Data Deluged

The latest issue of the journal Science, under Random Samples/People/Misfortunes, tells a story about how an overflowed river brought "misfortunes" to a population geneticist by flooding his lab and drowning one third of his fruit flies.

How devastating.

This reminds me of one of my dreams.

In this dream, my biology building somehow got bombed.

(Dear reader, if you happen to be a CIA/FBI/Homeland Security Officer, please note that it was only a dream, and that I had nothing to do with the bombing, and that I will never bomb anything, ever, except perhaps in video games. Thank you.)

I was outside the building and witnessed it all. As a very very noble and very very very brave person hero, I dashed into that partially collapsed burning hell and very skillfully rescued a couple of fainted colleagues. I put them gently down on the safe ground and dashed back in. But suddently a huge ball of fire dropped from above and hit me in the back and sent me into a temporary coma. When I woke up in a fancy hospital, the first words I said to the surrounding people, including the grateful people I saved, a bunch of camera-ready reporters, and my boss, who happened to visit me at that time (good timing, boss), was:

"I guess I have to do the flies all over again, right?"

Oh, how vain I am, even in dreams.