Is VolksWagen big evil corporation?

My family owns 2 VW cars. Jetta Sportwagen TDI and CC. After VW scandal broke out I am pissed.
Why VW upset me so much? My friends after listening to my litanies ask me, don't you exaggerate a bit? You were very satisfied with the Sportwagen after all so much, that you just exchanged your 5 year old model for brand new 2014 one in March.

This is my story.
When I arrived to America years ago, I was at first criticizing a lot as most Europeans do. In between other issues I complained about cars a lot. Too big, to inefficient, ugly... As European I was surprised with small number of diesel cars on the road. Europeans had tendency to comment on diesel issue about Americans being behind in car technology and lack of concern about environment, since diesel was deemed to be Eco-friendly, efficient, consuming less fuel, having smaller carbon imprint.

As soon as VW introduced its ecological improved diesel engine to the US market, me and my wife have decided to purchase Jetta Sportwagon TDI. Well we could effort to pay $2-3000 more compared to the regular gasoline model and our eco consciousness agreed to pay premium for fuel as well. In contrast to Europe, the diesel was always pricier in US than gasoline (smaller market of course). So we were happy with our VW Sportwagen since 2009 until now. Frankly agility and efficiency of the car were (are) impressive.

Then VW dieselgate happened. Our UBER moral position has suddenly changed. The times when I challenged Prius owners are gone. Whenever I look at our Jetta I feel stigma of deceived disciple of fallen TDI, intoxicating environment with poisonous NOx and having sensitive people on the sidewalks coughing and falling to the ground wherever I drive. We almost feel the eye of the public on us, almost the same way as we were looking at the GM Hummer owners. Although in their case it was not the toxicity of the fumes that mattered.

I am not surprised now that Japanese car makers all these years were struggling to design diesel engine that would pass environmental agencies and they were wondering about German ingenuity and secret technology behind the TDI success. Well here it is. It was all lye. Ugly deception that caused VW stocks to tumble, scared away car buyers all around US, Europe and Asia. Toyota regained its position as the number one manufacturer in the world and critics are preaching the end of diesel.

The customers are left with dilemma: Sue or not to sue, since perceived re-sell value of the VW TDI cars has dramatically declined and the solution to the NOx exhaust problem was not announced yet. Numerous class action law suits are on the way. This makes all involved lawyers the winners in this situation making money on both sides - VW and customers.

I will keep you posted about #dieselgate.

How to keep mental capacity while aging.

We all are aging. This is the fact. The physical and mental capacity of our bodies is declining - especially when not in use. Physical exercise can reverse the body aging to some level. The same goes for the mental capacity. One of the most exciting medical findings of last decade is that the brain has high capacity for change - so called "plasticity". Even in aged brain one can trigger decline reversal, by appropriate training.  Although it is reported that the most important to maintain mental sharpness is daily physical aerobic activity (increased blood-flow in brain) the mental activity is important as well. I am finding more and more difficult to remember things, to calculate simple math, to calculate route to known places etc. Sometimes it almost equals muscle pain. I need to work on it. Need to be disciplined and do mental exercise...

Learning new language?

Would you eat your pet for dinner?

I assume most of the answers will be no, some might be maybe? I just want to trigger some thoughts. Some people have pet rabbits and a lot of people farm rabbits for meat and fur. Let me ask about dogs. We all love them, but somewhere they eat them. Same for cats. So I ask further what you don't like on cows? They are nice animals maybe somewhere someone has a pet cow (??), they have lovely eyes many of them are with families for years giving them milk and butter and yet, we kill and eat them. Same for pigs, although they seem to be dirty, since they like to rest in mud... Well same story, we are used to kill, bleed and gut and behead them....

It is easy to go to the store and buy meat, you do not see the animal. If they give you a knife and face you with animal to kill I am pretty sure many will go hungry.
Next time you get into discussion with vegetarians or dog, cat (or even worse, horse) eaters, please think about previously mentioned. You might be wrong....

Is wealth causing the Climate change? #Hungergedon imminent?

Current direction of human behavior leads to "Climate Change". It has been disputed and discussed for decades and most of experts now agree: Humans cause climate change (statement made for sake of discussion without references- sorry). The climate change causes change in multiple directions affecting sources of food and negatively correlating with food availability.

I am not going to write about the fossil fuels and overusing technology and dependence on energy. Or at least not the energy powering our "necessary" and "life enhancing" devices.
I am going to talk about special "direct" kind of energy that fuels mankind. Food. As it seems with growing population and diminishing of "fossil fuels" we will face "OIL" crisis in anticipated 30-50 years (accounted partially for new technologies in the car industry - this although is not at the focus of this post). Well reading stories written by population experts we might face more serious "energy crisis" sooner - feeding the planet crisis. Not to say we do not have the "Hunger" crisis already, but so far it is mostly about distribution inequality rather than complete lack of resources.

With the current efficiency of farming and the agriculture there will be lack of food resources by 2040 for anticipated  population of 8 to10 billion people. Well, one may say "I belong to the top 10%" so counting on continual distribution inequality, I and my family will have something to eat whatever cost - right? Extremely expensive, but not dying of hunger...

Well hunger brings in people desperation and the worst behavior. This comes with war, violence, terrorism, diseases etc. So this means statistically even the top 10% will be affected and suffer more compared to current status quo.
OK I got shifted away from my title: Wealth and the Climate change.

Here comes my punchline/paragraph indicated in Title: 

The feeling of being wealthier makes people shift their food choices and preferences. For example. Soon as people start making more money they start buying food that they were being deprived of before. This is visible on shift from Pork to Beef in poorer countries when they experience growth of median incomes. Beef being more expensive because growing beef requires more resources. More land, more time spent in maintenance and of course, more time needed to grow to slaughter size. Not even talking about competition of Dairy and Beef industry, with different outcomes (people do not realize that this are really two different businesses, beef cows are different breeds than Dairy cows etc..).

Simply said it requires about 10 times more resources per time unit to produce kilogram of beef than pork or chicken (Based on article in Smithsonian Magazine  (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-times-more-resources-poultry-dairy-eggs-pork-180952103/?no-ist)). Over all producing animal proteins requires more resources than plant proteins do. [Even more dramatic comparisons here: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat].

So wealthier we get as a society more resource demanding food we choose and closer to #Hungergedon we are.  Obviously it is becoming good Earth's citizen practice to shift (or reduce) from red meat towards poultry and ultimately to Veggies..

EBOLA - what am I scared of more now?

Dear scared citizen!
     I understand your worries when you heard about EBOLA crossing Atlantic and eminence of doomsday scenario portrayed by movies like 12 Monkeys (I personally loved this movie). Accidentally or coincidentally remake of which will be airing soon on Sy-Fy channel. And Sy stands for science - right? Warning: Do not forget fy...
     It has been a while that we started to worry about EBOLA. Today even North Korea stepped in to discussion about EBOLA and made accusations that U.S.A. is behind everything. The epidemic still killing people in Africa and victims number reached some 7000.
Damn, I'm molecular biologist I must have been co-conspirator....
     The NIH has received few patients - proximity to my house about 1 mile (1.4 km for metric world). People got scared in many different distant places and I got questioned how do we feel about it here. As you can see, my delayed reaction time correlates with the level of attention I payed to EBOLA scare. Considering that first patient that slipped through the control barriers has traveled with more than 100 people on board of the two planes, touching and speaking to numerous people and no one got infected, I stay pretty calm.
    What gets me is that the only people who got infected were nurses in the hospital who cared for the infected patient. The institution who is supposed to protect public from diseases seems to be the most vulnerable. Well obviously proper protocols were not in place and people got endangered. Now I understand mindset of the older people against hospitals - "I'm not going there because if I go I will get sick." Well usually we do not pay much attention to such a comments - because it is not EBOLA. Well consider flu. It kills tens of thousands of people every year. In negligent conditions it spreads between vulnerable and kills... And then even consider - "Anti-vaxers" - sweet mother of Jesus... Although this is another story...

Blame Xfinity - restarting my blogging routine.

Hello there. It has been a year and few months that I posted last time. Well shame on me. I got sidetracked, but I am trying to get back.

 Symbolically I blame it on Xfinity. A short technical paragraph follows- you can skip it.
 A year ago I have switched from Verizon FIOS to Xfinity. Reasons? Couple. I was not so happy with the pricing and DVR capacity. As it happened I got better offer from the guy from Xfinity soliciting on our street. The pros: advertised speed greater than one from FIOS, no DVR fees, premium channels, price. Cons: speed far from advertised and fluctuating with total connection black-outs, wi-fi limited coverage - the router range, DVR interface not so nice.  Well the deal has expired and  price didn't look so well afterwards. So I am back with FIOS and all is well now, even the price. The wi-fi coverage good again (old FIOS router made the difference), the DVR discounted fees, speed steady and NO FLUCTUATIONS - optical cable rules.

I repeat myself but I want to continue blogging to achieve experience in expressing myself in writing form.
So please feel free to comment - I am opened to suggestions.

Biotech market entry barrier.

While listening to experts on viral clearance on seminar series for Biotech manufacturers, I realized that the price on market entry costs is going up. As science improves our view of surrounding world it visualizes more and more threats, what on markets like one in the US results in more and more regulations and requirements from FDA as ultimate consumer protector. As such, FDA updates the product testing and manufacturing regulations every year. This results in piling up of the costs on every drug that must be FDA approved before approved for market. Of course there is limit what companies are willing to pay in development phase and are eager to cash after approval, therefore so much criticism of drug prices from public. Inadvertently public safety increases drug prices.   

Just as example: current price for characterization of the production  cell line used to make recombinant proteins is between $55000 - $100000. Actual FDA new drug application can cost up to $250000.