Category: learning curve

Microbiology Monday on twitter

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Yes. I know it’s Friday. Thank you.

Microbiology, The Best Science Out Of All The Sciences™ (and coincidentally also the one that I do) has been featuring plenty on the twitter this morning. Why is this? It’s because even non-Microbiologists find Microbiology fascinating. It is, after all, The Best Science Out Of All The Sciences™.

Here are the best of those links to exciting stories, in reverse order of excitement.

At number 4, from @Jane_Anne62:
E. coli’s sticky secret revealed in medical journal

In which we discover that the recent European E.coli 0104:H4 outbreak strain was first detected back in 2001 [supporting my answer to this theory] and was particularly nasty due to a combination of evil toxins and an ability to hang around on the inside of your intestinal walls.

At number 3, via  @kelltrill:
Yeast can evolve into multicellular organisms in a few short months

No big news here for bacteriologists, to be fair: we’ve known about Quorum Sensing for a long time now, wherein many single-celled organisms act together as a “multicellular” unit. The apoptosis (“programmed cell death”) angle is more interesting, bacteria generally use that to knock out immune system cells rather than each other.

Runner up, via @PaulScott56:
Homemade “Mars in a Bottle” Torture Bacteria

Documenting  the heinous methods of heinous microbiologists in Italy as they put several species of bacteria through extreme conditions to see if they could survive on Mars. The reasoning behind this is two-fold: could bacterial life survive on Mars, and moreover, could the early Viking missions to that planet have contaminated the environment with hardy bacteria from Earth?
We didn’t know about the existence of extremophiles back in 1975 when the Viking probes were launched, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t tough little microbes hanging onto the side of the vehicles, hitching a lift to the red planet.
Could they survive the Martian conditions? Well, the Italian results seem to suggest that yes they could.
Another planet ruined. We might as well frack it now.

And today’s winner, again thanks to @Jane_Anne62:
No-fun fungus: Nasty yeast grows in dishwashers

Talking of yeast and extremophiles – how much more yeasty and extreme can things get than finding Exophiala dermatitidis and Exophiala phaeomuriformis in 56% of dishwashers tested across 6 continents?
These things are everywhere (apart from in the 44% of dishwashers that they weren’t).

Having abandoned previous missions to colonise fridges (too cold) and ovens (too hot), [you’re making this up, aren’t you? – Ed.] the black yeasts – determined to find a suitable household appliance – have taken to living in the rubber seals of dishwashers worldwide.
And while they are nowhere near as “nasty” as the E.coli mentioned above, they’re still not great to have around if you are immunosuppressed or have respiratory illness. Let this be a warning to you: go rinse your seals.

I love the way that people are taken by microbiology in the mainstream media. Either because it sounds like something from Star Trek, it’s been in the news or – in this last case – that it could (and 54% of the time, does) affect them.

So Much More Exciting Than Biochemistry™.

Heart v Head

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I desperately want(ed) to get down to the coast this weekend. The weather this week has been atrocious (once we’d got past Tuesday with its ridiculous midwinter 30 degreedness) and the wind has whipped up some epic swells around the South African coast. The weather service were warning of 7m off Agulhas. Yummy.

I love that kind of weather. It’s dramatic, elemental, Wuthering Heights kind of stuff. I would much rather wander along a beach in a gale, with crashing surf and disturbed seabirds than sit there in the baking sun, baking.
There are other considerations though. Family, for one, two and three. Coming from South Africa, rather than the UK, they are not so keen on the epic waves and howling wind. They want sunshine and warmth. They like to be able to see the sand to sit on and to dig in, rather than have it littered in smashed weed and marooned jellyfish. Suffice to say, their preferred conditions are not going to be much in evidence this weekend. And there’s more to do with two small kids in Cape Town than in a tiny village miles from anything except a windy beach and a wild sea.

Add to that the frankly rather scary conditions forecast for the Cape on Sunday – if you thought last night’s ice storm was bad, just wait – which is when we’d be doing the 230km back and it’s sadly a no-brainer. Or rather an all-brainer and a no-hearter. Not that I struggle to drive safely in storm force winds and heavy rain, but unfortunately, it has come to my attention that a lot of other people in this country do.

So I’ll be around this weekend, I think. Which makes it all the more important for you to take the few seconds required to ‘like’ the new 6000.co.za facebook page, download the 6000 miles… feed Android app or even the one for your Nokia Ovi, thanks to Nokia SA and #mobiblog.
And – big news – the 6000 miles… iPhone app is under development and should be with you shortly. Possibly even more shortly now that I’m going to be around some internet for the next few days.

So many ways to stay in touch. No excuses anymore.

Somewhere Ovi the Rainbow

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Nokia have been in touch and they sent me a cactus and some post-it notes. Did I, they also asked, realise how easy it would be to make an Ovi app for my blog? And was I, they continued, aware that if I made an Ovi app for my blog, I could win a trip to next year’s SXSW Tech conference in Texas, Texas?

I was hugely confused by their quickfire questioning.
Things weren’t looking good – like a particularly poor ice hockey team – I was 0/2 in the seven game series.

But I turned things around after a rousing and inspiring team talk in the changing room and, having viewed this video which explained all, I headed to the Ovi App Wizard site and followed the overly simple, step-by-step instructions to create a little 6000 miles… presence in the Ovi App Store. And, what’s more, because you can include up to 5 RSS feeds to your Ovi app, I included my flickr RSS as well, so Nokia users can get some pictorial goodness as well.

It’s all ever so straightforward and took no longer than 10 minutes, including coffee breaks.

Then all I had to do was click a button and submit it to their Ovi Store Approvals Board. 24 hours later, I got an email telling me that my app was all approved and ready to go.

If you are on a Nokia or if you know of people who are on a Nokia (there are an incredible 825,000,000 compatible handset out there), please tell them to visit the Ovi Store and download my app – it’s right here (you can have a look at it on a PC too). The more downloads, the more chance I have of jetting out to Texas, Texas next year.

This competition also proved to be the catalyst for me to finally “do” a 6000 miles… Facebook page (which you should sign up to) and I’m already making plans for other apps on other mobile platforms.
However, I’m guessing that none of them will be as simple or as user-friendly as this one was to create.

6000.co.za is now on Facebook

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With Facebook rapidly becoming the all conquering behemoth as far as the internet is concerned, it seemed wise to finally take the plunge and make one of their ridiculously named “fan pages” for the blog. Now it should be noted that for the amateur [waves], Facebook doesn’t make it easy for you to do this – the interface is horrible and not at all intuitive, the language is confusing and everything is that nasty Facebook blue.
It’s probably for those reasons that I haven’t done it before.

But anyway, all in all, it’s been a steep learning curve and I have a horrible feeling that it will continue to be a steep learning curve. But click that LIKE button in the side bar there ~>, (or alternatively, click here) and bear with me and once things are up and running smoothly, I’ll sort out some Facebook-only competitions to make it seem that the 0.5 seconds it took you to click your mouse button was completely worth your while.

Now let’s see if the dlvr.it app does its thing and plonks this post where it needs to go.

Removing Mention and Retweet Email Notifications on Twitter

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Catchy title, hey?

Twitter has a new default setting to send you an email notifying you of each time you get mentioned or retweeted.
While I like notifications when I get direct messages (because I don’t use them much) or new followers (because I like to say hello), if I was to get emailed each time I was mentioned or RT’d, things would get a bit ridiculous.
So I have switched those options off.

Sorted.

However, it seems that some people aren’t aware of how to do that. Don’t worry – it’s not hard and we’re here to help.

While logged in to twitter, go to: http://twitter.com/settings/notifications. You can also get there by clicking the drop down menu next to your picture in the toolbar and selecting SETTINGS and then clicking the NOTIFICATIONS tab.

Now simply choose which email notifications you want to receive.
Here’s one I did earlier:

Oh, and DON’T FORGET TO CLICK SAVE! to update your notifications!

That’s actually all there is to it. You’re welcome.