[Hplusroadmap] Fwd: [OWW-Discuss] What previously underrecognized sport or pastime should be included in the Olympic Games?

[ameluti at gmail.com]

He was my childhood hero.

*sniff*

On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 1:30 AM, Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Friday 21 March 2008, Bill F wrote:
> > Up close and personal: Alan Charning, UK PostDoc. World renowned
> > pipette pro. His presence on any team is enough to titrate fear in
> > the hearts of his opponents. Merely having him at the lab bench has
> > propelled the austere labs of Cambridge into a force to be reckoned
> > with in the global pro-am wetlab circuit.
> >
> > When not pushing copious quantities of fluids through ridiculously
> > thin tubes, Alan likes to relax in his training lab in the Outer
> > Hebrides. Where sheep once trod, now Alan's legendary training
> > regimen is conducted with a host of experts flown in from the four
> > corners of the globe. Swimming 2 miles every day, pumping through
> > massive volumes of treacle syrup to increase training friction,
> > performing hundreds of arm rep lifts per day, and consuming the
> > highlights of the world's literature cell biology output well into
> > the night makes for little time for his wife, Brit, and their son,
> > Watson, and daughter, Sabine.
> >
> > As he prepares for his date with destiny this summer in Beijing, Alan
> > understand the  kind of expectations physicists, chemists, and
> > biologists have heaped upon him. The bust of Cavendish that sits on
> > his desk and the picture of Fleming on the wall remind him of the
> > titans who preceded him. Little did they know that one day,
> > endorsement deals with Van Heusen, Dockers, and VWR Scientific would
> > one day be the prizes of their intellectual progeny.
> >
> > Some called it frivolous when Charning halted his cancer research
> > career peers felt would eventually lead to a Nobel prize to instead
> > perfect his legendary pipetting skills. His gold medal performance in
> > the 3 liter medley in Oslo in 2005, 3 medals in the Helsinki
> > Invitational in 2006, and, finally, the world record in dispensing
> > over 3000 separate samples in a time of 5:02:03954 last year,
> > shattering Professor Jan Gulbricks of the Netherlands time by a
> > massive 5 hundeths of a second, made his appearance on this years UK
> > team a slam-dunk.
> >
> > Wen asked what drives him onward, Alan adjusted his thick glasses,
> > fumbled a bit with the glass tube in his hand, and cleared his
> > throat. Tears welled in his eyes. "My personal hero was Jesse Owens.
> > In my own way, I'm doing my part to let the world know that Lab
> > Science can be as rewarding as any other Olympic sport. We can create
> > life on a competitive playing field and send it crawling off when
> > we're done. The spoils don't go to the victors but to the storm
> > drains that surround the venues we compete in. We're changing the
> > world. I'm honored to be a part of it."
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 21, 2008 at 11:20 AM, John Cumbers
> > <johncumbers at gmail.com>
> >
> > wrote:
> > > *What previously underrecognized sport or pastime should be
> > > included in the Olympic Games?*
> > >
> > > The contestants are given a bag of spinach and asked to isolate the
> > > DNA, purify the ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase, and separate
> > > the rRNA from the mRNA. This would be a timed trial with certain
> > > as-yet-undetermined constraints, but leaning towards the low-tech.
> > > from:
> > > http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v422/n6932/full/422567a.html
> > >
> > > Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
> > >
> > > --
> > > John Cumbers, Graduate Student
> > > Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry
> > > Biology and Medicine, Brown University, Box G-W
> > > Providence, Rhode Island, 02912, USA
> > > Tel USA: +1 401 523 8190, Fax: +1 401 863-2166, UK to USA: 0207 617
> > > 7824
> > >
> > > Delivery address: Brown University (EEB) Biomed Stock Room
> > > 34 OLIVE ST, Providence, RI 02912
>
> ________________________________________
> Bryan Bishop
> http://heybryan.org/
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