April 1, 2009
My youngest brother’s latest documentary is being broadcast by National Geographic Netherlands tonight. Last year he followed huskie drivers (mushers) Roderick Glastra and Sandra Makkreel around when they were training their sled dogs, and this year was present at the World Championships 2009 in Austrua, where Glastra won the sprint title in the 8-dog category.
The documentary will be repeated on April 5 and April 19.
Why bother taking your driving exam at that age? Because you’re a widow and need to get around, which is why Miep Derks from the town of Wijchen near Nijmegen is taking hers. Next Tuesday on her birthday at age 74, the energetic senior hopes to get her driving licence. In 2008 only 19 seniors above age 60 attempted to do so. The oldest candidate in Nijmegen was 64.
It took me three and half years (!) to get my Dutch driving licence (nine flippin’ tries and a hel-lu-va-lot of money). Driving in Amsterdam is tough, with all those bikes and trams, but driving in Nijmegen on the Keizer Karelplein roundabout from hell deserves a prize. It was modelled after the Place Charles-de-Gaulle in Paris, the huge roundabout around the Arc de Triomphe, which is really nasty, too.
(Link: gelderlander.nl, Photo dennismartijn.nl)
Tags: driver's licence, driving licence, Nijmegen
March 31, 2009
In the gut-stem cell research at Utrecht’s Hubrecht laboratory they can claim an impressive scientific feat: growing “tissue of the gut, cultivated from stem cells harvested from the same gut.”
Currently, the cultivated gut is mouse gut, but according to the researchers, the technology works just as well in humans. And the tissue grows fast; it increases fivefold within a week! Within a couple of years this method could be used in gene therapy. Project leader of the gut-stem cell research is Dr Hans Clevers, and according to him it’s a fundamental step forward in stem cell research:
“Cultivating tissue from stem cells has been done before, but in those cases the stem cells were embryonic, with all the ethical complications that go with that, or they were blood, or skin cells, which is really something else.”
Dr Clevers and his team claim to have found the right breeding material and growth factors to make the cells multiply outside the body. As Hans Clevers puts it somewhat irreverently:
“It’s just like a geranium; give it what it needs and it’ll grow all by itself.”
(Link: radionetherlands.nl, image dreamstime.com)
Tags: Hubrecht, Stem cell research, Utrecht
March 30, 2009
– “Officer, officer! You have to arrest my neighbour, Mr De Vries.”
– “What has he done wrong this time, Mrs Jansen?”
– “He’s whistling dirty songs!”
The following news made me think of this old Max Tailleur (Dutch) joke:
A man in Groningen was arrested last week for wearing an insulting tattoo, according to Dagblad van het Noorden (Dutch). Written on the man’s neck were the letters ACAB, and the police assumed this abbreviation stood for All Cops Are Bastards. Some mothers do ‘ave ’em, eh? The man first stated that he had his neck tattooed after spending some time in jail, and later added that the abbreviation meant “acht cola, acht bier” (eight colas, eight beers).
Insulting a civil servant, including police officers, is a crime in the Netherlands (article 267 of the criminal code).
Photo: montage.
Update: another man got convicted in February for wearing a jacket with the text A.C.A.B. The court had a rather curious opinion (Dutch), in which it held that the number of Google hits that linked to page in which ACAB was used as All Cops Are Bastards was evidence of the popularity of the term.
March 29, 2009
Two scientists from Leiden University, Joke Bouwstra and Robert Rissman, invented a gel that has the same healing properties as “the buttery coating that protects and nurtures a foetus’s developing skin,” reports New Scientist. Apart from helping premature babies, the ‘baby butter’ could also be used for other applications. Writes the magazine:
Natural vernix caseosa contains a mixture of fatty compounds that waterproof the foetus. Crucially, it also contains dead cells called corneocytes, which store large amounts of water and ensure that the foetus does not get dehydrated. Vernix may also act as a barrier to infections.
To mimic this versatile substance, Joke Bouwstra and Robert Rissman […] mixed a range of fatty compounds including lanolin, fatty acids, ceramides and cholesterol with particles made of a water-storing hydrogel. When they rubbed this white cream on mice missing a patch of their outer skin, the mice healed three times faster than untreated ones, Bouwstra says.
Illustration by Leonardo da Vinci. Somehow I cannot remember the Florentine one mentioning “baby butter.”
New Zealand gallery Muka came up with the idea of Youth Prints, selling art by “internationally renowned artists” to children for low prices. Grown-ups are not allowed in the exhibition room, and no artwork carries a name tag, so that children decide their purchases purely on what they like. Apart from New Zealand, Youth Prints exhibitions are held in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. From May 27 to June 7 a Youth Prints exhibition will be held at Museum Bommel van Dam in Venlo under the name Verboden voor boven de 18.
March 28, 2009
An exhibition of the photographic work of Marleen Sleeuwits and Marsel Loermans will run until April 25 at gallery Liefhertje & De Grote Witte Reus in the Hague.
Sleeuwits photographed brightly lit empty spaces, where without knowing the context you get to wonder why such a spot deserves bright lights in the first place. Loermans made highly detailed portraits of nuns called the Dochters der Wijsheid (Daugthers of Wisdom).
Says Trendbeheer (Dutch):
They appear opposites. The work of Marleen Sleeuwits has eliminated man completely, whereas Marsel Loermans and Anton Spruit are only about the human factor, but at Lief Hertje & Grote Witte Reus their work is displayed side by side.
[…]
Loermans, Spruit and Sleeuwits share a love for sharpness and detail, and the resulting photos seem to lose realism because of that. Sleeuwits’ rooms appear almost alien, and the portraits of Loermans and Spruit look as if they’ve already been embalmed.
Tags: Anton Spruit, exhibitions, lighting, lights, Marleen Sleeuwits, Marsel Loermans, nuns
March 27, 2009
The oldest living man of the Netherlands, Jos Wijnant, is celebrating his 107th birthday today along with his daughters and other residents at the De Taling pensioners home in Den Bosch, according to Dutchnews.nl (English).
Wijnant, who is keen on following the news and enjoys a glass of wine, puts his long life down to never have done ‘stupid things’.
And if Wikipedia is accurate, he was born in Antwerp, which makes him Belgian.
(Link: Dutchnews.nl, photo freegeorge.us)
Tags: Belgian, oldest Dutch resident
March 26, 2009
One of only three surviving silver microscopes of the Father of microbiology, Renaissance scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), will be sold on April 8 at an auction at Christie’s in London, writes De Telegraaf (Dutch). The auction house expects to sell the silver device for somewhere between 75,000 and 105,000 euro.
The other two surviving Leeuwenhoek microscopes are at the Deutsches Museum in Munich and the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden.
Van Leeuwenhoek built his own microscopes, superior to what was available at the time (the first microscope was invented in Middelburg seven years before his birth), but kept the secret to his lenses meticulously hidden, and only in the 1950s did scientists manage to reconstruct them. It turned out that rather than grinding lenses, Van Leeuwenhoek seems to have used a glass fusing method, which allowed him to quickly make a microscope, of which he constructed around 400 during his lifetime.
The Internet Archive has The Select Works of Antony van Leeuwenhoek, translations into English of Van Leeuwenhoek’s many observations, unfortunately without his drawings. Fascinating stuff, almost like being alive in the 21st century.
The silver microscope that will be sold at Christie’s was used by Van Leeuwenhoek to discover sperm cells. The current owner found it during the 1970s among old laboratory equipment.
Portrait of Van Leeuwenhoek by Jan Verkolje (1650-1693).
Tags: Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, auctions, Delft, microscopes, renaissance, silver
Several municipalities have not only refused to comply with a WOB request (Dutch freedom of information act), but are actively discussing with each other how to frustrate the process. Webwereld reports this (Dutch) where Brenno de Winter is trying to find find out in how far municipalities are using Free and Open Source software.
On a closed mailing list, the municipality of Boekel (Noord Brabant) pointed out that not only would these WOB requests generate a lot of work, but also have “far reaching consequences,” whatever they may be. Boxtel and Schijndel, also from Noord Brabant, apparently replied that they too have received “nonsensical questions.” One of the suggestions was to hire an IT savvy lawyer. The name of Arnoud Engelfriet, formerly of Eindhoven, Noord Brabant, was dropped, who told Webwereld that he has no interest taking a job that “endangers a citizen’s right to freedom of information.”
In the meantime, De Winter has been replying in Webwereld’s comment section, and he seems to be suggesting that most municipalities that have responded, have done so in a positive manner: “[…] several municipalities have answered already. […] My phone is ringing all the time, and every time we manage to get to get a positive outcome.”
A 2008 informal study by journalist Jeroen Trommelen (Dutch) revealed that of 51 WOB requests sent to several ministries, only one came from an actual journalist.
Disclaimer: according to Webwereld De Winter’s WOB requests were made on behalf of him and the Vrijschrift foundation. I am an advisor to the latter.
Tags: freedom of information, government, law, Noord-Brabant, WOB
