Today’s New York Time runs a report on Shanghainese women selling their virginities to Chinese billionaires. It is a fascinating old story. I’ve knew that for years.

For a woman, selling her virginity is a privilege. Geishas, high class courtesans, and also street prostitutes sell their first times for high prices. In old time, a virgin can claim more dowries than a non-virgin do. It’s a tradition in both oriental and western societies.

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When I stroll along the meat department in the grocery store, I cannot help thinking of stuff in the meat, I mean besides usual protein and fat. You see, I have more than enough knowledge about how these chunks of meat are made from, and I have a kid to worry about.

The beef in the US is cheap, comparatively speaking. But you may wonder how on earth there are so many beef around. Cows, bulls, oxen, and all sorts of bovine animals grow slowly. It takes years for a baby bull to become an economically edible meat source. You need something to push it, to stimulate its growth.

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H5N1, the avian flu virus, may have reached a milestone in its pilgrim to land on human. In Turkey, a cluster of 21 people were infected by the virus, and 4 of them died. In the two Turkish samples, WHO found three mutations in the virus.

According to the Nature news, the first mutation involves a substitution of an amino acid at position 223 of the haemoagglutinin receptor protein, the protein binding to human cells. The second mutation is at position 153 of the haemoagglutinin protein but its function is unknown. The third mutation is at position 627 of the polymerase protein, the gene replicating protein, which results a substitution of glutamic acid with lycine.

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In reporting the scandal about the Norwegian cancer research, the NYT had the following unnerving comments:

A special feature of epidemiological studies like Dr. Sudbo’s is that they involve large numbers of patients and are unlikely to be repeated by other laboratories. Replication is considered the most reliable test of scientific quality.

The full text is here

It is a severe accusation to a scientific field (and in fact to all social science fields) in which observational studies are popular.

It seems to me that the author, Nicholas Wade, doesn’t understand the meaning of “replication,” at least in social science. He narrowly defined “replication” as “repeated by other laboratories.” We certainly won’t be able to replicate the study per se, and we may not be able to get the same numbers (e.g., odds ratios) from other studies. However, what is important in social science is that we can replicate the study findings, and that the findings are consistent in different populations and in different types of studies.

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The February issue of the National Geographic featured a story of love: how it begins, how it happens, and how it ends. The article itself is a scientific report but is written in a way like a narrative blog post, casual and interesting.

To most people, falling in love means blood rushing to the head, heart pumping frantically, and breathes becoming shallow and irregular. The mind is practically locked whenever you see your loved one. Love comes before your realize it. Sure, without a cool head, people become foolish and act foolishly.

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BBC news reported today that a prominent Norwegian cancer researcher fabricated data in a recent paper published in the Lancet: “non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and the risk of oral cancer.”

Dr. Jon Sudbo, who has published numerous papers, including two in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, acknowledged his misconduct.

As reported in the Norwegian daily newspaper Dagbladet, Dr. Sudbo made up more than one fourth of total patients for his study: 250 of the 908 participants were born in the same day, a probability beats any wild imagination.

The Norwegian Radium Hospital has set up a commission to investigate Dr. Sudbo’s research.

With the stem cell scandal still ringing in our ears, the science community may find it difficult to accept another scandal. It seems that the science community comes into an integrity crisis. Every research institute is looking into itself and engaging in rigorous self-cleansing. Hopefully, the science community will be healthier and more crime-resistant after this blood-shedding disaster.

Today Andrew Gelman in his blog complained that a Nature columnist mocked a paper published in the Science magazine. I’ve read that paper too. It is about the life course of social network in a big university. To me, the merits of the paper are the innovative method—email—they employed, and the quantification of the social network. These are very important because the social network research during past few years was neglected if not demised because of its inherent uncertainty and complexity, weak association with important outcomes such as health, and the lack of theoretical models. In a sense, this paper revives the social network research. Besides, this paper is fun to read.

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Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is an eternal masterpiece, although sometimes I think the story is too naïve and, well, too light.

The story plot is simple. Matured women need husbands, and vice versa. So goes the opening sentence of the book:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

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Geisha is not a courtesan, nor an artist. Probably many Japanese people will beat me to death for the second half of the statement, but I am adamant to that, for I believe Geisha is merely an entertainer. You certainly won’t call an entertainer an artist, just as you won’t call Zhang Ziyi the charming bitch an artist.

The movie, Memoirs of a Geisha, was adapted from the novel. Although the movie is a little bit unsatisfactory, the book itself is a good reading. Remind you, this memoir is a fiction, made up of “a million little pieces”—yeah, I know the “million pieces” book By Mr. Frey is faked. Interestingly, the main character in the Geisha book looks real and is indeed based on a real Geisha who bears the same name as “Sayuri.” A side note, there is a lawsuit filed by Sayuri against the author Arthur Golden.

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雄孔雀的“尾巴”不是真正的形态学上的尾巴（真正的鸟尾是那个缩微型的帕森鼻－熟鸭的装饰尾巴），而是由背羽延长出来的“扇子”。雄孔雀的传说是本书中的亮点。因此仿照正宗的乔叟风格，即一个朝圣者的启示和教诲可以帮助其他朝圣者理解他们自己，在讨论人类进化过程中的两个主要转折点的时候，我也尤其期待孔雀加入我们追寻我们祖先的朝圣旅程。他的（我这里特指“他”而不是“她”）传说将会有助于我们更好地理解这个旅行。当然也不用说，他的传说就是一个性选择的传说。这里，那两个人类转折点是指从四肢爬行到双腿直立行走和随之而来的大脑增大。现在让我们再加入第三个转折点－－也许不是那么重要但却非常有人类特点的一个－－体毛的消失。为什么我们会变成裸猿？

晚期中新世时代，非洲有很多种猿类。为什么突然之间其中一支快速地走上了和其他猿类截然不同的进化道路－－实际上和所有其他的哺乳类都不同？是什么选择了这个猿类并让他高速行进在新奇的进化方向：首先双腿直立，然后又变的很聪明，并在某个时段褪去了全身的体毛？

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