Science is Sexy

"Science moves with the spirit of an adventure characterized both by youthful arrogance and by the belief that truth, once found, would be simple as well as pretty." --James D. Watson

A friend posted this video, produced by Harvard grad students, on her facebook wall. It's a movie that I've seen at least ten times. And each time I see it I am amazed and awed by the complexity and beauty of life. Our bodies are incredible. I love science so much. I don't fully understand the whole process but I'll give you a little narrative.

The movie details the process of diapedesis, or the traversal of a white blood cell across the blood vessel wall into the tissue in response to infection. White blood cells roll across the blood vessel. When an infection or cellular injury happens cytokines are secreted which are sensed by the rolling cell. The cytokines cause changes within the cell. These changes result in gene transcription into mRNA, translation into protein, and shipment to the cell membrane where they are inserted. The inserted receptors cause the cell to slow down and slip through the junction between cells in the blood vessel allowing the white blood cell to get out and fight the bad guys. Science is beautiful!

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What you call love...

Another thing I think a lot about... relationships :). But don't worry, this is a completely philosophical post. Guster's new album has a song entitled "What you call love." The lyrics are poignant to me:

What you call love, is just urgency
What you call love is a place to turn in an emergency
Would you give up when its not what you want it to be?
But thats not love, what you call love

I like the song a lot. Over the past year I have thought a lot about relationships, particularly of the romantic variety. And I've decided, with some help from others, that we put too much stock in the Hollywood 'Californication' of marriage. (Look at me and my song references :). I'm not sure that I really believe in 'falling in love'. What does that mean anyway? Isn't it pretty much just hot, steamy lust? really is there anything passive about love? Love is a verb not a noun. You don't just fall into it. And what does a relationship based on lust give way to? Well, if the two people involved are committed to marriage, ultimately the relationship will likely progress to a long-term, enduring, warm, deep friendship. The intense, passionate feelings don't last. Intense passion is not the mark of love. And thus one who falls out of intense passion is not falling out of love but rather was probably never in love to begin with. Passion is selfish. It isn't about love at all. People don't fall out of love. Real love is not conditional. People who marry without realizing that love and passion are not the same thing have a hard lesson to learn. One that may very well end in divorce with each partner unsure of how or when they just weren't 'in love' anymore because really, they were never in love at all.

So what about people who don't fall in love? Is it possible for two people who share a warm friendship to come to the same place that people who are 'in love' do? Absolutely. I really do believe that two righteous individuals who share similar values can be and are just as happy as people who 'fall in love'.

My roommate asked me yesterday what three characteristics I want in my marriage. I replied that I want a marriage just like my parents'. The three attributes that I listed were: affectionate, mutually respectful, and fun. I think appropriate affection is important. I want a hand to hold. I want a kiss now and again in front of the kids. My grandpa used to say that the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. I believe that is true from my experiences in my family. Secondly, I want a relationship built on respect for each other. I want us to be able to believe and talk about opinions that are different from each other in a respectful manner. I want us to be able to help the other reach their fullest potential and achieve their dreams. Thirdly, I want to laugh. All the time.

Anyway, this post is really disjointed. And I really should probably get back to this take home test I'm avoiding :). Some day this whole relationship thing is going to work out. Until then I'm going to actively force thoughts about this kind of stuff out of my mind and focus on grad school. I've got lots to do. :)

What is a friend?

Over the past few weeks I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a true friend. I have had several really good friends. I think that a true friend possesses the following attributes:

1. A true friend is true at all times. They do not gossip or share confidential information that you have disclosed to them. They love you and so they defend you if someone is speaking badly of you. If they make a mistake and disclose something that they shouldn't it is always well-intentioned, ie, they are trying to do something they think will help you.
2. They want to spend time with you. You enjoy spending time together. You laugh a lot but also have real, meaningful conversation when you're together. They return phone calls, text messages, emails, and IMs when they receive them. They also initiate these things. Communication is vital for friendship. It is the way that friends convey that they care about each other.
3. They make you want to be a better person. They build you and make you better for being in their presence. They believe that you are a better person than you think you are and thus, help you see your potential.

4. This is an attribute that I struggle with but is nonetheless an attribute of a true friend: You have an open relationship. When one of you is offended or frustrated with a situation you are able to discuss it with the other in a healthy manner. You can be direct with your friend and know that they will return the same courtesy to you.

Well, I'm in lab and I need to go finish my assay. But I've been blessed with some really amazing friends. And I love you guys. Thanks for being who you are. I hope that I, in turn, can be the kind of friend that you have been to me.

Atlanta living

So, I am now 3.2 months in to my graduate career. It's been a fun journey thus far. I love Atlanta. The ward here is great. Since moving here I have: gone white water rafting, gone to the world's biggest aquarium, eaten lunch at a 72nd floor restaurant that rotates around the Atlanta skyline, sat on the front row and in the club section at Braves games, drove good friends in a 27 hour 200 mile relay race, and made some really great friends! Coming soon to the list: hiking the AT (yeah, I'm in the know. That's the Appalachian Trail :). Pretty freaking sweet life. I'm glad that I'm here!

My roommate is Gina Lenzi. She is in my grad program with me and is super cool. We met during interview weekend. She bought a condo 1.3 miles from Emory. I walk to and from school through the most beautiful park every day. The weather has finally cooled off and it's absolutely beautiful here now!

I'm doing well. I'm very blessed to be where I am. I'm working hard and playing harder. It's a great life!

Musings

So, I'm going to write an entry that has nothing to do with my dating life or lack thereof! I hope you're all excited... All three of you ;)

So, the other day I had an interesting conversation about religion with a guy I work with. He is a self-proclaimed agnostic/atheist. We spoke for an hour about different aspects of religion and faith. He contests that faith is not logical or empirical; that the concept of revelation is but a circular argument that cannot be contested or verified by logical means. The second point that he made is that there are no universal moral laws. He asserted that a law, to be a law, must be absolutely and irresistibly followed, as in the law of gravity. I tried my best to explain where and how faith comes but my answers seemed insufficient. Don't be thinking badly of this guy though. The conversation was very amicable. But the conversation got me thinking. I hope that I'll be able to convey those thoughts in words.

For the past year I have been studying the impact of methamphetamine on dopamine terminals in the brain. METH causes a reversal of the dopamine transport and also acts on the vesicular monamine transporter 2 which increases dopamine both intra- and extra-celluraly. Dopamine is highly reactive and quickly forms reactive oxygen species which damage the nerve terminal and can lead to long-term dopamingeric loss. Now, that seems all well and good, though slightly irrelevant to the paragraph immediately preceding this one. The point is this - a year and a half ago if someone had told me this information I may or may not have been inclined to believe them. They could be pulling garbage out of the air for all I knew. Not until I began investigating for myself was I able to understand many truths about how METH acts on dopaminergic neurons. I know that these things are truths now because I have seen the data, I have experienced it for myself. And just because I don't understand every aspect of neural transmission fully doesn't mean that I give the whole subject up completely. It just means that there is more work to be done; there is more to be studied, more to investigate.

The scientific method is not really just for science. It is a method of uncovering truth, in whatever category it may be labelled. My favorite chapter in the Book of Mormon deals with the concept of experimenting with religious truth. A prophet named Alma, teaching on the American continent prior to the birth of Christ counseled, "But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words." (Alma 32:27). Alma counsels us to do the same thing that scientists the world over do daily, to allow our desire to know truth propel us to action and experimentation. He goes on to outline how to control for a religious experiment and how to ultimately find truth. Finding spiritual truth is much like finding scientific truth, one must start at the bottom wrung of the truth ladder and ascend step by step. I was able to understand METH's actions quickly only because previously I had put A LOT of time, effort, and desire into understanding science. Truth is never found without sincere, honest work. The same is true for the knowledge that I have of God - His existence, His Son, His plan. I know these things in a very real sense because I experimented and found truth. There is much more spiritual truth that I have left to acquire but my lack of knowledge in some things cannot erase my surety of others. I promise that anyone who desires to know of the truthfulness of God's existence and love and how it transforms lives can, if they will but muster the courage and desire to want to believe and let that desire work in them until it drives them to spiritual experimentation which always yields spiritual results.

The second point my friend made was that there are no absolute moral laws. I think the point that he was trying to make is that a law, in order to be classified as a law, must be universal. He suggested that in order to be universal, we must not be able to disobey a law. He cited the law of gravity as such a law. No matter how we try, we are always subject to the laws of gravity, we cannot choose to disobey it. I would tend to agree with the argument that law must be universal. The laws of God are more than societal implementations given by heads of state to control the masses. Let me give another example. There is a health law that just about everyone in the modern world understands. You would be hard pressed to find someone who didn't know that smoking a pack of cigarettes a day increases your chances of getting lung cancer astronomically. Yet, a hundred years ago this health "law" wasn't known. Regardless of the fact that no one understood the law they were still impacted by its reality. This is the universal aspect of the law. Unlike the law of gravity, smoking is a choice. If I choose to smoke, I accept the consequences of that action. If I choose not to smoke I reap the benefits of the law. The laws of God are the same way. Our agency, or the ability to choose, is vital to the plan of God. Therefore, His laws allow us the ability to choose but not the freedom to determine the consequences of our choices. In the end, when we choose to follow Him we find happiness and joy and when we choose not to follow him we find sadness and misery.

Anyway, those are my musings. Kind of a long post. Hope it wasn't too boring :)

So, since when did facebook turn in to a dating site? It feels like LDSsingles all over again. Yes, sigh, I had an online account for 1.7 months (I couldn't actually bring myself to go on a date with anyone though... the whole they might be a serial killer thing...). Back to fb. I get a friend request from this guy I don't recognize. I look and see that he's from my hometown and we have nine mutual friends. So, I'm thinking, oh it's another one of those people I have no idea who are but we went to high school together. No big deal right? Confirm. So then I get a message from this guy saying, basically, I thought I knew you but I don't but you're cute so let's be friends. It was nice. It made me smile. I even thought about writing him back. Then, two hours later, he IMs me. Too much buddy. I'm feeling a little stalked. Maybe I'm being hypersensitive. Maybe I'm just really not interested in guys right now. But I had absolutely no desire to talk to him and I didn't. I'm such a jerk. Oh well. I've been crabby all day.

On a different note, my housing in Atlanta worked out tonight! It's a little pricey but beautiful. It's a townhome 1.6 miles from the Emory campus. It's 2 bed/2.5 bath. A girl that I roomed with during interviews at Emory who was also accepted is buying it. It should be fun. Anyway, that's about all I know. Over and out.