membrane folding

I saw this video on a science website and it depicts something that we're talking about in my cell biology class, the structure of a cell membrane.  I wanted to show some of my classmates and Dr. Schwartzbach, but while I was trying to get their attention one of them asked if I was going to show them something artsy.  I am still not sure.  What do you think?

Folding Flower from Science News on Vimeo.

Dentistry From The Heart

I know plenty of artists and students without dental insurance.  I hope that organizations like this can help.

My Awesome Retainer

Fifteen years ago, back when I had a retainer, if I remember correctly, it was a glow-in-the-dark retainer.  I also had some glow-in-the-dark keychains and a glow-in-the-dark bedspread covered with cartoons of glow-in-the-dark cows.

It was with great delight this spring that I learned how to doctor frankenstein up some glow-in-the-dark E. coli.

Here's the abstract from my paper about the experiment:


Abstract:

The DNA in Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria can be transformed using novel DNA from non-bacterial organisms.  This is done by altering the DNA plasmids in the cell.  In this experiment, we will alter E. coli DNA by undertaking a transformation protocol that requires the use of pGLO plasmid.  The pGLO plasmid DNA will confer antibiotic resistance and fluorescence to the bacteria, allowing colonies of E. coli to grow in the presence of the antibiotic ampicillin.  The fluorescent qualities of the pGLO plasmid can only be observed in the presence of arabinose sugar.  We are able to analyze the efficiency of our transformation after counting the number of colonies that fluoresce after being transformed and cultured on an agar plate that contains LB media, ampicillin, and arabinose.  

My pictures aren't as clear as the ones on wikipedia, but I think they're super cool anyway.



  
Downside: glow-in-the-dark E. coli tarnishes my memories of my awesome retainer.

Art Appreciation: Kara Walker vs. Maya Lin

Starting in July I will be teaching a section of Art Appreciation at Southwest Tennessee Community College.  One of my favorite assignments in this class is to write a comparison essay about the work of two contemporary American artists who have many things in common while seeming to hold absolutely different ideas about what art can and should do for its audience.  These artists are Kara Walker and Maya Lin.  Both artists have been featured in the wildly popular PBS Art21 series.  Both are women.  Both are minorities.  Both use historical narrative in their work.  Both use reductive processes in their creative work and both do amazing things as they cut away at their media and the stories that they tell.

I've given this assignment several times and have seen students craft really interesting comparative essays about Walker and Lin.  So how are these essays useful?  What other contemporary thinkers share as much in common as these two while producing such radically different work?  Is reading about the raging disagreement of E.O. Wilson vs. Richard Dawkins just a more sophisticated version of watching MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch-- of course not.  But in order to understand the conversation we can't just take a side, we have to work to understand the worldview that shapes each side on its own.  We have to participate in the conversation.

There is an anecdote about Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel that describes how Darwin sailed the seas carrying information about Mendel's research without ever opening the envelope in which that research had been sealed.  I think we all wonder what progress could have been made in the early stages of genetic research had the two men been able to fuse the results of their research rather than relying on later scholars to make connections or engage in debate about the meaning and relationship of their ideas.

So here is my question:  which two contemporary monoliths would you throw into the cage together and what would you expect to gain through their discussions?

Special thanks today goes to The University of Memphis Biological Sciences Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/UofMemphis-Biological-Sciences/232013370188384 for working to make connections among students of biology through a series of gentle nudges toward interesting research material, generally presented via photographs of cute animals (because on the internet cute baby animals are king!).

Running Zombies

My husband made me an app.  It has a picture of Will Farrell on it and is called "I'm Streaking" and it counts the number of days on it since I started running with this game called Zombies, Run!  It is my very own app but you can see it at http://chandler-runs.herokuapp.com/since/2012/3/25.

Because of this Zombies game and because of my husband's support (which comes in more forms that just an app), I have built up a pretty significant streak.

I used to think that if I ran enough it would stop hurting, but I'm starting to realize that it's probably not going to stop so it's my job to stop caring that it hurts.  I am not advocating denial--but it's become very important to me to understand the difference between pain that comes from discipline and pain that comes from disease.

Last year I had surgery to remove internal scar tissue that had built up, probably as a result of a couple of unacknowledged kidney stone situations.  It was not until after the surgery provided relief that I realized how severe the pain that I had been in was.  I spent months coming home from work every day and curling up in bed in pain, avoiding friends and family because the pain in my abdomen was intense that it regularly brought me to tears.  My students must have thought I was pretty peculiar when I would suddenly grab my side or back during critique and grimace while simultaneously telling them that their assignments showed a great deal of talent and effort.  I found myself using lamaze techniques just to get through a short drive and counting the minutes until I could take another Aleve.  http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120517/9913/pain-tolerance-sports-athletes.htm 

Now that surgery provided relief from that painful period, I am happy to bring the coping mechanisms I used at that time to my habit of endurance running.  The distraction of the Zombie game coupled with a tolerance for a little pain in my shins has made this streak into a fixture of my life.  I plan to join the United States Running Streak Association as soon as I qualify and to keep running every single day for as long as I can put one foot in front of the other.

Zombies, Run! pretends to be a fitness game, but proves to be a meditation on mortality that borders on something religious.  

Pillow Talk

http://www.dirtsastudio.com/

I recently bought a pillow from this lady.  It's for the daybed in "the windowless room that we retreat to when tornado sirens go off in our neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee".  That is a really long name for a room, so maybe I should change it to The Reading Room.  Sometimes we call it the guest room, but we read there almost every day . . .

Do you name rooms in your house?  Do you want to know a secret about the importance of naming rooms to mnemonics?  If you feel compelled to study a lot of different things (like me) and end up memorizing a large quantity of stuff at once you find this useful.  It's called the Method of Loci or memory place. You're supposed to remember things by assigning them places in a familiar domicile or landscape.  One time this strategy came in handy for me was a little over ten years ago when I was taking a class in Chinese painting and I had to memorize the first five dynasties in China in about five minutes (having not prepared for a quiz that day, probably because the quiz was at 8 am on September 12, 2001).

The dynasties were the Xia, Shang, Chou, Qin and Han.  I memorized them by pointing to the Sky for Xia, my hair for Shang, my mouth for Chou (chew), my chin for Qin, and my hand for Han.

This memory technique was featured in the BBC series Sherlock in the Hound of Baskerville episode (which also featured a wonderful bit of trivia about pGLO bunnies--I'll talk about those bunnies in a future post.)  Sherlock solves the case by visiting his "mind palace."

What techniques do you use to remember essential information? 

Eugenics discussion continued (The DNA Learning Center)

One of the tools Dr. Taller provided our biology class with last semester was a link to the DNA learning center, a comprehensive website with more information about genetics than we could cover in several weeks of study:  http://www.dnalc.org/

This website includes a link to information about the history of Eugenics, forced sterilization, the Third Reich and the Gene Age http://www.dnai.org/e/index.html

This website suggests that "coming to grips with the past failings of eugenics may allow us to move with greater confidence into the gene age."