My 0.02 Dollars.

Go check out Pete's blog (Its the Hygiene Hypothesis stuff for those of you that find this a year from now) if your a)at all curious about the usefulness of the line of work that I (and Peter) are involved in; or b) just like to keep your brain strong and learn some cool science-type-stuff once in a while. Turns out, all of those parasites, germs, bugs and other assorted nasties that we've done such a good job of eliminating over the last century might hold some benefit to us. I seem to remember learning in ecology that many parasite/host relationships (or any other organism/organism relationships for that matter) held mutual benefits for both species. Ants and Acacias, Jellyfish, Lichens, and Mitochondria all come to mind. Interesting stuff - worms, anyone?

One of the post-docs here at work leant me the new Tool CD 10,000 Days this morning to listen to, and I must say, in addition to the usual high quality spooky/heavy/deep Tool music, the album art is hands down the finest cover art ever. Attached to the case is a set of stereoscopic lenses, and the booklet inside has fantastic 3-D images of artwork (Courtesy of guitarist Adam Jones) and cool spooky noirish pictures of the band. It's done so well, that I'd swear I just had Maynard offer me a glass of port wine while a ghostly woman hovered in the background. Go out and buy the CD, look at the stereoscopic artwork, put it in a box, take it out a year later, then look at it again. It's fantastic.