How to Make Carbon Nanotubes

So I've been reading around, and I came across some methodology that suggested it is relatively straightforward to grow short carbon nanotubes. According to their recipe:

1) Construct vacuum chamber with heavy-duty anode and cathode within.

2) Bridge electrodes with carbon rod, evacuate atmosphere from chamber.

3) Arc 220V electricity through the carbon rod.

4) Carbon nanotubes will grow upon the anode.

5) Modulate chemical properties of carbon nanotubes by changing the atmosphere of the vacuum chamber. Apparently it's not so much important that there be no atmosphere as it is that there be no oxygen, which is fine by me as it is easier to build. Hydrogen makes sweeter nanotubes, while a nitrogen mix makes for more bitter ones.

It should probably be noted that I don't exactly yet know what it is I'm going to do with carbon nanotubes once I've grown them--in fact, that's an understatement, I have no clue--but that's not likely to stop me here. Now all I have to figure out is how to build a "vacuum" chamber. Maybe I can bribe a hacker with muffins to suck all the air out through a scuba mask regulator...

Science Isn't a Job

I am not suited to have a job.

Notwithstanding my circadian malfeasance, I can't just have a job. A job is something you go to for 8h a day and detach yourself from coming home, something that pays the bills and fits in a big chunk of your daily routine. Something that weekends are an escape from.

Science isn't just a job. Science isn't just a career. Doing science is a mode of being, a way of thinking and a pervasive outlook that permeates all aspects of life. To be sure, there are people doing science to whom science is nothing more than a job, but to the scientists, doing science is a passionate outpouring of their innate internal curiosity and excitement at the sheer wonder and awesomeness of the reality around them.

As I said, I can't just have a job, I need the storm and flow of science's complex funneling of my creativity, cleverness, and joie de vivre. Even as I define the parameters of my experiments, science, in many ways, defines me. My education in science has sharpened my inquisitive and skeptical predispositions to become useful tools and not just the occupation of idle daydreams. This utility of my innate urge to create new stuff, to explore and discover are why science isn't just a job for me, it's awesome.

There are times that I get frustrated with my benchwork. Recently I had a long series of experiments not work properly for a couple months, and tearing through my methodology to try to find where I'd gone wrong, trying to plot out possible sources of error and chafing at the bit as each of these experiments took several days to validate was draining and discouraging. There are times that the poor quality of my data, such as getting a higher event count from bleach than my sample on the flow cytometer, makes me question my scientific aptitude in the first place. How could I ever expect to succeed in this experimental endeavor when I wasn't smart enough to begin with?

But it is this that is also valuable. Science forces us to question ourselves. We wrap up our self-esteem in our experimental results and we take rebukes from reviewers personally. We chase windmills of perfect data and push the capabilities of our minds ever further seeking to integrate our data into a new story the world has never seen before. This is important. By being both scientists and science, by loving what we do and the delightful but exhausting challenges it confronts us with, we are pushed not only to improve the quality, scope and ambition of our experiments themselves, but also to become better, savvier scientists and humans as well.

As a science, biology is weird. It's messy, it's frequently stubborn, it's complex and chaotic and these are what attracted me to studying it. And then into more complexity I realized how awesome immunology is. But it's not so much the complexity itself that draws me back into the lab, it's that with molecular biology I am literally peeling back levels of reality with my mind through the careful design of experiments with cells and reagents that I cannot see, feel, or taste. It could not be cooler, unless I had more lasers, but I digress:

Science ain't a job so much as it is riding an angry horse through a buffet of cookies and ice cream.

Toaster the Psychic Organ Builder

So the other day I was standing inside of a 4-story pneumatic pipe organ while it was being played thinking to myself: "Holy crap I'm inside of a 4-story pneumatic pipe organ while it is being played!" when it occurred to me that maybe I might actually know something. For a while I've been feeling like I have spent so much time and effort learning about molecular biology that I no longer know anything actually useful outside of the laboratory. This feeling was jade creeping into the awesomeness of science, and I found it best to promptly shake it off like a dog after a bath and go roll around on the floor joyously with all my legs in the air. I mean, sure this science sometimes appears to be nothing more than moving tiny amounts of expensive liquids around while muttering vague incantations about hypotheses and replicability. But what it is, what molecular biology fundamental is, is me dissecting LIFE ITSELF with my MIND!!! I could have all the fancy tools an R01 can buy at my disposal and a hammock above my bench, but those things wouldn't mean crap for meaningful, insightful science if I didn't start by designing an elegant, productive experiment. It's like I'm telekinetic at the molecular level, because I have to imagine the true nature of all these stochastically interacting proteins, genetic elements, or other molecules and their aggregate behavior clearly, I have to fix it in my mind and strip away the limitations of my vision to harness the quiet power of chemical reactions and hydrogen dipoles to prove the accuracy or folly of what I have captured with my mind.

Sure, this science doesn't have the immediate satisfaction of swinging a hammer and building a chair, the delay to sate the fundamental human need to create and explore burns on a longer fuse, but oh, when it connects it is all the more beautiful. I may not be building a pipe organ, but I am reverse-engineering something many more times intricate when I can't even see it with my naked eyes. That. Is. Awesome.

In Defense of Cliches

Bora Zivkovic of A Blog Around the Clock and Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science alerted me via Twitter to an article in Wired Science by Betsy Mason entitled "5 Atrocious Science Cliches to Throw Down a Black Hole". In short, the article claims that "Holy Grail", "Silver Bullet", "Shedding Light", "Missing Link", and "Paradigm Shift" are overplayed, tired terms that should be banned from scientific reportage.

Betsy Mason is wrong.

We need cliches. We depend upon cliches, and cliches are quite useful in the proper context. While it may be true that the above terms do get thrown about quite a bit, they're still quite useful. Science journalism is already a convoluted field that must continually walk the line between being too esoteric for its mainstream, non-scientist audience and maintaining proper accuracy to satisfy its scientific constituents, which keeps information flowing. Banning the use of any widely understood vehicles for explanation just raises the barrier to effective communication between science and the public. And when we, as a scientific community, have already made it clear that we're not usually pleased by the transmission of our findings to the public through the prism of science journalism, do we really need to throw in even more barriers?

This article indulges in a great deal of unfortunate professional myopia. From the perspective of a scientist, calling research, such as active in vivo RNAi therapy, the Holy Grail of cancer research will seem inaccurate given the breadth of other therapies being developed to combat cancer. It may be more accurate to place RNAi therapy in the context of all the other therapies, from advanced laser ablation at the level of individual cells to cytolethal fusion proteins, but with this accuracy comes a great sacrifice in public comprehensibility. Science is detailed, science is convoluted, and science is very nuanced. But unless we're willing to write and peer-review multi-chapter articles for the popular press, if those outlets would even carry the required tomes, we must tell a complex story simply and linearly in order for anyone but the most educated and avidly interested members of the public to understand it. Using widely understood cliches as vehicles to convey that comprehension is not just necessary, it's laudable.

I do not mean to impugn the intelligence of the general population. Perhaps naively, I still believe that the public is usually smarter than we give them credit for. But at the same time, scientific communication is a form of technical communication with clearly defined words and standards. We use "attenuated", "potentiated", "significantly", "stochastically", "sufficient", and "necessary" in very specific ways that don't necessarily* translate into normal, everyday public usage. We can't well use these standards to communicate effectively to the public, instead we must speak to the public on the public's terms, which by and large will involve either sports analogies or cliches. The above maligned cliches are here to stay, and they remain quite useful. If they continue to help convey broad understanding of scientific concepts, then I will continue to welcome them and their use.

*Like that.

UPDATE (tweets):
[@ToasterSunshine] @BoraZ @edyong209 | In defense of the "5 atrocious science cliches": http://bit.ly/15vgZL | Must speak to the public on the public's terms.

edyong209@ToasterSunshine You present false choice between cliches and jargon. Entirely possible to write lay-friendly copy w/o cliches.
edyong209@ToasterSunshine Or at the very least, without seriously misleading cliches.

ToasterSunshine@edyong209 Yes, sometimes cliches may be overused/misleading. But to call for a ban takes tools away from communicating scientists.
ToasterSunshine@edyong209 Scientists get jargon + don't need cliches or analogous metaphors as vehicles for understanding research. Public probably does.

edyong209@ToasterSunshine If tools are crap, they won't be missed. Good writers/communicators ought not to rely on cliches *anyway*.
edyong209@ToasterSunshine Neither article nor I calling for end to analogy/metaphor but end to MISLEADING ones.
edyong209@ToasterSunshine Again, I think you're presenting false choice between jargon and cliches. Metaphors are good but we can do better.

betsymason@toastersunshine I don't advocate a ban on metaphors for science, just the most overused, hyperbolic & annoying cliches. We can do better.

ToasterSunshine@edyong209 @betsymason I don't dispute that "paradigm shift" is overplayed. I do stand firmly against anything that attenuates science comm.

edyong209@ToasterSunshine Not attenuation. Sci-com benefits if misleading terms are lost, writers forced to think creatively. Atten'g BAD comm= good.

ToasterSunshine@edyong209 Agreed less bad comm good, but cliches not always misleading/bad. Cliches often help capture interest and sustain story reading.
ToasterSunshine@edyong209 See rec Herceptin research: "Herceptin magic bullet against breast cancer stem cells" vs. "Herceptin inhibits even HER2- tumors".
ToasterSunshine@edyong209 HER2 = jargon, but HER2 also absolute key to story. Accurate inclusion in headline turns general audience away. Need interest.

A Proposal

PROBLEM: At conferences and meetings of scientists, it is difficult to differentiate the academic ranks of the various attendees. This greatly complicates politeness and increases the risk of disrespecting a big shot who will then sabotage the entire rest of your career for your unwitting slight.

SOLUTION: Conference attendees shall wear hats, with the fanciness of said hats increasing as their academic rank increases.

SCHEMATIC:

Undergrads = berets of various colors (by lab or school)
Grad students, pre quals = Fezs
Grad students, post quals = bowlers
Post-docs = tri-corner hats, add 1 feather to hat/successive post-doc
Profs w/out tenure = princess cone hats, add 1 sequin per publication
Profs w/ tenure = princess cone hats w/ gauze streamers, add 1 sequin/publication
Departmental chairs = fruit baskets with real fruit
Journal editors = appropriate hat + bling
Techs = top hats, fancier ribbons indicating greater experience
Lab managers = fedoras
Core facility staff = cowboy hats
Journalists = cat-earred head bands

Philosophicality #1

I can wield a micropipettor.

I can wield a cello bow.

But what lies betwixt?

This is a question that often occupies my mind: wondering about the relationship between science and art. At the moment, the most obvious answer seems to be my fingers, without which I could not wield a micropipettor, cello bow, or toothbrush.

More upon this later...

Robots

I wish there were more robots in science. Growing up, I was inundated with tales of robots sealed in sterile rooms doing dangerous science experiments hundreds of times faster than a human could do. Multi-pipetting robot arms. Media making thingamazoos and other cool machines. But, working in science as an apprentice mad scientist, I find myself disappointed. Where are all the big shiny robots, just anthropomorphic enough to remind us of our own fragility? Where are all the fancy humming machines with levers and swirly-gigs and doo-dads, lights and pinging noises and lots and lots of brightly colored, even backlit, buttons?

Simply put, what is it about the commercial nature of science today that standardizes it so much that scientists don't get to feel as special and smrt?

More on this later...