Blast From the Past Wednesday!

Here's a blast from the past, Dshinghis Khan. My fellow member's of the tribe out there may recognize the tune of this first clip. Predating MBD by many years, it calls into question his musical prowess and respect for other artists' material. Busted, Mordy, totally busted. Oh, and by the way, Tani can do this entire dance.



This second clip is a Dshinghis Khan classic. These moves can neither be replicated nor beaten. "Oh Ha Hah Hah Hah"

The Bagger-288...

The bagger 288 is a gigantic mining machine. It is actually the largest machine on earth, bigger than NASA's wimpy crawler-transporter, which possesses neither an artificial mind filled with hate, nor the ability to de-meat. Here is a video about the bagger 288 that is simultaneously good and awesome [via rathergood (go here now!)]

Why I Love Augusta....

Found this gem on the bumpersticker of a pickup in the student parking lot today. Now I recognize that healthcare and medicine have little practical overlap with theoretical physics and cosmology, but we are all reasonably intelligent people here at MCG, and this seems a little, well, silly. Now this car could have belonged to a nursing student, a PhD candidate, a medical student, whoever it was at the school. But regardless of what program they are in, he/she spends a number of hours daily in a science book, and you would think that that would help you develop a little more sophistication in your understanding of our origins than, "Bang, it happened." I love Augusta, and the South in general, for this reason: it is a complicated place, with a complicated people. There are so many social dichotomies and paradoxes here. The kindest people saying the most racist things (on both sides, by the way), the smartest people  clinging to entirely unintelligent beliefs. But it's home...

Caramel Chocolate Cake with Fleur de Sel Praline

So for my friend's birthday, Jon and I made Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel and Fleur de Sel Praline. It was significantly less complicated than Nehama's birthday cake (which I will post about soon), it only took a 2-3 hours total, but was fun because it was my first time (successfully) making pralines or ganoche . I need a camera, since I lost mine somehow when we moved, and have been taking pictures using my phone's cam.

Haman's Ears!

The PurimFest has come and gone. I made some delissio hamentashen, recipe courtesy of Intrepid Reader Julz [aside: the delissio commercial is a canadian ripoff of the digiorno commercial. that's why they are watching hockey, and are so damn polite]. Hamentashen are an interesting bunch. The meaning of the yiddish word was fodder for much speculation over Purim 2010, and based on my research, it either means "poppy bag," or "Hamen's Ears." My mother is inclined to say poppy bag, but in Israel, they are referred to as Oznei Haman, literally Hamen's Ears, and since the word Haman is in the name Hamentachen, I will assume the tachen means ears. As kids, we were taught it was his hat: 3 cornered, like the pilgrims!

Shmuel Spidermin

Shmuel Spidermin at the Kotel

Fish Child

Why is it that these sort of things seem to happen so much in the Orient: children turning into fish, into trees, into Ghidora!

Intrepid reader Justin, Esq., clued me in to this condition, and because its medical, and strange, it is blogworthy, or rather blogkoveworthy. So the disease is Lamellar Icthyosis. I was led to believe from the article and from my extensive training in rare genetic diseases that this would be a central disorder, effecting the hypothalamus and the body's thermostat. Oh, but how the weak have fallen! It is actually a problem with what appears to be keratin synthesis, the layer of proteinaceous tissue that covers your outer layer of skin, rendering you for the most part water and foreign-body impermeant. In Lamellar icythosis, it appears as if a defect in the keratinocyte transglutaminase is causing the malformed keratin layer. The boy's associated overheating is somewhat paradoxical, as the chief concern early on in the child's life is actually hypothermia, as they cannot retain heat with their crappy epidermis. Unfortunately, there is no cure or treatment, and the child is relegated to a tough, and unfortunately, probably shortened, life.

Interestingly, the rate of this RARE disease is 1:600,000. I nor any of my cohorts have heard of this before. Yet everyone makes a big freaking stink about Guillan-Barre and the flu vaccine, which has an incidence of 1:1,000,000. Yet, the mortality of influenza is roughly 1:10,000. Lord Help Us All.

Targeted Therapy: Woe Unto Thee!

After a brief haitus dedicated to continued success in medical school, the blogkove is back. With a vengeance.

Intrepid reader Henry sent me this article (continued here) about the tribulations of a B-Raf inhibitor trial. My executive summary of the situation is as follows: the good Dr. Flaherty took part in a trial of a new inhibitor that halts growth in melanoma in a promising way, both theoratically and practically. However, the melanoma, ever the wily contender, switches its signalling pathway to avoid utilizing the now-inhibited B-Raf, and thus is able to complete its evil mission of "grow ad infinitum." The oncologists and patients, needless to say, were shocked at how after 6 months or a year of successful treatment, the melanoma suddenly turned deadly again, laughing in the face of the targeted drug therapy.