Our paper in Aging Cell describing the identification and characterisation of a Drosophila orthologue of the exonuclease function of WRN is now available online, and open access.

This was an afternoon event on the hottest day of the year so far, hot enough that I found it rather oppressive. By the finish, my HR had climbed to some pretty unreasonable levels.

The F12/10 runs on the A505 Leighton Buzzard bypass, and while not a dual carriageway it is a pretty wide road.  The surface is a little rough and fractures in places, and the road undulates quite a bit.  The course suffers a bit from being quite exposed to crosswinds, though this wasn't an issue for this event, as it was virtually still.  There have been traffic management changes since I last rode the course, with increased traffic levels through the Grovebury Road industrial estate where the HQ was, and on the section of road where we normally warm up - possibly due to the new Stoke Hammond bypass road.

I rode to and from the event, and I must be on a roll as I had no punctures.  During the race, I quickly dropped into a good rhythm, but after 5 or 10 minutes the heat began to get to me.  I had a clear run through the Billington Road roundabout in both directions and had no trouble at the turn.  I finished with 22:45, which I think was 9th.  Tim Carter and Tony Parks r=finished in 21:27 and 21:50 respectively, giving the North Bucks the team prize.

I had a visit from a BBSRC Press Office person on Wednesday 8th May.  (The BBSRC are the UK Research Council that fund my current research into ageing, using Drosophila as a model system) This was to record some video footage to accompany a press release concerning a paper that will be published online on Monday 12th May.  She went on to visit my collaborator Lynne the following morning.

It was quite a surreal situation - being filmed in the lab while people carried on working.  I imagine the raw footage is very funny, with all the false starts and stops - the difficulty was in stopping myself from using technical terms that would be opaque to the general public.  Typically I'd be on a bit of a roll, then suddenly grind to a halt having uttered a word like "phenotype" or similar.  I have to say that the BBSRC person was most helpful and sympathetic (I presume she deals with inarticulate and camera-shy scientists on a regular basis!).

I picked this story up from Pharyngula.  The crazed Islamic creationist Harun Yahya, real name Adnan Oktar has been banged up for three years by an Istanbul court (Reuters).

Oktar runs a bizarre publishing enterprise that sends out huge and lavishly illustrated but bizarrely argued tomes vainly trying to discredit evolution.  The strategy seems to be to compare fossils with extant species, claim no morphological difference between them, then state this proves evolution to be false.  As a wild-eyed strategy this is rather amusing, such as the comparison of a spider crab with a spider.  He is certainly taxonomically challenged.  Perhaps I'll scan some examples later...I have a copy of one of these volumes that was sent to me a year ago...

He's been convicted of "creating an illegal organization for personal gain".

We had a lovely summery spring evening for this event, one of our interclub events between the North Bucks Road Club and the A5 Rangers, and it brought out a field of 32 riders.  There was quite a stiff easterly breeze, which made me rather apprehensive about likely times on this course, which is not exactly a dragstrip!', '

In the event however most, if not all, riders recorded improvements, with some particularly strong rides.  I was pleased to improve by nearly half a minute to 22:56.  The breeze actually helped us up the hill to the DC section and up to the turn.

Tony's official writeup is here.

Once again (again), the forecast was for rain, and this time (unlike Wednesday), it turned out to be a pleasant morning for a time trial.  This was only my second solo 25 of the season, and it was held on the F1/25, using the version with turns at the Sandy and Buckden roundabouts.  In past seasons, I've never had a good ride on this course. On the day, it was pretty mlld, and in fact I felt a bit too warm with my arm warmers on.  Once again, I rode the Cougar with the trispoke clinchers - a configuration I'm very happy with.', '

I had quite an early start, at 7.16 (number 31, bizarrely).  The seeding of the field seemed a little odd.  Not that I am disputing being on a 1.  What little wind there was presented a headwind for the southbound legs (i.e. to the Sandy RAB, and from the Buckden RAB to the finish.  This didn't present too much of an obstacle, in contrast to my inability to keep the speed up over the undulations in the course.  I suppose that offers some pointers to how I should modify my training.

My result was a 57:43 (and no punctures in contrast to my clubmate Ian Stokes, who was a DNS due to a puncture before he started).  Out of a full field, I came 32nd...

Once again, the forecast was not good for a time trial: this time the forecast was accurate! It turned out to be a hard evening on the course, with a headwind up the hill to the turn, and light rain.

Because the event was over at Stony Stratford (F5u/10 - though despite what the code suggests, the course version we use is 11.4 miles), I rode down to work on the Cougar TT bike, then on to the event after work.  By then, there was light rain which eased a little by the time I got to Stony.  On the way, however, I had yet another puncture (while I was evading a traffic jam on Brickhill St by popping briefly onto the redway).  I had no tyre levers, but discovered I could use 50p coins instead! This was the fifth puncture of the 2008 season.

The forecast was for rain, but as it turned out, this event was held on a rather lovely spring morning, with a gentle breeze.  The event was organised by the North Bucks Road Club, with the clubroom used as the HQ,  We used the F5d/10, which is the new '10' course based on the Stoke Hammond bypass.

Conditions were fairly similar to those for the recent NBRC club event, and I improved by a measly 3 seconds to record a 23:25.  As far as I recall, the winning time was a long 21 - a fine ride by Jason Gurney (Team MK).  It was good to see a strong turnout from NBRC members.

This is the third event run on the F5d/10 - I reckon it's a pretty tough course, with a lot of climbing (OK the gradients are pretty shallow, but when trying to maintain a reasonable race pace they are quite hard!) to the turn.

This was the Beds Roads slowest 90 '25', and it was the first solo '25' of my 2008 season. I travelled over to the event with Richard Moule (Bossard Wh), who was riding the medium gear event held immediately prior to the main 90 rider event.

Before we set off, I'd popped out to see what the weather was like, and was pleasantly surprised at how mild it appeared to be: No Frost! However, by the time we got over to Tempsford, where the race HQ was in the village hall, we discovered that over there there had been a hefty frost. I had of course made a decision not to bring fleecy gloves, a decision I was regretting when I met Stuart Tarry in the hall - Stuart was smart and had packed a variety of full fingered gloves, a pair of which I borrowed. Richard was due to start shortly after 7am, with me following at 7:34. I duly made a vague attempt at a warm-up, but felt pretty chilly as I lined up for the start.

I notice that the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council  (CNHC) are now online.  At this time, the website is pretty spartan, but what is notable is not so much what is said, but what is not said. 

There's no indication that any of the named individuals are medically qualified (though they my be).  An unidentified group of people seem to run the show: