退化性关节炎

回家期间，婆婆常说脚痛，情况似乎比以前严重、频密。自己一直很觉得抱歉，出来读书前她还是一直痛，没好转，自己又帮不了什么。
最近在看到了一部真实故事的影片，讲述几个老人当《梦骑士》，里面说到他们每个都有退化性关节炎。
“退化性关节炎”，应该婆婆脚痛的原因吧。

先说关节的构造。关节是两根骨头的连接处。连接着两根骨头的叫韧带。骨头末端是软骨。两根骨头中间的空间有滑液，作用为缓冲骨头与骨头的摩擦。
退化性关节炎/degenerative joint/osteoarthritis 主要的起因是韧带（ligament)受伤，变弱了，导致韧带所连接的两根骨头不平均的滑动，让骨头的一端承受比较多的压力。不平均的压力让关节的所有韧带变得不稳定，渐渐的软骨也被磨损，由于骨头处不多血管，磨损了的软骨很难重生。再下去，软骨磨耗完了，就是硬骨磨硬骨了。被磨耗时，骨头的表面变得不平，骨刺就长出来。
试问，怎么不痛？

有构思关于《退化性关节炎。孝道》的教育性质的短片。那是一个梦醒的午后。
其中一幕：
老人躺在昏暗的房间里，深皱着眉头轻轻地唉着，搓揉着脚。
在一墙之隔的客厅，媳妇忙着招呼着一群太太，分享护肤品，好不热闹。媳妇说，“XX的护肤露真不错，用了变年轻了，最重要的，呵呵，还是要有一颗年轻善良的心啊，呵呵呵”。

傍晚男人回来，看到妈妈痛着，帮妈妈按摩，嘘寒问暖。
出到客厅，女人对男人说 “你看你妈，天天只会唉这里痛那里痛，跟你撒娇呐！”

过了很多年以后。。。
女人躺在同一间昏暗的房间里，搓揉着脚，眼巴巴地看着房门外。
房门外，小孩拿着玩具飞机跑过，少年转着篮球走过，媳妇经过喊着两个孩子吃饭了，没有一个人望向房内一眼。
女人突然想起多年前的一幕。突然明白婆婆那不是撒娇，不是特地引儿子注意，而是，她真的痛着。

退化性关节炎是很多老人都有的疾病。体重过重、老化、太激烈的运动、搬重物、骨折、韧带受伤的都要小心咯。有一天自己变老的时候，就明白那痛到底是怎么一回事的痛，多疼惜家里的老人啊。

Bible and Biology

My lecturer sent me a link of a video titled "Special DNA Mysteries --- The Search For Adam " by National Geograhic. It's about tracing the DNA of the super ancestor of all mankind.

It's interesting as it links Bible and Biology, specifically Genetics, together.

Watch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GegZmWO1Cr8&feature=related

Nevertheless, there are things that i agree and disagree.

It's a great thing that the scientific methods are so advanced to be used to trace and prove that all humankind are from the same super ancestor.

What does this means to us?

It matches what bible said, all of us come from the same ancestor.

And the word "Adam" in Hebrew means "all people". I just knew that the name does make sense.

And Adam is an African. (Wow, i never know that!)

The video also mentioned about King Solomon. People of a country named Ethiopia claimed that they are the descendants of King Solomon. Here i also found an interesting discovery. What we know from bible is that there was a Queen from Ethiopia named Queen of Sheba or Makeda who visited King Solomon for his famed wisdom. From wikipedia there are detailed story about how King Solomon tricked Queen of Sheba into sleeping with him, resulting in a child, Ebn Melek (later Emperor Menelik I).....

For further details please visit

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/衣索比亞歷史

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Ethiopia

The thing that i disagree is that when finally the genetic result showed in common ancestry of all humankind, the video producer (and scientists) hypothesized it as among the ancient people, only Adam can pass on his gene through his offspring while the other people cannot pass on because they did not have offspring, rather then accepting the fact that at the beginning, God only created a pair of human, who were Adam and Eve.

Isn't it much more logic that all the people on the Earth now have the same ancestors (Adam and EVe) because the ancestors are the only people that been created by the God, rather than saying that Adam and his wife was the only couple among the other ancient people who succeed to pass on their gene through their offspring?

And another thing is that those scientists still hold to the Darwinism hypothesis (note, it's only a hypothesis, not a theory!) . They still believed that human evolved from monkeys! See how they explain ---" in the evolution from monkey to human, Adam is the first human to have thinking".

This means that they accept Adam as the common ancestor, but they believed that Adam evolved from monkey, and there were many monkey-evolved humans like Adam who failed to pass down their genes because they had no offspring.

Nevertheless, the discovery of the common ancestry is still a good effort and stepping stone in scientific world.

As the science and technology becoming more and more advanced, we will find more and more that the God and the Bible is really real.

In Physics world also, when Stephen Hopkins discovered new formula and facts about the Black Hole, he admitted the presence of God.

* "Adam" = "all people" in Hebrew give more sense to

Romans 5:12 "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—".

Today, i know Bible better through science.

Things to study

My application for post-graduate study have been approved. And my colleagues also found the nodavirus in Malaysia riverprawn, this means we can start our respective research anytime as we own the virus sample!
I have not ready yet... these few days i kept reading and studying these things---

DNA sequencing (pyrosequencing, chain termination method, chemical sequencing, primer walking, shotgun sequencing)
Mass spectrometry
Electrophoresis (gel electrophoresis, capillary electrophoresis, SDS-PAGE, 2D gel electrophoresis, affinity electrophoresis, temperature gradient electrophoresis),
Blotting (Southern, easthen, western, northern, dot blot, electroblotting)
HPLC, PCR, RFLP......

It's a new field to me. During undergraduateship, i did learn some of the concepts in a course called genetics. That's all. Now not only i need to know the concept thereotically, but also the practical steps on how to run it up correctly as well as the principle and rationality beyond these concepts.
Like we had learned the traffic law, but now we need to know how to drive and next, what makes a car run chemically and mechanically.

It really takes me a long time and enormous concentration to read. I need to fight with sleepiness everyday. May God give me wisdom and concentration to deal with the new challenge.

Gel Electrophoresis

There is a technique which you can always heard in the movies.
The scene always appear like this---
Man: (Anxious) How is the result?
Doctor: Calm down man. A good news for you, the child is yours!
And then the man sat back with an easy posture, thanked the doctor and left with a satisfatory smile.
If the result is reversed, the story will be totally different. It is the beginning of a sad story.

OR like this

CSI-type of background: Someone died. Blood and messy stuffs here and there. Cobs and forensic investigators came and take the evidences.
Scene turns to a laboratory. The shot moves towards a scientist, zooms in the light box in front of him. Zoom zoom zoom again. You will see this ---

These are the DNA bands on the gel.

If you want to play with it, visit here. If you feel lazy, just skip the following mind-burdening stuff.

If you want to continue, here you go~~

It is called gel electrophoresis, a technique not only used to identify the length of DNAs, but also RNAs and proteins.

Use DNA as an example. Since everyone has different structure of DNAs, so when these DNAs are cut with biological scissors (enzymes), they will break into different length. The basis of gel electrophoresis is to identify the different length of these DNAs of different individuals.

It is a DNA running race held on jelly stadium. The racegun rang when electricity swithes on, positive and negative charges are then generated. Negatively charged DNAs tried hardly to run to the positive ending point. Some tall and fat DNA always move slower than the shorter and slimmer ones. That's why you can observe the different bands of DNA running on the different positions on the blue gel as shown in the picture above.

The 'qq' feel of the gel makes me think of the jelly. Yummy yummy!

But don't eat that chemical jelly.

Alternative protein source

Beef, chicken and pork are too expensive? Get bored of eating meats?
Maybe you should try insect based food, in future.
Entomophagy, the practice of eating insects as food had occurred from time immemorial in Africa, America, Asia as well as Australia. In China there are a variety of preparation of these edible insects, by frying, braising, stewing, stewing after frying, boiling and roasting. The forms of insects eaten are from eggs to adult, but mostly are larvae or pupa. There are also records of medicinal uses of insect from the ancient China, which are practiced to date. As what i know the examples are centipede (蜈蚣) and scorpion.
Edible insects are of current research interest.
How do you feel if insects will be introduced to your meal? I think it is acceptable, especially crispy fried insect should be not too bad, as long as they are not living crawling ones or the disgusting cockroaches !

(Source : Entomological research, Volume 39, Issue 5, 2009)

Teacher

By the way, i would like to be an educator scientist rather than just a scientist that sits in the lab and does experiments all day long. I like to speak in front of audience as a teacher, but the contents are always limited to informative facts, like science. There's no any prejudice, but just because i am very very poor in telling and elaborating story, thus i won't be a good language teacher.

TEACHING is FUN too !!

JIALI'S Discovery Channel---Opening Speech

This is a channel different from JIALI'S World.
Here are the issues and views about academic and scientific world.
As an scientist-to-be, i have to train myself to do more readings on scientific papers. Most of the time, i know, it's really bored, but sometimes these scientific discovery and intervention would be very inspiring! So i would like to share with u my learning diary here, hope u will enjoy it.
English is purposely chosen, also to train my English literacy, i hope it won't bored you.

LEARNING is FUN !!