waltz

Retrovirus XMRV in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

2009-10-10T01:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, I haven't blogged in almost two years nor replied to almost any e-mails. Yes, I am still alive. Here are links to some big news in research on chronic fatigue syndrome. This could be about as big as the discovery of HIV, in fact, as one of now three known infectious human retroviruses. However, maybe I'd like to hope to be in the small percentage of patients without this virus since

Revolutionary

2007-12-11T00:36:00.000-08:00

For some reason, one thing from my SFGate millenium horoscope stuck out to me when I read it in the past, and I wondered what sort of thing I could possibly make up in my mind to fit it.Pluto's entrance into your sign in 2008 will be a trip in more ways than one. Remember this is the planet of transformation. About this same time, Jupiter - Mr. Big himself - enters your sign. It's like

Hijab and Henna Hands

2007-11-07T21:57:00.000-08:00

I was miffed that I couldn't find a photograph from a Web page that I had come across a while ago, using many variants of words I remembered from the page in Google search. I left a tab with a search open in my browser, and after a few weeks looked at the tab again today. I'm not sure if the page reloaded the search or something, but it seems like a new first result appeared since when I left

Whoa

2007-11-05T02:41:00.000-08:00

Single-handedly finding a cure for cancer, spurring a hydrogen economy, and desalinating water all from the same technology?Patient's vision: Treating cancer without chemoEven though the article is written in sort of a fable-like way and the results are very preliminary, I haven't had such a whoa moment since the first days of Google-searching, and that was pretty wowing.

Big Pus Ball Theory of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

2007-11-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

I'm figuring out that the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia are caused by the body being turned into something like a huge pus ball. Okay, maybe not pus but lymph or something, but that just sounded amusing. Or painful. Because yeah, that's where the fibromyalgia pain seems to be coming from- massive ballooning of fluid all over the body, backing up every part of the

"Computational Thinker" Thinks About Medicine

2007-11-02T23:51:00.000-07:00

Some of the herpes viruses that are being studied at Stanford as suspects in chronic fatigue syndrome are described as remaining dormant in the body after a person recovers from infection, in specific parts of nerve cells or bone marrow, though sometimes reactivating. (The better-known members of the herpes family include the viruses that cause chicken pox and mono, in addition to the ones

Tea and Tulips

2007-11-01T18:19:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I saw this article on $13,000 Puer Tea and certain tea prices multiplying seven times over three years in China. (Apparently, you can see the full article without subscribing if you click the same link from Google News.) Then I came across this stock chart, NASDAQ:JRJC. I've never seen such a nice reverse L-shaped stock price graph. I also read that there's a shortage of domestic

Okay, so now I can predict earthquakes, maybe.

2007-10-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

I freak myself out. Three days ago, I was lying in bed and then felt something that made me think earthquake. To the point that I actually thought about how the cat outside was lazing about in the middle of the driveway earlier that afternoon and didn't seem to be sensing any earthquakes, since some people say their pets can sense earthquakes coming. So I thought funny me and forgot about it,

Ice Cap Melting, Plastic Patch Growing

2007-10-30T13:49:00.000-07:00

A Swiftly Melting PlanetYou know those articles that you vaguely recall reading since the third grade about global warming with graphs of predicted temperature, carbon dioxide levels, sea levels rising, and arctic ice melting... usually with three models- the less bad and seemingly likely scenario, a worse scenario, and the extremely bad hypothetical worst case scenario that nobody thinks will

Sleep Deprivation and Psychiatric Disorders

2007-10-29T20:23:00.002-07:00

This is an interesting article about a study that shows that sleep deprivation causes increased activity in parts of the brain linked to various psychiatric disorders:Lack of sleep linked to emotional imbalance, imaging study suggestsIt brought to mind when I read about author Iris Chang's suicide a few years ago and how it struck me that the stories suggested to me that sleep deprivation, three

Sunny Bookmarks

2007-10-19T17:29:00.000-07:00

I need something like a cross between bookmarks, a blog, and Google Reader shared items.Green power: How California's PG&E is transforming itself into the very model of a modern utility companyThis article was sort of surreal in that it's describing things like PG&E planning to produce electricity from ocean waves among other things, which five years ago seemed to be about fifty years

Great Presidents, Little Women, Little Houses, and Christianity

2007-10-05T02:01:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting post, Our Forefathers and Our Spiritual Roots, that I came across on a blog that I bookmarked for its beautiful pictures of Appalachia as well as ugly pictures of and a call to action against mountaintop removal. (We really need to build those solar thermal power plants that can supply 99% of our electricity needs soon.)The interesting part was the proclamation by one of

Anything With A Cello

2007-09-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

I was Google-stalking some people I knew in high school out of curiosity, and it led to finding a new musical artist. I generally like anything with a cello in it. This is on the funky side, but I usually find music more interesting when I have known the artist to some degree in the past.This guy used to play cello in my youth orchestra, and his mother was the piano accompanist for my violin

Apparently I Chew Tobacco

2007-09-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

And sometimes I'm left-handed, and sometimes I'm right-handed. And sometimes my right leg is my left leg.These are just a few of the discoveries you might learn about yourself if you get the opportunity to read your medical records and letters that doctors have carefully and thoroughly written.Yes, doctors are busy people and they must see dozens of patients in a day. But sometimes these can

Solar Power Plants, Coming Soon

2007-09-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

I really wasn't exaggerating when I said in a previous post that the market for alternative energy is the entire energy market currently dominated by oil and coal, and that this would come about (much) faster than people think.The Silicon Valley is still aptly named as it becomes a center for solar technology. Except that we are developing other solar technologies in addition to photovoltaic

Synthetic Food

2007-09-11T02:31:00.000-07:00

Like I said, our "food" is scary.Doctors Link a Man's Illness to a Microwave Popcorn Habit"A fondness for microwave buttered popcorn may have led a Colorado man to develop a serious lung condition that until now has been found only in people working in popcorn plants."

Putting a Stanford Chemical Engineering Degree to Good Use

2007-09-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

In 2002, I still thought organic milk and organic vegetables sounded weird. Were they like... dirty? Now I think food is kind of scary, because what we call "food" should be called "chemical, hormone, antibiotic, pesticide food" and what we call "organic food" should be called "food."My mom points out for the less observant, do you notice you can often taste chlorine in your vegetables?

The Solar Bubble and Non-Bubble

2007-09-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

It is 2007, ten years after the Internet boom started becoming obvious, so it's time for another bubble.It has been over two weeks without a blog post. I have been exploring how to invest my money. Investing in things that can be done completely on the Web with a few clicks provides the best financial return on energy with chronic fatigue syndrome. After selling the condo, I walked into the

When Does Circular Reasoning Work?

2007-08-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

When you are on the circle?My Catholic roommate senior year in college was a little amused when I accepted an invitation from the Asian Christians who lived on our hall to attend an InterVarsity (IV) large group meeting. Our hallmates included a drawgroup of eight Asian Christian guys who made our hall very lively. There was a lot of running up and down the hall, mechanical engineering

Blogging Exploration

2007-08-22T02:36:00.000-07:00

For the last week or so, I think I've actually been up for the majority of the time between when I get up in the afternoon and when I go to bed. This is a pretty good improvement over spending almost the entire last year in bed. Being up mostly consists of sitting at the computer surfing the Web, but I think I can revive the going outside and walking around the yard for a few minutes every few

Human-Plant-Fuel Hybrids

2007-08-13T01:37:00.000-07:00

What would happen if computer technology became so sophisticated with artificial intelligence that software programs could do the work of human software engineers and create new programs? Or robots could create new robots? At one time I pondered what if reproducing robots took over the world...? I figured, with procreating computer programs, you could just unplug their source of

Bush Apparently Had Lyme Disease

2007-08-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not kidding. Here's an article from Thursday:Bush Apparently Had Lyme Disease, Washington PostI like this quote from this random blog:"While this doesn't explain the first 6 years of bad decision making, it might help with the past year."Also, when I search for Bush Lyme, Google search wants to know if I mean Bush lame instead.Interestingly, the doctors never tested him for it. Is that

Witch Broker

2007-08-11T01:21:00.000-07:00

It's probably good that we closed the sale of my condo right before all the news about credit crunch. With "For Sale By Owner", I think you can get about 5% less than a realtor can get, which makes it even. In any case, the cost of selling is figured in. I wasn't expecting on selling the condo after only two years, but I probably broke even with... renting a very expensive apartment over the

Addendum to the Previous Two Posts

2007-08-09T01:19:00.000-07:00

Apparently the name of the game show where the math puzzle comes from is "Let's Make A Deal", and that even professors and statisticians get it wrong. The "statistics" required to solve the problem is extremely simple, but people have a lot of trouble defining what the problem is and not making faulty assumptions, such as the two choices are independent of each other, or that the two choices are

Nobel Prize in Medicine 2005: Psychosomatic Until Proven Otherwise

2007-08-04T01:50:00.000-07:00

The discovery and proof that bacteria instead of stress causes ulcers, which won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2005, has been cited as an example of how prevailing medical knowledge gets turned on its head. I did not realize how interesting the story is until I read the Nobel lectures and the autobiographies. These Nobel lectures, and maybe this expensive book, Helicobacter Pioneers, should be