Jmemorize, adaptations and tea

It is full swing biology study now with work and revision taking up my life and this will continue throughout the year into October. Since I don't drink or smoke I have managed to put together a semi-impressive tea collection that includes English breakfast, earl grey, ceylon and gunpowder tea. I get through like five cups per day. I had some English Afternoon tea but it didn’t last too long. If I can get more I will. The mornings are still a little chilly and even though they had bad weather in Ireland and England it wasn't too bad here. Here the spring is short though and the days get better fast although there can be the odd surprise snow.

My study is mostly about how organisms survive the winter, digestion, genetics, reproduction and immune systems. I use Jmemorize to remember things. I highly recommend this system of flash card learning. It really does improve one’s learning capabilities. What a super little simple program it is too.

I played Dead Space, Mass Effect and Half-Life: Source. I watched Deep Space Nine: Season 6 (the best DS9 season so far) and 24 season 2. I also watched David Attenborough's The private life of plants and The Life of Birds. I watched some films like Southland tales, Frost and Nixon Watergate interviews and Sinbad. However the highlight was reading a book called Adaptation and Natural selection by George Williams. It is an excellent book on the scientific criticisms of some forms of evolution, namely group selection, and aims more at selection at the level of the gene. I will read it again someday. I am currently reading Darwin's dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett and Thus spoke Zarathustra by by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Protoctists, Life in the Freezer and The Story of Philosophy

As I write this the land is white, midway in winter and after New Year 2009 I am now back to work. I had a really good Christmas and got a prehistoric fossil shark tooth (Otodus obliquus). Also my course materials for 2009 arrived and so I commenced study right away and am currently studying about uniformity and diversity which is an introduction to classification systems, the kingdoms with a focus on protoctists and biological investigation and experimentation. It is very interesting.

I watched Galaxy Quest again (funny comedy), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, David Attenborough's The Trials of Life (animal behaviour), Lost worlds vanished lives (fossils) and Life in the Freezer (antarctic), The Incredible Hulk, The Mist, Rambo IV, Soylent Green, Fantastic Voyage and Iron-Man. I am also playing Little Big Planet, Assasin's Creed, Warhawk, Half-Life 1 again and Mass effect. I also got a bluetooth headset for my PS3.

I finished reading The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers by Will Durant and I highly recommend this book. What it does is to give you a synopsis of the defining points in the history of philosophy and how it changed how we lived. It also creates a synthesis between what our scientific discoveries mean to us being human. It is a really important fusion and can change your perspective on life.

Passed year 1 Science, The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype

It snows from time to time but the weather is not too cold yet although I do have my winter jacket, gloves and hat on I walk home comfortably in the evening. The good news is that I passed year 1 of science and so year 2 of biology awaits me. I should have the first materials in the next few days. I look forward to studying pure biology. It will be a challange.

I finished watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine - The Complete Fifth Season, South Park - The Complete First Season and am currently on Terminator: Sarah O'Connor Chronicles Season one. DS9 is always good (being a Star Trek fan), South Park is something I am glad I started watching again because it is very funny and the Terminator series passes the time. I am also nearly finished David Attenborough’s The Trials of Life.

Two great games made their way to my home. Fallout 3 (epic fun) and probably the best team player game I have ever played, Left 4 Dead. Fighting zombie hords has never been so intense. I highly recommend it.

I am nearly finished “The Story of Philosophy” by Will Durant. I finished The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin and The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene by Richard Dawkins. Both the Dawkins books are deep world view changing books. The Extended Phenotype is profound.

Civilisation, The End of Faith, Expelled and Lost 4

The leaves are now gone from the trees and my winter jacket is on. The results from my course have been pushed forward until December. I have prepaid for next year studying biology but should start January 2009. I needed the break but I do feel a little purposeless and I suppose anxious because they delayed the results. Having said that, in less than 8 weeks time I will be sure to be up to my eyeballs in ecology and biochemistry and wishing I was on this break… but it isn’t a break because I am working a lot on technical writing and support for a company here in Brno. They are releasing a portal to their site builder and the project is colossal.

I finished watching Heroes - Season One. It’s not bad, sort of like X-Men though. I also finished watching Kenneth Clark’s ‘Civilisation’ a 13 part documentary made during the 1960s that looks at European history through art. It was a precursor to Attenborough’s works and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. I enjoyed Civilisation and it gave me a perspective on human development that I had never thought about before. To top it off I also finished watching Lost 4. Shame it was so short (because of the writer's strike) but it was a lot of fun. If you haven't watched Lost then I suggest you check out what could be one of the best shows on TV.

I played the games Crysis and Bioshock. I recommend them both if you have the machine to run them. I also played Unreal 2 but wasn't impressed. I finished reading The End of Faith by Sam Harris. It put a whole new perspective on 9/11 for me. It is also one of the most controversial books I have ever read. Speaking of controversy, a new documentary on Intelligent Design has been released that paints evolutionist to be Nazis. It is called Expelled and is a horribly dishonest anti-science piece and what I think is dangerous propaganda.

The better news is that I have several books I am reading right now. I am halfway through “The Story of Philosophy” by Will Durant. “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins and “The Counter-Creationist Handbook”. I am also playing a new called Dead Space. Scary stuff for Halloween… :)

The long wait, David Attenborough, Autumn

Officially my course finished at the end of last month and I am waiting for exam results due November. I think unless there is some major problem that I should have passed the year. I am confident enough to have already booked my place for second year science, biology. I will be doing another extensive program for 2009 but this will be focused on life science. So it is goodbye physics, pure chemistry, earth science, health science and environmental science, hello biology with lots of organic chemistry and smatterings of inorganic chemistry.

So now I got some time to burn until 2009. I was going to get another shorter course in but decided to take the break instead. In the meantime I am preparing a new biology site that will focus on evolution and will be used primarily for my own research and studies. I am planning to release it in 1st quarter of 2009 but I may wait longer.

We moved into new offices a few weeks back. We are on the top floor and I can see the whole city from up here. I am currently in the same city that Gregor Mendel discovered the laws of segregation with his pea plant experiments.

As for television I have just finished Season 1 of The Wire. Good show. I am also watching Heroes Season 1 and David Attenborough’s The Living Planet. If you haven’t watched his nature shows then you should because they are incredible.

I finished playing Call of Duty 4 and the multiplayer is stunning, thoroughly immersive, great game. I replayed the first Unreal game for the nostalgia.

The autumn has been here now with a few weeks. In Brno the weather changes almost overnight. One day the trees are green, the next the leaves are on the ground.

Chemical evolution, Final exams and The X Files

This has been a very busy month for me. I had to study the final book of the course about the possibility of life elsewhere. There was a lot about chemical evolution and how to detect life on other planets (what to look for). Chemical evolution is extremely interesting and I found everything here an eye-opener. I got my exam back for the quantum stuff I worked on last month and I am happy with my result. Now it is just a matter of dealing with the last exam which is a test about three times the size of the other exams and which includes everything I have studied to date. It took me 2 weeks to finish and I posted it off today. I need to pass this exam to pass the course so it is very important. I haven't had much time to catch up on my hobbies but I did manage to finish Season 9 of the X Files. It took me close to 2 years to get through all 9 seasons. I watched them on and off and I am glad I did. it was a wonderful experience. I also finished reading 'On Human Nature' by E.O Wilson. The book is largely about genetic determinism in terms of sociobiology. I found the concept stunning. I managed to get a little tree and bird spotting done this month. Summer is still here in Brno and even in September I go to work in shorts and short sleeves. Oh and I have decided to do Biology next year, so it is almost certain that I am studying to become a biologist now.

Binocular astronomy, exams and more exams

After spending awhile now thinking about taking up amateur astronomy I found that purchasing a pair of 10x50 binoculars is how most astronomers start out these days. I thought long and hard about this and decided that a good pair of binos could also be used for bird spotting also as well as other things. So I spent time researching this and decided to get a Nikon Action 10x50. I am stunned by the results. I could never have believed that you could get such quality without resorting to expensive telescopes. Here is a list of what I was able to see to date.
31/7/2008
-Ursa Major
-Arcturus
-Vega
-Lyra
I noticed that with the naked eye I could see 1 star with lyra but with the binos I could see like 25+ stars in that region.
1/8/2008
-Cassiopeia
-M103
-Cygnus
-M29
I viewed Cassiopeia and Cygun and picked out M29 and M103. They were faint (I am in the city some light pollution) but my heart literally stopped when I managed to see M103. I didn’t think it possible with binoculars to see Nebulas.
3/8/2008
-Andromedia
-Cepheus
-M110
Used a new cheap tripod. Some steady shots but handheld still works well. Could not see M51. I saw Andromedia and Cepheus. I focused back on Andromeda and above it viewed M110, the Great Nebula in Andromeda.
4/8/2008
-Arcturus
-Bootes
-m3
-Canes Venatici
5/8/2008
-Draco
-Ursa Minor
6/8/2008
- Tip of cresent moon
- Planet Jupiter
- Sagittarius (partial)
10/8/2008
- Moon in Waxing gibbous
- Lacerta
- Hercules (partial)

It's a great new hobby. I highly recommend it and I am going to learn more about it by learning the constellations as best as I can.

With respect to study this month has been difficult. My exam for Earth History was focused almost exclusively on geological processes, in particular strata identification, the K-T event, igneous formations and evidence for sea level changes. I cannot stress how much geoscience is in science but I think my blog called 'The Ancestor's Tale, 24 and Earth Story' goes into a little more detail. I will get my results back soon. I am currently working on an exam for quantum mechanics and fundamental particles. Studying for that was heavy but I enjoyed it more than rocks. Having said that, I don't mean I don't like geology (I am working towards doing some hobby geology) but geology is a lot heavier (excuse the pun) than quantum mechanics IMO. I am on the last leg of this course. It is called life in the universe and is a short book on the search for the origins of life and life in the universe. Also I have a huge end of exam paper that combines all the work I have done to date so I have started working on that. The next five weeks are going to be very important. There is a lot of work for me to still get done.

Quantum mechanics, Portal and Collapse

I passed biology. I did well on phylogeny, glucose oxidation pathways, ecology and genetics but the evolution question was very tough. I had to describe speciation on the Galapagos Islands with reference to a chart that was quite complex. I got the overall idea but am still waiting to hear back on a few points. In my opinion Darwin deserves more credit than Einstein or Newton because natural selection is so extremely counterintuitive. He stuck with it and got it right.

I finished my geology book and am now onto quantum mechanics although I still have geology questions to do. Quantum mechanics is very interesting. It explains energy states associated with atoms and how and why they change. QM is inextricably connected with cosmology. This is so much so that the book I am learning from is partially about QM and partially about cosmology. QM gets scaled out to universal sizes, literally.

I remember back in late 1998 that the game Unreal was released. It became well know for its Unreal game engine and lots of sequels followed. Steam recently released an Unreal pack with all the games. So I got that and installed them all and am back enjoying fond memories of a good game I played a decade ago. I also got Valve’s orange box for the latest Half-Life 2 story episodes, Team Fortress 2 and Portal (a fantastic HL2 mod). I also completed playing Metal Gear Solid IV and finished reading Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel before moving onto his next book Collapse. I also finished watching BBC’s Earth Story and 24 Season 1.

I am nearing the end of my course. I have two more months to go. I have already gained a total greater than the minimum to be sure of passing. So I believe I have passed although I need to double-check this because there is a final exam involving a combination of every aspect of the course. Soon I have to decide the path I want to take next. I can choose Geosciences, Health Sciences, Life Sciences, Molecular Science, Natural Sciences or Physical Science. I have ruled out Health sciences and Geosciences. Health science is aimed at the medical industry. I may take up geology as a hobby but not as a profession. Molecular science is essentially chemistry. I don’t think I want to be a chemist. Life science is biology with a focus on living things. Natural science is similar but is wider in scope to include natural phenomena on the planet and in the universe and is cross-discipline. Then there is Physical sciences. Now here is the catch. I do like the idea of specialized biology, like a life science but it is exclusive to living things. Natural science is also interesting but you move outside of just living things. However my Physical science scores are better than my biology or earth sciences. I think this is because I have more experience with physical sciences though and in general you either get it right or wrong there while biology is more detailed as is earth science.

The Ancestor's Tale, 24 and Earth Story

I finished my biology exam this week and so that is biology behind me but it was a tough exam featuring primate phylogeny, glucose oxidation, ecology, genetics and evolution. I do enjoy this topic but unlike physics and mathematics biology tends to depend a lot on describing processes step by step and explaining outcomes rather than punching in and calculating raw data into formulas.

So I am midway through Earth History and managed to get hold of all 8 episodes of Earth Story by the BBC. It is all about how the earth formed. Geology is actually very difficult especially when we get into magmatism and how different rocks are formed. For most people biology, chemistry and physics seem like the big 3 sciences but there are 4, biology, chemistry, physics and earth science. Earth science is mainly about geology and climatology. Most of you may be familiar with it in part from geography but it is a whole science unto itself.

I also finished reading all 650 pages of The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins. This was an amazing pilgrimage from modern human being back through time to DNA. I highly recommend it and there are some wonderful illustrations in it.

As a note the PS3 got an update to 2.41 and really is a class act of a game/media centre system. I also updated the last of a few PCs I own to SP3 for XP. I may upgrade both to Vista in the future. I am currently watching the TV series 24 Season 1 and think it is a very good thriller/drama.