Picture a Day-Day 51

As I was walking to my car yesterday I spotted a rather familiar sight in this state (we are all corn huskers after all, though I should probably update my husking training):In the middle of the lawn at the base of a tree outside my building sat a picked clean corn cob, probably drug here from a field by an enterprising little squirrel. I imagine there was quite a bit of bickering on his part with his neighbors over just who got to eat the corn and who got to watch the eating.

When I was younger my sister and I were sent off to an old corn field to look for any missed cobs of dried corn that my grandparents could put up to feed the squirrels, and seeing that took me back.

Getting home I whipped up a more usual simple Asian dinner that is made up of some meat, rice, some vegetables and various special spices and sauces (I love hoisin) but there is one thing that ties pretty much every dish we eat or make together.

From omelettes to spaghetti to spicing up hamburger helper I will always think it'll taste a lot better the liberal application of mushrooms. While we can shrug off milk and bread, it's a bad day when we run out of mushrooms in the fridge.

Basically what I'm getting at is that if you ever visit us for a meal expect lots and lots of tasty fungus in everything.

What's one of your staple food stuffs or flavors that you just have to add to anything (we are pretty notorious about cinnamon and nutmeg too)? Is there something that you didn't have much growing up but adore now?


And since the two pictures I already showed off have next to nothing to do with each other, here's one I snapped of the clouds and gorgeous blue sky yesterday:

Man do I miss summer and a bright blue sky.

Genetics Vs Free Will

I make no qualms or hidden behind the fact that I am a scientist, and more specifically a geneticist.

I've studied genetics and learned many techniques for understanding genetic experiments for about 4 years now. We have been researching genetics since the late 19th century when Gregor Mendel was playing with some peas in his backyard.

We were aware of transposons --special sections of DNA that move from one section to the next having an influence on the transcription of a gene and it's expression-- since the 60's. Breeding and artificial selection itself has been going on since we first became an agriculture society oh 12,000 years ago or so.

But there is still this hope, this dream that we can all overcome it. People assume all that genetic stuff in your cells is just an idea and that free will with lots of hard work you can defeat. There are dreams that we can easily rid ourselves of genetically predisposed diseases when in practice even the only disease that is caused by one gene (which is an incredibly rare thing, even hair color is at least three genes), Cystic Fibrosis, one we were sure to cure with gene therapy is alluding us.

Yet people, doctors, the media, and every arm chair dietitian in the world thinks you can completely overcome your genetic code and be as thin as you want just by "eating less."

Someone finally got in their head to do a little study to test this theory --it's so small I can't even call it an experiment-- involving thin people who are told to over eat and under exercise. It's the exact opposite of a diet which we all know, and even WW is claiming now, doesn't work.

There is a reference to an older study that I think people would find very interesting to learn about "In 1967, a medical researcher, Ethan Sims, carried out an experiment at Vermont state prison in the US. He recruited inmates to eat as much as they could to gain 25% of their body weight, in return for early release from prison.

Some of the volunteers could not reach the target however hard they tried, even though they were eating 10,000 calories a day. Sims's conclusion was that for some, obesity is nearly impossible."

People who could have gotten released from prison could not eat their way to obesity, yet people are expected to starve themselves down to a "normal" weight. Perhaps I am missing something here but doesn't that go against every rhetoric we've been fed since some diet company got in bed with the government to create the "Obesity Crisis."

Imagine if instead of pounds we're all being told is the enemy it's inches. Why just by eating this magical pill and standing in a small box for a few hours you could decrease your size in 10 weeks.

There's even a surgery you could do to decrease the size of your leg bones so you'd be as short as you always dreamed.

Seems insane doesn't it? Well height is just as much determined genetically as weight. We can affect it some with hormones but most parents who force their children to take growth hormone to get taller are frowned upon. But what about that parent who signs their child up for lap band surgery or puts them on alli?

For a better take on it all check out this article about the "Tall Epidemic."

Maybe it's all part of the mythical American Dream that we can overcome anything life throws our way and the idea of something as simple as the crap shoot of your parents DNA intermingling causing a greater affect on you than your own will power terrifies us.

And as sad as it is, I know I could spout all the statistics and data til I was blue in the face and still our world perception is that a person just eats themselves into obesity and it's all their lazy ass fault yet a person who is thin and can eat whatever they want should just thank Lady Luck.

Everyone wants to ignore their own little DNA sometimes to disastrous results.

Inauguration Day Unity

I have to admit I sort of approached this Tuesday a bit differently from a lot of other people. I was a bit more subdued, didn't actually watch the inauguration or the flub heard round the world.

There was just some random checking on-line but otherwise the lab got most of my attention.

I left a long rambling comment on someone's post about why I didn't really get into it or view it as this occasion to trump all over momentous occasions but somehow the Daily Show has summed it up better than I ever could.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Inauguration Day Unity

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Picture a Day-Day 50

Occasionally lab work requires you to crawl out of the lab or pull yourself away from your office and actually travel somewhere else.

If you're the professor in charge or a grad student with a fancy poster to present then it's to fun and exciting places. If you're a lab grunt like me then it's to places that barely contain a bar and a church.

Yesterday I drove two hours west deep into the heart of Nebraska's flat land (I swear regardless of what you may all think, hear, and smell we've actually got hills in other parts of the state. Actually one of our claims to fame are the sand hills so I have no idea why people think we're as flat as a pancake).
It was a pretty nice day for a drive, maybe a touch too warm so it seemed like a good idea to take a nap but over all not to bad. But most people; however, don't rent a University vehicle and drive just to take a picture and leave.

The whole crux of the trip was to pick up an important passanger. One that I will come to know very very well, I'd almost say obssesivly so. Here they are all bundled up ready for the trip:They were pretty good travelers too, didn't complain or make too much of a fuss. There were no spills, which we were all fearful of and they kept toasty warm in their little blanket.

I got them back and introduced them to their new environment where I hope they'll grow and flourish:So begins a new chapter in my life. A chapter devoted to the caring for and loving of some small little macrophages adhered to plastic wells. I get to restart cell culture.

If you've ever met or known someone who does a lot of cell culture you'll realize one thing right away, we're insane (especially if we do primary cell lines). Cells can become infected and all die right off if you look at them funny.

Officially they're sort of like having a goldfish, you just have to watch them to make sure they're okay every day and every other day or so feed them and clean out their tank.

Unofficially they are little walking time bombs. If you don't do your damndest to keep everything as sterile as possible (that means the hood, the incubator, the hall you have to take them down to get to the microscope, and that jerk from two labs over who keeps poking his head in there to take a look) they will become infected and die.

Every cell culture person I've ever met has their own special one way of doing everything and if you even so much as breathe on their stuff you will be dealt with in a horrible mind numbing way (usually involving a long talk about the importance of sterile techniques). If there were a Saint of Cell Culture, labs would have her picture up all over the place.

So wish me luck as I become obsessive over some little cow macrophages that need all the love and attention I can give them.

Attention Whore

Hi everyone,

I feel like I'm being a touch of an attention grabber right now but I really like this latest little painting and I wanted to share it:
P.S. apparently my ring got a feature on Wedding Bee's little running thing about ring pics. It's not as pretty as all the others, but I thought it was a rather fun picture. Or maybe going off the comments it's just me.