12 August 09 (pm)

Workout notes 2000 yard swim; 5 x 100 on the 2, 10 x 50 (drill/swim, no fins), 10 x (25 fist, 25 free) on 1, 5 x (25 fly, 25 free) on 1, 2 x 100 IM, 50 side.

Then 4 mile walk (plus) at about 12:20-12:30 via 2-1 right afterward. With showers and transition, this took about 2 hours (11 to 1).

Academia A voice of sanity from someone who does academic research for a living (building on a topic that I discussed here):

Secondly, Ivy notes that Mike has changed the game. He didn’t succeed like his buddy at MIT (which is an okay school, actually, though not really along the lines of where I went), so he’s set new rules that apply for Soda Pop college [...]

Thirdly, Ivy points out that Mike’s actions remind him of many older faculty he runs across. I can absolutely attest that this is common in academe. For whatever reason, older faculty put their retirement and their personal lives ahead of the work of the university. I’m not saying this is bad. I certainly plan on having children and a partner one day, but those things are NOT THE SAME as a growing career. If I say, “Look at my new publication,” and the respondent says, “Oh, I had some nice tomatoes come up in the back yard,” that means that the respondent has decided that personal life trumps academic life, and I know where NOT to stop along the hallway next time I want some intellectual banter. (The tomato lady isn’t BAD; she’s different from me.)

[...]

Fifth, Ivy notes that calling Mike a loser might be too harsh, and I agree. Mike isn’t working in the same profession as Ivy, just like the CEO of a bank isn’t doing the same thing as someone who wraps the nickels. There should be no animus against Ivy or others like him. We were trained for a special niche.

Well, here is where the animus: fewer people have the ability to earn their living as researchers than have the ability to teach. Think of it this way: how many marathon runners can coach cross country? Now how many have the innate ability to, say, run a 2:10 marathon?

Science

Via Conservation Report: Many New Species found in the Himalayas; these include miniature deer and the flying frog:

Isn’t that adorable? (Its large webs allow for it to “glide” when it falls).

Plants: I find this astonishing:

Experiments show that a sagebrush plant can recognise a genetically identical cutting growing nearby.

What’s more, the two clones communicate and cooperate with one another, to avoid being eaten by herbivores.

The findings, published in Ecology Letters, raise the tantalising possibility that plants, just like animals, often prefer to help their relatives over unrelated individuals. The ability to distinguish self from non-self is a vital one in nature.

It allows many animals to act preferentially towards others that are genetically related to themselves; for example, a female lion raising her young, or protecting other more distantly related cubs in her pride.

But the evidence that plants can do the same is limited and controversial.