N@ked Under My Lab Coat

2009-04-04T20:43:00.002-04:00

It's been a long time.

I put this blog on semi-permanent hiatus. But now, instead of naked under my lab coat, I am fixing to be naked under a diaphanous magenta robe, with a funny little beret and a black velvet cassock!

Big changes are afoot. Stay tuned, possibly, for details and/or resumption of blogging activities.

2008-05-08T16:11:00.002-04:00

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, put in blue the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Please Step Away From the Bench

2007-11-15T17:49:00.001-05:00

Had a meeting with my advisor today (that sound you heard before was the furious scramble of me converting cryptic IPLab image files to tifs) wherein he told me to STOP doing experiments.

Oh, but that means I have to start writing up.

This is good news. Obviously writing up is good news, and he thinks what I've got is just about "done". Of course, since it's my story I will never think it's done. I want to include every single fascinating scene - I mean, experiment - and every single beloved character - I mean, tangential potentially important molecule.

He's right, of course, but this is all getting a little scary. I mean, how do I know I am ready to move on?

The cliches ... I thought, every step of this arduous journey, "It'll be different for me! I won't become a jaded bitter third year. I won't get so bogged down in my lab that my social life declines. I won't lose the ability to interact with non-scientists. I won't develop bad eating and sleeping habits. And I certainly won't stall out at the writing-up stage because I've found a comfy berth and am a little petrified of leaving the nest!"

Strike every single one of those things off the list, because I succumbed to them all. Ah, so naive, little G1 Joolya.

2007-11-14T18:37:00.001-05:00

Managed to keep the yelling to a minimum last night watching the NOVA Dover trial show. Thoughts on this but, damn, it's just too dark to think clearly. Only 6:35 and I feel like I shouldbe getting ready for bed. Maybe Coturnix can recommend a remedy for seasonal affective disorder. Do those light boxes really work?

I Know You've Missed Me

2007-11-13T14:07:00.001-05:00

And I'm still here. Barely. I'll post a real post some day soon.

In the meanwhile, and in honor of the Dover trial PBS premier tonight which I may or may not be able to watch, please feast your eyes on this, my beloved people. You weren't really doing anything this afternoon, were you? No.

So, take a little trip in time and space with John Scalzi to the Creation Museum! You'll laugh, you'll cry ...

Mutating Genres Meme

2007-10-19T22:06:00.000-04:00

Here's the dealio, yo. Pharyngula started this meme to see how it mutates over time.

First, the rules:
There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...".
Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:
* You can leave them exactly as is.
* You can delete any one question.
* You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is..." to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is...", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is...", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is...".
* You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...".
* You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is: To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
The best scary movie in scientific dystopias is: Children of Men
The best sexy song in pop music is: Real Love by Mary J. Blige
The best cult novel in American 20th century fiction is: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The best high-carb food in Italian cooking is: cheese lasagne!

My great-great-great-great-grandparent is Pharyngula.
My great-great-great-grandparent is Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
My great-great-grandparent is Flying Trilobite.
My great-grandparent is A Blog Around the Clock.
My grandparent is Primate Diaries.
My parent is Thus Spake Zuska.

I'm tagging the Pooflinger, Ethyl Benzene, Ennui Herself, Transcript, Jane, and everyone else on the blogroll. Go!

Hello again

2007-10-19T08:53:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the prolonged absence. It's been a busy few weeks at lab and doing things. Things and stuff.

You know what's nice? I did a DNA maxiprep the other day, eluted with 1 mL of water, and got DNA concentrations of only .11 and 0.08 ug/uL. I like to have at least 0.5 ug/uL for doing transfections into cells, so I put the tubes of DNA into the SpeedVac, which spins them around in a warm, dry chamber to evaporate the water. I reduced the volume from 1 mL to 0.1 mL (100 uL) and then measure the DNA concentrations: 1.4 and 0.7 ug/uL respectively!

I know, why am I so pleased? That's what you would expect if you reduced the volume 10-fold.

Exactly. I love it when stuff actually works like it's supposed to, with numbers and volumes and things.

Hey, I'm a cell biologist. This doesn't happen all the time for me! It's the little things in life. Like bands on a gel that actually add up correctly ... it's like beautiful magic. Ahhhh. Everything else I do is so much more fiddly.

Anyway. I've been playing on YouTube far too much the last couple of days and found this video of the Solid Gold Dancers counting down the top ten songs in the mid-80s (sorry, can't embed it), which is especially awesome because the #1 song of the week was one of my absolute favorite songs when I was a kid: Part-time Lover by Stevie Wonder. Also featured are Never by Heart, We Built This City by Starship, and Head Over Heels by Tears for Fears - three other childhood favorites.

I wanted desperately to be the dancer with the long, long, long hair (Darcel; she's from Pittsburgh, aw yeah). I used to dance around in this gold bikini, handed down from a cousin, and imagine my long, long hair whipping around as I kicked and spun through the Number Ones.

That, and I wanted to be an astronaut. A solid-gold astronaut. (Like David Bowie?)

I don't think I've really changed much since I was little, actually. If I could hook that up I would totally still be a solid gold dancing astronaut.

Karaoke star biologist is, I guess, the next best thing.

In retrospect, though, why was a six-year-old even watching Solid Gold? It's pretty smutty.

You got here from where?

2007-10-06T01:46:00.001-04:00

Google Search: he absolutely LOVED her and was so springy and joyful!

Torturing The Cat

2007-10-05T23:23:00.000-04:00

This post about war as a thing that gives a jolt of meaning in the midst of complacency really struck me today. I've been falling asleep to The War on PBS lately, and I had a conversation the other day with someone who admitted to feeling a pang of envy for that sense of terrible purpose. (What, you want to go die in a war? I sniped.) I remember feeling wistful, in the halcyon 90's, for someone to hate as much as my mom hated Nixon. (Thanks, George!) I remember the sunny day I rode my bike to lab thinking, I wish something would happen so I didn't have to work today. I remember thinking, Cool, I don't have to work today. The powerful urgency of just getting through on the telephone to ... anyone ... to someone I hadn't talked to in a while. A perfect reason, putting into perspective what really matters, etc. Remember those dreams about the Holocaust, where Lisa got in the truck with her parents because I couldn't hide them all in my basement? I'd have been a spy. I'd have gotten out of there. I'd have ... I'm thinking of my Coulter-reading relative switching off FOX "News" not because it is shite but because she "can't be an activist every day." Yeah, I sneer; but what activism do I pursue getting righteously indignant over at Pharyngula's or Twisty's and then wandering off down the street for an iced coffee and a long hard think about my dissertation? You know what I mean. Anyway, it's a good post, much better written than I could have done.

Getcha Fluff On

2007-09-30T23:14:00.001-04:00

I took some time off from cell migration yesterday to volunteer at the "What The Fluff?" Fest in Union Square, Somerville, which honors the invention of Marshmallow Fluff by Union Square native Archibald Query 90 years ago.

It was a beautiful sunny day and the crowd was in enthusiastic good spirits. There was a good mix of kids, adolescents, parents, and old folks; a combination of Somerville "townies" and cheerful hipsters from all over the place. They had games, like a bowling lane with Fluff jars as pins, bands (including my friends the talented B for Brontosaurus), burlesque dancers, a baking contest, and shenanigans such as the Fluff Lick-Off, the Fluff Beauty Contest, and the Blindfolded Fluffernutter Challenge. We were beating contestants off with sticks - there was no shortage of people willing to get sticky! (Yes, I know, everything I say about the Fluff Fest sounds dirty ... but it was really - even including the burlesque - pretty wholesome family fun.)

Verdict: Union Square is the best of the non-T-associated "squares", pretty much kicking Inman's ass when it comes to community events. (I remember when I first moved here and Union was pretty grotty. Back then even Inman wasn't so gentrerrific, though, either, and Davis was still up-and-coming.)

Next year any Bostonians should make sure to check it out! Seriously, all the good stuff is on this (the red) side of the river.

This is too weird (but is in PNAS so it MUST be true!)

2007-09-25T23:53:00.000-04:00

Whoah - microgravity transforms Salmonella into super-virulent germs?

Off The Hook (For A Little While)

2007-09-25T21:49:00.000-04:00

Whew: I'm out from under the shadow of the black clouds of Having To Give Group Meeting that have been lowering upon my house and feel bouyant with relief. It was fine. I've been taking my PIs advice (don't tell him!) and making figures of every experiment as I go and that totally saved my life yesterday when I was putting together all my slides.

It's beautiful Indian Summer here in the N. E. Clear blue sky, hot sun, and balmy cool nights. The moon is full and luminous this evening and rose to shine into my window. The sun is setting earlier now, making the late afternoon seem more busy - so much less time to dally before twilight.

Confession: I was pretty psyched to watch "Beauty and the Geek" this evening. I know, I know. Shuddup.

Urban Wildlife Update

2007-09-23T23:19:00.001-04:00

I was walking across the BU bridge today and stopped to look down at the river, which was muddy green and wrinkled as a prune with little wavelets. As I stared down, a big dark fish leapt up in a whale-like arc and flopped back down into the water! How about that? I thought. Was that really a fish? The fish are jumpin and the cotton is high ... I thought about when Tilda and I went camping in the Olympics in Washington and I swam across Bear Lake. Great fat black fish kept jumping up to nab at passing insects and ploinking back into the still water, whose mirror surface was almost black in the long Western twilight. As I reminisced, another fish (or maybe the same one) leapt out of the river close to the othre bank; so it was definitely jumping fish I saw today, which I have never seen before in the dirty dirty Charles.

In other news, giving group meeting on Tuesday. Vague hope that I will be hit by a taxi tomorrow (settlement plus postponement of presentation! cha-ching!). Have I started making my ppt slides yet? No, I have not. Did I know this was going to happen? Yes, I did. Do I regret watching all of North and South: Book Two on DVD yesterday? Not really ... (oh, the Hazards and the Mains, dastardly Elkanah Bent, crazy Virgilia, that stirring soundtrack ...)

I Heart Turtles

2007-09-18T21:53:00.000-04:00

I went for a run today at lunch time, down in the Fens, and what did I see? No less than fifteen painted turtle sunbathing on logs in the pond! I wished I had had a camera. They had their little necks all stretched out to the sun. So cute!

P-Town 6: The Last Hurrah

2007-09-18T00:22:00.000-04:00

Joolya, for the love of all that is noodley, the graduate retreat is over - your hangover has got to be gone by now - there is no excuse for this anymore. It is seriously time to put away the laundry!

Awwwww, but maaaaaaaa ....

I'd tell you all about my weekend - but what happens in P-Town stays in P-Town!

9/12/07

2007-09-12T11:53:00.000-04:00

I managed to get through the whole of yesterday without acknowledging the date at all, except for a quick reminiscence about riding my bike to work on a very sunny morning six years ago.

Take that, terrorists and people who want me to be afraid of more terrorists! Fuck all y'all; I block you out of my consciousness and think instead about my coworker's baby, site-directed mutagenesis, and small GTPases. I win.

Anyway. That's all for now.

Lab Notes

2007-09-02T23:19:00.000-04:00

I saw this note on a common use centrifuge rotor today. What I most enjoy about it is the parenthetical commentary, which seems to have been written by someone other than the note's author (based on the crossed 'I' and less pointy 'A's).

Not known: whether anyone has risked it yet...

Joolya Resolves To Be Fit And Hard-working From Now On; No Seriously, She Means It This Time

2007-09-02T11:49:00.000-04:00

This morning I joined the jogging throng. I hate, hate, jogging but it wasn't actually so bad now that it's over. I forgot how good a morning workout feels. Not to mention, the best part of it: the post-work out morning coffee. Ahhhhhh .... it can't be beat. When I was in college I'd get a lift from my mom, really early, and hit the gym before going to work. Then after my shower, I'd stop for a latte at this coffee stand which was a branch of the best espresso place in the city and that rush ... oh wow. I've never tried heroin but it can't be much better than this wonderful combination of endorphins+caffeine+mild dehydration+slight ketosis. Talk about euphoria! So I terminated my maiden voyage jog at the best coffee place in my neighborhood and had a blissful iced coffee on the walk back home. All is right with the world, and everything is sublimely beautiful.

2007-08-30T10:49:00.000-04:00

Just got back from Old Blighty where Springy and I celebrated our 'nontraditional' nuptials for the third - yes, third - time! It was most excellent brilliant fun, with lots of friends and delicious food and fantastic weather and bonfires and, oh yeah, did I mention drinking?

More descriptions to come, once I am over the jet-lag and have got the flat in order.

Next stop: writing my paper(s) and scheduling hopefully-penultimate committee meeting . . .

Virtual Refrigerator Door

2007-08-20T09:29:00.001-04:00

If you knew my PI, you'd understand why my impulse when I get emails like the following is to print them out and put them up on a fridge with a magnet:

"J/ this sounds absolutely fine. Enjoy."

2007-08-20T08:12:00.000-04:00

Even more disturbing than usual post about erosion of personal soverignty at Twisty's the other day.

Remind me to call and donate time/money to Planned Parenthood when I get back from the U.K.!

The Miniprep Song

2007-08-15T12:22:00.000-04:00

(to the Tune Of Yesterday)

Minipreps...
Have an awful lot of spinning steps
But it seems there's not a better way
Of harvesting the DNA.

Thirty more...
Resuspending cells is quite a chore
My piptetting thumb is getting sore
Oh minipreps are such a bore!

Qia kits are great, 'cause I hate the phenol way
Still, next time you clone, clone by phone, it saves a day (hey hey hey)

Minipreps...
Know the worst thing about minipreps?
When you've finally gone through all the steps
It's time to do the maxipreps!
Oh dear God, not maxipreps!
Please, I'll do more
Minipreps ....

Not About Lab

2007-08-12T00:46:00.000-04:00

I'm loving The Flight of the Conchords' show, which I have been watching on YouTube (no HBO chez moi). I've had a bit of a crush on Bret and Jemaine since I saw their It's Business Time clip, with the line about sorting out the recycling which isn't part of the foreplay but is still really important. (Which song is in episode 5, which also features the actress who played Jez's nymphomaniac American girlfriend on Peep Show. Apparently she is really Canadian. I think New Zealand is like the Canada of the Southern Hemisphere.)

2007-08-11T14:44:00.000-04:00

The Effects of Ethanol Over-Consumption on Drosophila Melanogaster,
or,
Parable of A Sixth-Year PhD Student
(A Haiku)

This morning I found
twenty-six dead fruit flies in
a glass of white wine.

2007-08-11T01:12:00.000-04:00

Hello adoring fans!

I haven't really been away - just got out of the blogging habit.

I'm in lab and it's well past midnight. You know it's too late to be in lab when you start having aural hallucinations thinking you hear music, or your labmates talking, in the hum of the equipment.

Yeah.

More later.