I’ve been tempted back into blogging following a somewhat enforced period of attention elsewhere. Over the last couple months I have thought of a lot of things to write about, without quite finding the time to do so. But you will have to wait for my views on climate science, or the Iraq enquiry, or Andrew (expletive deleted) Wakefield.

No I am being drawn out by a letter in today’s Nature. A few weeks ago, that august journal published a short story in its ‘Futures’ series speculating on what sort of diseases a god would suffer if we were truly made in his image, and conversely whether our diseases would be visited upon him. Now Denis Alexander writes to state:

“…this gratuitously offensive junk has no place in a serious scientific journal.”

Denis Alexander is at pains to point out he is not a Catholic (that faith and its doctrine of transubstantiation being clearly mocked in the story), but he is the director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. So he’s not quite the disinterested observer seems to be trying to claim.

Arguably neither am I, as an atheist. But I’m not bringing this up to have a narrow go at religion (honest). It is the notion that the story should not have been published “in a serious scientific journal.” I have long felt equivocal about Futures. When it was trailed a few years ago I found it an irritant. Here was some jejune piece of science fiction whimsy at the tail end of one of the most important journals around. So I just ignored it. Since it has returned however, I think there has been a real improvement in quality. I am still not persuaded that Nature should carry such a series, but it is now entertaining more often than not.

The story to which Alexander objects was not one of the high points. It was more like an overstretched idea for a stand-up comedy routine. The serious point it is making, if there is one, might be something about how our perceptions of deity have changed over time. I don’t want to over analyse the story though, because I don’t think it merits it.

But criticise it on these grounds. I can easily see how some believers might find it offensive, but one person’s offense should not be privileged over another’s. Personally, I would find the idea that it was censored because of what it was about just as objectionable. There is a case to be made that a scientific journal should not carry fiction. But having decided to do so, the choice of that fiction should be based on its quality, not on its content.

Can anyone tell me why the new automated announcement system at Kings Cross-St Pancras Underground station sounds like a female Stephen Hawking?

Of course I understand that it’s a lot cooler to have a computer generate alerts as the need arises, rather than imprisoning Mrs. Flibbledy-bit from Dagenham in a small room and forcing her to record all the possible syllables one might possibly need while traversing the bowels of London. We all know where the latter leads: the sheer desperate boredom that causes the tannoy to squeal out that your train will be terminating at “Wiiiiiiiilllllsden Green!”

But surely the technology has moved on: why can’t these systems get the vowels right? Why can’t the computer be taught that the end of a sentence involves a falling intonation, or that sometimes you need a pause between words? Until it’s sorted, I say bring back Flibbledy-bit et al. She may sound a bit stilted, but at least she doesn’t resemble a circa-1970’s science fiction film.

Most people would drop an oven mitt on the floor and would just see an oven mitt.

Not a geek.

This is a myosin motor – no question.

My yeast collaborators inform me that they’ve got a pesky incursion of
Saccharomyces cerevisiae in their Schizosaccharomyces pombe cultures. I thought these simple model organism people had their acts together.

Sort it out, guys. You promised me 4 transgenic lines and a stonking phenotype in less than a week.

A bit before Christmas I came down with a cold. Nothing serious, just the simple misery of not being able to breathe and the feeling of unripe avocados stuffed into my sinuses. And copious quantities of nose juice, of course. Undeterred, I went to work and popped into the local Sainsbury’s to buy some decongestant, vague admonitions against English cold remedies (thank you, Eva) knocking around in the secret bunkers of my ibuprofen-addled brain. Swallowed two tabs, went to the office.

As the day lengthened I felt worse and worse. Up to the nines with various analgesics, I checked out the decongestants, and slowly realized that what I had bee relying on to make me feel slightly less blocked than the Blackwall Tunnel actually contained phenylephrine, which, as you probably know, isn’t really effective yet can’t be used to make meth. Whereas the decongestant that does work is all but unavailable in the Tottenham Court Road area (as I soon ascertained to my immense dissatisfaction). Fortunately, after convincing the pharmacist at the Surrey Quays Tesco that I knew what I was doing I obtained some ‘Non-drowsy’ Sudafed® and was soon able to breathe, and to sleep again.

A week or so ago, Jenny complained of what she thought was an allergic reaction. After her experience with seafood last year she wasn’t keen to take any chances and asked if I had any antihistamines. I did, and proffered them.

“Are they non-drowsy?” she asked. I admitted that I didn’t know, because antihistamines don’t make me drowsy at all (I must have a storming blood-brain barrier). She took one anyway, and spent the next 48 hours in a near-coma. Ah.

So then this reaction actually turned out to be a cold, complete with avocado sinuses and other unpleasant side-effects, so I suggested she took one of my ‘Non-drowsy’ Sudafeds®s. The ones, as I say (pace Eva), that actually work. Which she did.

And you know the ‘Non-drowsy’ bit? Well, it turns out that one of the side-effects of pseudoephedrine is, uh, non-drowsiness. Serious non-drowsiness. Again, I didn’t suffer from this, but Jenny did. In spades.

Therefore, if she’s willing (or when she’s looking the other way), I’m going to feed her one of the ‘Non-drowsy’ Sudafeds®s with one of my ‘May cause drowsiness’ antihistamines and see if she notices.

All in the name of Science, naturally.

It’s been a slow start at our institute, bouncing back from the Christmas break. A lot of people have been on holiday though the first few weeks of January, so the labs have been relatively depopulated and serene. The seminar series hasn’t started yet, and the campus has been largely undergraduate-free, glistening under snow and ice in solitary splendor.

Not much on the docket: thawing out cells from their cryogenic hibernation, doing a few routine PCR/RT reactions to replenish those of my dsRNA stocks that were running low. Sitting at my desk bundled up against the chill and drinking tea as I finalize a manuscript that I couldn’t quite manage to submit in the crazy crush right before the holidays.

Mixed feelings about the new week tomorrow: it will be back to full swing…I might even have to start multitasking again.

Christmas is a time for eating, and with a two-week break from the lab, I can relax and do a lot more cooking and baking than I normally do. And I can’t prepare anything without offering a silent prayer of thanks for the chemist Louis-Camille Maillard, who was mucking around early last century trying to work out protein synthesis and ended up elucidating the chemical reaction that makes food taste wonderful after being heated.

Don’t ask me for the details, I’m just a biologist.

Last time I wrote about the relaxed vibe in the laboratory when the boss is away. Well, he’s still away, and the sedative effects of an impending Christmas are well and truly entrenched in our institute. The Christmas party was last night, and even though it’s past 11 now, the building is still eerily quiet – and pale-faced post-docs keep staggering in. I have no doubt that lunch breaks will mysteriously extend to hours as last-minute shopping is discharged. Despite the blue sky and brilliant sunshine, snow clouds skirt the horizon, and nobody seems too fussed about experiments (though of course they are still taking place – if you’re reading, boss).

It doesn’t matter how egalitarian a lab head is, how un-pushy, how understanding, how sympathetic. It doesn’t matter that he would never dare cast aspersions when you come in late or leave early. Never mind that you hardly see him at all when he’s around, and that the amount of email correspondence remains just as steady now that he’s away. And forget that you are entirely self-motivated as a scientist and nobody could possibly put as much pressure on you as you do on yourself.

But when a lab head is away, there is an undeniable festive feel in the air.

He’ll be abroad all week, and the vibe here is positively languid. Time for another cup of tea?

What sort of a person designs a lab protocol so that liquid chemicals are reported in moles?

The recipe *could* have just told me how many milliliters of beta-mercaptoethanol I needed to add to my buffer. But, oh no, that would be too easy. So much more satisfying to tell me how many moles I need – thus requiring me to look up the chemical’s formula weight and density and do all sorts of obscene calculations in which none of the units seem to cancel out properly after a long day in the lab without proper snacks and caffeine.

It’s not as if I’ll ever need to perform this experiment on the Moon.

/rant

As you were.