Darn those fruit flies!

I read an interesting article that kind of goes along with my science post...
http://demockracy.com/the-fruit-fly-dilemma-palins-war-on-science/

And if people didn't realize, the reason why we don't do all our research on humans is because it's unethical, even if you non-scientists don't understand the relationship between a fruit fly and people.

CSI!

Haha, I just finished watching CSI, which I don't watch often, but it's really funny how much stuff they have in their "crime lab". They said something about using an SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope) to find out that there was gun residue on someone's shirt. An SEM! Those things are soooo expensive, about hundreds of thousands of dollars. And they cost a fortune to upkeep (another tens of thousands per year). So, haha, I don't think forensics labs are that loaded.

On another note, I found a website/blog that I thought was really cool about cooking and baking! It's called smittenkitten.com and I plan on making these cookies sometime soon... mmm...
http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/05/crispy-salted-oatmeal-white-chocolate-cookies/

Science in the Eyes of Non-Scientists

I recently had a conversation with a colleague of mine about how non-scientists view science. Somehow it came up that funding for cancer research might be cut sometime soon since we've been working on the problem for so many odd-number of years, but still have not found a cure. And in the culture of today's world where if you don't find the answer now, you give up and move onto a new problem, I feel that this phenomenon poses a significant threat to how politics shape science.

As a scientist, I've developed an appreciation for the thought and careful work that goes into discovered small parts of the bigger problem since without these little discoveries, we'd never be able to put the pieces of the puzzle together to solve the bigger problem. This past summer, I met a guy around my age who was writing a book about a genetic engineer. When I told him that I was a bioengineer, he immediately assumed that I cloned animals for fun. (He was a literature major in college.) He also started arguing with me that we should have already found a cure to cancer already since we've discovered various genetic markers that are related to various cancers. But I told him that there are many problems that we encounter that delay us in engineering solutions to, say, curing cancer, despite knowing underlying causes. For example, we know the underlying causes to why minorities in inner-city schools don't graduate from high school at high rates. But has this problem been fixed yet? No.

So, if you know nothing about science, you can tell me your opinion about how we should go about curing cancer, but I'm probably not going to take you seriously because you don't understand the scientific method (especially if you think all bioengineers do is clone animals for fun). And don't tell me evolution isn't "real" because all monkeys haven't turned into humans. Evolution may be just a "theory" (which is a good word in science), but there is tons of scientific evidence for it. To conclude, don't act like you're an expert in something that you've only read through some news source, because chances are, they don't know what they're talking about either.

For the record, even though I'm a bioengineer, I don't work on cancer research. I don't even clone animals (I may "clone" bacteria, but they clone themselves). And I'm not a mad scientist looking to clone people in the future... I'm a person with ethics too.

Diet, Exercise, and Motivation

I've been very unmotivated to do anything that requires a lot of thought or effort, so I'm effectively getting lazier. Since I've moved to Seattle, I've been getting on the order of 9 hours of sleep per night (I used to get 7 hours or less). I've gained 5 pounds in the last year (which is a lot since my weight never fluctuates and I don't weigh that much to begin with). I also haven't been doing the work I'm supposed to be doing (like my NSF fellowship application) and I'm only taking two classes this quarter (one of which is all review, so it's rather boring).

I keep asking myself, why? I feel like MIT has partially burnt me out (which was evident at the beginning of senior year). But stuff at UW has been considerably easier and yet I cannot muster up the motivation to do anything. I want to be productive... but, eh.

So I'm trying reeeally hard to be productive. I'm trying to get a bike so I can bike to lab/class everyday instead of taking the bus (it's about a 30 minute bike ride). And I'm going to cut my over-portioned meals in half since I tend to eat more when I'm unproductive. So I'm taking steps in the right direction... hopefully.

On another note, Sharon and I have decided to cut out two cities in our Europe trip in December. Although we wanted to visit Berlin and Prague, it seemed too much to squeeze in 7 cities in less than 2 weeks... so now it's 5 cities: Dublin, London, Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam. It should still be a fun trip and if I can steal Sergio's camera during that time, I should have some very nice pictures to share (yay!).

I'm also participating in this study about stress levels of first-year graduate students at UW. I'm not sure what they'll find out since I'm stressed all the time for no reason (and uber-stressed when I should actually be stressed). Maybe they'll find that I have abnormally high levels of cortisol, a hormone that gets released when you're stressed. And if so, I may just mess up their results...

Anyway, if they do find that my cortisol levels are high, it may explain why I have such a crappy immune system. At least I got a flu shot this year. Weeee.

Ugly Pumpkins

In the spirit of Halloween, I wanted to make (and wear) a pumpkin costume this year. I've always been a fan of bright colored round objects (they seem so elegantly simple and happy), but I will have to put off my pumpkin suit until next year... due to lack of funds (I'm a poor graduate student - what did you expect?).

Sergio took some pictures of a pumpkin patch that he passes on his way to work and there is a hideously ugly pumpkin there. I did not know pumpkins could be so ugly.

Would you be afraid to touch that pumpkin? I would. I'd be afraid to sprout orange warts afterward.

Even though I will not be wearing a pumpkin costume this year, I am very excited to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters this Halloween. My house (in Pennsylvania) is located on a rather isolated road, so the only trick-or-treaters we get are those pesky idiotic racist children who live on the road... and they never come in costume (and they even egged our house once - not on Halloween). So this year, I'm excited to live in a little cute house in a nice neighboorhood. I just hope there are nice children who come and ask for candy!

And the color orange is not as bad as I thought. I used to hate the color, but the color has somewhat grown on me... but I will always be a purple-lover. :)

Addictive News Reading

I've developed this somewhat healthy/unhealthy habit of reading the news while I'm procrastinating on the work I actually should be doing. Reading the news is good in one aspect - I'm keeping up with what's going on the world - but at the same time, I spend many hours just reading relatively the same material over and over, just written by different news sources... which leads me to conclude this: in this era of 24-hour news, the quality of the news has horribly diminished.

Strangely though, I still keep reading it. I read a lot about the election, the global economic crisis, world news (Haiti is flooded!), and news in general. It all tends to make me very jittery and somewhat stressed, although it doesn't affect me that much in my day-to-day activities. Why, I ask myself? I care too much.

I care too much that McCain is old (72!) and Palin is not prepared to be President should McCain get elected and then died; I care too much that Obama may not win the election because people can't bring themselves to vote for a black guy (who is half-white by the way); I care too much that neither of the candidates have much of a plan for getting us out of the economic crisis (although there seems to be some good news today); I care too much that people don't want to vote for some "elitist"; overall, I care too much about this election.

It doesn't help that the news agencies keep polling all the time. But I have to remind myself - the only thing I can do is talk to people and vote (which I already did). I am such a worrier.

Buuuut it does bother me that people want non-"elitists" to be President. This is the downfall of a democracy - the dumb people get to vote too. It takes a certain kind of person to be a good President, and oftentimes, it's not the guy you're going to the bar to get a drink with. Why do people think that they're going to go get a drink with the President anyway? The President has more important things to do than go to the bar.

Anyway, I should read less news. That way I can focus on the news that is newsworthy.

On an entirely different note, I really like Seattle. It does have rainy days (the worst is yet to come), but when it's sunny out, it is sooo beautiful. I live right next to a lake, so it's easy to go on a nice stroll on sunny days.




Now if only I could get a hold of Sergio's new spiffy camera, then I could take nicer pictures (where you can actually see the mountain in the background).

Start of a New Blog!

My sister has a blog on Blogspot and I used to have one on Xanga (that I never really wrote in), but I recently have tried to start blogging again with my old blog, but it's gotten kind of complicated to use. So I switched. If you want to read my old blogs, they're at: http://www.xanga.com/melancholypenguin.

I'm trying to be productive today (despite waking up close to noon), so I will continue this post later...