St Pauls closed

You're almost certainly aware of the anti-capitalist protests around the world recently, and may be aware St Pauls Cathedral in London had to close for health and safety concerns. Normally I wouldn't care that much, there's even a great deal I disagree with the protesters about.

The reason I'm talking about this is that it's leader, the Reverend Knowles, made an annoying statement. He called the protesters "a lesser cause", and should show respect to their "more ancient institution". That's right, one of the Church of England's highest officials thinks the global economic problem, whether or not the protesters are exactly correct, is less important than their church services. Then justifies his point of view by saying it's older.

Ugh...

End of the world

Remember six months a go when Harold Camping said the world would end? And then it didn't? You might also remember he tried to justify his error by claiming it was a "silent" judgement day, and the actual reckoning would happen on the 21/10/2011. That's today!

I don't know about you, but the weather here is a bit dire. Apart from that the apocalypse seems a little pleasant so far.

I am very happy

And I have not a fucking clue as to why. I just woke up this morning feeling really positive. If i had to guess why it would be just being at Uni and really starting to study now. Right now I'm writing this in the Biomedical library, surrounded by my notes on the histology of the skin. It's unbelievably hard but I think it's making me happy.

I've always felt best when building things or solving puzzles, abstract or otherwise. Stuff like Lego when I was younger or redstone in Minecraft. For the first time I really feel academically challenged every single day, not just occasionally like in school. And I'm slowly edging my way into new social circles, it actually gives me goosebumps how weird and wonderful life is at the minute.

I'm going to force myself to post less stuff about medicine and Uni now, I wanna talk more about interests I've neglected as of late. That wraps up this post; stay tuned for regular programming!

More Uni stuff

I really need to set aside time for blogging, Uni takes up all my time now. I'm writing this in a sandwich bar between lectures, it's so nice to really sit down. Alone. Without people.

I'm just out of my first anatomy class, you know, with cadavers. I was surprisingly uneasy at first, I never thought anything of the corpses beforehand. But when you walk in and see ~20 of them lying on tables it strikes you a bit. Although once the demonstrator really got into the detail it wasn't so bad, in fact it got really interesting. I still prefer the histology though, which is good considering I want to get into oncology.

That'll have to do for now, I'm slowly getting into the swing of things. Hopefully I'll get posting interesting stuff again soon.

So little time

It has been a week and a half since my last post! I just have no time during freshers! But it's over now, time to get into actual work. And I'm really excited.

At the start of the course I was terrified of hating medicine, even after all the work and suffering to get in to the thing. You see, everyone on the course is passionate about medicine as a clinical profession. Except me. My real love is science.

After getting a little stuck in, and seeing my mum as a carer today, I think I may start to like the health profession in its more traditional sense. Until then however, I'll still clutch to my hope of academia.

Course aside, Uni is fucking brilliant. New and old friends, clubs joined, fresh starts. I really want to get stuck in!

And lastly for David, who started today: medishuuuuuuuuunnnnnn

I am finally here!

I've finally got the oppurtunity to sit down and blog! Every night since arriving here in Queens I've been so tiried i just slept, I'm in 9-5 everyday! Most people have no more than 10 hours a week!

But so far it has been fun, I'm very excited. The Med-School is awesome, the people are awesome and the accomodation is... ok. The folk on my floor are wonderfully amiable, but it's shared sanitaries. I was supposed to get en suite...

Today we did a First Aid course, it was fun if not a bit tedious. I've done it all before, it was like revision. The manager of the instructors however was wearing one of those copper bracelets. The ones that "rectify your aura" and "resonates with your natural frequency." And he's a qualified medic. Oh dear.

On the Republican candidates

The candidates for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination are abysmal... All 3 of the front runners are young-Earth creationists and anti-science. The worst two are Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry, the former against vaccinations for cervical cancer, the latter publicly praying for rain to alleviate drought and both avid deniers of human caused climate change.

It's actually so bad that Nobel Prize winning Paul Nurse, president of the Royal Society, wrote an editorial on the issue in this week's New Scientist. This is why politics should have more room for scientific discourse, the public needs to be swayed by actual evidence on issues like climate policy and science education as opposed to rhetoric as is so often the case.

So true about funding

With all the cuts by the conservative government, I've had to defend science funding before. Phil Moriarty, from Sixty Symbols at Nottingham University, puts up a good case way more eloquently than I ever could.

Religion's manipulation of the young

Meet 4 year old Kanon. A preacher.

This makes me sad. It just shows how unfortunate it can be when children are exposed to one faith over another before being old enough to make up their own minds. It's disgusting how they cheer him on...

Richard Dawkin's new book

Richard Dawkins has a new book announced for the 4th of October, and this excited me because he is one of my favourite authors. He has a rare talent of being able to communicate complicated scientific ideas in an easily understandable and interesting way.

It's called "The Magic of Reality", and marks a significant departure from his usual works. Namely it's for kids, and from the sound of it it seems fantastic.

I think stuff like this is so important, most lovers of science were captivated by the wonder of science as children. It was the "Horrible Science" series that caught me. I got the one about bugs when I was 8, and loved science ever since. Hopefully "The Magic of Reality" will captivate a new generation like Horrible Science and Carl Sagan's Cosmos did before it.

New Symphony of Science release

It's about the quantum world this time! Featuring Brian Cox, Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking, Richard Feynmann and, oddly, Morgan Freeman. Frank Close appears briefly too, exciting for me because I've read some of his stuff. It's good.

I got into medicine!!!

I am so happy! 2 years of work finally paid off!

I got the call from Queen's University last night, and the wonderful lady gave me an offer!

I am so freaking excited, my halls are all sorted and I move up on the 18th!

All I still have to do is navigate the hell of UCAS Clearing...

Anyway, stuff to do! I'll blog more at Uni, but for now my life can be summarised thus: excitement and confusion!

Skyrim will have gay marriage

Anyone who knows me will know that I freaking loved the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and am so excited for the sequel, Skyrim, to be released in November. Apparently the game let's you have relationships with NPCs, even marry them (developers are keen to note it's not like Fable)! You can even marry the same sex, putting the province of Skyrim ahead of most US states in terms of equality.

No doubt about it, I'm getting me an elf. Sexy buggers. Hopefully something like Zevran from Dragonage. ;)

Diamond planet discovered

I just saw this and thought it was awesome, something I've only ever seen in science fiction. Astronomers have found a planet essentially made of diamond.

Oddly, it orbits around it's star really closely despite being really heavy. Closer than earth, but heavier than Jupiter.

Because of its immense density it's probably crystalline and contains heavier common elements. Like carbon. What's crystalline carbon?

That's right. diamond. A whole planet, 5 times the size of the earth, largely made of diamond.

University plans

I'm pretty sure of my position for university now. I've firmed by genetics offer at QUB, so I'll probably be doing that course. I do know however that I'm on the medicine reserve list, of about 30 people. From my results I'm estimating I'm around 20-25, luckily my A* in chemistry gives me an edge. According to the admissions office last year the last offer went to someone with A*AAA (like me!) the second day of term.

You never know, I might still get in. But I'm happy enough with genetics and just want to get started now. Dammit, hurry up and end, summer!

Exam system

Well, I got my grades, A*AAA. These may or may not get me into medicine at QUB, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about how awful the exam system is, in particular the grades.

If you look at university courses they are sometimes gruesomely over subscribed. From my own experience applying for medicine, almost every course I considered had 10x applicants to places. As such I didn't get in.

It is unreasonable and unfair to think we could reduce the number of applicants, however we can say we could reduce the waiting time. People spend months on end waiting for a decision, time better spent getting the grades. So instead I propose a new system.

Instead of dispensing letters as grades, give out a numbered rank, 5-6 significant figures. These are based on your total scaled uniform marks. So, someone with ABB might get 75.66. From this he could see was in the 75th best division of candidates, and ranked 66 within them. Whereas someone with A*A*AA might get 8.34. A numerical grade system along those lines.

Why do this? It provides massive differentiation between candidates. With this, applications can start on results day, and you could apply to as many courses as you liked. At the end of each day of this until the beginning of term, courses could take the candidates based on their grades. Now, instead of there being 6 classes of grades, there are several thousand. Day by day the courses fill up by candidates based purely on academic merit, no need for the bullshit subjectivity of interviews and personal statements.

Anyway, just an idea!

De Grasse on telescope

PZ Myers linked this today, it is so true.

The telescope is so important but for largely for reasons people don't realise. This scares me, science won't get the funding for the projects like the LHC or Hubble in the future unless the public understands, even if vague and unfounded, what questions these things answer and why.

It would be great if there were scientists and engineers in the American Congress, instead of just lawyers and businessmen...

The Selfish Gene, the musical!

I didn't believe this at first, but someone has actually turned Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene into a musical. Don't believe me?

The book itself is about the idea of selection of genes and not necessarily individuals or species, as well as the evolution of altruism through "selfish" genes. In the musical, an Oxford professor teaches this to the audience by using the Adamson Family's daily struggles as an example.

I am soooooo happy about this, science needs more representation in the arts. Brian Cox does a good lecture on the subject. It is a fantastic book, and hopefully stuff like this can fight the general ignorance towards evolution.

Dammit, malnourished ancestors!

Usually I love evolution, but not today. In keeping with project Defatbastardisation I'm trying to reduce calorie intake. Which is hard! I've never wanted to stuff my face so much before!

All thanks to my stupid ancestors, not eating whatever they wanted. They had to inconvenience me by eating only what was available. Of course this meant we developed an intrinsic loving of energy rich fatty and sweet foods. And I can't eat them, despite the craving!

Well, back to resenting Darwin and these chocolate digestives...

Project Defatbastardisation

I'll use this blog to chart my weekly progress through my diet-thing. In theory, if I consume less calories than I use excess weight should be lost. Recording it here on a weekly basis with calories consumed/bodily mass and correlations should provide motivation.

After writing this I realise how concerning it is that I have to use science to do anything... oh dear.