The Chronicles of Farmer J

A couple of weeks ago I was driving to the farm and I got stuck behind this beast (minus the row head which was on a truck):



The picture below is to give you a sense of how big this thing is. The wheels were as tall as our Chrysler Pacifica and this combine can mow down 12 rows of corn at a time like it's nobody's business. FYI, it also comes equipped with a GPS system that tells it exactly where the rows are (also used for precision planting) and a computer for keeping track of yield, seed moisture, etc.



After watching this thing maneuver around mile marker posts at 40mph (yes, they can go that fast) because the road wasn't wide enough, I started getting the itch to drive a combine. So, this morning I hopped onto this combine:



It's not quite as big as the John Deere 9870 STS Corn Combine, but it's still pretty intimidating when you're sitting in the cab watching it chew through three rows at a time and watching it convert 7-foot tall corn plants to mulch (as seen in the picture below).



After this morning I'm amazed at the extent to which technology facilitates agriculture. The field that got harvested this morning would have easily taken four people 2-3 days to harvest plus 3-4 days to shell.

As a final thought, I was driving home from the field on Friday afternoon and passing field after field of corn and soybeans and realized that I am a long way from where I thought would be 5 years ago...and I'm okay with that. Besides, I kind of like being called Farmer J.

Another one bites the dust

A few weeks ago in one of those freak April snow storms that we frequently have in Utah, I slipped down some stairs and landed on my laptop. I was alright but sadly, the laptop was not. The screen broke and the body cracked. Since I am in a Population Genetics class that relies very heavily on a host of computer software packages, it was critical that I purchase a new laptop fast. However, for those of you who know me, I can't pay full price for anything. So I started searching the web for great deals. Along the way I came across a website called Deals2buy.com. It posts great deals being offered by a host of stores. I was able to pick up a Gateway Intel Core 2 duo 2.0 GHz, 4GB RAM, 320 GB hard drive, laptop from Office Max for $550!

The old, broken laptop

The new, zippy laptop

If you are in the market for electronics, I highly recommend this website. Another website I'd highly recommend is 1saleaday.com which features one item a day at a ridiculously low price (the current item is a rechargeable battery station with batteries for $8 or a bluetooth headset for $8). If you're looking for some great deals these are great places to go.

P.S. I also posted here about some other cheap websites a while back. Enjoy!

March Madness 2009!!

I've setup a March Madness Tournament on espn.com. If you'd like to join go to http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/group?groupID=5528 and search for The Man Blog under 'group.' The password is 'manblog' Feel free to invite any other friends. Good luck!

Fantasy Baseball 2009

Alright everyone, it's time for another exciting year of Fantasy Baseball! This year's league will be on ESPN.com. Schedules will be submitted at the beginning of each week, just like last year. If you would like to join, post a comment with your email address and I'll send you an invite for the league. The draft will be an autodraft on April 1st. You'll need to have your draft order ready by then. In the meantime, enjoy the World Baseball Classic. Go Team USA!!

A Political Halloween

As both Halloween and election day are quickly approaching I thought this cartoon was somewhat applicable. Enjoy!

Fantasy Basketball - Updated

Now that baseball is wrapping up and football is well underway it's time to start thinking about Fantasy Basketball!! But before I give you the information about how to sign up let's have a recap of the Man Blog's Fantasy Baseball Season.

Our inaugural season had six teams which were fairly well balanced. The genetics lab I work in was represented by Michael Salmans and his team, the Renegades of Funk. Michael had a great season and was definitely the team to beat. He ended the season in first place, leading the league in runs and stolen bases, but was eliminated in the semi-final round of playoffs by the He-Man Woman Haters (owned by me) in a 9-1 loss. Tyler Sasser and Jacob Smith both represented the BYU 85th Ward with their teams, The Denominators and The Numerators, respectively. The Denominators were in first place for part of the season and were always a tough team to play. Then numerators also played very well and held on to a 3rd place finish in the regular season. Both teams were eliminated by the Scrappy Squirrels in the playoffs. Neil Crapo, a BYU 85th Ward alumni, and his team, Red Blooded, did well but ended the season in 5th place after a late season surge by the He-Man Woman Haters. The good ole' Arvada 5th ward, my hometown ward in Colorado, was represented by Aaron Hassell and his Scrappy Squirrels. While Aaron struggled the first half of the season and was even the subject of league mutany, he pulled his season together and the Scrappy Squirrels ended up taking home the big enchilada and winning the Championship even though they finished last place in the regular season. I had a lot of fun and I can't wait for next year's league.

The Fantasy Football League is also underway with 10 teams which makes for a lot of fun and although two teams are dominating, the other teams continue to improve. We'll give an update later in the season.

Now on to Fantasy Basketball!! Previously we've used FoxSports for our Fantasy Leagues. While they've been great sites and very user-friendly, they've been somewhat unreliable, and they don't have Fantasy Basketball. We will therefore begin using ESPN.com for our Fantasy Basketball League. To sign up, begin by going to ESPN.com and clicking "register" at the top of the screen or by clicking here. Once you have registered, email me at pballguru@hotmail.com and I'll send you an invite to the league. That's all you have to do! We still need at least four teams to join. The league is setup so that you submit your roster once a week so it shouldn't be too time-consuming. See you on the court!

I've got to do something about this root beer belly!

Guys, I'm sure you've noticed those extra pounds have slowly tacked on as you've gotten married, gotten a desk job, gone to college, or just gotten old. Well, thanks to some smart scientists, and a next generation sequencing method from 454 Life Sciences, we now understand a little more about obesity and how to control it. Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri have identified several types of bacteria in the human gut that favor obesity.

Before diving in further, a little bit of background is necessary. First, let's do a brief review of Biology 100. DNA is in every cell of your body and is essentially a blue-print of your body. This means that every cell has the information for every gene in your body, but only certain genes are "turned on" in certain cells. The "turning on" of genes is usually manifested as RNA, a copy of a specific segment of DNA that then codes for a specific protein that the cell is supposed to produce.

Next, sequencing is the process of identifying the order of nucleotides in a segment of RNA or DNA. Simply put, sequencing is a way to figure out exactly what the blue-print says.
A 454 sequencer is a machine that will sequence up to 500 million bases in segments of 400-500 bases (the letters that make up DNA or RNA). To give you an idea of how amazing a feat this, when the human genome project began we could only sequence 20,000 bases at a time and two years ago we could only sequence 100 million bases. Also, to give you a benchmark you can compare this with, the human genome consists of approximately 6 billion bases.

Finally, in addition to the genes that are expressed in the human gut, bacteria also express their own genes that in turn greatly affect our metabolic processes. The expression of genes from bacteria in a host is referred to as a biome. The paper I'll discuss is studying the human gut microbiome or the expression of genes from bacteria and how they interact with our bodies. Now onto the papers!

Researchers in Missouri began by taking fecal samples from obese and lean mice and sequencing the DNA found in the sample. After a classification process, they found that 94% of the DNA in the samples was bacterial DNA (that should make you feel warm and fuzzy). When comparing the obese sample to the lean sample they found that Bacteroidetes and the Firmicutes, two families of bacteria, varied between the samples. In the obese mouse they saw an increased ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteriodetes compared to the lean mouse. They then looked at the sequences in Firmicutes and saw that its products are involved in KEGG pathways which control the digestion of many carbohydrates. This meant that the obese mice were obese because Firmicutes bacteria was breaking food down better and allowing the mouse to get more calories from its food than the lean mouse.

To verify their findings, the researchers then analyzed the mouse feces and found that it had less energy remaining in the obese mouse than the lean mouse. They further tested this by transplanting the microbiome of obese and lean mice into germ free mice. The mice with the obese microbiome transplanted into them became showed greatly increased weight after only two weeks than the mice with the lean transplanted microbiome. The mice ate the same amount of food and water and started with the same wieghts and body fat. The only thing that changed was the transplanted microbiome.

Researchers in Shanghai have continued this work by looking at the same bacterial differences in humans. They have looked at Chinese and American lean and obese individuals and have found the same phenomenon happening in humans. They did find that a diet low in carbohydrates and fats decreases the amount of Firmicutes in the gut microbiome. This in turn would decrease an individuals ability to get more energy out of food, a beneficial attribute if you would like to lose weight.

In conclusion, there is hope for those with a root beer belly you'd like to lose. Further research into this field will probably yield drugs that will help regulate the amount of Firmicutes in the gut which will reduce energy uptake and decrease obesity. But until then, if you don't eat as many carbs or fats you'll decrease the amount of Firmicutes naturally which should also decrease obesity. Personally, I'm holding out for the drug!

Here are the references for the two papers I used for this article if you're interested:
Ley, R.E., et al, (2006). "Microbial ecology: Human gut microbes associated with obesity." Nature 444: 1022-1023.
Li, M., et al. (2008). "Symbiotic gut microbes modulate human metabolic phenotypes." PNAS 105 (6): 2117-2122.