My Life on this planet.

Often, I am still wondered when I hear people claim we are different form animals. Of course, from the outside we are different and I can understand people find themselves better than other species, it is only necessary for our survival. E.g. as a scientists I killed many animals for research to understand the working of cells and organs in the hope it would result in curing diseases although I never liked it; therefore, whenever possible I used alternative methods such as research on cells or on tissues that I collected in an abattoir as the animals (pigs) would be killed for consumption. I have also eaten lots of meat in my life. But what I don't understand is that some people don't understand why those animals should be treated as good as possible because they claim it are only animals. Apart from the fact that stress may cause greater errors in the results, we should show respect because these animals improve our lives. However, I think there is one main difference betwee...

On Friday July 27 2012, the high court in London overruled the conviction of a man who tweeted on Twitter that he may blow up Manchester airport if the airport didn't open within a week because he wanted to see his girlfriend (no flights were possible due to bad weather). The judge said that it was obvious it was only a joke, although a bad one. Many people are happy with the ruling. But should we really? Freedom of stupidity Of course, when it becomes clear that someone made a (very bad) joke on the Internet then one may decide not to punish the person. As far as I can tell, the prosecutor made it clear to the public that some kind of "jokes" are not acceptable on social networks. But, when people continue saying that the whole thing was an absurd operetta, threatening "Freedom of Speech", then I no longer understand people. They even claim that nowadays Shakespeare would no longer be allowed to say "Let's kill all lawyers" (see Henry the ...

I'm having again Internet after almost a three months break. Finally, back to the world. Many European politicians (and certainly economists) want to introduce Eurobonds and as I understand it, the EU may take some (most, all?) of the debts of poorer European countries and spread it over Europe so that both strong and weak shoulders will carry the problems. Of course, it is only understandable that Europe wants to help countries that are in need (as it should do because they are members). But, as the German PM Angela Merkel (a woman who thinks differently than most men and wants other solutions then the usual ones), I am against spreading debts because it will weaken every country that take some of the debts (it is similar to banks using savings of people to pay off their debts so that when people want their money the banks can't give it anymore (I wonder whether rating agencies threat some countries well so those countries are prepared to take responsibilities to save count...

Recently I had some lovely reddish flowers on my small cactus. Each flower was almost as large as the cactus itself. Hereby some pictures of them. There were three flowers in total, one flowering before the others until at the end I had a few days three flowers before the first one started to die. Have a close look at the pictures and you may be able to see the pollen and details of the carpel. Also beautiful in black and white.     The whole cactus with its three flowers. Two flowers, one open, the other almost open.

Here I write about the demolition of offices to be able to built the largest building of Europe. I am sorry for the bad layout, I worked hard on something nice but (although I do appreciate Google blogger is free) Gloogle blogger is very bad in allowing a nice layout of your pictures. During my design I see the text differently from what I see when the article is published. I hope one day it will be easier to arrange pictures. Before the redevelopment of the region. PWC building from below after leaving the station. While I lived in London, I worked near London Bridge station in Guy's Tower, King's College London. I worked at the seventh floor but that was nothing compared with the 30th floor and at that time it was one of the highest buildings south of the river. I had a great time working there and doing research. Between Guy's Hospital and the station, there was a tall building housing PWC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) and although not as high as Guy's Tower, q...

In this article I write about something amazing in life: developmental biology (more specifically about human development although most apply also to other animals and even plants) and how out of two tiny cells an organism arises with billions of cells. I mention also briefly about the effects of our knowledge on society: new applications such as IVF and stem cell research or even gene therapy to cure genetic diseases. Science: embryology The cell: introduction Our bodies consist of two types of cells: reproductive cells or gametes and body cells or somatic cells . Somatic cells (e.g. liver cells, skin cells, nerve cells) are found all over our body except in the reproductive organs where in addition gametes are found: these are egg cells or ova ( ovum = one egg cell) in the ovaries of women and sperm cells or spermatozoa in the testes (balls) of men. Fig. 1. C ell with nucleus and chromosomes that consists of DNA. Eukaryotic cells (including human cel...