I don't get out much, but I had the best time last night. We all got dolled up and went to North Beach (the three of us girls and Ed). We had dinner at Figaro's. The food was mediocre, and the wait staff a little clumsy, but our waitress was a hot, blonde woman from the Czech Republic with the just the slightest (adorable) little accent.

But jazz at Pearl's was awesome. I'm not a huge jazz fan, but I love music. And Clairdee, the vocalist, was a great live performer. I couldn't take my eyes off her (she's got incredibly beautiful eyes, too), but when she'd stop singing, I was mesmerized by the saxophonist (whose name I can't remember or I'd share it with you).

North Beach is a happening little place. It's funny because every time I'm there I think the same thing. We got there late -- about 11pm, and got out of Pearl's at 1:30AM and the place was still crawling with crowds and crowds of people. There's always such an energy when there're that many people in one place -- not always a good energy in localized pockets -- there was a fight across the street in front of Vesuvio when we got out of Pearl's -- but it's almost like static electricity -- the crowds, the heightened emotional charge, the constant feedback. There's a high I get from being in crowds like that -- everyone out doing the same thing, having fun, hanging out, enjoying themselves and each other. And me there with them, doing the same thing.

I hate blogging when I can't think of anything to say and blog just for the sake of blogging. I don't want to paraphrase news like with the last entry. That's worthless; you don't need me to do that. What I really wanted to blog about was how interesting the complications were. That you look at the superstrong superbaby and the first thing you think is yeah, myostatin blockers -- good for muscular disorders. But it's not that simple. For example, you might do more damage than good using myostatin blocking antibody treatments with young children because myostatin not only regulates muscle development, it also regulates muscle progenitor cells (the cells that form muscles). So in the case of muscular dystrophy, you could actually hinder new muscle development in children. And there aren't any extensive studies about the long term effects of such treatments, either.

If you think about it, the human genome was completed in just early 2003. That's only about a year ago. But just because we have the full sequence doesn't mean we know it all. Research on mutations in humans happens sometimes by accidental luck -- the superbaby is the first of his kind and he will be studied and monitored for the rest of his life. And he will provide new empirical data that we would not have gotten otherwise. More systematic researchers collect mutations. IVF embryos that test positive for genetic defects are discarded, and their cells collected and studied -- genetics teams are creating stem cell lines with disease causing mutations so they can study the effects of the mutations on humans -- the animal studies only go so far in explaining how these things affect people. You learn a lot by watching how things go wrong -- sometimes they help you understand how things go right.