And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
The Feast of the Epiphany is one of my favourites. I have used blessed chalk, as usual, to write the traditional inscription over our front door:
20 + C + M + B + 13
For the new year, 2013, of course.
I think this is a Middle European custom, which I picked up from Latin Mass priests, of the FSSP. The order had its genesis in that part of the world.
Anyway, that is not what I wanted to focus on. What I want to stress is this line from the above text:
They were overjoyed at seeing the star …
Not just joyous but overjoyed. Why were these magi, or court astrologers, so happy? I shall tell you, attentive reader. Because they were scientists and their calculations had been confirmed by experiment. “Ground-truthed”.
I recognise that feeling. Total nerd satisfaction. They could now return to their research institute, their government funding secure for another year.
The door of a rectory in the Czech Republic, marked for 2009:
Posted by sunshinemary on January 6, 2013 at 5:30 am
I have never heard of this tradition. What does CMB stand for?
I hear it is very satisfying when an experiment works. Sadly, none of mine ever did when I was taking organic chemistry as an undergrad. That is why I became a speech therapist.
Posted by David Collard on January 6, 2013 at 5:40 am
I hadn’t heard of it til recently either. I asked my mother, and she had never heard of it.
I liked it, so I started doing it.
C, M and B are the initials of the traditional names of the Magi. Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. It also stands for Christus Mansionem Benedicat, “Christ bless this house.”
Posted by David Collard on January 6, 2013 at 5:45 am
Science is rarely like in the movies. In all my PhD work, I had one scientific epiphany. Some red blood cells in a flask turned from brown to red, as I had theorised. But such moments are rare.
Posted by herbie31 on January 9, 2013 at 12:32 am
So now I’m curious – why did they turn from brown to red?
Posted by David Collard on January 9, 2013 at 1:07 am
Their contents went from the oxidised form of haemoglobin to the reduced form. The oxidised form is known as methaemoglobin. It is brown and will not carry oxygen. The reduced form is normal haemoglobin. It is red and will carry oxygen, of course.
If I recall correctly, I had used sodium selenite to catalyse the reduction of methaemoglobin with deoxyglucose as a substrate. Deoxyglucose is an analogue of glucose which has limited metabolism.
If you want more info, I can try to answer your questions. But it would mean getting my thesis off the shelf. I did this work in about 1980, so my memory is hazy.
Posted by herbie31 on January 9, 2013 at 4:03 pm
Was there a medical application that you were considering when you performed the experiment with methaemoglobin?
Its been a number of years since I took a chemistry course and I don’t have my books handy, but I was wondering about the substrate – I don’t quite understand its role in the experiment.
Posted by David Collard on January 9, 2013 at 8:20 pm
Not at the time. It was really pure research. However, strangely enough, the work on deoxyglucose did end up being cited in a medical context. In fact, a paper I wrote at the time has been cited regularly since. This is because we found that deoxyglucose was metabolised for energy more than expected; which may have implications for its use as an intended metabolic poison in treating cancer. Cancer cells are often more dependant than normal cells on glucose, and so (in theory) more susceptible to being exposed to deoxyglucose than normal tissue.
That paper was probably one of the most influential I was involved with. But at the time it was just pure research.
Posted by Will S. on January 8, 2013 at 12:09 am
Interesting; I was just recently in the Czech Republic, for Christmas.
Didn’t see any doors like this. But I saw many beautiful old churches, and other old buildings, as well as much other architecture. Prague excaped bombing, and as a result, has buildings from all the eras of its history, intact.
Posted by David Collard on January 8, 2013 at 12:15 am
Prague also escaped modernity, thanks to the backwardness of Communism. One of its few advantages.
Yes, Prague looks lovely. But my only trip to Europe as an adult was to Aarhus in Denmark, for a work conference. Very nice people and quite a nice place.
You are back in the Manosphere, Will?
Posted by Will S. on January 8, 2013 at 4:13 am
Not really. Too busy.
Posted by Will S. on January 8, 2013 at 4:27 am
But here’s a pic of a doorway in Prague that I took, from the Communist era, most likely, just for interest’ sake:
The top of said building had some even more interesting statuary:
Almost certainly a Czechoslovak version of “New Soviet Man”; interesting that, notwithstanding removal of other traces of Communist statuary and architectural details, that such survived, no? Not sure why, whether as a reminder of failed ideals, or because they don’t entirely wish to completely relinquish such, despite removing statues of Stalin and the like…
Posted by Will S. on January 8, 2013 at 4:28 am
Bah; the embedded links didn’t copy; here they are:
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8494/8329488853_ed30680bdb_c_d.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8358/8330546690_9f51076d82_d.jpg
Posted by Will S. on January 8, 2013 at 4:29 am
Comment held up in moderation; two links to pics…
Posted by Butterfly Flower on January 10, 2013 at 7:02 pm
@David:
You were involved with the research that discovered biguanide class drugs inhibit the growth of cancer-cell? OMG you’re practically famous [in the cancer-research world]!
Hopefully, said discovery will lead to effective treatments against aggressive, chemotherapy-resistant forms of cancer [I believe it's being studied as a treatment for pancreatic cancer]
Posted by David Collard on January 10, 2013 at 8:32 pm
No, BF. I don’t even know what that means and I shall have to look it up.
I never did cancer research.