Fetal Cow Fiasco

Never have I been so relieved to be wrong about something. Turns out I misread the letter dalet for the letter resh and the word I thought meant "fetus" actually means "processed." We did not eat "roast calf from fetus" but rather "roast calf processed." Guess I had better stick with those Hebrew lessons.

All the same, the roast was so under par, the fact that we even considered it was fetus goes to show just how bad beef is here. What I wouldn't do for a Triple A Alberta T-bone, medium, on the BBQ.

Yom Kippur at Dawn

Upon a labmate's suggestion, I got up at 5:30 am and headed through the streets to the old city. The streets were dead calm and I only saw few men and boys also walking to make the pilgrimage.
The old city was very quiet, with all but the most intrepid retailers closed. Once past security to the Western wall, the scene was very different. Even at the early hour there were a couple hundred people present, dressed in white and praying. The men were singing their entreaties and the women either rocking silently or softly speaking the words in their separated section.

I sat down for while and listened quietly.



The whole serenity of the morning was broken on the walk home though, when I was hit on by a well dressed Muslim man. I was completely disgusted considering I was dressed appropriately to go to the western wall, i.e. like an observant Jew. It was the most holy day of the year, a day of atonement, and this guy is trying to get tail from foreign married women at 6:30 am.

Yom Kippur

It is evening of Yom Kippur and all is quiet. There are no sounds, no cars whooshing past, no tinkling piano across the way, no chatting pedestrians. Everything is quiet save for the odd bark of the dog, the whirr of the refrigerator and the occasional turning pages of Doris Lessing coming from the chair across the room.
Everything is dark. Traffic lights turned to only yellow caution and we have one of the few lighted windows.

The closest thing I can describe is the quiet of winter camping if any of you have been lucky enough to have gone with my dad or on your own.

As we walked home near dusk today, people were walking down the middle of the streets since there were no cars. Many were dressed all in white, to reflect the most holy of Jewish holidays.

Observant Jews, including the only semi- religious, have started their fast and will spend the day in reflection and atonement for promises not kept and wrongs committed. It is the most holy day of the year, and we were warned that even holding food in public will be frowned upon.

One of the most beautiful and famous Jewish tunes is the Kol Nidre which is sung on the eve of Yom Kippur- which I am not sure if that was earlier in the afternoon or yesterday evening. The song is so old the words are in Aramaic.

Worst Meal Ever

It is Friday night – the start of Shabbat – and James and I always cook a big special meal. But this one will go down in the record books as one of the most special.

First of all, we decided to finally cook up some of the Karah. Thanks guys for your suggestions and investigative journalism. Polly's farmers' market guy was a little vague with "You cook. You eat.", as was Bryan's slightly better suggestion of "Soups and stuff." Siu's ideas were more specific but unfortunately shrimps and oyster sauce are not kosher so not available in our grocery store. (Which, as you will read, is somewhat tame compared to what we discovered IS available in the grocery store)

So I went my own route and tried frying slices, because everything tastes good fried. Right? The whole thing was like a cucumber out of control. Well first of all, the skin was like boot leather and I almost lost fingers cutting the slices. The inside had watery flesh, a non-descript smell and huge seeds. I fried them up, sprinkled them with salt and pepper and hoped for great things. The reviewers comments?

"These are awful. F-ing awful."

Two thirds of the plate ended up in the trash. Of course, I still have a foot an a half left of this not very tasty vegetable. Any takers?

But the real epicenter of the meal was the roast beef. We have not cooked beef since the spring because it is expensive and not very good here in Israel. But every once in a while I have to let my inner Alberta girl out and gnaw on some red meat. We decided to splurge on a roast from the frozen food section that was next to some other roasts with pictures of cows on them. I swear we spent at least five minutes trying to make sure we bought the right animal this time.

This afternoon I roasted it up, but the result was very disappointing. The flavor was so odd that we questioned whether we had accidentally purchased a piece of old mutton or something. To figure out where we had gone wrong, after dinner I dug though the slimy pieces of karah skins in the trash to locate the label from the roast started translating it. First word meant "roast" and the next "calf". So far so good. Roast veal. Not bad.

But what did the last word mean? I now wish I had never looked it up and would still be in blissful ignorance. But no..... I had to know it all. I looked it up in the dictionary, and when I saw the translation, I immediately shut the book, put my hand over my mouth and exclaimed "Oh, God." I told James. He turned pale and said, "I think I am going to hurl."

The last word meant "from fetus."

Who would sell such a thing in a grocery store! And there is no getting rid of it. The whole house smells like roast cow fetus. I have been laughing hysterically with tears rolling down my face and poor James is switching between denial ("It can't be fetus!") and getting shivers of the heebeejeebees. Nasty. I think we will just stick to chicken from now on.

At least the boiled carrots were ok.

Speed-Brew

I really don't know why I do this to myself. After finally escaping after nine years of post secondary education, I masochistically and enthusiastically sign up for classes.

This evening was the final exam for level Aleph-plus in our Hebrew Ulpan. We have made it though 500 pages of Hebrew From Scratch and have progressed from learning the alphabet, or rather the aleph-bet, to page long texts on the life of Ben Gurion.

I must admit, Hebrew classes are really rewarding. I feel like if I can learn The 'Brew, I can learn anything. I am understanding more of what is going on on the street and can explain to the supermarket cashier that Benzi the butcher said our chicken was half price.

With a little thought I can even put together sentences like:

בבקשה כותבת את השם שלי בסמס כי 'ש לנו רק פלפונ אחד נין גמס ואותי

"Please write my name in the SMS because we have only one cellphone between James and me. "

I impressed myself with that one.

Our first course we called Survivor-Brew because of the twenty five of us that stared, about eight wrote the exam. Every class it seemed, someone voted themselves off the Ulpan Island.

But this course was different. Our classmates were hardcores and we maybe only lost two ore three to the abyss. Our collective tenacity was even commented on by our teacher extrodinaire, Rivki. But this course was fast. The summer term is less than half the usual length but we covered just as much. Every class there was about 20 new words to learn and two major grammar points. It was all I could do to keep my head above water. Consequently, in our home Aleph-plus has been nicknamed Speed-brew.

Shot from the hip

Every once in a while, amoungst all the blurry photos of legs, ceilings and empty walls, I find something beautiful. Enjoy.

The Poop Post

Yep it's true. This post is about where the poop is and where it is not.
The poop on the scoop.

You see, until this blessed rainy weekend of new years and fresh starts, it hadn't rained here since early April and as an unfortunate consequence of the dry times, things were getting pretty smelly. The park near our house is a haven for street cats most of the year, but the overwhelming smell of litter box in the park has driven even the hardiest of the mangy beasts elsewhere.

Especially annoying are the small handful of irresponsible dog owners who have left enormous piles of desiccated dog poop all over the streets and besides the walkways. It doesn't wash away; it doesn't rot into the ground; it just lies there making the walk to work into a obstacle course of fecal booby traps. It is truly disgusting.

Now that it has rained, I can hope that things will start to decompose around here and the park will start to smell like flowers again rather than urea.

I have been informed by a lady in my Hebrew class that there is absolutely no dog poop in her neighborhood, simply because there are no dogs. East Jerusalem is a heavily Muslim area of the city and dogs are considered unclean and filthy animals in Islam. Which makes sense considering this is a species that identifies individuals by putting their noses in each other's crotches.

When it is all said and done I am of the opinion there is nothing wrong with he dogs themselves, it is their owners who are filthy and unclean. Poop and scoop people! Poop and Scoop!

Shanah Tovah!

Happy new year everyone! Shanah tovah! Welcome to the year 5770! May it bring you all sorts of good things.

We got invited, yet again, by my boss and his generous family for a BBQ- feast. With grandparents, three families and what seemed like a dozen kids under the age of 10, it was a loud, boisterous affair with Guitar Hero being the highlight of the kids' night. The table was piled with food and my flavour buds were happy indeed (especially since gfilte fish was thankfully not served), while everything, from research, to vaccines, to breaking an arm falling off the monkey bars, to our bad but progressing hebrew, to car seats was discussed.

I am all for the edible symbols of Rosh Hashana (literal translation: head of the year).

Apples and honey to bring you sweet things.

Pomegranates for the multiplicity of fruitfulness

Mandrake liqueur for fertility and, well, you know, X-rated things. (James informs me that the neighbors at five thirty am were vigorously and vocally feeling the effects of last night's mandrake liqueur)

At the market on Friday they were selling these giant vegetables that the veggie dude told us were "ka-rah" and with some pointing and bad Hebrew, we determined they are in the zucchini family. We decided to buy one to try and of course came home with the largest one- just for a silly picture.

The grandma, Sarah, tells me, Ka-rah too is an obscure symbol of Rosh Hashana- so obscure that she had only seen the word for the first time yesterday in a booklet about the holiday. Something, she said, about defeating enemies. All I can see is that you could probably beat your enemies over the head with it. Since I don't have many enemies here, I would prefer to eat it. Because the Israelis were pretty unfamiliar with it too, we are still stuck with a giant vegetable on the counter, don't know the English name and have no clue what to do with it.

All right you readers with all-vegetable-knowing Chinese Grandmas, I need you to help me out here. What is it and how do I cook it?

Hi-Fives all around.

After many drafts, revisions, and possibly a few more grey hairs, Gabi has submitted his BIG paper. Both Yossi and I are also authors. I believe in appropriate and timely celebration of achievement. Submitting papers deserves high fives amongst the authors.

If you may recall, high fives are Lo-kosher for Yossi and I. So today, I came prepared. I took a lab glove, blew it up like a balloon and tied it to the end of a stick. When the final "Send" was clicked, I headed to the lab to tell Yossi the good news and use my new toy to give him a high five. Did this offend his religious sensibilities? Nope. He giggled and held his hand out.

That right, I'm bridging cultural barriers. Maybe I should apply for a job with the UN...

Friend or Foe?

I am not sure that my mom really knows what I do. She can grasp on the concrete things like cars, clean energy, save the world type things but I have a sneaking suspicion the rest of it eludes her a bit. This is what she does know: nanoparticles are really small. But what she may not realize is that they are not that small. In fact, the molecules that James makes are about 10 times smaller than the nanoparticles I make. And that is what makes them cool; they're pieces of material that are too big to be molecules, and too small to act like chunks of material. As a result they have all sorts of cool properties that change in sometimes unexpected ways as you make different sized particles from big-like-a-chunk (like 200 nm) down to small like a molecule (~ 1nm).

But what the heck are they made of? Well, "nanoparticles" are as diverse in nature and use as things that weigh about one kilogram. Is it made out of organic material, iron, or earth? Is it a bag of sugar, a pistol, a brick? Is that nano-particle made out of iron, a semiconductor, or palladium? Can it be used as a tiny magnet, a long lived biological dye, or a really active catalyst?

I will take the analogy one step further. Sometimes, what we intend things for is not what happens to them. A pistol can be used as a weapon or a paperweight, and equally brick can build a house or build jails. I make and research catalysts for energy applications, but maybe they *might* get used in catalytic converters. Or, far worse, maybe someone researches a potential anti cancer treatment only to find out in 20 years it is being used for something completely asinine and potentially harmful.

On The National the other night, there was a segment warning people about nanoparticles and possible health effects. I know you are expecting me to tell you to calm down and don't be worried, but I completely agree with the segment. We are coming up with these funky new materials, people are starting to commercialize them and mass produce them without considering the consequences. Probably without you knowing it nano-particles are now used in fuel lines in your car, in face creams, high end motor oils and tennis rackets.

We just don't know what the possible health and environmental consequences may be of these materials. Some nanoparticles and the ways that they are being used say to me 'probably no issue here' and others make me squirm a little. But I really don't know.

First of all, I'd like you to know that some nanparticles have been produced by man or naturally for a long time, and we already know some things about the health consequences of these materials. For example, silica, plain 'ol sand and rock, is pretty boring stuff, but if you are a miner and inhale the resulting silica nanoparticles in the drill dust over years, you get miner's lung. Zinc Oxide nanoparticles have been a favorite in diaper rash creams and sunscreens for decades and we all seem to be O.K.- not much to be afraid of there.

But I want to tell you about the specific example of silver nanoparticles, because it illustrates my concerns. Since at least WWI, bandages have been impregnated with silver nanoparticles because they are antimicrobial. Who knows how many infections have been prevented and lives saved because of this. But a few years a ago, I saw a talk by a fabulously mustachioed Texan researcher that showed that you can actually grow silver resistant bacteria. This seems like good enough reason alone to advocate restraint in usage.

But of course there are those that think only of themselves. Like this guy who decided to smear silver nanoparticles on his skin, every day, as ill guided self medication. He tattooed his whole body blue. Permanently. But Papa Smurf here only really hurt himself- and possibly his love life.

But now you can buy antimicrobial silver nanoparticle impregnated socks so your feet don't smell too bad. This seems like a funny example of the corporate machine using technology to separate the foolish and smelly from their money. A few pairs of these unnecessarily technology enhanced socks? No problem. But what happens if this takes off and everyone owns a pair of socks that has silver nanoparticles in them? Millions of pairs of socks, being washed weekly, releasing anti microbial nano-particles in to the water system. This might be a problem.

And then there the questions surrounding the truly newly discovered nanoparticles. Will CdSe particles used for biological staining accumulate in the body? What about these funky catalysts I am making? What are the environmental consequences if they become produced on the multi tonne scale? I don't know. Maybe nothing.

One of the points brought up by The National was that no one is actually following the Government's expert panel and studying the health and envionmental effects of nanoparticles. Well- that isn't true. Some are- but not many. There are two good reasons for it.

1) Lets say you study the the new and exciting field of xxxx-nanoparticle based lasers and you have a side project that discovers that xxxx-nanoparticles bio accumulate if you inject them into mice. The community, the media, and the funding agency deems the particles as "toxic". You can say goodbye to your funding for laser research since you are working with "dangerous" and politically incorrect materials whether warranted or not in your laser application.

2) It is boring. I didn't spend nine years studying synthesis and chemistry and application and dreaming up all sorts of great interesting chemistry ideas to start over and learn about biological studies and start injecting and guillotining rats. No thank you-hoo. Call me selfish, but so be it.

I can't see the future, I don't know for what my research will be used, if at all. Even when I use my tiny reaction flasks and weight out one or two milligrams at a time, I dream of big, great important things. But of course there is the chance of catastrophe. I refuse to be afraid of the unknown in my own research. No journey can be taken if you are afraid to start.

But then again it would be a nightmare if it turned out that the irresponsible commercial application of my research was hurting people or the environment. As consumers (and as patent rights holders) we need to demand that due diligence is taken in order study and rule out foreseeable negative consequences before we produce new materials on the multi-tonne scale. And that new technologies are used responsibly and cautiously at first - like for safer fuel injection lines and medical bandages and not goddamned socks.

I writes good Engleesh, yes?

Over the last month or so, I have been helping Gabi with his BIG PAPER of which I am an author. Being the cruel, teach-a-man-to-fish kinda person that I am, I made him write everything and then I came along with the Blue Pen of Doom.

But then the paper got sent to different authors and colleagues for proof reading and funny things started happening.

In one draft, suddenly every time the word "gold" came up, it was capitalized. I can see how the rules for capitals would be confusing if you are used to having only have one case. (James claims, "Hebrew is all capitals; it's all yelling.")

And then someone else got a terrible disease called comma-itis. My guess is that dependent and independent clauses are more difficult to find for Hebrew speakers since Hebrew has sentences without verbs. No kidding. It seems unnatural.
It odd. It funny. I amused. (See what I mean?)

And then after the paper went to a native Russian speaker, a bunch of "the"s went missing.

The Boss gets ten points for either having a spectacular vocabulary or using a thesaurus for correctly inserting the word "concomitantly" which, I admit, I had to look up myself. James of course knew what it meant and said "did he mean 'contemporaneously'?" Show off.

But not to worry, I ate some humble pie too. One colleague commented on a part that I had written and said that it sounded like Hebrew translated into English. Ouch. I guess just because I can speak English doesn't mean my writing is any good. However that doesn't stop me from getting daily random phone calls with questions like "Is it 'I shoot down the spectrometer' or 'I shot down the spectrometer'?" or "What is 'Yikes'?"

But the real insult to my writing skills came a couple of months ago. Back in December, I had written some user instructions for the TEM as a goodwill gesture to the nanocentre and as a useful tool for my colleagues, and they were soon handing out my hard work out to every new user of the instrument. A couple of months ago, I was told that all distributed documents in this particular institution get sent out for proofreading to an external contractor. So yes my friends, my writing got sent out for proof reading of my English to INDIA.

Lunch Spot

James and I have found a sweet new lunch spot. It is off the beaten path on the university campus and even the seasoned veterans of my group didn't know what I was talking about when I mentioned the lily pad pond. Sitting on this little wooden deck over here is the closest I am going to get to lunch on the dock at the cottage.
At least there are giant flowers, minnows, goldfish and horny dragonflies to entertain.

Update: Mystery Tree

I had conflicting reports from my sources. Some said mango. Others said definitely not mango but declined to make their own guess.

A while ago, I solved the mystery by stepping on a fallen fruit and ripping off its green exterior. It turns out that inside those green blobs is a walnut.

As they read this, my Dad the park ranger, my sister the tree ecologist and my brother the forester will disappointingly sigh "Oh, Janet" for not knowing a nature nugget that would have been so obvious to them. And I should have known. There was a big walnut along my Grandma's laneway at the farm that I climbed every so often.

My family may be disappointed, but me even more so. Even lemons would have been better than boring old walnuts.