there.
One sweet older woman was wheeled in to the scanner room, and the first thing I noticed was her hair. Most people who are in the hospital aren't too concerned about their personal appearance because they have other more pressing matters to attend to (like cysts, rupturing appendices and the like). Her hair looked amazing. Something like these two photos, but blonde and less of a tousled look. And no nose piercing (like Alyssa Milano).
So, needless to say, I was impressed. She looked really good for an old lady laying on a hospital bed. So I figure I should let her know--who doesn't love a nice compliment, especially when they're not feeling well? And that's when my foot entered my mouth. I say, "your hair looks really nice," and at that very moment, her blonde coif slid back on her head, exposing her real hair, which was brown with a lot of thick gray streaks. I could feel my eyes widen in shock as I realized that her nice-looking hair was actually a wig. Her eyes were closed, so she didn't notice, and she said, "thank you. It takes a few hours a day to comb it and make it look nice." I could feel myself turning red, and caught a few funny looks from Susie and Michelle, the techs who were on duty.
As soon as I got into the room where they operate the scanners (not the same room that the scanners are in, to prevent the workers from getting a lot of exposure to radiation), I lost it. I busted a gut, and so did everybody else. Some of them had totally noticed that it was a wig from the moment they saw the lady, and they gave me a hard time about it while we waited for the scan to take place. This was probably one of the funniest things that has happened to me in CT.
P.S. I would like to add that it didn't seem like the woman thought I was making fun of her. It sounded like she took my compliment the way it was offered--in a totally and completely sincere manner. She was a sweetheart, and I wish her the best.
One sweet older woman was wheeled in to the scanner room, and the first thing I noticed was her hair. Most people who are in the hospital aren't too concerned about their personal appearance because they have other more pressing matters to attend to (like cysts, rupturing appendices and the like). Her hair looked amazing. Something like these two photos, but blonde and less of a tousled look. And no nose piercing (like Alyssa Milano).
So, needless to say, I was impressed. She looked really good for an old lady laying on a hospital bed. So I figure I should let her know--who doesn't love a nice compliment, especially when they're not feeling well? And that's when my foot entered my mouth. I say, "your hair looks really nice," and at that very moment, her blonde coif slid back on her head, exposing her real hair, which was brown with a lot of thick gray streaks. I could feel my eyes widen in shock as I realized that her nice-looking hair was actually a wig. Her eyes were closed, so she didn't notice, and she said, "thank you. It takes a few hours a day to comb it and make it look nice." I could feel myself turning red, and caught a few funny looks from Susie and Michelle, the techs who were on duty.
As soon as I got into the room where they operate the scanners (not the same room that the scanners are in, to prevent the workers from getting a lot of exposure to radiation), I lost it. I busted a gut, and so did everybody else. Some of them had totally noticed that it was a wig from the moment they saw the lady, and they gave me a hard time about it while we waited for the scan to take place. This was probably one of the funniest things that has happened to me in CT.
P.S. I would like to add that it didn't seem like the woman thought I was making fun of her. It sounded like she took my compliment the way it was offered--in a totally and completely sincere manner. She was a sweetheart, and I wish her the best.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Slime molds!
So the other day I found a website with really cool pictures of slime molds. Slime molds are amoebas that are similar to fungi, and they look really cool. I've included a couple of the pictures that I liked best from the site, but I highly recommend that you go to the site and look at the rest for yourself (as there are about 40 pictures there).
These sorts of things are why I love microbiology. Nature is just plain awesome.
(Edit: Apparently when you link to online pictures, it's hard to control the size--therefore some of these photos don't actually fit on my blog. Just another reason to go see the site. Seriously, check it out.)
Yeah, those last two are a picture of the same thing at different times. Cool, eh?
(Edit: I figured out how to change the image size, so I did. Now you can see the whole thing. Hooray!)
These sorts of things are why I love microbiology. Nature is just plain awesome.
(Edit: Apparently when you link to online pictures, it's hard to control the size--therefore some of these photos don't actually fit on my blog. Just another reason to go see the site. Seriously, check it out.)
Yeah, those last two are a picture of the same thing at different times. Cool, eh?
(Edit: I figured out how to change the image size, so I did. Now you can see the whole thing. Hooray!)
6th challenge from Maren
So my sis-in-law put me up for a challenge, and here's how it works:
In your pictures folder on your comp, go to the 6th folder of pictures, then the 6th picture in the folder and post that picture on your blog. I probably would have been content just to see which picture it was, but then I felt bad for not living up to the tag. So here it is for you all to see.
This comes from Christmas beard 2007, and is a picture of me and the wifey right before I shaved it off. It only grew for one week compared to last year's 2-weeker, so it almost looks thin. I figure that for Christmas beard 2009, I'll let it grow until it's shoulder-length. Mmm, boy. Just trying to Follow the Prophet. (Lorenzo Snow or Joseph F. Smith, to be precise.)
This would be the point in the post where I would tag six other people, but I'm not really that into that part of it. So go for it if you like, but I won't put you under any imaginary obligation to continue this trend.
In your pictures folder on your comp, go to the 6th folder of pictures, then the 6th picture in the folder and post that picture on your blog. I probably would have been content just to see which picture it was, but then I felt bad for not living up to the tag. So here it is for you all to see.
This comes from Christmas beard 2007, and is a picture of me and the wifey right before I shaved it off. It only grew for one week compared to last year's 2-weeker, so it almost looks thin. I figure that for Christmas beard 2009, I'll let it grow until it's shoulder-length. Mmm, boy. Just trying to Follow the Prophet. (Lorenzo Snow or Joseph F. Smith, to be precise.)
This would be the point in the post where I would tag six other people, but I'm not really that into that part of it. So go for it if you like, but I won't put you under any imaginary obligation to continue this trend.
