More on the way

L. and C. called me this afternoon and gave me the news: the in vitro insemination of November 11th was a success, according to a trusty Evatest. The result became visible extremely quickly, said L., which might even indicate a multiple pregnancy... Thing is, these home pregnancy tests are sensitive to the presence of hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) in the mother's urine, where its concentration can grow much faster if there is more than one embryo present. We will know for sure on Monday, when C. has an appointment at the clinic. I haven't asked them what kind of examination will be given her (I imagine some kind of ultrasound) but they have been told that they will be able to see exactly how many of the implanted embryos --originally three-- took root.

The only reason I am being able to force myself to write about my future nieces and/or nephews using the word "embryos" is that we don't even know how many they are, yet. Otherwise I would find it even more fake and impossible.

But there they are now, growing inside C., this very instant: mis sobrin@s. I accompanied L. & C. to the clinic the day they were conceived, so I will truly be able to tell them, someday, that I was there the day they were conceived... I suppose that, coming from an uncle, would have seemed more than a bit out of place in times past, but of course, technology changes even this.

These babies spent the first two days after their conception in glass containers, outside their mother's body! At the time of transference they were each already made up of two to four cells... No more, but no less.

So, time of arrival: August 11, 2011... But probably before!

pUniversing again

A chilly -5.5C outside, went out to the balcony anyways, for a breather (been writing records of progress all afternoon). Hazy sky tonight, and the moon is full or thereabouts but still, the Big Dipper came through. Pointed pUniverse at it and up came the names: Alkaid, Mizar, Alioth, Megrez, Dubhe, Merak and Phecda. Alkaid I already read about some weeks ago, so my eyes landed on Alioth, somehow.

Here's a summary of what wikipedia had to say about it:

Alioth or Epsilon Ursae Majoris (ε UMa, ε Ursae Majoris) is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Major (despite its Bayer designation being merely "epsilon"), and at magnitude 1.76 is the thirty-first brightest star in the sky. Its traditional name Alioth comes from the Arabic word alyat, which means "fat tail of a sheep".

It is known as 北斗五 (the Fifth Star of the Northern Dipper) or 玉衡 (the Star of Jade Sighting-tube) in Chinese.

It is the star in the tail of the bear closest to its body, and thus a star in the handle of the Big Dipper, the one closest to the bowl.

Alioth is 81 light years from Earth. Its spectral type is A0p, where"p" stands for peculiar, as the spectrum of its light is characteristic of an Alpha Canum Venaticorum variable (must figure out what that is!).

Alioth, as a representative of this type, may harbor two interacting processes. First, the star's strong magnetic field separating different elements in the star's hydrogen 'fuel'. In addition, a rotation axis at an angle to the magnetic axis may be spinning different bands of magnetically-sorted elements into the line of sight between Alioth and the Earth. The intervening elements react differently at different frequencies of light as they whip in and out of view, causing Alioth to have very strange spectral lines that fluctuate over a period of 5.1 days.

With Alioth, the rotational and magnetic axes are at almost 90 degrees to one another. Darker (denser) regions of chromium form a band at right angles to the equator.

A recent study suggests Alioth's 5.1-day variation may be due to a substellar object of about 14.7 Jupiter masses in an eccentric orbit (e=0.5) with an average separation of 0.055 astronomical units.

Alioth has a relatively weak magnetic field, fifteen times weaker than α CVn, but it is still 100 times stronger than that of the Earth.

Lo dijo Aura:

"Es bueno tener cara y acento de serranitos, porque la gente se cree que eres un ignorante y puedes salirte con la tuya." (no descontectualizar)

"A quién descartaría de la competencia por las becas? Pues a mí misma, porque no puedo hablar por los demás, pero de mí sé que, me la den o no, algo voy a hacer con mi vida."

"Se habla mucho del respeto, pero siempre del respeto que les debemos a otros, o que los demás nos deben a nosotros, pero poco se habla del respeto que nos debemos tener a nosotros mismos."

"Que qué haría si me tocara compartir la habitación con un ateo? Pues nada, no se lo creería a menos que me lo jurara por dios."

Aura viene de un pueblo bastante aislado y conservador en medio de los Andes. Con 10 años logró que un oficial del gobierno lo visitara para que se les hicieran los DNI a más de 500 chicos del lugar. Con 8 le puso una demanda a un profesor que le pegó (práctica muy común en la zona, menos común desde entonces), y tuvo que enfrentarse al ostracismo no sólo de sus maestros, sino de sus compañeros, cuyos padres la consideraban "una mala influencia". Con 13 se fue a vivir a la capital, con un tío, para poder ir a la escuela secundaria. Con 17 se buscó su propio cuarto desde el que asistir a la universidad.

Su padre nunca la obligó a hacer nada, pero siempre la impulsó para que creyera en sí misma y tuviera el valor de hacer lo que ella creía correcto. Le narró la historia de un político al que le tiraban tomatazos, pero que igualmente iba sonriendo y sacudiendo las manos en símbolo de victoria. "Ese tipo de confianza en uno mismo hay que tener", le decía.

The Time Traveler's Wife

Beautiful vision of lifetimes embedded in time, like bits of a forest in amber.