Dienstag, 28. August 2018

A very deep discussion about immortality with my 5 year old philosopher

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M -  Papa, do you want to live forever?
P – Someday we must die my son, but you know what? One of the reasons why people have children is to live longer, even if we are not anymore there. We continue living in our children. You,  my little, have my blood and my genes, and thanks to you I will exist long and I will always be by your side, even if I am not around anymore.
M – Then, do you want to be buried in a coffin or in a jar.
P -  I think I don’t kno…
M – I mean… do you want to be eaten by worms? Or be burned?
P - … How about some ice cream..



Donnerstag, 5. April 2018

Mothers, bring your children to work! (Fathers keep just looking)

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Today I read an article1 about supporting young mothers working in science, by letting them bringing their babies and kids to scientific conferences.  While this idea very superfluously seems to support mothers in science; it can only strengthen an already marked sexism debilitating women in their field of work.

Part of "Father and son"- Story of the Ilustrator. Erich Ohsers (E.O. Plauen) 2

And here I explain why.

As a father working in science, married to a scientist, and both attending regularly to scientific conferences; I would personally not have a problem seeing mothers breast-feeding their babies or kids running through poster (but not Conference) sessions. However, I doubt that any parent would be fully able to concentrate on networking, giving a presentation or trying to get the most of such a meeting while the own child needs to be fed or simply needs some attention.
It will almost certainly be boring enough for any child, as for the most of the adult population, to hear for hours how protein “X” interact with peptide “Y” and what the p value was for that control group that no one really understands.

The whole idea seems to support mothers, but what it indeed does is to openly support sexism by assuming that mothers alone should take care of their children, even at work; leaving fathers behind or undisturbed at their workplaces.

The easiest solutions to consider are:
1. Fathers to take responsibility of their children specially while mamas have to work and no other childcare option is available.

2. Although difficult to conciliate in all countries, easier childcare options at the working place, and conferences in this case, calls for an intrinsic change of national policies in some countries that should favor mothers (and families) working not only in science but in any other job.

An insider tip, there are countries that support paid maternal/paternal leave and grant easy childcare options.

References:
1. Nature 555, 551 (2018)
2. http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/comic-zeichner-e-o-plauen-goebbels-verzieh-ihm-nie.871.de.html?dram:article_id=305835

Mittwoch, 14. März 2018

Stephen Hawking and his Legacy

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There was only one person that could probably be the closest to understand the complexity of the universe and therefore of existence. The same person likely lived every day of his life like if it was the very last one, as it should be.



Diagnosed with a condition that would not let him live more than a couple of years longer, he managed to survive more than 50 years with this disease, time in which he left a path of knowledge that could only be compared with that left by Isaac Newton.

Stephen Hawking might leave this world but he will be perpetuated as long as the human race exists. Not for long if his forecast turns to be also true.


Fotos and links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzH5j1fTZZ4

Dienstag, 2. Januar 2018

A reliable smartphone-free activity tracking system

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Activity tracker systems are proposed to monitor physical activity during the day and the night. However, they might fail to retrieve specific information tailored for each user, especially from those that are still reluctant to use smart phones.
A classical, battery free, Old School activity Tracker system (OST) was evaluated for the period of one year from January to December 2017.
Daily sport activities performed by a motivated 37-year old male subject were manually documented after training through a keyboard into a database created in a 7-year old computer.
Daily training sessions were classified into 6 categories: 1) Legs, 2) Core (back, abdominals), 3) Arms/back contractions, 4) Arms/chest flexions, 5) whole body training, 6) others (including swimming, running, biking, etc).
A database with 137 exercises for the different categories was created based on personal experience and the recommendations of Marc Lauren (1). This database helped to spontaneously decide what to exercise every day.
An average of 16 exercises per week were performed uninterrupted in the year 2017, where the weeks with lowest performance were due to A) sickness B) relaxing days in a Spa, C) a summer family trip, D) laziness or E) the Christmas break; as shown in figure 1.


Number of exercises performed every week in 2017 classified by category. 


Figure 1.  A, B, C, D, E arrows point weeks where the normal training was interrupted. The Old School Activity Tracker OST was able to identify these periods

A total of 860 exercises were performed throughout the year. The in-house training period significantly improved performance on different physical challenges.

Attempt to break the world record of abdominal plank


New year resolution: The planche pushup
(9 month  follow up, 7 attempts)


Of note, a considerable reduction in running activities compared to previous years was observed (285 minutes in 2017 vs approx. 2400 minutes per month from 1996 to 2003),
The correlation found between weeks with low activity (A to E, figure 1) and the periods of training restriction due to external or motivational reasons, validate OST as a strategy to monitor and evaluate physical performance. 

These results revive and expose the potential benefits of writing down training achievements independently of invasive electronic devices such as smartphone-dependent activity trackers.

Material and methods
A bar fixed on a concrete wall, a very small child (4-8 Kg), a medium size child (9 to 14 Kg), a sponge mat and an ab wheel were spontaneously used depending on the mood of the operator. Statistical analysis was performed using Excel software (Microsoft Office). The majority of the exercises where performed according to Marc Lauren recommendation for each training category as shown in representative examples below.

Legs


Arms flexions


Arms contractions


Core



References:
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/tertulioo/videos
Book: Marc Lauren. You are your own gym (Fit ohne Geräte). 2011