Restaurant Umberto, in Naples, is truly an institution in the south Italian city. Here a few dishes from a recent visit photographed using available light on the 5D3 and the 40mm pancake.
Pasta with octopus:
Pasta with vongole:
La pizza:
Making science (part VIII): A more specialized journal
“Dear Author,
Thank you for sending us your paper “Downregulation of HlpxE-mediated transcription doubles median life-span expectancy in humans”, but I am afraid we cannot offer to publish it in The Current Biologist.
We appreciate the interest in the issue you are addressing, and your results sound potentially significant for the field, but our feeling is that at this stage your paper would be better suited to a somewhat more specialised journal.
I am sorry that we cannot give you a more positive response, but thank you for your interest in The Current Biologist.
Regards,
Geoffrey South
Editor”
Many of us —professional scientists writing research articles— have had to confront this type of letters from journal editors. We have grown accustomed to them. A standard cut-and-paste piece of text used knee-jerkedly by editors without much thought or consideration. We file them promptly, and move on. After all, there are plenty of journals around, both general and specialized. No big deal, right?
Making science (part VII): On the utility of science
In a recent interview for the podcast series of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, Ira Mellman of Genentech expressed his views on the utility of science practiced at academic institutions. After an academic career at Rockefeller and Yale University, Mellman joined Genentech in 2007 where he is Vice President of Research Oncology. Mellman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2011. The interview is about current challenges in the field of cancer immunotherapy. But things get a bit more controversial at the end. Scroll the audio featured below to -0:35 and you’ll hear this:
PNAS: “I asked Mellman whether his move from academia to industry has brought him closer to his goal of practicing people-centered science.”
Food photography V: NOBU Hong Kong, avantgarde Japanese cuisine
The NOBU restaurant in Hong Kong functions in the Intercontinental hotel and has magnificent views overlooking the harbor. Main chef Nobu Matushisa received classical training as a sushi chef in Tokyo, and lived in Peru and Argentina. One of the 25 NOBU restaurants all over the world, NOBU Hong Kong showcases Nobu’s signature dishes, as well as new creations using local ingredients with emphasis on freshness and surprise.
Here is the NOBU crew in action:
And here is one of the two dinner set menus offered by NOBU Hong Kong. Outstanding, sublime japanase delicacies from the ocean and the land, prepared in a superb cross-over, modern style. All photographs taken with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III and EF 24mm f/1.4 L II lens with available light.
Making science (part VI): Ignorance
“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
— D. Rumsfeld, 2002
The scientific literature increases exponentially with thousands of papers added daily. As the day has only 24 hours, what this means is that every time we sit down to read a paper, we have —consciously or unconsciously— decided to neglect thousands of others which we will most likely never read, ever. Agonizing as this may sound to some, it is equally inevitable. The assurance that we feel when moving a paper to our “to-read” list can be self deceptive, however, and so it is crucial that we choose which papers to read with great care. Or rather, that we carefully decide which papers not to read. In fact, better to do this consciously than as a default consequence of the limited number of hours in the day. The art of selectively ignoring sets of facts has been called “controlled neglect” and it is a crucial tactic to cope with the vast mountain of facts that keeps growing by the day.
Live Jazz Lounge: unreleased recordings of live jazz from around the world
Music blog Live Jazz Lounge, launched January 2012, has posts featuring unreleased live jazz concerts anywhere from Buenos Aires to New York to Stockholm to London, with entries from the 1970s to the present. In addition to concert info, the site provides links to purchase albums related to the featured concerts, and the site’s header features all original photographs from live jazz concerts.
Chronicle of a death foretold: Esbjörn Svensson’s premonitory reflections on death and the meaning of life
Pianist Esbjörn Svensson died suddenly, at the peak of his career, in a diving accident on June 14, 2008, 44 years of age. Here he makes a striking account of a previous close encounter with death and his personal reflections (audiofile in Swedish, Summer 2003).
“It was as if I could see straight inside her. And she had made up her mind. I knew it. It was an unmistakable feeling. I then understood that I had to speak to her. If she is going to jump, I will have to stop her. And somehow, distract her attention. Slowly, I begin to move towards her. She stays very strategically placed, exactly at the exit of the tunel as the train approaches the platform. And a bit too close to the edge. I come closer to her. Very, very carefully. Slowly. I understand that it is incredibly sensitive. I do not think very much. I feel I would just like to distract her. I come closer, maybe 10 meters away from her. I hear that the train approaches. And I hear that she hears. She makes herself ready. I come even closer. Very slowly… Now I am just 3 meters from her. Then comes the train… and the woman jumps, straight in front of it. The train buzzes. People scream. Everything stops. And I stood 3 meters from her… But I turn around and run away… It’s too much. I don’t see what happens. There, in front of my eyes, a person has taken her life, straight out into something else. Something which we don’t know anything about. And I can’t just look anymore. I run. The police is coming. People all around is in desperation. But I walk away…”
Intriguing clinical meta analysis of a unique dataset in traumatic brain injury from the “Asterix” comic books
Researchers from Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, have published an intriguing study on traumatic brain injury using a dataset taken from the Asterix comic series. The report appeared in Acta Neurochir (2011) 153:1351–1355.
We learn that the goal of the study was to “analyze the epidemiology and specific risk factors of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the Asterix illustrated comic books. Among the illustrated literature, TBI is a predominating injury pattern.” One of the major strengths of the study is that clinical data were “correlated to information regarding the trauma mechanism, the sociocultural background of victims and offenders, and the circumstances of the traumata, to identify specific risk factors.”
Food photography IV: Hutong Restaurant, Hong Kong
The Hutong restaurant in the Kowloon peninsula is one of the seven upscale outlets run by the Aqua Restaurant Group in the city of Hong Kong. On the 28th floor of One Peking Road in Tsim Sha Tsui, it offers an exquisite decor inspired in antique China alongside breathtaking views over Victoria Harbour. Traditional Northern Chinese cuisine with a contemporary twist.
Two of its classic dishes are featured here photographed with the Canon EOS 7D and EF 24mm f/1.4 L II lens using available light.
Beautiful Tasmania (Part III): Land and ocean
his last installment of the photo series on Tasmania is about its dramatic coastline. Here are some images taken in Tasman Peninsula, with spectacular views across to Cape Pillar, Cape Raoul, a late night shot of the famous Remarkable Cave and a view of Crescent Bay and its beautiful beach from above Mt. Brown.
The first two shots used a Galen Rowell’s Graduated Neutral Density Filter (3 stops, soft edge) from Singh Ray to tame sky highlights and balance the foreground. The Remarkable Cave shot was taken late at dusk and needed a 6 sec exposure on a tripod to get enough light and, at the same time, soften the texture of the waters coming into the cave.