Etmyologi

* Varför heter det kaffe och koffein men coffee och caffeine på engelska?

Det handlar om olika språks inflytande på svenskan. Både Kaffe och Kaffein kommer från det tyska språket.
Kemisten Friedrich Ferdinand Runge identifierade substansen 1819 och döpte den till Kaffein.
Engelskmännen annammade namnet koffein via franskans caféin vilket blev caffeine medan tyskarna ändrade sitt ord till Koffein vilket vi i Sveige anammade.
Källa

Bara dom inte väljer Obama...

...så tänkte jag som hastigast inför dagens tillkännagivande av Nobels fredspris. Efter att den norska nobelkomittén gett 2007 års pris till Al Gore så borde man inte vara förvånad men jag tycker inte att Barack Obama är ett särskilt lysande val. Varför inte?

1) Han har inte åstadkommit något som förtjänar priset
Han är en sittande president och det återstår att se om han kommer att åstadkomma fred i de krigszoner som USA till stor del varit delaktiga i att skapa, t ex Afganistan. Jag har absolut ingenting emot Barack Obama, han är det bästa som hänt USAs utrikespolitik sedan Marschallplanen och han har redan till viss del återuppbyggt mycket av det förtroende i omvärlden som George Bush x2 sett till att
rasera.

2) Han behöver inte priset, snarare tvärtom
Men nobels fredspris, det känns för politiskt korrekt och ärligt talat ointressant. Alla vet vem Obama är. Obama har redan en politisk platform. Personkulten kring Obama behöver inte mer bränsle. Han behöver inte fler förväntningar att leva upp till. Det finns andra insatser för världsfreden som redan har betytt något och som förtjänar uppmärksamhet i västvärlden.

Lyssade precis på hans tal där han är mycket ödmjuk. Han uppmanar alla andra länder att ta ansvar klimatförändringen, kärnvapennedrustning och kulturell och religiös respekt. Om vikten av fred i mellanöstern. Han talade också om att mycket av förändringen kommer att ske långt efter att Obama avgått som president.
Han visar återigen att han är både en skicklig politiker och en av världens bästa retoriker just nu. Min kritik är alltså riktad mot den norska nobelkomittén och inte mot Barack Obama.

I did survived the nut eating, here are a few things I've done since...

I survived the study but I didn't gain any weight, in fact I lost a kilo or two. Since then I have climed Kebnekaise with some friends. We went up friday the 11th July and the GPS showed that the top was 2109 meters above sea level. The sight as you can see on the picture was non-existing.



The week after that I went hiking again, this time with parts of my family. We went to Vålådalen, near Åre, and stayed two nights at a cabin (Lunndörrsstugan). It was nice as well even if it wasn't as grand as the surroundings of Kebnekaise.



After that we went to Åre to try their Zip-line. It's a few wires they have rigged by the ski-lift over a ravine. You travel in climbing equipment 60 meters above ground and you can reach velocities of 70 km/h if you are hevy enough. It sure was fun even if was a bit expensive (600 SEK).

Nutify me! Day 2

It's the second day of my nut-eating regime and I'm already beginning to regret this. It's a lot of nuts to eat and they are really salty. I drink a lot of water since the salt induces thirst (via ADH). To minimize the salty taste I used some nuts in my lunch that can be seen on one of the pictures (chicken, rice, corn and peanuts). It was hard to eat all the nuts. My stomach is not that big. I decided to try and burn all the extra calories in hospital gym (I'm a student at the Teaching Hospital in Linköping so I can buy a training card at a really low price 800 SEK/year). 1480 kcal is quite hard to burn doing cycling, running, rowing, walking. It took me 2h 20min and I'm not sure I really made it. Think about that the next time you eat that snack

We're doing a work on senecence and aging at school and one major theory is that caloric restriction leads to fewer reactive oxygen species (ROS) through autophagy (in time of starvation, the body uses the reactive compounds as fuel - kind of when you empty your garage during a spring cleaning). If the theory is valid, my eating behavior is really destructive and I have a hunch that it might be a bit unhealthy.

Nutify me! Day 1

This is day one of a period of 14. I've enrolled as a guinea-pig for a study in snack eating. We were randomly selected into one of two groups. The first group is eating candy and the other group eating salted peanuts. I'm eating peanuts. 20 kkal/KG body mass/day = 281 g peanuts /day. It doesn't sound much but it's equvivalent to a bottle of peanutbutter and it takes a biking trip of 2h 20 min to burn the energy. If I'll stay in shape remains to be seen at least I don't have any restriction in my physical activity like in the infamous documentary

My excursions (part 2)

Hello World!
Yesterday I visited the following destinations:

5. Tinnerbäcken
I've been here before, in fact I pass this creek every day on my way to the hospital where i study medicine to someday be a physician. But I have made a promise to myself to document every destination in "Naturen i Linköping - en utflyksguide" and that's what I did yesterday when my dad Dan was here on a visit. We had planned to go on a longer trip (to another destionation further from my appartment) but the bicycle that he borrowed from a friend of mine broke down so we decided to go for a walk instead. On the way to the movie theather (our goal for the evening) I took some photographies. Tinnerbäcken is a partly artificial lake (Ekdalskällan) and a natural creek. There is park on both sides and a lot of birds. The trees contains many oaks.
At the end of Tinner bäcken there is a waterfall, Sandbäcksfallet.



6. Jättegrytorna i Kittelberget
I first discovered theese when I was out geocashing and I thought that they are really cool. I had cycled passed them on numerous occations before since they lie on the way into the centrum of Linköping (near Ekoxen Hotel). They two large holes are reminants from the last ice age and were carved/drilled by a rolling rock propelled by the massive amonts of melting water.


The movie: Underbar och älskad av alla
was ok for a swedish movie...(= not that good) it had some funny parts and we enjoyed it but I wouldn't really recommend it.

My excursions (part 1)

Hello world!

It's been a while since I last wrote something here...

I've been out on a few walk-abouts lately since I discovered a book, given to me by the community called "Utflyksmål i Östergötland" (swe. Outings in Östergötland).

The guide has 60 destinations in the surrondings of Linköping, the city where I live and they all have one thing in common; beutiful nature. I intend to visit them all, eventually, and thought that I could use this blog as documentation.

1. Stjärnorpsravinen

The first place I visited with 2 friends last week-end and is called "Stjärnorpsravinen" (The Stjärnorp ravine). It is a brook ravine an looks like a small canyon with large ferns. It was quite muddy so we should have brought my Wellington Boots... The nature was very special and interesting. A lot of thees lies across the creek and we had a lot of fun crossing them on several places. On the picture is my friend Stefan standing on one of the "tree bridges". At the end of the ravine where the brook enters Lake Roxen lies an old ruined mansion, the door to the tower was unfortuneately closed but the view must be amazing from ut there. We found some Chanterelles on our way back home that we ate on scones with Philadephia cheese, it was a very nice day!

2. Granåsen

The day after that, the weather was just too good for studying so I grabbed my bike and went for a nice long trip where I visited three new destinations. The fist one is situated south of Lambohov and is called Granåsen (the Spruce ridge). The sun doesn't shine through the leafes to the ground that much so the vegetaions on the floor of the forrest is pretty sparse. According to the guide book, it's very nice here during spring when the windflowers are blooming.

The mileau is differentiated with small fields and a few patches of water. I saw a bush-cricket on one field sitting in the autnum sun.

I also found a strange object lying on the ground. Take a guess. The right answer is presented last on this log.

3. Gismestad

The next goal of my trip was situated 6 km outside Linköping and is acessed over a barbed wire. Once you've cross a tree plantation, the forrest is beutiful. I saw an moose and according to my guide-book, there are also some wild hogs rooming in these parts. The forrest is left alone pretty much as it is with dead wood and trees that fell during the hurricane Erwin (in Sweden it is called "Gudrun") 2005.

4. Ågården i Fettjestad

A pasture with magnificent oaks near Gammakil. I met some cows who followed me until they realized that I didn't have any food for them. I also found some beautiful red stone at an old quarry and saw a slope with a lot of Heather (ljung). I also mangage to take a picture of myself (and to hurt my leg in the process). After a snack, I went back to Linköping in the sunset.

Answer to the strange object:

A (gigant) Puffball!

Beeing Bill Gates...

Hello World! (yeah, I've written computer programs)

Bill Gates has a fortune of 50 billion US dollars according to the magazine Forbes (http://www.forbes.com/lists/2006/10/BH69.html). He's the world's richest man. He's fifthy years old so he has made in average 1 billion a year! So it wouldn't be a good idea to stop making money to pick up a 50 dollar bill from the street (if we assume that it takes more than 2 seconds) . 1 billion / 365.25 days / 24 hours / 60 min / 60 sek = 31,688 US dollar / second.

Some people think that the big software company that has made the fortune of William Gates is relly evil and that it's trying to be omnipotent in software.
I think that even if Mirosoft's monopoly is harmful, the company is just trying to make good products (even if it's not always as succesful as we'd all hope) and Bill Gates is contributing to the good of humanity with his generous contributions to research for curing infectious disease.

Over and out!
/Erik