KODA

After neglecting my bike for a few seasons, I decided to take a look at it over the last few days. Bad idea. Apparently from my neglect, I’ve got some terrible bicycle voodoo on my back. It was an exciting weekend.

Late friday afternoon I was checking on the rear tire. I’d pumped it up a few weeks ago, only to find the next day that it was flat. So I pumped it up to 55 psi — the normal pressure I keep it at — and waited. I figured there was a leak somewhere, and thought I could feel a small amount of air coming out around the valve. So I leaned close to the valve and listened. Stupid idea. After a second of listening and with no warning, the tire blew. PAFF! Right in my face. Thankfully all it did was leave my ears ringing for about a half hour, and things were fine…

Tonight I read an article off reddit by alluringly titled: Common Benign Dog Tumor May Actually Be Ancient, Immortal Dog Turned into Virus. After reading the article completely, I am stunned… what a concept, cancer cells mutating and propagating into a communicable disease of their own! The real clincher is that the article suggests that this “transmissible tumor” has distinctly different DNA from its host body, which is proposed to have originated from a single dog or wolf several centuries ago! Do check out this article, because it is truly fascinating. This is a concept in biology I had neither heard nor concieved of before.

However, possibly even more interesting was Wikipedia’s page (linked in the article) on HeLa cells. According to Wikipedia, this is an “immortal cell line (it does not age) used in medical research and a proposed new single cell species […] derived from cervical cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, who died from her cancer in 1951.”

I love hiding secrets in things
Just for the thought that someday
Someone special
Might care enough to find them