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A special bit of first-hand journalism today — Ignacio Chapela was an assistant professor at UC Berkeley, who was denied tenure last November for reasons he and many others believe to be corporate or political in nature. Chapela did key research indicating that modified genes in Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) were being transferred to pristine plants in nature, specifically untouched corn crops in Mexico. He also did research into the effects of GMO foods on animal development, which, once published in 2001, swept him into a vortex of corporate interests attempting to defame the research. It culminated last year when Chapela was denied professorship, and he is now suing the Regents of the University of California, saying that there were corporate conflicts of interest in the tenure decision process. Read more about the situation (second article on the page).

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Chapela held a press conference today at 2PM, and I went with camera and digital recorder in hand. You can download audio Chapela’s wonderful introduction (mp3, 1.4 MB), or the full conference (mp3, 8 MB) (sorry about the wind). Here are some of key quotes catching the general theme:

“The university used to be the place where people could ask any questions and hear the answers no matter how uncomfortable they were — we used to call that science. And it seems as though the university has lost that capacity to do science.”

“This is not a lawsuit against the university. It is a lawsuit for the university and against the people who have bastardized and taken away the incredible privelage of this campus.”

My own opinion on the subject is near complete support of Chapela and his lawsuit. My only concern is that he brings up the racial factor, which is completely understandable. Still, I believe it detracts from the scientific and academic focus. It absolutely needs to be addressed, but perhaps not at the same time as the scientific point.

In every conversation I have had with scientific minds on this subject (GMOs), I have always felt shunned for bringing up the slightest doubt. When faced with even solid science like Chapela’s, many scientists still will not consider both sides of the argument. This one-sided view on GMOs has very likely been influenced by large corporations funding research at universities like Berkeley, and the effect has been devastating to the scientific process in the field. I can only hope this lawsuit causes some stir in the system, and hopefully lessens the impact of politics and corporate interest on scientific research in genetic engineering.

I added a gallery for photos from Tellefsen Hall from the last few months. Included are Fall Formal, casino night, and gingerbread houses. I’ll continue to keep my personal photos separate on the photos page. Enjoy!

So I was doing my comp-sci homework this evening, and I had to fit the whole problem set into 4 hours. Well, 3 and a half to be precise. That would usually be fine, except that the last problem was to be written in Python. The problem was that I didn’t know python at the time. Well it turns out that I learned enough in two hours to write a rather complex little text parsing program.

Which brings me to my point: it didn’t feel like two hours, it felt like five. Time seemed to slow down immensely when I was writing the code, I don’t know why. Has anyone ever been so entranced in something that this sort of thing happened? Maybe it was just that I was in a hurry, or that my brain was working overtime with the syntactical subtleties of python, but it felt weird; I kept looking at the clock and it kept saying 10:30-something and I actually wondered if it could be wrong.

Yeah, it’s probably just that my brain is so powerful that it warps space-time when I think.

If you’re looking for a good time-killer (and a great eye-opener) try out 43things.com. You can also take a look at my list.

I’ve probably titled many posts by the same name, but what can I say, it’s true. I am beginning my sixth semester at UC Berkeley, which is hard for me to believe. It seems like I was a freshman not too long ago; which, when you think about it, I was. When I walk around campus now, it feels very familiar to me, and reeks of knowledge and sometimes grass clippings. Whenever I start to doubt my decision to go to Cal, it doesn’t take long for me to whack myself on the head and look at what’s on my plate to make sure it wasn’t laced with something. Seriously, this is a wonderful place of learning, and with each new class I take, I realize that I don’t know anything, and I come to enjoy filling that void a little bit more.

To give you an idea of what insights are in store for you this semester, here is a list of my classes, all of which I find interesting and enlightening in some way. I have a feeling they’ll impact the subjects of my writings over the next few months.

• ISF 60: Science, Technology, and Values in the Global Arena: Living Longer, Living Better? – Dr. Urs Cipolat
• History 181B: The History of Modern Physics – Prof. Cathryn Carson
• CS 164: Programming Languages and Compilers – Paul Hilfinger
• CS 170: Algorithms and Intractable Problems – Prof. Christos Papadimitriou and Luca Trevisan
• Music 142: Wind Ensemble – Bob Calonico

Sound interesting? It does to me. That first class is turning out to be excellent, and I already read the first book, Our Final Hour by Martin Rees. It’s a very well written piece of cautious scientific commentary– and published this century, no less. You’ll be hearing much more about that.

So that’s my piece on academia for now. I am engaged, so forgive me if I forget to write home sometimes.

Be sure to catch the Holiday Bowl tomorrow (Thursday) evening, ESPN at 5 PM Pacific. You may see a clip of the band; last year I was (apparently) on national TV for about 15 seconds behind Jeff Tedford after the game.

The band has been here in San Diego since the 26th rehearsing and performing; we’ve had at least three hours of rehearsal plus a full uniformed gig every day so far, but it’s also wonderful to have a good amount of free time, which unfortunately comes at night mostly, and the alarm has been fixed at 6 AM for the whole time. Thus, I am always tired. Not so bad though. It almost feels good — I’ve seen the sun rise for the last four days. It seems like a more natural sleep schedule, but it feels unnatural to go to sleep so early; I get lots of things done late. And the city is so alive at night — it’d be nice to come back for a vacation or something when I’m, well, older. Say, in about 9 months.

And lets hope it doesn’t rain. During yesterday’s rehearsal, it poured. It rained like I had never seen it rain ever in my life. It rained so hard I opened my mouth to the sky and had a good glass of fresh water. But weather.com says it won’t, so we should be alright.

More to come later, when I’m less tired. I have a review of my Christmas present waiting, as well as a whole slurry of more philosophical ideas, and of course, lots of pictures.

Ah, and the soundtrack for this trip is Ben Folds, Rockin the Suburbs; particularly tracks 3, 8, and 9.

Yet another semester passes… I’m beginning to undertstand what old people mean when they say it goes by too fast.

On a lighter note, it is good to be free. I leave for Tahoe tomorrow night, and I’ll be on the slopes Sunday through Tuesdayish

The entire house, or more likely the entire town, is somber today. For the second time in two months, the system screwed up, the votes turned out bad, and we got screwed. This time was not quite as bad, but it still hurts to know that in all fairness, a team was denied something that was rightfully theirs. I mean, if nothing else, Texas was shut out by Oklahoma, the number two team in the nation, at home, and we, Cal, very nearly beat U$C, the number one team in the nation, in their own god forsaken Colliseum!!! That, and the voters seem to have forgotten that we shut out the entire state of Arizona (U of A and Arizona State), while Texas only shut out North Texas… I’m sure that was real hard. Not to mention that Texas’ coach was actually lobbying for votes on television, something Tedford just wouldn’t do. Just like yesterday’s game, when he decided not to tack on the extra touchdown with 40 seconds remaining, very respectful, and as is the way of the world, you don’t get squat for doing the right thing.

Even getting past the loss of the Rose Bowl bid, the BCS system is royally screwed up. Look who’s playing Texas in Pasadena — Michigan! How exactly is that fair? They’re not even in the top ten! Argh.

I’ll be focusing on finals for the next few weeks, so expect sparse updates, if any. Also keep an eye on my new flickr account, and my gallery as usual.