Amino Acid properties

Because everyone is dying for one of these figures.
From Livingstone, C. D. and Barton, G. J. (1993),
"Protein Sequence Alignments: A Strategy for the Hierarchical Analysis of Residue Conservation", Comp. Appl. Bio. Sci., 9, 745-756.

Diamonds

Ahhh, here's that article I read a while ago about how the value of diamonds has been established.

Will they one day sell for $10 a carat?

The rats

My baby boy rats (Stanford and Harvey) got adopted and renamed Rudolph and Santa, which I must say aren't my favorite names.

My friends comment:

I thought the new names for your ex-rats were less elitist. You know, more like Joe the Rat than some Ivy League rat who pals around with left wing terrorist rats.

Joe the rat. Gotta remember that.

Book: Ahead of the Curve

My most recent book was by Philip Broughton about his two years in Harvard Business School. I was hoping I could learn about business like I usually do when I pick up a popular science book, but this book was more of a biography. However, it was a pretty compelling read so I finished it rather quickly.

One thing I found very interesting as I was reading it was that it was published just before the big market crash. The author talks about visits to the school by well-performing financial companies like AIG, Lehman Brothers and the Carlyle Group.

And one of my favorite quotes from the end:

The job statistics for our class showed that 42 percent went into financial services.. Ray Soifer, a graduate of the class of 1965 and a banking analyst, had been keeping track of the relationship between the condition of the American equity market and the percentage of Harvard MBA graduates choosing careers in financial services. Ten percent or less was a long-term buy signal. Thirty percent or more was a long-term sell. The choices of the class of 2006 told you the markets were soon to crash.

Anyway, the book was very interesting, especially as the author wrestled rather candidly about the choices between work and family and the impossible desire of having it all.