Meselson

[zotz]

We've just had a mail round pointing out that tomorrow there's going to be a seminar here by Matthew Meselson on the genome organisation of Bdelloid Rotifers. This is interesting firstly because Meselson is somewhat Godlike and secondly because bdelloid rotifers are damn strange creatures. They're the second most common group of multicellular animals on the planet (beaten only by nematodes) and there are no males. At all. As far as I can tell nobody's ever seen one and there's evidence they've only done asexual reproduction for about 40 million years.

Should be interesting, as long as I remember to turn up.

WRT yesterday's comment on that voting questionnaire, I am reminded of a line from a sketch sending up general election coverage, from about 25 years ago, with whoever was minding the swingometer saying "You may notice that the swingometer doesn't allow for a large Liberal swing. This is because it only covers realistic situations. The only place I've ever seen a large Liberal swing was in Cyril Smith's back garden."

Big Cyril's still knocking about, apparently, which is good to know.

Comments

[taoist-goth.livejournal.com]

I would dearly love to see both Labour and the Tories in opposition, even if only for one term. Please God, let the stupid people vote for Libdem...

[zotz]

It would work. There are plenty of them.

[shaunotd.livejournal.com]

My Grandfather's name is Cyril Smith. He's much smaller than his namesake. Not that anyone really needs to know that...

[zotz]

Everyone is smaller than your grandfather's namesake. The wikipedia article records that before the 1970 election, the arliamentary Liberal party could fit in one taxi. Afterwards, they could proudly state that they needed two.

[zotz]

Ah . . . of course, I didn't mean the "arliamentary" Liberal party there. I did of course mean to refer to the Alimentary Liberal Party.

[shaunotd.livejournal.com]

Really? Well it takes some guts to admit to that!

[zotz]

I was obvious sick to my very stomach when I realised my mistake. I had all these points to make, and the error just rectum.

[original-aj.livejournal.com]

I find all this very hard to swallow.