If there are exams hovering around, we prepare by making a time table and slot weeks, days or hours to cover topics.

Ever happened to you when things did not go according to the plan? The non vegetarian casserole you made was not really good for the guests, because they turned out to be vegetarians. Or the questions in the exams covered all the topics that you thought were unimportant. Worse still, you were down with flu on the day of the examination and although you were well prepared you did not fare well. Well, these are few examples.

Such occurrences warn us of one thing. No, not that we should stop planning. But that we need to prepare ourselves for the unforeseen. Life is usually more uncertain than we think. Some times things do go as per the plan, but there will be hundreds of occasions when they will be otherwise. Anyone who is prepared for the uncertainties is all set, really. . .

Still preparing,
Manjit

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That's pretty much how scientists working on the ENCODE project must have felt after analyzing the first part of the human genome.

ENCODE, short for Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, is a massive project that aims to catalogue all of the functional elements of the human genome. The recently completed first stage of ENCODE catalogued just one per cent of our genetic code, but that represents some 30 million bases, or "letters" of DNA, in this case chosen randomly from 44 different parts of the genome. Analyzing that one per cent of our genetic structure took 308 scientists from 10 countries four years to complete.

All that effort has uncovered something marvelous: What I and other geneticists for decades took for granted may have been wrong. Or at least a wild simplification of what's actually going on.

Until very recently, accepted dogma in genetics was that DNA, specifically DNA in the form of genes, contained all the instructions necessary to make proteins. These proteins then made things happen at a cellular level, thus a gene is "expressed," and its instructions carried out. Another chemical, called RNA, was like a Xerox copy that simply replicated information from the DNA and transferred it to the area where proteins are made, shuttling information back and forth like a courier. It's a nice, tidy explanation for a complicated process. And in hindsight, it's probably a little too tidy.

Scientists first came up against the limits of this explanation when they mapped the human genome. To their surprise they found that people only have some 21,000 protein-encoding genes. Yet organisms like C. elegans, a tiny worm, or my specialty, the fruit fly, have almost as many - some 20,000 of them. If these genes are providing all the instructions on how to build and maintain an organism, how can such obviously more complicated creatures like humans have similar numbers of genes as simpler creatures like insects?

One answer may be found in the majority of our DNA that does not, as far as we know, code for proteins - what scientists used to call "junk." When ENCODE researchers started their project, they probably assumed that, because only a small fraction of our DNA coded for proteins, only a small fraction of whatever they looked at would be transcribed into RNA, the messenger that delivered the instructions on how to make the protein.

Instead, ENCODE researchers found that much of the human genome is transcribing into RNA. It's just that the information contained in it isn't necessarily read to make proteins. So then what is the role of junk DNA and what does all this extra RNA do? As yet, no one really knows, but it's clear that the human genome is much more than the sum of its genes. In fact, genes themselves may actually take a back seat in the development and functioning of an organism compared to RNA.

It's amazing for me to look at what we know now compared to when I ran a genetics lab back in the 1970s. In fact, when I tell students what we used to think back then, they can't help but giggle at our naivete. I may be overstating the role of the bicycle courier in my Fortune 500 company analogy. But I may be understating it too. It's still too early to say if RNA - our genetic bicycle courier - is actually running the show or not. But what has become clear is that there are a lot more bicycle couriers running around out there, delivering much more information than seems necessary and perhaps even making decisions on the fly. They may not be necessarily running the company, but they certainly have the ear of whoever does and they aren't keeping their opinions to themselves.

Originally published on June 29, 2007

Dr. David Takayoshi Suzuki is distinguished Canadian geneticist who has attained prominence as a science broadcaster and an environmental activist. He is also a co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

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Between 1998 and 2000, the labor force participation of women with babies under the age of 1 dropped for the first time in more than 30 years, falling from 59 percent to 55 percent. Then, between 2000 and 2004, the labor force participation of mothers with preschoolers also fell.

Ever since, feminists, anti-feminists and "post"-feminists have been debating the implications of this so-called "opt-out revolution." Some rejoice that career women are finally embracing their inner housewife and using their education in the service of full-time parenting. Others are dismayed, warning women they will jeopardize future earnings and independence by retreating to the home. And still others maintain that because only affluent women can afford to stay home full-time with their children, we need to help the wives of low-income husbands to stay home too.

Much of this debate is based upon false assumptions about who stays home and why, according to a study just released by researchers associated with the Council on Contemporary Families. The highest concentration of full-time homemakers in America is found among women married to low-earning men, while highly educated wives are increasingly likely to combine work and motherhood.

Long-range trends in the United States and the rest of the industrial world suggest that there has been a fundamental, irreversible revolution in the relationship between women and work. Countries that still organize their work life and social policies around the ideal of a male breadwinner providing for a stay-at-home wife will sooner or later have to face up to this reality.

Since 1970, the involvement of women in the paid labor force has increased dramatically throughout the industrial world. In some countries, the obstacles to combining motherhood with paid employment are still so daunting that mothers must withdraw from the labor force for several years. But far from encouraging a revival of male-breadwinner families, this situation accelerates other types of family change.

For example, in Japan and Italy, the age of marriage has reached new highs and birth rates have plummeted: Single women increasingly postpone marriage and childbirth because they cannot combine motherhood with the work they have come to see as an important part of their lives. One Italian demographer says that "women no longer give up work for the family; on the contrary, they give up having children in order to have a job." Americans may agonize about whether it's good for society to have so many working moms, but family researchers in Japan, Italy and Singapore worry much more about having so many working non-mothers.

France and the United States, where many more mothers hold down full-time jobs, have much higher birth rates than Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain, where it is harder for mothers to work outside the home. But because America, unlike France, does not provide universal and high-quality preschool, low-income mothers in the United States often cannot afford to work. Their participation in paid labor is much lower than that of middle- and high-income mothers, whose employment rates remain at world historic highs.

In the United States, the labor force participation of mothers with preschool-age children tripled between 1960 and 1990, rising from 20 percent to 60 percent. According to Stanford researcher Paula England, the workforce participation of mothers continued to rise during the 1990s, but at a much slower rate, so that by 2000, "only" 65 percent of mothers of preschoolers were working. So the slight dip in employment of moms with babies under 1could simply mean that some mothers were taking the timeouts that are legally guaranteed to all mothers in most other industrial countries, and then going back to work.

Between 2000 and 2004, the labor force participation of mothers with children under 5 did drop slightly, from 65 to 64 percent - possibly, says economist Heather Boushey, because of a recession that saw a drop in the labor force participation of non-mothers as well. But whatever the reason, the figure was back up to 65 percent by 2006. As England says, "This is hardly an opt-out revolution."

Some believe that the opt-out revolution would become a reality if more women could afford to stay home. But this hope is based on another misconception. The women most likely to become stay-at-home moms today are in fact the ones whose husbands can least afford to support a family. Women whose husbands' earnings are in the bottom 25 percent are the only sector of the population where full-time mothers outnumber those who combine paid work with parenting. Fifty-two percent of these wives are out of the paid labor force, compared with only 20 percent of wives whose husbands' earnings are in the middle range.

Many American women, then, are full-time homemakers because they cannot afford to work. They do not have the education or job experience to earn a salary that would cover the costs of child care or transportation, even though the family could really use a second income.

In families where men earn $60,000 to $120,000 a year, 72 percent of mothers work outside the home. When you get to husbands in the top 5 percent - men who earn more than $120,000 a year - 40 percent of moms stay home, presumably by choice. But even in this rarified income bracket, 60 percent of mothers work outside the home, although their families could clearly get by on their husbands' earnings. And those who stay home often do so because their husbands' high earnings require such long workweeks that no family functions would get done at all if the wife did not stay home to organize them.

Highly educated women are more likely to combine work with motherhood than less-educated women, and this is even more true today than in 1980, at the height of the feminist movement. As of 2006, England reports, 77 percent of mothers with college degrees were employed, compared to 71 percent of mothers with high school degrees, and just 52 percent of mothers without a high school degree. Given that women are now a majority of those who earn college degrees, it is unlikely that we will see a decrease in the labor force participation of mothers in the coming decades.

Women are in the workforce to stay. Where employers and policy-makers refuse to accommodate women's desire to combine work and family, we see one of two outcomes: Either women stop having babies, as in Italy or Japan, or, as in the United States, many women who need to work can't afford to (because of expensive and uneven-quality child care) and many women who want to work feel guilty about the choices they are forced to make.

Stephanie Coontz teaches history at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., and wrote "Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage."

Reproduced with permission from Stephanie Coontz

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The information contained in a poem is pretty thin, almost vestigial, compared to the essential thing which drives us to read it. That said, denying the appeal of poetry in translation is as futile as denying the appeal of foreign travel or foreign cuisine: the pleasures of difference. Inconceivable really. 14 of the top 25 best selling poetry books on Amazon.com are translations, which proves little except how seamlessly integrated translation is in the world of poetry. This leaves the translating poet with two options: one, create the best poem possible using the same ‘information’ as the original author; or two, forget the information and try to capture the essential. Most poetry translations fall into the first category, James Wagner’s Trilce falls into the second.

In Trilce, Wagner takes on César Vallejo’s book of the same name. This is no mean task; Vallejo’s text has bedeviled translators with its outright revolt against language. Vallejo’s work is plotless, mixes Spanish with the Quechua of his native Peru, and breaks syntax in ways no one would attempt in this country until the Seventies. Yet it also manages to address social injustices, prison life, and Vallejo’s complex relationship with his mother. Instead of trying to bottle this chaos by translating for ‘meaning,’ Wagner proceeds to ‘translate’ Vallejo homophonically. He picks an English word close in sound to Vallejo’s bastard Spanish and proceeds from there [skillfully avoiding the possibility of real gibberish]. The results are often magnificent, as in this stanza from poem 69:

Count us as a salty donation,
count us high as salt as,
a channel, a channel enlocked since summer,
facially torn and storied lasso us, disputing
the desultory loss key through veins
you died loss recurring, and labia doors plotless
the tongue stem out, contracting ten mills
you ecstatically sell us a questionable loneliness.

Wagner really fits his poetic foot into Vallejo’s instep here: walking the same line between ‘pure language’ and emotional expression. Wagner hits these moments often across the 77 poems which make up the book.

The real test for Wagner is how his ‘translations’ fare as poems, when compared with conventional translation. Take for example the second stanza of poem 36, the fairly well known address to the Venus de Milo. Here is Vallejo’s original:

¿Por ahí estás, Venus de Milo?
Tú manqueas apenas pululando
entrañada en los brazos plenarios
de la existencia,
de esta existencia que todaviíza
perenne imperfección
Venus de Milo, cuyo cercenado, increado
brazo revuélvese y trata de encodarse
a través de verdeantes guijarros gagos,
ortivos nautilos, aúnes que gatean
recién, vísperas inmortales.
Laceadora de inminencias, laceadora
del paréntesis.

Here is the same stanza translated by Clayton Eshleman, likely the best translator of Vallejo into English:

Are you that way, Venus of Milo?
You hardly act crippled, pullulating
enwombed in the plenary arms
of existence,
of this existence that neverthelessez
perpetual imperfection.
Venus de Milo, whose cut off, increate
arm swings round and tries to elbow
across greening stuttering pebbles,
ortive nautili, recently crawling
evens, immortal on the eves of.
Lassoer of imminences, lassoer
of the parenthesis.

If you don’t know Spanish you’ll have to take my word for it, but I think Eshleman comes as close to the meaning of Vallejo’s words as is possible in English. He even attempts to recreate some of Vallejo’s verbal miscegenation, translating “todaviíza” as “neverthelessez” in an attempt to render the English adverb into verb form just as Vallejo did with the Spanish. However, that trick along with Eshleman’s other literalisms turn Vallejo’s quiet poem of sympathy into a cacophony. Now here is Wagner’s ‘translation’ of the same stanza:

For how he stares, fences the mellow?
To monkey’s ape-ness pullulates
enters nothing unless braced plenty hear us
delay existing,
the yester existence came today
pouring imperfection
Venus the Milo, cool your certainty, increase
praise us revoltingly you tried to encode asses
other faces diverted and escaped just such gagging,
our t.v.’s nautical, aunts can gather
recede, whisper us in mortally.
They said a door dying minerally, they said a door
doubles in teeth

Certainly it is far more disjunctive than Eshleman’s translation or even Vallejo’s original. However, a few linguistic jerks aside, I think that Wagner captures the sympathetic nature of Vallejo’s original, its feeling of brokenness and existential poverty.

However, Wagner sometimes seems to land flatfooted. Occasionally the reader must work through a glut of desultory images, as in 38:

Her quantum bread firsts
you you know tiny carried animals.
Must she she leap as ions, as malaria
you two marry the homemade loss sustainingly
case she aged in vain the salty doors.

A serious effort must be made to contain that passage in the mind; but no more than Vallejo’s “verdeantes guijarros gagos. / ortivos nautilus.” An amount of impenetrability is part of the point in both Wagner and Vallejo. Vallejo conceived Trilce while he was imprisoned, and the poems’ difficulties reflect that state. Instead of translating Vallejo out of prison, Wagner creates his own through Vallejo’s words—and invites the reader to join him in it.

Trilce
by James Wagner
Calamari Press, 2005.
Poetry, 106 pp.
Paperback.
Illustrated by Derek White
$12

Nick Bredie is a writer living in Brooklyn.

Originally published in Tarpaulin Sky. Reproduced here with permission.

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Michael Connelly: Well, it was good on two levels. The first one was that there were pretty strict guidelines on the NYT story. There were 16 chapters and each had to be as close to 3,000 words as possible. So I found myself cutting back in some chapters and padding others. It's not that easy to do when you are used to—after 17 books—writing without looking at word count or chapter length, etc. So it was nice to revisit the story and pace it the way I wanted to. I think the original story in the Times had a lot of velocity but I think it has more in what I call the final version. The second level of enjoyment I got out of this is that I got a chance to revisit a story about eight months after it was supposedly finished. In the publishing world today it is rare that you get a chance to finish a story and then sort of mull it over and think about what you would add or change.

Question: How much is different in the novel versus the New York Times feature?
Michael Connelly: I think the story is more complex. I didn't change the significant aspects of plot and character; the bad guy in the Times version is still the bad guy. But I made the bureaucratic and political obstacles that Harry Bosch faces more complicated. There is also a pretty significant story line added involving a character who was not in the Times version of the story. I also shifted the time that the story takes place. In the Times it took place right before Christmas. Now it takes place right now. This allowed me to make the story more current.

Question: The events in The Overlook are supposed to be taking place about five months after the events in Echo Park (2006). Right away we discover that Harry Bosch has a new partner and is no longer in the Open-Unsolved Unit of the LAPD. What can you tell us about the time in-between the two books? What has Harry been doing between these two cases?
Michael Connelly: I try to make these books as realistic as possible without hindering the drama of each story. The events at the end of Echo Park I think would realistically require a major internal investigation to make sure that Harry acted appropriately. So I would say that Harry's been waiting out an investigation and chomping at the bit to continue his mission. I don't want to give away anything from Echo Park but it was pretty clear by the end that Harry would need to be assigned a new partner. In The Overlook he is teamed with a young detective he can mentor. I hope Ignacio Ferras is around for at least a few more books.

Question: Fifteen years ago Harry Bosch was introduced to the world in your first novel, The Black Echo (1992). What do you think about when you look back over the years and examine the thirteen Bosch books?
Michael Connelly: I hope he has evolved as a character in a realistic fashion. I hope his changes are believable. I think they are. I look at the discovery that he has a daughter as the most important change or moment in the series so far because it is the thing that has changed him the most. In many ways Harry is still the same as he was in 1992 but in many other ways he has changed a lot because he has learned a lot.

Originally published on MichaelConnelly.com.Reproduced here with permission.

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Many of our choices are conscious. They are the simple choices such as; “I prefer a black car to a green car, so I am buying the black car.”

Many of our choices are unconscious. They represent those areas of our lives where we feel disenchanted, disappointed, empty, frustrated, and unfulfilled. Our heads may tell us one thing, such as: “I have to stay in this job to pay my bills” when in reality, we dread facing our workday each morning.

Other areas of unconscious choices lie in the area of unfulfilled relationships. The kind of people we share our time with. The type of romantic relationships we have. There is only one way to tell if it is your conscious mind, or unconscious beliefs, that created these choices for you: Ask yourself how deeply fulfilled you feel with those people.

Do you feel supported, nurtured, respected, valued, honored, cared for and loved? Or do you feel drained, taken for granted, hurt, depleted, disrespected and used?

Your greatest truth lies in your heart. You KNOW the answer. That answer creates the dawn of your opportunity to replace an unfulfilled life with a fulfilled one. It creates a tremendous growth opportunity. The growth opportunity of your life! Who you are, who surrounds you what you have, what you would prefer to have, and most importantly what you deserve, are all chosen by YOU.

It takes tremendous courage to face your deepest truth. For most people, myself included, it takes a paradigm shift. Your paradigm is your general view of something. If you think certain people who comprise a certain portion of the population are not good, your paradigm will shift when you meet someone of that exact group of people who shows you that they are not ALL that way. THAT is a paradigm shift.

What about how YOU are? What is your general view of you? For me, it took untold heartache, countless hours of therapy, and deep self questioning before I found the inner courage to align my conscious thoughts (I deserve the best) with my unconscious belief that I was not worth much at all. Guess which belief was running the show? It was the unconscious one. The belief that I was not worth that much brought me the circumstances that showed me what I was tolerating, relative to what I could have.

Once your unconscious beliefs are brought to light, or come up to the surface, they dissipate. When that happens, a deep and positive inner shift takes place.

You have grown. No longer will you live any area of your life where you feel you are treated like dirt. You will only work in the type of job you absolutely love. You will only be in a relationship where you are treated beautifully.

You will also feel worthy enough to extend yourself to others with an open heart, without having a fear that you will be hurt. You will feel strong, confident and much more of the REAL you.

The real you is relative to those parts of your life that do not feel like they truly belong. What kind of company do you keep? Do you hang out with criminals or people who help uplift humanity? Which do you really prefer deep within?

Do you have a spouse or lover who adores you, or one who treats you like garbage? Which do you prefer? This is the relativity of your life.

All of our choices, both conscious and unconscious, lie in our self worth. Look at your life and you will find the indicator of your self worth.

It is a deep, transformative process to uproot the unconscious beliefs that have created pain in our lives. As your beliefs about yourself change, so too will your life change.

It is all relative to what lies within. You will know when you have grown. Your outer life will mirror your inner life in a healthier, more positive and life enhancing way.

It may be scary, however, choosing the best will show you the real truth: that you ARE the best. Relative to the old you, the changes in your life will be profound. It will feel like a whole new life. The life you DESERVE to live.

Originally published in Born to Inspire. Reproduced here with permission.

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Most people consider food strictly by way of their palates or stomachs. For them, food is eaten for the pleasure of it or for the satisfied, full feeling after a meal. Still others eat only what the taste buds or habit dictate without any thought as to what is healthy for the body or not. However, food is more than habit or psychological comfort, it is also a kind of natural medicine…or poison for the system.

ANY illness can be traced to one of three factors: genetic, environmental or poor nutritional habits. And of these, the food you eat or don't eat is the first most contributing factor to ill health. Very few people are aware of the effects of food on the system and intentionally eat certain foods for a period of time to initiate a positive health improvement.

Poor dietary habits can trigger genetic tendencies such as cancers and many other illnesses. Yet the medical 'industry' concentrates on a pharmaceutical/symptomatic approach to health care. The direct relationship between what you eat (or don't) and health is minimally taught in the majority of medical schools that traditionally concentrate more on disease rather than prevention of 'dis-ease' and maintenance of good health.
~

Let us consider the artichoke and the very long list of health benefits it offers. But first, there are artichokes and Jerusalem artichokes which are a different plant and not an artichoke at all nor from Jerusalem.

This article is about true artichokes or the Cynar scolymus, member of the thistle family (globe artichoke, etc.). Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke) is a member of the sunflower family and is not a true artichoke at all - it is the tuber that is eaten. Both have cynarin and silymarin, however the true artichoke (cynar scolymus), globe artichoke and varieties have higher levels of both and are the kind used most for liver/gall and more treatment.

The choke (heart) of small artichokes or the Spanish or Italian varieties, can be eaten whole. There are no hairs to remove as is the case with larger varieties.

Since ancient times, the artichoke has been used for liver and gallbladder conditions, 'cleaning' the blood, as well as the bladder. The Egyptians highly prized it as a health and diet food and Plinius described it as the 'food for the rich' because of the health problems contributed to a 'rich' life style - excessive in rich foods, fats and wine that led to liver illnesses (such as cirrhosis), gout and a general run down condition.

Today we know that the artichoke is very high in fibre, potassium, calcium, iron, phosphorus and other trace elements important for a balanced system. It is known to positively help poor liver function (thus helping to lower the blood cholesterol), arteriosclerosis, gout, supports the treatment of hepatitis and improves the gall secretions. It can slightly lower the blood sugar, improve the appetite and digestion, is diuretic and may help some migraine conditions (most especially those caused by toxins in the blood). As it helps the body rid itself of excess water and moves toxins it also has the added side effect of an improved skin luminosity.

In a poor diet of excessive drinking (most especially strong alcoholic drinks), high red meat and fat consumption, the artichoke can boost the liver's ability to regenerate its cells. Obviously, nothing can help advanced cirrhosis of the liver. Most liver problems by the way, are self-inflicted.

The liver's main function is the metabolic transformation of nutrients from the food we eat. It also detoxifies certain poisons. An overstressed liver obviously cannot function properly, which among other things results in poor assimilation of nutrients and increased toxins in the blood. This will eventually adversely affect the entire body causing numerous ailments that are often only symptomatically treated. What is amazing are the numbers of people who abuse their livers and hence their bodies, think they eat well, yet are suffering from a form of malnutrition - a word one associates with poverty and third world countries.

What to do? Take an honest appraisal of your diet, recognize unhealthy habits and develop a better understanding of the importance of a properly functioning liver. After serious drinking and weeks of fat-rich foods, do something good for your liver. Give it a break and help it to recuperate.

When artichokes are in season, go on a short term Artichoke 'Cure' (treatment, diet)! Discover new recipes and eat them as a main meal for several days. Repeat for as long as they are in season, varying the menu with small amounts of meat and other vegetables. Artichokes only have about 25 calories. Eat fish and poultry 3 times a week and cut out red meat for while. Avoid all animal fats during this time, use olive oil instead and avoid all strong alcohol. A few glasses of red wine a day helps the red blood cell production as well, however abstain from even wine for the several days to a week before adding a small glass with your meal. Another positive side to artichokes and improved liver function is that weight loss is easier as the metabolic assimilation of food is more efficient.

Infusion: use the leaves you normally throw away. You will need about 12-15 leaves per half litre (approx. 2 cups) of boiling water. Pour over the chopped leaves and allow to brew for 5 minutes. Strain and drink 2 cups during the day. You may sweeten with honey if you like. However, an easier method is to purchase an excellent extract by the W. Schoenenberger, Salus or A. Vogel companies from the health food shop).

Versatile: once trimmed, the versatile Spanish or Italian artichoke (remember you can eat the whole choke) can be cooked whole, sliced lengthways, halved, quartered or chopped, pre-cooked in a little water or broth and used in rice dishes, potato dishes, salads or as a topping for pizzas. They can be fried, steamed, boiled, stuffed, chopped with other ingredients for a filling for tomatoes, served with sauces. Chop the hearts very fine and they can be used in vinaigrette, mayonnaise, mixed with cooked egg or grated cheese or used in omelettes. Then there's quiche, pasta and risotto dishes - you are only limited by your imagination!

What am I having today? A large plate of artichoke slices with turkey in a delicious light sauce, and a glass or two of wine!

Originally published in The Epicurean Table. Reproduced here with permission.

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Gracious one play, your head is an empty shell
Wherein your mind frolics infinitely.
—An Old Sanskrit proverb

The river says
“I am the pure water
That quenches the thirst of the earth”;
The sea remains silent saying to itself,
“The river is mine.”
—K. Gibran

There the eye goes not,
Speech goes not, nor the mind.
We know not, we understand not
How one would teach it
—The Upanishads

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