upping the ante

I have literally experienced so much in the time span since my prev post, it's hard to know where to start.  The highlights go a little something like this: (Spring Break) catching up on organizing papers and cleaning house, 4 mi hike (Food Poisoning) sick for 2 days.  Mom comes into town (Horse Races) and we go sight-seeing (Getty Museum).  My cousin raced in the rain (Team Swift) and we saw some stars (Griffith Observatory).  We were planning to go to the Chinese Theater and Beverly Hills but the LA Marathon was going on so we hit a cafe (The Trails) instead.  Got to hang with my aunt also who educated me about Einstein, Tina Fey, and great organizations such as http://www.farmvetco.org/ that she is putting her brand architecture skills to work on.  The visual story about seed swaps warmed my heart.

This past week at school I heard the research talk of Eileen Spain.  We also met in my office to discuss being a woman scientist married to another chemist (which we have in common) and I shared my passion for outreach and teaching general chemistry with her.  She got me thinking about fluoride and fluorine chemistry.  I heard the research talk of Matthew Benoit.  He called our neighbor's cat Fluffy a fathead.  He studies evolution of cats by measuring various skull points and graphing the data in such a way that divergence between genus and species can be seen.  It's called multiphasic allometric analysis.  Various types of comparisons can be drawn from large datasets to support classification and evolutionary conclusions.

I also heard a talk at the Athaneum by Oran B. Hesterman.  He shared his personal struggle with ulcerative colitis and how it caused him to have a paradigm shift in his thinking about food.  He teaches agronomy.  He founded http://www.fairfoodnetwork.org/ which is to aid food suppliers in connecting with social workers so that federal food assistance dollars can go farther and directly into farmer's hands rather than to Wal-Mart where people more likely purchase pre-packaged foods.  It was a call to action, he was recruiting us to become part of the solution to the obesity epidemic as well as spending more federal dollars on ag research and public education rather than spending it on subsidies for a limited number of crops.  He acknowledged that food solutions are going to become increasingly more necessary as the global population continues to rise.

I sprained my left calf muscle at adult ballet class.  It was impossible to walk on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I had to take baby steps and kind of crab-walk (sideways) to avoid stretching the calf.  It was awkward, but nice at the same time to be forced to slow down.  I spent more time enjoying the birds and squirrels on my walk from Center Court (CMC) to Humanities (Scripps) to teach my lecture on Wed and Fri.  Luckily by lab on Thu and Fri it was feeling better.  This means no hike, run, or bike this weekend.  Massage tomorrow! Want to eat junk food these days.  Want to bake scones and coffee cakes.  Why am I so stressed?

Fitness Fridays!

Considering weekly posts.  Thinking about plants, reproduction, scalability.  Keep them safe, and let them learn. This is how I got addicted to twitter and neglected my blog, along with complete sentences.  I am on "Spring Break" and awaiting a visit from my parents (separately, of course).  I've attended so many amazing seminars, I can't keep track of them all.  My summer student has been funded!

2012

Mar

8

09:39

Thu

I looked up at the moon and thought, what a great night for an evening walk, the moon was amazingly full.
I attended a seminar by an accomplished geneticist who is a professor at University of Southern California on Feb. 29th at the Women in Science dinner at Scripps College.  What an amazing experience!  She encouraged all of us to be ourselves, to embrace our inner "bitch."  Ahem-on-a-bike!  I heard a talk at the Athaneum at Claremont McKenna College by a professor at Singularity University, and a 'restless inventor,' who pointed out that with regards to technology, we can expect exponential progress leading ultimately to a crossover point where humans and technology become one.  It's already happening.

I heard a talk from a scientist at Pioneer/Hi-Bred which is part of DuPont who uses DNA shuffling (every day he's shufflin) to identify key amino acid residues in proteins responsible for efficient detoxification.  In this way, farmers can use selective herbicides to target weeds without harming their crops.  I went to a workshop for Writing Intensive courses in the Sciences.  The professors of English were constructive and gave me the courage to try a Cypher with my students on the last day of class before spring break.  Thermodynamics, it's a rap!

Looking forward, I see the San Dimas Road Race (18-Mar), the RBC Time Trial (8-Apr), NSF day at USC (12-Apr), and the Verdugo Mountains 10K (6-May).  Looking forward to the Commencement Ceremonies (3 in one day) on 12-May.  I see the the IGERT Symposium (15-Jun) the Pagent of the Master's (8-Jul).  I'm celebrating my 32nd birthday in Chicago!  Speaking of which, I hope to run tomorrow morning in the Downtown Dash... gotta run!

I may not be reproducing myself right now, but my chard is adorable.  I got some 2 L bottles from the Water Quality Lab and blinged them out using superglue.  Then I transferred my seedlings into them and voila!  These are seedlings from seeds produced by plants that grew to maturity at my roommate's house on Leafhill Pl in Riverside (33.960421,-117.343296).

The title of this post: Fitness Fridays! refers to a concept my husband and I developed while working in different cities all week. Now, we live under the same roof but work quite hard all week.  So it's the idea that to break the tension and let go of the stress, we do some kind of fitness.  We crank up the music, and get some wacky YouTube videos going and crunch it out.  I had a sweet rotation going last night between crunches, pull ups, and push ups.  I told my student, who is on the ballroom team, that I am in training for next year's 'Dancing with the Claremont stars.'  I love motivation.

As of late...

I feel like I am totally messing up and totally succeeding at the same time.  I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, the wrong thing, too little, or too much.  I guess that's where one's own sense of intuition into what's right and wrong comes in to play.  I feel like I'm happy with my figure, but I don't feel healthy.  At the end of the day I feel absolutely exhausted.  I feel like my heart is beating too fast and I am trying to move too many agendas too far each day.  But I'm afraid if I slow down, I'll fall off this train, and it's been such a fun ride so far.

I entitled this picture (excuses) because I've used the weather as an excuse to skip exercising for two mornings in a row.  I mean in Nebraska, this would be considered a nice day.  We'd try to sneak something in.  But in California, these hazy mornings mean sleeping in.  I see a few people strolling the sidewalks of Glendale, but not many are out.  Last weekend, the visibility was 10 miles, so I hiked up into the Verdugo Mtns and took a picture of downtown LA.  Yesterday, the visibility was 3 miles and today it's 1.5 so I just told myself to skip it.

My weight on the scale went up, but also has my activity level over the past three weeks.  I will get a performance evaluation on Tuesday which I am looking forward to.  I justified skipping workouts since I've been so hard on myself lately, I might actually need a rest day.  Today we are getting massages.  We've had a contract for monthly (or more) massages at a chain called Massage Envy.  It gives me an excuse to shave my legs at least.

So when I start skipping workouts and making excuses, I tell myself to think of exercise as a daily pill.  Instead of taking an antidepressant pill, weight control pill, birth control pill, immune system boosting pill, vitamin D pill, I just go for a walk.  There's nothing wrong with spending an hour a day in nature.  Moving.

So I guess you could say the view from my handlebars is getting better.  Got to sneak in a ride with RBC on a Tuesday night.  It was great.  I worked at UCR during the morning, then took my bike to Don's for a tune-up.  Then, I headed down to Adams via Victoria and La Cadena Dr.  I love the scenic glamour of Riverside et environs.  I have no idea where we went on the ride, but it was my first night ride in a long time.  I remember passing across Overlook at one point and thinking, I'm glad we're crossing this beast and not heading up it.  I missed my biking friends and it was a sweet rendez-vous.

I've been doing some crazy gardening.  I germinated a bunch of seeds under lamps and transferred them to the front lawn.  If they survive, we'll eat them all summer!!!  Our new goal is to OCCUPY GLENDALE until July.  Glendale is awesome, it's nearby a bunch of fun places.  In July, we will visit the windy city of Chicago.  So by then, the garden will either be established or wilted from not surviving.  It's crazy windy here.  There was a wind advisory (above 35 mph gusts) for this morning.  Take that Chicago.

advanced maternal age

Tuesday, February 7th I attended a lecture at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum at
Claremont McKenna College.  The speaker was R. Scott Hawley, who is an American Cancer Society Research Professor at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, MO.  His talk was entitled "When Good Eggs Go Bad--Because Sometimes Even Chromosomes Aren’t Perfect."

retinoic acid

He talked about the process of meiosis, which takes place in humans when the female egg cell meets a male sperm cell. 23 chromosomes from each cell have to meet and pair up in order to start the process of cell division, yielding a single hybrid offspring containing 46 chromosomes. Mistakes can be made in the process of preparing genetic material (DNA) to participate in this complex dance of macromolecules, which can result in too many or too few copies of a chromosome to be present in the offspring. When 3 copies (instead of 2) of chromosome 21 are present, characteristics of Down syndrome are observed.

Because females make all their eggs while they are themselves yet unborn, the eggs can become exposed to a range of environmental factors over the course of a woman's life, putting them at risk for DNA damage and defects to their eggs.  Males by contrast can make billions of sperm at a time, on a daily basis (and they don't start doing it until puberty) by a process regulated by retinoic acid.  Prof. Hawley showed this frightening graph (which I recapitulated using data from this source) relating risk of chromosomal abnormality and maternal age, and I started watching the clock tick-tock.  My biological clock.

There are countless studies showing that modern women are delaying child-rearing in favor of their careers.  And there are women like Sarah Palin whose son Trig has Down syndrome.  Rick Santorum has a daughter with too many copies of chromosome 18.  The conversation over lunch this past week turned to the church's pressure for couples to reproduce (and political opposition to funding contraceptives for women of child-bearing age).  It's all too real and scary for my brain right now.

(c) Pavel Popov 

Environmental and lifestyle factors affecting a woman's probability of experiencing fertility problems include: age, smoking, excess alcohol abuse, stress, poor diet, athletic training, being overweight, and sexually transmitted infections.  As I consider the possibility of getting pregnant, I am also wary because of the amount of risk factors present in my own life (being a chemist and living in a pretty high-stress, pollution-rich area).  I try to strike a balance between over and under weight, under and over exercise, good and poor diet, I guess moderation is the key.  Given the nature of information these days, one could probably justify anything.

What I don't like is that it somehow sounds like Eve is being blamed for everything again.

Fountain of Youth?

This post is dedicated to a good friend who has been my comrade in wellness-oriented life-choices.  Many months ago, he asked me to investigate a substance called TA-65 which is reported to actually lengthen telomeres.  Telomeres are at the ends of chromosomes, which are long strings of genes (DNA) that encode each cell's machinery.  A human is composed ~ 10 trillion cells!  Each time a cell divides, the telomeres become shorter.  There is a correlation between telomere length and healthy heart & immune system.  Some researchers even believe telomere manipulation will help cure cancer.

Astragalus membranaceus

The compound TA-65 and a related molecule TAT2 (Cycloastragenol) are isolated from the root of the Chinese herbal remedy Astragalus membranaceus which has been in use for over 2,000 years to increase metabolism, promote healing and enhance the immune system.

Looking at the molecular structures, I see a structural similarity to the endogenous hormone estrogen (Estradiol).  The difference between TA-65 (proprietary structure I found through SciFinder) and TAT2 (discovered on Wikipedia) seems to be glycoconjugation.  I have not had enough time to read up on the mechanism of action of these molecules, more reading for another day no doubt!

From SciFinder (TA-65) and Wikipedia (Cycloastragenol, Estradiol)

As far as the fountain of youth goes, I think the telomere shortening over time is part of life.  To partake of herbal remedies is fine, but to believe we can stop the clock on aging is a myth that has flourished since the 5th century BC.  Although it is great fodder for art (Eduard Vieth, a Viennese painter who worked around the turn of the 20th century AD) it is probably not a good thing to tamper with.

4SSSS

sac·ri·fice/ˈsakrəˌfīs/

Noun:	An act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure.
Verb:	Offer or kill as a religious sacrifice.
Synonyms:	noun.  offering - oblation - victim - immolation - prey verb.  immolate - victimize - offer

suf·fer/ˈsəfər/

Verb:	Experience or be subjected to (something bad or unpleasant). Be affected by or subject to (an illness or ailment).
Synonyms:	endure - bear - undergo - tolerate - sustain - stand

As I was finishing up my dissertation, the two words that sprang to my mind were sacrifice and suffer.  I felt I had sacrificed so much of myself (physically and emotionally) as an offering to the Academic gods.  I felt I had bled, and that I had made many offerings.  But the definitions of this word pointed out to me that it was not an empowering term, that it painted me as some kind of prey or victim.  

Then I found suffer, which resonated a bit better.  Endurance is one of my specialties.  Now that I've made it "through the ringer" I feel as though my two new words for 2012 are sanity and satisfaction.

Also got a kick out of this vid also about pain and suffering.  Explains how cycling helped me finish my Ph.D.

Setbacks

I found out what happened to my back.  My sister diagnosed me over the phone on Dec 12.  A nerve root compression at L2-L3 or-L4 vertibra.  Either a bulging disc or a muscle impingement.  She told me to take 800 mg ibuprofen but I've been taking 440 mg of naproxen sodium instead.  (see prev post)  Then I started taking her recommended dose of ibuprofen after I realized the bottle of naproxen was expired.  Now my stomach is all irritated.  Stressed stomach.


I'm on total rest until my back is healed.  That means my backside is starting to channel Kim Kardashian and J-Lo.  All the holiday eating!  I've already crept up to the 150+ lb zone which puts me at OVERWEIGHT.  Damn.  Dear husband predicts I will tackle the weight loss battle again in the new year.  Between cycling, walking, weight training and tennis!  We shall overcome, sing it with me Oprah and Janet!


Looking on the bright side, I have a rehab plan involving mucho core strength, which will put me back in the running for the Riverside Raincross 5K, which isn't until Feb 25, 2012.  Maybe I'll plan to walk it, but I love that race.  Sitting here with a back brace to keep my spine in a neutral position isn't fun.  I'm feeling a deficiency of sunlight in my life.  I hate these short days.  Wait, I thought this was the bright side...