Published in December 2009 in the Post Register.
ARCHER – The original Big Jud’s was the brainchild of a 23-year-old Ricks College student who now admits that he really had no clue what he was doing.

More than 16 years and many, many hamburgers later, Jud Niederer has figured out the details of the restaurant business and, despite the odds, has kept the doors of Big Jud’s open in a tiny town five miles from the nearest highway.

“I just wanted to do something, be my own guy,” says Niederer (prounounced “Needer”). An Archer native, Niederer converted a former gas station into a small eatery and eventually managed even to secure his own 15 minutes of fame.

The Boise version of Big Jud’s, owned by Niederer’s brother, Chris, was recently featured on the Travel Channel show, Man Vs. Food, and Food Network magazine has named the one-pound Big Jud’s the best burger in Idaho. All that may be worth more than 15 minutes, particularly since the reruns are still showing.

Niederer is the first to admit that the restaurant business is tough, even if you don’t choose to renovate a former gas station in a small town well off the beaten path.

“You can really burn out pretty easily. Back when we first opened the only way we’d get a vacation was to close.”

But while dozens, maybe hundreds, of restaurants have come and gone in eastern Idaho since 1993, Big Jud’s has not only stuck around but bred two other eateries – his brother’s place in Boise and a Big Jud’s in Ashton owned by Todd Bossard, who is married to Niederer’s cousin. With some minor distinctions, each Big Jud’s has essentially the same menu.

At the Archer location, however, there is one unique item: The yak burger. The guy who provides Niederer with his locally grown (naturally) Idaho spuds for french fries also runs a yak farm just up the road, so the yak burger is on the menu. Jud's sells about one of those a day, so I ordered one up -- it's so lean that it's a little light on flavor and not terribly tender. Stick with the ground beef, I say.

After getting a nice deal on rent for the building in his first year, Niederer was successful enough to buy the building in 1994 and it’s since become something of a landmark.

“I’d never cooked for other people,” says Niederer. “Fortunately, my wife (Irene) brought her restaurant experience to the table.”

Of course, the legendary menu item at Big Jud’s is the three-pounder (three patties each weighing 18 ounces before cooking). The whole thing actually weighs in at more than six pounds when the bacon, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato and bun are brought together. Finish it and you get your photo on Jud’s wall of fame.

Niederer says parents who bring their kids to Rexburg for school have made Big Jud’s a ritual stop, starting a tradition. On a recent Monday night, groups of students from Brigham Young University-Idaho regularly came through the door, keeping the place busy on a chilly night. It’s been that way for 16 years.

Biology's sophisticated adaptation machine has now been discovered to be even more sophisticated. In recent years the types of adaptation often claimed to be examples of evolution in action have been found to be driven by complex mechanisms that respond to environmental pressures. It was yet another falsification of evolutionary expectations. Organisms responded far more quickly than neo Darwinism predicted, and this was because the responses were not the result of evolution's blind variation, but rather of directed mechanisms. Gene regulation and even gene modification mechanisms have been discovered which not only implement helpful adaptations, but they implement adaptations that are heritable.

Now we can add another chapter to the adaptation story. New research has found that proteins are modified as they are being constructed to help them fend off a virus, bacteria or toxic chemical. Proteins are constructed by glueing amino acids together in a string. The type of amino acid to use at each position is specified by a gene, as interpreted according to the DNA code.

The new research found that during this construction stage proteins may be modified if the cell is under stress. Specifically, the amino acid methionine is used at certain points in the sequence of amino acids even though it is not called for. Methionine can help provide protective armor due to the sulfur atom it carries in its side chain. It seems that some mechanism is intentionally inserting methionine in spite of what the genetic blueprint for the protein says. As was reported this week:

These "regulated errors" comprise a novel non-genetic mechanism by which cells can rapidly make important proteins more resistant to attack when stressed.

It is yet another finding that not only was not expected by evolution, but is difficult for evolution to explain with anything more than just-so stories.