HMS Mother Wins Extra Test Time

I saw this article this morning and put it in the A-log.

The highest court in Massachusetts handed a Harvard medical student victory late Tuesday in her battle for extra break time to pump breast milk during a medial certification exam.

The state Supreme Judicial Court’s decision came the night before Sophie C. Currier, an MD-PhD student at Harvard Medical School, began taking the test and ensured she would receive one hour of additional break time per day on top of the 45 minutes students typically have for the entire exam.

Currier cannot graduate from the Medical School or begin her scheduled residency until she passes the eight-hour licensing exam.

The case has gone through seven appeals since Currier first filed suit Sept. 6 against the National Board of Medial Examiners (NBME), which sets the rules for the exam.

I am very happy seeing she won this famous case. Just like what written in the article -

While the court order applies only to Currier, NBME spokesman Ken Cotton said that the organization would study their policy on time allowance for breast-feeding in light of the ruling and that the committee that sets testing rules “will make addressing the issue on break time a priority.”

It is just a beginning.

Tim's Group Meeting

By schedule, we have no group meeting this week because Tim would be out of town. But somehow Tim postponed his trip and decided to have a meeting as a volunteer to present his ideas about how what we are doing fits into a bigger picture.

There are several main directions in our lab - microtubule, actin, cytokinesis, mitochondria, and Tim's new favorite, cancer studies. Tim admitted he is the kind of person who enthuses about something for a while and then jumpping to another a another while, and finally back to the original one like a circle. He apologized for that.

Most of the work Tim mentioned are done by former postdocs in our lab. Leaving postdocs in our lab are always allowed to bring their own projects with them. And we won't to anything in conflicts.

Tim joked Paul and Bill are special. Usually a leaving postdoc is dying to hear his boss says "I am not going to touch your project anymore"; Paul and Bill both ask Tim to do more experiments on their own projects in the future. Tim feels it is funny and Bill says it is to increase the scientific mass of the project!

It is really a special experience being in this lab. Just like what Chris had said during her defense - this place, it a very unique place for doing research. She didn't mean the school, bur rather this department, or more specificly, this lab.

We have three new postdoc candidates visiting in the near future. The first one, Ethan Garner from Mullins Lab at UCSF is coming next Tuesday. The other twos are a physicist, and a biochemist.

And of course, free meals again for having lunches with those candidates!

MNF Dallas Cowboys at Buffalo Bills

我看過最扯的一場 comeback 比賽。

Cowboys QB Romo 被 intercept 五次還能贏球也算是少見了。Bills 該贏的球打到輸掉，24 分裡面防守組和特別組就拿了 21 分，進攻組竟然只有 3 分。打到最後被 Cowboys 奇蹟似地逆轉勝。



這樣也好，五勝零敗的 Cowboys 這個禮拜就會對上同樣也是五勝零敗的 Patriots，只有一隊能繼續保持全勝的紀錄，而那將會是 New England Patriot。

懂事的好小孩

凡凡愛吃雪糕。有時候吃完飯如果凡凡想吃，我們就會讓他吃。心情好的時候吃掉半支 Dove 巧克力雪糕沒有問題。

巧克力很容易化掉，凡凡每次吃都會吃得滿嘴巧克力，有時不小心還會掉在地上，不過凡凡很愛乾淨又懂事，曉得要趕快把地板擦乾淨，認真地檢查有哪裡沒有擦到，真是個好小孩。


凡凡在看的電影是 Fantasic 4，看得很認真，應該是因為裡面有 Jassica Alba 的關係！

吃飯的例行公事

凡凡用餐的模式是先上一盤拼盤，讓他自己吃，能吃多少是多少，不過最常見的情況就是只顧著玩小汽車，沒想到吃飯這事兒。


總算開始有點想認真吃飯了，東看看西瞧瞧選了半天還是沒吃到甚麼東西，改玩食物。


後來想想總算發現哪裡不對勁了，原來是電視沒有開，凡凡吃飯是一定要配著 Elmo 或是卡通一起吃的，有時想看一下 Pats 或 Red Sox 的比賽都不行，一定要看 Elmo。

Pink Lady

之前提到今年採蘋果時多了一種叫 Pink Lady 的新品種，凡凡很愛吃。本來我們把所有採的 Pink Lady 蘋果都留給凡凡吃，後來好心的凡凡分我吃了一口，現在 Pink Lady 已經取代了 Golden Delicious，變成我最喜歡吃的蘋果了。

不同於 Delicious, Fuji, Gala, Macoun 這些蘋果很容易在超市買到，我們似乎沒看過超市有賣 Pink Lady 的，至少家附近的 Star/Shaw markets, Market Basket, Stop & Shop 確定都沒有；據說 whole food 可能有，改天再去看一看。

查了一下資料，原來 Pink Lady 的販賣還真的經過嚴格控管，只有合乎一定標準的 Pink Lady 才能冠上 Pink Lady 的名字販賣，其它不及格的就叫做 Cripps Pink。

去年在同一個果園還沒見到這些 Pink Lady apple trees，應該是今年新栽的，不曉得還有哪些果園也有 Pink Lady？

資料說有 65% 的 Pink Lady 蘋果因為沒達到標準只能夠叫作 Cripps Pink，我們採了這麼多顆應該總有一些可以夠資格吧。

你今天蘋果了嗎？

--
Check the following information if you like to know more about Pink Lady

Pink Lady apple
Perhaps more than any other modern apple, Pink Lady epitomises the trend towards agressive product marketing and branding. Pink Lady was one of the first apple varieties to be marketed as a "club". The variety is grown under a strictly controlled licence, and then marketed through a limited number of resellers to the supermarkets. This tight control is intended to keep quality and prices high, and it is portrayed as a premium product.

You may have sometimes seen another variety called Cripps Pink in the shops and noticed the similarity ... it is actually the same variety. In order to preserve the premium appeal of Pink Lady, about 65% of the production which does not meet the standards required for Pink Lady is sold as Cripps Pink instead. The distinction is primarily made on colour intensity and the sugar/acid balance. Whilst this might at first appear to be a cynical marketing ploy, it arguably benefits consumers because it means that the variability of quality of Pink Lady is less than you might find in other varieties.

The marketing effort has particularly targeted young women, and has resulted in Pink Lady apples being promoted in such unlikely settings as the Glastonbury music festival, as well as in women's magazines, and cross-marketed with Barbie dolls. Pink Lady even has its own website - www.pinkladyapples.co.uk.

Pink Lady comes from Australia, and is a cross between Golden Delicious and Lady Williams. Lady Williams is not a particularly well known apple variety in Europe, but has been quite widely grown in Australia, having been discovered as a chance seedling in the 1930s. It is probably from Lady Williams that Pink Lady gets its distinct colouring. (However it is interesting that another modern "blush" apple, the orange-coloured Tentation, is also a Golden Delicious cross). It requires a very long growing period and a hot climate, and hence is not grown commercially in the UK.

Pink Lady apples from the northern hemisphere tend to arrive in shops from late November - but the very long storage life means they are available almost all year round from northern or southern hemisphere orchards.

Does Pink Lady match up with the marketing ? Visually, it probably does - it is still unusual to see an apple that is genuinely pink. We are not so sure the flavour is quite up there with the best modern varieties (take Jazz for example), and it certainly will struggle to compete with some of the more complex older varieties. Having said that, the flavour is perfectly acceptable, and is slightly more acidic than Golden Delicious. Pink Lady is also a fairly juicy apple, and the texture is solid and bites cleanly. However, this is in some ways missing the point. The marketing effort for Pink Lady focusses on lifestyle rather than flavour, and having achieved about 10% of the UK market in a very short space of time, it is clearly doing something right and is deservedly popular.

Two Down, One to Go !

What a picture! Right after Manny hit the walk-off homerun in the bottom of ninth.

Red Sox have won the first two games in the best of five ALDS series.

Yankees, in contrast, lost two games in a row to Cleveland Indians. With one more lose, the Yankees will be gone in this year's playoff.

Love from Taiwan

昨天收到凡凡的奶奶託給凡凡的姨婆帶給凡凡的姑媽寄給凡凡的包裹。衣服帽子都很漂亮合身。

於是乎，凡凡的媽媽便幫凡凡穿扮一番拍幾張相片給凡凡的奶奶姨婆跟姑媽看。

Loose Change 2nd Edition

There are still lots of people don't believe what the US government told them, trying to figure out their own truth.

I have seen many efforts on the street and on TV, but so far this one is the best. Personally I do think the 911 as most people do. Although most are nonsense to me, there are still some good points in it, kinds of tricky...

Here is the official site: http://www.loosechange911.com/lc2e.htm



Same as above but with Chinese subtitle

Abnova Part V

Okay, okay, I know I said there won't be another post about Abnova...

This morning I got an E-mail from the Abnova customer service for antibody information. It's fine, so far.

Then I read the last paragraph of the E-mail -

"By the way, do you see baseball games? Another Taiwan glory “王建民” will be the first starter of the world series on Oct 4. Hope he can win again. ^__^ "

Did she assume I must be a fan of Wang, aka "the Taiwan Glory", too? Ha-ha, it is very risky saying something like that to a person who lives in the capital of Red Sox Nation.

Besides, Wang is named to be the starting pitcher in ALDS game 1 (American League Division Series, at Cleveland), not World Series.

Fifty points from Abnova!!!