Night Swim with Manta Rays

Last weekend we spent in Hawaii snorkeling, beach bumming, whale- and dolphin-watching, hiking active volcano, and–most awesomely–taking a night swim with more than 10 giant Manta Rays.

Check out the movie I took with my underwater camera to get a preview of what we were fortunate to experience. If you ever happen to go to Big Island in Hawaii, the night snorkeling with Manta Rays is a must!

White Water Rafting on Alto Madre de Dios

I've never been white water rafting before, so I expected to be at least a bit anxious about my first time. I wasn't, though, and I think my lack of fear can be attributed to the great guide and extraordinarily kind group of people with whom I was rafting. Throughout, I felt that I could trust them and that they would not leave me in the river to be eaten by piranhas ;) I'm actually not sure if the river was inhabited by piranhas, or other dangerous animals. I preferred not to ask.



The day was perfect: it was warm and sunny, and the water in the river was relatively peaceful. All that said, the current in the river was still pretty strong. If you want to have some laughs, play the video I posted below. It shows Anil and me trying to swim against the current, and not moving an inch! It looks like we are training in a countercurrent swimming machine.



Despite my seeming incompetence, I enjoyed swimming in the river a lot. The water was warm and the surroundings were unbelievably beautiful. In fact, all of us had so much fun that we all went swimming twice: once at the shore (as shown in the video you just watched), and once in the middle of the river. During the latter I again provided a lot of entertainment for everybody, and exposed my upper body weakness–without help I was not able to climb back to our raft! The video below shows my clumsiness and the “rescue” efforts of my travel companions.

As we were told to expect class III and IV rapids on the river, and most of us were white-water-rafting novices, I decided against taking my big photo camera on the raft, and instead I took the small flip video camera. Most of the time I kept it under my swim vest, but, occasionally, while rafting through a bit more peaceful part of the river, I would take it out and shoot short movies. If you would like to see how stunningly beautiful, peaceful, and wild–all at the same time–the Amazon Jungle is, watch the last movie I posted here. This movie will not only show you the beauty of the Jungle, but also how happy and excited it made us.

Breaking News - Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow & Jude Law at My Work Today!

Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow will be visiting my work today, as it will serve as a set for their newest movie Contagion. On that occasion our building got renamed to "Mendel Hall" :)

I feel motivated to stay longer at work, even though I'm sick... :) I just wished I had a camera with me...

Update: I have not seen anybody famous, but my coworkers have spotted Matt Damon and Jude Law. Apparently they were only involved in a short scene taking place inside one of the labs, and they came by inconspicuous cars. But in the movie there should be some other scenes as well featuring Genentech Hall and Bakar Gym, so if you watch it, you might recognize the following:

Genentech Hall - for the purpose of the movie renamed to "Mendel Hall":

One of the corridors in the Genentech Hall:

Extras waiting for their five seconds of fame:

Genentech Hall at night (I'm sure some of the scenes will take place outside, after sundown):

My gym - Bakar Center - was nicely lit tonight, which makes me think that it will also be used as a set for the movie:

Yet another potential target for the movie set:

At the very least you have to admit that my workplace is very photogenic :)

We (a group of around 6-7 people under the command of a French postdoc from my lab) tried to get to the closed set were the movie was shot by using one of the last year's Nobel Prize Laureates as a bait. Our attempts failed, as our Nobel Prize Winner shied away from completing the mission :)

Update part 2: I just learned that "Contagion" was also shot two blocks away from my house... I saw piles of trash here and there, and I was wondering what were they doing in my hood, but I just did not put things together...  

On the way to Chaco Canyon NHP

We really wanted to visit Chaco Canyon National Historic Park, but despite trying to reach it from three different roads and directions, we failed. It seems that one really needs a 4WD, or at least a high-clearance vehicle, to get there.

The funny thing about life is that we usually want more the things that are difficult to get. Probably that's why we enjoyed so much even trying to get to the park, and also decided to make a new, separate trip to visit it sometime in the future.

Here is a short (uncut, unedited) movie shot somewhere in New Mexico, on one of the Indian roads close to Chaco Canyon NHP:


And here is another movie shot later that day on the mountainous road near Los Alamos:

What the heck does Bruce Willis know about making Vodka?

Abso-lute-ly Nothing.

Awesome Sobieski Vodka ad campaign featuring Bruce Willis! Watch the video "In Character". (Unfortunately, the video embedding is not possible right now.)

Joshua Tree NP - 49 Palm Oasis Hike

The last hike that we did in Joshua Tree NP was a 3-mile (4.8 km) long hike to the 49 Palm Oasis. Anil decided not to go with us as his knees were hurting, and he was waiting for us next to the car. It was a hot day, so Bartek and I did not want him to wait for us for too long, so we did speed-hiking and were back at the parking lot in 1h 15min. Even though we hurried so much, we still saw many lizards, a beautiful green zebra snake, and several cacti.

Still, if you have time for only one longer hike in the park, I would recommend the Lost Palm Hike over this one. It seems the latter is less traveled, and probably that's why it is way easier to encounter animals there.


Some of the lizards that we met during our hike:






Chuckwallas are huge!


A quail:


Blooming cacti:








Barrel cacti:


49 Palm Oasis:


A short, uncut, unedited movie shot during the hike (we are breathing heavily as we just walked up a bigger hill):

Joshua Tree NP - Keys View

Apparently, on a clear day the vista from Keys View extends as far as Mexico. Unfortunately, when we were there the air quality was not too good and we could not see even half that far:


Bartek and Mount San Jacinto:


A short (15 sec) uncut, unedited movie shot while driving back from the Keys View to the main park road:

Mojave Desert

Driving through the Mojave Desert is like riding on a roller coaster.

The road leading through it is bumpy and full of deep dips, and if you drive fast enough, your car will jump along nicely :) I would definitely recommend trying it out (at your own risk) if there is no traffic.

Here is a short, uncut, unedited movie shot in the Mojave Desert (no dips in this one):

two parodies

1. "The Most Beautiful Girl in the Lab" - made at UCSF! This is a parody of Flight of Conchords' "The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room":


I love how creative scientists can get! :)

2. Parody of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance", also pretty good though not made by scientists:


Edit: I just learned that the second video is by a cappella men-only choir "On The Rocks" from University of Oregon. It seems that university environment stimulates people to satire... :)

iBiology and introduction to the genetics of aging by my boss

UCSF (University of California, San Francisco) together with HHMI (Howard Hughes Medical Institute) and ASCB (American Society for Cell Biology) came up with a new great resource for people interested in biology. They created two websites called iBioSeminars and iBioMagazine that provide free-of-charge talks from leading biologists (seriously, the list of people who share their knowledge there is very impressive!). These lectures are being filmed at UCSF in a studio with "chroma key", which is really cool. You can watch the lectures online or you can download them to your computer/iPod!

Importantly, those lectures are aimed at general audience and, hence, have considerable introduction. As an example, HERE are lectures on aging by my current boss. She is a wonderful speaker with a great ability of presenting the most difficult of concepts in a very easy way, so I would definitely recommend watching her lectures to anybody who wonders why we live as long/short as we do, and how is this process regulated.

For impatient, 5 minute intro to aging:



First lecture: general introduction to the genetics of aging.


Second lecture: introduction to the reproductive pathway of aging (this is what I work on!).


On a separate note, Cynthia on CBS:


Cynthia's lecture "What does the future hold" in Cambridge:

Snow in Death Valley

While in Death Valley we experienced two very awesome natural phenomena: (1) moving sand in and around Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes, and (2) snow! in June! in Death Valley!

Moving sand in Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes:


Snow on the way to Dante's view, Zabriskie Point, Painter's Palette, and coyote:

"For the record, I am dying..." - hiking on Grandview trail in Grand Canyon

During our honeymoon we not only took pictures, but also lots of movies. Some of them are good, others are simply funny - like the one below, taken on our route up from the Grand Canyon:

Flower Shower :)

Universal Studios

At the beginning of March Anil and I went to LA as I needed to visit a Polish consulate in order to apply for a new passport. We decided to make a short holiday out of it and visit some of the touristy places like the Universal Studios and nearby Griffith Observatory.

As expected, neither of us was impressed with the Universal Studios. Still we do not regret visiting it, once, in our lifetimes. We did it, we know it is not our idea of entertainment, and we do not feel need to ever go back there again :)

The iconic "Universal Studios" sign:

Gorilla!

In case Universal Studios does not provide you with enough entertainment, you can further indulge yourself in the world of movies at the nearby IMAX:

The Universal Studios recommends that you start your visit by taking a 45-min long bus tour, so this is what we did:

Some of the highlights of the tour are illustrated by the photos below. For example, I was pretty impressed how seemingly easy, within a matter of seconds, it is to create the imitation of rain and flash flood:

Or explode a car:

Or shake the ground, collapse a ceiling, "break" a few water pipes:

Or even imitate an airplane disaster:

Less interesting (to us) parts of the tour included visits at different action-less movie sets, like the visit at the famous "Wisteria Lane" from Desperate Housewives:

After the guided tour we visited several shows and went for two movie-themed rides (Revenge of The Mummy and Jurassic Park). The first attraction that we did, happened also to be the best one. It was a boat ride through the Jurassic Park: 

I thought that some of the dinosaurs were pretty cool, especially when they were spitting water at us :) :

Revenge of The Mummy is not worth mentioning, as well as House of Horrors. Both of them are supposed to be scary, but to be honest, they are simply lame.

We also went to a pyrotechnic show Backdraft  that was mildly interesting:

The last show we attended was Terminator 2: 3D, which was so kitschy that I wouldn't have mentioned it if I did not like this photo:

The best thing about Universal Studios is its location offering nice views of the city:

Kristina plays at Cafe Revolution

usually on Saturday afternoons

Dia de los Muertos 2009

snorkeling at La Jolla Cove

As I did not expect any crazy adventures during my recent trip to San Diego, the nicer surprise it was that adventures still caught up with me :) Thanks to Bartek we went on a package deal that included kayaking and snorkeling with a guide in La Jolla Cove.

To my surprise even kayaking was lots of fun. I do not feel fully comfortable kayaking in the ocean, but luckily waves were not too big that day, which made me feel more relaxed. Also, on the way back from the cove, we could see hundreds of sharks already from our kayak! So if you are not into snorkeling or you do not want to be too close to those sea beasts, you can opt for kayaking instead.

Snorkeling in the cove and going through several of its narrow passages was pretty cool, even though we did not see too many different species of fish. It seems that the most abundant fish there is Garibaldi. Or maybe it is simply the easiest to notice it because of its orange color?

After we came back to the shore we parted with our knowledgeable guide and went snorkeling by ourselves. This is when we managed to get close to several groups of leopard sharks. I was surprised how big they were - when you see them in aquariums they definitely seem much smaller. They were also very quick. Even in the fins we had no chance to keep up with them. They were also moving with way more grace than we were... But in the end, we are land, not sea animals ;)

Of course I had my underwater camera with me, so you can see some photos that I took during this adventure, a well as a movie that I put together (my very first iMovie project!) Unfortunately, the quality (both of the movie an the photos) is not too great. I still need to work on it.



Kayaking in fins :)


Bartek and I near the cove:


La Jolla Cove:


The caves:


Lobster:


Garibaldi:


Many more Garibaldis:


Stingray:


Leopard shark:

Bring Your Own Big Wheel Race - movies

I also took several movies from the race that can be watched through youtube:





Unfortunately, their quality is not as good as I hoped for. Again I wish I had a Nikon D90... Maybe it is finally time to buy it.

Go and see Religulous

Last Saturday Anil and I went to see Religulous. I was very skeptical about this movie (or documentary, as some like to call it), mostly based on very critical reviews of it calling it "one-sided".

Religulous is definitely one-sided and it is not a documentary (*). The aim of this movie is not to try to understand religion, faith or what motivates people's - according to Maher, irrational - believes, but rather to simply ridicule everything that is connected with religion. And let's be honest, there are many ridiculous ideas, concepts and believes in most (if not all) world's religions and we should be able to laugh at those. I was definitely laughing a lot and aloud throughout the movie, even though you could call me a "Roman Catholic". I would call myself a "Liberated Roman Catholic" (**).

Religulous - trailer:


(*) Definition of documentary that I follow: "a work, such as a film or television program, presenting political, social, or historical subject matter in a factual and informative manner and often consisting of actual news films or interviews accompanied by narration"

(**) Liberated from the organization and some of the ideology, moral standards and believes of Roman Catholic Church.

Where the hell is Matt? Dancing 2008

Ania (from blue North Carolina) sent this very touching youtube video to me and I decided to share it with you, as it made me smile with my whole body :)