Carbon Neutrality and Protein Folding at Home

I’m currently planning for a trip to Vancouver/Seattle in a couple weeks. I have decided to make my flight carbon neutral by offseting the CO2 producing by purchasing trees from CarbonNeutral.com. Going carbon neutral is one way to help battle climate change, it involves first reducing energy use whenever possible and then purchasing ‘carbon offsets’ to alleviate any remaining greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The result is net zero emissions. This is also a great way to become more aware of the cost of our daily GHG emissions. There are numerous carbon calculators out there to figure your daily and yealy emissions.

Most of us do not use all of computing power that our computers have. I tend to be one of those, but we can band together and create a giant supercomputer by what is known as distributed computing. By running Stanford University’s Folding@Home distributed computing software, we can help study protein folding, misfolding, aggregation, and related diseases. Proteins carry out many important biological functions, and before they can do these important functions, they assemble themselves, or “fold”. When proteins misfold, there can be serious consequences, including disease. Such diseases include Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, and various types of cancers. We can all help by running software that uses novel computational methods, to simulate timescales thousands to millions of times longer than previously achieved. Together we can advance biological and medical science. Get more information from Standford’s Folding@Home site and Mac users can check out Team MacOSX.

(note: the picture is one of the proteins that I’m helping to work on)

A week of rest, sort of …

It has been a planned week of rest from training. I sometimes find it difficult to scale things back but you have to let your body rest and recuperate once and awhile. Next week I start a new weight training phase and will begin to do some more endurance work. I love periodization, it always keeps things interesting, it never gets stale.

Although this has been a week of rest, I have been really busy in my professional life. I’ve also been trying to fine-tune the remaining details of my upcoming trip to Vancouver and Seattle in a few weeks. I think I’ve got everything in order now, thanks to a little training down-time. Okay, maybe not, as I look around my place I realize that it could use a real cleanup and organizational overhaul. Turns out I’ve been a little sloppy around the house.

Well, the weekend awaits and hopefully I can continue to be productive.

Recycle a cell phone, save an African Gorilla

Cell phones contain numerous hazardous chemicals that we can keep out of landfills but one chemical of interesting note is columbite-tantalite (coltan for short). Coltan is extracted from the forests of the central African country of Congo which also happens to be the home of the lowland African gorilla. Eighty perent of the world’s coltan supply is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With the recent world wide cell phone boom there has been a dramatic rise in the amount of mining and dramatic reduction of habitat for this great animal. There is also been alot of illegal mining of coltan in protected parks of Congo.

Some facts I find staggering is that there are over 150 million cell phones in the United States alone, the average lifespan of a cell phone is 14 months and there may be already 500 million unused cell phones in the United States. I can’t believe that the lifespan of a cell phone is so short, it has become apparent that these items have become nothing more than a toy and fashion accessory for alot of people. I must also wonder what effects all our other ‘e-gadgets’ have on our enviroment and other endangered speices.

For more information about cell phone recycling and African Gorillas you can view the National Geographic article here.

Early to bed, early to rise

In order to hopefully be more productive with my time, I am going to get to bed early each night whenever I can. I don’t mean an hour or two earlier but 20 – 30 minutes and then hoepfully I can utilize those precious minutes in the morning when I can make better use of them. I’m also going to continue to start the day with healthy well balanced breakfast. I do need to make a more concerted effort to replace my regular cups of java with green tea throughout the day. It’s not that I have been wasting the time I have (okay so today I watched football and cleaned the house all day today) but it sometimes feels like I could do more with my day, maybe this routine (starting the day off strong) will be the path to getting there.

Hopefully I can get out for a run (it’s only -17C with the windchill) and to bed early tonight as soon as the NFL NFC Championship game is over. Maybe I can think about who I’m going to vote for in Canada’s federal election tomorrow as I’m out for my run.

Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour

The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour was in town and I took it in again, as I do every year. It was once again a great event put on by the Alpine Club of Canada and I once again didn’t win any of the numerous door-prizes that were given out (I could of really use those Dunham Waffle-Stomper boots!).

The first film of the night was Balancing Point from Sensei Studios which is a showcase in the manipulation of gravity in the creation of balancing rock structures. I really enjoyed the creativity shown in this short film and you can watch it for yourself here or at GoogleVideo. It is 6 mins in length.

The next film was Return2Sender: Parallelojams (The Fundamentals) which won the Best Film on Climbing Award. This film was an amazing demonstration of crack climbing in Indian Creek, Utah. This 18 minute film gives some wonderful insight into crack climbing the narrow fissures of the red sandstone and breaks down the moves the climbers used. The host, climber and comedian Timmy O’Neill, really kept the film light-hearted and enjoyable. I could watch this one again and again and I think I’m going to put it on my wishlist.

Next on the hit list before intermission was The Magic Mountain which was the People’s Choice Award winner. This 50 minute film focuses on the story of Cynthia Hunt, founder of Health-Inc (Health, Enviroment and Literacy in the Himalayas) as she works on bringing literacy and simple nutrition to the remote villages in Ladakh, north west India – one of the highest and driest inhabitated places on earth. This women goes through great struggles to improve the living conditions and development of these isolated villages. The joy that both she and the people recieve from her life’s work comes through in the film nicely.

After intermission consisted of a bunch of shorter films including Red Bull Rampage – The Retrospective which was a look at the birth of freeride mountain biking and the spectacular riding of the athletes that defined the Red Bull Rampage event from 2001 to 2004.

An insightful little film, Solilochairliftquist, took a look at the profond thoughts and realizations of a ski bum as he rides the chairlift on day 104 of the season. I think everyone chuckled through the full 4 minutes of this ‘it’s funny cause it’s true’ look on life.

The Khumbu Mighty-Mites was a heart warming little film of the children of Nepal’s Khumbu enjoy a day of fun on their homemade skis after a big snowstorm. The smiles of joy on the children’s faces and the wonderful little wipeouts made everyone smile.

One of the most amazing films was Bug Out, another segment from the film Return2Sender, which starred 10 year old climber Cicada Jenerik. This film involved shocking footage of her acsending Lowrider V10 in Bishop, CA interspersed with her commentary on climbing, motivation and life as a ten year old. Seeing what this 10 year old is capable of was absolutely amazing and I really need to get the full length DVD.

Crazy Canadian Will Gadd took us on a paragliding ride over the Grand Canyon in his film Grand Canyon Dreams. He took us through his whole journey as he worked out the logistics of this adventure while waiting for the perfect day. He cruised 17,000 ft over the Grand Canyon safely and managed not get arrested. A very enjoyable film due alot to Will’s very personable character and sense of adventure.

The last film of the night was The Lost People of Mountain Village, a mockumentry that was my least favorite film of the night. I won’t even get into the details of this one.

If you have a chance to check out any of these films or catch the tour on its travels, do so, it makes for a very enjoyable evening. You can see if the tour will be coming your way here. It is too bad that this is only a once a year event but hopefully one day I can make it out to Banff to enjoy the full festival.

To the North Pole in the darkness of winter

Hopefully tomorrow, polar explorers Børge Ousland and Mike Horn will set off on what will be a most arduous journey as they attempt to travel 998km from Russia to the North Pole unsupported in the winter and in constant darkness. If successful this would be a first, the first time ever anyone has made it to the North Pole in the dead of winter.

They will be facing some truly unique and difficult challenges in this expedition. They will have to deal with the extremely cold weather including blizzards and fierce gales. They are already having to deal with unpredictable ice conditons as they get ready try and head onto the pack ice (wind caused he pack ice to shift, causing them to have an expanse of water to cross and thin ice to deal with before they can start) and expect it to be problematic for the first 115km. Polar bears are always a concern in the arctic but Ousland will have with him his trusty .44 magnum for only the direst emergencies. Their most fierce challenge maybe the dakness itself, one of man’s most primal fears and the psychological effect it will have on them and the physical stress that it will put them through as their circadian rhythm is disrupted. Also these men will have to deal with each other, neither have ever done an expedition together and Mike Horn is generally a soloist in all his expeditions. These challenges, combined, make this a difficult task for anyone.

Other logistical issues typical of an expedition like this include navigating and dragging 330 pounds of food, fuel, batteries, shelter and an extra change of clothes. They will need to be consuming 6,500 calories a day (Ousland likes reindeer hearts, Horn will be drinking straight olive oil for his fat content) and deal with any unexpected challenges that arise.

I’m looking to forward to following them along there journey of adventure and wish them the best. If you would like to learn more about these men and their upcoming adventure check out an article and podcast at NationalGeographic.com or the links to either man’s website: Børge Ousland Mike Horn

Carpe Diem

Yesterday I managed to fit in a day of work, a basketball game and a hockey game. In the middle of my 12 hour work shift, I got someone to cover me while I went to play basketball for a couple hours and then it was back to work. I ended up sneaking out of work a few minutes early at the end of the shift so I could make it to the hockey game that I had been asked to play.

A rec hockey team was short players so they asked to me to come out. It was a division lower then I used to playing, but this was also the first time I’ve laced up the skates since last spring so I figured it be fun and not too exhausting. I had so much fun playing hockey, maybe due to the fact of the slower game then I’m used to or the smell of the arena or who knows what but I was asked if I wanted to play with this team for the rest of the season. I haven’t made up my mind yet but I will definitely play a few more games for them.

It sure was one fun day and it finished off perfectly with a great game of hockey. No rest for me today though, I’m off to the gym to hit the weights right away and then work a night shift.

Lance Armstong is coming

Lance Armstrong is coming to town to speak and tickets went on sale at noon today. I was at busy at work today so I got my sister to work on getting tickets. She did a good job at working two computers and a phone in order to get the best tickets available. Now I get to wait two months before I get to hear him talk.
I’m not a Lance groupie, but I do respect his accomplishments and achievments. I believe everyone has a story to tell and we can all learn alot from each others struggles and successes. I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say and hopefully he can spur on my motivation through to spring time!

Changing the world with simple actions

So I did something I should have done a long time ago … I changed a light bulb! I finally went out and bought some new light bulbs. In doing so I started changing all my bulbs to energy saver bulbs. Although slightly more expensive, energy saver bulbs use 2/3 less enrgy, 70% less heat and last 10 times longer compared with regular light bulbs. The amount of electricity needed to light a Canadian home results in almost one third of a tonne of green house gases each year. If every Canadian home changed just 5 high-use light fixtures each family would save more than $30 every year in energy costs. I’m just glad I can do something to help preserve energy resources and contribute to a cleaner environment.

The Human Genealogy Map

I finally got around to listening to Spencer Wells talk from PopTech2004 on ITcovnversations.com the other day. Spencer Wells is a geneticist and anthropologist who is the project leader for the National Geographic Genographic Project. The Project is a genetic study of human migration. In our DNA we have specfic unique markers (mutations) that can be used to track back human migration. It turns out that all humans can be traced back to a single tribe in Africa from about 60,000 years ago. Which is extremely recent in terms of human existence. At that time something triggered a need to migrate out of Africa and settle the rest of the world. All races and cultures have developed from this one group only 60,000 years ago.

Spencer Wells has been travelling the world collecting DNA samples from indigenous people with a sense of urgency because at an ever quickening rate the outside world is enclosing in on these people. As they become assimilated into our cites they will still retain their DNA markers but the geographical context will be lost.

The Genographic Project offers a unique chance to fill in the details of the story of human history. Listen to Spencer Wells tell his story (click here) or to learn more about the Genographic Project visit its website at www.nationalgeograhic.com/genographic/ where you can even order a kit to participate in the study!