A few weeks back, undine_oceana and I were reminiscing about Japan. Of course, she was there for much, much longer than me. Long enough so that by the time I came to visit her, she knew all the little tips and tricks, and the holiday was very cheap, very fun, and very tasty. Some of the primary things that made Japan the latter were the onigiri.

I knew about onigiri, or rice balls, from anime and manga. School students made and sold them for school festivals. The entire moral of Fruits Basket is based around an onigiri with a pickled plum. It's a rounded triangular shaped ball of sticky rice. They have a simple enough design. Usually, there's a filling inserted into the middle of the ball. It can be savory or sweet, but the important thing is that it's tasty (and usually strong-tasting). The ball is either wrapped in a strip or a sheet of nori, seaweed paper, so that the rice doesn't stick to your hands

I'd never had them until I actually got to Japan. Erin gave me one the very first day I got there. She looked around sneakily like someone would come and snatch it away if she flashed it in public, and then produced a sea chicken onigiri from her purse. She showed me how to open it without having it fall apart. Then I took a bite, and I was hooked.

I tried lots of other Japanese food, but I kept coming back to onigiri. There is no better transportable, clean, filling snack (or even meal!).

So, I made them today. ( It was deceptively easy, but took a bit of time )

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With all of the huge commitments to science in the USA in the last little while, Canada's deficiencies in the same area are being thrown into sharp relief. In Nature this week, there were a few articles about Canadian funding for research. Particularly interesting was a very defensive rebut by the Canadian minister for science and technology, Garry Goodyear. Here's what he said in full:


Sir

You report researchers' concerns about the Canadian government's support for science in two recent News stories (Nature 457, 646; 2009 and Nature 458, 393; 2009). As Minister of State for Science and Technology, I can say that, despite the global economic situation, the government of Canada remains committed to innovation and discovery. We have increased funding to researchers, both in universities and in the private sector.

In the past three years, for example, we have significantly increased the budgets of federal granting councils, increased scholarships through the Canada Graduate Scholarships Program, and increased the Industrial Research Assistance Program for small and medium-sized businesses. The Budget 2009 announcements include Can$750 million (US$590 million) for the Canada Foundation for Innovation to attract and retain world-leading researchers, and a Can$2-billion infrastructure programme. The government has also put in place two five-year funding agreements with Genome Canada that are worth Can$240 million, to support large-scale, world-class research.

Your readers should therefore rest assured that the government of Canada will continue to fund research for the benefit of all scientists and Canadians.


Looking at that list of budget announcements, you might think they're doing a good job. However, they seem to be concentrating much more on industry and infrastructure than on basic science (concerns also voiced in Cash concerns for Canadian Scientists). They're building up the infrastructure of existing labs, upgrading equipment and so on with that 2 billion, but they're not providing the funding for the projects.

"The budget is good on infrastructure, but where's the money to support the graduate students, the postdocs and all the other undertakings of research that will use funding from the CFI or some other source?" says Gordon McBean, a climatologist at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.

The funding for Genome Canada was 100 million in 2007, and 140 million in 2008. No money in 2009. Saying "five-year funding agreement" seems to imply that there won't be any more money for Genome Canada until 2012. It seems to agree with the recent news article, Genome Canada cancels stem-cell project funding, which gave the lack of federal funding as a reason.

In addition, I'm not one to go off on ad hominem attacks, but Goodyear is a chiropractor by trade and a politician at heart. Not exactly neck-deep in rigourous science and research. Contrasted even more by the United States's Chief Science Advisor, John Holdren, who has a phD in aerospace engineering and plasma physics and is a professor at Harvard.

So, all that Canada is doing is training up researchers and either sending them to industry, or keeping them around on a pittance. No wonder scientists are fleeing to other fields or to other countries (myself included). If Obama is as good as his word, I have no doubt that many scientists from Canada and elsewhere will head to the States.

As you may be able to tell from the quantity of my blog posts, I'm pretty bored outside of work hours. Not having internet, phone, or skype at home will do that to you. Rather than watching movies and crocheting (or in addition to), I'm doing things like cooking and reading. Which might be more healthy or something, maybe?

I'm reading two books at the moment. One is my travel book, called This is Your Brain on Music, by a Canadian, Daniel Levitin. It's quite interesting, though a little more intellectual than I usually choose for my pleasure reading books. It's written for the layperson, so a lot of the information inside is review, like this is your brain, and this is music, but the parts that are the brain on music are really interesting. I never give much thought to what I know about music. And I definitely don't often apply my (somewhat limited) knowledge of neuroscience to music very often.

 

( I Review? )

 

I'm not done the book, but I wanted to dish out some of these thoughts to the world at large so that I remember them when I'm done the book. It's not a particularly easy book to read, but it's making my metro rides surprisingly short.

I watched the American Presidential debate today on YouTube. I needed some form of multi-tasking, because I was crocheting, and this was the first thing that came to mind. Some people have mentioned that maybe I should pay attention to the politics of my own country, but American politics is so much more like watching a reality TV show. :P I'll watch the Canadian leader's debate after it airs on Oct 1.

( I've never actually seen either candidate speak at length before this )

After the debate, I was pretty sure that the world was going to implode if either candidate wasn't elected, RIGHT NOW. So I went off to watch some Canadian politics, about saving the environment, the polar bears, and the earth. :) Yay my country.

If you don't know what to do, call the media and at least give the appearance of doing something.
- David Peterson

HAI THAR SCIENCE! :D