moving

mk. here's the deal.

wordpress is just....

better.

more of what i'm looking for.

so posting *here* will stop....

in the meantime i'm working over at http://8thcontinent.wordpress.com/

it's a work in progress, so it's going to take a little time to transfer the posts from here to there, and get everything "just so", but my priority is going to be to keep the posts going, and add the "other" stuff as i can.

rosalind franklin: two camps

i love a good scientific drama - yes indeedy, i do. i had grown up hearing the story about how rosalind franklin contributed to the structure of DNA, but it wasn't until college that i started paying attention.

in my (albeit limited) career, i've noticed that the topic of rosalind franklin is approached in 1 of 2 ways: she is either completely left out of the picture, or she is "the scientist done wrong".

why is it that people feel so strongly about franklin - so strongly that they have to divide it into a "yes she was cheated" or a "who is she?" argument?

my understanding is that frankling and wilkins weren't the best of friends - he treated her like his lab tech, when she was his colleague. he also showed her x-ray crystallography image to watson and crick without her consent (she later found out and said she didn't mind). watson and crick had brought franklin to their laboratory to look at the model they were working on, and she helped them refine it.

franklin's passion wasn't the structure of DNA - and she acknowledged that. i don't think that she was "cheated" out of the nobel prize (it can't be awarded posthumously, and she had already passed. plus, it can only go to three people, and believe it or not there are some politics involved). franklin loved her work, and did it well. she was a female scientist at a difficult time for women in science, but she prevailed.

so while i think those in the "rosalind was wronged!" camp need to tone it down a bit, i'm more disappointed in those who leave her out of the picture.

such is the case with the book i'm reading, "Time, Love, and Memory"... i haven't finished it yet, but franklin's name has yet to appear amidst all the talk of the structure of DNA and the work of watson. i'm not asking for a glowing memorial, just an acknowledgment that her work contributed to the elucidation of the structure of DNA.

comodification

yesterday i had this great idea regarding my research. essentially, i had run some preliminary experiments, and they didn't yield the hoped-for results. my PI said "so where does that leave us?"

indeed, boss man. where does that leave us.

so i thought. and i thought. and i caught onto a glimmer of something, scratched it out on some paper, did a little literature search, and just about wet my pants because no one else has done this - yet.

i kept it all inside, and brought it up today in our little meeting (boss man takes the postdoc and i out for coffee to have a lab meeting without the techs - although we do have lab meetings with the techs as well).

so mr. PI isn't outright against my ideas, but i'm confident and assert myself a little bit. and all of a sudden he goes: "wait a minute. you're right. we can do these in vivo to get a direct answer, and then work backwards to get an in vitro model". and then the conversation starts flying. daisy mae is going to be indoctrinated into the world of mouse work. which i'm not thrilled about - because i hate killing the mice - but i know that it needs to be done to answer the bigger picture questions that will ultimately save the lives of more animals and humans.

so then the conversation turns to whether or not i'm doing embryonic, postnatal, adolescent, or adult mice. and it hits me: the female sex is an utter and total scientific commodification. (i'm sure this has been pointed out somewhere along the line). but in our quest to solve the problems of the world, we basically treat a female's capability to bear children as the ultimate tool - if a dam is unable to conceive, she's considered useless. if a dam is too old to conceive, she's disposable. once the litter has been harvested, the momma is either put back into the breeding round up, or sacrificed.

i wish there were some other way to phrase things - but where to start?

a different kind of doctor

in my medical school course, i'm commonly referred to as "the graduate student". it's not a big deal, but sometimes things get under my skin... like the comment from a medical student regarding her family:

my parents are thrilled. my sister is going to be a PhD, and i'm going to be a doctor.

grumble.

a PhD is a doctor, you ninny. i know the comment wasn't made with ill intentions, but i think that there's a divide between many graduate students and medical students. and on both sides there are camps that think their path is "better".

i will say this: being in this course has really convinced me that the way we train our physicians is dead wrong. they are hurled facts at warp speed, and then assessed by how well they regurgitate them back onto paper in the form of multiple choice questions. there is a lack of primary literature, and there's "no time" to work on integrating systems and concepts. their one and only course in immunology was 4 weeks long.

4 weeks to learn the immune system.

i would like it if they all took the initiative to learn more about the material outside of class - but they feel entitled to a "life"... and spend sunday night cramming information. there's a definite sense of entitlement: the professors are supposed to instill this knowledge in them - and if the professor doesn't, the student cannot be blamed for not mastering the subject matter. (this isn't just med students, either - but in grad students as well).

so the whole foundational question to this is: why are they here? grad students and med students alike. did they think it would be easy? are they upset that they're not sailing through as gracefully as in undergrad? what's their motivation?

me - i like to think about the questions no one has answered, and apply different techniques to poke and prod at a system. i'm fascinated by science - even science "outside" my discipline. because it's all related.

unfortunately, i find that people who are motivated by what they're doing (rather than the "title" of Dr) are decreasing in number.

PMS for me... yet to be defined term for you.

rant time. (although to be honest i cycled all the anger out - so really all i have right now is one of those "we all know this exists, but don't know how to stop it" comments). but the long and short of it is that i am so over my postdoc.

today i was doing an assay on about 44 samples. said assay is very straightforward, but also monotonous and easy to screw up. add to that my drosophila-like attention span, and it becomes a straightforward assay that's easy to screw up.

a colleague meanders into the lab, and starts chatting with the postdoc. they are giggling, being noisy, but no big deal. i am cool, calm, collected, and trying really fucking hard to stay focused. so said colleague starts asking questions about the centrifuge on my bench, and how to use it, and starts going into why she can't use the one in her lab. my answers go from half sentences to grunts, when all of a sudden i'm pelted in the leg with a giant ball of tinfoil that's been thrown under my bench with some force (ohk, it's tinfoil so it's not like i was going to bruise. but it was the last straw).

"postdoc, knock it the FUCK off" (obviously boss-man is no longer in the lab).

deadly silence - and i go back to focusing on the task at hand. the colleague apologizes for bothering me, and promises to come back later to chat.

not more than 2 minutes later, after colleague has left, the postdoc comes over and starts hovering and starts to apologize. i cut him off and say "i would love to talk about this, but now is not the time - i need to focus".

and then he walks away, throws up his hands, and mumbles "fucking PMS".

at first i was mad, and then insulted, and then i couldn't figure out why asserting myself was PMS. i had made it clear that i needed a few uninterrupted minutes to focus, and even though he wanted to apologize (and i appreciate that) it was not the right time.

so i go about my business like nothing happened - and a few hours later, we're in the TC room (aka the BSL-2, or the tissue culture room... basically the place with all the scary stuff) and the postdoc says:

"hey i read a really interesting article in nature that links our topic of interest as a major player in a related disease!"

me: that's really interesting. i'm not surprised -

pd: you're not surprised?!?! you're a grad student. stop acting like you know everything.

me: as i was saying, i'm not surprised in light of the article i read this morning. i was actually talking with PI man about.....

postdoc walks out of the lab shaking his head at the idea that i could possibly have thought evidence that was published in nature was really that far off.

when i left for the evening, i exchanged pleasantries and wished him a good evening. but what i really wanted to do was hand him 4 ibuprofen and wish him well with the cramps.

what the sh*t is this?!?!

pretty much every "life sciences" text book you could want.

at your fingertips.

free.

and searchable.

am i just late to the party? how is it that no one i've talked to in the past 5 years has known about this?!?!

random blatherings

1. i'm ok, you're ok, we're all ok! actually, met with a nutritionist for the first time (loved her, btw - it's also the one service the school provides completely free of charge) and all of a sudden just dumped all this stuff that i had no idea was even on my mind. stuff that as i was saying it thought was kinda weird. but turns out... i'm normal. for now, anyway.

2. i am the ultimate procrastinator. maybe this will help?
Elysium Revisited: Burn Procrastination

3. one day in the near future i will do a link update. because i stalk many more blogs than i've listed - and they're worth looking at.

4. quote of the day (in response to my asking a student how they were enjoying a particular class): "i hate it. every morning she walks in, pukes on the board, walks out, and then we're supposed to figure out what she had for breakfast". unfortunately, he has a point. the lecture itself is cohesive, but the lectures don't "tie together" nicely. the topics are jumbled together haphazardly, which makes integration of knowledge a bit more challenging. so what? it's a 500-level class, and we've been given all the supplemental texts. it's time to teach yo'self!

5. i think that i have the funniest looking dog on the face of the earth.

6. i am turning into a cycling junkie. i cycle in fair weather, but have started going to my (freaking awesome) gym for cycling classes. and they are painfully wonderful.

7. the lab. oh yes. forgot about that one. i've started losing track of time, and have neglected my lab duties. namely, research. at the moment i'm trying to convince my PI that if i took 2 months off of research (i.e. "benchwork") to just read the literature, it would be beneficial in the long run. he agrees, but still wants me to work out basic protocols in the meantime. so things i'm learning that i never thought i would:

fluorescence (and confocal) microscopy
tissue culture (i hates it - mostly because my transfections disrupt normal differentiation of a critical cell line)
animal experimentation (this gets me - mostly because i work with itty-bitty baby mice)
and a whole host of other shtuff that will make me a super-scientist. one day.

8. i had something humourous for this one. but it's now gone, baby gone.