contravoz: August 2007

Baule -Sexta etapa - Seattle Salmon

The internal structures start at Baule-

The external appendixes - such as the chimney too.

And while the house grows, we eat the famous Salmon from Seattle (thanks Clark!!). Perhaps not in the most elegant fashion, but in keeping with the Contravoz tradition that were not for this Salmon, starving would have been likely.

And the night arrives with a taste of camp fire for the Contravozitos, who fell asleep before the moonrise.

Heathrow

Like a migratory bird, the season of flights is about to start. And here I am like a sitting duck looking through the fog at the bellies of the BA planes. Cheer up...only 12 hours to Seattle. Three books for 18 pounds (Sansom's Winter in Madrid, Crichton's Next, Barnes' Arthur & George). At 6PM (+9 in Europe), I'll be meeting Clark for a good dinner.

Dubos and his time - some more thoughts

This will be the third and probably last time that I will entertain you with Dubos. For this last entry, I have recovered some phrases that illuminate the nature of science and the basics of existing.

Herbert Gasser as new director of Rockefeller:

"There are two times for working on a problem - before anyone has thought of it and after everyone has left it"

Dubos on well being in an imperfect world:

"The earth is not a resting place. Human life is a dynamic process, so that to renounce adventure, abandon risk, or avoid the world would result in a static paradise"

A fable of three men transporting materials on the road to Chartres:

"One man says he is carrying stones, another says he is working on a wall, and the third says he is building a cathedral"

Dubos on scientific insight:

"Be aware of what one does not see, instead of being satisfied with what one sees"

And finally, to your surprise, the most famous quote of Dubos (also attributed to David Brower)!

"Think globally, act locally"

Running on the Montagnettes

With the valuable participation of Liki Fumei, we succesfully completed the Sierre to Zinal mountain course. Remarkable!

The Profile

Hotel Weisshorn and, at the end the Cervino/Matterhorn...source of great confusion for Liki Fumei

Arrival to Zinal: the Alpenhorn

Dubos, Avery and failure

I insist on Dubos to celebrate the difficulties of research:

"Every culture that I put in the incubator is a test of myself against nature, and every morning I verify the results. I know the emotion of the gambler who returns to his dice but I often have the impression that my activity is as futile as the on eof the gambler"

A typical reaction from Avery when experiments failed was to end discouragement with the admonition:

"Now boys, whenever you fall, pick up something"

René Dubos - The Rockefeller Institute

I only knew of the Dubos growth media used in the labs. Now in a dedicated biography I understand the size of the man, and his time during the pre-antibiotic era. Below are some quotes that show that what we see as innovation today, existed before:

"Frederick Gates, adviser to Rockefeller, read Osler's Principles and Practice of Medecine, and understood that medecine did not cure more of four or five diseases. He realised that the causes of diseases as well as remedies could be found if facilities existed for intensive research. The Rockefeller Institute was founded free of university, government, or commercial control"

"Gates advised that medecine could hardly hope to become a science until qualified men could give themselves to uninterrupted study and investigation, on ample salary, entirely independent of practice - freed from clinical duties, teaching, examinations, and administrative responsabilities""

"Intially, microbiology and pathology were the predominant sciences at the Institute. The focus changed rapidly to a more biochemical outlook, and bacteriologists were then joined by chemists, physiologists, and biophysicists"

Moberg - Dubos, Friend of the good Earth