Life: It's that time of year again....to write down New Year's Resolutions

Thanks to the winter storm Goliath, road condition is not quite good. I rescheduled my meeting with a Professor about my grant in preparation and possible collaboration.


So this morning I did my annual task during winter break, "Write down New Year's Resolutions".


That includes scheduling, so that I am not going to forget things that I am supposed to do, like some paperwork and travel arrangements. Also, "writing them down" is important. A great number of success books and business books emphasizes the importance of goal setting and writing them down. I'd just follow the advice and do it. In fact, I've found it quite useful.


Maybe you find my view wired, but to some extent I see life events like ordering things from Amazon. I place order today and pay for them, and they will be delivered later. Simple enough?


I usually do the writing down in four categories; "Professional, Financial, Health, and Others".

A key word for my 2016 is "Define". I am going to define clearer for what I want in my life in the four categories. So that the Amazon/universe would send me the right things.


Since New Year's Resolutions/Goals and to do's are personal and should be unique to each, I won't disclose what I wrote down for myself here.


You may have gotten yours too. Like they say, it is easier to live in the future when you plan and make the future happen. I don't see "plan for the future" and "Live present" are mutually exclusive.


I love "Forrest Gump", probably because my default attitude toward life is entirely different from his. 

And, I'll ignore The Joker's mockery. Lines form fictional characters in movies and novels get memorable when they reach a person's core character or value system. Sure I plan things. I'll shake his little challenge off.

Enjoy the rest of 2015 and Have a Happy New Year.

Science: Galley Proof, and a thought on professional work

My Facebook post from Yesterday (12/23/2015). 

"Today was the last day for 2015 official business for the University. In such a day and at around 430PM, the journal office dropped galley proof for my proofreading. Now the proofreading is finished and sent back. Well, it was a nice way to close the official business days for 2015."

Proofreading for a paper is a time-sensitive work. We are usually requested to return it within 48 hours. It was in "urgent/important" category. So I did it. It took about 3 hours, but it needed to be done. I am pretty happy about it being finished.


Proofreading of a paper in press is a final step for a project. 

A project goes like this; Know how to plan for a research, find an important research subject, rationalize and build a hypothesis, fund the research project, set up collaboration or work with someone (may include students, technicians or other researchers) and execute the research, obtain the results and interpret them, extract information and evaluate the hypothesis, write a manuscript and send it to a journal office, convince the editor and reviewers to publish it, work with editorial office once accepted, and get it published, ....... 

....these are a series of steps, and knowing the steps is a very important part of the training to be a research scientist (=PhD course and post-doc training). Of course there are many other things you should know to be a scientist, but this "project building to publication" is one of the core skills to be a scientist in this era of "publish or perish".


Once whole process is broken down to smaller steps, you'd realize these are the same steps for each project. In a sense research is a routine work, just like all other professional works are routine works in their own ways.


Whether you can see what you do as a routine with a structure or not is a point that can differentiate amateurs and professionals. By breaking the routine down to steps, you can expect consistency in your work. And consistent good work is a requirement for professionals.

There will be a time when you are not good enough for a work, especially at the beginning. In the case you need to take training and become good enough for the work. You cannot skip it. After a certain time, they will evaluate your work. One way or the other, the universe will hand out its judgement. 


This is my view for professional works. This view is true in my science work at least, and I am assuming the view to be true in many other professions.


Winter break is a good time to step back and see ongoing works from a distance, then decide which part needs more attention. It's much like painting.

                                    [Time to step back and look at the whole picture]

Life: I don't like long lines

The new Star Wars is coming up. I will go watch it. Eventually.

I anticipate a mall-ful of people forming long lines this weekend. I'd have to wait longer in the line if I go. That's what I don't like. 

Probably I'd go watch the movie some time later. I don't see much merit in viewing the movie earlier.  But certainly I don't mind some people see some prize in early viewing. I just don't have to be an early adopter in every aspect of my life.


If you are a shopkeeper, long line is good for your business, of course. It even adds sense of premium. A restaurant with long line is a state shopkeepers want to create. It has good appeal to people, or so they believe. 


However, in my science business, the state of "many people working on the same thing" is not necessarily a good thing. "This is an important issue, so we allocate many people and funding"...the approach certainly has merits, but has proven to reach a performance peak quickly. Over-allocation of the limited resource can even be a problem rather than a solution. Like ecosystem, many subjects being investigated by many niche researchers is actually a good and healthy state of science.

Influenced by the overcrowd-disliking attitude, I have this mindset, "If I have to join a long line to do something, I may not be doing it very smartly".

Well, whatever my reasoning is, I don't think I am going to join the line any time soon, not this weekend. I'll be doing something else. I don't mind being contrarian.


You people, enjoy the line and movie and have fun.

Science/Life: Comparison between cancer and radical extremists

We cancer researchers have acquired great deal of knowledge about how cancers come into being. Generally, prevailing model suggests that cancers come into being with progressive accumulation of mutations, which are influenced by genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors. Average cancer cells have 25-50 mutations, and among them are  mutations that are directly responsible for the cancer, called driver mutations.

The roles of driver mutations include (i) oncogenic mutation(s), that drive the cell to proliferate, (ii) loss of tumor suppressor(s). Tumor suppressors inhibit tumor to develop. Probably (iii) something that makes the cancer cells difficult to kill or die (or ensure survival), should be included as a role as well. For malignancy, (iv) ability to metastasize (move around), is important. 
[In case you are interested, read "Hallmarks of Cancer: The Next Generation" (2011) Hanahan and Weinberg]


One thing that plays a role in overall cancer development is genomic instability that we study. Genomic instability is something that increases the odds of occurrences of mutations. Once genomic instability is introduced, chances of another and the other and more mutations increase.

I am not using this blog for talking about my own science much. But the concept of progressive genomic instability in colon cancer development was among what we proposed in our Review article (click to the open access [means free] article) in 2013.

[CIN (Chromosome Instability) is a cause of genomic instability]

An insight for mechanisms should lead to an idea for solution. So we introduced a few studies that may lead to solutions for preventing cancer by selectively killing cells with genomic instability. I am still working on the line of studies in hopes of preventing and curing cancers through being able to target cells with genomic instability in the body.


           ************************************************************************

Lately, we have seen a lot of terrorism-related incidents. A common thread is that random mass-murdering were done by radical extremists of religions or ideologies. They did the mass-murdering acts based on their extreme and radical beliefs. 

They start out from regular practitioners of their belief systems, then developed to mass-murdering terrorists. As current Pope said, extremism is a common issue among various religions (that include Islam and Christian, even Buddhism).

It's not only for religions. Recent Planned Parenthood shooting was done by a guy with extreme ideology, a twisted and violent version of anti-abortionism, it seems. I'd include him as a radical extremist, although, technically, he  may not be a terrorist according to a strict definition of the word. But practically, he incited fear in the community, so he is well-qualified as terrorist.



Now, if I apply our knowledge on development of cancer to the development of radical extremists, what kind of analogous parallelism can we find?


 It is the action that finally makes them terrorists, but before the action, there are transformations inside. To be fully developed as radical extremist, before they act and kill (cancer), they have to gain something (oncogenic mutations) and lose something (tumor suppressors).

What they gain would be methods and/or skills to murder many people. Then a will to act and kill.

What they lose would be respect for human lives. That is for other people's and probably for their own lives.

What factors would act as accelerators for the mutations toward radicalization, as an equivalent of genomic instability? That would be (a) your choice to embrace radical thoughts, and/or (b) constant supply (indoctrination) or availability of radical thoughts. Human minds are flexible and pliable. Certain minds may be more so than others. Certain personalities and minds may have higher affinity to radical instructions.


So what would help stopping your own radicalization?

(i) Distance yourself from killing methods. 
Gun control actually is a method for this (not the method, though).

(ii) Don't act on killing. 
Among various religions, "Do not kill/though shall not murder" is among top instructions or commandments. Remember that. That means you are not going to heaven if you kill. Radical extremists twist common teaching of religions here.

(iii) Maintain respect for life. 
Oddly enough, this may be difficult.

(iv) Distance yourself from radical instructions. 
Turn off the d**n radio. Stay away from the news channel that is known to be biased for extremist view. Forget what that notorious preacher/imam/rabbi said. If you are in his group, why not getting out. If you are constantly posting politically or religiously extreme views in your Facebook page, you may need to consider cutting it by not visiting the original websites, much less re-posting them. When you are re-posting someone else's message, check whether you are a pawn for propaganda by a demagogue.

(v) Ask yourself, "what's good to promoting a radical view?" 
If you think you are doing it for greater good, or doing God's work, by restricting others, probably you are doing it wrong. Be careful there.


In this opinionated world, you may feel belong by employing a position, and may even feel superior or strong if your opinion is radical. But it is fine to be on the middle of the road. Silent majority is a good place to be. If you feel killing is wrong and follow the feeling, at least you are unlikely to end up as a terrorist.


Prevention of radical extremism starts from each person's mind. Discouraging environments that breed radical extremism should be important, too. Only after that, prevention of the act can work.

Book: "The Love Matrix (恋愛マトリックス(Japanese))" by Dr. Goodwill. A bluntly simple view for love and relationship

We got ice storm in the 2015 Thanksgiving weekend. Of course it's not like real "Ice storm" in northern states or in Canada or in Russia. We had some freezing rain, which turned to ice.

But around here, we are just not used to it. We do not have ice/snow-proof infrastructures and the power lines are not buried underground. Frozen tree branches came down to disturb power lines so easily. Thanks to that, I got 8 hour power outage and 2-day internet disruption during the weekend.


I am not writing this to whine. I am writing about the weather condition to talk about a book I read during the weekend. Thanks to the icy road condition, I canceled my plan to go to Dallas and read a few books instead.


One of the books was "The Love Matrix (恋愛マトリックス) ". It was a book about relationship. The author is Dr. Goodwill, who has a PhD and runs a popular relationship counseling website in Japan.

I read a few of his books before. Perhaps because of some similarities in our thought processes (we do have PhD in science), I've liked his honest and insightful writing.


Now, in the book, the author asserts that when a man sees a woman, he gives her a position in his mind-map, the Love matrix.

The author came up with this simple two-standards matrix, based on a notion that humans are animals and their judgement is affected by two major instincts, sexual desire (sex) and self-preservation.


A: Sexually attractive
B: Sexually unattractive or neutral                      (Sex instinct)

C: Helps his survival
D: Does not affect his survival, neutral
E: Jeopardize his survival.                                  (Self preservation instinct)


How he sees her and how he acts depend on her position. A-C is the best for her, and B-E is worst for her.

An example: He would not do much for her if she is not sexually attractive (B) (ouch). But if she provides a cozy place (C), he values her and she still has a chance to get him.

Or, even if she is attractive (A), if she complains a lot or is no help for him (E), the relationship can go sour.

The positioning can change as well. Her attraction can (will) go down over time (A to B).


The author's message was to assess each other's positions and act accordingly.

This is a bluntly simple view for love and relationship or what. I kind of liked it. I laughed, in fact.


Just give this simple view a try. You can see your relationship from a different standpoint and you may realize something.

[The book cover]

He also stated that there may be some other standards in human mind, which are "Guilt" and "Conscience". These two emotions can stand up against sex and self-preservation, according to his case studies. He speculated that the strength of these emotions might have come from humans' choice to live in a group or society.

I am a scientist. I enjoy watching or testing whether the author's hypothesis/model is true or not for a majority of people.