The 2nd International Conference on Duckweed Research and Applications: A Review

Sorry if this gets a little philosophical. I've been sitting on this one for a while because I was a little afraid of potential reactions to it. But, screw it, here it is anyway.

The second conference I attended last year was specifically on duckweed. Duckweed is very useful as a model species for a number of reasons that only a few members of my audience will care about, so I won't list them.

In addition to being a good model, duckweed is also useful for cleaning waste-water and producing biofuels. It's almost the perfect system. Duckweed grows on waste-water and absorbs contaminants, such as fertilizer run-off, and in doing so it absorbs carbon dioxide and produces oxygen. The duckweed can then be harvested and turned into biofuel, animal feed or even eaten by humans. It's actually pretty awesome.

However, possibly the weirdest part of the conference, was the 'spiritual fervor' surrounding duckweed. It's hard to describe; there were times when I felt I was being preached to by and evangelist, rather than lectured by a scientist (that's not to say that these two things never overlap). People really believe that this plant can save the world. Don't get me wrong, I think it can certainly help. But there are problems it won't solve.

There were also a number of talks on how this plant can help developing countries. There is a group of duckweed researchers who are trying to set up a duckweed farm in Bangladesh to help those living and working in rubbish dumps. It is clear that these people really care about the planet and future generations; they stand to gain nothing out of the programs they are trying to implement (except, I guess, the satisfaction of a job well done). They are model examples of compassion. But I cannot help wondering why. Why do they care? Why does it matter to them that people are sick, starving and dying? Why are they willing to put their time and effort into such programs, when they could be investigating far more interesting questions, and probably making a larger income? I can't help thinking everyone knows deep down they human beings are more than just rearranged pond scum. Most people believe that humans have intrinsic value. But from a purely naturalistic standpoint, this is illogical. I am sure many of the people at this conference are atheists, who claim to believe that humans are merely a product of time and chance. They believe that humans are just another species. And all individuals of a species have only one goal: passing on their genetic information. The logical conclusion of a naturalistic evolutionary worldview is selfishness. But, as exemplified at this conference, people's lifestyle and their choices betray them; they cannot live out their worldview; they are altruistic, even though they have no basis for it.

Las Vegas and Arizona

A couple of my mates from Australia decided to visit the States. Sadly they couldn't make it to Minnesota to visit us, so last Tuesday I flew to Las Vegas to hang out with them for a couple of days. We spent our first day exploring the Strip, entering as many hotels/casinos as we could find.

It's a very weird place. On the one hand, the buildings are huge and impressive - a testament to the ingenuity and intelligence of humans. But on the other hand these buildings are filled with people engaged in various forms of gambling which are a testament to the immense stupidity of humans. There are so many great shows playing at Las Vegas (e.g. Penn & Teller, David Copperfield, Chris Angel, etc.) but people choose to spend their money on gambling. My Aussie friends have a theory that gambling is a way of flaunting your immense wealth. I think they may be right.

As the day turned into night, the seedier side of Vegas came out. People standing in the street offering flyers for hookers, giant mobile billboards advertising 'Girls Direct to You in 20 Minutes', advertisements for 'Zumanity: the sensual side of Circ De Soleil' and shows described as 'Elegantly seductive; classically topless'. 'Classically topless'? What does that even mean? The female body is heavily exploited in Vegas. Sin City seems like a appropriate nickname.

There were two redeeming feature of Las Vegas at night. The first was the Bellagio fountain show. This is well worth seeing. It plays every 15 min from 7 PM til midnight. The fountain 'dances' in time with various pieces of music. The show we watched was to 'One' from A Chorus Line. This video gives you some idea of what it was like. The second was the collection of theme park rides on top of our hotel!

Our second day was spent visiting the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. The Hoover Dam is one colossal structure and is even more impressive when you consider it was constructed in the 1920's. Many men lost their lives in the construction of this dam.

The part of the Grand Canyon we visited is on a Native American reservation. And they make plenty of money out of it. Nevertheless, it was an awe-inspiring site. One of the great marvels of God's creation.

My flight home left that night. At 12:10 AM. I thought I might be able to get some sleep. I was wrong. Spirit Airlines have somehow acquired a plane on which it is absolutely impossible to get comfortable. I will not be flying with them again. I don't care how cheap their flights are.

(New Jersey, via) New York

Amy, Micah and I went to New York, New York last week. We flew into LaGuardia Airport, which is almost impossible to say without an American accent. We were actually on our way to New Jersey for the 2nd International Conference on Duckweed Research and Applications (which I will review in full soon). We took the New York Airporter into the city. Driving through the city, I felt a little claustrophobic; everything was so close together, as if it had been crammed in by a toddler who wants to take all his toys on holiday. We also saw eight Starbucks in the space of two blocks, which, considering the working population of NYC, is probably not enough at 11 on a Monday morning.

The first thing that hit us when we stepped off the bus, was the pungent smell of body odor. There were other smells mixed in, but the overwhelming smell was BO. We caught the bus from NYC to New Brunswick, NJ where my conference was to be held. For reasons that sound boring when written down (believe me, I got bored reading the first draft of this), catching the bus was confusing and annoying, but we got to the Hilton in East Brunswick in the end.

Despite what people say, NJ is actually OK. The part we stayed in was certainly less crowded, and a good deal more friendly, than NY. The problem is, it's kind of boring from a tourist's point of view. Not much to see or do. We stood on Wall St. though.





















On the last day after the conference had finished, we went out to dinner at a really good falafel place.

This sign pretty accurately describes what happened when I ate some of their hot sauce on my falafel.

The next day we took the train back to NYC to spend the day there before flying back to St. Paul that evening. We first headed for the Empire State building, carefully avoiding the spruikers and scalpers. One stopped us and tried to sell us VIP tickets to the Empire State building for almost double the normal price. We didn't take his offer. And we got up to the top with very little wait time (less than 15 min from entering the door to reaching the observation deck).

It's an impressive building, and an even more impressive view from the top.

 I got in a bit of trouble for doing this. But Micah enjoyed it while it lasted.

The only problem was that we had all our bags and it was very crowded on the observation deck.

After visiting the Empire State building, we set off down 5th Ave to find Central Park, sans map. How hard could it be? After many hours of walking we admitted defeat. We couldn't find it and one of the wheels on my suitcase broke, making it increasingly difficult to drag along. But on our way we accidentally stumbled across the New York Library, Rockefeller plaza, Hell's Kitchen, Time's Square and Broadway! This more than made up for the constant smell of BO.

Weird Foods II: Kraft Easy Cheese

It's that time again. Time to try a weird American food. This time, we look at Kraft Easy Cheese.

We tried it on crackers. It felt weird spraying cheese onto crackers. Also, the fact it can be stored at room temperature made us wonder about the preservative content.

But, it was actually pretty good. It was quite similar to Kraft plastic cheese. Only more gooey. The cheddar taste was fairly mild, but not unpleasant.

In terms of taste and texture, We give it a solid thumbs up.


But considering the fact that this can cost around $4 and there are a variety of relatively inexpensive and tasty cheeses available, Easy Cheese just seems kind of pointless.

Weird foods: Baker's Treat Apple Pie

America has many weird foods. I think some of them should not even be classified as food (e.g. spray cheese). However, Amy and I plan to sample as many of these as we can during our time here.

For the first installment, we tried Baker's Treat Apple Pie (Single Serving).

It looked kind of nice on the packet. A bit like McDonald's apple pies. But this product is weird in several ways. First of all, there is the fact it is sold in a cardboard box and can be kept unrefrigerated for almost a month. Then, there are the ingredients: Enriched flour, high fructose corn syrup, water, palm oil & fractionated palm oil, sugar, evaporated apples, contains less than 2% of each of the following: food starch modified, salt, preservatives, corn starch, xanthan gum, wheat flour, malted barley flour, cinnamon, dextrose, propylene glycol, calcium carbonate, agar, natural flavors, mono- & diglycerides, sorbitan monostearate and soy lecithin. Flour and HFCS; mmm...sounds delicious.

We put the box in the microwave, as per the instructions.

It was kind of soggy and did not look appetizing when we removed it.

I managed one bite, which is more than Amy managed. It just tasted like extremely sweet, slimy shortcrust pastry, with a slight cinnamon aftertaste.

I think High Fructose Corn Syrup Pie might be a more accurate description. I only found about five pieces of apple in the whole thing.

Facilities Mismanagement

The University of Minnesota has a lot of turf grass. Actually, they don't just have a lot, they have an awful lot. I don't know numerically how much it is, but just look at this map. Most of what you see in light green is grass. Grass that is perfectly manicured. Grass that I see being tended every day I go to work. Grass that is resown every spring, regularly fertilized, watered and aerated, and mowed at least once a week. This is a very costly waste of time. Especially when there are so many other nice ground covers that don't need so much primping and preening. I can only imagine what else could be done with the money that is used to maintain lawns.

And the worst part is, most students don't arrive until autumn, so all this effort is really only appreciated for a couple of months, before it's covered in snow.

A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to Work Today

Well, it wasn't funny at the time.

I walked out the front door to our apartment complex into the overcast and humid morning. Rain seemed possible, but I was already about 20 metres from the door so I decided not to go back for my umbrella. I caught the bus as I normally do. About 15 minutes into the bus trip more clouds began to appear and in a few minutes it was as dark as night. A few seconds later, it began to rain. Heavily. This was not just a shower. This was movie rain. Complete with thunder. This was The Matrix Revolutions rain. It was so heavy the bus roof began to leak just minutes after it started.

The rain was still pouring down when the bus arrived at my stop. I stepped off the bus onto the footpath, but I may as well have stepped into a swimming pool. I was drenched within 10 seconds. Then the pedestrian crossing light took forever to change. Fortunately there was a nice Minnesotan who let me share his umbrella until the light changed; after which, I tried, unsuccessfully, to leap the small pond that had formed in front of the curb, and ran for it. It was about a 200 metre sprint, with a laptop backpack. It was pretty pointless though; everything was soaked. Dripping, I walked up to my office, praying my computer hadn't got wet. Thankfully it had stayed dry in my backpack.

I, on the other hand, was completely soaked. How was I going to get any work done like this? I was tempted to just leave my computer there, walk out in the pouring rain and wait for then next bus to take me home. But then I had an idea.

I borrowed a co-worker's umbrella and walked down to the gym. I used their swim suit drying machine (read: large mechanical salad spinner) to get rid of the water out of most of my clothes. But my socks were still damp. And so were my shorts. So I took these items back to the lab, and dried them in the lab drying oven.