So I’m sure that many of us have heard that scientists have discovered that the DNA sequences of humans and chimps are 98% identical, but what actually separates us from chimps. Researchers at the University of California-Santa Cruz have identified 49 regions in at least one gene that show the most changes between humans and chimps and it all comes down to brain size.

The gene is critical to the development of larger brains in humans. The changed areas are referred to as human accelerated regions or HAR. They found that of all the HARs, HAR1 contained 18 major changes in humans and only two in chimps. HAR1 contains a gene that turns on during the twelfth week. This gene is very important because the gene comes on when a certain brain structure is forming in human embryos known as the cerebral cortex which is responsible for language, data processing, emotion and judgment.

The researchers believe the evolutionary split between humans and chimps started taking place about 2 million years ago. Up until that point those regions were identical in humans and other animals for 300 million years.

Well, you know what this means? If we’ve been able to identify this gene, the next step is cloning it into chimps to make smart monkeys. Then we become The Planet of the Apes.

Yesterday I was sitting on the couch with Chris when the postman showed up with a package. I jumped up to get it and generally acted like a two year old with the “What is it?� and “Is it for me?� questions. Chris said “No. It’s not for you� and carefully opened the box. Apparently he bought a Firefly ornament. He purchased it months ago and had been waiting anxiously for it to arrive.

He lifted the ornament box out of the packing box and very gently opened it. He spent so much time removing the ornament from its box, that I had time to go to the bathroom, pee, wash my hands, walk back to the kitchen and refill my water glass. By the time I got back to the living room he finally had the ornament out of the box for viewing pleasure.

Me: “Well, I guess this means we have to get the Christmas tree out this year.�

Chris: “We don’t have to if don’t want to.�

Me: “No, no. I think we should. I think it will be good.�

Chris: “Oh good! I was hoping you would say that!�

Hearing him say that made me tear up a little. It just reminded me of what a bitch I was during that time of year last year. I don’t think I was bitchy to Chris (at least I didn’t mean to be), but I was generally crudgmugen about any thing and every thing dealing with the Holidays. I don’t want to be that kind of person.

Chris was so excited about his new Christmas tree ornament. He looked like a little kid. When he pulled it out of the box he said “This is my favorite ornament�. We’re going to need a bigger tree.

One of the big topics of the National AIDS Conference in Toronto this week was on vaccines versus microbicides. Researchers have yet to find a safe and effective HIV vaccine due to the viruses shifty nature. Many researchers have started veering away from the vaccine idea to gels or creams that prevent the transmission of HIV during sex.

Microbicides work in many different ways to prevent infection with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Some work by maintaining an acidic pH in the vagina which enhances the natural vaginal defense mechanism. Another class of microbicides can prevent virus replication once it has entered cells. Some microbicides act by simply forming a protective barrier. Microbicides can be in a gel or cream form and even as suppositories. Some even have spermicidal activity.

The main talk at the conference this year has been all about prevention. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine did a simulation and found that a microbicide that is only 60% effective could prevent 2.5 million infections over three years. 2.5 MILLION. That’s a big number particularly when you consider that at the end of 2005 17.3 million women were living with HIV.

So is a vaccine really all that important? Of course, but I don’t think we should be putting all our eggs in one basket. We may not be able to cure AIDS, but its high time we find an effective way of preventing it.

Now we have actual proof that Greenland’s ice sheet is melting. Data taken from a NASA satellite shows that the melting of the ice has accelerated since 2004 and is melting at a rate of about 57 cubic miles per year.

If Greenland’s ice sheet disappears sea levels will rise by 21 feet. I don’t know if many people have noticed this peculiar thing about our planet, but we have major bodies of ice one both ends of Earth (like the North and South Pole a.k.a Antarctica). They play a very important role in the how the Earth rotates and gravitational pull, yada yada yada. Greenland’s ice melting can cause big changes in the Earth’s gravity.

“Acceleration of mass loss over Greenland, if confirmed, would be consistent with proposed increased global warming in recent years,” Dr. Jianli Chen and colleagues.

I think Wednesday was the best day of our Colorado trip. All the days after the getting there day were good. I caught my limit of trout every day except one, but that was ok because the one fish I caught that day happened to be the biggest. I kept my allergies under control until Thursday (a new record), but Wednesday was the best day because that’s the day we saw the bear.

My parents have been dragging me to all parts of Colorado my entire life. I have pictures of me in a backpack on Mom’s back hiking through the Colorado country side and stories of the many adventures (or misadventures) that my family has shared there. But in the thirty years of all these trips I have never seen a bear. Bear sightings had become a joke in my family where someone would yell out “BEAR� then “Just Kidding�. I had decided that bears didn’t actually exist in Colorado.

I was drifting in-and-out of sleep somewhere around 6:00AM Wednesday morning. I really needed to get up and go pee, but it was cold and I didn’t want to move. Then I heard my sister yelling my name. I thought that meant breakfast was ready so I mumbled something like “OK� and slowly started to roll myself out into the cold. Then I heard Janell say “bear�. Well, that changed everything. I flew out of bed and started flinging clothes and stuff all over my tent looking for my camera. Once the camera was found I had to find shoes. The whole time I’m thinking I’m going to miss the cute little bear because I can’t find the zipper for the door. When I finally fall out the tent door, I look up and see a BEAR. Not the little cute one in my imaginary world, but a big brown one, the kind that can potentially attack people. It was…right…there.

The bear was standing very close to Melissa’s tent. It had turned over one of the garbage dumpsters and had dragged garbage all around the campsite. It was still snooping about to see if there was anything tastier left around before settling on the dumpster stuff. The crazy thing is that Janell had gotten up and walked to the bathrooms and back probably walking right by the bear and hadn’t even noticed. She bent down to get a blanket so she could sit and read for awhile when she glanced up and saw the bear. It had pooped right next to her tent!

I took some pictures, but I don’t know how well they turned out. Once I was out there I suddenly realized that I probably shouldn’t get to close. I mean it is a wild animal much bigger than me…with teeth. The bear wasn’t the only wild life we saw. We saw deer, big-horned sheep, chipmunks, otters and antelope. But obviously the bear was the highlight.

Thing to see and do during life time # 108: See bear in wild. Check!

The Graham Family Trip to Colorado went pretty well if you ignore the trip out there. We were about fifteen miles outside of Alamosa CO when the first tire on the trailer blew. The flinging burning rubber from that tire caused damage to the tire behind it and while putting the spare on the shredded tire Dad noticed that one of the tires on the other side had a horse-shoe nail in it. We slowly made our way to Alamosa where Dad had two tires replaced and the one with the nail patched. We got back out on the road and making good time until the patched tire blew. By this time Dad and Janell were getting really good at changing tires. We trekked on.

Now part of the plan for this trip was to meet up with my Mom’s first cousin and her new boyfriend’s family. They told us to meet them at Cement Creek, one of the many primitive camp sites available in Colorado. We’ve been to many campgrounds in Colorado, but some how we’d never been to this one. We pulled off onto a dirt road and Dad got nervous. He pulled the trailer over to the side of the road, then we took the van down to the camp site to see if we could get in and if Junior, as Dad liked to refer to the guy we were meeting, was even there. Even if the camp site had not been full, there was no way we could have gotten the trailer down there. The road was way too rough and all the camp sites were too narrow. To top it off, no one was there that we were supposed to meet.

It was 8:00 at night. The kids were hungry. It was raining and cold and we had no place to stay. Mom told us to go back down the road to see if one of the camping resorts could get us in and they would meet us there. Dad had to find a place to turn the trailer around. The camping resort had zero vacancies, but Janell and I took some initiative and drove further down the road to Spring Creek (primitive camp site that just happens to be on a paved road). We found a perfect pull-in camp site with plenty of tent space, so I left Janell and the kids there and Melissa and I went to find my parents. Two hours later, Mom and Dad show up. Dad had busted out the back windshield of the truck while trying to turn the trailer around. I told him about the great camp site we scored and they followed us to Spring Creek. By this time it was too late to do anything. It was still drizzly so no one could set up tents. I slept in the van while every one else slept in the floor of the camp trailer.

Sounds like a pretty crappy trip. But really it gets better. We awoke the next morning to a beautiful Colorado sky. We all got our tents set up and camp squared away. We had a long day of doing nothing. The trip just got better from there.

I’m so tired. My ears are all clogged up from allergies, but we had a great time. I have so much to tell and some pictures to share, but it’s going to have to wait until later. It was probably one of the most eventful trips I’ve taken to Colorado starting with the tire explosions and ending with a bear in the camp site. So much more to tell. Too tired to tell it right now.