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!

Post "3 idiots"

Okay...I watched 3 idiots and its just awesome! I want to watch it again and again...

It's first of a kind movie I should say which is at par with the book...that it is based on "Five point someone" by Chetan Bhagat.

The core idea that the movie puts forward is to be knowledge sucker and not marks sucker!

And not to mention when Amir delivered the dailogue " saying if you seek knowledge, success will be automatically there, in fact success will run behind you" reminded me of Phadke sir (my HOD at Ruia) saying "exams are just a side effect, they just come and go- we should have a lecture even a day before the exam" So very true...I always feel!

Also, I think the movie has glamorized or rather brought into limelight...the geek, the nerd, the out of the box thinker...in every class! And this ability to ask questions and thinking unconventionally is there not in just a few from the class but in fact every born soul on this planet...but our education system is far too much against questioning and is to all the extents marks oriented!

No wonder Americans and Europeans of Indian origin win noble prizes in Science...cause education system here,doesn't allow you to think of nothing except marks and peer allows you to think of just a good college-an awesome placement-an excellent package-a decent spouse-children and thats it...thats life!

something on my mind...questions?

questions???
we are so much associated with them...i mean they are the thing in our life!!! though usually when one hears the word...what first comes to the mind....are the questions asked in the exam!!!
but here i m not referring to those...definitely not!

our mind is the place where they arise...some are answered there itself..some take time to be answered...some remain unanswered and some we just ignore...
there are other aspects to questions ... as in what are they referring to a person a phenomenon a behavior or something else...i know there must be many more aspects...but at present i can only think of these...

i intend to use this post as a repository of questions...any question that comes to my mind...or anyone's mind here...and whoever feels to comment on the question or answer it or wishes to post a new question...is free to do so...

so, here i begin-

• what is intelligence??? how do you define it??

• how does a pen drive store data...for that matter even a Cd???

• what is time???( i mean..this question sounds silly...but i really don't know....)

....ohkk.... i mean they are so damn varied n random...anyways i don't care..these were the first few that came on my mind at this point of time!!!

i think...it's just a matter of posting what's on your mind...!