Tanabata

On July 7, tanabata day, everyone in Japan wish upon two stars: Vega and Altair.
Ken wrote his wish on a "tanzaku" paper. It says, "I want to be strong like a robot!"

Anything your heart desires will come to you.

Kanbara-matsuri

Ken had a bad cough and was diagnosed as childhood asthma. He went to the hospital again on Thursday, but it was its nonconsultation day. So we went to Kanbara-matsuri, a festival held near the Niigata station.

There was over 500 "yatai" stalls along the street. Ken enjoyed playing "wanage", water-balloon fishing, and having "okonomi-yaki" and poppo-yaki.
He was very tired and had fallen into asleep as soon as he got home.

Digging stump

We did it!

I cut any of thick, radiating roots, divided the trunk lengthwise, and then cut the root extended downward. It was a very heavy job. Maybe I should have used potassium nitrate, a compound known as stump remover.

Kameda Park

I took Ken another park, Kameda Park, on Sunday.
The park has a large playing ground, big play forts, cooking place for BBQ, and a stream for playing in the water. We are fully satisfied and loved the park so much.

A fort with sliders.


Another play fort. It has spiral chutes and a rope slide.


Stream in the park. It flows into the pond near the entrance.

Yamano-shita Park

On Saturday, I and ken went to the Yamano-shita Park near the West-Niigata port.
There is a huge play system, which has over 70 of equipments, in the park. Ken was very pleased and played on all equipments, in particular long slides and rope bridges.




Spiral and roller chutes.



(Left) Ken ate "poppo-yaki", a kind of sweet bread. He did not like it very much.
(Right) He played on the pirate ship. He fell the net and knocked his back on the floor.

New refrigerator

Mari got new refrigerator in this June. In the previous June, she bought an automatic washer-dryer. It seems that June is the month of shopping for Mari.

That is the most recent model of eco-friendly fridge from SHARP. Though the price will drop down in autumn, she could not wait until then. I set the old one in my laboratory.

The new fridge is too big and heavier than me. Will I be able to carry it to next place?

Best dads

FATHER'S DAY PICTURES: "Best" Animal Dads

The "best" fathers in animals are: seahorse, giant water bug, marmoset, South America's greater rhea, barking frog, cockroach, emperor penguin, and me.

The word "cockroach" implies deadbeat dads, but some kinds of cockroach fathers nurse their young. Male seahorses carry babies in their specialized pouch during their "pregnancy". Male marmosets in South America act as "midwives" during birth, and carry, feed, and groom their twin babies. Emperor penguin fathers endure below-freezing temperatures and forgo food to incubate their eggs for several months. Finally, I dedicate myself to care for Mari and Ken and feed them for some decade (probably).


Ken drew a picture of my face on father's day at his daycare. He points the picture and says me everyday, "dad, you are so small!" What's that all about?

Laughter

"Human Laughter Echoes Chimp Chuckles"
Does only human animal laugh? Though Aristotle observed so, researchers at the University of Hannover in Germany concluded that laughter has been evolving in primates over the last 10 to 16 million years, since at least the last common ancestor of humans and modern great apes.

Current Biology,

published online on June 4, 2009.

"Reconstructing the Evolution of Laughter in Great Apes and Humans"
The researchers analyzed the acoustics of tickle-induced vocalizations from infant and juvenile orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos, as well as tickle-induced laughter produced by human infants. The phylogenetic trees reconstructed from the acoustic data matched the well-established trees based on comparative genetics. The authors concluded that tickling-induced laughter is homologous in great apes and humans, and support the more general postulation of phylogenetic continuity from nonhuman displays to human emotional expressions.

The Wired Vision article says that the laughter continuously tells an animal's playmates that he is happy and merely fooling around, with no intention of picking a fight. This type of play builds social bonds in many mammals, including other primates and mammals like dogs and rats, which are also thought to emit sounds while being tickled.
(See "Laughter in animals" in Wikipedia.)

I will try to tickle animals for taming.


An adorable slow loris who loves getting tickled.

Glowing animals

Attractive photos of animals expressing green fluorescent proteins (GFP).

A report in the April issue of journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.
"Amphioxus encodes the largest known family of green fluorescent proteins, which have diversified into distinct functional classes."
Amphioxus (lancelets, Branchiostoma floridae) is a primitive chordate that provides indications about the origins of the vertebrates. It is known that Amphioxus has GFP gene and shows intense fluorescence mainly in the head region.
In the report, researchers at the University of California San Diego discovered that the amphioxus genome encodes 16 closely-related GFP-like proteins. Some GFPs with low fluorescence capacity have different characteristics, such as light production and antioxidant capacity to protect the animal in times of illness or stress.

My head glows in time of stress. Sometimes I fire a missile from my head.

FOXP2

Why Can We Talk? 'Humanized' Mice Speak Volumes About Evolutionary Past

An article in the May 29th issue of the journal Cell reported that mice carrying a "humanized" gene showed changes in brain circuits where linked to speech and language in humans.
"A humanized version of Foxp2 affects cortico-basal ganglia circuits in mice"

This gene, FOXP2, is a transcription factor that is expressed in the brain as well as in a wide variety of other tissues.
It has been hypothesized that two amino acid substitutions (T303N, N325S) of the gene product became fixed after the human lineage split from chimpanzees, and the differences underwent selection due to effects on some aspects of speech and language.
In addition, individuals having an allele with missense mutations on FOXP2 gene suffer from a developmental impairment especially affecting speech and language.

In the study, the researchers introduced these substitutions into the Foxp2 gene in mice.
Mice having the humanized FOXP2 are generally healthy, but showed qualitatively different ultrasonic vocalizations, decreased exploratory behavior and decreased dopamine concentrations in the brain.

Furthermore, these mice had altered cortico-basal ganglia circuits and increased synaptic plasticity and dendrite length in the striatum, which have been linked to human speech.
Interestingly, mice carrying one nonfunctional Foxp2 allele showed opposite effects to the humanized FOXP2 knock-in mice.

The authors concluded that the effects on cortico-basal ganglia circuits seen in the humanized Foxp2 mice model aspects of speech and language evolution in humans.
"It will now be important to further explore the mechanistic basis of these effects and their possible relationship to phenotypic differences between humans and apes", they say.

This is an amazing report about evolution of speech and language capacity in humans. In addition, I was surprised at the number of the authors: 54 researchers.

Conan

On Sunday, we watched an animated film "Case Closed" (Meitantei Conan) in a theater.
It amused Mari, but was too difficult to Ken. I confused it with "Future Boy Conan" by Hayao Miyazaki.
Ken rather enjoyed watching usavich on my MacBook.

At the night, I gave Mari a haircut. I did fine, but she was upset. She calmed down the next day, because her coworkers flattered her on her haircut.

Stamp and stump

On Saturday. Mari and I went to Ken's daycare and watched his activity in there. We went to nearby square with Ken and daycare staff and did a "stamp rally". Ken got stamps from the staff through doing predetermined acts.
A staff called me "Ken's Grandpa". Maybe she needs to renew her glasses.



After that, I went to my lab and tried to dig up the stump again. I did it with a chainsaw, but failed cut off a thick root extended downward.

Surrender? No.

Telecoil

My hearing aids support a telecoil (t-coil) input system. Telecoil is a simple induction coil that can create electrical current from magnetic field. The telecoil pick up electromagnetic signals emanated from an induction device and output them as sounds. So you can hear sound via telecoil instead of ordinary microphones.

I had thought that the telecoil was only compatible with some "hearing aid compatible" telephones. But there are a variety of induction devices that can put out magnetic signals to the telecoil.

I got two types of induction devices, a neckloop (left) and behind-the-ear wires (right). These devices can be plugged into an earphone jack of listening systems, including iPod. That is so great to me.

Niigata ramen expo

I went to "Niigata ramen expo", which was held at the Toki-Messe building on the last weekend of May, with my family.
It took 750 yen for a bowl of ramen, and 710 yen for another one. We shared five ramens obtained from distinct shops together.

Toki-Messe building (left) and the exhibition of the ramen expo (right).


(Left) People tasted various ramens. (Right) The best ramen among those we tested.


Ken opened a ramen shop in a booth.

Gardening

(Left) On Saturday, I and Ken tried to dig up and haul out a stump in the way. But the roots were too thick to cut off, so we gave up to do at the time.
I will try it again next weekend.

(Middle) Mari started to grow a variety of vegetables in planters. But she found an aphid infestation last weekend and bothered with it.

(Right) Sprouted peas.
An undergrad in the Dr. S lab is growing them for her thesis.

Tickling

I got a cactus, namely Cereus peruvianus, which I referred in a previous ently. "Fight against electromagnetic wave", says the description. It is said that the cactus eats electromagnetic wave from electronics. I put it in front of the monitor on my desk.
The producer termed cactuses "tickling", which sounds like both "pinprick" and "funny" in Japanese. It says that cactuses exert "tickling power" and are versatile as a panacea.

In addition, I set a Weeping Fig tree, a popular house plant, near my desk.
Because the tree is a tropical plant sensitive to cold, I worry about whether it can survive winter in Niigata.

Get a friend

Another version of the proverb.

If you want to be happy for a day, get a date.
If you want to be happy for a week, get a lover.
If you want to be happy for a month, get married.
If you want to be happy forever, get a friend.

Last Thursday, I saw a bike parking near the window of my lab. The rider told me that he is traveling around Japan to get friends. He appeared to be happy.

Fishing

I went fishing last Saturday with Dr. S.
That was my first fishing in a decade.

An old Chinese proverb says: "If you want to be happy for an hour, get drunk. If you want to be happy for three days, get married. If you want to be happy for a week, kill your pig and eat it. If you want to be happy forever, learn to fish."
I got no fish, but I will go fishing again. I would like to be happy forever.

Clams

HT, a friend of mine, sent me a lot of clams. He said, "the clam ia a suitable substitute for your brain. The operation will be successful. Good luck!"
Thank you. It would be enough for my brain.

Lost generation

Japan's National Police Agency released the report on suicide in 2008 in Japan. The figure of suicide in Japan has exceeded 30,000 for the 11th consecutive year. In particular, suicides in their 30's has been gradually increasing.

The data in the "Society at a Glance 2009", a recent report published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), shows that Japan is the nation having the third highest suicide ratio in 2005 among 29 OECD nations. Some reports from other databases refer that the ratio is the highest in Japan among OECD nations in 2008, and is closely correlated with the number of unemployed.

Like "Generation Y", Japanese in the 30's (called "Dankai Jr.") are the offspring of baby boom generation.
The people in the generation, including me, spent their school days in 80th in an excessive competition, graduated into the post-bubble period in 90th, and are now suffering from layoff under the worldwide financial crisis. Sometimes media call us "lost generation", but we should not lose our lives.

Intaglio

Mac OSX uses PDF (Quartz) as standard vector graphics instead of legacy PICT (Quickdraw). Unfortunately, most of applications (including Keynote and MS PowerPoint) do not support any function to edit PDF directly. I used to save each file as PDF and edit it on Adobe Illustrator.
It is not a smart way, and so I tried Intaglio, a drawing application on Mac OSX.
http://www.purgatorydesign.com/Intaglio
The application requires only 15 MB of disk space but supports both Quartz and QuickDraw. It retains traditional drawing features of MacDraw and can convert old Claris/MacDraw drawings to Quartz graphics.




The exporting procedure of Intaglio is quite smart. Click and hold down the mouse button for a second: the cursor will change to a copy cursor and it allows you to drag graphics into other applications.


However, the exported objects are recognized as image on Keynote and PowerPoint. I send e-mail to Purgatory Design, the software company, inquiring about the limitation.

>> I guess Intaglio should have a saving option to export it as Keynote or Powerpoint file.

Answer: One option you can investigate now is to add the LinkBack plug-in to Keynote and enable LinkBack export in Intaglio's clipboard preferences. In this mode, Intaglio includes editable information with the PDF it exports to Keynote. If you want to edit the PDF later Intaglio will use that editable data instead of the PDF itself. For more information see:
http://www.linkbackproject.org

LinkBack is an open source framework for Mac OS X exporting graphics to other applications with a link that enables the graphics to edit via the original one. It is in a similar way to Microsoft OLE or Apple's "publish and subscribe", and of course, these objects are unable to edit without the original applications.

OpenOffice and EasyDraw can export their drawings to PowerPoint or Keynote files. I wish Intaglio will have the function in the near future.

Chocolates

I got Wonka's candy bar.
It looks something different from that in the movie, but is pretty good.

Last week, I and Ken watched the DVD "Charlie and the Chocolate factory". That kept us amused throughout the movie. How come Wonka failed to make chocolate that would never melt? The chocolate palace build by him had melted down under a boiling sun, unlike his ice cream.

On the other hand, I love dark chocolates. I used to have extra-dark chocolates, but now I eat pure cacao mass all day long. I am very glad to hear that my chocolate addiction is making me smarter and saving the environment.

No melt ice cream

--You can even leave it lying in the sun on a hot day, and it won't go runny.
--But that's impossible.
--But Willy Wonka did it.


A shop in Japan invented a new way of making an ice cream that won't go runny for hours without a freezer.
http://kanazawa.keizai.biz/headline/photo/538
Of course that is eatable.

Know why? It has a secret recipe.

Durian

Ken hates durian.
"Durian smells than daddy", he said.

Ken, you are right, but maybe you use wrong comparative expression.

Cried red monster

"Cried red monster"

A red monster lived in a University. He hoped to be closer with students and put a bill on the door of his laboratory:
"Welcome to my lab. A gentle monster is here. I'll treat you with delicious tea and a lot of candies."
But no one visited his lab.


In the original story by Hirosuke Hamada, the red monster (Oni) in the village became friends with people after a self-sacrificing effort by blue monster.

To date, no student belongs to my lab. "I really did not want to be here, but I knew I had to come", the President Obama joked at the annual White House Correspondents Dinner. Will undergrads say something like that in my lab? No, I believe they won't.

"President Jokes @ White House Correspondents Dinner"

Fishes

On May 2, Saturday, I saw Ken for the first time in the week. We went to Mooka city in Tochigi with Mari, her mother, and her sister to experience Dr. fish spa. That tickles, but was comfortable. Since the fish (reddish log sucker) feeds dead skin, Ken attracted few of them, but my feet chummed.



The next day, we went to Nakagawa Aquarium Park with my parents. Ken's grandpa had pleasure in teaching him about fishes. His grandma gave him a jigsaw puzzle. Ken played with it again and again.

Cake

During I was in the hospital, Mari stayed home in Niigata city, and Ken was at Mari's parents' house. She came in my hospital room on a holiday and brought me a rolled cake from a well-known shop. It was very delicious, and we hoped to get it again on my discharge day.


But we saw a long line of waiting people, which extended to the street.
We gave up the item and bought macaroons at other shop. That is one of my favorite sweets now.