He must have made a deal...

with THE DEVIL! Or, is the devil himself. I'm ranting about this because last weekend, my NFL Fantasy team was single handedly dismantled by the golden boy, scoring 41.64 pts (A LOT). I get 2 TD's from Antonio Gates, 2 TD's from Hines Ward, and a usual solid performance from Peyton Manning and still lose... to my buddy Dave K. no less. Needless to say, I'm distraught and bitter. I find myself actually wishing ill on Tom Brady, who at the moment, seems to be the face of the "Evil Empire" that is the Patriots, of the NFL. Am I insane? I think I can now finally appreciate the hatred Red Sox fan has towards the Yankees. When will it end, or will it? For me, it's a moot point unless somehow by the grace of god, I manage to sneak in the back door of my leagues 4 man playoff.

As an analysis of all this insanity, it is clear that the strangle hold that fantasy games now have on the sporting world has reached a frighteningly irreversible trend. In addition to the unrelenting statistical tickers that crawl below our TV's updating sports enthusiasts fantasy portfolios, I am now aware that satellite TV will now allow you to input your teams roster and live update you on their performance as they compile relevant statistics. Personally, I have become a "Box score whore" of a sorts, glued to my Yahoo Stattracker and satellite radio on Sundays, pining for statistical explosions from my starting line up. I find I'm constantly crunching numbers of C list players, in an attempt to squeeze the last drop of "fantasy juice" out of a handful of dry lemons. Is all this seemingly trivial? Just a hobby that adds to the enjoyment of already enthralling television that feeds the competitive fires of millions of Monday morning quarterbacks. Maybe for some, but I think this runs much deeper, and at some level has changed the presentation of all sports for good (& not necessarily for the better). My wife, subjected to watching sports on TV by default, is disgusted by the whole fantasy aspect of sports, and can't fathom how one could root for player over team, regardless of the teams that your fantasy players may play for. I have a love-hate relationship with fantasy sports. I love it, but hate to lose, and because sports is so intrinsically tied to chaos theory, one is made to ride an emotional roller coaster week in and week out, caused by inexplicable variations and volatility of real time statistics. If there is a silver lining, I believe that the emergence fantasy sports has created an air of excitement and possibly filled a void in many fans who watch televised sporting events, that only gambling could fill. Less gambling is probably a good thing. Life can be sweet... when your fantasy team is doing well

Cracking the code to Alzheimer's - Part 2

So when I last spoke about my work endeavors, I was trying to produce some images of amyloid deposition in mouse brain tissue, using a variety of biochemical techniques. Again, the significance of all this is to attempt to understand what may lead to a variety of diseases (including Alzheimer's Disease) caused by Amyloidosis. Pictured to the left is a perfect example of a 2 yr. old mouse brain tissue section that has tested positive for amyloid deposits, and below, a brain tissue section of a healthy mouse. The technique used here is called... immunostaining. All the brown spots in the tissue identify where the unwanted amyloid protein has accumulated. It's amazing this mouse could remember how to eat & breath. This is the most amyloid I've ever seen in any published journal images. In this case, an antibody specific to amyloid protein was generated in a host rabbit (to limit cross-reactivity with the mouse tissue producing a false positive result), and tagged with a chemical marker that creates a brown color when exposed to the appropriate solution. Worked like a charm... after months of trying several different staining methods, a few different amyloid binding antibodies, & hours of troubleshooting. With this proven protocol, we can now attempt to analyze the many mice that are involved in our various ongoing studies. The work is painstakingly slow. The process to acheive images like this, involves many steps that span days, even weeks. A typical study may require 12-30 animals... which = a lot of tissue to process, and can be hard to keep track of. Pictured to the right & below is my little nook in the Wentworth Lab downstairs, where I make notes, process, analyze and image all the tissue used in our research. Most of the staining is carried out in the Lerner Lab upstairs, where I spend most of my time... the view upstairs is nicer too.