the process that wouldn't die

inanna /pro/bs/sandboxes/jfisher/projects/lnlif % ps -ef | grep matlab
jfisher 13223 1 0 Jun21 pts/1 00:00:00 /cfarm/matlab704/bin/glnx86/MATLAB
jfisher 13230 1 0 Jun21 pts/1 00:01:31 /cfarm/matlab704/bin/glnx86/MATLAB


I just kill -9'd 13223 and 13230 TWICE and they are still not dead. I previously killed about 10 other MATLAB processes that were running for some reason. Does anyone have any suggestions for me, other than logging out and/or rebooting?

Edit: I rebooted, and now they're dead. Logging out didn't kill them. I'm really curious though why they wouldn't die and why their parent process was 1.

Interesting statistics

I'm reading this book about left-handedness that I found in the science library while I was on my way to get a neural engineering book. It's really interesting -- here is one of the most interesting things I've seen in it so far.

The "safest" age for a woman to have a child is between 17 and 24. As we all know, the older you get, the more likely there are to be birth defects, or difficult deliveries, etc etc. If a mother is 25-29 years old, the child is about 5% more likely to be left-handed (than if the mother had been 17-24). 30-34, about 18% more likely to be left-handed. Now, remember that after a woman is 35, each year is associated with a MUCH higher risk of birth problems. If a woman is 35-39, the child is 69% more likely to be left-handed, and if the woman is 40 or older, the child is 128 percent more likely to be left-handed!

Pretty wacky, eh? Apparently the left side of the brain develops slower and later than the right, so it is more vulnerable to damage during pregnancy and birth. Anything from smoking to premature deliveries to using forceps to help the baby out can damage the left side of the brain, and even if this damage doesn't do anything major, it seems to result in the child becoming left-handed (remember, right brain controls left hand, left brain controls right hand). This isn't to say that there are no left-handed children born from perfect pregnancies and deliveries, of course.