Kickstarting the week

Ah, man ... starting work after a four-day weekend is not gonna be pleasant. So we need some giggles, no?

Monday.

 

 Tuesday.

 

Wednesday.

 Thursday.

 Friday.

*sigh*

Is it weekend already?

Grading on a transient loop

A number of my friends are now neck-deep in marking examination scripts. It is hoped that they are not grading the kids a la Dick Solomon.



However, judging from the grumblings that I've heard, it is quite likely that they wish they could.

On skiving

Shirk : verb ‘To avoid work, duties or responsibilities, especially if they are difficult or unpleasant.’ [source: Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary ]

The Japanese are renowned for their insane work ethics and dedication to duty. Is it any surprise that they would be the ones to publish a paper on professional skiving? Mathematically eludicated, mind you.

Another work week begins

The horror!

Oh noes!!!!

Oh, if only ...

Science fiction is no longer fiction.

More dangerous than carrying a double-oh tag?

James Bond? Michael Westen?

Pfft.

My job has been classified as one of the most dangerous (albeit on the scientific front) job ever by Wired.

Check it out here.

Thank God we don't have a communal lab coffee pot.

Living with a Lab Rat

As I dip my toes into looking at human subjects, it became clearer to me how hard it is to recruit subjects who not only fits the criteria you wish, but also those who would agree to be poked/prodded/electrocuted etc.

I got the link to this article in NYTimes from The Scientist' Community and when I started reading, I thought, "Hey, why not?" My cousin who was working on juvenile immune response recruited her nieces and nephews for her study. She bribed them to agreeing to come with her to the hospital to have their blood drawn. To date, there don't seem to be any kind of negative effect from their participation in her Master's project.

In general, children have an innate desire to please the adults in their life; be it a parental figure or any other caretaker. Is their consent for the study something taken for granted or is easily waived away because their parent(s) signed the parental consent form? What happens when they grew up and decided that they were not happy with having participated in the study and wishes for the data to be withdrawn? That is something that have been seen in adult participants who withdrew from studies.

I wonder if any of the children who participated in their parent(s)' studies have ever said something along the lines of, "Hey, my data helped you get that professorship. How about springing a car/Playstation/new dress etc for me?"

*ponders*

Standing on the Shoulder of Giants

No one learns in isolation. Even the best philosophers get illuminated by watching and learning the world around them. And when you are a dunce, it is very important to learn from someone who knows. When I came across this link, I nearly wept in gratitude.

For the past few weeks, I've been struggling to re-educate myself with matters of molecular biology and genetics with hopes of making a go of my pharmacogenetics project. As a person who is an audio-visual learner, looking for the right medium to get your wheels going can be a right pain. And isn't it fantastic that the world is populated by kind people who are generous with their knowledge?

Thank you so much Drs. Tyra Wolfsberg, Kris Wetterstrand, Mark Guyer, Francis Collins and Andreas Baxevanis.

*dances with joy at the marvel of the Interwebs*

I am my gene, not my ethnicity

This article by Jerry Adler in Newsweek gave me pause. I'm in the middle of constructing a proposal to look at the pharmacogenetics of diabetes in the Malaysian population. One of the parameters that I plan to collect during the course of the investigation is ethnicity (or race, except that race sounds so ... racist.). Living in multicultural Malaysia where you have a box in any given form to indicate your ancestry(Melayu, Cina, India dan lain-lain), identifying yourself as part of an ethnic group is pretty much a way of life.

For those who are of mixed parentage, things can get pretty squeaky. As Asians, you are expected to identify yourself per your father's ethnicity (paternalistic society norms still prevail in the 21st century). But what if your father is a mere sperm donor and you do not want to link yourself to him at all? Or you're a dyed in the wool feminist who believes in aligning yourself with your maternal lineage?

Anyway. A number of the work done in disease genetics in Malaysia do indicate certain patterns that relate to a person's ethnicity. I guess I will not be going all gung-ho about not being "racist" in my project.

*crescents fingers*