Brain Extractions

Surprisingly sticky.

I managed to decapitate the mouse well enough (it was already dead at this point, decapitation was not the primary means of euthanasia [that occurred sometime between putting it to forever sleep and exsanguinating it by means of cardiac puncture]), but skinning its head was quite difficult. Mainly because it was very slippery. You have to sort of peel the skin back (like an orange) until you can see the eyes and then fold it into a handle for yourself to cut through bones. Next you cut across the bone between the eyes, then through the ears to the back of the skull. Then it pretty much pops open once you split the skull down the middle.

But the mouse brain itself? Pale and smooth. A bit larger than I had expected for such a small mammal. Also very dense, it didn't squish very easily (I wasn't trying to squish it into paste [and I didn't], but seeing how much give it had, just gently pinching it a little).

But I don't know. It was sort of profound. There I was, sitting in the lab with another creature's brain in the palm of my hand. As if there was some kind of phylogenetic resonance recapitulating my evolution of my own brain from one similar to that in my hand. Like saying hello to a baby. I would even have to admit that it was kind of cute, so grayish pink, almost like a newborn mouse pup (but less wrinkly). I sat there and looked at it, thinking to myself: "So this is what propelled the little creatures in their cage to climb over each other and twitch their whiskers in alarm each time we manipulated their cage." It was cool.

Perhaps I'll post some sketches of the procedure if I ever remember to draw them.



Disclaimer:
Although it may appear otherwise, I am not a sick fuck. I respect the animals that we use in science and always feel regret when I am required to euthanize them. But in seeing how they are put together and how all of the organs and systems are connected to one another: that is undeniably cool. And while it is important to remember that laboratory mice are living things that must be treated as such, it is also important that we as scientists be able to speak of them frankly and with all the delighted curiosity that (hopefully) brought us to science in the first place.

Vampires

Gotta start remembering that I have one of these blog things. I got some new software (Propellerhead Reason) and I've been neglecting everything else just to play with it.

Although maybe it would be cool for me to speculate to the molecular biology of vampires, that's not what I'm doing. Instead, this is a short commentary on the morbid-ness of scientists. For example, one of the lab techs told me at lunch that now we were taking brain samples for histology and that it was gross. My immediate response was "Cool! How do we do that?", which led to an explanation of splitting the scalp open, rolling it down off the head, and then cracking the skull and peeling it like an orange. I must learn how to do this myself.

Or, as another example, I just sent an email to the germ-free animal manager asking if we had any uninfected mice that needed culling. Not because I want to go over and slaughter hapless mice, but because I could make good use of their serum for my project and I might as well get it anyway if they're slated to die.

Just saying.

Why Flow Cytometry Is Cool

It has lasers!

(insert awesome laser picture here)

And it shoots lasers at cells!

Cells and lasers are cool!

Therefore, flow cytometry is double-cool! Maybe even Gigacool!

And, furthermore, that the physics of how it works and its optics aren't too convoluted to understand! Woo! And it calls groups of different cells pots! Pots! How absurd is that? Would you like a pot of cells? Why yes, sir, thank you very much, but may I have some PE-A and CD3 with them? Ah yes, very tasty. Lasers!

Cart

So the cart in my lab is probably about as old as I am. It's made entirely of metal, made for a much shorter person than ever uses it, and rattles so much that you can't even hear your own footsteps when you're stomping. No, we don't have a nice new cart made of HDPE that doesn't rattle or anything. Ours is like an angry dinosaur in desperate need of new ball bearings.

Why do I mention the cart?

Because it occurs to me that I should stop running down the hallways with it, loaded with biohazard waste, before I knock one of the old tenured PIs over and have to wear a Crystal Violet "U" (for Unfit Scientist). But there are some PIs who'd be funny to chase...

Still Alive

Been in a quasi-hibernation in this quasi-kaamos.

So I'm trying to reconcile 2 statements the professor of my Microbial Genetics course made in class last Thursday.

1) There are approximately 100 bacteria to every 1 cell in the human body.

2) It is estimated that only 1% of bacteria in any given sample of anything can be cultured and identified.

Each statement could be taken as true in its own context, at least if you ignore questions as to how such statements were formulated*, but together they don't make a lot of sense. Yes, there are ~3kg of bacteria in the human digestive tract alone (thinking of this ensures that I never feel lonely--I've always got a couple trillion close friends at hand). Nonetheless, if only 1% of the bacteria, even in a gut lumen sample, can be cultured and quantified, then how do we know how many were there to begin with? And as such, then how can we know what the ratio of bacterial cells to human cells is?

And as for the first statement, how does that work spatially? Bacteria range in size from 0.5-5.0 micrometers, and eukaryotic cells (e.g., human cells) are 10X as large. If these figures can be taken as directly proportional to volume and not just length, then there should be at most 10 bacteria to each human cell, and even then the total size and mass of those bacterial cells would be the same as the size and mass of the human. But if they are not directly proportional, then maybe it could work, although I still have a hard time imaging those volumes working out.

*Seriously though, how the hell did they get this figure? Did they take a whole healthy human and fractionate the entire body into its cellular components, then centrifuge everything and run it through flow cytometry to get the ratios? Or did they just take a liver biopsy and count that? But that would be inaccurate...

Tales of the Anti-Chicken

Once upon a time ago in a land not far away but farther than a snail will go for doughnuts there lived The Anti-Chicken. The Anti-Chicken had been borne of a goat and an interleukin, and as such the Anti-Chicken was very confused and clingy. It would roam the country-side in its Chicken-Head-Goat Hat and slink among the shadows. It knew that there was something wrong about it, for whenever it appeared in the daylight and among decent folk, they'd always scream and run away in fearful terrorness and screaming screaming. So the Anti-Chicken was very sad. It even tried to pass itself off as a normal chicken, but unfortunately failed (seems that explosions would occur whenever it ran into a Chicken) and was subsequently run out into the Cold Forest.

So now The Anti-Chicken roams the Cold Forest by night, looking for the Anti-Goat. One day, they may find each other, and when they do it will be the worse for everyone. Or they'll be happy and blissful together and leave everyone alone.

Bacon

This is an odd photograph of bacon. Bacon usually looks much more appealing than this particular piece. It's as if this one was soaked in extra grease and barely done, like it's still all wobbly. That isn't how I like my bacon.

For approximately 3 years, I was an ovo-lacto vegetarian, induced not so much by ethical concerns as health concerns over dorm food as well as the price of meat. I stopped vegetarianism for 3 reasons (importance increasing with list decreasing):

1) Kept losing weight. At one point I found that I had a BMI of 17.1, which is apparently really bad. Now, about a year later, I'm up to a BMI of 19.6.

2) Missed fried fish.

3) Missed bacon.

At first I just started back up with the fish. And then it progressed to white meat (pork is not white meat), thus: turkey bacon! When I first had bacon again after all those long years, it was as if a long-suffering void within was suddenly filled and I became instantly happier.

So it set off the question:

What is it about bacon that makes one happier?

Is it the lipid soaked protein?

Is it the burnt crunchiness? Yes, I like my bacon slightly burnt.

Is it the salt?

It is probably a combination of all of the above. Nonetheless, bacon got me thinking a bit about how it influences science. No bacon results in crankiness and feeblemindedness. As such:

The Scientific Bacon:

1) James D. Watson - clearly his bacon consumption fell off over his lifetime. It must have been at its highest when he "co-discovered" the structure of DNA, and clearly has recently reached record lows.

2) Dr. Hwang Woo-suk - clearly a conspicuous lack of bacon led him to falsify his research results for the greater honor of South Korean science.

3) These people clearly weren't getting enough bacon.

4) This person seems to be eating bacon daily (hint: he can read his own genome).

Fundamental Paradigm

Paradigms are difficult. We live so easily within them, but then sometimes they get challenged and we have a hard time talking our way out of them. I was at a party last night talking to a chemist when a child overheard us and asked what an element is (I know, a lame kind of party). How do you explain what an element is? It’s something that has been so fundamental and easy for me for so long that I was taken aback by the question. But between the chemist and I, we managed to explain it. We explained that everything around us was made up of matter, and that that matter is made up of tiny little pieces, like little miniscule balls. And then we went on that each ball has a color, and that different colors are like different elements, because a ball of a different color acts differently than another ball of another color.

Idea Hat

This would be absolutely brilliant. To be in a class where I could participate collectively in giving the professor instant learning feedback would be truly great. Or to teach such a class. To know instantly when the "Eureka!" moment strikes, or when confusion is, would be of great advantage. A colleague of mine laughed at me and told me that the same thing can be done by reading facial expressions. She is stupid.

LEDs are cooler.

I now need to convince someone to try this.

Clarification

Looking back at my last post, I can see how it may have been misconstrued that I am a cat. However, I assure that that is very much not the case. In fact, I don't much like cats, kittens, tabbies, felines, or other cat-like creatures. I prefer the canine varieties, simply because they are better. And cooler. And much, much less bitchy.