Friday, July 30, 2004

Francis Crick is dead Francis Crick, Nobel Prize winner in Biology, who co-discovered the DNA double helix with Jim Watson, died today. I grew up admiring people like Watson and Crick, Feynman, Bardeen (Yes, I was/am a science geek at heart!), Fermi and Landau. At the time, Watson and Crick were the “young ones” of this group; today Crick is dead at 88. A real character, he recognized the serendipity of his discovery, but continued making scientific contributions during his lifetime, including generalizations about the role of DNA in all species. A sad day for science, his contributions will always be remembered. In some sense, his death marks in my mind the end of an era in science which was both an important part of and a significant influence in my life. 12:36:34 AM    comment []

Three interesting new entries in the Venezuelan Blogosphere That blogs will contribute to the knowledge and discussion about a future Venezuelan is proven by three new interesting additions this week to the Venezuela blogging world (mostly in Spanish): -Letter from Venezuela: Self-described as “A blog to describe every day experience in a developing neo dictatorship” Written by Plinio Cabrera   -El Liberal Venezolano: A thought-provoking blog self-described as “For individualism, freedom and markets in Venezuela” . You can recognize an independent thinker in this blog. Loved this very thought provoking part of a post even if I disagree with having that experiment:   ”In any case, on August 15th if I can vote, I will do it to revoke the mandate of the commandant, even if sometimes I think that it will be good that Chavez wins and the country continue sliding in the path towards socialism. Maybe that way we would learn by our own experience what others went through over in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Cuba and stop counting: that socialism does not work”   -Juan Bimba: A Venezuela with his own criteria. Described as a tribute to Juan Bimba, the prototype of the Venezuelan average man. The first four posts are very detailed accounts by other authors of February 27th. 1989, when severe rioting paralyzed the country for days, of February 4th. 1992, when Hugo Chavez led his coup attempt against Carlos Andres Perez, Caldera’s revival speech that same day that led to his reelection and an account of the coup on November 27th. 1992. Recommended for those that don’t remember all of the details or want to refresh them! 12:32:38 AM    comment []