Da capo (by Dr. Jan Klein)

Today, I would like introduce you a funny but inspiring essay "Da capo" written by Dr. Jan Klein. This is about writing/editing a scientific paper, cynically teasing persistently appearance of redundant repetitions in Introduction, Results, and Discussion. I perfectly agree with his argument on this regard.
A quote from this page is shown below. Enjoy!

Deep sorrow for the death of Dr. Lani Hidalgo

As a research partner of JSPS Core Universities program, I met her, Dr. Aklani Rose Hidalgo, Director of Fish Process Technology Institute, University of Philippines School of Visayas, for the first time in the summer of 2005, at the Iloilo airport. Since then we have collaborated in seeking antibacterial peptides/proteins in tilapia and milkfish, until 2007. It was wonderful to see her with calm, bright, and sincere mind. She was a cute teacher with beautiful English pronunciation, helping much our communication. I have a lot of unforgettable memories with her, in Iloilo, Miag-ao, Kagoshima, and Fukuoka.
She passed away last week. I deeply pray her soul may rest in peace. Also I hope that her friends would recover from their sadness of missing her.

Hazy sky caused by yellow sands

Even after brief rain in this early morning, here in Fukuoka, we now have a hazy sky. This is believed to be because of yellow sands conveyed by strong winds from China. The busiest season of yellow sands should be spring, but in these years, they frequently come flying to Japan in all seasons.
In such hazy atmosphere, hiking, one of my favorite,  is not so fun because of limited view from mountain peaks. My concern is that the fine sand particles might adsorb various toxic materials from Chinese environment and fall onto Japan, possibly causing allergic reaction or chronic toxicity.

On a fine clear day.

 Today in the yellow sand.

 Today's yellow sand forecast.

Hiking under the beautiful sky

I enjoyed a brief hiking with G30 staffs and their families. The weather was perfect, with fine sky and beautifully transparent air. We climbed Mt. Koshidake (254 m) near Ito campus of Kyushu Univ. Though relatively low peak, the view from the top was amazingly beautiful. Because of the clear atmosphere, we could see several far islands: Iki, Oronoshima, Ainoshima, and Oshima.

Autumn color

Autum is my favorite season. Especially I love trees turning colors. Yellow of gingko and red of maple are typical in Japanese autumn.

 gingko in Osaka Castle

 Koushidake Mt in Fukuoka

 Gingkos in Hakozaki Campus

 Osaka castle garden

 wax trees in Hakozaki campus

 Taiwan maples in Hakozaki campus

 Taiwan maple in Hakozaki campus

 Kuju highland

 Kuju highland

 Hakozaki campus

One of my favorite music.

This is a Bulgarian folk music "Polegnala e Tudora". The voice and chorus are amazingly beautiful.



This song has some healing power for my mind.

Renewing a fax

Fax may now be a fossil way of communication, but still indispensable even in this 'heyday' of internet. As a fax machine in my lab has got old and sometimes does not work fine, I am replacing it with new one, still looking for an old fashioned type with a roll of thermal paper. Many of the current models use sheets of normal paper and themal transfer ribbon/ink/toner cartridge, but I do not like it. Because, we have to take care of two or more things, the papers and the ribbon/ink/toner, to keep it right. We do not have enough time to take care of this kind of machine experted to work in a meintenance-free manner. So I prefer the one using thermal paper roll, which is the only thing we cannot run out. A pitfall of this type of paper is to set it right side. Otherwise you will see only blank pages. I did this stupid mistake yesterday. Who sent me the fax?

Taipei and Hong-Kong with Dim Sum

We visited Taipei and Hong-Kong to have interviews of applicants for our new undergraduate degree program for foreign students. The tasks were quite tough but completed with no trouble, because of warm and careful support by G30 office staff and our new director, Dr. Lin, of Kyushu University Taipei Office, opened in a Law School building, National Taiwan University.

After each interview mission, we enjoyed dim sum in both cities. Those were artistically delicious. (Only an exception was a lunch in a small restaurant in Hong-Kong.)

Sampling of carp blood at a aquaculture pond

For functional assay and protein purification/characterization of fish complement system, we regularly visit a culture pond of the common carp located at just outside of Fukuoka City for bleeding. The carp are big enough to get 30-50 ml of total blood, yielding 10-25 ml serum. This day, we processed 40 carp, weighing about 1.5 kg each. For new students of my laboratory, this sampling activity is an important practice and introduction to our laboratory research. They'll be realized how laborious is this fundamental procedure for our study.

After bit painful labor, the students enjoyed a good lunch, grilled eel on the rice and sashimi (raw meat) and soup of fresh carp, in a restaurant next to the culture pond.

A joint party with the next lab

The 4th floor of our No. 3 building harbors two laboratories, Lab of Marine Biochemistry (mine) and Lab of Fisheries Biology. Though we share the same floor, people in both laboratory, especially students, are have been rather stranger each other, partly because the two labs belong to different departments of the graduate school and the students have less chance to share classrooms.
So we held a mixer last night. Staffs and students donated snacks and cooked out several meals to enjoy cans of beer and some other drinks. In addition, a student in another lab kindly donated several pieces of fresh mackerel, which had donated their pituitary glands for his PhD research and then were served as sashimi for us.
We enjoyed the party very much with many interesting talks, chatting, and much lough, almost until 2 o'clock. I hope this kind of informal interaction promote further good interactions in academic and social activities between the two lab.

Visiting my hometown, Anjo city

We had a 33-years Buddhist memorial service for my grandmother in my parents' house. It was almost 10 to 15 years ago since a majority of my relatives got together last; some of them are quite old now, late 70's and 80's. On the other hand, it should be nice for my kids to meet their cousins after a long time.
In the service, after sutra recitation by a priest for 1 hr, we had a lunch party together. Then we all visited our grave by 10 min' walk. Though I'm just a part-time Buddhist, the holy feeling was nice to recall memories on my grandfather, grandmother, and two uncles, who had passed away until several years ago.

Then my sisters kindly prepared a BBQ party. It was much fun!

A little hiking

We visited Mt. Tataishi, in Itoshima peninsula for an easy hiking. After the hiking, we found bamboo forest, and collected a few bamboo shoots. Haruka, a graduate student of mine, will cook them in our lab kitchen, after she remove its harsh taste by boiling them.

On a little street in Fukuoka-5

A small shrine, named Tsunashiki Ten-man-gu, in the Fukuoka downtown, Tsunaba-cho, Hakata ward. Though small, this has an ancient origin, even appearing in an old map of Fukuoka/Hakata area  as a major shrine of this city.

A chocolate shop close to this shrine is now very popular, attracting many ladies.

大きな地図で見る

Hiking to Mt. Tachibana

Mt. Tachibana (367 m) is located at the northeast of Fukuoka city, separating Fukuoka city and Shingu town. Because of its proximity and well-maintained climbing path, Mt. Tachibana is a very popular mountain for family hiking. Usually it takes 40 to 60 min to get its peak from Tachibana-guchi, a start point.
I enjoyed hiking there this afternoon with many voices (songs) of birds, especially those of the bush warblers (Uguisu, in Japanese). 
The movies below are to hear their voices and some sounds of small water stream.
The Fukuoka city view from the peak is quite nice, and today I was lucky enough to come across beautiful flowers of wisteria in the garden of a temple "Baigaku-ji" at the Tachibana-guchi starting point.

On a little street in Fukuoka-4

This morning I found poppy flowers on the street across the University campus. I like these little flowers with a pastel color.

In the night, I found a cherry blossom still blooming. This is probably a late-blooming strain, termed Yae-Zakura (meaning a cherry blossom with eight-layer petals) or a double flowering cherry tree.

On a little street in Fukuoka-3

A guardhouse at the (former) main gate of Hakozaki Campus, Kyushu Univ.

Maintained by a guard or two for 24 hours, this gate is now only for bicycles and pedestrians.

Cherry blossoms are falling.

Late March and early April are the season of cherry blossoms in Fukuoka (and many other places in Japan). In my University campus, the blossoms are already falling and the scattered on the path.
This year, I have just missed a chance of having a party under the cherry tree of full blossoms. It's bit pity.

The day of graduation in Kyushu University

Three undergraduate students and three master course students finished their course. Four of them are leaving this laboratory for their job.
Every year, this day makes me bit sentimental, but for them, this is also the day of their start.
Congratulations!

On a little street in Fukuoka-2

A small liquor shop, Nakajima, in Hakozaki.

It deals several kinds of special Japanese rice wine flavored with plum or an aromatic citron called yuzu, which are my favorite.

My favorite qualtet

The Manhattan Transfer; they sing jazz like instruments.

On a little street in Fukuoka

This title was named after a sweet love song "On a little street in Singapore", originally played by Glenn Miller Orchestra (I came across this song covered by The Manhattan Transfer).

Several days ago, when I walked through streets in Taipei, the scene reminded me this song, and I thought that many small streets in my city, Fukuoka, also has similar pretty and peaceful atomosphere, which may be nice to record and introduce using this space. I would like to show such streets and paths mainly in Hakozaki and Maidashi district in the East Fukuoka, where I live and work, with some snap-shot photos, though we have access to the street views of these area on Google Map.

Today's site is here.

Yoneyama Benzaiten Shrine, just behind my forvorite bar "Third Stone", which is along the Daigaku Dori street, an old main street in Hakozaki.
Benzaiten Shrine is a type of shrine for a god "Benten (Sarasvati; the Hindu goddess of music, eloquence, wealth, and wisdom)". Although this is a small shrine, but is kept clean by local resident, suggesting their religiousness.

Gold Bunny

One of my friend, Claudia, gave me the rabbits. She says that this chocolate is a speciality for Easter, not a St. Valentine's Day gift.
Before we eat them, my wife fed them with a carrot. Thanks for the kindness.

My favorite guitarist

He is Tommy Emmanuel having amazing technique of playing acoustic guitars with much sense of entertainment.

Beautiful melody and harmony is here.



His crazy technique and fun play.



For him, a guitar is a good percussion too.

Fighting, coping, or surrender?

I'm thinking about cancer. No, this is not my own matter now, though probably become matter in future. I would like to prepare for it mentally, to prevent falling into a panic.
Many people applaud those who have fought against cancer, even if they failed in vein. Trying new therapy and bearing side-effect (major-effect?) of anti-cancer agent may look so brave but awful for me. I might try to seek a sub-best solution in some ways of coping with cancer, rather than making my mind up to fight them. Off course I would not want to surrender.
Next week I will visit my father suffering from prostate cancer. How can I cheer him up, and how can I let him cope with the diseases? He is old enough. He should not take a risk to suffer from awful pain. How can he keep his quality of life? Not so easy questions....

Finished scoring exams

I have just finished to score exams of my lecture on biochemistry. This lecture will discontinued by this semester because of a curriculum rearragement in our undergraduate course. So I'm feeling little bit sentimental in scoring the very last exam. The main topics of the lecture were metabolism and enzyme kinetics. The achievement of their study in average looks fine, but only a few are expected to fail.
From next year I will create a series of lectures on fish genomics and aquatic biochemistry, so need to prepare for it by making several presentation file in PPT format.

Happy Thursday night!

This is because of the TV program "Begin Japanology", broadcasted in English from NHK (a Japan public TV casting company) in midnight.
The program introduces Japanese topics probably interesting for foreigners, such as Nabe (the hot pot cuisine, which I introduced in my last issue of this blog.), Sento (public bath), Bento (a lunch box cuisine), Kendo (Japanese swordsmanship) etc. Mr. Peter Barakan, a middle aged guy from London) plays as a caster. I love his English speaking (pronounciation and voice), and his speaking speed is quite good for me as an exercise of listening.
Several issues of the program have been archived in YouTube. All are quite fine. I wish we could get all the back numbers from YouTube or even NHK web site.

Today I would like to introduce a Japanese board game, Shogi, like Chess. I enjoyed Shogi with my father in my childhood. Another game of my favorite was mah-jong, played with my family (mother, father, grandfather, and my younger sisters) with no bet of cash.

Hot-pot cuisine

In winter season in Japan, hot-pot cuisine, termed Nabe in Japanese, is especially popular. The followings are very good TV program introducing the Japanese hot-pot in English explanations.
The series of program, Begin Japanology, provides excellent introductions of Japanese cultures, even their historical background, and is quite informative even for us Japanese with easy-to-listen beautiful English narrations by the caster, Mr. Peter Barakan from London.
Unfortunately, not all the past articles of Begin Japanology are available in YouTube, but other topics opened in YouTube from the Begin Japanology are all interesting. The others may become available in NHK-on-demand service through the NHK web site, but must be charged.