Two experiences

The Twilight Zone: getting to campus by 7:00 or 7:30 and being the only one around. Going into my office area and seeing only empty cubicles. An earily timeless.

Hell: I went to the fitness center at my apartment complex and, like the office, was the only one there. Except at the fitness center, the tv was on and tuned to a sports talkshow with the volume up and the remote NOWHERE to be found. I could feel my brain cells dying.

Life update

My apologies, faithful readers, for the lack of posts. Graduate school, it turns out, is not all fun and games. I suddenly find myself lacking in free time, sleep, and a social life. At the moment I'm frustrated because it is a GORGEOUS fall day outside, and I'm inside pecking away at this computer.

If you've time to burn, you can see a bit of what I live in at these sites:
- The Dahl Lab
- The Davidson Lab
- PhD Comics

Snapshot

Determination or desperation?

Saturday morning. Left the office last night at 7PM--the wild friday night of a graduate student. Started work at 8 this morning. At 11, still enjoying coffee and pajamas. Programming a model of bidirectional microtubule motion due to dynamic transitions of mutated Ncd molecular motors. Mmmm...

An observation

Science fiction and, more specifically, Hollywood, has a theme of the world becoming more mechanical. More specifically, of biology becoming more mechanical. The Matrix, Star Trek, the Terminator series, and others all have this theme. I myself joked that I'd invent the Borg for my PhD research. 

But the theme is false to reality. In fact, the opposite is more true. Rather than biology moving towards machinery, machinery is becoming more biological. Computer interfaces better reflect the traits of the user. Medical solutions are less mechanical/surgical and more therapeutic. Electronic communication includes text, sound, and images. 

This is a profoundly good trend because it keeps people closer to their humanity. And it will only get stronger. The mechanical things that are visible in everyday life will continue to become less and less apparent. 

And now I need to stop "philosophizing" and get back to work (or perhaps this is my real work?...).

Thursday's weather forecast

Busy, with a chance of snow.

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is October. I'm used to October being hot, dry, and windy. Not snowy. Snow is the cotton balls on fancy Christmas decorations, not a reality. Snow is the stuff in movies that apparently is cold, because people wear coats when in it. Snow is necessary for a snow cone on a hot fall day in California. But surely it can't be real.

I'm excited, can you tell?

Journal analogies

Cell :: NYT
Nature :: CNN
Science :: USA Today (pie charts!)
Journal of Cell Biology :: Washington Post
Tissue Engineering :: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The google home page today is...

...BRILLIANT. I will be geeking out about it all day!

Life update

My thanks, faithful readers, for visiting this blogs. In the blogosphere, "never have so many said so little with so much," so I am particularly grateful you choose to come here. I attached a hit counter and found this site gets 10-15 hits a day. Enough to make me excited.

- Yesterday, I was in someone else's house/apartment for the first time in two months. That's moving to a new city for you.
- Yesterday, I met the wonderful group of people, the kind you meet and immediately know you should spend time around them.
- Yesterday, I saw for the first time in my life trees in the countryside changing colors.
- Yesterday, I was assigned an advisor (and today, a cubicle). My life as a graduate student begins to take form.
- Yesterday, I had an incredible conversation with an incredible friend, as we sought to understand an incredible God.

Yesterday was a good day.

Writing

Mine isn't the best, but I'm working on it. What I'm noticing now is the appalling lack of good writing in scientific literature. Each week for classes I read around five journal articles, from Nature to Cell to Tissue Engineering. I estimate that, on average, only one out of every five is well written. One. That leaves four mediocre or poorly written articles. Such lack of quality goes a long way towards defeating the purposes of publishing said articles in the first place. Great research isn't much use if it's indecipherable. I suspect the following to be key contributing factors:

- Lack of training. My training at UCI was abysmal. The few writing requirements were inevitably devoid of feedback. Many faculty and TAs were incapable of providing the needed feedback, or, worse, simply did not care.
- Lack of interest. I wish every scientist could delight in good writing. Yet all too many students and faculty seem simply not to care.
- The status quo. Poor writing quality is all but ubiquitous in scientific journals. Not that there aren't plenty of instances of good writing, but rather that the sheer quantity of bad writing has set a low standard.

This is a problem. And it won't "just go away." So here's to working towards improved training, increased interest, and better standards.

Only in bioengineering...

Our homework for Engineering Molecular Cell Biology class involves calculating the drag forces on a human sperm. Turns out sperm can be modeled as spheres.

Now you know.