Dance: Mariano Barreiro & Charles Gorczynski Tango duo in OKC (7/21/18)

On 7/21/2018 Saturday, we had a milonga with live Tango band. Mariano Barreiro & Charles Gorczynski Tango duo, the pianist and the Bandoneonist, was playing in Dallas the night before, and on their way to St. Louis stopped by Oklahoma City.

The event announcement says:

"Mariano Barreiro

Argentine Pianist Mariano Barreiro now based in SF, is one of the foremost new generation tango pianists in tango today. Having performed and recorded with some of the best tango musicians in the world, including Horacio Romo (Leopoldo Federico), Pablo Agri (Piazzolla), Horacio Cabarcos (Anibal Troilo), and more.
His ensembles have been recognized in the United States and Europe on international tours, and have been the featured orchestra for the Tango World Championships in San Francisco and the Red Carpet Tango Festival in Las Vegas.
Mariano has performed concerts for Tango Festivals around the world, including highlights at the International Tango Festival of Tallinn Finland, Festival of the Five Continents in Switzerland, Tangopostale Festival in France, and many other in Argentina.


Charles Gorczynski

Bandoneonist and leader of the acclaimed bay area sextet Redwood Tango Ensemble, Charles Gorczynski is known as a contemporary tango composer and is recognized by his Argentine colleagues as one of the best bandoneonists in the United States. His works have been premiered with Chamber Music Northwest Summer Festival in Portland, and he was recently commissioned for several new tango works by Intermusic SF. Charles has toured for milongas and concerts in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Rome, Pisa, and worked as bandoneonist for Alejandro Ziegler Quartet, Tango BC Trio, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, and California Symphony.
More info about Mariano Barreiro: www.marianobarreiro.com


VIDEOS:

Milonga El Encuentro - Los Angeles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjF5ul8V9gY

Argentine Tango Championship San Francisco (ATUSA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlmlsPQtXy8

Milonga XXI - Chicago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtjYJV4E6N0
" (end of quote)


It has been a while since we had a live band for milonga last time. The Saturday night was a treat. They played popular and danceable Tango songs, with occasional twist for fun added.

We had several visitors from Tulsa, some of whom I had not seen for several years. Meeting and dancing with friends after several years was precious.



To support the artists, I bought their CDs for my car with CD player. Redwood Tango Ensemble, "Unison (2016)" and "Prizefighter (2018)". ($25 for two)

I had no idea what type of music was in. For past few days I listened to the CDs while commuting. The songs turned out to be Tango-ish Jazz. In many parts, the music reminded me of Piazzolla, but the songs were more fleeting; always morphing, contemporary jazz-kind.

In "Unison" album, there were milonga and Vals (the rhythm says so). The vals reminded me of some Eastern European waltz, nice waltz with slightly off-feeling tunes.


 That made me realize, how well-structured and predictable most popular dance songs are.

 Lets take classical Tango songs. They have identifyable beats, combined with nice melodious singing and/or instruments. Structure is clear, so we can predict next pause and apply an 8-count figure for ending.

Compared with these classical songs, the compositions in the CDs were definitively on amorphous contemporary song's side. From a dancer's standpoint, to dance with these songs would be a challenge. You really have to be professional-level dancers (both of you) to dance with these songs convincingly. 

Listening to that kind of songs (contemporary fleeting Jazz with Tango instruments) with choreography attempt would be challenge/fun during upcoming commute.

I worked a little during the past weekend and sent out a review manuscript to journal office on 7/22/18 (Sun). Fingers crossed.

Science: 2018 Summer student program complete

7/13/18 Friday was the last day for 2018 Cancer Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) Program. 

We had a poster session in the morning, followed by luncheon with award ceremony.


We took an undergraduate student from North Carolina in the lab from 5/21 to 7/13/18. The student worked on his project with our graduate research assistant. I functioned as supervisor and mentor.

The student turned out to be pretty good. He was quick at understanding critical points, and also was decent at executing experimental procedures. Thanks to him, we obtained interesting pilot data that we plan to develop to a publication.


One day earlier, 7/12 Thursday was the day for poster presentation contest, which was for all 57 students in all student research programs combined.

There were 10 students for SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research Experience), 34 students for INBRE (IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence), 5 students for NARCH (Native American Research Centers for Health), and 7 students for CURE (Cancer Undergraduate Research Experience).

In the contest, poster was presented in 4 minutes by each student, and the presentation was judged by graduate school students.


The programs were designed to provide scientific research experience in the lab and poster presentation opportunity at the end. The hosting lab were provided with some research budget, and students with some stipend.


Overall, such programs offer great opportunity for students.

Ideas are cheap. We know many hypotheses/ideas turn out to be untrue. Real training in research science concerns how to test hypothesis and realize an idea. There is no place for someone who only dreams and floats cheap ideas without proving them. Hands-on experience gives some means to test a hypothesis and realize an idea.

After all, science is still show and tell.


I like win-win situation. With pilot results he obtained, this year's program was a win for us, too.

Dance: Dallas weekend for 2 milongas

On 7/2, a Facebook post popped up.

"This Saturday and Sunday get ready for a full tango weekend...

Saturday night -Evolution Tango
Sunday Afternoon- Milonga del Sol

It will be a fun weekend, come and have fun with local and out of town dancers..

If you are coming from out of town, please contact us for Hosting houses"

So I went. Dallas is 3.5-4hr drive. It takes some oomph to go there. Combining two milongas into a mini-Tango weekend was a good motivation.

They usually have the afternoon milonga ("Milonga del Sol") on 3rd Sunday. This time they made it to second Sunday. Certainly it is a better arrangement for visiting out-of-towners.

Thanks to that, there were other out-of-towners from Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and New Orleans, they say. The Saturday milonga had about 100 people.

It was a nice weekend with good parties.

World cup soccer. July 4th. Summer student. Collaborator arrangement. Neighbor moving in. Shopping.   ......feels like an eventful week I had.

Science: Book "The End of Alzheimer's" by Dale Bredesen

This is a good book for a non-medical doctor (MD) who is interested in 

(a) learning about proposed causes and current theories of Alzheimer's disease.
(b) learning what you can do to prevent Alzheimer's disease.
(c) learning what you may be able to do to Alzheimer's disease patient you personally know.


This is also a good book for an MD or PhD who is interested in above, plus

(d) getting ideas on what you can do to prevent or cure Alzheimer's disease with your research and/or practice.


The author Dale Bredesen has been working on Alzheimer's disease for 28+ years as an MD.

 I have read a few of his papers while I do my research on Alzheimer's disease. This book is not academic paper, but for general public. It was a New York Times bestseller in 2017.


When we scientists are to write something for general readers, we are told to write it in a way that an educated but medically/scientifically untrained reader, like a lawyer or an accountant, can understand. 

This book meets the guideline. Perhaps a little tricky for someone not trained for medicine or biology at all. But, hey, it is a book by an MD.


After I started investigating Alzheimer's disease, I learned one thing. Alzheimer's disease research is a murky research field. There are so many proposed theories, controversial causes, and possible remedies.

Yet, current bottom line in clinic is, there is no cure and no therapeutic drugs.


This book brilliantly summarizes current theories and causes for Alzheimer's disease (the author called them "36 holes in the roof"), and categorizes them in 3 categories (inflammation, lack of nutrient or hormone, toxins). 

Accordingly, he categorizes human Alzheimer's disease into 3 subtypes (inflammatory, non-inflammatory, atypical). He proposes that various tests for a set of biomarkers can distinguish the subtypes of Alzheimer's disease.

For example, inflammation can be detected by blood tests for hs-CPR, homocysteine, etc. Nutrient status can be tested by vitamins (C,E,D,B), etc. Hormone status can be measured for insulin, HbA1c, estradiol, etc. Infections that cause inflammation can be assessed by tests on mycotoxin. Environmental toxins like heavy metals (arsenic, mercury, lead,etc) can also be tested. Also, Apoe genotyping is important to assess genetic risk (carrying apoe4 indicates a higher risk).

By identifying an Alzheimer's disease patient's subtype, he can design countermeasures that can tip the balance between health and disease toward health, resulting an improvement in Alzheimer's disease symptoms.

His approach is a type of personalized medicine. 


We tend to dream of a magic bullet against a disease. His approach is closer to Indian Ayurveda or Chinese traditional medicine. Instead of using a magic bullet, the approach uses a shotgun to work on many of what he calls "36 holes in the roof", multiple causes for Alzheimer's disease.

The concept is familiar, because we are working in cancer prevention research field, where the notion of "herbal shotgun" is well-known.


From the scientist/researcher's standpoint, disease research is not over until we figure out much of the disease, the biomedical mechanisms. But for general public and medical practice, once effective treatment is developed, the battle is over.

Vitamin C (lime or lemon juice to be exact) for scurvy. Antibiotic for bacterial infection. Antiviral drug cocktail for AIDS. There have been many medical breakthroughs in the past.


The practice he is proposing in this book (the re-code method) might be the step toward the right direction for Alzheimer's disease. 


I liked the hope this book presented.

[The book cover]