We have continued to catalog more and more firsts for Everett such as his first dissertation meeting (1.5 months), first batch of homebrew (2 months) and his first particle collider (3 months).  But with two parents who work in medical research, we are proudest of his first hypothesis and subsequent testing of this hypothesis, even if he can’t express it in PHS 398 format.  For the first three months of his life he slept in a cradle, the type that can rock back and forth or can be kept stationary with feet that flip over the rockers.  But the feet don’t sit perfectly flat on the floor so the cradle can still wobble back and forth a small amount.  Everett figured this out pretty quickly, and more importantly he determined that by thrusting both of his legs out at once he could cause the cradle to move and the mobile attached to his cradle to shake, which caused the animals on the mobile to swim around above him.  By inference, he hypothesized that he could use his legs to move everything else in the world, and he would test this whenever the conditions were right, namely he was fed and clean and warm and happy and free of all the other administrative duties that come with being a researcher, which thankfully leaves him with a fair amount of time.  So he would kick his legs to make the trees move, the car, the stroller, etc, and he seemed delighted with himself whenever it worked.  But as with most research what initially appeared to be a fascinating question quickly becomes mundane, and you move on to other more exciting things.  He is becoming increasingly aware of the world around him and has decided that it is much more interesting than sleep.  As a result, the length and frequency of his naps have diminished drastically, to the chagrin of his parents, who are sleeping less and less but are buoyed by experiencing their own firsts.  I will never forget the first time he looked my in the eyes and spoke to me at our old house in Cleveland, or the first time he laughed for me at the hotel in Interlaken.  We continue to observe his ability to exert more and more control over himself and the environment around him.  And we are looking forward to his first camping trip, first snow and first holiday season.

During my life I have used many foods as a vehicle for peanut butter, but it turns out that cheese works just as well, though requires a bit more work.  While some cheeses are good at room temperature, some of the really stinky ones like Raclette and Tomme can smell pretty unpalatable until you melt them under a hot lamp and make the top a little crunchy, at which point they are transformed into something with only a faint resemblance to their pre-heated state.  This is something that Sean figured out years ago when he used to melt Velveeta on his veggies, a behavior that may have been a coping mechanism after he was attacked by a broccodile at a young age and developed an aversion to anything green.  At any rate, while in Switzerland we began to appreciate what a great approach this is to eating.  We ate prodigious amounts of cheese: it was eventually integrated into every meal of the day.  We ate it for breakfast with Rosti, for lunch with bread and meat and for dinner with just about everything else.  Starting with the premise that you are what you eat, then by extrapolation we can assume that Everett is what Melissa eats.  Based on this we have calculated that his body composition is currently 8% Gruyere, 9% Raclette, 1% Tomme, 6% fondue, 2% each Appenzeller and Emmentaler, 3% Roquefort, 1.5% Pont l’Eveque and 1% Swiss air, keeping in mind that this might include some French air that blew across the border.  And speaking of Everett, it is probably about time this blog returned to him to discuss some recently developed behaviors such as…

Those of you watching the news for the last 24 hours have no doubt heard that CERN is firing up their Large Hadron Collider for the first time, and that there are numerous doomsday scenarios associated with these experiments, the purpose of which is to smash together subatomic particles at very high speeds to determine if Higgs bosons actually exist, or something like that.  To be honest, we aren’t sure if “large” describes the hadrons or the collider.  Anyway, scientists admit that these collisions might create some tiny black holes and that there is an infinitesimally small chance that the Canton of Geneva, along with portions of France, will be swallowed up in the process.  Fortunately, CERN is just across the lake from us so we are able to observe firsthand any unusual events.  For example, yesterday was a clear, sunny day except for a strange vapor cloud over the collider.  Also, last night we heard a lot of low-frequency rumbling coming through the ground, and Everett seemed particularly fussy before bedtime.  Aaron reported today that the entropy (or chaos, we’re not sure yet) in his office is increasing.  Lastly, the turtle who lives at our house disappeared for several days and then suddenly reappeared when they started the collider.  Certainly any one of these events in isolation could go unnoticed.  But the low probability of all of them happening at once indicates that something big is likely to happen.

We were able to visit CERN a few days before this big event.  And I have great news for those of you who study EEG source localization and have wondered for years what a dipole is: we found one (see picture above) and there are several more in this area.

We are now at the Brocher Institute in Hermance, Switzerland.  Let me first say that this institute is an extraordinary combination of natural resources and tireless, dedicated staff.  I have no doubt that this place will soon earn the reputation that it deserves for supporting the science community.

If research is loosely defined as “what I am doing when I don’t know what I am doing”, then the purpose of this trip is to do research on a variety of subjects, and one of those subjects is cheese.  I was familiar with two types of cheese when growing up: the kind that came in slices covered in cellophane and the kind that came in pressurized cans; moldy cheese was thrown out as soon as it was discovered.  When you come from beginnings like this, the universe of cheese that the French and Swiss inhabit is just too much to take in at once, and one coping strategy is to prematurely conclude that you have your arms around the whole range of experiences.  Soon after I got to know Melissa’s parents, Cress starting introducing me to some of his favorite cheeses, and what I once considered too pungent or weird I now crave but can rarely find at home (like Roquefort).  So when we came to Switzerland (keeping in mind that we are in the French part of the country) I felt confident that I could handle just about anything.  The Emmental and Gruyère we tried tasted like the champagne had already been added.  During one Raclette lunch I consumed more cheese than I ever have before in a single sitting.  The Appenzeller that the guide books described as “nauseating” was just as delicious, but even stronger.  However, tonight I tried a local cheese that was almost overpowering.  Rather than milk, this one smelled like the mud that the cow stands in.  Melissa described it as “hay that has already gone through a digestive system”.  At this point we have only been here for a quarter of our stay and it remains to be seen if this is an acquired taste, so we will try it again right before we leave.

Part of the reason for the differences in cheeses between here and the U.S. may be the type of milk and how it is processed.  One nearby grocer specifies for each cheese the animal the milk came from, whether it was raw or pasteurized and how long it was aged.  Those of you in the U.S. who have sought out raw (unpasteurized) milk or cheeses made from it know how seriously this issue is taken.  In an October 1, 2006 article in the Washington Post Magazine, Thomas Bartlett interviewed Ted Elkin, deputy director for the Office of Food Protection and Consumer Health at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (as an aside, I took a course in college called “Mental Hygiene” but I’ll save that for another entry).  Mr. Elkin compared the sale of raw milk to marijuana and heroin (?!?).  FDA employees consistently compare consuming raw milk to “playing Russian roulette with your health” (see FDA link on raw milk).  In most states it is against the law to sell raw milk.  It is also a federal crime to transport it across state lines with intent to sell it for human consumption.  No doubt these officials are motivated by their desire to prevent an outbreak of listeria or some other bacteria that thrives on unprocessed milk.  However, experiences in other countries suggest that raw milk is not as dangerous as it is made out to be by the FDA, and there are many people worldwide who argue strongly for the health benefits of milk straight from the farm.  Pregnant French women eat unrefrigerated cheese made from raw milk, followed by a wine chaser, yet still have lower infant mortality rates than we do in the U.S. (I am generalizing and exaggerating about this behavior but not about infant mortality – the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rates of any industrialized nation).  If I were to list the most important public health issues we face in the U.S., I doubt that raw milk would make it into the top 100.  Tobacco, for example, which has no known health benefits and an adverse reaction rate of 100%, is legal and readily available in many different carcinogenic forms.  If asked for another example I might mention how odd it is that you can legally ride a motorcycle in many states without a helmet, as long as you aren’t running an errand to buy unpasteurized milk.  I think I’ll do some more research on this and return to it before the end of our trip.

Those of you who are still reading at this point might wonder if this blog is getting too far afield of its original purpose, and I am starting to wonder that myself.  So I will close by saying that we are getting into a rhythm here at the Brocher Institute and Everett is a great traveler.  He is usually only upset when he hasn’t been fed, and in that sense he is a lot like his parents.

“Many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese.” Robert Louis Stevenson

I would like to say I know this quote because I am so well read, but in fact I became aware of it because we now live in America’s Dairyland and this quote is printed in letters several feet high on the wall of our new grocery store.  I should also mention that they have an entire freezer section dedicated to bratwurst, and hold beer-tastings on a semi-regular basis.  From what I have heard about Packer’s fans, I envisioned them more as the beer-guzzling rather than beer-tasting types, but this could be the work of undeserving stereotypes being propagated by fans of other teams like the Chicago Bears.  However, I will say that there appears to be some truth to the cheese, beer and brat stereotype of Wisconsin.  Cheese curds and all of their squeaky variations (curds squeak when you eat them) have now become a part of our diet.  But to be honest, cheese curds are not that exciting, except perhaps when they are deep fried or added to poutine (one of the fattiest foods of all time and the subject of a future blog entry), and I am hoping that we will soon be able to try many of the locally made cheese varieties.  In the Maryland-Virginia-Pennsylvania area where I grew up, the only native option was “American cheese” which came in individually wrapped slices, and the finer points about it came out only in heated debates between people from Baltimore and Philadelphia about whether it should be white or yellow.  So we’re not expecting the south of France, though it would be lovely to discover some new stinky cheese with big hunks of mold in it.

When I asked Melissa if she would like to add anything to this blog entry, she replied “We love cheese!”  By “we” she is certainly talking about me and her, but I think she means Everett as well because she has become finely attuned to his dietary preferences.  He would often have food cravings while in utero, like chips and pickles and Goetta, and Melissa did her best to accommodate them.  One craving she resisted was soft cheese because of the risk of listeria.  But since none of those bacteria are passed through breast milk she is now free to eat just about anything, and the timing couldn’t have been better because all this talk about milk and cheese has really just been a stepping stone in preparation for…

Milk has been on our minds quite a lot lately, perhaps because we now live in America’s Dairyland, and milk is therefore our official state beverage.  Everett certainly seems to be an enthusiastic supporter – at 11 weeks old he is still nursing (and growing) every couple hours.  The funny thing about breastfeeding is that so many people have strong feelings about it, and that they seem open to sharing these feelings.  For example, while traveling from Cleveland to Wauwatosa, a woman approached Melissa in a restaurant to congratulate her for breastfeeding.  In addition, well-meaning family members and neighbors have been asking how Everett is being fed, and offering their praise and support.  Thankfully, the U.S. federal government legalized breastfeeding in 1999* and our new home state passed a law in 1995 that breastfeeding mothers are not in violation of criminal statutes of indecent or obscene exposure.  In this regard, it is interesting how the wording of legislation can create ambiguity where none previously existed, specifically that while breastfeeding Moms in Wisconsin are currently enjoying their non-criminal status, it implies that they were previously involved in some kind of surreptitious activity.

A couple of years ago an employee at a Burger King in Salt Lake City, acting on a complaint from a customer, asked a breastfeeding Mom to either move to the bathroom or leave. While I am not singling out Burger King, I can say that the men’s rooms at most restaurants are not places I like to use for their intended purpose, much less as a place to eat, and I can’t imagine the women’s bathrooms are much better.  But this isn’t really the point, and in response to the complaint, the mother organized a nurse-in which was to take place at Burger Kings across Utah, although BK changed their corporate policy to explicitly allow breastfeeding before this came to fruition.  Similar events have caused a barrage of state and federal laws to be passed to protect breastfeeding, apparently in response to complaints or intolerance or who knows what else.

So I would like to raise a glass of milk and toast my wife, who is normally a rule follower but has now inadvertently joined a modern day rebellion of sorts, all in the name of feeding our son.

*This is only a mild exaggeration.  In 1999 President Clinton signed into law the Right to Breastfeed Act, which ensures a woman’s right to breastfeed her child anywhere on federal property where she and her child are authorized to be.

Parenthood brings about many life changes, some expected and some unexpected.  One observation that Chris has consistently made over the years is that fathers commit some pretty serious fashion crimes, the worst of which is wearing dark dress socks with shorts and/or sandals. Those of you who are familiar with Chris’ fashion sense may scoff at the idea that he is evaluating the clothing choices of others.  In fact, he would make the opposite argument: that exposed dark socks are so egregious that even he will notice, and that when you start receiving fashion citations from him, you know you are in serious trouble.

This observation brings about two questions: are dark socks associated with fatherhood, and if so, can we apply the scientific method to bring about a mechanistic understanding of this phenomenon?  Answers: probably (at least anecdotally), and certainly.  With this in mind, we put forth the following research hypothesis:

All men who wear dark socks with shorts and/or sandals are fathers

While this does not imply a mechanism for how this behavior comes about, it does provide some guidance on necessary/sufficient conditions for fatherhood: dark socks are not necessary, but they are sufficient.  We propose to study this with in person surveys.  Specifically, if you see a man wearing dark socks with shorts and/or sandals, ask him the following questions:

1. Are you a father?

2. If so, why are you wearing dark socks with shorts or sandals?

The beauty of this simple study design is that it could be carried out quickly and easily, and as a result it would be trivial for our friends in the scientific community to setup research sites in other parts of the world, allowing us to determine if this behavior is pan-cultural.  A survey will most certainly be necessary because apparently one co-factor for this type behavior is an inability to accurately self-report.  At least this is our observation of several male friends and relatives, identified here only by the names “Dad” and “dissertation advisor”, who claim that they do not dress this way despite photographic evidence to the contrary.  They are not being dishonest; rather, fatherhood seems to have rendered them unable to make fashion decisions, perhaps because they have too many other more important things to think about.  It remains to be seen if Chris will start behaving this way, and if this change can be attributed to fatherhood.  As with all research, asking questions rarely leads to a definitive answer, but rather begs broader questions, which is why this important work should be funded by a government agency grant such as the NIH or the Annals of Improbable Research.

Here are the top three abatement recipes submitted by our readers*.

Abateios

Amy provided a wealth of useful comments on every single ingredient on the abatement list, such as “cocoa powder should be used to make brownies, but I’m afraid that you will succumb to the temptation to add walnuts to those brownies, and that really is a terrible, mean, awful thing to do to a brownie.”  As for the Peeps, she suggested Rice Krispy treats.  However, we don’t have any Rice Krispies, and buying new ingredients is forbidden, so we substituted Fruity Cheerios and cooked the Peeps in butter before mixing them.  The result: a colorful, crunchy, fruity medley.  They were actually quite good, and not as weird as they sound.  We ate all of them, save the one that we mailed to Amy.

Momzpacho or Gazmocko

Amanda submitted the following recipe which gets extra points for using multiple ingredients off of the abatement list:

Chill the V8 JUICE.  Chop up tomatoes, cucumbers, OLIVES – add to JUICE with olive oil and vinegar (if available).  Voila, you have mock gazpacho.

We have not yet tried this.  Chris is not fond of V8 juice or liquid tomatoey things, other than ketchup in prodigious quantities, so Melissa and Everett will have to judge.

Broccamole

Melissa came up with this recipe to be eaten with chips and, of course, whatever else can be found.  Ingredients: broccoli, a can of peas, avocado, lemon juice, garlic, tomatoes.  Put them all in a food processor and convert to mush.  The result: surprisingly good.  The texture is similar to guacamole, and the garlic and lemon juice are pretty important to give it some zing.  The vegetable taste is certainly not overpowering.  However, keep in mind that we are vegetable eaters to begin with, and not everyone in our circle of friends and family feels the same way.  For example, one relative who we will call “Sean” for the purposes of this blog, has culinary preferences which are mostly limited to the brown/beige layer of the food pyramid.  This is because he is a “supertaster”, and therefore cannot eat vegetables without being overcome by the taste of all those phytonutrients, although it does not explain how he can eat hot wings, but this is a bit of a digression.  So we are not sure if he would eat guacamole, but if so he would certainly eat broccamole.  That’s how good it is.  In the past we successfully got him to eat vegetable amalgam without his consent by making it look like sausage, so just to be on the safe side we will add brown food coloring before serving it to him.

*We only had three entries.

When Chris and Melissa were married they moved into Melissa’s house, and after the dust settled from combining two households of stuff into one, Chris noticed that there was an inordinate amount of oatmeal in the house, enough to feed a small army or possibly two.  And so began the oatmeal abatement program, where we would try to consume the excess until it was reduced to a manageable level.  To do so, we found recipes that used as much oatmeal as possible.  Chris found a cookie recipe that required 5 ½ cups, doubled it, and made a batch about every other week.  This, combined with other oatmeal rich meals, went on unabated, so to speak, for the better part of a year until we achieved our goal.

We are moving to Milwaukee in about two weeks and have started a much broader abatement program, namely how to creatively use all of the ingredients in the house so we don’t have to move them or throw them out.  Think of it as the Iron Chef competition of Cleveland Heights.  We are now seeking your help and suggestions for recipes that heavily use the following ingredients, which we have large quantities of:

V-8 juice, corn starch, olives (green and black), cocoa powder (vast amounts), walnuts and Peeps (yellow bunnies).  Extra points are awarded for recipes that use multiple ingredients.  Those who provide the best recipes will receive complimentary servings of the dish, as well as the notoriety that comes with being mentioned on our blog.

Since Everett’s birth we have experienced an outpouring of well wishes and generosity from friends and family, and for this we are very thankful.  This has taken the form of visits, gifts and lots of food for Dad and Mom, which in the latter case was nourishment for Everett as well.  All of this support has made our transition to parenthood much easier.

Melissa and Chris have different styles in how they express thanks.  Melissa believes that thank you notes are a form of social currency, and that by sending them women keep the fabric of society intact.  For his part, Chris was unaware that the fabric of society was in peril, and isn’t completely sure how personalized stationery could fix it if it were.  He prefers a heartfelt phone call or e-mail, if it can’t be done in person, and without generalizing too much this seems to work well among his male friends and relatives.  This may be because men are simply disinclined to send notes, and also because stationery seems designed exclusively for women.  One timely example is Father’s Day cards: it is difficult to find ones appropriate for men to give other men.  Most of them seem designed for women to buy for men to give to other men, who then show them to their significant others.

Having said that, you can be assured that we will still be sending thank you notes for the foreseeable future, and that our thanks is sincere in whatever form it comes.