what's next

looks like vacation came early this year.

Dear [kitty]:
I just wanted to see how you were doing. I am sorry that you were released this morning. I cannot imagine your sadness and disappointment. However, please know that it was a great honor working with you. It is indeed such an uncommon occurrence to encounter someone like you who has both the tenacity and moral integrity in a R&D environment. I will miss you tremendously. And my sadness of your departure is great. Please know that [*] and I will be praying that you find employment quickly. And please feel free to contact me if you need anything at all. Have a blessed day.

[officemate]

yes and look what tenacity and moral integrity brought me. same thing it brought me when the university pulled my phd in my 6th year of grad school. same thing i got for loving a man for 7 years who didn't want me for who i am. i think i have paid my dues and would like a refund please.

sorry, i don't usually write about personal stuff. it slipped.

glass ceiling

"Forty-one percent of highly qualified scientists, engineers, and technologists on the lower rungs of corporate career ladders are female. But more than half (52%) drop out." link

can't imagine why. with less pay, lower title, and equal education and experience to my male coworkers through the years, i just can't imagine why half of us drop out. it couldn't be related to the hit-on-then-shit-on scenario or sexist verbal abuse. i certainly wasn't dissuaded when advised during phd studies by two male faculty that women should take a masters or switch to the science education masters because eventually we'll have kids and not use our degrees anyway. this all seems totally fair to me.

i'm sure the inner workings of the boys club are just as cut throat. i'm sure they do these derogatory, career stunting behaviors to each other.. right?

roundup

a little story about monsanto. roundup sounds funny in french. link

that process of stimulating sea urchins to release gametes at around 18 minutes in, i did that for the prep room back in undergrad. i remember reaching into that super cold tank to pull out urchins. i also remember the smell when the tank went unattended. peee-yew.

hippocratic oath for scientists

"Since something close to half of all life science PhDs are reduced to begging for a job at the local WalMart within four years of graduation or are forced to change careers to avoid a lifetime of welfare and food stamps, it seems that many of those who are lucky enough to remain in science do so by working at Big Pharmas. ... most of whom have reached their mid-40s having never earned more than 30K in their lives and who are grateful to simply be working in science at all..." link

yes, this is the fear we face on the day-to-day. especially in the current saturated job market.

she states "I don't think that there is much scientific misconduct occurring in academics". uh, pay attention much?

misconduct is by no means rampant, but it is present in academics. very present. all you have to do is read the literature to realize how much crap gets through by means of a big rubber stamp. these are the boys keeping each other in business, encouraging each other to build that publication record like a stamp collection. the reviewers could care less about the content on which they sign off.

and that's the tame underbelly of the beast. that's a little bloody hangnail.

look a little closer to home. perhaps in your own lab or the one next door. misrepresentation of data, cherry picking of data, citing only positive results and not the negative ones, complete disregard for what all those failed experiments mean (yes, there is meaning there - you just can't publish it - they need a journal called science failed), the misleading of colleagues and the public? it occurs at all levels, from undergrad volunteer to prestigious senior faculty person.

and let's not even begin to think about industry misconduct. just because it's poop from a different animal doesn't mean it smells any better.

measure twice, cut once

i watched this movie back in school. we all knew the biochemical cascade of inflammatory response, but finally being able to visualize it made the process that much cooler. this movie was more relevant to my job at that time, which was heavily rooted in discovery and exploration. now i'm just a glorified mechanic of things nano. here, fix this. it's broken.

here's another good one that i hadn't seen until recently about the nifty little silencing enzyme, dicer. measure twice, cut once.

i found this the other day,

the acknowledgements from my awful thesis. the last sentence sums it up.

Special thanks to Dan Thomas and Doug Ryan from a past life at the Division of Biological Sciences. My years in the prep room are fond memories now. Thanks to my family for never giving up on me even when I fell short of my mark. Thanks to Janie and Charles Kay for being my second family, and for having a uniquely happy son named Russell.