meme (meem) n. a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission.

The British scientist Richard Dawkins coined the word "meme" in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, beliefs (notably religious beliefs), clothing fashion, and the technology of building arches.^[5]

Meme-theorists contend that memes evolve by natural selection (in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution) through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance influencing an individual meme's reproductive success. Memes spread through the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Theorists point out that memes which replicate the most effectively spread best, and some memes may replicate effectively even when they prove detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.^[6]

A field of study called memetics^[7] arose in the 1990s to explore the concepts and transmission of memes in terms of an evolutionary model.

Thank you Wikepedia.

Kroket: Tasty Goodness

This little beauty is called a Kroket. What exactly is it you may ask. Well, I'm not really sure yet. I've eaten one so I can tell you that it some form of meat-goo covered with deep-fried batter. Although I don't actually know what fills it (and I don't think I really want to know), I found myself rather enjoying the one I tried.






Now, the only thing better than deep-fried meat-goo, is deep-fried meat-goo that you buy from a wall. Yes, you heard me. A wall. Pop in €1.50 and you pull out your very own deap-fried meat-goo. Yum.

I'm bored...I think I'll go to Europe.

I was fortunate to get into a marvelous new graduate school program: The Erasmus Mundus Master Programme in Evolutionary Biology, aka MEME. Its more than just a grad school or exchange program. The other students and I are a hodgepodge of nationalities* with an important common characteristic - we are nerds. We are the weird kids who get excited about identifying insects and discussing the definition of a species. And this little program brought us all together. Over the next two years we will be studying at not one, but five universities: University of Groningen, Netherlands; Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany; Uppsala University, Sweden; University of Montpellier II, France; and Harvard University, USA. The idea of the program is simple yet brilliant: give students a strong and diverse education while facilitating the formation of cross-cultural academic ties.


So that is why I'm here, in Groningen, Netherlands, a place I would never have dreamed of living in a year ago. I am currently getting settled in the city and anxiously awaiting the start of classes next week. Eurotrip 2010-2012 has begun, lets hope its a good one.





*The hodgepodge breakdown: 2 Brazil, 1 Belgium, 2 Columbia, 1 Cyprus, 2 France, 2 Germany, 1 Greece, 1 Indonesia, 4 Netherlands, 1 Mexico, 1 Serbia, 2 Turkey, 1 Hong Kong, 2 Ukraine, 2.5 USA, 1.5 Canada (the halves are due indecisiveness, i.e duel-citizenship)