Push-Up Challenge, Week 2

Did you watch the hockey game today?  Holy crap!  We could have had them!  Well, good job all around, North America.  Way to make everyone else be worse than you in hockey.

Anyway, update on week 2 of the push-up challenge.  This week I moved up the ladder, doing a total of 68 push-ups on Friday morning.  I'm trying to decide what time of day is the best to do this... I'm finding that I have more time in the morning, but I feel a little stiff and sore before and after doing it when I do the push-ups in the morning.  I may start trying to do them in the evening after work/exercising, but we'll see if time presents itself later in the day.

As for the endurance test... last week I got to 25.  Today... 34.  Not bad... just kind of threw them out there.  I think next weekend I'm going to do a proper warm-up (i.e. exercise first). 

Good times!

Quick Running Update

Hey!  Guess what?  I ran 5 miles this morning along the lakefront in Chicago.  I'm feeling pretty good!

Except for the fact that I'm not used to running with other people around... and I kind of accidentally spit on someone.  He didn't seem too mad about it, but I still feel bad!

Whoops.

Proof That No Problem Has One Solution

One of the things I've discussed previously is the role of a series of nuclear peptide receptors, the Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptors, in lipid metabolism in different types of tissues.  Is essence, these receptors detect the presence of lipids (fatty acids, the stuff that you get from your McDonalds... well, hopefully not, but you get what I mean) and activate the transcription of a series of different genes that encode proteins involved in lipid metabolism (i.e. the breakdown of lipids for energy).  Why these receptors are especially important is because they are targets for a number of different drugs involved in metabolic diseases.  There are three forms (alpha, delta, and gamma), and the alpha and gamma receptors have already been developed as drug targets, with delta not far behind.  The alpha receptor is a target for the disease dyslipidemia (in America, it's usually hyperlipidemia, or an excess of lipids in the body... again, think of that McDonalds), while the gamma receptor is a target for diabetes treatment.

At least, it has been a target.  Recently, more and more research is piling up against the diabetes drug Avandia, a drug developed by GlaxoSmithKline.  While the drug had been sold for many years to treat diabetes, it appears that there have been many cases of patients suffering from heart-related issues.  According to the New York Times, upwards of 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure a month come as a result of patients taking Avandia.  A number of doctors have recommended pulling the drug from the market because of its side effects.  Importantly, this isn't exactly "breaking news"... many doctors have been calling for its removal from the shelves for quite a long time, and it has narrowly escaped complete removal in the past (see the article).  It's clear from the article that both sides - GSK and the doctors recommending against the drug - are doing their own work to make sure that the patients are safe, but it still requires a lot of work to ensure that the best situation for the patients is discovered.  Even though there are drugs available, they are not ideal.

The reason I point this out is because it highlights an important concept in science, especially with regards to drug discovery and treatment of disease - no matter how advanced we get, we aren't at the perfect answer, and probably never will be.  In regard to these PPAR-targeted drugs, all of the reading I've done has indicated that they are good targets, and some high-affinity molecules have been developed, but there are still side effects that limit the efficacy of the molecules and the amount that can be distributed.  Effects like heart attacks are exceptionally problematic, and indicate that further work is still required.

When I give my research proposal presentation, this will be one of the things that I point out - despite the work that's been done so far, issues like these suggest that a lot more needs to be done to ensure that we can treat patients without the worry of side effects causing even worse problems.

Afternoon naps boost brain power and memory? Why wasn't I told?

Seriously!  This seems like just the kind of thing I should know about and take advantage of. 

An article came out in The Independent a few days ago titled "Afternoon naps boost brain power and memory, study finds".  The article sums up some findings presented at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, focusing in particular on work done by Matthew Walker, a psychologist at UC-Berkeley.  To sum up the summary, he took two groups of volunteers and had them complete a series of learning tests at 12 pm.  He then had one group nap for 90 minutes at 2 pm, while the other group did not.  At 6 pm, both groups underwent a second series of tests, and they found that the group which napped performed significantly better.  He's quoted as saying some things about neural connections and short-term memory storage, but I think it's clear that hey, we don't get enough sleep and taking a nap helps!

I find it interesting how much we've devalued the importance of sleep as a society.  Staying out late and getting up early are the norm, and instead of advocating getting rest we instead hawk energy drinks and caffeine-filled pills in an effort to stay away through the day, only to crash and repeat the process the next night.  My wife went to Spain, where they do have afternoon naps (siestas), and she seemed to like the idea.  I also had a labmate who took naps almost every day... we thought he was lazy.

Maybe, though, he was on to something.

I myself am going to make a special effort to get more sleep at night, and maybe throw in a 15-30 minute nap at my desk during the day (don't tell my boss!).  In the past, I've found that a quick nap tends to help my ability to study and do homework, so perhaps I should listen to this article, my former self, and my lazy labmate. 

Hey You! Again!

I have an internet friend, you may have heard of her: Megan, author of In Training. 

Since she's all fancy, with sponsors, despite being a grad student, she gets to receive and review gear for free (from what I understand), in exchange for product reviews and/or glowing endorsements (which usually seems to be the case).  The good news for the rest of us is that, in reviewing this stuff, she gets a surplus, and right now she's passing the savings on to us!

So, get on over to her blog and enter her contest.  While it will reduce my chances of winning, it will increase her traffic (slightly).  And hey, what else can we do but support our fellow grad students?

(also, just so you know this counts as Tuesday's post, so I'm still fulfilling my "blog every day" goal)

HPLC Monday

Well hey, it's Monday.  This morning I'm sitting in front of the HPLC, or High Performance Liquid Chromatography, instrument.  For those of you who aren't science-folk, it's essentially a machine that can be used to separate out mixtures of compounds based on their properties, after which the products of interest can be isolated and used for further experiments.  I'm working on purifying some peptides that I synthesized previously, because they appear to be unable (or simply don't want) to couple using the maleimide-thiol addition that I have been working on for a while. 

The basics of HPLC, again, are that a set of compounds can be separated by their molecular properties, including size, charge, hydrophobicity (i.e. how much affinity they have for non-polar solvents [oils] vs. polar solvents [water]), etc.  I'm using a reverse-phase column, in which the stationary phase (the stuff in the column) is non-polar (in this case, an 18-carbon long chain) and the mobile phase (the solvent that moves through the column) is polar (in my case, a mixture of acetonitrile and water).  Using different combintions of solvents, compounds with relatively similar properties can be separated.  It's a (relatively) simple procedure, but worth learning about if you're ever going to get your compounds extra pure!

The only problem right now with running the HPLC is the fact that our model is analytical.  There are three sizes of columns, each indicating how much sample can be run through at a time: analytical (i.e. you analyze what the compound is), preparative (you know what it is and you're purifying a lot of it), and semi-prep (in the middle).  While I know what my compound is and am purifying, we only have an analytical HPLC instrument.

Which means it's going S-L-O-W. 

So, I'm going to be here a while today.  Send good thoughts!  I'm gonna need them...

Push-Up Challenge, Week 1

I mentioned last week that I was starting the 100 Push-Up Challenge (I don't think it's actually called that, but since it will be challenging to me I am adding the word "challenge").  I am going to use Sundays to keep you updated on it!  Here goes...

In the initial test, I am sorry to admit, I did all of 8 push-ups.  Why is this?  Well, let's just say that I haven't been in training for a long while, and I don't exactly have "upper body strength".  Combine that with increased "mid-body mass" and you have a recipe for not doing a lot of push-ups.  In the program, you do sets of a certain number of push-ups with rest in between, and finish by doing as many as you can.  For example, week one, day one for me (middle column of the chart on the website) consists of 6, 6, 4, and 4 push-ups with 60 second rests, followed by as many as you can do.  I did 10, making it 30 push-ups total.  Not bad, not great.  Fast forward to Friday, where I did 8, 10, 7, 7, and 15, making 47 for that day.  Certainly more than Monday.  On the exhaustion test on Saturday (after running 7 miles, mind you) I did 25.  In a row, without stopping.  I can't remember ever doing that many at once. 

I think I like where this is going.

Week two starts tomorrow, so I will update next week to see where I go.  Also, FYI, if you listen to the Run Run Live podcast I think one of the most recent episodes (108 or 109) has Steve Spiers, the originator of the push-ups program, as a guest.  It's a good listen!

SciRAVE: The New Dance Craze!

A few weeks ago I saw a link to one of Jim Tour's new pet projects.  If you're familiar at all with him, you'll know that he is big into all things nano, most recently the aptly titled Nanocar.  As you can guess, it's a molecule that looks and seems to move along a surface like a car.  Recently they went so far as to develop new, faster nanocars that now have spoilers on them like dragsters, hence the Nanodragster.  You may be wondering... what's the point?  Many of us science folk have wondered the same thing... in Minnesota terms, he's a very "interesting" character.

Anyway, Dr. Tour is also a big proponent of chemistry education, and is using his vast amounts of research funding (... for nanocars...) to develop new ways to get kids excited about chemistry.  Hence, we have SciRAVE, an educational-entertainment (they do actually use the word "edutainment") game that combines the excitement of step/play along games like Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero (I'm not even going to put links here... if you haven't heard of these games you're clearly not "with it" and "hip") with scientific concepts by putting down these concepts into the songs.  If you go to the website and listen closely to the music in the background (or, do as I did, and read the lyrics they have printed out), you'll realize that they were talking about cells and carbohydrates!  In essence, the game is exactly the same (down to the menus, art, play mechanics, etc.) as DDR, but they use songs with lyrics containing chemistry concepts.

Now, granted I'm not a hyperactive pre-teen, but I tried playing the game (you can download it for free!) and I couldn't focus on what the songs were saying because I was trying to match the arrows and keep the beat and so forth.  From what I can gather from the website, it appears that this game is supposed to be integrated with a science curriculum.  Teach them science, reinforce it with exercise?  I suppose it is a somewhat novel concept, although at the same time I'm hard pressed to think of this particular strategy as a novel concept, if only because DDR has been around for a while and they are definitely ripping off the DDR template almost verbatim.  As I said, I didn't really get anything out of the songs because I couldn't understand them or focus on the lyrics, but I would guess if you were watching someone else play, or had just spent time learning the concept, then maybe it would sink in better.  We'll just have to see how well it works, but don't be surprised to see you children dancing along to songs about mass and volume!

Biology Oriented Synthesis

One of the major areas of organic chemistry (or, if you would agree with some... er, many... of the chemists around the world, the only area of organic chemistry) is natural product synthesis.  This area of chemistry focuses on the development of synthetic procedures for products from bacteria, plants, algae, etc. that seem to have some useful biological properties.

Why do this?  It seems there are two reasons - one, to highlight the new synthetic procedures being developed in order to synthesize only that molecule in, generally, less than 1% yield (but with high enantiomeric excess and using asymmetric catalysts!); and/or two, to find relatively simple or established procedures to mass produce the product for pharmaceutical purposes (think aspirin, for example).  In either case, it's often the case that the development not only of the product itself but of many derivatives is a necessity in order to improve activity and reduce toxicity.  I mean, if you're developing a drug, you don't want something that doesn't treat your symptoms and kills your cells, right?

Of the strategies to develop those derivatives, many involve changing one functional group on the massive molecule through various chemical transformations to see what role the one functional group plays.  While a good strategy, it doesn't really allow for taking the basic scaffold and seeing what else can be done with it.  A strategy I learned about recently takes a different approach, which the researchers call "Biology Oriented Synthesis".

The term "Biology Oriented Synthesis" is used by Prof. Herbert Waldmann, a professor of chemistry at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.  It refers to a strategy for developing synthetic analogs of natural products for potential pharmaceutical applications by recognizing that natural products represent good starting scaffolds for drugs.  In essence, if nature made it, it probably represents a good structural scaffold upon which different molecules can be developed.  There are two different types of general molecules - Natural Product Derived, and Natural Product Inspired (see below from Prof. Waldmann's website):

 

The main difference between the two is how closely the scaffold matches the original natural product.  If it's almost exact, then it's "derived" from the natural product, whereas if it's similar but not exactly the same, it's "inspired by" the natural product.  

While this in itself is interesting, but not particularly exciting, I was interested to learn about two other strategies that can be utilized in combination with this one (3-hit combo! 250 points!) to make some interesting molecules.  The first strategy, called Protein Structure Similarity Clustering, uses computational chemistry to match up proteins with similar structures, whether or not they have similar amino acid sequences.  This represents a novel concept, especially because there seemed to be little incentive to study proteins expressed from different genes with different sequences because hey, why would they be similarly structured?  Using this method, a molecule can be developed with high affinity for one protein target, and then can be used to target a bunch of different, unrelated proteins because they have a similar structure.  

The second part of this super combo is a strategy called Structural Classification of Natural Products.  This approach takes the concept of Biology Oriented Synthesis (utilizing natural products as a starting point for synthesis) and uses a thought experiment in which the scaffold is broken down into component parts to develop a sort of "map" of potential scaffold structures.  It's really better if you see it to really appreciate it: 

 

As you can see, you can start from a simple or complex molecular scaffold to build derivatives that have a similar structure, imparting new properties and developing molecules that are more "natural product inspired" and structurally simpler than the starting compound.  It's a bit complex, I know, but when you get down to it it's actually a pretty neat concept. 

By way of an example, this combination of strategies was used to develop a single ligand for a number of target molecules.  As you can see in the picture, a natural product inspired the synthesis of a derivative, which was developed through the scaffold map, to produce a compound that was highly effective against a series of different compounds that had similar structural scaffold:

To sum up, a natural product inspired molecule (Biology Oriented Synthesis) was used to produce a derivative through the scaffold map (Structural Classification of Natural Products) that had high affinity against several different protein targets that had similar structures (Protein Structure Similarity Clustering).  I think it's pretty cool stuff, because rather than relying simply on the synthesis of one natural target product, they landed the combination of moves to develop new and interesting molecules.  

Well hey, I guess I can talk about science occasionally!  Hope you have a great Friday (and don't forget to stay away from meat if you're Catholic)!

On List-Making

And so it begins... I have a whole list of different things to talk about (I don't know if there's a pun in there with regards to the topic of today, but if there is it's most certainly intended) for the next forty days (well, if you want to be accurate about it, there's probably about 45), so hopefully I can keep up with this concept of blogging every day and put some good thoughts down!

Anyway, the topic for today is something that is very common to me, but apparently not as much to a lot of people: making lists.  I tend to think that there are extremes to this.  On the one hand, one can use lists solely as a way to remember what items to pick up at the grocery store (so they remember to get corn instead of green beans, for example).  On the other hand are people who spend so much time making lists that they don't get any work done.  It's easy to get caught up in list-making for people like that, simply because it can take a long time to come up with what you need to do, what the priority of each item is, how much time you have to do them, etc.  The last point is especially important, because with stuff like chemistry research it's often the case that the amount of time something will take can vary dramatically.  One can often start with a full day of activities and no other commitments (like me, today, for example) and yet only get to a handful of their proposed work simply because something that was supposed to take an hour ended up taking 3 or 4 instead.  While some things (class schedules in med school, for example) tend to be a little more cut and dry, the flexibility of some jobs makes it much harder to gauge how long certain tasks will take, making prioritization and time-management much more important.

Okay, so of the two extremes, I tend to lay closer to the middle than the "make lists instead of working" side, although I am closer to that than the no lists at all mentality.  Thus, I will often make a list of tasks for the day, week, or even "near future" (when I can't really define how long they will take).  The only problem with this, as you can (hopefully) see below, is that I have a tendency to find random pieces of paper in order to make them.  One such example here has a list of what is going to happen every day of the week, as well as a list of things to before a certain date, as well as a list of daily activities.

 

 These lists have a tendency to 1) fill up with random little notes and things so quickly that I can't understand what they say anymore, and 2) get lost in the melee of other stuff that has taken over my desk.  I have sorted through paperwork that had been sitting on my desk for days, weeks, and even months and found a random assortment of different lists, sometime with many things crossed off and (more often) with a lot of things still remaining.  The thoughts running through my head upon discovering such lists are often relegated to "oh yeah!  I should have done this back in... November?  What?", and while there's often overlap between the lists I find that many times little bits and pieces will slip through the cracks and not get accomplished.  In a job that is often as scatterbrained as research is, that's simply not a good way of operating.

This week, I picked up a little notebook called a Moleskine to combat this random-list-making-but-losing-the-list-until-months-later phenomenon.  I know, I know... these are the notebooks that the great writers used to record their thoughts for great works of literature, and I'm using mine to keep my list of different blog posts and things I have to clean before we have visitors in March organized.  I can't imagine anything exciting every coming from this, but think of it this way - now, when I have to consult my daily activities, I now have one place to go for all of my different lists.  It won't require extra paper, the lists won't get lost to the ages before resurfacing months after I've written them, and if I do think of something I think is important to write about here, I've got it in one convenient package.  

The moral of the story - if you make lists on a regular basis, but are often forced to make them on pieces of paper that may disappear, it may be a good idea to find some sort of way to consolidate them into one location for easy access.  It may help you get through the various activities you have to do today. 

More Exercise Stuff

I know this blog is supposed to be science-related and all, but I have a few more exercise-related business to attend to that I want you to know about (as well as an announcement about what I am planning on doing for Lent this year, being a good Catholic and all). 

First of all, this morning I signed up for the Illinois Half Marathon.  I ran the full marathon last year, and while I feel like I should participate in it again because of the "tradition" (i.e. I could say that I've run it every year since its inception) I just don't have the legs for it and probably won't before May.  Interestingly, for all of the running I've done over the past 15 years or so (I ran my first race about a month before I turned 13, and I'm 26 now...) I've actually only run one half marathon, the Gary Bjorkland Half Marathon on the weekend of Grandma's Marathon up in Duluth, MN back in 2004.  I made the jump to the marathon the following year, and I guess I've felt that I was copping out a little bit if I only did the half (the same goes with the 5K vs. 10K... one year I ran a 5K turkey trot about a month after running a marathon and all I could think was "this is it?").  Given my current rehabbing schedule and the fact that I've had a few good 5-6 mile runs in the last few weeks, I think that I am confident enough to tackle a half (confident = willing to shell out the money to do it... I was a little worried too since the race is ~80% full right now).  Anyway, come May I should be racing that, so we'll see how it goes.  My PR from a lifetime ago (it feels like it, anyway) is about 1:41 (I think), so I'm aiming for somewhere around 1:50.  Maybe?  I actually have no idea how fast I should run it, but it will be fun to do!

The next thing, related to running, is another athletic adventure that I heard about a few places in the past, most notably from the Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me blog and on the Run Run Live podcast: the 100 Push-Up challenge.  This program was essentially developed to train the body to be able to complete a set of 100 push-ups after 6-7 weeks (the book is 7 weeks, but the website says 6).  Like I said, I heard about this before but I didn't decide to participate in it previously because... well, probably laziness more than anything.  In an effort to improve my athletic ability, be it through cross training or stretching, I am adding this challenge to my regiment in order to make myself more fit.  In an ideal world, this will help with my running, but who knows if it will or not (in fact, the author of the book is a very fast runner who has used it to help his core strength and running ability, so why not me as well?).

This challenge leads me to the last part of today's post, related to the thing about Lent.  One of the aspects of Lent, if you are a Catholic or know someone who is Catholic, is the concept of "giving something up" for Lent.  This usually takes the form of some sort of food or beverage (most often of the alcoholic variety) deprivation.  I've had some discussions with members of my church group recently, and there has been discussion about adding something - daily prayer, Bible passage reading, increased volunteering, etc. - to your life during the Lenten season rather than subtracting it.  I myself, this year, have decided to take a multi-pronged approach to this process by both subtracting and adding different things in the hopes that all of the habits will stick.  Wanna hear them?  Here goes (in no particular order):
- Give up excessive snacking, especially at night after dinner (the alcohol thing hasn't been much of a problem these days... I'll attribute it to getting older)
- Add in more rigorous exercises (like the push-ups) and pay more attention to making sure I get all of the routine completed
- Make religion/spirituality a larger part of my life on a daily basis, whether that is saying a quick prayer, participating more openly in church (singing, for example), spending more time running outside (connected to nature), etc.
- Blog every day during Lent about stuff that is relevant and important to me.  This will probably be the most difficult - original content oh no!!  But I think I can do it!

So, starting Wednesday this week, expect to start seeing daily content from me, circumstances willing.  I'm hoping to give some more interesting scientific stuff (and my lack of it lately is not for want of material, it's simply an organizational issue) in addition to discussions on running, grad school life (how was Valentine's for everyone?), and so forth. 

Hopefully I'm up to the challenge(s)!

Stretching

Did you watch the Olympic ceremonies?  I sure did.  While it wasn't as spectacular as the ceremonies from Beijing a few years ago, and they seemed to run into some problems near the end, I'm going to go ahead and give Canada an A for effort!  It was nice to see how well they integrated their native peoples into the opening ceremonies, something that I'm fairly certain the United States is never going to do in an opening ceremony. 

Anyway, one of the things I've been thinking about lately has been how important stretching has become in my daily routine, both when I do and don't exercise.  First off, let me say that I am aware of the fact that the usefulness of stretching is under debate.  Depending on when you do it, it could even be harmful (which is why many practitioners promote a more active warm-up instead of static stretching before a work-out).  While the exact benefits of stretching haven't been proven scientifically (as far as I know), it's clear that stretching can be a crucial part of any exercise routine that has a lot of people advocating its benefits through personal experience.

Second thing, I want to make it clear that, up until very recently, I haven't spent much time stretching in the past, well, let's say 8 years.  Back when I was in high school, as part of cross country and basketball teams, stretching played a crucial role (and, in fact, in basketball we would get in trouble if we didn't take it seriously).  It's likely no coincidence that I had fewer injuries back then.  Then again, I was also 15-18 years old and weighed at least 40 pounds less than I do now... but hey, that's beside the point.  Since then, stretching has taken a back seat to the athletic event itself, something that I did mainly when I was around other people who were also doing it or when I felt I needed a few minutes to cool down before heading back to the locker room or bathroom for a shower.  Nothing too serious, just something to feel like you're being more athletic. 

More recently, however, you may have noticed how much I've been complaining about my hamstring.  Turns out that it was likely the manifestation of a much larger problem, mainly the fact that I really hadn't been stretching for a long time.  Now, being of the scientific persuasion, I want to be clear that I visited both a physician and a physical therapist about this, not relying on the internet to diagnose me.  It was important that I seek the advice of medical professionals, because I value their opinions and guidance.  Anyway, they pointed out the fact that I was likely suffering from tight muscles and connective tissues, and that an aggressive stretching regiment (combined with cross training activities and a little less running) should at least decrease some of the symptoms I had been suffering through for several months. 

So, what are the stretches they're telling me to do?  If you're interested, you should look here for a bunch of diagrams and other materials about stretching, nutrition, etc. In essence, they've charged me with doing stretches that focus on my hamstring and calf areas.  Stretches involving the hamstring and calves should improve my range of motion, icing will decrease inflammation, and cross training will help to decrease some of the issues resulting from overuse and single-activity imbalance injuries.  In my opinion, it's likely the lack of stretching and the fact that I did pretty much only running that lead to my current state, so adding stretching and cross training (thanks to the bike trainer) should help to alleviate some of my symptoms.

And now, the main question - has it helped?  Well, let's just say that I'm doing a fair amount of exercising - including running - without the need to take ibuprofin or ice on a regular basis to deal with the pain.  In other words, yes, I think it's helping out.  I'm not confident enough to start throwing in 20 mile runs (thanks in part to that weight that I was talking about - thank you holidays combined with decreased activity) but I think I can sign up for a half marathon in the next few months.  Hopefully registration is still open...

The main point I want to make here is that, if you are suffering from injuries pertaining to an imbalance in activities, overuse, or simply because you're not doing much to stretch your muscles or treat inflammation, you should seriously reconsider your strategy.  Take it from me... despite the lack of scientific evidence, it's something that's certainly worth trying!  Who knows, you may even like it.

February Randoms

I have a list of several things I want to cover in separate blog posts, but haven't had the time/volition to hunker down and actually do the literally *minutes* of necessary research, so instead I'm going to regale you with the current list of things going on in my head. 

- Have you heard about the weather lately?  It's crazy!!  Well, I should take that back.  It's crazy out on the east coast, especially Washington, D.C. where it continues to snow and people don't have power and the government is shut down to have snow days (so I've heard).  Here we've gotten the requisite "several inches" of snow that caused most of the schools in the area to shut down this morning, people to cancel their appointments (including mine, since my physical therapist couldn't come in this morning), businesses to close early, etc.  I wouldn't say it's that bad, although tonight I slide right past an exit onto the freeway after picking up my cousin, who just happened to be in town for work.  She was amazed at the snow drifts that pile up in town, something that happens due to a lack of, well, anything blocking the wind, something that she doesn't see a lot of up in Minnesota.  Gosh I miss Minnesota.

- I gave group meeting last week, laying out a list of things that I really need to do rather than have already done.  This is due in part to my Original Research Proposal having taken up a lot of time (and it will take up more time), in part because of medical school, and in part simply because some things that should have worked simply haven't, including PCR.  Which is surprising, considering I had appeared to have it all figured out and everything working wonderfully, even a few months ago.  Looking back further, it appears that my history with PCR is somewhat spotty, having on number of occasions failed to have certain components (like the primers, which were not shipped in the vials that I ordered once), or simply not worked no matter what I did.  I ran 12 reactions yesterday, with 2 of the 12 working, and have several more sets of conditions/enzymes to try before I can call this thing finished.  I spoke with the good people over at Lucigen, where I ordered some enzyme, who told me it couldn't possibly be the enzyme, right?  I mean, we test it ourselves!  I don't doubt its results (since I got them myself before) but it's always possible that something went wrong, right...?

- Running/training is going okay (sans P.T. appointment, of course)!  I ran 10 miles last week and probably biked 20.  I'm using the bike to catch up on my anime (a little Fullmetal Alchemist, anyone?) while the running is building my confidence that I can overcome my injury and perhaps participate in some races this spring, possibly a marathon in the fall.  Just have to keep plugging away at it (and hope this crazy weather doesn't wreck up the place so I have somewhere to run...). 

- I spent some more time shadowing the family medicine physician today, and had a chance to discuss with him the merits of doing research on genetic-related diseases, something I've very interested in.  Despite having worked in family medicine for a long time, he told me how important he thought the study of the underlying causes of genetic diseases is to our understanding of modern medicine, since so many diseases like cancer tend to show a strong genetic component.  He also explained about how the basic science research of underlying causes of disease helped to shape ideas about the diagnosis and treatment of disease, and how techniques and substances used as treatments not that long ago are now considered to be bad choices, given the knowledge we now have about the diseases.  It was very interesting to get that perspective on how our knowledge of medicine continues to change and shape how medicine is practiced, and how being in the middle of the research may offer an advantage over simply looking in from the outside.  It's a compelling reason to stick with research, if anything...

- My wife bought this (third one down) for me for my birthday, and it's finally hanging up in our living room.  When I got it framed, and told the person that my wife bought it for me, she said "she must have very good taste".  To which I replied "well, actually, I picked it out".  Kind of felt smug, but it was good to know I had good taste in art!

- It is late and I am tired and it is time for bed so GOODNIGHT

Geeking Out

So last night, I had the privilege(?) of driving to Chicago to watch a taping of NPR's "Irreverent News Quiz" Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the show, each week they record an hour long news-quiz-comedy show either at the Chase Theater in downtown Chicago or at various locations throughout the USA (for example, they're heading out to New Orleans, LA in March).  It's a great show, filled with improvised humor and actual information about the good (and not-so-good) news being produced each week.

The live taping of the show, unlike the version aired on the radio or available in podcast form (and I highly, highly recommend you download and listen to it while working on lab-related business or on the run), is different in that the order is not the same, some bits go longer than others, and there is a lot of material that doesn't make it on to the final version of the show.  I am excited to hear the edited version this weekend, if anything to help me remember in more detail some of the bits (and likely fill in the gaps between those bits with other pieces that I'll probably remember when I heard it).

On the show this week, they had Dr. Steven Chu, who is not only a Nobel Prize winning physicist, but also the current United States Secretary of Energy.  The thing that stuck in my head during his interview was the fact that, of him and his three brothers, he holds the fewest advanced (i.e. PhD) degrees and only felt himself being even with his other siblings after winning the Nobel Prize.  Talk about pressure to succeed, right?

Of course, the main thing that had me "geeking out" was the fact that, at the end of the show, the cast stays up on stage to chat with fans.  My brother talked to Mo Rocca about Wishbone, while I spoke with Peter Sagal about running marathons and his articles in Runners World.  Let's just say... well, I was pretty excited about the whole thing. 

So, if you live near Chicago and want to see a good show, get tickets to a taping of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!  You won't be disappointed.

Take Care of Your Business

Most of you (I'm guessing) have to deal with people on a regular basis, whether it be labmates, co-workers, students, children, parents, classmates, even online friends.  Part of dealing with people is dealing with their little quirks and habits that make them both unique... and incredibly infuriating.

This is especially the case in the lab, where personal and common equipment has the tendency to get used on a regular basis and, thus, get messy on a regular basis.  This is understandable - weighing out chemicals, you're rarely going to undergo 100% transfer without losing at least a little bit of it on the balance, the bench top, the floor, etc.  I get it, it happens.  It happens to me pretty regularly.  No problem.

The problem is when you spill a bunch on the balance, the bench, etc. then leave the doors to the balance open and walk away, leaving the next user to deal with your crap.  At one point one of the thoughts by a labmate last year (who was an advanced student who has since graduated, of all things) was that "the person who needs to use it should clean it up".  Let me rephrase that: "I'm not going to clean up when I'm done, so you should clean up my mess if you need to use this". 

Seriously. 

I bring this up for two reasons: one, if this is happening and it's you, be proactive about it by STOPPING.  It's just common courtesy to treat the equipment and other people with respect.  Second, if it's happening and you're not doing it, be proactive about it by talking to the person/people who are doing it.  I am planning on point it out to everyone, with pictures, at group meeting this week.  That way, the boss sees it, and everyone knows that the boss doesn't like it.  That may help.  We'll see.

In conclusion, take care of your business.  Don't leave your crap for others - it's just not a good thing to do, and it will make people (like me) angry about it.