Friday, November 28, 2008
Still revising ...
... though it's going much slower on a laptop, because my desktop whimpered and died on me. Graphic construction software (I use Gimp) is much more tedious on the laptop. As a matter of fact, I hates it. But, it's coming along. I hope to get it out by the first week of December ... and focus on the data analysis for my next manuscript.
Pragmatic Me
I was reading RPG's blog, and his latest entry is one which ultimately deals with why he is a scientist. It boils down to, as he states ...
For me, it started in high school. We took that awful preliminary SAT test ... called, oddly enough, the PSATs. When you take that test, it comes back to you with a list of careers you might be ideally suited for. At the top of the list for me: Medical Technologist. A career I had zero information about. So, I started looking around (this was a time before that series of tubes called "the internets") and got literature from a number of universities. They all painted a nice picture about their Med Tech programs. I always did better in my english, history, and political science classes as a student, but I just couldn't see myself in a career within those fields. Exactly what would I do? is something I constantly asked myself. Be a librarian? was the response that my mind often came up with.
I wanted no part of being a librarian.
A medical technology position wasn't "high profile", though it could be a good start towards getting into a med school. What med tech provided however was an almost guaranteed source of employment from the minute I was given my diploma. As a child who grew up solidly middle class, this was a big deal. I saw how my parents struggled with keeping food on the table and a roof overhead, I saw the intense work ethics of my dad and grandpa, I knew I'd have to eventually do the same ... and being a librarian didn't seem like a very good source of income. I don't say this to degrade librarians, because pay may be really good ... but no one ever gave me any information as a teenager on what it was like to be a librarian. When found in such a vacuum, you fill it the only way you know how *shrug*.
At any rate, so based on the results of that PSAT test, and the information I found on Med Tech (not to mention those PSAT's seem to be serve as a recruitment tool for colleges because every Med Tech program in the land started sending me brochures on their particular program), I figured I'd look at colleges that offered the program. I looked at several, and each one of them spoke to the point of a low number of Med Tech's but a high demand for them. Base pay was good $16/hour (at the time) and bound to increase every year, so I figured I'd give it a try. It certainly seemed more challenging than any other subject I'd considered majoring in.
Beauty alas, never factored into the equation.
Now, as I've progressed in my career, I've been excited by several aspects of my work ... most notably, I find it cool that if I do an experiment ... I may very well be the first person EVAR to do that particular experiment to answer that specific question on that specific organism. But that isn't what keeps me going. What keeps me going is that paycheck I receive. Now, it helps that I love what I do. I most certainly do, but my particular job affords me many benefits which allow me to love it, and want to persist in doing it.
I guess there are those who will persist in doing something because they find it beautiful. I'm happy for them. For me, that simply isn't the case. I think what I do is important AND useful, both for the environment, my field, and more importantly myself ... and all for different reasons. I'm afraid beauty simply doesn't fit into the equation, or if it does it's not a factor which is weighted very heavily.
I don’t do science because it’s useful, or important. I do science because I find it beautiful.I have no problem with that, but that is certainly not how I found myself in the world of science.
For me, it started in high school. We took that awful preliminary SAT test ... called, oddly enough, the PSATs. When you take that test, it comes back to you with a list of careers you might be ideally suited for. At the top of the list for me: Medical Technologist. A career I had zero information about. So, I started looking around (this was a time before that series of tubes called "the internets") and got literature from a number of universities. They all painted a nice picture about their Med Tech programs. I always did better in my english, history, and political science classes as a student, but I just couldn't see myself in a career within those fields. Exactly what would I do? is something I constantly asked myself. Be a librarian? was the response that my mind often came up with.
I wanted no part of being a librarian.
A medical technology position wasn't "high profile", though it could be a good start towards getting into a med school. What med tech provided however was an almost guaranteed source of employment from the minute I was given my diploma. As a child who grew up solidly middle class, this was a big deal. I saw how my parents struggled with keeping food on the table and a roof overhead, I saw the intense work ethics of my dad and grandpa, I knew I'd have to eventually do the same ... and being a librarian didn't seem like a very good source of income. I don't say this to degrade librarians, because pay may be really good ... but no one ever gave me any information as a teenager on what it was like to be a librarian. When found in such a vacuum, you fill it the only way you know how *shrug*.
At any rate, so based on the results of that PSAT test, and the information I found on Med Tech (not to mention those PSAT's seem to be serve as a recruitment tool for colleges because every Med Tech program in the land started sending me brochures on their particular program), I figured I'd look at colleges that offered the program. I looked at several, and each one of them spoke to the point of a low number of Med Tech's but a high demand for them. Base pay was good $16/hour (at the time) and bound to increase every year, so I figured I'd give it a try. It certainly seemed more challenging than any other subject I'd considered majoring in.
Beauty alas, never factored into the equation.
Now, as I've progressed in my career, I've been excited by several aspects of my work ... most notably, I find it cool that if I do an experiment ... I may very well be the first person EVAR to do that particular experiment to answer that specific question on that specific organism. But that isn't what keeps me going. What keeps me going is that paycheck I receive. Now, it helps that I love what I do. I most certainly do, but my particular job affords me many benefits which allow me to love it, and want to persist in doing it.
I guess there are those who will persist in doing something because they find it beautiful. I'm happy for them. For me, that simply isn't the case. I think what I do is important AND useful, both for the environment, my field, and more importantly myself ... and all for different reasons. I'm afraid beauty simply doesn't fit into the equation, or if it does it's not a factor which is weighted very heavily.
Boomer Sooner!
The University of Oklahoma football team travels to Stoolwater this weekend to face their in-state "rival" OSWho? Typically only the OSU fans consider this "The Big Game" because to OU, the Cowboys are usually just a bunch of fumbling fools. However, this year OSU is ranked 12th, and OU trails Texass by .084 points in the BCS rankings. So, even for OU this ranks as a "Big Game". Beat OSU, hopefully handily, and OU stands to jump ahead in the BCS standings ... thereby earning themselves a trip to the Big 12 Championship to play Missouri. Beat Mizzou (which we did last year) and it's time to play for the National Championship!I know, OU lost to Texass earlier this year. Doesn't matter. Strength of schedule, peaking at the right time, number of quality opponents ... they all favor Oklahoma. Boomer friggin Sooner!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
New Computer!
Looks like I'll be back in business after the holidays. My new and improved computer has been ordered by IT, and should be here after the Thanksgiving holiday. Just in time too! Though the federal government has moved to rating its employees to coincide with the fiscal year (Oct 1 thru Sept 30) rather than the calendar year (Jan 1 thru Dec 31), the holiday season is still turning out to be pretty hectic. However, instead of cramming to get that final manuscript out by Dec 31 (complete with all the bureaucratic paperwork that comes with it) -- that sort of cramming happens at the end of September now -- there is just a lot of online training and other assorted junk this year.
Well, at least there is never a dull moment!
Well, at least there is never a dull moment!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Top Ten Favorite Microbes
In browsing the comment fields of my blog entries, I came across a comment by Rhea, blogger of The Apprenticing Lab Rat that got me thinking.
What are my favorite microbes?
So, I put my thinking cap on, and came up with the following list of my ...
Top Ten Favorite Microbes.
10. Nitrosomonas eutropha - I suppose you could put N. europaea here in this spot as well, they're very closely related. They make up one lineage of the Nitrosomonas genus, which happens to be the lineage you're most likely to find growing in wastewater treatment plants. This genus is also one of two major players (along with Nitrosococcus) in the first phase of ammonia oxidation, which sees the conversion of ammonia to nitrite, a necessary step in the Nitrogen Cycle.
9. Yersinia pestis - Any bug which can pretty much singlehandedly be responsible for what people would forever refer to as the "Black Death" gets my attention and respect.
8. Comamonas badia - Not an organism most people are going to have heard about, though I've blogged about it before. Nothing particularly exciting about this organism other than the fact that it forms flocs. Flocs are useful for wastewater treatment systems as it provides a matrix for organisms to grow on ... call them floating biofilms. If the flocs are of the right composition, they will settle out rapidly, a feature necessary for producing a quality effluent. It's on my list because in some of our genetic characterization studies, we've seen a relative of this organism but have yet to isolate it. I like challenges!
7. Escherichia coli - Come on, Who doesn't like E. coli? Of course, for the purposes of this question, we're excluding those individuals who are currently tied up with a bout of the Aztec two-step. For any gene jockey E. coli is an essential tool for cloning purposes. Heck, I even used E. coli for triparental matings way back when.
6. Legionella - How many organisms do you know that can spread through an air-conditioning system? I know of one in particular, and this one is it.
5. Pseudomonas aeruginosa - As a clinical microbiologist, P. aeruginosa is one of those organisms that is very easy to identify. If it smells like Welch's grape juice, it's P. aeruginosa. That, and it fluoresces. It does have this nasty habit of being very harmful to burn victims though. The damn bug grows just about everywhere, and is a friggin pain in the posterior to eradicate from a system once it takes root.
4. Borrelia burgdorferi - Say that fives times real fast. I've never had Lyme disease, and I never want to either. Spirochetes look cool too.
3. Vibrio cholerae - Two words for you: rice-water stool. Some things/phrases stick with you forever, and those two words are one such phrase I will never forget. I've also always been fascinated with quorum sensing, and this organism along with other Vibrio species, has seen the lion share of such research. V. cholerae was also responsible for helping Robert Koch refine his postulates, as well as bringing about the birth of epidemiology (see John Snow).
2. Neisseria gonorrhoeae - Spent more time working on this organism than any other. It's an exquisite organism, being an obligate human pathogen it has no vector and must rely on one of the few activities that most humans have a proclivity for -- sex -- for transmission. There is a documented case of fomite transmission as well.
I crack up everytime I see that. The actual letter ... is a bit disgusting when you read it.
1. Deinococcus radiodurans - The coolest of the cool. Any organism that can take dosages of radiation that would kill a human a couple hundred thousand times over is neat! Not that this organism evolved after Chernobyl. Instead, this "super power" is most likely the result of surviving dessicated environments. That is why this xerophile (arid condition surviving organism) is at the top of my list! All extremophiles rock by the way!
So, what are some of the favorites of everyone else? Hmmm, should I make this a meme?
What are my favorite microbes?
So, I put my thinking cap on, and came up with the following list of my ...
Top Ten Favorite Microbes.
10. Nitrosomonas eutropha - I suppose you could put N. europaea here in this spot as well, they're very closely related. They make up one lineage of the Nitrosomonas genus, which happens to be the lineage you're most likely to find growing in wastewater treatment plants. This genus is also one of two major players (along with Nitrosococcus) in the first phase of ammonia oxidation, which sees the conversion of ammonia to nitrite, a necessary step in the Nitrogen Cycle.
9. Yersinia pestis - Any bug which can pretty much singlehandedly be responsible for what people would forever refer to as the "Black Death" gets my attention and respect.
8. Comamonas badia - Not an organism most people are going to have heard about, though I've blogged about it before. Nothing particularly exciting about this organism other than the fact that it forms flocs. Flocs are useful for wastewater treatment systems as it provides a matrix for organisms to grow on ... call them floating biofilms. If the flocs are of the right composition, they will settle out rapidly, a feature necessary for producing a quality effluent. It's on my list because in some of our genetic characterization studies, we've seen a relative of this organism but have yet to isolate it. I like challenges!
7. Escherichia coli - Come on, Who doesn't like E. coli? Of course, for the purposes of this question, we're excluding those individuals who are currently tied up with a bout of the Aztec two-step. For any gene jockey E. coli is an essential tool for cloning purposes. Heck, I even used E. coli for triparental matings way back when.
6. Legionella - How many organisms do you know that can spread through an air-conditioning system? I know of one in particular, and this one is it.
5. Pseudomonas aeruginosa - As a clinical microbiologist, P. aeruginosa is one of those organisms that is very easy to identify. If it smells like Welch's grape juice, it's P. aeruginosa. That, and it fluoresces. It does have this nasty habit of being very harmful to burn victims though. The damn bug grows just about everywhere, and is a friggin pain in the posterior to eradicate from a system once it takes root.
4. Borrelia burgdorferi - Say that fives times real fast. I've never had Lyme disease, and I never want to either. Spirochetes look cool too.
3. Vibrio cholerae - Two words for you: rice-water stool. Some things/phrases stick with you forever, and those two words are one such phrase I will never forget. I've also always been fascinated with quorum sensing, and this organism along with other Vibrio species, has seen the lion share of such research. V. cholerae was also responsible for helping Robert Koch refine his postulates, as well as bringing about the birth of epidemiology (see John Snow).
2. Neisseria gonorrhoeae - Spent more time working on this organism than any other. It's an exquisite organism, being an obligate human pathogen it has no vector and must rely on one of the few activities that most humans have a proclivity for -- sex -- for transmission. There is a documented case of fomite transmission as well.
I crack up everytime I see that. The actual letter ... is a bit disgusting when you read it.1. Deinococcus radiodurans - The coolest of the cool. Any organism that can take dosages of radiation that would kill a human a couple hundred thousand times over is neat! Not that this organism evolved after Chernobyl. Instead, this "super power" is most likely the result of surviving dessicated environments. That is why this xerophile (arid condition surviving organism) is at the top of my list! All extremophiles rock by the way!
So, what are some of the favorites of everyone else? Hmmm, should I make this a meme?
My Favorite Microbe
According to Rhea, her favorite organism is Helicobacter pylori.
H. pylori is indeed a cool bug, but it's not my favorite. Actually, this is a good idea for a blog entry. I'm going to list my Top Ten Favorite Microbes. Stay tuned!
H. pylori is indeed a cool bug, but it's not my favorite. Actually, this is a good idea for a blog entry. I'm going to list my Top Ten Favorite Microbes. Stay tuned!
Yup ...
... the desktop is still down for the count. Something about my 24" monitor being too much for the graphics card that currently resides in the bowels of that damned machine. It will need to be upgraded, but that won't happen until after Thanksgiving.
At least I managed to recover the data/text I need for the revision of my grad school manuscript. Now hopefully my co-author will come through today with the request I made of them, and we'll get this thing out!
At least I managed to recover the data/text I need for the revision of my grad school manuscript. Now hopefully my co-author will come through today with the request I made of them, and we'll get this thing out!
Quid Pro Quo
Even after blogging for most of this year, my blogroll is rather small. So, I'm opening up my blogroll! If you read my blog and wouldn't mind putting up a link to mine on yours, I'll return the favor! Just leave the relevant details in the comments section!
Monday, November 24, 2008
It's hard to believe ...
... that my first alma mater, the University at Buffalo, may actually be going bowling this year. It looks like they clinched the Mid American Conferences East Division, and will probably play undefeated Ball State (if they don't get upset) in the MAC Championship game in a few weeks. I haven't really been a big fan of UB football. When I went to UB, the football program sucked. They were getting their asses kicked by every team they played. In the meantime, our XC and Track and Field teams were winning conference championships ... and who got the glory? The pathetic football and basketball teams, and those guys had the egos to go along with it ... though they sucked.
No, I'm not bitter. I mean, with three individual conference championships (1000m, 1600m, 5000m), and a fourth team title (XC) under my belt, what do I have to be bitter about?
Anyways, these new kids aren't the old losers I had to deal with, so I'll root for them. Though, I must admit, my loyalties run much deeper for the University of Oklahoma. At least until UB puts me into their athletic Hall of Fame *hint* *hint*.
Does my breath smell?
It appears that Helicobacter pylori may be the cause of halitosis (aka 'bad breath') as well.
H. pylori is a very interesting bug. It appears to have first been identified in the 1800's, though the work didn't really go anywhere. The issue was readdressed in the early 80's, with the work of scientists Barry Marshall and J.R. Warren, who linked the organism to stomach ulcers. This was met with a fair bit of skepticism, but Marshall showed them (did he ever!) by drinking a flask of the bug and promptly coming down with a stomach ulcer. In addition to being a really stupid thing to do, it eventually earned them the Nobel Prize in 2005. There are also links between H. pylori and stomach cancer, which makes the issue of halitosis rather small potato's in the grand scheme of things. It's estimated that roughly 50% of the worlds population carries the organism, though only a percentage of those carriers ever present with any sort of symptoms.
H. pylori is a very interesting bug. It appears to have first been identified in the 1800's, though the work didn't really go anywhere. The issue was readdressed in the early 80's, with the work of scientists Barry Marshall and J.R. Warren, who linked the organism to stomach ulcers. This was met with a fair bit of skepticism, but Marshall showed them (did he ever!) by drinking a flask of the bug and promptly coming down with a stomach ulcer. In addition to being a really stupid thing to do, it eventually earned them the Nobel Prize in 2005. There are also links between H. pylori and stomach cancer, which makes the issue of halitosis rather small potato's in the grand scheme of things. It's estimated that roughly 50% of the worlds population carries the organism, though only a percentage of those carriers ever present with any sort of symptoms.
Does this water taste funny to you?
Water from urine recycling machine broken in space station. $250 million dollar system? I think the Boy Scouts of America can do it for much less.
I hate Murphy ...
... and his stupid Law. So I have this manuscript that I'm revising and I've finished all but maybe 1/8th of it. So what goes and happens? Blue screen of death on my computer followed by a total crash (a little cursor blinking in the top corner, nothing else). All my data is on that computer, so now I have to wait for IT to recover my revised manuscript and new figures from their backups. So much for getting it finished today. Dang it.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
J-E-T-S!
Jets! Jets! Jets! Jets!
Jets defeat the previously unbeaten Titans.
Now, hopefully I pulled out a win in my fantasy football league. If I win, I get a berth in the playoffs.
ETA: Looks like I pulled out a 10 point win in fantasy football. Huzzah!
Jets defeat the previously unbeaten Titans.Now, hopefully I pulled out a win in my fantasy football league. If I win, I get a berth in the playoffs.
ETA: Looks like I pulled out a 10 point win in fantasy football. Huzzah!
Friday, November 21, 2008
Yet another reason ...
... to stay a leg up in the scientific world.
The report, based on a global survey of experts and trends, was more pessimistic about America's global status than previous outlooks prepared every four years. It said that outcomes will depend in part on the actions of political leaders. "The next 20 years of transition to a new system are fraught with risks," it said.
Review #1
These reviews are taking a bit longer than I expected. Not that I've had much time myself to address the reviewer comments if I had gotten them sooner, so I guess no harm/no foul. At any rate, the work I had done during graduate school received a review requesting some minor edits: a change to the introduction; a change to a figure; a request for a figure; and more explanation on a third. Easily done, and very satisfying. According to the reviewers, the manuscript was well written, and the literature is adequately cited. That works for me. Now to get it turned around. I'm especially pleased because I have the work they requested, so I don't get into an ugly game of trying to do work I finished several years ago in my lab which doesn't deal in the slightest with pathogens.
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