Thursday, 22 July 2010
Coming soon: Review of the Oddest Titled Book of the Year!
I've been poorly this week so no lab time... but the exciting news is that I have been awarded an Arts Council grant to work on a collection of biology-inspired short stories. I will be embedding in one or two more labs, too, that are engaged in biology-related research, to inspire my writing, and will report on that as it happens.
In the meantime, I received this gorgeous-looking book in the post last week and will be reviewing it here shortly. It is Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes, by Daina Tamina, a maths professor at Cornell University, who I also hope to interview. How did I find this book? I saw the announcement that it had won the Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year! Yup, that makes sense. More on maths and yarn soon.
Thursday, 8 July 2010
Tania Talks about Science
I got the chance to talk about being writer-in-residence in the University labs, and I read out the first short story I've written inspired by being where science is done. Not sure what the scientists in the lab I am embedding in will make of it! (Comment here, guys, if you like...!)
Hope you enjoy it, I think it was an interesting discussion!
We Got Liminal....
I just wanted to write a quick blog about last week's Let's Get Liminal: Artistic Science and Scientific Art seminar (see previous blog post for details) which I found absolutely fascinating and I hope all those who came did too. The idea was to briefly showcase some of what's going on in Bristol University in that (liminal) "space between" arts and sciences - from the collaboration between a glaciologist and an artist, "artistic" images from research, and medical students' creative work about the practice of medicine.
Our visiting guest artists, Kira O'Reilly and Oron Catts, are in, it seems to me, another space entirely, a new and very exciting place where bioart is being done - artists learning about the tools used in biology labs and then using these methods and processes to produce art.
The questions that Oron and Kira ask and then attempt to answer through their artworks are the basic questions of life that scientists also ask. Kira, for example, says: What happens if I look at my own skin as just another type of material, just more stuff? (I am paraphrasing, forgive me). And she engages audiences with her installations, inviting them to also grapple with these issues. Oron - who gave us a detailed history of tissue culture, when it was first done and by whom - showed examples of how he and his collaborators have set up fully-functional labs in museum spaces to "grow" exhibits such as a leather jacket made from "victimless leather".
It was a wide-ranging afternoon, and I found it both inspiring and moving, seeing these two monliths, ART and SCIENCE, so often kept apart by high walls and arbitrary definitions, actually merging harmoniously to produce something extraordinary which delights, informs and provokes. The first of many such meetings, I hope...!
Here are a few pictures of the proceedings (I didn't take pictures of every speaker - sometimes I was too engrossed and I forgot!):
Here are a few pictures of the proceedings (I didn't take pictures of every speaker - sometimes I was too engrossed and I forgot!):
Maggie Leggett, director of the University's Centre for Public Engagement, talks about plans for next year's Changing Perspectives exhibition in various Bristol galleries.
Professor Jon Keating and Chrystal Chernwichan showed clips from the Mathematical Ethnographies films and the Science Faculty portraits, and talked about how people have reacted to using these media to put across something different about science - and about the concept of beauty and how it means something different, perhaps, to mathematicians and to artists!
Emily, a medical student, talks about a painting she did for the Creative Arts course she chose to take as part of her medical degree. I found it very moving, listening to her describe her painting of a woman with a spinal condition.
Dr Louise Younie (above) and Catherine Lamont-Robinson, artist and curator, talk about the Out of Our Heads project, showcasing creative work done by medical students. Louise talked about why she intiated the course and the hopes she has that integrating artistic practice into medical study will encourage greater empathy for patients amongst the medical students, who paint pictures, write poems, even create dance pieces inspired by their clinical practice.
Kira O'Reilly, giving us an overview of many of her astonishing and wonderfully provocative artworks and installations, and told us about her time in biology labs - how she tried to do inject something different into the atmosphere, wearing a striking crimson lab coat, for example!
Oron Catts introducing SymbioticA, A Centre of Excellent in Biological Arts, which runs workshops worldwide for artists, and invites artists to do residencies in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at The University of Western Australia ... and even grants degrees in biological arts, making it unique. He was asked afterwards whether he wouldn't describe himself as a scientist, given the lab-based work he does, but he answered that he far preferred to be described as an artist. Another interesting issue to think about...
Becky Jones showed us "beautiful" ( a word that had become a little controversial by this point in the seminar!) images from the labs which were entered for the 2009 Art of Science competition such as the one above, a confocal image showing communication between brain cells by Sam Lane. The 2010 competition opens shortly...
Dr Giles Brown and Emma Stibbon talked about their glacier-focused collaboration which resulted in artworks such as Emma's stunning picture, above, of the Aletsch Glacier. It was really interesting to hear how Emma went about researching her artworks, and that by drawing she is in many ways connected with the historical depictions of natural phenomena, harking back to the time before cameras, digital or otherwise. Giles pointed out that people approach and interact with Emma's 7ft drawing of a glacier hanging in his office in an entirely different way to the way they would approach a photograph of the same glacier.
Kira O'Reilly, giving us an overview of many of her astonishing and wonderfully provocative artworks and installations, and told us about her time in biology labs - how she tried to do inject something different into the atmosphere, wearing a striking crimson lab coat, for example!
Oron Catts introducing SymbioticA, A Centre of Excellent in Biological Arts, which runs workshops worldwide for artists, and invites artists to do residencies in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at The University of Western Australia ... and even grants degrees in biological arts, making it unique. He was asked afterwards whether he wouldn't describe himself as a scientist, given the lab-based work he does, but he answered that he far preferred to be described as an artist. Another interesting issue to think about...
I don't think anyone would have failed to be stirred in some way by all these presentations. It caused me to look at my time in the labs in a different way, perhaps more visual... and so here's a little "art" of my own. I took this yesterday: What is it?! Leave a comment and the best answer wins... well, much glory!
Monday, 21 June 2010
Let's Get Liminal! Scientific Art & Artistic Science, June 30th
Mer de Glace, EMMA STIBBON
What happens in that space where science meets art and art meets science? Come along to this half-day seminar to have a look at what's going on and what will be happening, both at Bristol University and outside. Speakers will be showing films of mathematicians and scientists talking about how they do what they do, beautiful scientific images, an artistic collaboration between a glaciologist and an artist, a course on creativity for medical students and more... 
We are delighted to welcome special guests Oron Catts, director of SymbioticA, Australia's artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning, critique and hands-on engagement with the life sciences, and UK-based artist Kira O'Reilly, a former SymbioticA artist-in-residence. Scroll down for more information about the speakers.
When: Wed June 30th 2010, from 2-6pm, including drinks & nibbles,
FREE EVENT
FREE EVENT
Where: NSQI Centre, Tyndall Avenue (opposite the Arts and Social Sciences Library)
What's Happening:
2.00 - 2.10 Welcome: Tania Hershman, Science Faculty Writer in Residence
2.10 - 2.25 Maggie Leggett, Director, Centre for Public Engagement, 2011 Changing Perspectives exhibition
2.25 - 2.45 Professor Jon Keating, Dean of the Science Faculty, Chrystal Cherniwchan, Science Faculty films and portraits
2.45 - 3.15 Dr Louise Younie, Catherine Lamont-Robinson, Out of Our Heads, creativity for medical students
3.15 - 3.30 Becky Jones, organiser, The Art of Science Competition
3.30 - 3.50 Dr Giles Brown (glaciologist) and his artistic collaborator Emma Stibbon
3.50 - 4.00 BREAK
4.00 - 4.20 Kira O'Reilly, artist, SymbioticA residency
4.20 - 5.05 Oron Catts, director, SymbioticA, art and science collaborative research lab
5.05 - 6pm Drinks & nibbles
Speakers:
Tania Hershman is fiction-writer-in-residence in Bristol University's Science Faculty. Find out more at www.taniahershman.com.
Maggie Leggett: Head of Department, Centre for Public Engagement. Maggie will be introducing Changing Perspectives, an exhibition planned for Spring 2011 which seeks to engage and alter the perspectives of a wide range of people though art inspired by science – life, physical and social science - produced by artists in collaboration with University of Bristol staff and students.
Professor Jon Keating is Dean of the Faculty of Science and Professor of Mathematical Physics.
Chrystal Cherniwchan studied photography at the Alberta College of Art & Design, in Canada. After completing her BFA, she spent several years assisting and developing her own documentary practice. Chrystal is now based in the UK, and is currently working on a series of short documentary films and portraits, profiling mathematicians and scientists at the University of Bristol. www.chrystalcherniwchan.com
Chrystal Cherniwchan studied photography at the Alberta College of Art & Design, in Canada. After completing her BFA, she spent several years assisting and developing her own documentary practice. Chrystal is now based in the UK, and is currently working on a series of short documentary films and portraits, profiling mathematicians and scientists at the University of Bristol. www.chrystalcherniwchan.com
Dr Louise Younie is aGP and teaching fellow at Bristol University's Medical School. she also delivers a 2nd year taught SSC "Exploring the creative arts in health and illness". This involves co-facilitation with artists and creative therapists where the students engage in dialogue, reflection and their own creative work. Creativity and the arts in medical education was also the topic of her MSc dissertation.
Catherine Lamont-Robinson is an artist and curator of Out of Our Heads, a project by students and staff of University of Bristol Medical school to showcase creative work. It is often said that medicine is both Art and Science. In the modern medical curriculum there is a goodly amount of science. But what about the Art? What is it, is it important and should it be part of the curriculum?
Becky Jones is a PhD student in the Department of Biochemistry and the organiser of The Art of Science, a competition in the Faculty of Medical and Veterinary Sciences in collaboration with @Bristol. The challenge, open to postgraduates across the faculty, was to represent scientific research in all its aesthetic beauty.
Dr Giles Brown is a glaciologist in the University's School of Geographical Studies, focussing on glacier meltwater hydrochemistry, chemical weathering processes and rate in mountain/cold environments; snow chemistry; glacier and snow hydrology. He collaborated with artist Emma Stibbon: The emphasis of Stibbon’s research is on the relationship between the mutability of place and the process of drawing.Exploring the temporal qualities of a glacier through drawing. An artist working primarily on paper, she has established her reputation through a wide exhibition profile and a series of residencies and awards.
Kira O’Reilly is a UK based artist; her practice, both wilfully interdisplinary and entirely undisciplined, stems from a visual art background; it employs performance, biotechnical practices and writing with which to consider speculative reconfigurations of bodies.
Since graduating from the University of Wales Institute Cardiff in 1998 with a BA (HONS) in Fine Art, her performance works have been exhibited widely throughout the UK, Europe, Australia, China and Mexico.
In October 2004 she completed an artist residency at SymbioticA, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia, funded by a Wellcome Trust sciart research and development award. She was concerned with exploring convergence between contemporary biotechnical tissue culturing and traditional lace making crafts, using the materiality of skin at its cellular level as material and metaphor. She has continued and expanded these investigations as artist in residence in the School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, funded by Arts Council of England and Wellcome Trust where she is investigating using spider silk and bone, muscle and nerve cell cultures as biomedia, and the relations between tissue, text and textile – as variants on the theme of techné with writing outcomes.
In 2009 new works included falling sleep with a pig (2009) commissioned by The Arts Catalyst for INTERSPECIES. She presented Stair Falling (2009) exhibited as part of Marina Abramovic Presents . . . at Manchester International Festival. Her work inthewrongplaceness (2005 – 2009) was curated by Jens Hauser in the highly successful sk-interfaces, Creating Membranes in Art, Technology and Society, at Casino Luxembourg.
In autumn 2010 she beings an AHRC funded three year creative fellowship at Department of Drama, Queen Mary University of London; Thresholds of Performance: Between Body, Laboratory and Text.
Oron Catts is director of SymbioticA, an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning, critique and hands-on engagement with the life sciences. SymbioticA’s emphasis is on experiential practice. SymbioticA facilitates a thriving program of residencies, research, academic courses, exhibitions, symposiums, and workshops. Researchers and students from all disciplines work on individual projects or in interdisciplinary teams to explore the shifting relations and perceptions of life.
As a research centre within the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at The University of Western Australia, SymbioticA enables direct and visceral engagement with scientific techniques. Crossing the disciplines of art and the life sciences, SymbioticA encourages better understanding and articulation of cultural ideas around scientific knowledge and informed critique of the ethical and cultural issues of life manipulation.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Tania's Tales from the Lab: Part 3
I'm in the lab again today, I won't do a minute-by-minute live blog but I thought I'd write down some of my thoughts. After two months or so embedding in this lab, I feel now I have some kind of understanding of how difficult it is to ever assert that you know anything. Looking into science from the outside it seems that scientists run experiments to see if Z happens when Y is put with X, get results and hey presto, we have a new FACT. We think scientists have cutting-edge equipment on their lab benches, ultra-fast computers, powerful electron microscopes, so that they can see exactly what's what.
I mean, this is how it is on CSI, right?
Well, no.
The first thing I now have more of a grasp of is that you need to check, if not every step then every few steps and they might be many many steps in your experiment! - that you even have the right stuff in your test tubes! As one of the postdocs said to me last week, "It all looks like cloudy liquid" so how do you know what's in the cloudy liquid?
If you are interested in molecular biology, well, you run a gel... This, says Wikipedia, is:
and this is the equipment:
Guess when this method was invented. Well, the first reports were some time in the 1930s. At least 80 years ago. And this is still, from what I understand, one of the best and most useful methods to figure out what's in your cloudy liquid. You have a wedge of gel in this bath contraption, you have a set of little wells into which you put your different samples - tiny drops of your cloudy liquid as well as control samples just to compare - and then you run an electric current which pushes the molecules of your liquid through the gel from top to bottom. Basically, the bigger molecules get stuck moving through the gel and the smaller molecules can move through a bit faster so get further. Like a race between very fat tortoises that get stuck getting down the corridor and skinnier tortoises - and all sizes in between!
After about 25 minutes or so, your gel is "done", your tortoises have moved as far as they're going to move. You take the gel out, stick it in another machine that shines UV light through the gel and you can take a photograph which looks something like this:
Clear now? Yup... I don't really know what it means either. The bands of light are molecules and some haven't moved far from the top, and some, like the guy in the bottom left corner, got pretty far...To the trained eye, this tells you everything.
Jut for fun - and a little education! - here is a 1930s concept brought into the 21st century with this cool animation about how to run a gel that I found on YouTube (with rock soundtrack):
When your gel tells you that there's stuff in your cloudy liquid that you didn't expect to be there, or something doesn't show up that's "supposed" to be there, then what do you do? Run the gel again - which involves preparing more samples etc.., can take a day or more. And if it happens again? Check all your equipment in case something snuck in. Check and re-check. And if still not...then you might need a complete rethink.
So, to sum up, to actually "see" in science isn't as simple as looking at a sample or sticking it in your fancy million-pound desktop machine. It often means using a technique developed in the 1930s and which can take days to prepare for. Anyone want to share gel stories? And talking of stories... more about the idea of "story" in science next time. Back to the lab!
I mean, this is how it is on CSI, right?
Well, no.
The first thing I now have more of a grasp of is that you need to check, if not every step then every few steps and they might be many many steps in your experiment! - that you even have the right stuff in your test tubes! As one of the postdocs said to me last week, "It all looks like cloudy liquid" so how do you know what's in the cloudy liquid?
If you are interested in molecular biology, well, you run a gel... This, says Wikipedia, is:
a technique used for the separation of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), ribonucleic acid (RNA), or protein molecules using an electric field applied to a gel matrix
and this is the equipment:
Guess when this method was invented. Well, the first reports were some time in the 1930s. At least 80 years ago. And this is still, from what I understand, one of the best and most useful methods to figure out what's in your cloudy liquid. You have a wedge of gel in this bath contraption, you have a set of little wells into which you put your different samples - tiny drops of your cloudy liquid as well as control samples just to compare - and then you run an electric current which pushes the molecules of your liquid through the gel from top to bottom. Basically, the bigger molecules get stuck moving through the gel and the smaller molecules can move through a bit faster so get further. Like a race between very fat tortoises that get stuck getting down the corridor and skinnier tortoises - and all sizes in between!
After about 25 minutes or so, your gel is "done", your tortoises have moved as far as they're going to move. You take the gel out, stick it in another machine that shines UV light through the gel and you can take a photograph which looks something like this:
Clear now? Yup... I don't really know what it means either. The bands of light are molecules and some haven't moved far from the top, and some, like the guy in the bottom left corner, got pretty far...To the trained eye, this tells you everything.
Jut for fun - and a little education! - here is a 1930s concept brought into the 21st century with this cool animation about how to run a gel that I found on YouTube (with rock soundtrack):
When your gel tells you that there's stuff in your cloudy liquid that you didn't expect to be there, or something doesn't show up that's "supposed" to be there, then what do you do? Run the gel again - which involves preparing more samples etc.., can take a day or more. And if it happens again? Check all your equipment in case something snuck in. Check and re-check. And if still not...then you might need a complete rethink.
So, to sum up, to actually "see" in science isn't as simple as looking at a sample or sticking it in your fancy million-pound desktop machine. It often means using a technique developed in the 1930s and which can take days to prepare for. Anyone want to share gel stories? And talking of stories... more about the idea of "story" in science next time. Back to the lab!
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Calling all potential bloggers!
I'm in the lab again today, but won't be blogging live, that was a little stressful! I might do it once a month or so. But here's the thing: this blog is not supposed to be just me me me. Ideally, there'd be a number of Bristol Uni science folk blogging here, so if you'd like to join in, do drop me an email at tania(dot)hershman(at)bris.ac.uk (replacing the (dot) and (at) with . and @). You don't need to know anything about blogs or blogging, I'm happy to help you get started. It's great fun - I very often find out what I'm thinking about something as I'm writing a blog post on my personal blog, TaniaWrites, so it can be useful! Try it, you might just like it...
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Tania's Tales from the Lab Part 2: Live!
So today I'm the one who is experimenting - this blog post is coming to you live from the lab! Want to know what scientists actually do during the day? Or, if you are a scientist, is this lab more fun than yours? Only kidding...Please leave comments!
My laptop was stolen two days ago so I am blogging from my mobile phone, forgive any odd spelling.
12pm weekly lab meeting.
One person presents their work, everyone else eats lunch. Here goes...Ok, it's acronym city, and I've only heard of one of them so am a bit (very) lost. Like the idea of knockdowns. Sounds like cells meeting at High Noon!
12.25
Oooh, pretty pictures! Cells, I think. Hmm. Ah, once again, the word "story" is used in talking about the direction of research, what questions are going to be asked. Like this idea. And I like the word "vesicle".
12.40
Funding. It always comes down to money, doesn't it?
1.05
Meeting over, back in the lab office, and the post has arrived. What is it? Fish! M opens the square polystyrene box and there are two squarish clear containers, with blue liquid and dozens of baby zebrafish. They look happy, says M. How can you tell? And do you ever think that there are fish wandering around Royal Mail?
2.05
Having a fascinating discussion with E who is writing up her PhD thesis, and M, who did his PhD in Canada, where it took 6 years instead of the 3 here in the UK. Is a 6-year PhD an entirely different degree?
2.15
E is in a flat with three other women, all of whom are writing their PhD theses now and having such different experiences: one has a special desk assigned to her in the department so she can concentrate, one has a supervisor who won't get back to her with comments on her first chapter. E has a great supervisor but no good place to write: the lab office isn't quiet, her downstairs neighbours at home just had a baby and upstairs they are doing renovations!
Very interesting talk about supervisors - so much depends on who you get, you might even say that this relationship is vital for the course of science. If you get on well, if they are helpful, maybe a PhD student will continue on in science, or in this field, but if the relationship is fraught, difficult, your journey might take an entirely new direction.
2.55
E shows me her introduction, which is the size of my short story collection. This is just chapter 1! Am quite happy that I can sort of follow what it is talking about. We discuss how, plot-wise, the thesis doesn't really get into the action til Chapter 3, but of course that isn't the main consideration.
3.20
Am actually in the lab now as opposed to the lab office next door. When I first started embedding, Radio 2 was always on. Seemed like an odd choice. How did it affect experiments, I wondered. A few weeks later, I dared to change to Jack FM, which plays mostly 80s and 90s music and no talking! Will this affect anything? Then last week - no radio! No-one seemed to know who turned it off.... And today, Jack FM back on. Who is operating the lab radio?! (just heard Valerie by Steve Winwood. Nice.)
4.01
M has just shown me a new site he and Y recently discovered: The Journal of Visualized Experiments. It's totally amazing! It's like cookery shows for scientists:
4.24
B is having a bad day. She did something with gels and the result was completely baffling. Nothing appeared when something definitely should have shown up on the gel. A few week ago B had the opposite problem - too many things showed up on the gel in places they shouldn't. So M is helping out by testing the primer she used (do I sound like I know what all this means? Good!). M is just loading the gel - what will happen? Excitement is mounting! Jack FM is playing All I Need is A Miracle! Stay tuned....
4.34
Still waiting... M starting the electrophoresis. Will take 25 mins. Breath is bated.
4.45
Pipettes don't look like they did when I was at school. Bit scary, eh?
My laptop was stolen two days ago so I am blogging from my mobile phone, forgive any odd spelling.
12pm weekly lab meeting.
One person presents their work, everyone else eats lunch. Here goes...Ok, it's acronym city, and I've only heard of one of them so am a bit (very) lost. Like the idea of knockdowns. Sounds like cells meeting at High Noon!
12.25
Oooh, pretty pictures! Cells, I think. Hmm. Ah, once again, the word "story" is used in talking about the direction of research, what questions are going to be asked. Like this idea. And I like the word "vesicle".
12.40
Funding. It always comes down to money, doesn't it?
1.05
Meeting over, back in the lab office, and the post has arrived. What is it? Fish! M opens the square polystyrene box and there are two squarish clear containers, with blue liquid and dozens of baby zebrafish. They look happy, says M. How can you tell? And do you ever think that there are fish wandering around Royal Mail?
2.05
Having a fascinating discussion with E who is writing up her PhD thesis, and M, who did his PhD in Canada, where it took 6 years instead of the 3 here in the UK. Is a 6-year PhD an entirely different degree?
2.15
E is in a flat with three other women, all of whom are writing their PhD theses now and having such different experiences: one has a special desk assigned to her in the department so she can concentrate, one has a supervisor who won't get back to her with comments on her first chapter. E has a great supervisor but no good place to write: the lab office isn't quiet, her downstairs neighbours at home just had a baby and upstairs they are doing renovations!
Very interesting talk about supervisors - so much depends on who you get, you might even say that this relationship is vital for the course of science. If you get on well, if they are helpful, maybe a PhD student will continue on in science, or in this field, but if the relationship is fraught, difficult, your journey might take an entirely new direction.
2.55
E shows me her introduction, which is the size of my short story collection. This is just chapter 1! Am quite happy that I can sort of follow what it is talking about. We discuss how, plot-wise, the thesis doesn't really get into the action til Chapter 3, but of course that isn't the main consideration.
3.20
Am actually in the lab now as opposed to the lab office next door. When I first started embedding, Radio 2 was always on. Seemed like an odd choice. How did it affect experiments, I wondered. A few weeks later, I dared to change to Jack FM, which plays mostly 80s and 90s music and no talking! Will this affect anything? Then last week - no radio! No-one seemed to know who turned it off.... And today, Jack FM back on. Who is operating the lab radio?! (just heard Valerie by Steve Winwood. Nice.)
4.01
M has just shown me a new site he and Y recently discovered: The Journal of Visualized Experiments. It's totally amazing! It's like cookery shows for scientists:
How to dissect a fruit fly:And there's the postdoc, in his lab coat, being made to be the presenter, looking like he might burst out laughing as he talks to the camera. Is this the 40th time he's had to say this? Will future PhD students have to take a screen test? Next stop: Science TV? Love it! They have a Facebook group too.
First, take specific-sized tweezers, then pull here...
shake twice for 3 minutes each...
4.24
B is having a bad day. She did something with gels and the result was completely baffling. Nothing appeared when something definitely should have shown up on the gel. A few week ago B had the opposite problem - too many things showed up on the gel in places they shouldn't. So M is helping out by testing the primer she used (do I sound like I know what all this means? Good!). M is just loading the gel - what will happen? Excitement is mounting! Jack FM is playing All I Need is A Miracle! Stay tuned....
bottle being filled with extra-pure water
Still waiting... M starting the electrophoresis. Will take 25 mins. Breath is bated.
4.45
Pipettes don't look like they did when I was at school. Bit scary, eh?
5.01
We head back into the lab. B watches as M gets the gel out and puts it in the machine which will show if there's something on it... And yes, there's something there!
But... wait.
It's not the right thing. Something's up. There's a stripe where there shouldn't be, and a blank space where there should be a stripe. It's inconclusive. M will have to do it all again. And this one test takes several days to prepare for.
Now this is science and it's not what you normally hear about - tests that when they work properly are "beautiful", says B, but can go wrong for so many different reasons. Some could be to do with the supplier who supplied the primer, say. Or a contaminated tube? There are so many steps involved in getting to the point where you even do the test, that doing it all again is a fairly exhausting and disheartening prospect. But there's no choice. B needs to see if a certain gene was present. She needs to know. So: one more time. Tomorrow is another day.
5.15 and I'm heading home. This has been great, but I think next time I will just scribble in my Moleskine, as I have been doing, and enjoy the tranquility involved in not being able to rush anything, having to wait. And then I will capture my reflections on the blog later.
We head back into the lab. B watches as M gets the gel out and puts it in the machine which will show if there's something on it... And yes, there's something there!
But... wait.
It's not the right thing. Something's up. There's a stripe where there shouldn't be, and a blank space where there should be a stripe. It's inconclusive. M will have to do it all again. And this one test takes several days to prepare for.
Now this is science and it's not what you normally hear about - tests that when they work properly are "beautiful", says B, but can go wrong for so many different reasons. Some could be to do with the supplier who supplied the primer, say. Or a contaminated tube? There are so many steps involved in getting to the point where you even do the test, that doing it all again is a fairly exhausting and disheartening prospect. But there's no choice. B needs to see if a certain gene was present. She needs to know. So: one more time. Tomorrow is another day.
5.15 and I'm heading home. This has been great, but I think next time I will just scribble in my Moleskine, as I have been doing, and enjoy the tranquility involved in not being able to rush anything, having to wait. And then I will capture my reflections on the blog later.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)