When it all comes crashing down

Continuing on the theme of mountains and valleys.   Last week I submitted my paper, this week I received permission to write my thesis from my committee.  Basically, the committee believes my work and is ready to let me defend it.  Of course there is still some experiments to complete, but I should be done some [...]

Drag school

Grad school seems to be dragging on.  After the high of submitting my paper earlier this week, the realization that the paper can and probably will be returned for revision or worse out right rejection has set in.  Now it is the waiting game to see what my fellow scientists think.  Reviewing a paper is [...]

Water

I wanted to write today and ask all of my readers to do something.  I know all five of you.  It is about water.  As many of you know I have a facebook account and through it I joined a group called Water.  I did this for a very specific reason.  Water is the one [...]

Five months is less the eight…26.2 is less then 39.3…$125 is less then $285

Ok, my boss (who I love alot) is in need of me graduating in May rather then August.  Ok.  That is in five months.  Which means putting five months of work into three months, of which one is already half gone and one has less days then all the others.  And writing in one month [...]

Peter King’s Ten things

Hey guys, much like a doctor earns his money off of his skill and a truck driver earns his money off of his truck, a journalist makes money off of the written word.  I have been calling a post I do Ten Things I Think I Think.  Well that little verbage was from Sports Illustrated’s [...]

Grant writing season again

My boss is in the process of finishing her grant for submittal to the NIH.  The National Institute of Health processes funding grants for biomedical research.  Since we work on a disease, the NIH tends to be our main funding source.  Unfortunately, only a small number of grants actually get funded so the process of [...]

What can you do in 4 minutes?

I am running an experiment right now in something called a spectrophotometer.  Basically, it detects changes in a solution over time using light.  I am looking for the creation of ATP a small molecule that is used to store all of the energy you harvest from food.  Without ATP you can’t do anything.  Basically, you [...]

Trypanosomiasis

Trypanosoma brucei.  I bet those two words just made your eyes glaze over and your brain turn off.  Don’t worry, that’s the response I always get.  It just means that you are what this world calls normal.  But that is what I study.  It is a single celled parasite that causes African Sleeping Sickness.  It [...]

The theft of research

OK here is the truth.  I think everyone should know this because it is really important. Lance Armstrong recently stated that 6 billion dollars a year is spent in government dollars for cancer research.  He is absolutely right.  Of the approximate 150 billion dollars a year in National Institute of Health spending about 6 Billion [...]

Good Bye Alma

My friend Alma is no longer working in our lab.  She is moving on to bigger and better things at the University of New England in Maine.  She came to our lab three years ago as one of my bosses advisee’s, she then worked as a Master Degree student researcher, and finally stayed on for  [...]