Ghazal Dear,
You might have already forgotten how scepticial you were about the existence of “Stjaernfallen” or meteorites 3 years ago. But when we were spotting some of them from Persides meteor shower later in August, you agreed that at least it was a great event and that it was worth to spent half of the night out under the sky. And now scientists found out that some of the meteorites that don’t burn completely in the atmosphere, but reach the earth surface, might serve as informative messengers from extreterrestrial planets and tell us something about how habitable the living conditions might be there.

Microscopic picture of the crystaline structure of a mineral from a meteorite supposed to be of Mars origin.

The meteorites that we can see regularily on the night sky, with the highest incidence in August (Perseides) and in November (Leonides) not only gives us the chance to express our deepest wishes, but as researcher from Michigan State University recently discovered also contain mineral and chemical signatures that can signify habitable conditions on the planet from which they originate, such as the presence of water. But they also mentioned that “the trouble is by the time most of these meteorites have been lying around on Earth they pick up signatures that look just like habitable environments, because they are. Earth, obviously, is habitable.

Earth, I am quite sure, is the the most beautiful and exciting of all habitable planets, in particular taking into consideration its 8 billion different people, some of them funny, some silly, some stupid and some brilliant.

Greetings, Michael

Ghazal my dear,

What is age, and what is aging, if everyone uses a different measure for this. This came to my mind when I did another picture of the moon tonight. Tonight it was once again the night of the Persides meteor shower. But since nothing could top the spectacular meteor that we saw together with you at the same night in 2010, I put more attention to the moon again (1). A year ago at the same night, we have been at the Bulgarian blacksea coast, and then the Persides night fell together with the full moon. This year, however, the same day in the year (11th to 12th of August), the moon looked completely different.

Is there a final take-home message from this post for you, Ghazal ? Maybe you will find one.

Take Care my Dear

Michael

Footnotes:

(1) Surely you know that the Moon symbolizes the pure, innocent beauty in Persian classicla poetry. This is independent of the exclusive role of the Sun in ancient, pre-islamic Persian culture, philosophy and science. But because poetry is very much influenced by arabic traditions, their spiritual preference for the moon as symbol in religion and arts got access into the poetry of Hafez, Rumi, Atta and Omar Khayyun.

(2) The Persides Meteor shower lives up to its name: same as the Persian people do, it follows precisely the sun’s calender. I guess that it follows in a precise and constant time after Persian Nouruz.

(3) Initially I could not figure out, if the name of the company GLOBAL-SHINING was referring to the moon or the sun. But now that I know that it is a Hongkong based company, I guess they even mean the Shining Stars.

(4) I guess Mr. Ho wont mind having his business address published here on my blog. But it might further promoted his excellent business. Just that Tsuen Wan does not have a postcode might discourage Hongkong tourists to drop into his store and buy camera displays.

TAKE CARE, my Dear

Michael

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Hi michael,

So your calculation shows that if I would look southward from here and you would look northward from Munich, we would both spot the same meteor tonight ? Does your calculation also considers by chance the outside temperature ? You can”t expect me to wait outside our house for an hour tonight, since we have already snow here and its freezing cold. And anyhow, even if I would spot a meteor tonight, even knowing that the same is visible from Munich, it would not be the same as at was in August, when we were watching the Perseides shower. Then it was warm, a nice summer night, and it was fun to be there together. I think I will skip the “stjaernfallen” tonight. But your calculation should equally hold true for next years Perseides in August, right? But then, who knows, maybe I”m back in Munich, and the 1310 km distance is obsolet.

I wish you a pleasant night anyway

Take care

/ghazal

PS: I could stay inside and try to spot some of the meteors tonight through the window, can”t I ?

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Ghazal, my Dear,

Assuming there is a clear sky tonight, you might spot a meteor through the window, why not.
Which side does your window face ? north, south ?

Michael

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Dear michael,

I checked, the window of my room faces north, and our kitchen to the west. What is the best ?

/ghazal

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I guess if you watch through your window northward, you perhaps wont see the meteors, but you have a good chance to see Polar-Light. By the way, since Polar-Light comes also from the upper atmosphere (like the meteors), the calculation is equally valid for them. This means, you might see the same Polar-Light looking northward as an eskimo in Greenland or a reindeer farmer in Lappland.
But they don”t know about you, they have never seen the magic of your blue eyes, my Dear. Maybe for them the polar light is frightening or a common feature, they have probably no association with it, not that a particular person they miss a lot is watching it at the same time.

O.k., I have to accept that the november Leonides shower is a not the most suitable, despite all the calculations. However, in case I spot a meteor tonight, I”ll imagine that at least in your dreams you see the same one, and that it takes you on to an angel flight through the night sky.

TAKE CARE, enjoy

Michael

Befor too much time passes away, I further translated the text by Lars Gustafsson (which you brought into English some month ago) and put a german version on my blog. I also send it to Mr. Gustafsson, maybe he uses it further. Do you also want your english version have it published ? The reason I did it today was that in a few days will be the 21st anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Ghazal, my Dear, I suspect you are not too much involved in these political events. Thats fine, I understand this.
If possible, one should try to use this precious lifetime for creative things, rather than to fight against walls or against political unjustice. Unfortunately, too often the political circumstances dont allow us to live in peace, and one is reminded on the poem by B Brecht:
WHAT AWFUL TIMES I AM LIVING IN,
WHEN TALKING ABOUT TREES IS ALMOST IMMORAL
BECAUSE IT IMPLIES NEGLECTING SO MANY CRIMES.
(B.Brecht: An die Nachgeborenen)

Hope you are fine, and happy and in a sort of harmony with the world and your life.
In case not, maybe you can dream of it, and this can help to make it come true.

Sleep well, Take Care,
Michael.

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Hi michael,

I did not know so much about the Berlin Wall and what happend there, I think I was much too young when this was an issue. You are right, I am probably not very interested in politics, think that there are more crucial problems in my life. But maybe it is because here in Sweden there was never a lot of political fight. Therefore, it is only when I hear some news from other countries that suddenly can make me very angry, and then I would like to fight against injustice.

Maybe you heard about a case in Iran, that a woman, Sakine Ashtiani has been sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery. I was crying when I read this. I am probably very emotional in this case, since I know some of my relatives are living there and also I love the home country of my family a lot, for its people, its great cultural heritage and so on. And the more I got angry when I hear that an inhuman gouvernment in Teheran can keep people in custody, tortures them, kills them.

And yes, you are right, that when we hear about political crime or injustice, we can”t enjoy any more the nice things in life. For instance something very basic, but amazing like a meteor shower that is expected next week. I doubt it will be as impressive as the one we saw on August 24th in the park behind the Guesthouse, but who knows.
The Stjaernfallen expected in the night from 17th to 18th of November belongs to the Leoniden.

I”ll try to watch them in the night of the 17th, and in case you also go out, we may even spot the same meteors. Or do you think that I might see some here in Stockholm, and you see different ones from Munich? They should be the same, for my feeling. I mean we also see the same stars and moon and sun, why should we see different meteors then ?

For tonight, TAKE CARE
Ghazal

Are you still awake ? Do you have another conflict with some insects ?
I”ll drive by the guesthouse, and if there is still light behind your window, I call from downstairs. If not, I”ll go back.

M.
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Ghazal my Dear,

I whished we could stay there sitting and chatting untill the moon disappears in the morning. O.k., the following day in the lab would be a bit sleepy and dizzy,
but I would be happy. You see you experienced your first night out there in the wild, and no spiders, no bat no vampires or rapists. The world is sometimes much more comfortable and fazinating and lovely than our fears tell us.

Your hair has a tantalising smell. It was most difficult for me to tear away from it.

Have a good night, sleep well, dream about a journey to the moon, but my usuall plea: Please come back.

I like you so much, Ghazal for you stating “I don”t regret anything”. If you are still awake, listen please to Edit Piaf.

TAKE CARE

Michael
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Ghazal my Dear, now I try for the third time to write you a mail. Two hours ago, the Helmholtz mail server died, than I started to write the same mail on my privat mail-server, which suddenly also kicked me out and I lost 2 pages of text for you.Therefore, I now send you something short:I had this awfull job in the afternoon and evening to recover all personal date from my broken PC. These data were manuscripts, reports, science reviews, sequences, protocolls, gel-images, fotos of tumor and millions of other stuff I collected from my work during the last 12 years. And what I realized at the end: 99% of it is useless and wont be interesting for anybody any more. Isn”t this frustrating, how much we work what later got lost or what we later don”t want to read any more our self? In contrast to this, each time I read the text of the Persian-Cat blog, it makes me happy and excited and satisfied. As compared to all the million files on my computer disk, the Persian Cat blog is so samll in size. But every word, every sentence is great, is relevant, as meaningful. And it will always be like this, I think not only you and me will always like to read this record of a wonderful summer and this funny exhange of thoughts between the two of us. I guess if other people read this, either now or 100 years later, they also will considers this great and important and simply human. Don”t worry, Ghazal, about what I wrote above regarding that work in science, and that it can sometimes appear useless to us. It is just a temporal feeling, and we all live in science for the very few moments when we make a great discovery and are Nobel-award candidates.You are still at the very beginning of your career, and I will do everything to encourage you to carry on. Because scientist can be one of the most satisfying and exciting jobs. But there always might be moments of frustration, and for these it is good if you have other areas of your soul that do not depend so much on how the gouvernment or the society or the boss or your colleagues judge your work, but a field that gives you power and satisfaction by itself. You have your beloved family, your movies and persian music, that will always help you to keep the head above. I “have” you, who just with a few words and a smile can compensate for a lot of hussle here at work (and of course I have other things, like music and books, that also help me to stay alive).What else shall I say?
Be strong, stay as lovely as you are, enjoy every day and every night and meet me at your deams.

Michael

I hope you are doing well and feel o.k.
Is it quiet now in the Lab ? Usually this is the best time to concentrate on the project. I hope so much that you find some intellectual satisfaction with the project and not have to consider it as a hard burden and a duty to fulfill.
I prepared some text about the mapping, the markers, the mouse strains and linkage. It should somehow fit into the thesis structure (as much as I remember it was part 2 or so). Just break it apart into the several sub-headings.

And of course, if you find in the text something difficult to understand or wrong or strange, please write me back. I very much like the intellectual conversation with you and I learn a lot from your questions as well.

I will also send you something that explains the animal experiments (the older ones we did years ago and the JF1 x FVB crosses). Was Prof. T. already around ?

I think of you and your aristocratic character, that is so much different from the people here around which are very loud and miss any sense of ellegance. This is usually what one can expect at a beach,but the kids like this and therefore I have to decline.
I”m waiting to see you next week.

Take Care,my dear

Michael

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Hi Michael!!

T. has not been here yet. I think he chose this week on purpose. Both
you and M. are on vacation.
It is a bit quiet yes. I put aside the labwork yesterday and today to
sit and read and write. btw, the sequencing worked!! im happy. me and
claudia will maybe analyse the data later today.
it is not a burden to do this project. everything has been good so far.

I do not know how to thank you for writing so much for me. i have
written a bit about the mapping and microsatellite and QTL. but it was
not as much as yours. so thank you. you should not do this on your
vacation. just go and have fun. right now i am concentrating at the
first part with chernobyl and thyroid cancer.

take care and see you next week!

/ghazal

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Ghazal my Dear,

Good to hear that you managed so well to continue with the project and the thesis during this week. Good luck with the sequence analysis,hope you and C. find some interesting variations between the two strains.
I attache a piece of text that describes the rational for using the JF1 and the FVB/N strain in this project. Please double-check if any of the chromosomal loci or gene names are consistent with what you wrote before. Also, in case you find any other discrepancies with the other text-pieces,please mark it in red and we will go through when I am back.

Ghazal, please don”t feel obliged to say “Thank you” for these small pieces of text. It is my very duty as a supervisor to help you with this. It is you who is doing the sophisticated and very decent experimental work day-by-day, without complaining that it is getting boring. Therefore,it is in fact me who must be extremely grateful. Don”t forget this, please.
And what is maybe even more relevant, that you always have this endless patience with me, if I come around and require that you spend the time after work with me. No MSc student has the commitment of going to the movies or to an exhibition or to the beach with its supervisor, or attend with him a concert or watch the meteor shower in the middle of the night. You could have in fact complaine with Prof. T. right from the beginning and ask for another project or another supervisor. I know I was always a bit violently when I asked you to meet me after work,and who knows how often I have disturbed your planing for the evening when you wanted to read or write something for the project. Therefore,it is the least I can do to help you to get everything together know for the thesis, it is a very small compensation for all the nice days and moments you have been with me and for having been always so patient and listened to my silly stories and telling me something from you. You could have easily send me to hell, you never did (I hope you dont wish you could have done this, but you did not wanted to risk your project).

Ghazal, you will see at the end (and everybody will agree) that a successful MSc project does not need this archetypical and hirarchical relation between student and supervisor, but it also can be done if there is a (sort of) frienship.
For me,to be honest, you are too much a mystery to call this a simple friendship.

I wish you a pleasant evening, a relaxing night, and nice dreams.

Michael

PS:How is your watch doing ? I hope that “No news are good news” and it runs precisely now, since you gave it a bit more freedom around your arm.

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hi michael,

i think i found one mutation on the third exon.

yes u are right i could ask prof. t. for another project (and he would not give me another since i already tried in the beginning). but i enjoy it here i would not do it. u could also be a bad supervisor and not wanting to help. so i am grateful.

i send u a text with some questions. answer just if u have time. no hurry.

my watch is suprisingly doing great!its strange.

have a good day!!
/ghazal
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Ghazal my Dear,

Congratulations for finding a sequence variation in FGF10 in one of the mouse strains..
You could check (using Ensembl and search for FGF10 in mouse,and click on the left panel on the button for variations) if this sequence alteration was already described in any other mouse strain. You should also check if it might cause an amino-acid change, in case it is still part of the coding sequence (I remember large parts of exon 3 were already 3″ UTR. Maybe you find something.
Before I left, I already ordered primers to test the FGF10 transcript and expression. Could you,please write a mail to O. and ask if and where she has stored the JF1 and FVB/N RNA or cDNA from thyroid (she extracted it as part of her MSc for the expression array).

Thanks for writing that you feel o.k. with how the project developed and that you are o.k. with everything and don”t regret that you came to Munich. You gave me the nicest and most exciting summer of my life, Ghazal. I never felt so much inspiration, excitement and satisfaction to share with somebody a project and many hours after work as with you.

Take Care

Michael

PS:I go through your text today and send you comments tomorrow

Don”t know were you spend the evening tonight, but I”d like to remind you of the Perseiden Stjaernfallen that are most prominent these days. I think to watch them is also a good remedy for the sadness that one usually gets before beloved people leave.

Since the next two days might be quite cloudy, I think tonight is the only chance to view the fallen stars (nice term, isn”t it. Maybe we can see fallen stars like Whitney Houston, Britney Spears or Mikey Rourke tonight, or Michael Schumacher, Maradonna and the like).
To be honest, real Stjaernfallen are much nicer than these celebrities that greet us every day from the yellow-press.
To help you find the Perseides and have a good chance to spot some of the meteors, I made a scheme for you to get an orientation on the night sky.

First try to find the northern direction (from your house look towards the Olympia TV-tower). Then turn your head further to the right, untill you see somewhere a very prominent constellation of stars called Cassiopeia (like a hughe W on the sky). Below or slightly left of Cassiopeia (depending at what time at night you are there) there is the constellation called Perseus, and the Stjaernfallen should originate from this site.

As I told you, according to mythology, you can express a wish whenever you see a Stjaernfallen, but you should not tell anybody about it.
I saw some already yesterday night, and I hope that neither of my wishes collided with your future planing. I tried to avoid anything that is related to the place or the country where you want to do your PhD project (I think this question is too much conflict-loaded).
Therefore, I”ll continue with wishes that I think everybody can live with.

Would be nice to read some words from you

Take Care

Michael

PS:
Just to avoid any confusion on the night sky: the description above referes to the site of I.s house. In case you are in Unterschleissheim tonight, you have to look north, but this will be almost opposite to the Olympia-TV-Tower. Standing in front of the guesthouse, you should then turn your eyes to the left (along Edith-Stein-Strasse).
Maybe you are not in the mood to watch the stars tonight at all. But be careful, than all my (crazy) wishes might come true.

Take Care, my dear

Michael

It is fair enough to be as sceptical as you have been today at the bus-stop, when I announced you the heavy meteor-shower (or stjärnfall in swedish) that will happen in August.
I mean you have to be sceptical if somebody tries to tell you funny story, because you are a scientist and therefore should only trust your own observations.

But now you also have to give me the chance to show you real evidence of the meteors, which will definitly be plenty falling on August 12th. As a first foretaste, have a look at this article in wikipedia

But Ghazal, no chance to tell me you are already convinced now by the article. You”ve had your chance to trust me, you have not used it, you decided to laugh on me. Now you have to give me the chance to show you the meteors in real life. August 12th (the day with the projected highest meteor frquency) will be a Thursday in two weeks time. Sunset will be at 8.35 p.m., therefore at 9 o”clock we should nicely see the first “stjärn fallen”. By the way, according to popular mythology you can express a wish if you see one. You should, however, not tell anybody else about it. I don”t know what happens, if two people have two contradictory wishes at one and the same meteor ? Maybe the meteor than tries to find an arrangement that could satisfy both or maybe the meteor breaks apart and continues as two separate fragments (what indeed can be observed occasionally).

I wish you a good night, hope you can sleep in spite of the full moon.

Take Care, my Dear

Michael

PS:

You asked in your yesterdays e-mail “….fallen in love? hope that this change in you are a good change for your life.”
My firm believ is that love is always good. It is somethink special and precious, and it means to see somebody as an other human beeing absolutely unique and not replaceable by anybody else. The other person whom you love becomes more and more a part of yourself, you are always trying to see and judge life and the world through the imaginary eyes of the other person. You think that without the other person you are only half a man. In this sense, it is much much more than to feel sympathy for somebody or to say “I like somebody”. I mean you can like many people, you can like a whole nation if you want. But you impossibly can love a whole nation. Therefore, when american singers shout from the stage “I love you” to the entire audience, I find it weared.
If you ask me, what the hell I”m thinking I am to fall in love to you, Ghazal, I have to say that I had no choice. But I also did not actively tried to fight against it.
I know I have no chance other than trying to sublimate in words or a Blog or a book what I feel.

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Ghazal, my Dear,

I hope the postscriptum of my e-mail has not upset or even offended you. I”m very rarely speak to somebody as openly as to you, because I think you understand and you don”t bear this load of social stereotypes, psychological prejudices and political correctnesses.
Your judgements are sometimes absolutely unexpected to me, really funny, but they come from an honest heart, they are not intended to present you in a particular light.

Please don”t forget to send me some nice thoughts before you go to bed. There is still full moon tonight, but as much as I can see, the cloudes are even heavier than yesterday. I will continue to watch out, usually the moon rises highest around 1 at night. If it will be nicely visible then, I”ll come around and wake you up.
Is this o.k. ? (Don”t worry, Ghazal, I won”t come unless invited).

Take Care my Dear

Michael
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hi michael,

i was sleeping sorry. i will continue to sleep now. so i will miss the full moon. but its fine. i still have your picture from yesterday.

i will read about stjärnfall, seems interesting.

have agood night! sleep good.

Ghazal
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Sleep well my dear ! Next chance to see the full moon in exactly one month time.