Why I love doing what I do?

If you follow me on twitter or you have spoken to me or just happen to be around you will know
How F***ed up I am currently with my experiments...I am in the phase..yeah PHASE where things just go wrong or don't work for some unknown reasons and all you have is a horrible day/week/month -PHASE in the lab!!!

The irony is...still I want to write or I am in the mood to write yes! about the

"Pleasures in doing Science(biology)"

photos clicked by vidhi patel

I have been blessed by some truly AWESOME ( here even awesome is an understatement) moments for which I LIVE and do SCIENCE.

I may never in my Life win a Noble, I won't! But surely more than once I Win through some moments that make me happy amidst the situations when things are difficult! 

These moments may neither be big events nor be to be bragged about success stories...they are simple and yet they put a huge SMILE on otherwise tensed face!

The moment when-

• the tube inside the electroporator doesn't arc...

• after n rounds of cloning et al the plate shows the clones/mutants the sight of that off-white small tiny-tiny colony! :)

• the gel picture has bands of perfect size (so perfect that the reviewers might suspect it to be Photoshopped)

• positive and negative controls are picture perfect! Specially the negative control!!!

• at one go I hit the bulls eye... pick up the right number of tubes and weigh the right quantity!

• I start with a new project and it looks all interesting and the euphoria of looking at new things is like the one when you are gifted with a new toy!

• I read an amazing piece of literature...listen/read to a logical and well reasoned argument!

• when I talk to a biggie in the field! You always want to meet and talk to the successful well established peers in your field! 

• when after an Eureka moment things START MAKING SENSE

• I am satisfied (though never) and happy as to what I am doing!(mind you very few people fall into this category)

and THE moment for which all of us...every researcher works hard,contemplates,procrastinates 

INVENTION/DISCOVERY/FINDING (peer reviewed :P)

Such moments just "work" they are part of enjoying your job and its just not me it seems it happens to best of us... like my friend working in Computational Biology says 'The kind of joy and satisfaction he gets once he is through a difficult to code Code is surreal'

While we pursue the Questions we ask we also 

Cherish the Moments that lead to it!

And This is part of sharing 'those' moments -

(via twitter)

AndyKraemer Nascent Biologist 

Meetings always re-energize me - they remind me why being a scientist is so much fun! #evol11

 AlecJRoss Alec Ross 

20 years ago today, Tim Berners-Lee published his proposal for the World Wide Web. The proposal http://www.w3.org/Proposal.html

  
 @edyong209 @RogerHighfield
It's about time the public realised science is mainly done by 23 yr olds with hangovers.

  
khedkarsupriya supriya khedkar
1of d reasons I luv Lif sci: it has many best kept secrets waitin 2 be fathomed,each findin addin new dimension 2 ur understanding of life..

   
edyong209 Ed Yong RT ed by khedkarsupriya
MUHAHAHA! I have full individual access to ScienceDirect. (I have no idea how; possibly in response to an email I sent months ago)

   
NeilWithers Neil Withers by khedkarsupriya

Very handy! Bookmarked RT @JonSatriani: My new favourite site: http://copypastecharacter.com/.

khedkarsupriya supriya khedkar
Almost forgot in the middle of the hectic day that was - CSIR AWARD LETTER IS "FINALLY" HERE!!!! :)

khedkarsupriya supriya khedkar
when I say I LIKE discussing science-biology and fundamental questions in biology...I actually LOVE it!!!

What are you working on?

A question that comes to me *too* often these days after the initial greetings and what are you upto these days inquiries!

I truly appreciate the curiosity and I like it when someone is interested in knowing what kind of work do I do?

BUT the point is the people asking this very *interesting* questions are in our common usage terms *layman*

Just to give an example,

If I am working in the depths of Mariana trench, they are at the shore/the beach! And now, how will one at the shore in *unscientific (read sane/layman)* terms understand and if by a very gross mistake understand; appreciate the need, fun and challenge in doing something AWESOME called *RESEARCH* which in the general perception is a boring, insane activity restricted to the nerdy, whimsical minority!

I mean when I was working for my dissertation,

I at least had *circuits* handy- to which if I attach genetic its okay! Cause out of *genetic circuits* people definitely have heard of circuits (I don’t expect them to know what it is, the meaning part, except for those with science background) but it’s okay I mean! SAVER

And then comes *protein* (in my mind- sorry no substitute available here, might give milk protein caesin as an example but no SUBSTITUTE) and then this *protein* (still the person figuring out what I just said) is never produced in constant amount (Why? I don’t allow them to ask or this question never comes to the person’s mind, don’t know! BUT THANK GOD) so, we have designed a circuit which will produce the protein in constant amounts! Tadaa!!!

And there is SILENCE Golden SILENCE until one of us comes up with a CHANGE of Topic!!!

BTW now I work on expression of stress, cell division and repair related genes in E.coli, which has been evolved for 2000 generations in the lab under Oligophilic low nutrient conditions!

I better not talk about this one!!! STRESS (in cell?) REPAIR (what to repair, in a cell?) and EVOLUTION!!! (BTW almost everyone knows or has heard of Darwin J )

(I wish to appear SANE to the layman’s world, I am no different! I am your kin, your species! )

I think every RESEARCHER/someone doing SCIENCE must have gone through such a dilemma where you are so eager to talk about your work; but even after trying hard, harder and still Hard(btw if you do this you are boring) you are not satisfied with your own explanation and convinced that the other person *layman* has not understood it! I go through this definitely!

Nonetheless, howsoever boring I might sound while I talk about my work to you (which is in the *true* sense, is not boring, you fail to appreciate it due to: still figuring out what?)

I LOVE DOING IT

IT’S AWESOME

NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!!!

            

P.S: All special characters are intended!

On a lighter note...

Location: Pune

Date: 13/05/10

Its 2:16 on clock...it's hot! And adding to it are the mosquitoes sucking a few millilitres of my blood...the blood suckers!

Why don't they jus shoe off...I am bugged, truly!

I wish my blood was poisonous...no no not to me but to these mosquitoes...I wish...aargh got another bite...Losers!

A quick thought chain...People with sickle cell anaemia don't get malaria, are they unbitten by the mosquitoes too? (By at least the mosquitoes carrying malarial parasite)

Reframing it, have mosquitoes developed a strategy...putting it in the right words "evolved" a stratergy wherein atleast for the time being the malarial parasite bearing mosquitoes can avoid sickle celled individuals in whom the parasites future just doesn’t exist??? But then in that case the host mosquitoes are loosing on their hosts (humans)...and that too for a hitchhiker!!!

Can be, may be ...its jus a speculation...can happen too...parasites are drivers of evolution in many scenarios...so you never know…if the logical reasoning goes fine for once…we can at least expect it to happen! Pretty unsure…

For now let us assume that the above mentioned phenomenon of avoiding sickle celled anaemic occurs…it will have to be tested!

And the way of testing the above, makes a hilarious sound! (Unfortunately this comes from a person with average or rather below average sense of humour…so be prepared if it turns out to be lame)

Nonetheless this is how it goes…

Advertisement for volunteers for the “Mosquito Bite Project”

Volunteers required for- being bitten by female anopheles mosquitoes carrying, if your unlucky falciparum and if your super unlucky vivax and if you are super duper unlucky both"

Don't Panic - you will also be bitten by mosquitoes with absence of malarial parasite! It's not all that bad you see.

You can just be a lucky volunteer too...How? Be a negative control volunteer

Or a second chance to be super unlucky - Be a positive control volunteer

All you have to do is stand in a chamber and you will be attacked with n number of mosquitoes for time m (m needs to be calc and for determining n it is necessary to consult a statistician cause the experimenter just doesn't want to “harass” the volunteers with too many mosquitoes; neither wants to repeat the experiment just because the mosquitoes were too less)

* Volunteers with sickle cell anaemia a plus point for you; you will only get bitten by mosquito and no malaria or might not even get bitten in the first place (hoping for the later to happen)! So hurry up! Offer not valid for non-sickle cell anemics for this season. If the above works out... you might be considered for season 2! So keep checking the site for updates.

So hurry up, be the first one to send your consent.

Send in your consent with the answer to the following question:

Why you want to be a part of this "Mosquito bite" project?

a) You care for the Mosquitoes

b) You want to contribute to the cutting edge research on Malaria

c) You have nothing more challenging and exciting to do

d) You have also experienced Mosquito bite n number of times in your life and now want to end it once and for all! And this research according to you is a step in that direction!

2.44 On clock...me still being attacked by mosquitoes!