The Ivory Tower

This is a place for me to think out loud (or 'on paper') all things that are interesting me, and to comment on things I want to remember. Naming my blog the Ivory Tower is a joke on the popular notion that philosophy and intelligence are something beyond the common man, somehow above the 'mean' act of living as a human. Rand's refutation of this is what immediately drew me to her. Feel free to introduce yourself.

3.31.2006

Something Beautiful #1

This is something that I love for very personal reasons. I'm posting it so that I can have it on hand and, secondarily, to share it because it's beautiful.


Woman
by Nikki Giovanni

she wanted to be a blade
of grass amid the fields
but he wouldn't agree
to be the dandelion

she wanted to be a robin singing
through the leaves
but he refused to be
her tree

she spun herself into a web
and looking for a place to rest
turned to him
but he stood straight
declining to be her corner

she tried to be a book
but he wouldn't read

she turned herself into a bulb
but he wouldn't let her grow

she decided to become
a woman
and though he still refused
to be a man
she decided it was all
right

3.16.2006

Structure of Semi-Permeable Membranes

While corresponding with a friend today about the phenomenon of cell suicide (apoptosis) I remembered that I had recently written about a personal revelation in cell membranes. And that since then I had completely forgotten about it. After rereading it and doing some touch editing and clarification I decided it was definitely blog-worthy, I don't know why I didn't post it before. So this was originally written on November 7th 2005:

I just got out of my physics research seminar, which is basically a one hour pass course where we listen to various professors explain about their research and tour their labs. Today Professor Ritchie, a new professor, lectured about his work in biophysics. Since he is so new, he doesn't have a web domain set up with Purdue yet, I asked him about it and he said he's "working on it", it'll probably be a while. Anyway, if you're interested in his research here is his contact page at Purdue.

So what he said in class was pretty amazing. He was talking about his research in cell membranes, specifically the lipid bilayer. A single lipid/phosphate head molecule (I'll just call it a lipid) moves around the general surface. They move like plastic ducks on water; staying within the general 2-D plane of the membrane, but the individual lipids and proteins float around each other randomly.

The problem with that is that if this were entirely accurate, a single lipid should move randomly at a certain speed. After tagging a single lipid with a photoluminescer and watching it's progress, they find it moves at about a fifth of the speed expected. Also, in such a model, the cell wouldn't be able to efficiently localize information. He gave the example of nerve cells that have definite outgoing and ingoing regions, if the lipids and proteins move freely/randomly about one another, then the cell could not have the specified regions of receptor proteins (they would be mixed randomly).

So, what he did was to use an incredibly high frame/s camera. (digression: this thing is wicked awesome! He showed us a demo of the camera he used in which the camera recorded a balloon filled with water being punctured by an exacto. As the exacto bit through the balloon, the balloon quickly snapped away and crumpled as would be expected, but the water almost perfectly held it's form, due to the high elasticity of water. Even the air bubble kept it's shape, and the camera was able to record this! Link) So, using this new camera he set the same experiment with photoluminescer tagged lipid and watched what happened (I presume he was careful not to change variables from the original experiment). The lipid moved randomly in a certain perimeter, then shifted a bit to move randomly in another perimeter, then shifted again to a neighboring perimeter. What they found was that the speed of the lipid within a perimeter was that which they had expected for the duck/pond model of a membrane, in which the lipid could float freely anywhere, and the speed that it took the lipid to move from one sector to the next was what they had recorded to cause the whole problem in the first place (1/5 expected speed). Apparently there is some sort of pattern of boundaries on the membrane which causes freely moving bodies to get stuck, but eventually make through, it holds them up.
They used a nifty little method of anchoring one of the more tightly bound proteins to a gold colloid and literally dragged the protein around the membrane in order to sound out the boundaries. If they hadn't of used a protein that binds tightly with gold, then the gold would have had a higher chance of breaking off when meeting resistance, which was the whole point, to measure resistance.

After mapping the boundaries they found that they align with the actin microfilaments of the cytoskeleton!

All through my biological studies in high school I had been confused as to what the cytoskeleton actually does, what function it performs.

This is what professor Ritchie says, the cytoskeletal filaments are right below the membrane and proteins are anchored to the structure. These proteins stick up inside (sometimes through) the membrane and cause what he calls "fences". A lipid is free to move within any of these little areas, but it takes some time for it to get through/around the fence. I didn't ask if all proteins are anchored to the actin, but knowing generally how a cell works, I'd say that the proteins which are advantageous to be localized are anchored and the ones that need to move aren't. Which explains how a nerve cell can partition one branch for ingoing and another for outgoing proteins.

3.07.2006

West Lafayette Smoking Ordinance

Our city council has been tossing around this legislation for a while now, since about November (old articles from the campus newspaper can be found here). It was barely voted down in late January, due mostly to 'ambiguities' in the wording and heavy complaint from local business. So, recently they've introduced a revised version (Linky). This is the pertinent article. The council met on Monday (Mar. 6) to discuss passing this legislation again and I attended the meeting to speak against the ordinance myself. I only got two/three minutes, so I tried to attack mostly their fundamental justifications for it (in the actual ordinance, everything after "WHEREAS"). This is what I'd prepared to say:

The reason the proposed smoking ban is being considered as a beneficial ordinance to the citizens of West Lafayette is: A.) smoking and second-hand smoke are health risks and B.) it is the responsibility of this city council to ensure an environment free of smoke-risk.

The second of those statements is false rendering the first irrelevant to legislation. If Mr. X desires a smoke-free environment because of the inherent risks, then it is in Mr. X's every right to abstain from entering into such environments. No one is forcing Mr. X to suffer a smoke-filled room; if he enters a bar or restaurant or club or 'place of employment' where smoking is allowed by the owner of the building, then he does so by choice. Yet, according to this legislation, Mr. X would have this council force another citizen to provide that environment. It is not the needs or desires of business that this legislation is compromising, but their rights, for the desires of others. And, contrary to popular opinion, it is not your obligation to protect my health and welfare, it is my own. If you pass this legislation in the name of public good, then please count me out of the public, because setting the precedent for violating property rights is not in any one's best interest.

Greg Ehresman owns Triple XXX, Mary Cook owns Harry's, and Derrick Raymer owns Where Else?. If they wish to allow their patrons to smoke on their property, it is not for anyone else to say otherwise. It is not the prerogative of any governmental body to dictate what citizens may freely choose to do on private property, whether they're smoker or non-smoker, business-owner or customer.

I've often heard the argument that if left to themselves businesses wouldn't offer non-smoking services. To that let me point out that businesses very seldom fail to capitalize on such consumer demands. And that, if it is found businesses can't make a profit from catering to non-smokers, it is a failure of the demand for such a service rather than of the business.

Update [Same Day]: Take a wild guess at who was quoted in the Exponent today! ^_^ Though, I'm a sophomore transfer student, not a freshman.