lab talk

Mr. Daybyday used to cringe at the thought of heading to the bar with me and some of my grad school buddies. He doesn't seem to worry much about that anymore.

As a non scientist he was often put-off by the amount of shop-talk that some of my friends did while at the pub. I can't really blame him, because even I would lose my buzz during some of those conversations. But it just happened that some of the people I hung around with absolutely LOVED talking about science. It didn't matter where they were.

A post over at YoungFemaleScientist inspired me to write about why I don't personally do much science blogging here.

One reason is that to maintain some form of anonymity, I try not to reveal too much of my own area of expertise. But that really only accounts for a very small part of the answer.

I would say that the major reason why my posts tend not to be about science is because I just haven't felt the need to blog about science. I think about and do science for a large part of my day, and frankly, my brain needs a chance to rest and consolidate the information or else I start feeling as though I'm pulling an all-nighter and cramming for an exam at the last minute. That, and there is more to life than science.

I used to talk about scientific musings to friends and family who seemed interested. I don't seem to do that as much anymore. I think the change that produced this shift was becoming a full time scientist rather than a student (although, we scientists are always pseudo-students). Now I am surrounded by and have the resources at hand to muse about science to my hearts content - while I am at work. I just don't often feel the need to do that anymore at home (or in blogspace).

I still know lots of people who love talking about science all the time, and blog about it regularly - I'm just not one of them. I used to wonder if maybe that meant I wasn't cut out to be an academic. But now I think that there's room for people like me in academia too - as long as I am productive in the time I spend in the lab, why shouldn't I have a life outside of science too?

So this blog is my outlet for all the other things on my mind. I like to think that dealing with all the other aspects of my life on here helps clear my mind so that when I am in the lab I can be a better scientist. And hey, if readers find my blog entertaining, or helpful, that's a bonus!

Certainty

Maybe it was the line about smart people being good at rationalizing (and how that can lead to many hours of chasing our own tails), or maybe it is my training in mathematics - but this lovely comic courtesy of the very talented Randall Munroe at xkcd made me smile.


I think it may also be irony of how so many of us feel in the pursuit of knowledge and truth.

But it's still not enough to make me abandon science just yet.

Five lives

Another one of those "self exploration" exercises has really got me thinking. You're supposed to imagine that you could have 5 lives in which you could explore 5 different careers, lifestyles, the whole sha-bang! So far I have only come up with 3.

The first one that popped into my mind was, of course, to be a martial artist. It's funny how I sort of view this as my secret little quirky passion. Almost like I am a little embarrassed about it. I think it is more because I'm not the greatest martial artist - I just happen to be good enough at some of the styles I've tried to get enough positive feedback to make me want to learn more. I can imagine myself learning lots of different styles, and becoming an instructor. There is just something so intrinsically rewarding about practicing a martial art and passing on that knowledge. It is almost spiritual. It makes me feel at peace, even though most practices leave me sweaty and out of breath. So yeah, if I had 5 lives, I'd probably spend at least one of them exploring martial arts whole-heartedly.

The next one that I decided was to be a research scientist (talk about imagination!). I guess it is a either a good sign that I would spend at least one of my 5 lives doing what I am on the path to doing now - OR a bad sign that this life of science has sapped all of my creative juices so that I cannot even think of much else to do with my life. But I'll try and stay positive and take it as a good sign. I don't imagine myself as a professor - but that could also be because I've been resisting that particular "flavor" of research at the moment. I can imagine working in either a big (maybe even top secret!) government lab, or maybe some other large organization. I picture myself working along side very bright people towards a common goal. I'd like to think that the research would be of the utmost importance and of benefit to humanity. And it would tickle the little kid in me to be using or pushing the advancement of some really cool technology too. It just seems so much more exciting and rewarding than what I do right now (which seems sterile and obscure in comparison).

The third career/lifestyle that I could come up with was to be an advocate or somehow involved in policy change and revolution. Again the major theme would be to benefit humanity and make a positive difference in the world. Maybe I would act as a liaison between the scientists and politicians to prevent silly political whims from pulling the plug on otherwise revolutionary and potentially ground breaking research. Or maybe I would be an advocate for diversity - be it special needs issues, gender issues, racial issues - I think there is a lot to be said for a proper training in genetics in allowing folks to understand what difference and diversity actually mean. The world is becoming more and more of a global venture - it is about time we started helping people utilize diversity for good rather than ... well rather than for what it seems to be used for now, which is bad.

Anyway, I'm still working on what to do with the other two lives. I know I'd love to travel - but I've got to pay the bills somehow, and I've always sort of known that I want to love my career. We spend so much time at our jobs that it just never made sense to me to choose a career that you don't love if you have any say in the matter. But for some people the trade off is worth it - the job only takes up their 9-5 lives, and doesn't get to touch the rest. Maybe I would spend one of my 5 lives like that, just to see what I'm missing.

What keeps you awake at night?

I attended a seminar recently where the speaker responded to a question from the audience with "Now that is what keeps me awake at night!" The speaker was implying that the question raised by the audience member was something that worried or troubled the speaker to no end. And they were talking about a specific aspect of the research presented.

When science keeps me awake at night, it's not usually because my results make no sense to me, rather it is usually when I've been stumped by a coding problem and the solution suddenly pops into my head and I'm trying my hardest to make sure I don't forget the solution by the time I wake up the next morning.

And even those instances are rare. Science does not usually keep me awake at night, unless you allow your definition of science to include wondering where the universe came from, if there was anything before the universe as we know it, and what happens after we die.

Those types of thoughts tend to frequent my mind as I try to fall asleep - and I usually push them aside because I've had them enough to know that I never really get any satisfactory answers from them and they usually just end up making me feel sad and alone (even with my husband right there beside me!).

I used to wish that I could see how all this turns out. So that after I die I could be a spectator and see how far the world "advances" and what becomes of us. I think that means I am pretty attached to this world.

Anyway, I wonder what keeps other people awake at night. And I wonder if it is typically related to stressors in our lives, or if some scientists are kept awake by science because they simply love thinking about it.

Back to the books

Okay, so I haven't been a perfect soldier - I missed a few days of blogging. I think I will have to allow myself time off on weekends.

So now that the big pregnancy extravaganza seems to have blown over, I'd like to re-focus my mind on science once again. Becoming a parent still takes up a substantial amount of thought time in my brain, but I don't want to expend all my mental energy on that thought.

Perhaps I'll try to start each workday with a blog to gather my thoughts together and lay out my scientific plans for the day.

PA and I have talked about this newish technique that applies to our field, and I am trying to think about it in the back of my mind to see if I can come up with any neat projects that could make use of this technology. I generally conceptualize projects from a compuational stand-point, as I have little to no wet-lab experience. I remember reading that academics (this advice was directed to mathematicians specifically, but can be applied more broadly) should keep their top 10 dream projects in the back of their mind, and every time they learn a new technique, they should mentally check if that technique would be of any use to their top 10. Typically it won't, but once in a blue moon, one will stick, and then you can have some advancement on your dream project, and other people will wonder "How did you ever come up with that solution?"
Maybe I'll have an "epiphany" of my own someday.

In the mean time I have some long standing interests in a related field of my own, and more generally in the big questions of "origins." I'm not all that interested in the origin of life itself, as I recognize that is probably too tricky for most of the methods I use - and I actually think that it was so stochastic a beginning that we wouldn't have all that much to learn from resolving that particular puzzle. I may be naive for thinking this way - but I just find myself more interested in synthetic biology or astrobiology than resolving the actual origin of life on our planet.

I think part of why these "big questions" appeal to me has to do with my mathematics training. I like knowing that there is an actual answer. There is only one true history, and knowing that somehow makes the effort for discovering the truth worthwhile. It may turn out that the sequences we have available to us today are too saturated and noisy to reach that far back in time, but knowing that there still is a real answer out there is satisfying.

But for now I need to continue some reading, to see what has been thought of already, and to mentally apply those techniques to my top 10 list. Oh, and I need to practice my talk for the conference this weekend. And hopefully I will hear back from the editor about my manuscript that is out for review - fingers crossed that it will be accepted for publication!