From Trops

I was asked to put up a few photos of the recent happy hour at Tropical Liquers. For some reason I can't change the very old photos on the flickr so if anyone out there has the log-in and password please send it along. OK, I've done 4 posts now, where is everybody else?

This where all of the drinks come from.

Group shot

Shay and Jo

Shay and Ullas

Me, Shay's Sister Linda and Shay

For all of you snow deniers

During our walk to lunch yesterday, an individual, who's background in living in snow-filled environments is the stuff of legends, made some very untimely predictions about the weather here in Columbia. I took a few snaps of the snow last night before I went home regarding the "stickiness" of the snow. As of this morning, it's still here (and sadly probably here to stay)!

Renee visits

We got paid a visit yesterday by Renee and Abby on their trip through Columbia. Here are some photos of all of us.

-B

(nice group shot)

(sassy and slim)


(budding young scientist)

Mannie's pumpkin carvings make the news - kind of...

Well last week out of the blue I got an email from ABC News in NY (truly) requesting that I log onto their site and deposite pictures/video of my pumpkin carvings. Don't know how they found me or my carving (some kind of general google search likely go my Halloween site). Anyhow I made a short video and submitted it. I wasn't chosen for Good Morning America (that was the big 'reward') but they did post my video on their site Check it out

Tis the season to be ghoully!

OK the weather is now cooperating so my fever is back (Halloween fever that is). Check out all the new happenings - yes I've started my carving - no I haven't done Tom's suggestion yet. Go see what's new at the Liscum House of Horrors

Jack-O-Lanterns

It is the season and so I have come up with a great pumpkin for Mannie to carve. This is truly the scariest thing imaginable...a "God Warrior."

Good luck finding a pumpkin large enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCODIhAXbQM

MuuuuuHaaaahhhaaawwww - Tis the season

Well it's not cold fall weather but 'cooler' than it has been, I raked the lawn for the first time today, and tomorrow is the last day of Sept....soooooo...yup the Liscum House of Horrors graveyard (version Mark I; vMI) went up tonight!!! The two little ones were my helpers this year. This was the first year since Taylor was old enough to help that she didn't - guess this is a sign she's growing up (sigh). Anyhow she said she gets to help dad alone with he next version in a week or so (when other stuff gets added). Tonigh I only set lights and basic tombstones. Mixed it up a bit from previous years - time will tell if I like the new design.

Got 4 more pumpkins last night off the pumpkin mountain at Hy-Vee (literally it's a small mountain...Ok the size of the hill "the Englishman went up"). Have 7 total ready for their sacrifices. Maybe I'll start tomorrow night...trying to juggle reading/reviewing grant proposals for the NSF panel I'm serving on in early Nov with this blessed of all holiday seasons!!!

More to come...

WOW!!! How has this happened to US.

How many times does our glorious leader have to say things like this (Mandela comment) before people wake up and realize we have an idiot at the helm?

Just a query from a concerned and disturbed citizen.

Lab Meeting 8/15 - Paper for discussion

We'll do the following paper at this weeks lab meeting:

The FERONIA Receptor-like Kinase Mediates Male-Female Interactions During Pollen Tube Reception

2007 Lab T-shirt preview

Well this year's T-shirt design is almost in the can...went with a retro 50's Sci-Fi theme this year. Just a font change to the backside and addition of Herr Doktor's kids (the oldest one caught that faux pas) and it's ready to go to print.

Click HERE

ASPB Meeting meeting

As it seems there may be several Liscum Lab members at this years ASPB meeting in Chicago, might I suggest a gathering...lunch or dinner perhaps?

Will it be deep dish or Thai? Will anyone order a golden shower? You just never know.

http://chicago.menupages.com/restaurants.asp?areaid=25&cuisineid=65&home=Y

HOT New Liscum Lab Publication

Check it out - fresh off the presses (at least the electronic ones; it comes of the printing presses in Aug):

Regulation of phototropic signaling in Arabidopsis via phosphorylation state changes in the phototropin 1-interacting protein NPH3

Congrats to Ullas for a job well done on his first, first-author paper in a high profile journal!

11 May Lab Meeting - PAPER discussion

The agenda for this weeks lab meeting will be a paper discussion. Ullas will moderate the discussion. Here's the paper:

TIR-NBS-LRR Proteins & Photobiology

Human Trash

Well I think I've once again become the ultra-cynic I was years ago. Optimism and belief in the best mankind has to offer has no basis in reality. This week has been a whopper and I'm now completely fed up with the human race that utilizes the same air I use!!! Does anyone have any integrity anymore? Can anyone value someone else for who they are instead of how it would make the analyst feel about themself? Can anyone reframe from telling lies, devalueing others, and participating in rumoring? Can anyone look out for someone other than themself? I'm convinced the answers to these and many other 'philisophical' questions are NO!!

My current take on the world around me is that most H. sapiens are not worth the flesh they are wraped in - sorry but there it is. If your not 'human trash' I apologize, I don't refer to you. For those of you who would answer no to my above queries, you are trash, simple to the point and final. Do us all a favor and join others like you in some bleak and black utopia somewhere other than here!!

Now why didn't we ever think of something like this?

Check it out
i love the voices
it is only 6 months away.....

Am I Caving to the MAN and HIS Ways?

Question of the night: I decided to go to the Director of Grad Studies breakfast tomorrow (late of course because it starts at 8:30 am and I'll still be carting kids around) to accept my "award". My question is, does this mean I've now become ONE of the THEM, you know the ivory tower, 'ata boy' types? Double thinking my decision - don't want to be a sellout!

A Blog Question

OK - now that I'm officially a "blog addict" I have a question for you all. How do you get that thing where you can let people sign up to get email alerts when there is a new post? Thanks for your help - I'm trying to get my blog up in running (yes, I've jumped on the bandwagon). If you want the check it out, here's the link: http://peckedtodeath.blogspot.com/.

Hope all is well in the land of Liscum:)

Renee

Liscum Lab Continues its WINNING streak

For the fifth year running the Liscum Lab brought home a prize from MU's annual Life Sciences Week poster competition. This year Ullas was the big winner taking a 2nd Place in the Molecular Structure & Function panel - $500 prize and a plaque.

A big congrats to Ullas. On a related note rumor has it that Brandon and Jen just missed the award cut in their category, Cellular Function.

Da Boss is proud!!

Super Glue - a cure!!

Have you ever accidentally (or on purpose) gotten SuperGlue on your fingers and had to wait a week for that dead-numb sensation (caused by the dead flesh) to wear off? Well I have a qucik fix - medium grain wood sandpaper. This may be an obvious one that's out there but I accidently got SuperGlue on multiple fingers tonight (honestly, I was attempting to glue the suction cup back on one of Bubba's 'suction cup bullets' for a tommy gun that Grampa got him for his birthday, when the damn glue container broke - I can hear the collective, "OH SHIT!!!") and had to find some way to get that stuff off. Turns out that by sanding the hell out of ones fingertips (maybe a good way to remove or at least blemish, ones fingerprints too) the SuperGlue does come off - with off course all the skin to witch it is permenantly bonded - but that dead skin numb feeling is gone, and my fingers are more sensitive now (removing 3-4 layers of skin will do that).

SuperGlue on skin - solution, sandpaper!

BIG Congrats!!!

Hey all, in case you hadn't heard Dr. Bethany Stone (former Liscum lab student and postdoc - and first PhD rotation student) was awarded the 2007 Provost Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching Award!!! This is a HUGE deal and says a lot about Bethany's teaching qualities and dedication. Give her a BIG congrats the next time you see her.

An now for something completely different....

OK, I've done three "movie" review posts, time for some science as this IS a LAB blog page.

Check out this new Nature paper from one of our collaborators, Ning Zheng, and long-time colleague Mark Estelle - this is a truly AMAZING paper. Few papers are as solid and of such HIGH IMPACT.

TIR1-auxin-Aux/IAA crystal structure

Easter movie ritual

Alright just to keep with Renee's expectations of the Liscum Lab Blog becoming Mannie's personal movie blog, here's another movie review: Every year at Easter time I sit down for ~4 hrs and watch Ben-Hur.

This is a classic Hollywood epic by William Wyler, made when epics were commonplace, but Ben-Hur is not a commonplace movie. Based on the book by Gen. Lew Wallace (Federal soldier in the US Civil War) titled, "Ben-Hur: A Story of the Christ", this 1959 screen adaptation features Charlton Heston in the lead role of Judah Ben-Hur. We follow the life of Judah from XXVI AD until the death of Christ. The Hur family is 'nobility' in Jerusalem of the day and Judah is a respected member of the Jewish community then under the yoke of the Roman Empire. Confronted with the challenge of his boyhood Roman friend, Massala and now (XXVI AD) Tribune of Jeruselum (aptly played by Stephen Boyd) to use his influence to help the Romans quell discontent, Judah spuns friendship over love for 'his people'. When a tile falls from the roof of the Hur family complex and nearly kills the new Governor of Judea, Massala seizes his chance at revenge and imprisons Judah's mother and sister and sends Judah to die in the Roman galleys. Now comes the first of Judah's 'close encounters' with the carpenter's son - while on his own personal Battan death march from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean, Judah, parched from walking in the desert is given water by a strange hippy-looking man - one who scares the scat out of the rough and tumble Roman guard by simply looking his way.

Now jump ahead ~3.5 years, Judah has lived below deck in a number of Roman warships - 'row[ing] to live' - when a great battle commences and drawn once again by fate, he saves the life of Roman council Quintus Arrius (played by Jack Hawkins - also had a small but important role in William Holden's "Bridge Over the River Kwai"). When it turns out the Roman's won the great battle, despite the flag ship going down, Arrius is grateful to Judah and takes him to Rome where Caesar gives Judah to Arrius as 'his slave' rather then sending him back to the galley's. Judah is then adopted by Quintus Arrius and becomes 'young Quintus Arrius' so when he returns to Jerusalem to seek revenge on Massala he surprising him by entering as Quintus Arrius the younger, rather than Judah Ben-Hur. Of course this is not what Massala wanted or expected. Judah only wants to rescue his family members but it turns out that they are 'dead', or at least that's what the love interest of Judah (Esther) tells him when she finds out from mom and sister that they are now lepers (Massala sends his cronies to find them and the jailer finds them as lepers and casts them outside the city walls). Now Judah is REALLY pissed...he befriends Sheik Ilderim who owns a 'magnificent' set of Arabian chariot horses with an eye to beat the Roman Tribune - Massala of course - in the circus in Jerusalem. Judah sees his chance - helped of course by the pointed comment of the Sheik that 'anything can happen in the circus...men die".

Now the action scene to match all action scenes - the great chariot race - this is worth the price of admission, but only in widescreen. If you watch Ben-Hur in pan-and-scan you are getting took. Too much happens during the chariot race to waste your time with pan-and-scan - black bars be damned (I don't actually mind them but many do) - watch ONLY the WIDESCREEN version of this movie. Of course Judah wins the chariot race and Massal dies a nasty death (sorry if I spoiled anything - it's a full 3 hrs into the movie though so you'll probably forget I told you). On his death bed Massala gets the last 'laugh' when he tells Judah the 'race is not over' and his mother and sister are alive in the Valley of the Lepers.

Judah then searches out his mother and sister and when bringing them home from the Valley of the Lepers runs into the carpenter's son for the second time (actually he sees him from a distance once other time before the chariot race) as the latter is 'the Dead man Walking' - Judah returns the favor of giving the Hippy guy water and is of course forever changed by the experience (you can almost hear the chorus of Hallelujahs). Upon he crucifixion and rain storm that follows Judah's mother and sister are 'cured' from runoff of the cross....from here on out (another 15 minutes or so) the movie is a bit anticlimactic, but hey we can forgive it since we've already sat through 3.5 hrs of spectacular.

I fully love this movie, have since I was a kid - of course the chariot race was the only thing I cared a lot for as a kid. As an adult I can now more fully appreciate the nuances of the story line. I highly recommend this movie if you've never seen it. Of the 'Biblical' movies this is one of the best - I rank it equal to, if not better than, the Ten Commandments (again with Heston, but backed by a more high power supporting cast including Yul Brenner and Edward G. Robinson). Ben-Hur won 11 Academy Awards and deservedly so.

(alright enough I guess since it took me 2 hrs to write this and 2 hrs for you to read it!!!)

Daniel Craig IS 007!!!

Well I finally got to watch the latest Bond movie (Casino Royal) last night...I had predicted, much to the chagrin of many of those around me, that Daniel Craig had the edgy look that might make him good for the role. I think I've been vindicated - he is an awesome Bond. He's got more edge than even Connery had in the first couple Bond flicks...and he get's the crap kicked out of him multiple times (including some very man-cringging torture late in the movie....) and still comes back for more. The movie, while significantly different from the Fleming book of the same name in many ways did establish the 'back story' of Bond of the book fame at least. If Craig keeps the job maybe they will keep a Bond of the Fleming mold that is a hardened govt killer instead of the mamsy-pansy that Roger Moore regelated all subsiquent actors into. Anyhow, I will state that Craig is the closest ANY actor has come to the character Fleming describes in his books.

Darwin, monkeys, Gene Kelly, and Spencer Tracey????

Well it's been a while since we've had any blog action - time to kick up the new year (which is not so new anymore). Sitting here tonight doing a little manuscript work and caught a way cool movie on TCM - "Inherit the Wind" - dramatization (based on a Broadway play) of the "Scopes Monkey Trial" of 1925. For all you science types you ought to know about this landmark courtroom drama - the State of TN v John Scopes - Scopes was charged with breaking a then new law in TN that outlawed any public school teaching that questioned Divine Creation. Although Origin of the Species was first published in 1859 the concepts of evolution were only just beginning to be taught when Scopes was charged with breaking the Butler Act (the law mentioned above). This trial brought evolution and 'Darwinism' into the public and cultural eye. As so often happens with loud voices seeking to squelch free speech and thought, their actions tend to focus more attention to the issue(s) they take offense to than if left alone - thanks Bible thumpers, we who believe that man is an evolved species thank you!!!

Anyhow, back to “Inherit the Wind” - it was given 4 stars on TCM and I would agree. Great cast: including Spencer Tracey, Frederick March (1931 Jekyll and Hyde), Gene Kelly (yes the dancer, but no dancing in this film - Kelly is awesome as a smartass newspaper man), Claude Akins (a favored bad guy in TV and film westerns, e.g., the main heavy in Howard Hawk's “Rio Bravo” with the Duke), Dick York (Darrin on “Bewitched”), Harry Morgan (Col. Potter on M*A*S*H), and Norman Fell (….Mr. Roper!!). With the cast comes great acting!! Duh...Like several other amazing 'classic' courtroom drama's (e.g., “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “Anatomy of a Murder”, “12 Angry Men”, “Judgment At Nuremberg” [also with Tracey]) the claustrophobic nature of the courtroom is ever present, the heat of the southern summer (think “Mockingbird”) is oppressive, and the oratory expected of a heavy hitter courtroom story is delivered with ease by March and Tracey. So, not only is the story interesting to anyone with a brain who uses it, but it's a really good movie for entertainment sake. I highly recommend it…I may actually try to purchase a copy I liked it so much.

OK, I've gotten the ball rolling…bring on the Lord~!

2007 The year of the Liscum Lab!

We've now entered a new year and it's time for resolutions...I am making a New Year's resolution for the Lab as a whole:

We collectively will put the lab back on the map, on campus and off!

We are in a rebuilding phase in the lab, both relative to relationships and expanding the group (e.g., getting new personnel). We've have several manuscripts that need to get out the door (mostly my fault on this count) and others that should be in the works this year. Let's make this a banner high profile pub year. We can achieve our goals (resolution) if we all put our energies forward. This starts with me and works it way downward, but if I drop the ball you all have to hold me to the fire as well.

I have great faith in our group.