Off we go!

This summer I'll be doing a lot of documentation of my adventures abroad.

I was fortunate to receive that EAPSI NSF fellowship, which is funding me to go to Singapore to do research for the summer. I'll be working at a lab headed by one of my advisor's past post-docs, working on a project titled "Actuating gene expression with electric signals". Cool stuff :)

For those of you who are not sure where Singapore is - it's basically a the southern tip of Malaysia, east of India, and north west of all the Indonesia islands. Basically South East Asia.

I've basically been packing clothes for warm and humid weather, and  buying lots of sunscreen and bug spray!

Singapore!

Although it's surrounded by countries that people don't really see as developed, Singapore is actually very westernized, well-connected, stable, and air-conditioned! Though I don't think they have Chipotle there :(

But I am pretty excited for all the food! So many Asian things to eat and try! 

Flying to Singapore is one of the farthest/longest flights one can take from the East Coast - I'll be just FLYING for 24 hours (and about 3-4 hrs of layovers). I don't really sleep well unless it's a comfy bed and is quiet, so this will be interesting (got me a few books and magazines!).

How I wish I was traveling (this is from Singapore Airlines)

Anyways, just a short intro. I'll try to include lots of pictures and interesting bits. I'll be taking LOTS of pictures and videos and post them online, so if you're a friend of mine and want to know how to get to them, let me know :)

Cyborg implants for all

Yeah yeah.. I haven't posted in a while. Not due to lack of cool things going on or no ideas.. just due to a busy life and laziness =P

Anyways.... this is one of my all-time favorite topics, on which I could go on forever, but I will try really hard to keep this short and to the point.

One of media's favorite cyborgs.

Many movies, TV shows, books, computer games, etc. present a future for humanity where humans are technologically augmented. Super strong muscles, extreme load-bearing limbs, fast reflexes, eagle-vision, amazing healing capabilities, and the ability to download information and control computers with our brains - these are just a few of the visions of what a cyborg of the future would have. Technologically-enhanced humans.. - oh how we wish we could make ourselves better and have superpowers.

Enter the present day cyborg - likely a limb-loss victim, a diabetic or epileptic patient, or a monkey. Prosthetic limbs are the cyborg "parts" that have probably made the most progress to date (I guess except for insulin implants), but they by no means are as good as a real limb just yet. Without going into too much details about current cyborg-y research, the main theme that unites most of it is the goal of regaining lost function. Limbs, kidneys, hearing and vision aids for those who have lost their natural counterparts.

Modern day cyborg

Now, while this is an important area in medical research and would give many people the ability to live normal lives again, what about the healthy individual? Maybe we want to have some sort of nifty implant that would give us a cool extra ability? I'm sure (one day in the far future) we would all want to have enhanced memory, strong muscles, and other augmentations I mentioned above. The problem is that the majority of research is focused on regaining function, not on augmentation. And yes, there is a difference and a problem there... Not only in the type and NUMBER of individuals that are used as subjects and would be the potential "customers", but in the way the world views the whole idea of cyborgs. Implants or artificial limbs are still seen as something of a crutch, something unnatural (even profane). More importantly, the people who would eventually use the products are relatively few compared to the population of the world as a whole, keeping costs high, limiting the research capabilities of  companies and laboratories, and thwarting innovation. This type of research is expensive!!! What we need is a popularization of "cyborg parts", with the companies doing the research being able to earn enough to keep the innovations coming for both healthy and impaired individuals.

Here's my point - I think that if we really want to one day have normal healthy individuals want to have cyborg augmentations and for those with impaired function to have comparable regain in function, we have to start portraying that kind of stuff as something not only useful and safe, but "hip". Basically, here is what I think may need to happen:

1. Person/company (start up or already existing) comes up with a simple "second skin" or attachable electronic "implant" - a customizable tatoo, a UV measurement patch, a watch display - something that wouldn't be invasive and give some sort of benefit/function to the user, like a smartphone, that the user would like to have with them at all times. Lots of possibilities here.
2. Have celebrities/show hosts/athletes/etc. use it and make it cool - or advertise a lot. The widespread use will be important to drive prices down and make it acceptable to people. 
3. Having a "rockstar" of the company/movement would be helpful - think Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg etc. Someone to represent and embody the movement and products.
4. Come up with something slightly more invasive/complicated/useful and repeat steps 1 and 2... If the company/companies make a lot of money and the market opens up for competition - this will drive innovation for making cyborg implants for the common individual as well as those who are impaired.

One important obstacle here is that unlike Apple or Facebook, a company that makes implants will actually have to be more like a pharmaceutical or medical device company in the sense of the types of testing and research that it does. Once the implants have to actually be surgically implanted, there will need to be LOTS of testing done before a product comes out. BUT, if the company concurrently provides products which are minimally invasive and are safe, it will be able to make enough money to support the research on more complicated cyborg parts. That of course depends on the product being popular. 

Borg?

Of course, it will still be important to continue research to help those with lost function, and I think that if above company/companies were to make enough money to be able to do a wide variety of research, medically-relevant applications would be more feasible than they are today.

Anyways, this is just something I've been thinking about lately, and I think that would be one way towards a future where most humans are augmented in some way. 

Anyone want to do this with me? :)

What I learned in my first year of grad school

Grad school... grade school...

Almost a year ago I was just entering grad school, and thankfully this year did NOT fly by. There were so many varied experiences I had that it seemed to take it’s sweet time.
About a year ago, when I arrived at the university, I had tons of optimism and hope and was giddily excited for the learning and the research and all the doors that were opening for me in science and in life in general. For any of you that are either considering grad school, are currently in grad school, or just want to know what grad school is like, I list here a few of the lessons I’ve learned, observations I’ve made, and other interesting tidbits that presented themselves during my first year as a PhD student. (By the way, here is only ONE, though my favorite, link about other grad school info)

1. Know the program you’re getting into: how big it is DOES matter, the amount and types of classes and credits you have to take DOES matter, the prerequisites, the way you’re funded, and especially your PhD qualifier all are important. DON’T just look at the cool research being done.

2. However, you definitely do want to take a look at the research, usually done through the internet. This will be a TINY FRACTION of what the professors will tell you about when you first talk with them, which is also another (albeit not as small) fraction of what they plan on doing, would like to do, or would agree for you to research under them. Don’t limit yourself by not going to/applying to a school that doesn’t have your one specific interest if you like everything else about it. You will most likely find a way.

3. If you’re moving to a whole new area, decide whether you want roommates, and if you do, how many and what kind of living situation. Roommates can be awesome and become the people you hang out with and meet a lot more people through (as was fortunately my case ) or they can be a burden. If you don’t know your roommates ahead of time it’s a toss of the coin really - think of whether it’s worth the risk.

4. Entering grad school can be like entering undergrad: the orientation and classes where you meet your classmates and everyone is seeking to make friends, the exploration of a new college town, the learning your way around campus are all exciting. There are of course, plenty of ways in which grad school is nothing like undergrad: you will not know about the campus or it’s history, and you will probably not care as much about the sports teams. Nor will you feel a part of the undergrad crowd.

5. On picking an advisor/lab: There are plenty of articles out there about this. In summary: pick someone whose personality/work style complements yours, or someone who is the only one who will fund your obsessive quest for creating sentient noodles (or something similar). Know what he/she will want you to do and the kind of updates and work schedule you’ll have. Though honestly, until you’re actually a part of the lab, you won’t know the whole deal.

6. If you have some hobbies extracurricular activities you do, DO make sure that you can keep them up at whatever area you’re moving to if they are important to you.

7. In grad courses, your professors will treat you much more like colleagues, take your opinion on class structure more seriously, and provide you with information and knowledge much more specific to your field. If you’re in the right field/program you will LOVE IT. Given that though, there will be times when you hate life because a class is very hard, or you THINK you may not use something in your doctoral research. But honestly, why would you say no to knowledge which can only help you since it’s in your field, even if you may not want to delve deep into it?

8. Mostly, your program wants you to pass your classes and qualifier, since it will look bad if you fail out. People do fail out, however, so in my opinion, you should still try hard in classes (though not obsessively to the detriment of everything else).

9. Go to seminars - they’re loaded with cutting edge information, and you get the chance to talk to the researchers.

10. Think of the area around the university as a resource extension. Not only in the “get away and have fun” sort of way, but also think of the other nearby universities, government centers, and industry in your field. In the sciences those matter more than you think. The DC area, for example, has not only the FDA, NIST, NIH, NSF but also medical schools and pharma/life science/engineering companies in the vicinity. If your program allows you to do research in those places, the opportunities for you open up by A LOT, not to mention contacts for possible future jobs.

11. You’ll start to understand PHD comics and chuckle uneasily.

So here’s just some stuff I think is important - but like I said again, there’s tons of info out there, especially the link I have above is a good starting point. Basically, grad school is unlike undergrad, and it’s unlike “the real world” - it’s in a whole other dimension and grad students are another group of people who really like to make fun of their own lives and predicaments.

Video games: Are they good or bad for you?

Video and computer games are some of the most common pastimes of people in our generation and those younger than us, and the gaming industry pulls in billions of dollars each year. As a relatively new "invention" games and their effects have been scrutinized and put under fire by many politicians, counselors, parents, etc. I want to present here some of this information, both the good and the bad, tell you my opinion, and then let you decide for yourself whether the games you are playing are a waste of time or maybe, just maybe, games can be of some value beyond their hours of entertainment.

The Bad

The media tends to promote the idea that "video games are evil", mostly because it makes for interesting stories with more shock value - and more viewers. Video games have been blamed aplenty for breaking up marriages and giving rise to so called "video game widows" (wiki has some links). News companies and anti-gaming crusaders have used tragic shootings to blame video games for such incidents. The argument that playing violent video games (such as the classic example of Grand Theft Auto being the root of all evil) is the cause of violent behavior has been largely based on misinterpretation, as crime has actually declined since video games came into the world. The small minority of individuals who are already aggressive are more likely to be playing violent games if they are available to them, but it doesn't mean that everyone who plays violent video games is more prone to such unspeakable acts.

I know plenty of gamers who will shoot at avatars with great enthusiasm in games, but would never hurt a thing in real life. Correlation does not imply causation, as we know from science, though the relationship between video games and violence is probably going to be murky for a long time, since there may indeed be a minority of individuals who may be "encouraged" to be more violent due to playing video games. In this world, you can't rule anything out.

Video game addiction is certainly real and dangerous, and has been compared to drug addiction, as well as gambling and alcohol. Lots of people's lives are hurt, relationships are destroyed, classes are flunked, and real life social interaction abilities go down the drain. Not to downplay the situations, but the person usually has to have some addictive tendencies for that to happen. (again wiki for more info) The video games just make this come out. I know plenty of people with "mild" video game addiction - where hours are sucked away playing games without the person noticing, followed by pangs of guilt and feelings of having wasted one's life. I have certainly stayed up many a night playing video games, only to regret it in the morning.

Why does this happen so often, you ask? Let me hypothesize... Probably for the same reason that these games are so enjoyable. They provide you with a state of flow (read this if you don't know what that is, it's applicable to many areas of life). In other words, you're "in the groove" and it feels awesome, and you don't want to get out. Interesting how many of the conditions of flow sound like they'd be the same for addiction...

Anyway, for more "dangers" of video games (rise in inactivity, inability to focus or do homework, loneliness - you name it), just google it up or ask a frustrated mom of a 30 year old jobless son living in her basement who does nothing but play video games.

The Good

Lets move on to something more cheerful, the benefits of gaming! Here, thankfully, there is some nice scientific data. I'd like to say outright that here I'm talking about the benefits mostly of already existing games that are marketed for pure entertainment value, not "virtual learning tools" or specifically designed "brain training games", though I will mention these.

Video game playing, especially on consoles, has been shown in several studies to help surgeons acquire certain techniques quicker and be more dexterous with their tools. Action gamers were found to have better contrast sensitivity, visual acuity, and more precise multisensory temporal processing abilities.

This Boston Globe article talks about how playing certain video games, even if you're an 80 year old in a rehab home, can improve scores on memory, reasoning, and multitasking tests (they used the real time strategy game Rise of Nations for the study). The effects can last up to two and a half years after eight weeks of play. Research shows that playing a specific video game will make you more efficient at playing that game, with which come a number of changes in the brain related with higher level functions such as spatial abilities, sensory data integration, and planning.

Complexity in games.

Another article argues that the inherent complexity of many modern video games and the cognitive skills and speed needed to make sense of the environments, develop strategies, and react to the virtual worlds quickly has led the video-game-playing generation to have higher IQ's and respond better to a more complex world. I won't dwell on this, so read the source. The article also points out that although for most of us gaming is something we will not readily put on our resume, the senior engineering manager at Yahoo says that the skills he gained from leading a guild in World of Warcraft have helped him in his real life job. It seems that maybe.. just maybe.. in the future you will be able to put on your resume if you were a guild leader or were a guild officer in an online game, and it may actually give you a boost.

Contrary to the claim that games make you antisocial, as the gamers know, many video games are actually pro-social environments, and I definitely have better relationships with my friends due to playing video games with them (and of course we all know that a good round of Mario Party can do wonders). Teamwork often comes into play, as does communication and planning. Many online guilds let people interact with others who share similar interests and provide positive social environments. Of course there are always going to be party-poopers and haters, but that's not specific to video games by any means.

So now that we have evidence that playing video games changes our brains in various (mostly beneficial?) ways, will designers use this to make games to harness these effects? There are multiple examples of developments of video games that are intended to improve plasticity both in the brain and in the visual system in non-gamer adults for better quality of life and for rehabilitation . The navy also wants to use them to train soldiers with all these visual and cognitive benefits. Sadly though, some of the currently available "brain training" games have not shown to transfer to tasks that were not video-game-related. I will have to do another post on the topic of video games and virtual simulators/teaching tools designed for purposes other than entertainment.

Research relating to video games is quite nascent, and I think that further probing into it will reveal more of the cognitive effects that games have on us humans and our squishy brains.

Now that we've looked at how playing various video games can change the way your senses and brain work, lets look at WHAT you can actually learn from video games. This really depends on what game you're playing. If you're playing something like Tetris, you may learn how to fit blocks better together, which can help you with spacial reasoning. Playing realistic first person shooters can give you knowledge of various weapons, locales in the world, vehicles, and foreign phrases (often not ones you'll want to use in real life). The US army has a game out that they use as a recruiting tool.

Playing historical strategy, action, or adventure games can give you information about the historical settings, customs, and figures. Flight simulators are actually often quite realistic, and who knows, may one day help you if you're stuck in a plane with no pilot. Then, of course, there's this kid, who survived a moose attack due to concepts he learned from World of Warcraft. Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and Dance Dance Revolution cannot really teach you how to play guitar or dance, but perhaps they may give you better rhythm abilities. Overall, a lot of the games can really teach you about how the world works, if even in a small roundabout way (think SimCity).

So are video games good or bad, and what's their value?

We've seen that there are definitely bad things that can result from playing video games - usually from playing too much in an uncontrolled way. We've also seen that there can be cognitive, visual, and knowledge-based benefits from playing certain games. So are games good or bad for us? I think that one of the articles I read put it quite nicely by saying that video games are a MEDIUM, and are not inherently good or bad. Medium like music, movies, and books.

Don't think you'll ever visit anything like this in real life.

There will be the good, the bad, and the ugly, but in the end the purpose of video games is to entertain and engage, and in this many of them succeed marvelously. I think that as long as one does not put video game playing in front of other important real world responsibilities, gaming can be more enjoyable than reading books or watching movies (there are plenty of games with stories and worlds as complex and exciting as Lord of the Rings, for example).

Games can bring people together, put you in worlds that you'll never get to experience in real life, and boost your creativity, among the other things I mentioned. The relatively few negative effects of gaming on the majority of the population that the media seems to exaggerate will probably stop being so blown up once the kids who grew up on video games grow up and become the senators, CEO's, and news anchors.

Should you play video games if you don't already? I think if you pick the right games, you may reap some cognitive benefits, and learn things you otherwise wouldn't. Mainly though, you'd have an interactive entertainment experience unlike any other. If you choose the right games, that is. I personally don't play games because I think they give me some sort of boost, but purely out of sheer love of virtual awesomeness.

As a side note, this came out to be a lot longer than I intended (and I could have made it much longer still), and I apologize for that (and for all of you who say TLDR - shame!). Next time I'll break posts like this up. I do hope it was somewhat insightful though!

The Emergence of an Engineered Enzyme

Ask a chemist or any scientist in general what would be one of the top currently-nascent technologies they would want to mature quicker, and they would surely name protein engineering as one of them. A recent paper in Science brings us closer to this reality.

Just quickly, for the non-scientists: proteins are little molecules in your body that catalyze many reactions (called enzymes) that help you digest food, get energy, and just LIVE in generally, they also make up a lot of the building blocks for various parts of your body.

To be able to create proteins with various non-natural functions, as well as create enzymes with better activity, it is sometime necessary to predict the conformations that these synthetic proteins will take. The interactions of the amino acids (protein building blocks) on various parts of the proteins can be mindbogglingly varied depending on the length of the protein and environment. Computer programs are often used to predict the lowest-energy configurations and the final products. Not only do you need powerful computers to run the simulations, but you need efficient and realistic simulator programs, of which there is a whole slew out there (with no clear winners).

The quest towards engineering any protein on demand is one that is slowly but surely being achieved with the help of better predictive computational algorithms. Here's part of the abstract of the paper:

The Diels-Alder reaction is a cornerstone in organic synthesis, forming two carbon-carbon bonds and up to four new stereogenic centers in one step. No naturally occurring enzymes have been shown to catalyze bimolecular Diels-Alder reactions. We describe the de novo computational design and experimental characterization of enzymes catalyzing a bimolecular Diels-Alder reaction with high stereoselectivity and substrate specificity.

This reaction is widely used in synthetic chemistry, so this means that much time and money could potentially be saved by using an engineered enzyme such as this.The team chose to build an enzyme using a design method called Rosetta. I don't pretend to know anything about it, but in the case that someone is interested, I just put that up here. The researchers then prepared an in silico model of the shape that they'd need to accommodate the transition state for this reaction (high energy intermediate - remember chemistry class?). They then added amino acids to their protein that would hold the reactants in place.

Their first calculation showed that 10¹⁹ theoretical active sites matched several parameters they specified for the two molecules they wanted to join. They then used the RosettaMatch program to screen all these possibilities against already-known protein scaffolds and narrow down to 10⁶ possibilities that were stable.

This was further modeled and the number of enzymes was filtered down to 84, all of which the researchers expressed and purified. Of those, 50 turned out to be soluble and two had Diels-Alderase activity. The enzymes were also tuned to increase their activity.

That's the gist behind the rational design approach for protein engineering. This is of course very laborious, but is state of the art at the moment. There are certainly other approaches, such as protein evolution using single amino acid mutations, but these have their own problems and an in-depth look is beyond the scope of this post (though of course not the blog as a whole).

Protein engineering has a myriad of uses besides making enzymes for chemical synthesis. Imagine piecing together parts of different proteins to make them work quicker, attach more strongly to certain surfaces, play novel roles in signalling, etc. I personally cannot wait until this field matures and we can realize all it's possibilities.

To Grow or Not To Grow, That is the Question

In biology class we all learned that "winning the game of life" means that you leave more hardy offspring than your competitor. That is the goal of all life - to propagate and expand; to leave tons of children running all over the world.

Humans, more than any other species, strive for growth and expansion. We've all seen the human population growth curve, with it's exponential line of doom pointing towards the heavens.

By and large, most of our technology and culture aims at growth - prolonging and preserving human life, expanding human knowledge, creating music, art, and literature, spreading a country's influence and boosting it's economy, inventing robots that will allow us to produce more Hershey's Kisses than we can eat. Such growth, though, sadly, is not without consequence. This main consequence being that we do not live in a world of infinite resources, and that our production and growth rate (read: overpopulation and overconsumption) is certainly out-pacing our ability to gather enough resources (any RTS player knows that this usually leads to an early loss). Anyway, not that any of you didn't know this already or that there aren't a billion articles written about this...

What brought this topic to my attention was this editorial in Chemical & Engineering News, titled "Addicted to Growth", that puts forth that the human addiction to growth stems from our greediness. In our greed we have destroyed our planet, and instead of pushing forth to overcome our problems with technology and more growth "we should be able to create social structures and an economic system that do not depend on growth." The author reviews positively a book with the opinion that "Growth is a religion...that flies in the face of physical reality, and as such, cannot be maintained". Really?

First of all, the assumption that growth is bad and is a consequence of some inherent human greediness is inaccurate, to say the least. When you look on a smaller scale, maybe your neighbor buying five flat-screen TV's and driving that Hummer and not giving a crap about the "problems of tomorrow" is greedy. I'm not saying that greed doesn't exist in the world. But isn't the growth and expansion of human civilization a result of something else other than greed? Isn't it, like I mentioned earlier, simply the driving force of life? Can any of you envision a society that you'd want to live in that did not want to grow and expand in the many domains of life? It would be a boring and stagnant society, a society without a greater purpose - one that I certainly wouldn't want to live in.

I think the problem that the author has with all this growth and expansion is the fact that it is often unchecked and it's consequences are not realized until it is too late. On the grand scale, humanity wants to advance itself and expand wherever possible, but on an individual scale, people can be greedy, ignorant, and plain stupid. It's often a much easier life to live where you only care about your own good today (and in the near future) and not think whether your actions will have a negative impact on others in the future. Indeed, it is our nearsightedness that often blinds us to the problems that could be avoided if only we took the time to think things through, play some possible outcome scenarios, and just plain keep technological, economic, and population growth in check.

As a scientist, I may find all those "ethics committees" frustrating, as they will be the ones evaluating whether my cyborgs could take over humanity or not, but ideally they would be making the best decision for the long term. This job, of course, currently rests with all of humanity as well to a much larger degree.

What the author lauds is the idea that we should "focus not on growth but on maintenance". Now, I didn't read the book that he reviews/cites this from, so I can't say what these suggestions really are, but if they indeed forgo any growth, then I certainly disagree with them.

The whole "green movement" is not something that I disagree with, however, as I do think that overconsumption and wastefulness is a problem and should be kept in check by individuals as well as groups. But that is not the answer to our dwindling resources. The answer lies in finding new resources and in finding ways to expand the use of resources we already possess. Scaling everything down and settling back into some sort of "maintenance" mode is going to lead to decline (back to horse and buggy, I guess). We need to strategically scale down on use and pump money into energy research as well as travel to nearby planets for resources. It's pretty much inevitable.

I don't think humans will ever stop growing and expanding, and suggesting that these are the result of greed is like smacking all the progress in science, the arts, economics, (and pretty much every other domain) very hard in the face. The long term solution (once we get over this fossil fuel and sorta-overpopulation hump) is to try to have more stringent control on consumption and production (of everything from energy, to information, to babies [production of babies, not consumption]). Will this work? Does this sound too much like all those dystopian sci-fi movies and novels? Who knows... We will certainly need to be more considerate, but never stop cultural, technological, and physical growth and expansion, as that is what makes us human.

Roller Coasters!

I'm a huge roller coaster fan, and recently a good friend and I ventured over to Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ to ride as many of them as we could. It was a semi hot-and-humid Monday and there weren't many people there. Weekday theme park visits are always better than weekend visits. Anyway, without further ado, here are my official reviews of the roller coasters we went on:

• Kingda Ka: This is a VERY tall coaster, and very fast. So fast in fact, that it's over before you know it. Now this is definitely a ride to go on at least once, but honestly if the wait is over 30-45 minutes, your time is better spent in other lines. Thankfully our wait was within this time limit. I waited for three hours once for this one, only to watch the ride be closed due to thunder storms when I was 5 minutes away from getting on it. The coaster shoots you up very fast and pauses for a tiny bit at the top, from where you can see miles around you. The ride down isn't as scary as you'd think because the tracks are sort of twisted, and you don't see as much. You also don't get a weightless feeling when going down. All in all, going up is better than coming down on this one.

• El Toro: This is one crazy wooden coaster. I'm not a fan of Rolling Thunder, another wooden coaster in the park, because it just shakes the whole time and I get thrown around way too much (bruises anyone?). This coaster surprised me with its awesomeness. It's a relatively long ride, and there are some very high points. There are a lot of parts when you're going under wooden beams at a high speed and just feel like you have to duck! Very much a scary ride the whole way. This one was my favorite that day, and was worth the 30 or so minute wait.

• Bizarro: This ride replaced Medusa, which was a fun short/medium length ride. It's pretty much the same. There is some fire spewing on the sides and some mist and scary spikes.

• The Dark Knight: This one's an indoor coaster, like the Skull Mountain (which is really no fun). It has a better "intro" while you wait in line - going along with the whole Joker taking over town theme from the movie. The ride itself is only okay though. Such are the afflictions of many indoor roller coasters. There were barely any other cool themed things inside the ride (unlike rides like Spiderman in Universal, which ROCKS). Also way too many sharp turns (I got thrown around a lot in this one!). If the wait's long, it's not worth it.

• Batman: This ride is another mediocre ride, in my opinion, but I still always go on it. It's fun, like Bizarro, but there's really nothing special about it.

• Nitro: This ride has to have the best first drop of any roller coaster that I can remember (and there are plenty that I don't). After a very slow ascent, you plummet down at incredible speed, feeling weightless as your insides get squeezed into places where they shouldn't be. Thankfully this lasts JUST the right amount of time without overwhelming you. From there it's a nice long ride, with all the usual thrills. There are some "rolling hills" around the end which are very fun, as you can throw your hands up in the air as you get thrown up out of your seat a bit. Overall, this is my favorite roller coaster at Six Flags, and is very beautiful in the dark.

• Runaway Mine Train: Meh.. just another short and not very eventful ride. The wait was about 2 minutes though (I wonder why), so we just went on it.

Rides that we didn't go on that day were Superman, Great American Scream Machine, and Rolling Thunder (out of the main roller coasters). I've been on all those before, and they're fine, but there just wasn't enough time for everything. Also, riding lots of thrill rides one after the other takes a lot out of you (that and the heat and standing/walking a lot). I'm not a roller coaster snob, but I do judge them, and I hope this little review helps anyone deciding on which ones to go on while in Great Adventure.