Reporting Live from the Surface of the Moon!

Hey everyone! I am officially back in the blogosphere; I'm sure I've been terribly missed. It's not that I haven't had anything to write about, I simply haven't had the time or the energy. But things are looking up (for now), and so I've decided to start writing again.

So far, this quarter has started off great. I'm in a new lab, doing new work, and I really like what I'm doing. This quarter I've joined a genetics lab, using the model organism Drosophila melanogaster. In English, fruit flies:

This particular lab is focused on neuron development, and we study neurons in fly eyes. It's actually pretty sweet. There's all kinds of little molecular genetic tricks that we can use that allow us to create individual mutant cells surrounded by normal cells. This way, we can directly compare the neurons from the same animal (which is an important consideration in genetics). It also means that we can now look at what effects certain mutations have in just the eye cells, instead of in every cell. This is important because a lot of mutations are lethal, and it's hard to study how an animal develops if it's dead. What this means for me is that I get to spend a bunch of time collecting virgin flies and dissecting brains. And when the whole fly is less than 2 millimeters long, it's nearly impossible to do.




These guys make it look easy, but trust me, it's actually pretty tough. However, I did manage to pull out one intact brain in my morning dissection practice, so hopefully I'll be able to work up to this level of proficiency.

The other thing that's awesome about this quarter (aside from the fact that last quarter is over) is that I'm not taking a class. So really, the only thing I have to do is work and go home. It's making things so much better. Trying to do research work, teach a class, and take a class, on top of all the various other things that pop up during the week, is just a recipe for disaster. It's not the fact that there's so much work to do, it's that everything becomes just another thing on the list. The mentality switches from trying to focus and learn something to just getting everything done. And even though everything did get done, it wasn't done nearly as well as it could have been, so then I feel like I've done bad work, even if I haven't. So yeah, this quarter I'm just doing my fly work, and teaching a class. I'm super stoked.

What I Do All Day

I heard that a few of you are disappointed that I don't talk about myself a little more often, so I figure I'll write a little post about how I'm doing and what my schoolwork is like. The short answer is that I'm doing great. I love being in school. I love it. I feel like this is what I was made for. At first I was really worried about coming back after being out of the game for three years; not just out of school, but not having even thought about science for those years. So I was relieved (and more than a little surprised) when everything came right back to me, as though I'd never left.
They definitely keep me busy around here. I'm only taking one class, but believe me, it's enough. Luckily for me, though, it's a really interesting class. Not only that, but after each lecture I feel like I'm just a little bit closer to the cutting edge of my field. It's a weird feeling. You go to school for years and years, and it seems like there's always more to learn, and now I'm getting to the point where people ask questions and the answer is, "We don't know yet." It's exciting to think that I'll be helping to push the boundaries of human knowledge.
On top of my class, I've been teaching a general chemistry lab class. It's similar to the TA work I did at Eastern, so I'm not too out of my element, but it's definitely more labor intensive. Aside from doing all the grading, I have to actually keep a grade book, prepare short (really short) lectures, and even discipline the class if necessary (I've only had to do this once, thankfully). I'm like a real teacher now; some of them even call me Mr. Lowry, although I try and get them to call me Josh. There is still a bit of a difference, though; I doubt too many high school teachers have students asking for their phone numbers.
And of course there's my research, which is the really exciting part. In fact, I can't wait until I no longer have to take classes so I can spend my time doing my research. I've been working on a few different projects since I showed up this summer, and one of them has yielded some exciting results. What we do is something called RNAi, where we feed our worms this special food that targets one of their genes and shuts it off. Then, we look at one-celled embryos, watch them divide, and see if there's any difference between our mutant and a normal cell. Most of the time there's no difference; I mean, worms have ~30,000 genes, and we're shutting off one. But every once in a while, you get something exciting, and that's what happened to me. Here are some videos I made of this first cell division:



In this one, the DNA and the centrosomes (no, I don't expect you to know what they are) are labeled with a special protein that glows green when you shine a laser on it.


This one shows microtubles labeled in red. These both show the same mutant, just with different cell parts visible. I know they're not in color, but when I look at them under the microscope those are the colors I see. When we process them, they lose their color. Still, it's pretty cool to be able to watch all this happening right in front of you. The first cell division actually takes between 10-15mins, so this is time-lapse video you're watching, but still, this is an actual cell going through an actual division. I think it's cool every time I watch it.

So yeah, that's what I've been doing. It keeps me busy, but I'm loving every minute. And with that, it's back to work for me.

Stepping out of the Jungle

I heard a story once involving an Amazonian tribe of hunter-gatherers. In this story, a group of explorers was (you guessed it!) exploring the jungle, and happened upon this tribe. The tribesmen were curious about the explorers strange clothes and technology, so the explorers offered to show them where they had come from. When they walked out of the jungle, they saw a vast city laid out before them, complete with skyscrapers, cars, and airplanes. They promptly wet themselves and cowered in fear. The sudden shock that they had been living in the jungle, barely scraping out an existence, while the rest of the world had flourished and prospered, was simply too much for them.

Here's a sample of what I did at work the other day:

This was made on an awesome microscope hooked up to a camera. It's a single cell dividing into two, then those two into four. These cells have had a special protein engineered into them so that certain parts of the cell glow green. They only do this, though, when they're hit with a blue laser. The camera takes pictures every five seconds, at three different depths, two millionths of a meter apart, so that I can see what's happening all throughout the cell. And all of the preparation involved to get to this stage only took about a week.

I feel like I just walked out of the jungle.