dappled shade

Bring Back the Muppets

If you could bring back a canceled tv series, which would you choose?
Submitted by The Good Girl Gone Blog.

I'd bring back The Muppet Show (not the Disney version of the Muppets). I've been watching them on Netflix, and they're just endlessly entertaining. Plus, a modern version would feature celebrities I recognize (as The Muppets were just a little too early for me to know who the guest stars were).

Alzheimer's Spread

The BBC reported on a study in mice linking a prion to Alzheimer's disease. 

Prions are malformed proteins that can spread through the brain and cause neurological diseases; they're most famously linked to Mad Cow Disease. While there's no sign that Alzheimer's is contagious, when the malformed tau protein is injected into healthy brain tissue it spreads to other parts of the brain, and helps explain how the disease progresses.

The tau protein is a benign, common protein. The malformed version, though, creates a deadly neurological disease. This fascinates me partially because biology is just interesting. But also because one protein out of thousands malfunctions, and it destroys memory, personality and eventually life in the organism it belongs to.

Photos from Italy

Walt and I got back from Italy last week, and he's pulled together some of the photos from our trip.

The photo above is Vernazza, the town we stayed in when we were in Cinque Terre (all of the trip was great, but Cinque Terre was my favorite).

A great way to celebrate 5 years of marriage :-)

Overheard...

...at the gym: "O my God! My balls, dude! My balls!!"