This week, Oi ave bin mostly cowtin collernies an attendin meetins. But Channel 4 News has just brought me up to date with this.

So, any volunteers?

I once heard that the average life-span of a rock star is 37, or thereabouts. So I suppose we might consider those decades older who are still successfully plying their trade, what… survivors? And, unless cynically treading the nostalgia lucre, we might also admire their longevity. After all, what’s a professional musical entertainer supposed to do? I mean, it would be difficult, after all that adulation, to re-train for a more, err, prosaic occupation, wouldn’t it?

Fame and fortune nearly didn’t happen for left-handed, often underrated guitarist Tony Iommi. Over forty years ago, just as he was poising himself to become a full-time musician, an industrial accident deprived him of the tips of two fingers of his right hand. Undeterred, he improvised himself a couple of plastic and leather replacements, and the rest is history (well, most of it, anyway).

Now, in his early sixties, Iommi has reached another decisive crossroads. With painkillers and anti-inflammatories no longer alleviating the pain of repetitive strain injury, he has, in a bid to regenerate his shot digital cartilage, opted to undergo treatment with (and inevitably become celebrity endorsement for) adult stem cells.

Well, as one who possesses copies of much of his catalogue, I hope it goes well. However, I wonder where he’s had this done, and specifically how, and with what cells? Because the word on this street is that this is not yet a clinically validated treatment, with a quick reading around of the state of play regarding stem cell treatment for osteoarthritis (which sounds similar; ie, disintegration of cartilage) suggesting more relevance to football-worn knee types like me.

But I can’t afford it.

I wonder why there seems to have been hardly any attention given to ‘Scientology’ on this scientific network. A quick search brings up this forum piece from late last year, concerning that typical fascistic resort – book banning. Otherwise we seem to ignore it in the hope it will go away. Odd, when we are, quite rightly, quick to react to populist anti-science politicising, litigious anti-science bullying (you know what I’m talking about), homeopathy, and other such quackery. It is, is it not, part of the point of sounding off blogging; part of our role? Some of us like to have a poke at discuss religion’s occasional incongruence or otherwise with certain aspects of science (although a few of the atheists here are seemingly somewhat shy). But when a ‘religion’ adopts the name ‘Scientology’, shouldn’t we all – religious or not – be more quizzical?

Last week, the French seemingly got them sussed, (well, almost, in that they fell short in merely suspending sentences for fraud). What is it with cults? What do they offer that is seemingly so lacking in some people’s lives? Whatever it is here, it’s certainly very, err, persuasive. Celebrity endorsement always helps, most famously through the ego of an actor whom, since Jerry Maguire, I’ve actually long admired (well, if he was good enough for Kubrick…). “There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance” (obviously never had a hangover, then).

There will likely be an appeal. And if you never hear from me again, consider the possibility that large men wearing dark suits and dark glasses have covertly whisked me away in a black van with darkened windows…

(Whaddaya mean “Here’s hoping”?)

Are you sitting comfortably, children?

Guddd-d!

Then I’ll begin.

Once upon a time, in a laboratory sited on the periphery of a drab town, there toiled a jaded, rudderless, occasionally cynical, yet affable postdoc. A degree of satisfaction with his situation and circumstance was countered by the frustration borne of the reluctant realisation that that ‘eureka’ moment was unlikely to arrive, unless he happened upon it Columbus style. Some weeks seemed so busy, he would reach the weekend seemingly cut adrift from the world, with the previous Sunday’s catch-up newspaper still unfinished. Time was not what it used to be for him (in fact, fair to say, he sometimes didn’t know what day it was). But he got by, providing he could cut loose from time to time, plumb-lining an oscillating mood by, well, having a damn good laugh.

Then one day, something stirred in the dark-hearted forest, bringing him abruptly, blinkingly, incredulously up-to-date with the revelation that – people were not going to be allowed to laugh anymore! The British Broadcasting Censor Corporation had conducted a survey of viewers apparently so corpulently dotty as to have misplaced their remote controls, and hence decreed that adults were no longer to be treated like, err, adults. Coupled with the banning of ‘strong’ language – even after the 9 pm ‘watershed’ – it was stipulated that comedy was not to be ‘unduly intimidatory, humiliating, intrusive, aggressive or derogatory’.

The postdoc despaired of a world without satire; without parody; without criticism. All (as opposed to some, which already existed to cater for those with a taste for bland) comedy rendered crap. Because, in this insipid existence, people were no longer allowed to laugh at each other. Even laughing at oneself became risky, lest someone of a pigeonholing mindset took umbrage. Never mind that ‘unduly intimidatory, humiliating, intrusive, aggressive or derogatory’ was seemingly acceptable before the watershed, which was okay because it was deemed to be about real people, ainnit?

The postdoc sat in a dark corner, imagining a life determined by the objections of a minority of vocal prissy types; a life in which humans were not allowed to take interest in pursuits that exposed things about their nature. He stared into space, considering the shiteness of ‘plumb-lining an oscillating mood’, strumming his wet lips with his forefinger. Like an infant.

Go to sleep, children; go to sleep.

I was recently invited to review a manuscript having a degree of overlap with my work, which puzzled me slightly as I don’t get asked to do so very often (which I kind of like also); hardly surprising, as I’m not of the scientific firmament, the publication section of my CV being woefully short. However, I knuckled down to it, quite enjoyed it actually, and provided, within the requested period, what I considered to be fair and balanced criticisms, suggestions and questions – which, importantly in my opinion, demonstrated that I had actually read the thing – and recommended resubmission of a revised version.

By way of contrast, I’ve just managed to acquire a copy of a paper published two months back, which very much, I wouldn’t say overlaps, more overlays, my work – and I’m puzzled in this instance as to why I wasn’t invited to review.

Because I would have canned it!

The obvious guess is that the submitting author, judging my similar interests as unwanted competition or prejudice, requested the editors not use me as reviewer. Alternatively, the editor(s) may have decided against, even though checking out said publication record would bring realisation that I may perhaps have been prime candidate for the job. Either way, fair enough… but begs the question (which, of course, can’t be answered) – who did review it?! Because anybody with a working familiarity of its subject matter (and there aren’t many of us) must surely be as quizzical as I about one or two of the claims made. And before you assume this is scooped sour-graping, well it isn’t – because I published this stuff six years ago (and that wasn’t original). Excepting one reported extra piece of data, which is actually potentially very significant. Is? Or would be? I don’t claim it isn’t true; but I’m certainly not convinced it is.

What to do?

It has seemingly long been the convention to distrust the lie-spinning of estate agents. But I’ve recently received a marketing leaflet that leads me to perhaps cut them some slack.

‘everything has to evolve’ , it claims, below a variation of that left to right silhouetted linear sequence; the ‘March of Progress’ from knuckle-dragger to God’s-imaged: you know the one. Only this time, the ‘pinnacle’ carries an estate agent’s ‘SOLD’ board. Brilliant, eh? How topical and on the ball of them to jump on this year’s Darwin bandwagon. How forgivable for getting it wrong.

Because this is still, perhaps, the predominant (preferred) view of human evolution; shoe-horned into idealised time-bound schemata; not just because it is easier to comprehend than the actual bushy mess; but because it accords with notions of direction, purpose, goal, inevitability – success! Sell your house, and you are a higher form of human; a cut above those who can’t and/or don’t aspire to be ‘more evolved’.

Social reflexive tosh! Might give them a call (for a free valuation – what else?).

As flagged previously, this Wednesday is International Blasphemy Day. There’s a Facebook group, which provides links to useful info (including the Simon Singh support group), if you’re interested in what this is really about.

Having seen Lars von Trier’s Antichrist – and having caught Bryan Appleyard’s review polemic of disgust – some weeks back, it is the latter that sticks most in my craw, slotting, as I suppose I do, into his category of art-house dimwit. Always a big flag, that, to a polemic, rather than a review: ‘Because I hate it, you must be an idiot for not feeling likewise’. Humph!

The thing is, rather than review the film, Appleyard decides instead to tell us why he considers we shouldn’t want to see it. And he then, like a bad overlong trailer, largely spoils things (as is his intent) for the would-be viewer by confusing a plot summary with a paragraphed list of those scenes he considers offensive, and that we need to be warned against.

A review, whilst inevitably coloured by the reviewer, should at least attempt some balance, and not just provide platform for a tirade against a director you despise and who happens to have produced a work that offends your sensibilities. Appleyard hasn’t a good thing to say about von Trier or this film. Well, I have. The performances of its two protagonists are compelling; the bond between them, and their grief, are palpable, with Charlotte Gainsbourg particularly heart wrenching. In a desperate attempt to halt her slide into irrecoverable despair, and get their life back on track, they relocate to their retreat in the woods. However, it is here, in the unsympathetic, indifferent wilderness, that she becomes more unhinged, a process, we gradually learn, already underway during a previous sojourn preceding the tragedy that commences the film. Things subsequently become nasty, horrifically so.

Yet, despite the horror that unfolds, this film is also often strikingly beautiful. Appleyard bats this off with an accusation of ‘plagiarised cinematography.’ (What on earth does that mean?) However, von Trier looks beneath the beauty to show us the ugly underbelly of nature (‘Satan’s church’). I wonder whether this would bother so much, if it weren’t for the religious references. If it was merely a graphic horror flick, would it provoke the same furore?

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not blowing wind up von Trier; he is seemingly an arrogant ass, and I can appreciate why people might not like some of his (at times arguably brilliant) work. And I’m not recommending that you see this film: that’s up to you (err, that’s the point). I have seen it, and I can tell you some of it is very difficult to watch indeed – particularly one well publicised scene, which I wouldn’t normally discuss here, because: 1. It’s a new film, and it diminishes its impact to know beforehand what’s going to happen, and; 2. It’s not a detail I would particularly want to dwell on. However, this film’s immediate notoriety is much to do with pre-knowledge of the particular scene in question (and of which you will already be aware if you’ve been interested in the news of this film’s release).

The thing is, she is so guilt-stricken, and so scared her husband is going to leave her, she moves both to punish, and to disable their capacity to enjoy the act in which they were partaking when the tragedy occurred. She removes from her own body the only organ that exists (unlike art) solely for pleasure. It’s no mystery why this film has sparked controversy (I imagine von Trier welcomes it; after all, controversy promotes). But I am surprised it hasn’t provoked a wider discussion (beyond the misogynistic allegorising of woman as responsible for all sin, which is, after all, not von Trier’s invention). It’s bemusing how we can get so hysterical about a graphic (arguably unnecessary) scene in a fictional film – when ample warning is given as to what is about to happen, such that one can decide, as my companion did, to avert one’s gaze – and yet, despite our awareness, don’t decry the fact that the surgical procedure in question is actually in common occurrence in some parts of the world; practiced on women (no, girls) by cultures wherein barbarity holds sway over their human rights. Yet, this is rarely discussed openly, because, we might presume, to do so could offend. We protest (sometimes justifiably) in column after column at the potentially harmful affects of graphic scenes of fictional violence; but protest virtually nought at the actual harm perpetrated on millions of children in the real world.

If you want your art to show man and beast in cuddly, predator- and parasite-free anthropomorphised harmony, then this film is not for you. But clapperclawing a director’s self-indulgence – as though a columnist’s/blogger’s opinion-airing is not self-indulgent – pointlessly misses the point. Any artist free of commissioned dictates and mores, and who hasn’t sold their soul to tedious commercialism, is self-indulgent (von Trier is honest about this; or affects to be). Still, at least (despite being determined to hate it regardless) Appleyard deigned to actually watch the thing.

So, is nobody here on this scientific forum acknowledging today’s 25th anniversary of a very important scientific discovery by one of our greatest living scientists? Well, here’s a bit of précised technical detail:

’In 1984, after isolating a short minisatellite comprised of a 33 base-pair sequence tandemly repeated four times from an intron of the human myoglobin gene, Alec Jeffreys and colleagues set about the search for other hypervariable regions, using the myoglobin minisatellite 33 bp sequence as the basis for manufacturing a probe. The single 33 bp element was ligated to form a polymer, which was cloned, generating a 767 bp probe containing 23 repeats of the 33 bp sequence. This probe was used on restriction fragments of human genomic DNA, from three family members (father, mother, daughter), digested with Hae III or Hin fI, two enzymes whose 4 bp recognition sites are absent from the 33 bp repeat. These enzymes usually yield human DNA fragments of 0.3 kb on average; however, the probe hybridised to several fragments in the size range 2 – 6 kb that displayed considerable variation, ie, polymorphism. These fragments also revealed a Mendelian transmission pattern from parents to daughter.

Subsequently, a human genomic DNA library was screened with the same probe. Eight of 40 hybridising clones were randomly selected and sequenced. This revealed that each of these eight clones contained a minisatellite tandem repeat of three to 29 copies. This repeat varied in length from 16 to 64 bp. Probes were then prepared from each of the eight minisatellites and used to screen human DNA from 14 unrelated individuals, at high stringency. Three of these revealed highly polymorphic variation in length due to differing copy number of the repeat. The eight minisatellite sequences were then aligned and compared with the original myoglobin 33 bp repeat sequence, revealing a consensus 15 bp core sequence common to all. Resembling the χ recombination sequence of E. coli, this core is believed to be responsible for generation of polymorphism among minisatellites by unequal exchange. It was, therefore, realised that a probe consisting purely of repeats of this core sequence would be capable of picking out more minisatellites from within the human genome than had so far been discovered. One of the above eight clones, comprising 29 repeats of an almost perfect 16 bp core sequence, provided this probe, which was used to screen the DNA of 54 members of a four generation pedigree. Remarkably, each of these related individuals revealed a different pattern of minisatellite hybridisation with the probe – including the two children of a consanguineous marriage. Transmission of these minisatellites was autosomal and Mendelian, enabling the tracing of these genetic markers through lineages.

It was subsequently shown that, due to its stability, DNA could be isolated from bloodstains several years old – and from semen obtained from vaginal swabs. Thus, the potential for this technique in forensic analysis was realised and it was suitably named ‘DNA fingerprinting.’ It wasn’t long before the first forensic application of DNA fingerprinting, solving the linked murders of two schoolgirls – which occurred just six miles from where this dramatic invention was made.’

The above is dryly excerpted from my Human Genetics module dissertation (entitled ‘History of Human Genetics’), which I produced in 1996 during the final year of my undergraduate degree at the University of Leicester. As a mad keen mature student, I was privileged, not long after the OJ Simpson trial, to attend lectures and tutorials given by Alec Jeffreys, whose work had, for me, added interest, coming as I do from the area of Leicester where occurred those two murders, and had myself contributed a sample to ‘The Blooding’.

That he marked me highly for my dissertation is irrelevant (although mighty pleasing at the time). What is relevant is the impact of his discovery – it contributes to the solving of crimes by the thousands, not to mention numerous other applications. Yet he maintains, quite rightly in my opinion, that innocent people’s data should not be stored on the DNA database.

So come on, nominators for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry; what are you waiting for?

As one who rightly or wrongly assumes that one of the purposes of NN is to provide platform to those who wish to rant / wax lyrical on the trials and tribulations of the practice of the caliginous art, I have been occasionally alluding to my protracted attempts to hew a block of flawed research marble into a form worthy of public exposure.

My boss returned from holiday this week, and suggested a meeting to discuss where it’s at. However, in the interim, having decided to address a potential discrepancy between my data and that in another recent related report, I decided I needed to carry out another experiment (x 3); and it’s also dawned on me that something I was upbeat about was actually a clue to something I need to be wary of. Which I’ve followed up – and I do. (Yeah, I know I’m being vague – purposely; however, the details are not that interesting.)

It’s got me thinking. About whether it’s even harder to get published after a dry run? That you become reticent, worrying it might be wrong, looking for excuses to hold it back out of fear of rejection?

But then isn’t that better than the potential converse: so desperate that you become vulnerable to compromising, massaging, crack-papering, spinning? So, you see, much as I need to – and much as I’m feeling that pressure to – ‘get something out there,’ I’m not going to submit it with the omission chisel marks still visible. And I was so close. But if I can’t nail it, it ain’t going anywhere.

Virtuousness or pussyfooting? Either way, maybe my clean driving licence will come in handy.