Guess who came into work yesterday?

A couple of these folks.

We had an Abe and a Mary. I didn't see Mary, but Abe was wearing a polo shirt or something and taking pictures. It was kind of freaky. He looked just like Lincoln!

They weren't on my tour, but apparently Abe said he's going to come back with the whole gang. Which is unnerving.

I imagine it will be like that scene in Being John Malkovich, but with Lincoln.

Mount Pleasant fire #4
Originally uploaded by brandonwu


Fire Damages D.C. Church and Apartments, Leaving Some Homeless

I live two doors down and was awakened and evacuated by firemen about 1 am. The fire did not end up spreading to my building, thankfully. I got the okay to go back in my building at about 11 am. My apartment smells like smoke and I need a good night's sleep, but other than that I'm fine.

Many thanks to Lara and Mary for answering their phones at 3 am so I didn't have to go to a shelter!

When researchers were first doing laboratory experiments about scurvy prevention, they did a lot of studies on rats and pigeons. These went nowhere. Then they did experiments on guinea pigs and got tons of results. This is because guinea pigs, like humans, can't manufacture their own vitamin C. They (and we) have to get all our vitamin C from our diet. Rats and pigeons, on the other hand, can manufacture their own vitamin C and therefore can't get scurvy.

Source: Radio interview with the author of A Guinea Pig's History of Biology, a book on the organisms used for scientific research throughout history. They didn't mention the date of these experiments, so I'll have to read the book and find out. I think the radio show was "Calling All Pets" of all things - that's what comes on my radio alarm when I have to get up to go to work early on Saturdays!