Sick and Tired (Literally)

I was up most of the night last night. However, it was not to watch the meteor shower as I had hoped. Harper is sick again. Her fever started around 7 last night and kept getting worse and worse. When we finally got her to bed, she kept waking up so we ended up just bringing her in bed with us. The highlight of the night was her throwing up all over our bed (awesome). Rob took her to the doctor this morning and she was diagnosed with viral tonsillitis. There's not much you can do for a virus - it just has to run its course. The doctor prescribed her ice cream and a fever reducer that you don't take orally if you know what I mean (double awesome). So, I'll keep you posted. But in the meantime, please pray that my little girl feels better soon. 

Science Friday - Tuesday Edition

I know it's only Tuesday, but I wanted to do a Science Friday post about the Lyrid meteor shower. Tonight will be the peak of this annual meteor shower. According to astronomers, 2009 is a great year for the Lyrid shower. With almost no moon to ruin the show (the New Moon phase is 2 days away), stargazers should have a great view.

The Lyrid meteors are named after the constellation Lyra from which they appear to radiate. The constellation Lyra is easy to find because it's marked by the brilliant blue-white star Vega (the 5th brightest star in the sky).

It is thought that the actual meteorite particles are debris from Comet Thatcher. Lyrid meteors tend to be bright and often leave trails. About 10-20 meteors per hour at the peak of the shower are to be expected. However, surges can sometimes bring the rate up to 100 per hour, but these rather rare outbursts are not easy to predict. It's interesting to note that people have been recording observations of this shower for at least 2600 years, which is longer than any other meteor shower in history.

The best time to view this shower is from 3am - dawn. However, stray meteors may be visible anytime after midnight. The meteors will appear directly overhead (which makes them easy to spot for us non-astronomer types) and if you miss them tonight, the shower will still be visible until April 25.

New Ideas

Ok, so I actually finished the book I started last week (which has to be a speed-reading record for me). It was great. I highly recommend it. In my opinion, what makes for a good book is its ability to make you think about the ideas that are printed on the page and to also make you think about things that are only loosely associated with the ideas printed on the page. This book did both for me. 

In the printed idea category, I love this excerpt:

Writer Anne Lamott says that the most powerful sermon in the world is two words: “Me too.”
Me too.
When you’re struggling,
when you are hurting,
wounded, limping, doubting,
questioning, barely hanging on,
moments away from relapse,
and somebody can identify with you –
someone knows the temptations that are at your door,
somebody has felt the pain that you are feeling,
when somebody can look you in the eyes and say, “Me too,”
and they actually mean it –
it can save you.

Most of the really close relationships that I have in my life have grown out of the words "Me too." The ability to pour your guts out to someone and have them respond with kindness, understanding, and love is invaluable. The people in my life that have said "Me too." have enabled me to now be the one who can say "Me too."

In the things that are only loosely associated with the printed ideas category:

When I had Harper, I am convinced that God used her to help me understand just how much He loves me. He gave me something that caused my heart to get a hundred times bigger and then said, "See how much you love her? Well, I love her and you a million times more than that." Very effective object lesson. 

Now, I think God wants to teach me another aspect of His character through my marriage. I think that He is telling me that if I want to get to know Him better, I need to embrace his version of what marriage is supposed to be. God uses the analogy of marriage many times in the Bible - something that I pretty much glossed over until now. I have a normal marriage. We fight about dirty clothes on the floor and dishes left in the sink. Just like everybody else, right? Well, I no longer want to have a normal marriage. Instead, I want the marriage that God intended me to have. In the same way that He used Harper to teach me about His love, He is going to use my marriage to teach me about grace and forgiveness. Gulp. 

Any thoughts?

Science Friday - Lunch Edition

One of the cool things about my job is that once a week I get to hear lectures by really bright scientists from all over the world. To be honest, sometimes these lectures bore me to tears. But other times, like yesterday, I have the privilege of hearing one of the true movers and shakers of the scientific community speak about his work. I actually first heard about Jeffrey Gordon a couple months ago on NPR. 

Basically, Dr. Gordon's lab studies the bacteria and archaea (what he collectively calls microbiota) that live in your gut. Did you know that you have 10-100 trillion organism living inside of you right now? Gordon made the statement that if we look at the overall composition of a person, we are 90% microbiota and only 10% Homo sapien. Dr. Gordon's lab is interested in how the microbiota that is living inside of us affects our overall health including our ability to digest food and our predisposition to certain diseases (like diabetes, obesity, stomach ulcers, asthma, etc). 

He has made some interesting observations. The types of microbes living in my stomach or your stomach are completely different from the microbes living inside a person in China. What's more, the types of microbes inside you have a huge effect on your ability to digest food. Consider this (taken from the NPR story) :

Biologist Jeffrey Gordon of Washington University in St. Louis became quite well known a few years ago for a group of very skinny mice in his lab. The mice were skinny because they had no bacteria in their intestines. Gordon had kept them completely bacteria-free. If a bacteria-free mouse eats, food passes right through the intestine, significantly undigested.

So without bacteria, the mouse can eat and eat and eat and never gain weight. But when Gordon exposed the mice to [normal environmental bacteria], the mice suddenly turned their food into more calories and gained weight. So bacteria matter. Apparently, they can digest food far more efficiently.

Imagine a Cheerio sliding down the digestive tracts of an Inuit and an Argentine. The Inuit's intestinal bacteria are great at digesting oats; the Argentine's bacteria don't much care for oats. What happens? The Inuit gains weight. The Argentine makes more frequent visits to the restroom.

So why does all of this matter? Well on one hand, you may have noticed some new products on the shelves of your local grocery store that claim to boost your digestive health and overall immunity because they contain special bacteria. Do these products work? They probably have some beneficial effects (but in my opinion, eating regular yogurt will probably give you the same effect). I do, however, think it's funny that the companies re-named (and trademarked) the special pro-digestive and immune-boosting bacteria that they added to their products. 

Gordon's work is also important on a more global level. Knowing the biological properties of the microbes that are in the guts of malnourished people around the world could potentially have a huge impact on the type of health care and food they receive. Potentially, handing out rice and bread to everybody may not be the best way to do things. 

One thing is sure. We are not alone in this world. Our relationship with our environment and the other organisms living in it (and in us) is complex and delicate - something that will only get more interesting as new information comes to light. So, enjoy your lunch today and think about how many creatures you are actually having lunch with. 

Alligators and Life Groups

Well, I feel our trip to Florida is now official. This morning, we did and saw things that made our trip complete. Here's the rundown:

• My mom, Harper, and I had breakfast at our favorite oceanfront restaurant (the one that we have literally been going to for almost 30 years) - the food is nothing to write home about but the view is another story. 
  

• On the way to the restaurant, we saw not one, but two alligators sunning themselves on the banks of the little retaining ponds that they have along the sides of the roads down here. 
• When we got back from breakfast, my parents' neighbor brought over a baby ring neck snake he found in his yard. I am not a snake person, but I held it (had to be brave in front of the kiddo). It was about 6 inches long and very cool. 

In a few hours, we will be flying back to Nashvegas. All in all, we had a great trip. But it's always nice to sleep in your own bed again.

Tonight, like every Wednesday night, is my life group. I usually refer to this group of ladies as my Bible study, but from now on, I'm calling them my life group. While it's true that we do study the Bible together, I want our group to be more than just that. I want to dig deep and really get to know these ladies. I want to build relationships with them that go beyond a casual friendship. I want to do life with them - hence the life group title. Tonight, we will be doing a check-in. We don't have anything official planned. We are just going to check-in with one another to see what God is doing in our personal lives - what He's teaching us, what He's saying to us. I'm really looking forward to it. I feel like God has been talking my ear off lately and I can't wait to share with my friends tonight. I'd like to tell you a couple things now, but some of the people in my life group read this blog so I don't want to ruin the punch line for them. But, God has given me a lot of food for thought. So I'm sure that I'll be processing it on here in the coming days. Stay tuned. What is God doing in your life right now?

Making Good On A New Year's Resolution

I started reading a book today. I'm only 35 pages in, but I can already tell that this book is going to rock my face off. Here's a link to the book's website and here's a link to the introduction. Bye for now. I have some reading to do. 

Happy Easter

Another great day filled with lots of baby torture (ie. making Harper wear silly things on her head), encounters with large rabbits, pretty flowers, and sunshine.

This afternoon, Pap, Harper, and I went to Washington Oaks Gardens. 
She was very interested in all of the informational plaques and pointed each one out. 
She was only mildly interested in all of the pretty flowers. I made up for her lack of interest. I'm convinced that Florida has some of the most interesting foliage on the planet.