20100429
20100425
Why we can't cure the flu
Occasionally for my classwork I stumble across a project that contains information that I can share that people will care about. I mean, sure, I think making haploid fish is cool, but unless you're doing mutagenesis in zebrafish, the chance that you'll care about haploid fish is pretty slim. Flu though, I think everyone can relate to. I can relate to it, which was why I picked the topic, given that our theme for this quarter is host and pathogens interactions, which is so far from my area of interest (genetics / neuroscience) that it was hard to pick out something that won't lead to me banging my head against the desk over some aspect of immunology. (I'm terrible at immunology.)
So, the flu, also known as influenza, is a type of virus. I'll take another moment to broadcast the crusade that most of the people in the medical field have been engaged in for the past decade, which is "antibiotics don't work on cold / flu". Antibiotic is for bacterial infection. Cold and flu are caused by viruses. You need antivirals.
Given this is the case, you say, why aren't people just popping antivirals left and right every flu season? The answer to that is evolution, actually. A virus particle is mostly just a protein shell, which gets the virus in and out of cells, and protects the nucleic acid enclosed in that shell, which codes for the proteins. Influenza codes for 11 proteins. It's a small, simple system for a small simple organism, which means replication doesn't take that long. (We have gazillions of proteins and a cell cycle of around one replication per day, so starting from one cell it takes US a lot longer to procreate than a virus, which is much, much simpler than a cell, and much smaller (image: the small blob with the cheerios stuck on it is the virus, the ocean-covered mini-planet is your cell).
What does this mean? This means that a virus has no proof-reading mechanism or correction mechanism like we do, because it's so simple, which means each time it makes a copy of its genes to give to its progeny whatever mistake it made during copying is just going to get passed on. Take into account that a virus replicates extremely fast under optimal conditions (read: your cell), and that the location of the mistake is random, the chances that a random mistake will be a mistake that'll mutate the protein that our antiviral targets are pretty good.
While all this is happening, you have to wonder about our immune system. I mean it has to be pretty good, right? Because otherwise we wouldn't be here. We do have innate immunity that can recognize viral particles, namely the proteins exposed on the outside of a virus. If we develop antibodies against them, we won't get infected. If the virus somehow makes it past that stage (hey, innate immunity takes time to develop), we also have cell-mediated immunity, which can recognize proteins that will only be exposed once the virus has made its way into your cell (and shed the cheerios). If we develop antibodies against these, we can still get infected, but our symptoms will be less severe. Our cells will be able to clear the virus from themselves but they won't be able to prevent the initial infection.
(In case if you're curious, this is how flu shots work. There're two types of vaccines. One with killed viruses so your body gets a chance to be exposed to the viral proteins without being exposed to a live virus, so basically it'll have the time to come up with working antibodies without the risk of infection. However, the downside is, the virus is dead, which means when your body first sees it, it sees only the dead-virus-appearance and even though you won't get sick, you can still serve as a live incubator for virus. Or something. I'm a little shaky on the details on this one. The other type is the live virus vaccine, which means that yes your body gets to see a less virulent strain of the infective virus. It takes a bit longer for your body to cope with this one because it's a live virus and it does infect things a little, but it also means your body can go "ZMG VIRUS!" from the moment the real disease-causing-virus makes its way into your mucosal lining of your airway.)
And THEN you take into account that one of the antiviral targets we use is targeted against an exposed protein, neuroaminidase (needed for the baby viruses to bud from your cells so they can infect your other cells) (viruses like to share). Proteins exposed on the surface of a virus evolve extremely fast. That's why you have to get a flu shot every year. Both the immune system and the antivirals are essentially selecting for viruses with mistakes in their genes that allows them to not be killed by your immune system or your drugs. Which means that yes, we have viruses resistant to antivirals right now so we try to keep a lid on it by not using antivirals until we absolutely have to (decrease selection means that all viruses are created equal, and a smaller fraction of it will be antiviral resistant and so your immune system has a better chance to win against it) (as opposed to antiviral all the time which means all the non-resistant viruses will be killed off and the only viruses left will ALL be resistant). (By the way, this is another reason why med people get so pissed about people adding antibacterial drugs to practically everything; we're running out of working antibiotics, folks.)
Does that mean we're doomed? No. Our immune system is quite good if you consider humanity as a whole. Immune system of the host is constantly evolving to keep up with the pathogen; we have people who are naturally resistant to HIV. In addition, we are doing more research to find better targets for antivirals than just hemagglutinin and neuroaminidase (the two main protein exposed on the surface of viruses and the fastest evolving proteins) (random FYI: the names H5N1 and H1N1? Stands for Hemagglutinin class 5 Neuroaminidase class 1 -- their outer-shell is used as a way to classify viruses and does correlate with how infectious the virus is). I'll be doing a presentation the week after next week on a paper by Konig et. al, where they figured that since the virus proteins are changing so fast, why don't we target human cell machinery that the viruses steals to replicate with drugs instead? And they managed to find some targets that will not kill human cells (very important to check for, as I'm sure you'll understand) that if targeted, will reduce virus infectivity. Pretty cool, I think.
If anyone wants more information, PLoS (open-access to all) has a pretty decent review article here, called "Pandemic Influenza: the Inside Story". It's got relatively little tech-babble compared to the other stuff I've been reading.
And one last thing? After all this talk about no gold bullet for the flu, you know what's a tested and proven way of flu-prevention? Hygiene. Cover your mouth when you sneeze / cough, people! (And wash your hands...etc.) As someone who braves the public transit twice a day AND works in a biology lab, I'm at the point where I involuntarily flinch when someone sneezes on me. Vitamin C can also help a little by giving your immune system a little boost, but I've seen too many people randomly over-dose themselves on vitamins to feel comfortable endorsing it. It doesn't need endorsement.
So, the flu, also known as influenza, is a type of virus. I'll take another moment to broadcast the crusade that most of the people in the medical field have been engaged in for the past decade, which is "antibiotics don't work on cold / flu". Antibiotic is for bacterial infection. Cold and flu are caused by viruses. You need antivirals.
Given this is the case, you say, why aren't people just popping antivirals left and right every flu season? The answer to that is evolution, actually. A virus particle is mostly just a protein shell, which gets the virus in and out of cells, and protects the nucleic acid enclosed in that shell, which codes for the proteins. Influenza codes for 11 proteins. It's a small, simple system for a small simple organism, which means replication doesn't take that long. (We have gazillions of proteins and a cell cycle of around one replication per day, so starting from one cell it takes US a lot longer to procreate than a virus, which is much, much simpler than a cell, and much smaller (image: the small blob with the cheerios stuck on it is the virus, the ocean-covered mini-planet is your cell).
What does this mean? This means that a virus has no proof-reading mechanism or correction mechanism like we do, because it's so simple, which means each time it makes a copy of its genes to give to its progeny whatever mistake it made during copying is just going to get passed on. Take into account that a virus replicates extremely fast under optimal conditions (read: your cell), and that the location of the mistake is random, the chances that a random mistake will be a mistake that'll mutate the protein that our antiviral targets are pretty good.
While all this is happening, you have to wonder about our immune system. I mean it has to be pretty good, right? Because otherwise we wouldn't be here. We do have innate immunity that can recognize viral particles, namely the proteins exposed on the outside of a virus. If we develop antibodies against them, we won't get infected. If the virus somehow makes it past that stage (hey, innate immunity takes time to develop), we also have cell-mediated immunity, which can recognize proteins that will only be exposed once the virus has made its way into your cell (and shed the cheerios). If we develop antibodies against these, we can still get infected, but our symptoms will be less severe. Our cells will be able to clear the virus from themselves but they won't be able to prevent the initial infection.
(In case if you're curious, this is how flu shots work. There're two types of vaccines. One with killed viruses so your body gets a chance to be exposed to the viral proteins without being exposed to a live virus, so basically it'll have the time to come up with working antibodies without the risk of infection. However, the downside is, the virus is dead, which means when your body first sees it, it sees only the dead-virus-appearance and even though you won't get sick, you can still serve as a live incubator for virus. Or something. I'm a little shaky on the details on this one. The other type is the live virus vaccine, which means that yes your body gets to see a less virulent strain of the infective virus. It takes a bit longer for your body to cope with this one because it's a live virus and it does infect things a little, but it also means your body can go "ZMG VIRUS!" from the moment the real disease-causing-virus makes its way into your mucosal lining of your airway.)
And THEN you take into account that one of the antiviral targets we use is targeted against an exposed protein, neuroaminidase (needed for the baby viruses to bud from your cells so they can infect your other cells) (viruses like to share). Proteins exposed on the surface of a virus evolve extremely fast. That's why you have to get a flu shot every year. Both the immune system and the antivirals are essentially selecting for viruses with mistakes in their genes that allows them to not be killed by your immune system or your drugs. Which means that yes, we have viruses resistant to antivirals right now so we try to keep a lid on it by not using antivirals until we absolutely have to (decrease selection means that all viruses are created equal, and a smaller fraction of it will be antiviral resistant and so your immune system has a better chance to win against it) (as opposed to antiviral all the time which means all the non-resistant viruses will be killed off and the only viruses left will ALL be resistant). (By the way, this is another reason why med people get so pissed about people adding antibacterial drugs to practically everything; we're running out of working antibiotics, folks.)
Does that mean we're doomed? No. Our immune system is quite good if you consider humanity as a whole. Immune system of the host is constantly evolving to keep up with the pathogen; we have people who are naturally resistant to HIV. In addition, we are doing more research to find better targets for antivirals than just hemagglutinin and neuroaminidase (the two main protein exposed on the surface of viruses and the fastest evolving proteins) (random FYI: the names H5N1 and H1N1? Stands for Hemagglutinin class 5 Neuroaminidase class 1 -- their outer-shell is used as a way to classify viruses and does correlate with how infectious the virus is). I'll be doing a presentation the week after next week on a paper by Konig et. al, where they figured that since the virus proteins are changing so fast, why don't we target human cell machinery that the viruses steals to replicate with drugs instead? And they managed to find some targets that will not kill human cells (very important to check for, as I'm sure you'll understand) that if targeted, will reduce virus infectivity. Pretty cool, I think.
If anyone wants more information, PLoS (open-access to all) has a pretty decent review article here, called "Pandemic Influenza: the Inside Story". It's got relatively little tech-babble compared to the other stuff I've been reading.
And one last thing? After all this talk about no gold bullet for the flu, you know what's a tested and proven way of flu-prevention? Hygiene. Cover your mouth when you sneeze / cough, people! (And wash your hands...etc.) As someone who braves the public transit twice a day AND works in a biology lab, I'm at the point where I involuntarily flinch when someone sneezes on me. Vitamin C can also help a little by giving your immune system a little boost, but I've seen too many people randomly over-dose themselves on vitamins to feel comfortable endorsing it. It doesn't need endorsement.
20100424
Well...this week sucked
I do have both days off this weekend (yay!), but somewhere between the lack of a similar luxury last weekend (and possibly the weekend before that as well) and the need to stay in lab past 7:30pm after getting to lab at 7:30 am and having all but one experiment fail/do badly on me, and having to deal with an entire series of mishaps in animal transfer paperwork, I was ready to declare war on life. I didn't, mostly because I didn't have enough energy at that point to bother, but I had briefly considered wanting a do-over of the week only to realize that no, no I don't, because I've done my best given the circumstances and a do-over would only mean that I'd have to suffer through the week again.
No thank you.
(By the way, by "not enough energy" I meant I tripped and fell getting dressed in the morning and nearly fell asleep on the bus in the evening, missing my bus stop and making it necessary to walk back in the rain.) (Speaking of which, what is with this whether? It's nearly May in Southern California and I'm still wearing sweaters.)
Next week will be equally gruesome, since TAing means that I have to help put together the midterm, take the midterm (timing myself so the teacher'd know how long the exam takes and adjust according as well as figure out which problems are just not working out), grade the midterm (we are doing one TA per problem and have to do a long grading session all together, approximating six hours), on top of running a two-hour review session (with another TA so I'm not totally by myself the entire time, thank God) and grading another problem set. At least I don't have to stay past 6:30pm on any given day, I think.
Wendy's baby came home on Tuesday, so now she's mostly gone from lab. The baby's fine, though apparently he does this thing where if he eats too fast he'll stop breathing. Supposedly (according to the doctor) this is normal. And you can restart his breathing by rubbing his back.
I just think it sounds scary as hell.
No pre-med tried to kill me for giving them their grade for four weeks and counting now. I have gotten used to making up a plan of attack before each section and prodding students to respond during discussion section. TAing, I think, is strangely rewarding. Or at least strangely involving and I feel like I'm being sucked into it because I catch myself making lesson plans at the most random moments. I think I'm learning as much from this as my students. Admittedly in my case this would've been a lot easier if a) we are not dealing with a professor who's teaching for the first time (some days I feel like I'm re-teaching half of the lecture) and b) I'm not also taking two classes (about 4 papers to read and 1 homework assignment per week) and working full time in a lab on top of that. Speaking of which...
Oh God. Two hours. I need to finish making the lesson plan.
No thank you.
(By the way, by "not enough energy" I meant I tripped and fell getting dressed in the morning and nearly fell asleep on the bus in the evening, missing my bus stop and making it necessary to walk back in the rain.) (Speaking of which, what is with this whether? It's nearly May in Southern California and I'm still wearing sweaters.)
Next week will be equally gruesome, since TAing means that I have to help put together the midterm, take the midterm (timing myself so the teacher'd know how long the exam takes and adjust according as well as figure out which problems are just not working out), grade the midterm (we are doing one TA per problem and have to do a long grading session all together, approximating six hours), on top of running a two-hour review session (with another TA so I'm not totally by myself the entire time, thank God) and grading another problem set. At least I don't have to stay past 6:30pm on any given day, I think.
Wendy's baby came home on Tuesday, so now she's mostly gone from lab. The baby's fine, though apparently he does this thing where if he eats too fast he'll stop breathing. Supposedly (according to the doctor) this is normal. And you can restart his breathing by rubbing his back.
I just think it sounds scary as hell.
No pre-med tried to kill me for giving them their grade for four weeks and counting now. I have gotten used to making up a plan of attack before each section and prodding students to respond during discussion section. TAing, I think, is strangely rewarding. Or at least strangely involving and I feel like I'm being sucked into it because I catch myself making lesson plans at the most random moments. I think I'm learning as much from this as my students. Admittedly in my case this would've been a lot easier if a) we are not dealing with a professor who's teaching for the first time (some days I feel like I'm re-teaching half of the lecture) and b) I'm not also taking two classes (about 4 papers to read and 1 homework assignment per week) and working full time in a lab on top of that. Speaking of which...
Oh God. Two hours. I need to finish making the lesson plan.
20100421
Earth Day?
In honor of which I'll show up briefly to link everyone who hasn't seen it to the great octopus thief!. (As in an octopus who steals, not as in someone who stole an octopus.) Cheers.
20100419
Not cool. NOT COOL at all.
Came into lab at 8ish this morning and discovered that my wireless internet was not working. Subsequent checks told me the LAN connection's up, I can connect to other non-protected networks, and that other people can connect to the protected networks just fine. (This is discovered, of course, in the 5 minute interval between my experiment.) It finally came about that the certificate for authentication, which was not supposed to expire until October, expired/got corrupted and so I had to went through the whole setup/config part again. (Not cool.)
What with the actual experiments I have to get done this morning, I finally got internet just at 10:25am. Then the PI came out to talk (well mostly to wonder where Wendy is and for that I can't help), and I think I mentioned this, but he's such a dork. Lucy, you'd love him. He just made a reference about book1 of HP and how Hermione was saying (in the scene of Logic with all of Snape's potions) how a lot of wizards are very bad at logic and how that's like people taking genetics for the first time-- a lot of smart people just can't do it, since a lot of the genetics problem is very logic based (well more of the analysis part than the molecular part).
What with the actual experiments I have to get done this morning, I finally got internet just at 10:25am. Then the PI came out to talk (well mostly to wonder where Wendy is and for that I can't help), and I think I mentioned this, but he's such a dork. Lucy, you'd love him. He just made a reference about book1 of HP and how Hermione was saying (in the scene of Logic with all of Snape's potions) how a lot of wizards are very bad at logic and how that's like people taking genetics for the first time-- a lot of smart people just can't do it, since a lot of the genetics problem is very logic based (well more of the analysis part than the molecular part).
20100416
Meme
Taken from Lucy over at lj, who gave me the color green. So now, in no particular order, I name:
1. mint / mint flavored things
2. glow in the dark things, preferably the non-radioactive kind
3. green...tea (though I like the green tea variety that isn't actually green when brewed as well...)
4. plants
5. environmentalism, or should I say nature-friendly things? Either way, go green!
6. cucumber / cucumber scent (cucumber / watermelon = summer & childhood)
7. jade (I can't really explain it, except point toward my heritage, maybe)
8. the color green (heh almost forgot)
9. hummingbirds, and around here they're usually green (they are awesome; how many birds do you know can hover in midair?)
10. the ocean, when the sun's at a certain angle and it's partially cloudy. I can spend HOURS staring at it when it's that color but I never have the time.
1. mint / mint flavored things
2. glow in the dark things, preferably the non-radioactive kind
3. green...tea (though I like the green tea variety that isn't actually green when brewed as well...)
4. plants
5. environmentalism, or should I say nature-friendly things? Either way, go green!
6. cucumber / cucumber scent (cucumber / watermelon = summer & childhood)
7. jade (I can't really explain it, except point toward my heritage, maybe)
8. the color green (heh almost forgot)
9. hummingbirds, and around here they're usually green (they are awesome; how many birds do you know can hover in midair?)
10. the ocean, when the sun's at a certain angle and it's partially cloudy. I can spend HOURS staring at it when it's that color but I never have the time.
20100415
Bleh
It's 11:30 in the morning. I am exhausted. I am covered in chalk. And I have just spent about half an hour emailing people because of students who have turned in their problem sets to the wrong section.
Meanwhile, have a zebrafish development video:
It's over 24 hours. (Isn't it cool?) For those of you who vaguely remember my dissertation, the vestibular system develops in zebrafish at 20 hours.
Meanwhile, have a zebrafish development video:
It's over 24 hours. (Isn't it cool?) For those of you who vaguely remember my dissertation, the vestibular system develops in zebrafish at 20 hours.
20100412
This is why I try to take the earlier bus
Today a completely strange guy managed to get his hands around my throat. To be sure he wasn't trying to harm me. He was trying to show me how to defend myself, despite of my pointed disinterest and gradual progress in ignoring/edging away. In fact he was trying to get me to grab his head, which I declined to participate, leading to him grabbing my wrists and putting my hands on his head, which surprised me enough that he went ahead with the demo in "how to escape choke-hold". He let go immediately when I pushed at his hand though, so all in all it was fairly harmless in my scale of Things That Happen During Public Transit, and no one had to get kneed anywhere painful (well he was standing that close and I kind of strongly dislike strange people touching me).
The main reason that I'm making a post about it though, is that the post-doc from my lab was passing by and came to my rescue. (All six foot something of him, I was duly impressed.) I believe this is the first time someone "rescued" me from anything (unless you count my mom's various attempts, successful and not, to rescue me from my various mishaps as a child).
I still haven't figured out how I feel about it though. It's somewhere between amusement, embarrassment, gratitude, and bafflement.
The upshot of it all was the guy thought I was a boy (for which I am grateful -- it's ALWAYS worse when they know you're a girl), which the post-doc, by claiming "She's not interested", sort of let slip. Oh well.
The main reason that I'm making a post about it though, is that the post-doc from my lab was passing by and came to my rescue. (All six foot something of him, I was duly impressed.) I believe this is the first time someone "rescued" me from anything (unless you count my mom's various attempts, successful and not, to rescue me from my various mishaps as a child).
I still haven't figured out how I feel about it though. It's somewhere between amusement, embarrassment, gratitude, and bafflement.
The upshot of it all was the guy thought I was a boy (for which I am grateful -- it's ALWAYS worse when they know you're a girl), which the post-doc, by claiming "She's not interested", sort of let slip. Oh well.
20100411
...
Dear Diary,
This has been an exhausting week. I hope the rest of spring quarter is not like this one or I may not live to see June. I think I'll go to bed now, on the account of a) exhaustion and b) hoping that next week may arrive sooner this way. Hope springs eternal, after all.
Sincerely,
S
This has been an exhausting week. I hope the rest of spring quarter is not like this one or I may not live to see June. I think I'll go to bed now, on the account of a) exhaustion and b) hoping that next week may arrive sooner this way. Hope springs eternal, after all.
Sincerely,
S
Animal rights, you're doing it wrong
Recently I've received this sort of email:
...etc etc.
One of the things that always bothered me, in terms of logic, is how those people can think that hurting people is okay in order to make a point about hurting animals. I mean, aren't humans, Home sapiens sapiens, a species of animal? Or was there some sort of recent groundbreaking anthropological discovery that I'd completely missed? So how can they justifying hurting one species to make a point about hurting other species? Or does our species get ignored? (Isn't that specie-ist? Which is not a word?) Is it because we have the ability to take care or hurt other species? Are all animal right activists vegetarians? If they are not, does that mean the doing research on chick and fish is okay because they're species that we'd eat? What do those people do when they have pest infestation at their home? Oh wait, that brings me to...
...point B. How some of them really, really need to review the tree of life (I'm going to take a big leap of faith and assume that not all of them are allergic to the concept of evolution). Humans are classified under kingdom Animalia. So are mice, chicken, cows and such, but also fish, flies, lamprey and worms. Do they pick what species they are willing to consider animals based on cuteness? That's unfair. Those animals didn't choose to look the way they do. (Besides, if they could comprehend that "cute" meant they'd probably think the human standards are pretty stupid.) (Just a statement of fact: different species have different criteria on what's attractive. Blue-footed boobies, for instance, view brightly colored foot as the epitome of beauty.)
Finally, the part that always makes me wince: what some of those people try to do to "free" the animals. We hear stories about it after some of the people have been apprehended by the police, and after Finding Nemo I live in horror that some people might think flushing fish down the toilet is an excellent & simple way to set the poor fish free. (It isn't.) Oh and then there are the people who set lab mice free by releasing them in a nearby park or something. On the whole lab animals tend to be very strange and inbred. They are raised in a sterile environment (seriously, my mice are cleaner than I am, considering that I brave the public transit twice a day -- we're all required to gown-up like we're entering the OR to enter our vivarium), they are fed and watered daily and has never had any needs to fend for themselves. A lot of them have traits, not even taking into account the mutant animals, that make them unsuited for living in the wild. (White mice don't blend particular well on anything but snow, and if it's snow then the mice won't make it anyway since they have too much bare skin exposed, they need to be in partial hibernation or something for heat and energy conservation.) My mice get their cages checked for cleanliness twice a week, are fed a diet that's probably more balanced than what most of my classmates eat on a monthly basis, and believe their world is a rectangular box where the wind comes from the dark side of the cage and food and water comes from the sky (the holder is located at the top of the cage). Putting them into the wild is akin to sentencing them to death. Release the chicks? We have coyotes around here. They aren't going to make it very long.
The last line that I should mention is that, given the big hubbub that always happens whenever some medical trial fall through in a bad way and people end up either sick or dead, is it really a good idea to drop out the only link we have between cell culture trials and human trials? Everyone I know who works with animals hates the part where we have to sacrifice the animals, but we do it because it's necessary. For instance, we really do need to know if the animal is getting sicker because a drug has managed to leak across the blood brain barrier into the brain when it's not supposed to, or if the animal's getting sicker just because it's old and old animals tend to develop all kinds of diseases (in mice it goes very similar to the way it goes in humans). And no, we can't wait until the animal's died. First of all, the fact that the animal is sick and we can't cure it (because we don't know what's wrong) means that by letting it live, we are prolonging it's agony. Second of all, diffusion (for a lack of a better word) occurs very rapidly within the body. Depending on the drug, the half life may only be an hour (prolonging half-life is a part of biomed research though), and for some of them, they will only go to certain parts of the body when they're at a critical dosage. The brain starts to decompose the moment the circulation stops. At thirty minutes it's reduced to mush (yeah my dissections are always fun) (yes I'm being sarcastic). There is no system where an animal is monitored 24/7 by people that would allow us to collect an animal the instant its heart stopped beating etc etc. And this is just to list a fairly simple example with very few difficulties.
Seriously, people.
TO FACULTY AND STAFF
This notice is to advise you of the upcoming World Laboratory Animal Liberation Week from April 17-April 26, 2010.
We want to remind you to be especially mindful of security during these 10 days. Within the past several years there have been several instances of university research laboratories in California broken into by animal rights extremists. The activists not only destroyed valuable research data, computers and laboratory equipment, but also stole information including researchers’ home addresses, phone numbers and names of spouses. This information was later utilized to send threatening letters, deface personal residences, and instill fear amongst research staff and their families.
Several years ago, we have received several bomb threats directed at animal research labs on campus. This resulted in the evacuation of several campus buildings and ultimately led to the discovery of a fake bomb device and subsequent arrest of those responsible. In addition, a number of attacks at personal residences of some of the faculty and staff have been investigated.
We ask you to follow correct security procedures and measures at all times but especially now – please read and follow these tips:
...etc etc.
One of the things that always bothered me, in terms of logic, is how those people can think that hurting people is okay in order to make a point about hurting animals. I mean, aren't humans, Home sapiens sapiens, a species of animal? Or was there some sort of recent groundbreaking anthropological discovery that I'd completely missed? So how can they justifying hurting one species to make a point about hurting other species? Or does our species get ignored? (Isn't that specie-ist? Which is not a word?) Is it because we have the ability to take care or hurt other species? Are all animal right activists vegetarians? If they are not, does that mean the doing research on chick and fish is okay because they're species that we'd eat? What do those people do when they have pest infestation at their home? Oh wait, that brings me to...
...point B. How some of them really, really need to review the tree of life (I'm going to take a big leap of faith and assume that not all of them are allergic to the concept of evolution). Humans are classified under kingdom Animalia. So are mice, chicken, cows and such, but also fish, flies, lamprey and worms. Do they pick what species they are willing to consider animals based on cuteness? That's unfair. Those animals didn't choose to look the way they do. (Besides, if they could comprehend that "cute" meant they'd probably think the human standards are pretty stupid.) (Just a statement of fact: different species have different criteria on what's attractive. Blue-footed boobies, for instance, view brightly colored foot as the epitome of beauty.)
Finally, the part that always makes me wince: what some of those people try to do to "free" the animals. We hear stories about it after some of the people have been apprehended by the police, and after Finding Nemo I live in horror that some people might think flushing fish down the toilet is an excellent & simple way to set the poor fish free. (It isn't.) Oh and then there are the people who set lab mice free by releasing them in a nearby park or something. On the whole lab animals tend to be very strange and inbred. They are raised in a sterile environment (seriously, my mice are cleaner than I am, considering that I brave the public transit twice a day -- we're all required to gown-up like we're entering the OR to enter our vivarium), they are fed and watered daily and has never had any needs to fend for themselves. A lot of them have traits, not even taking into account the mutant animals, that make them unsuited for living in the wild. (White mice don't blend particular well on anything but snow, and if it's snow then the mice won't make it anyway since they have too much bare skin exposed, they need to be in partial hibernation or something for heat and energy conservation.) My mice get their cages checked for cleanliness twice a week, are fed a diet that's probably more balanced than what most of my classmates eat on a monthly basis, and believe their world is a rectangular box where the wind comes from the dark side of the cage and food and water comes from the sky (the holder is located at the top of the cage). Putting them into the wild is akin to sentencing them to death. Release the chicks? We have coyotes around here. They aren't going to make it very long.
The last line that I should mention is that, given the big hubbub that always happens whenever some medical trial fall through in a bad way and people end up either sick or dead, is it really a good idea to drop out the only link we have between cell culture trials and human trials? Everyone I know who works with animals hates the part where we have to sacrifice the animals, but we do it because it's necessary. For instance, we really do need to know if the animal is getting sicker because a drug has managed to leak across the blood brain barrier into the brain when it's not supposed to, or if the animal's getting sicker just because it's old and old animals tend to develop all kinds of diseases (in mice it goes very similar to the way it goes in humans). And no, we can't wait until the animal's died. First of all, the fact that the animal is sick and we can't cure it (because we don't know what's wrong) means that by letting it live, we are prolonging it's agony. Second of all, diffusion (for a lack of a better word) occurs very rapidly within the body. Depending on the drug, the half life may only be an hour (prolonging half-life is a part of biomed research though), and for some of them, they will only go to certain parts of the body when they're at a critical dosage. The brain starts to decompose the moment the circulation stops. At thirty minutes it's reduced to mush (yeah my dissections are always fun) (yes I'm being sarcastic). There is no system where an animal is monitored 24/7 by people that would allow us to collect an animal the instant its heart stopped beating etc etc. And this is just to list a fairly simple example with very few difficulties.
Seriously, people.
20100410
In no particular order
My PI is ordering modified mouse stem cells for me. From Europe. (And the consortium's name sounds like "Yukon", leading to the scenario where I was laughing about Yukon mice and confusing my poor PI, who didn't understand what was so funny about mice.) So I can make a mouse. (Okay so the stem cell core will be doing most of the work -- I mostly just cross and genotype the mice, but even so....) This is not sci-fi folks, this is my life.
He saw fit to forward me parts of the paperwork (yeah stem cells across borders can be difficult), which I don't exactly appreciate, but maybe it makes him feel better to have someone to complain to so I'm not going to say anything.
--------
The aftershocks are still going on, I've counted, so far, Monday night, Tuesday night, Thursday morning, and Friday night. There may have been more that I missed. I hope they'll be done at some point because I need my sleep.
-------
While grocery shopping just now, two girls came out of the grocery store chatting just as I was finished refilling my gallon-sized water bottle from the machine located next to the store's entrance. They stopped upon seeing what I was doing and gaped. The conversation between them went along the lines of:
"Wait what's that?"
"Whoa it's water."
"It's water?!"
"It's water! Sick!"
These two are within five years of my age and they look like they are from this area, so I'm not entirely sure how it's possible that they never noticed the (giant, gurgling, frequently used) water refill station outside of the doors to most grocery shops before today. But yes, water bottles can be refilled! And recycled too, did you know?
I left before I started laughing.
----------------------------
There was something using the classroom before my section. As a result I was waiting outside of the door with the students before class started and the look on their faces when they realized that I was the TA was...well, no one has ever made quite that expression at me before, that's for sure.
-------------------------------
In conclusion: long week. Have to be in lab both days this weekend and again next weekend. I can only hope that at some point I'll have the weekend off again. That'll be nice.
He saw fit to forward me parts of the paperwork (yeah stem cells across borders can be difficult), which I don't exactly appreciate, but maybe it makes him feel better to have someone to complain to so I'm not going to say anything.
--------
The aftershocks are still going on, I've counted, so far, Monday night, Tuesday night, Thursday morning, and Friday night. There may have been more that I missed. I hope they'll be done at some point because I need my sleep.
-------
While grocery shopping just now, two girls came out of the grocery store chatting just as I was finished refilling my gallon-sized water bottle from the machine located next to the store's entrance. They stopped upon seeing what I was doing and gaped. The conversation between them went along the lines of:
"Wait what's that?"
"Whoa it's water."
"It's water?!"
"It's water! Sick!"
These two are within five years of my age and they look like they are from this area, so I'm not entirely sure how it's possible that they never noticed the (giant, gurgling, frequently used) water refill station outside of the doors to most grocery shops before today. But yes, water bottles can be refilled! And recycled too, did you know?
I left before I started laughing.
----------------------------
There was something using the classroom before my section. As a result I was waiting outside of the door with the students before class started and the look on their faces when they realized that I was the TA was...well, no one has ever made quite that expression at me before, that's for sure.
-------------------------------
In conclusion: long week. Have to be in lab both days this weekend and again next weekend. I can only hope that at some point I'll have the weekend off again. That'll be nice.
Long post, or, hold on to your hats, m'dear
Remember back when I used to warn people about things before springing them on them? I know I do that considerably less nowadays, for a variety of reasons. Well, consider this your warning. This post will be long. It might make you uncomfortable / give you information you'd rather not know. You are advised to pause in your consumption of food and beverage at the risk of choking, etc.
Ready? (Okay, now my own level of anxiety has just gone from zero to sixty. Wonderful. Breathe. I can do this.)
So today I'm going to make a post about my sexual orientation, to put an end to the pondering and guessing and what-have-you for one thing, and because I want my friends, most of whom follow this on a semi-regular basis, to know.
That means that yes, I'm not really heterosexual. Strictly speaking I am asexual, though I am capable of having romantic feelings toward either gender. I have had a crush on a guy. I have had a crush on a girl. They are similar feelings and it is definitely a crush, and a very junior high girl sort of crush at that. It is, frankly, a little painful, a lot embarrassing, but also kind of fun. (It's really something to feel like your day has just improved, all because someone smiled at you.) (Yeah, I've said: crush. Believe me now?)
For those of you who have known me for a while this might not have been a surprise, given that I have asked at least some of you to explain to me, at one point or another, what a crush is, what constitutes a romantic relationship, and showed an appalling lack of comprehension at what "hot" and "sexy" really means when describing someone physically. (Pretty, beautiful and handsome I get: I have had art classes and am well familiar with the standards of beauty and how it's dependent on culture and society. "Sexy", though...do people really look at other random people and think about whether or not they'd have sex with that person?) For those of you who consider that I might just be a "late-bloomer" I'd like to acknowledge that yes, that is a possibility and I've considered it. I did reach puberty slightly later than the average girl. I did also have my first crush much later than the average girl. That is why I have waited two years to see if anything, in terms of my romantic interest and understanding towards others, would change at all. They didn't, and so, here I am.
This is, however, not the exactly two year anniversary of the day when I pieced all the clues together and thought "oh my God, you must be kidding me". Today is the day when I finally got the clean bill of health back from both the doctor (okay, a nurse practitioner; it's close) and the psychologist. I am considered normal in the professional opinion of both, which I find, against all logic, to be a sort of relief. I know sexual orientation variation is not a disease, though abnormal hormone &c can affect it. I have always believed that I am (give and take a few issues that I know about and am working on -- both doctors agree that I have excellent self-awareness) normal. Still, no one ever grows out of their insecurities, and I'm no exception. Sometimes, alone in the dark and pondering over the things that I've messed up that other people seem to do effortlessly, I do also have my moments of "what is wrong with me?". No matter back in the corner of my mind it is, it's good to be able to put that insidious fear to rest.
Which brings me now to my main point of concern: my parents. I plan to tell my parents. It's the right thing to do. They will have to know at some point (my mom simply because she is my mom) and now that I'm actually emotionally prepared to date, I am not going to be discriminating between the genders and so it seems only fair that they be prepared for that. I plan to tell them on my birthday, since they often try to be nicer to me on my birthdays. (Also, so I can have the time to find more information, such as pamphlets about sexual orientation our mother tongue so they can actually see it's not just their only child going mad. AND, in addition, to give myself enough time to get enough of the freaking-out out of my system so that I no longer feel like throwing up every time I imagine the scenario.) I'm not sure how it will turn out, since although they are decent people and my mom is much more open-minded than my dad, they, as a byproduct of how they are raised and what they have gone through, have a fairly traditional set of values. I am not going to get disowned. That doesn't mean that things won't get ugly. I don't know how long it will take them to come to terms with this or how comfortable they'll be able to be. I do know that traditional values, in their case, means that the first things they'll wonder is whether or not I'll should go see a doctor or a psychologist. That's the main reason why I went to see both, even braving my instinctive suspicion toward psychologists (my first time with one ever! Whee). I have started to make my opening moves. I don't dare hope for a checkmate. I don't WANT to checkmate if heavy casualty is needed to get there. I will play my game to the end though, and see this through.
In summary, the timeline went something like this:
1. Concern about sexual identity.
2. Research about sexual identity. (Go to this site if you're still curious about that asexual means. Reading the comments of the people there is one of the first things that cued me that I'm on the right track. I can identify with them.)
3. Concern about possibility of developmental delay, wait two years.
4. Confirmation of sexual identity.
5. Pondering dating. Decides that dating could be good.
6. Resolve to share information about this to friends and family.
7. Waffles, freak out, repeat.
8. Braces self and went to see doctor and psychologist.
9. Share with friends online.
I could've emailed, I suppose, but then I know I'd fret over who to tell and who not to tell &c and then I'd have to worry about the issue of obligation. Most people that I consider a friend has this url. My disclaimer is this: unlike email, if this is making you uncomfortable and want to pretend that you've never read this, I will honor your wishes and never bring up anything about this or whom I'm dating unless you bring it up. It's not hard. I'm a fairly reserved person by nature, as most of you know. I will post the next few days so this post gets snowed under and remove this post in a week from today. I don't keep track of who checks this blog or how often. If I emailed however, I do know who should've received the email. What's worse: you'd know I know. I feel like it might make you feel like you are obliged to respond. You aren't. I am providing the information. You are not obliged to deal with it if you don't want to.
I could've called, too, which would've raised the same concern as email. In addition, calling people up and going "Hey, guess what..." ? No. Just...no.
I do think most of you are going to be okay with this eventually though. A good portion of you are probably going "WTF" right now (I did warn you, choking hazard and everything), which I can totally sympathize with given that I went through my own WTF stage about two years ago. But I do know how lucky I am to have the friends that I do, and believe me when I tell you this:
This entire ordeal? Scary. All of it. There's a lot of self-incrimination, self-pity, and self-doubt at one point or another. I've lost sleep over it at some point in the beginning. I've freaked out. Cried. I gave myself a mild panic attack while waiting for the doctor and when the psychologist (after we figured out that the only help I really need from her is some advise on how to deal with my parents) asked me to imagine and describe the worst case scenario in coming out to my parents -- it would've been so easy to break down right then. (The scenario may be imagined but the pain is very real. My parents will always have the most power in hurting me and making me hurt myself, simply because they are my parents and I love them.) ...so whenever I imagine the scenario, as I've mentioned, the bottom drops out of my stomach. Last time I did that (yesterday), I couldn't finish my lunch. (I did end up drinking a lot of tea, though.)
However, I am typing this out now to let you guys know. I'm currently deeply anxious and feeling a little shaky, but I finished my dinner and had three of those little prune-plum hybrid things afterwards. My faith on this front is not something I would've expected, or had, back in high school. For that, no matter what the fall out in the next few months will be, I will always be grateful.
Oh and just so you know, despite of the fact that I am comfortable enough with this aspect of myself to write a post on the internet, I'm not at that point where I'm okay with people teasing me about it yet, however well meaning they may be. At a word, I'm twitchy. Partly because okay, I'm nervous, and partly because I've come to the realization within the past six month (well since I've started working full time in a lab, so I guess that's almost a year now) that I'm going to have to foray into the world of internet dating if I do want to date. This is based on the fact that I don't go to bars or go out like my classmates do in their little groups, and I'm not going to venture out by myself, after dark, and that I don't have the time to try anything else. The people I meet daily are...well...there're very good rules about dating people you have to work with, and most of the people I can be interested in are in a long-term relationship, anyway. (On the plus side, I'm much more adept at fending for myself online than in real life, and this way I'm planning to set up a systematic approach so that I can even be scientific and compare across dating sites and gender in terms of response and overall experience.) (I won't graph it though, I'm strange, but not that strange.)
How's that for mind-blowing? Hopefully I haven't made anyone's brain hemorrhage, or anything equally horrific. Again, I did warn you all, but if you're reading this then you've made it through this entire monster of a post. Thank you kindly for your time and attention. This took me hours. I am exhausted. I will try to sleep now.
fin
P.S. I'll take any questions now.
Ready? (Okay, now my own level of anxiety has just gone from zero to sixty. Wonderful. Breathe. I can do this.)
So today I'm going to make a post about my sexual orientation, to put an end to the pondering and guessing and what-have-you for one thing, and because I want my friends, most of whom follow this on a semi-regular basis, to know.
That means that yes, I'm not really heterosexual. Strictly speaking I am asexual, though I am capable of having romantic feelings toward either gender. I have had a crush on a guy. I have had a crush on a girl. They are similar feelings and it is definitely a crush, and a very junior high girl sort of crush at that. It is, frankly, a little painful, a lot embarrassing, but also kind of fun. (It's really something to feel like your day has just improved, all because someone smiled at you.) (Yeah, I've said: crush. Believe me now?)
For those of you who have known me for a while this might not have been a surprise, given that I have asked at least some of you to explain to me, at one point or another, what a crush is, what constitutes a romantic relationship, and showed an appalling lack of comprehension at what "hot" and "sexy" really means when describing someone physically. (Pretty, beautiful and handsome I get: I have had art classes and am well familiar with the standards of beauty and how it's dependent on culture and society. "Sexy", though...do people really look at other random people and think about whether or not they'd have sex with that person?) For those of you who consider that I might just be a "late-bloomer" I'd like to acknowledge that yes, that is a possibility and I've considered it. I did reach puberty slightly later than the average girl. I did also have my first crush much later than the average girl. That is why I have waited two years to see if anything, in terms of my romantic interest and understanding towards others, would change at all. They didn't, and so, here I am.
This is, however, not the exactly two year anniversary of the day when I pieced all the clues together and thought "oh my God, you must be kidding me". Today is the day when I finally got the clean bill of health back from both the doctor (okay, a nurse practitioner; it's close) and the psychologist. I am considered normal in the professional opinion of both, which I find, against all logic, to be a sort of relief. I know sexual orientation variation is not a disease, though abnormal hormone &c can affect it. I have always believed that I am (give and take a few issues that I know about and am working on -- both doctors agree that I have excellent self-awareness) normal. Still, no one ever grows out of their insecurities, and I'm no exception. Sometimes, alone in the dark and pondering over the things that I've messed up that other people seem to do effortlessly, I do also have my moments of "what is wrong with me?". No matter back in the corner of my mind it is, it's good to be able to put that insidious fear to rest.
Which brings me now to my main point of concern: my parents. I plan to tell my parents. It's the right thing to do. They will have to know at some point (my mom simply because she is my mom) and now that I'm actually emotionally prepared to date, I am not going to be discriminating between the genders and so it seems only fair that they be prepared for that. I plan to tell them on my birthday, since they often try to be nicer to me on my birthdays. (Also, so I can have the time to find more information, such as pamphlets about sexual orientation our mother tongue so they can actually see it's not just their only child going mad. AND, in addition, to give myself enough time to get enough of the freaking-out out of my system so that I no longer feel like throwing up every time I imagine the scenario.) I'm not sure how it will turn out, since although they are decent people and my mom is much more open-minded than my dad, they, as a byproduct of how they are raised and what they have gone through, have a fairly traditional set of values. I am not going to get disowned. That doesn't mean that things won't get ugly. I don't know how long it will take them to come to terms with this or how comfortable they'll be able to be. I do know that traditional values, in their case, means that the first things they'll wonder is whether or not I'll should go see a doctor or a psychologist. That's the main reason why I went to see both, even braving my instinctive suspicion toward psychologists (my first time with one ever! Whee). I have started to make my opening moves. I don't dare hope for a checkmate. I don't WANT to checkmate if heavy casualty is needed to get there. I will play my game to the end though, and see this through.
In summary, the timeline went something like this:
1. Concern about sexual identity.
2. Research about sexual identity. (Go to this site if you're still curious about that asexual means. Reading the comments of the people there is one of the first things that cued me that I'm on the right track. I can identify with them.)
3. Concern about possibility of developmental delay, wait two years.
4. Confirmation of sexual identity.
5. Pondering dating. Decides that dating could be good.
6. Resolve to share information about this to friends and family.
7. Waffles, freak out, repeat.
8. Braces self and went to see doctor and psychologist.
9. Share with friends online.
I could've emailed, I suppose, but then I know I'd fret over who to tell and who not to tell &c and then I'd have to worry about the issue of obligation. Most people that I consider a friend has this url. My disclaimer is this: unlike email, if this is making you uncomfortable and want to pretend that you've never read this, I will honor your wishes and never bring up anything about this or whom I'm dating unless you bring it up. It's not hard. I'm a fairly reserved person by nature, as most of you know. I will post the next few days so this post gets snowed under and remove this post in a week from today. I don't keep track of who checks this blog or how often. If I emailed however, I do know who should've received the email. What's worse: you'd know I know. I feel like it might make you feel like you are obliged to respond. You aren't. I am providing the information. You are not obliged to deal with it if you don't want to.
I could've called, too, which would've raised the same concern as email. In addition, calling people up and going "Hey, guess what..." ? No. Just...no.
I do think most of you are going to be okay with this eventually though. A good portion of you are probably going "WTF" right now (I did warn you, choking hazard and everything), which I can totally sympathize with given that I went through my own WTF stage about two years ago. But I do know how lucky I am to have the friends that I do, and believe me when I tell you this:
This entire ordeal? Scary. All of it. There's a lot of self-incrimination, self-pity, and self-doubt at one point or another. I've lost sleep over it at some point in the beginning. I've freaked out. Cried. I gave myself a mild panic attack while waiting for the doctor and when the psychologist (after we figured out that the only help I really need from her is some advise on how to deal with my parents) asked me to imagine and describe the worst case scenario in coming out to my parents -- it would've been so easy to break down right then. (The scenario may be imagined but the pain is very real. My parents will always have the most power in hurting me and making me hurt myself, simply because they are my parents and I love them.) ...so whenever I imagine the scenario, as I've mentioned, the bottom drops out of my stomach. Last time I did that (yesterday), I couldn't finish my lunch. (I did end up drinking a lot of tea, though.)
However, I am typing this out now to let you guys know. I'm currently deeply anxious and feeling a little shaky, but I finished my dinner and had three of those little prune-plum hybrid things afterwards. My faith on this front is not something I would've expected, or had, back in high school. For that, no matter what the fall out in the next few months will be, I will always be grateful.
Oh and just so you know, despite of the fact that I am comfortable enough with this aspect of myself to write a post on the internet, I'm not at that point where I'm okay with people teasing me about it yet, however well meaning they may be. At a word, I'm twitchy. Partly because okay, I'm nervous, and partly because I've come to the realization within the past six month (well since I've started working full time in a lab, so I guess that's almost a year now) that I'm going to have to foray into the world of internet dating if I do want to date. This is based on the fact that I don't go to bars or go out like my classmates do in their little groups, and I'm not going to venture out by myself, after dark, and that I don't have the time to try anything else. The people I meet daily are...well...there're very good rules about dating people you have to work with, and most of the people I can be interested in are in a long-term relationship, anyway. (On the plus side, I'm much more adept at fending for myself online than in real life, and this way I'm planning to set up a systematic approach so that I can even be scientific and compare across dating sites and gender in terms of response and overall experience.) (I won't graph it though, I'm strange, but not that strange.)
How's that for mind-blowing? Hopefully I haven't made anyone's brain hemorrhage, or anything equally horrific. Again, I did warn you all, but if you're reading this then you've made it through this entire monster of a post. Thank you kindly for your time and attention. This took me hours. I am exhausted. I will try to sleep now.
fin
P.S. I'll take any questions now.
20100405
FYI: continued
2nd aftershock around 4:30am this morning. Third at around 6am-ish. As that Monday and Friday are the only two days when I DON'T have to wake up at 6am this is currently making me cranky. (And yes they are getting weaker.)
20100404
FYI
Was just in an earthquake. Seems large enough that there will be aftershock. Phone line too busy to reach anyone right now, but I'm okay and the apartment's still standing. Don't worry.
[edit 15:55]
M6.9 origin in Baja. Lucy, did you feel it where you were / are you okay? (I know you're pretty far. Indulge my paranoia.)
[edit 16:07]
Am now following #earthquake site:twitter.com under Google. And being amused. People are strange. Have just received call from Lucy, we're both okay (it's pretty weak where she was).
[edit 16:24]
Okay, got aftershock #1.
[edit 15:55]
M6.9 origin in Baja. Lucy, did you feel it where you were / are you okay? (I know you're pretty far. Indulge my paranoia.)
[edit 16:07]
Am now following #earthquake site:twitter.com under Google. And being amused. People are strange. Have just received call from Lucy, we're both okay (it's pretty weak where she was).
[edit 16:24]
Okay, got aftershock #1.
20100403
The extended week
TAing makes me feel like an undergrad again, because the first few days of class means looking up classroom locations and searching for books. Well, there's the addition of booking in hours and room for discussion sections and office hours that's definitely new but, in conclusion: lots of running around and paperwork this week. After the first two days I've reached the conclusion that I seemed to have been going about things backwards.
Take example A, picking up the books: I was emailed by the professor to go to a certain place on Monday to pick up the texts needed for the course. So I went and I did, despite of some minor confusion in which the people thought the books were there and the computer system didn't. A few hours later, I received an email from the system announcing that my books are ready. Shortly after that, another email from the TA coordinator informing us of a new computer system that we need to get through to pick up books.
Or there's example B, booking a room: I needed to book a room before Wednesday, for reasons that don't need to be explored at this juncture. So I did, using the school of med system that I had access to, and then I emailed my room and reserved time to the professor, as she had requested. Shortly after that she asked me to send an email to all the TAs in our course with instructions on how to book a room, since she had no idea how it's done. I did that, explaining I used the school of med system, which didn't require login, so maybe all university affiliates can use it and if that fails, each department also has their own reservation system they can try out. A few hours after that, I got an email from the TA coordinator instructing us how to book rooms. No one cared that I already booked a room or how I did it, which was a relief. I am not inclined to switch over to the other system either, because 1) ALL the bio sci TAs has to go through that system, so time slots are under heavy competition, probably and 2) more paperwork, which I did not need.
At this point I may have said something to Wendy along the lines of, "I think I'm doing everything backwards. Why am I doing everything backwards?"
(Am I strange, sir? A crab, sir?)
We got some classic papers in genetics, which was a definite eye-opener, since these are genetics papers before they had the tools for genetics (think 1940s), which meant that they made a lot of assumptions (that they had no way of testing out the validity of) and math models (which are complicated enough that some took others ten years to solve afterwards). Mike might've liked it. I didn't. I spent a lot of time squinting at various equations and wondering how they got their ratios of Greek letters from the fact that the mean equaled the variance in a Poisson distribution. There must be some derivation involved, right? Right? (If anyone's curious, one of the papers is the famous Luria & Delbruck fluctuation test. Yes, that Luria and that Delbruck.) (Huh, I just found out that it's famous enough that Wikipedia has an entry on it. Without the scary equations, even.)
Someone in my lab got an advertisement from a very well-known chemicals / lab equipment company this week promoting the sale of "lithium salt bugger". I was asked if "bugger" is an actual word and, thinking back to my knowledge of the UK vocabulary (and Mr. Rushton, I might add), I hedged "...not really", and suggested that maybe it's a very grave typo. Upon the blank looks, I explained that it'd make more sense if the ad had read "lithium salt buffer". Then my labmate and I spent some time contemplating whether or not we ought to email back this nice & prestigious company and let them know that they'd been trying to sell "buggers". (There's always the possibility that it's a nod to ENDER'S GAME or something, I suppose. Is there a special anniversary date this week?)
(Beta. It's called a beta.)
Yesterday there was a very angry lady on the bus who called someone who had answered "a Texan" when asked where she'd come from "a disgrace to their heritage" and "stupid, this is why everyone thinks Texas is stupid, because you are". I mean geez, lady, who died? Yes, the effects of the Manifest Destiny wiped out countless Native Americans (she was white, by the way) and that most Americans have some sort of European ancestry, but that is still no reason to explode like that. Careful now, because you come across a bit mad and people might take exception to that, like you did to that poor person on the bus.
I thought I slept until 9am today only to open my eyes and discover it's 7:30am. Such is the effect of getting used to getting up at 6am. I have a four hour TA training session later and stuff I need to do in lab, so this week's not over for me, yet!
Take example A, picking up the books: I was emailed by the professor to go to a certain place on Monday to pick up the texts needed for the course. So I went and I did, despite of some minor confusion in which the people thought the books were there and the computer system didn't. A few hours later, I received an email from the system announcing that my books are ready. Shortly after that, another email from the TA coordinator informing us of a new computer system that we need to get through to pick up books.
Or there's example B, booking a room: I needed to book a room before Wednesday, for reasons that don't need to be explored at this juncture. So I did, using the school of med system that I had access to, and then I emailed my room and reserved time to the professor, as she had requested. Shortly after that she asked me to send an email to all the TAs in our course with instructions on how to book a room, since she had no idea how it's done. I did that, explaining I used the school of med system, which didn't require login, so maybe all university affiliates can use it and if that fails, each department also has their own reservation system they can try out. A few hours after that, I got an email from the TA coordinator instructing us how to book rooms. No one cared that I already booked a room or how I did it, which was a relief. I am not inclined to switch over to the other system either, because 1) ALL the bio sci TAs has to go through that system, so time slots are under heavy competition, probably and 2) more paperwork, which I did not need.
At this point I may have said something to Wendy along the lines of, "I think I'm doing everything backwards. Why am I doing everything backwards?"
(Am I strange, sir? A crab, sir?)
We got some classic papers in genetics, which was a definite eye-opener, since these are genetics papers before they had the tools for genetics (think 1940s), which meant that they made a lot of assumptions (that they had no way of testing out the validity of) and math models (which are complicated enough that some took others ten years to solve afterwards). Mike might've liked it. I didn't. I spent a lot of time squinting at various equations and wondering how they got their ratios of Greek letters from the fact that the mean equaled the variance in a Poisson distribution. There must be some derivation involved, right? Right? (If anyone's curious, one of the papers is the famous Luria & Delbruck fluctuation test. Yes, that Luria and that Delbruck.) (Huh, I just found out that it's famous enough that Wikipedia has an entry on it. Without the scary equations, even.)
Someone in my lab got an advertisement from a very well-known chemicals / lab equipment company this week promoting the sale of "lithium salt bugger". I was asked if "bugger" is an actual word and, thinking back to my knowledge of the UK vocabulary (and Mr. Rushton, I might add), I hedged "...not really", and suggested that maybe it's a very grave typo. Upon the blank looks, I explained that it'd make more sense if the ad had read "lithium salt buffer". Then my labmate and I spent some time contemplating whether or not we ought to email back this nice & prestigious company and let them know that they'd been trying to sell "buggers". (There's always the possibility that it's a nod to ENDER'S GAME or something, I suppose. Is there a special anniversary date this week?)
(Beta. It's called a beta.)
Yesterday there was a very angry lady on the bus who called someone who had answered "a Texan" when asked where she'd come from "a disgrace to their heritage" and "stupid, this is why everyone thinks Texas is stupid, because you are". I mean geez, lady, who died? Yes, the effects of the Manifest Destiny wiped out countless Native Americans (she was white, by the way) and that most Americans have some sort of European ancestry, but that is still no reason to explode like that. Careful now, because you come across a bit mad and people might take exception to that, like you did to that poor person on the bus.
I thought I slept until 9am today only to open my eyes and discover it's 7:30am. Such is the effect of getting used to getting up at 6am. I have a four hour TA training session later and stuff I need to do in lab, so this week's not over for me, yet!
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