Balance

[liv]

Reasons why I like today's experiments:

• It's one more step towards finally finishing this PhD; all being well I think I have somewhat less than 2 more experiments to do.
• Lots of ice, the very large majority of which was used for entirely sensible and scientific purposes.
• Being alone in the lab so there was no-one to wonder what happened to the rest of the ice.

Reasons why I don't like today's experiments:

• Being alone in the lab so there was no-one to talk to during the boring bits.
• I'm not finding anything new, just 'confirming' stuff I've already shown but not proved.
• Tiny fiddly little 100 µl eppies, which are really too small for someone as clumsy as I am to handle.
• The fact that it's taken somewhere over 12 hours in total (and I'm not quite finished yet), with no real break point in that time. I mean, there were 10 or 15-minute gaps where I could check my friends page and go to the loo, yes, but there was no point at which I could break to divide the protocol into two days.

Gah. I hope my social conditioning is sufficient to prevent me from biting the next person who asks me whether I've had a good Christmas.

Comments

[darcydodo]

I hope you enjoyed your ice. :P

[liv]

Ooh, like the icon! And remind me to tell you something interesting about the Tori song Icicle.

[darcydodo]

Did you want to wait until we're talking on the phone, or something? Because you could just tell me now. :)

(I got "given" the icon last year, by the way; I just by and large tend only to use it in winter. Similarly this icon.)

[liv]

you could just tell me now
YGM.

I got "given" the icon last year, by the way;
Yeah, I know. It wasn't that I thought the icon was new, I just thought it was a particularly apt choice for that comment.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

Bugger social conditioning. Put them on ice and bite them.

[liv]

*giggle* Well, these hypothetical people asking about my Christmas mean well, they only want to be polite, so it would seem a bit mean. But I have to say, I like the way you look at things.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Did you at least have time to sculpt naughty ice figurines with a bunsen burner?

BTW, what is the experiment about?

[liv]

Did you at least have time to sculpt naughty ice figurines with a bunsen burner?
Love the suggestion. But no, the ice I can get hold of in the lab is crushed so more suitable for moulding than sculpting. (If I were to sculpt ice I would probably use a heated blade, rather than a flame directly, I think.)

BTW, what is the experiment about?
Do you want to know what my PhD is about in general, or what this particular experiment is about? The (short) answer to the former is that I'm looking for ways of making new cancer drugs with fewer bad side effects than traditional chemotherapy.

And what I'm doing right now is showing directly that when I treat cells with my compounds, the expression of certain genes changes. A fair proportion of my thesis consists of indirect evidence to this effect, but I have correlations rather than direct proof so far. (The genes are involved in protecting cells from cancer; ideally, if you could activate them in tumours you might be able to get rid of the cancer or at least stop it growing.) I can explain that more simply or more technically if you'd prefer; I'm not intending to patronize or confuse you, but I don't know from your question what level of explanation you want.