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Down the Rabbit-Hole

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

Indoor house plants

A New Leaf

Watching new growth take shape and change over time, slowly, methodically, bring me joy. Some favourite plants and why:

The polka dot plant : vibrrant pink spots on dark green leaves are lively. It grows fast, wilts to ask for more water and perks right back up, easy to propogate and clip (too easy? so many seedlings in temporary water containers). A gift from a friend that grows and communicates.

Monstera : grows very very fast and with these giant gorgous leaves makes a space green and lush. The joints grow roots sideways when it's thirsty, sometimes alarmingly quickly. There's no water out there, champ, but I hear you. A gift from a friend with an overactive tree of her own, I've since shared clippings (read: bush) with several people. Sharing your own plants is a gift. Care is pretty easy but needs quite a bit of sun to make those holes in the leaves.

Poinsetta : is this the most ephemeral potted plant in our society? I honestly didn't know it would survive past Christmas but here we are. I've had to learn though, so take it from me: they do not like direct sunlight, which makes the leave crisp up as if its been burned, which I suppose it has. How the leaves go from green to red as they grow I've yet to understand. Needs little water and apparently shade. It's coming back to life, just in time for Easter.

ZZ plant : has growth spurts, watch out! Recieved as a gift in a gorgeous stone pot, I really wanted to display it on a bookshelf but I find that its much happier closer to a window. Brilliant green leaves. Can't see it and not think of ZZ Top.

Its a nice trend, 2020
14
Feb

Visiting Shenzhen, China

Posted by MK

Popular expectations had me convinced that the metro would be over crowded, that the streets would be teeming with street food steaming with smells I wouldn’t be able to identify, and that I would be lost with no chance of finding an english speaker to guide me back to my hotel. None of that. Shenzhen’s metros are spacious and efficient, with trains coming in at every few minutes; they are marked with the metro lines, direction, and next stops. The hallways are also very very wide and marked with lanes for pedestrian traffic, which seemed unnecessary even during rush hour, but that’s foresight for ya. Maybe I would have been disappointed with the lack of street food had I experienced hungry during my stay more than twice. During the two weeks, we were ushered to gorgeous lunch and dinners (after breakfast buffets, that we cleverly started to skip) that included no less than dozens of dishes for all of us to share. Trying even a tiny bit of each meant stuffing your self. So that’s what I did and it was amazing. Shenzhen, as a huge metropolitan city, has it’s fair share of fluent english natives and those who smile and chat with you in speedy mandarin as if you’re totally on the same page. Thankfully, the city is logically laid out and with the metro and enough signs in english, the sprinkle of english speaker is enough to get where one needs. Fun fact: good maps does not work. It might look like it works, it might even mostly work, but it is not to be trusted. Use guidebooks, paper maps, local advice for busses, and don’t make big plans to walk around the city as it is not pedestrian friendly. Oh but DO make friends with people at the bike stations. It was great fun to bike around the bike paths in parks but the only way to use the bikes is to pay by phone and only those with we chat pay are able to get those bikes so I just gave 1RMB to the people who would take a bike out for me.

Back from a visit to China, 2017

Central Dogma of biology

Posted by MK

What is it: grandiose name for the idea that all life (self-replicative, self-sustainable organisms) use the path of DNA —> RNA —> Proteins as the central process for carrying out functions. What is it: grandiose name for the idea that all life (self-replicative, self-sustainable organisms) use the path of DNA —> RNA —> Proteins as the central process for carrying out functions.What is it: grandiose name for the idea that all life (self-replicative, self-sustainable organisms) use the path of DNA —> RNA —> Proteins as the central process for carrying out functions.What is it: grandiose name for the idea that all life (self-replicative, self-sustainable organisms) use the path of DNA —> RNA —> Proteins as the central process for carrying out functions.

Schools of thought, 2018