Biology.

Surprisingly:

1) New

2) Few

3) Lamarckian

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Scoring:

+5 points for each correct answer of another person’s question

+5 points for each correct answer to one of your questions

-1 point for each symbol used

Needn’t be a science. Elegance of question does not alter grade, etc, but hopefully serves as an inducement to answer (beyond points). Google-ability probably a threshold for disqualification. That is, 1+1 arguably scientific and certainly short, but immediately Google-able. Example: “New” or “New + Biology” not particularly obvious. Probably my question 3 is about a threshold for easiness. Answers posted immediately (separate subthread for convenience). Haven't thought about points - numbers might not provide right incentives.

I trust people not to cheat. Your own answers to this post, if you like.

1. Surprisingly new: neurons

2. Surprisingly few: genes

3. Surprisingly Lamarckian: epigenetics

Very slight variation permitted. Probably largest would be "neurogenesis" for 1.

Kha qua! Too hard! Maybe if you explained what "parsimonious" and "Lamarckian" mean . . .

I tried a few questions but didn't come up with anything satisfactory. I did add an extra requirement, though: the answers to all three questions had to be the same word. Worked on something for "fugue" but couldn't complete it.

Fugue?

Bach's "Art of the Fugue" ?

or the Well Tempered Clavichord?

Fughetta, perhaps?

There are no such things as fuginas but there are vaginas?

Well, rather than explaining the previous, an example (with answers included), perhaps to encourage other question makers.

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Frayster:

1) ruler

2) blueblood

3) beggar

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Answers:

1) Historyguy - originator of the fray rules schtick, but also preeminent frayster hereabouts for quite a while.

2) Seasquirt - seasquirts do have blue blood (arguably too easy), and, of course, carrying on with a theme of early BOTF leaders, which leaves only:

3) Ender - method of starring, but also I like the social structure implicit (Ender is the beggar-king, or, at least, beggar, noble).

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As for "parsimonious" - quiz: Am I crazy (read: too in my own head).

I'd say "parsimony" is making more of less - elegance in science, or poetic language, often. Thus, a title like "parsimonious expression game" is a tiny little bit funny since "parsimonious expression" is a rather unparsimonious expression (I could'v just called it the parsimony game). The additional joke is that gene expression is parsimoniously coded, which is one of the surprises of the questions I asked (hint). Just some idle fun, but not fun (and crazy) if like a certain lunatic elsewhere, I am not being communicative. What I expect, more, is for respondents to explicate as if it were a novel point - e.g., an enjoyable response to a post would've been "dummy, a better title would've just been parsimony game". I'm currently in the negative in my entry, and for this justification/explanation of my behaviour (more properly a response to Isonomist's thread above), I subtract, mmm, 100 points.

Scentology:

Phew: you

Loo: phew!

Bismarckian: Nu?

Please post your answers in the answers subthread. Full explanations also probably a good idea.

queue: who (me)?

You mean the eloquence game?

I'm not going to call you a dummy or anything, though. Just so I can keep the high ground.

Judgment: total failure, except indirectly as a nice measure of degree to which I am a lunatic (and unknowingly talking to myself). It'd be nice to say the questions were too difficult, but really, they were too idiosyncratic, and that misjudgment (thinking you make sense when you don't) is a bad sign.

In any event, I picked three of the biggest surprises in biology in the last few decades, which I also had thought had made it into the popular press somewhat in two cases. That is, we have surprisingly few genes, and surprisingly, we do have new neurons as adults. I've seen lots of articles in the news on this, but perhaps only because I've been looking, a bit. Obviously different possible answers for "new" and "few", but I do think those would clearly be the best in biology (on recent massive surprises). The "surprisingly Lamarckian" bit might not be in the popular press, but if you go to the wikipedia article on Lamarckism and read through it, you would find the answer. It's not strictly Lamarckian, but it has been a recent surprise the extent to which (kinda non-Darwinian) mechanisms have a pronounced effect. Some recent articles about this even in the popular press, I think.

Winner: Fritz, to whom I apologize.

Loser: Me, of course, but also the other lunatic.

Hi. Doesn't seem to me like anyone is interested in talking about what you want to talk about. I'm not, but my reasons are better than theirs. Surprised to see today's fray doesn't provide you with better examples both in that today's fraysters would be interested in you using them as examples and in so far as I'm a bit bothered to find I'm still as relevant as ever even to the intelligent fraysters.

Anyway, I'm having fun. I wonder if anyone here even has a clue. They don't. Not worth trying to explain. The thing being, I'm pretty much feeling your opposite, but only because I don't bother here anymore. You follow? I know it's not your speed. Hell, it wasn't mine. Nevertheless, I'm sure there's a saying about it, but things only get interesting when you really start to understand them. So while it's not the fun, exactly, of the old fray, it is not at all unlike it, only this time it's the equivalent of trying to take over hell. That doesn't sound like fun to you?

The ghost goes as is —
between language,
on the wings of words,
with the engines of her verbs
firing fragments,
firing pronouns.
The ghost is ...

The alpha and omega
of a white light,
but no Deus ex Machina,
no gene or meme,
no pathogen,
but perhaps corruption
of the incorruptible
Möbius gangway of words —
A ghost as is:

Lunacy, fright or fear,
haruspicating nonness,
posed as oneness —
She's the hole
she can't fall through
without arriving back
to where her falling
first fell through.

The ghost's lamp is ...
Conjure a genie
or a genius
where matter doesn't matter
or anti-matter,
But what matter.

Lovely.

This, the one in duc's thread, and your insult to ciinc are my favorite's of yours in recent memory.

Something in your writing has changed, like there's a deeper capacity for seeing which is coloured less by crankiness or the desire to squeeze off a good shot at your target, and more by compassion and directness.


(also: Locked!)

I've been feeling lately like I might like to start a blog. Absent any better ideas, I'm likely so just start something on blogspot and set it up according to whatever easy guide google picks out first. So no obligation to offer advice, of course, but if you do have any wisdom to impart, I'd welcome it. I still have the e-mail address from a while ago (your cloverfield e-mail went there) if you want to use that, or whatever you like. I'm in no rush to start the blog (since rushed on so many other things - and yet I still feel a blog might be fun). Hope all goes well. Cheers.

(Arguably I should just e-mail you, but I'm always wary of initiating private correspondance even though I think it likely you wouldn't mind.)

Why, Yawn, I do bestride the narrow Fray
Like a Colossus; and you petty folk
Walk under my huge legs and peep about
To find yourselves dishonorable graves.