Science: my regular work as a scientist (an example)

I started out this blog as a personal blog, and did not differentiate it as a dance blog or a professional blog. I am planning to keep that way; I alternate the topic among Dance, Science and Life events.

This entry is a record of a part of my regular operations as a scientist (junior faculty in a University). 

Following is a Journal Club notice for the lab. The readers are assumed to have undergraduate/graduate school-level knowledge for biology (but you don't have to have that to read this blog entry).

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Dear All,

Attached is the Journal Club paper for this Friday (9/5/14).

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Aug 19;111(33):12019-24. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1412901111. Epub 2014 Aug 4.

Disassembly of mitotic checkpoint complexes by the joint action of the AAA-ATPase TRIP13 and p31comet

Esther Eytan, Kexi Wang, Shirly Miniowitz-Shemtov, Danielle Sitry-Shevah, Sharon Kaisari, Tim J. Yen, Song-Tao Liu, and Avram Hershko

Link:   http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/12019.long

Anaphase Promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C) is a ubiquitin ligase complex that drives mitosis toward exit. This paper’s last author  Dr. Avram Hershko is the Novel Prize winner (2004), Israel-based biochemist and a leader in ubiquitin biology. In 1995 he reported biochemical activity of APC/C for the first time. His report was immediately followed by Dr. Mark Kirschner in Harvard. Their biochemical works provided a perspective to mitotic research at the time and to yeast-based genetical data.

APC/C happens to be the subject of my doctoral thesis. We had yeast mutants that show mitotic arrest, and my task as a graduate student was to figure out the function of the mutated proteins. It turned out the mutants were APC/C mutants, and the mutations disassemble APC/C and inactivate it.

So when I read this paper, it feels somewhat nostalgic and personal. I did meet Dr. Hershko twice in person, in Kyoto and in an ASCB meeting.

This paper is tackling another mystery; how mitotic checkpoint (essentially APC/C inhibitor) is silenced, so APC/C is activated and cells can proceed to mitotic exit. 

Research in mitotic regulation started out as research for cdk (cyclin dependent kinase) regulation, then evolving toward the study of cdk regulators such as APC/C and mitotic checkpoint complex. It is good to have this historical perspective to understand this research field.

Thanks.

Hiroshi

Dance: Three dance sites I came across and liked; two for Tango, one for WCS

There are many websites and blogs that give good information or entertainment for your dance of choice.

Here I list three good ones I came across last month.

(i) Gancho/we love tango

This is a monthly web magazine for Argentine Tango dancers and aficionados. Based on Europe and published in English and Slovakian. There are very good articles. 

(ii) Gotta Tango

A Tango blog by studio owners. They are based in New Orleans, wrote a book about Tango ("Gotta Tango") that I also recommend.

(iii)Smoothstyle Dance Studio

This particular link takes you to an article titled "What WCS judges are looking for". It is good  for competitors to know these things.



From (iii), come to think of it, there is some "contrast and conflict" in the dance world in general; between social dance and competition dance. In Tango, they see the tango as Salon (social) and Stage (show) tangos. 

By itself, the contrast is neutral. Some people enjoy dancing socially, focusing on their own feelings and subtleties of the dance. "Appreciate small things" they say. Others sign up for contests for a show to entertain audiences, and subtle moves cannot be seen from a distance. What they do are similar in many ways, but the mindsets are different, leading to a big difference in end results.  

When you start adding your own meaning and evaluation, the contrast can become a conflict that you may feel compelled to take a side. Good or bad. Recreational or serious. etc. etc. When you assert and take one side, you tend to seek faults on others to justify yourself.

For this matter, my position is to keep open mind. Both sides have something to offer. Focus on improving what you do, and refrain yourself from dissing others. In fact, there may not even be "others". The boundary between two dance lovers can be arbitrary and imaginary.

High level competitors have to be fit physically and skilled in the art. The state is not open to everybody and acquiring it takes efforts. It's just how it is. How you feel about it is another issue.




Quote from "Star Wars Episode III".

"Let me help you to know the subtleties of the force"
"How do you know the ways of the force?"
"My mentor told me everything about the force-even the nature of the dark side"
"You know the dark side?"
"Anakin, if one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects, not just the dogmatic, narrow view of the Jedi. If you wish to become a complete and wise leader, you must embrace a larger view of the force."


I'm not suggesting you to turn to the "dark side". Maybe this is not the best quote to make my point. But I like the scholarly attitude to gain whole understanding to a subject.


Besides, Sith lords tend to be more powerful than Jedi masters, aren't they?




[Disclaimer: I have no relations or financial interests to the websites and the owners]

Dance: "Dance-ish performer" Kenichi Ebina and his book

If you missed 2013 America's Got Talent show, take a look at this link.

Kenichi Ebina ALL PERFORMANCE America's Got Talent 2013

Kenichi Ebina was the winner of the season. I enjoyed his "dance-ish performance" and was also very impressed by them. I am glad he won.

[The video presentation is not in chronological order. The performances are presented in following order; "The video game"(second round), "The head drop-Matrix" (first round), "The mirror"(Third round), "Angel"(semi-final) then "Holograms" (Final)]

On 4/21/2014 he published a book in Japanese. So I ordered it from Japanese Amazon and read it. To my knowledge, the book has not been translated to English as of today (8/23/2014). On rare occasions like this, I get benefit from my Japanese language skills here in the US.

(Book cover of his book)

The book title says," You can win in the world if you show it well" 

  [My translation: The original reads,"Misekata hitotsu de sekai demo kateru"]

Good thing about reading a book like this is that we can have a glimpse at inner workings of a creative mind. In the book he did not define himself as a dancer. He even referred himself as a second-class (or not top-notch) dancer. He thought he was not the best-of-the-best dancer. Considering the amazing things the best-of-the-best dancers can do (Young Baryshinikov, for example), what he said may have some truth.

Yet, he beat all other contestants who tend to be the best in their own specialty.


Instead of defining himself as a dancer, he defined himself as a performer or entertainer. 

Kenichi's unique trait is his smartness and scope. He sees his performance as an act, not as a dance. He puts high priority on the audience's response, rather than on showing how exquisite his dance is.

So he had a fundamentally different scope from a dancer. 

He pointed out that, in the America's Got Talent show, dancers had not fared well. Visual surprise or impact can fade quickly once the audience grasp what the performer would do. His (then novel) idea was to be unpredictable and to give a surprise by combining different disciplines for each of his act.



The "head drop" was originally a magic act. He saw it in a TV show, a kid was doing it. He adopted it to his act. 

On a magic stage, the "head drop" may not be very surprising by itself, because the audience anticipate a magic. Yet when the audience expect dancing, the magic trick comes as a surprise, he said. Fizzle or sizzle, it really depends on the context and on how well you show it. 

To be the best of the best, it takes so much training, yet you risk becoming predictable and getting less reward. Rather, he said he would combine two not-the-best-of-the-best disciplines and create unique and surprising entertainment.

His approach is brilliant.

PS.  

In more recent dance shows, like in this season of "So You Think You Can Dance", the choreographers are adding more story into the dance. This trend may be a far-cry result of his presentation.

[Disclaimer: the YouTube video is not mine. All rights belong to the creator of the original]

Life/Dance: You do it and you are outta here!

I am running an unofficial survey. It is for Argentine Tango dancers. 

Q: How do you define "personal connection" in Argentine Tango?

If you could email or message your definition, it will be greatly appreciated. 

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Yesterday, facebook stream brought a disturbing news.

It was about a California-based West Coast Swing (WCS) dance instructor sending inappropriate texts and making sexual advancement to his supposedly student, a 17 years old girl. The parent of the girl involved in the incident stepped forward and disclosed rather nasty details. The police was investigating.  More reports indicated that the instructor may be a repeat offender and is likely involved in a rape case of 14 years old girl as well. The WCS-related facebook page is getting attention of WCS community.

Yikes.

I categorized this news as grievous professional misconduct.

A University professor can lose his job by sexual misconduct with his student. Bankers can lose their job by embezzlement. Scientists can lose their reputation and/or job by forging results. 

Likewise, a dance instructor should lose his job by making inappropriate sexual advancement. 


A common notion is that there are things in an industry that lead you to lose your position if you violate one of them. They are "you do it and you are outta here" things. With a major violation of the industry rule, finding another position in the same industry will be difficult. Punishment is great.

Sometimes these rules are set and published rules, like a University policy. Other times, it is a "common sense among the professionals", and in case of violation judgement call will be made by the people involved in the industry.

Although we tend to believe opinions by many should matter as democracy, in many real cases it is not democracy but Oligocracy, in which only a few people in the industry are in the position to decide. In this case, WCS event directors/organizers, regional associations, and his students are the people to decide how this incident is handled. They should decide whether they allow the instructor to keep teaching WCS or appearing events as an instructor or competitor.

Professional misconduct should have consequences. Otherwise, the industry will lack quality control, will lose trust, respect or relevance, and will corrupt.

If they rule his actions acceptable and give him the second chance, they would be sending a terrible message. They would be saying it is okay to rape a minor, make sexual advancement and send inappropriate texts in this dance community.

Personally I will not deal with a dance instructor with long history of misconducts. Teaching dance is a privilege, and once he abuse the privilege, he should be outta here.




PS
I read some comments on the WCS instructor incident, saying "let's not judge, forgive him and give him a second chance". These are misuse of Christian ideas. When the instructor die, where he go is God business and not for our judgement. But people in an industry have responsibility to make judgement call for the integrity of the industry.