You know it's the end of the semester when…

…the only time you’re not in the lab is when you’re at home sleeping.

…and you seriously considered just sleeping at work to be more efficient, but didn’t want to smell the next day.

…so you leave the lab at 1am after being at work for 17 hours only because you have to catch the last bus home.

…and while you’re standing at the stop, two of your classmates comes to catch the last bus as well.

…and it’s not the first time you all have done that this week.

…and you still don’t feel prepared for everything that you have to finish.

Yay grad school. At least we’re all going insane together?

What's the nerdiest thing you've done this week?

Me? Worked in the lab writing Python programs until midnight. And since I’ll probably be doing that again tonight (woo research presentation on Friday), you get this filler post.

What’s the nerdiest thing you’ve done in the past week?

I asked this to my friends over Facebook, and my personal favorite was “Flirt with a NPC.” I’m sure you guys won’t disappoint me either.

Still feeling aftershocks from boobquake

On Friday I was interviewed by Definitely Not the Opera on the CBC, which I’m told is sort of the Canadian equivalent to This American Life on NPR. I was for their episode “What happens when you make your ‘private parts’ public,” and of course I talked about boobquake. It was a fun interview, and you can listen here. This interview was especially nifty because I actually got to go into NPR’s Seattle studio to record it. Happens to be a couple blocks from my lab, and I got to feel all officially with the fancy mikes and headphones instead of a shoddy webcam and Skype.

Oh, and boobquake made PC World’s top 8 Facebook memes. Woo.

And I just got a lovely email from a college student who’s on a Forensics team (not CSI forensics, the speech and debate type). She’s used boobquake as her topic for four competitions, and placed first in the last three! Congrats, Kait!

Some of my classmates joked that I should talk about boobquake for my end of the quarter research presentation on Friday, but I don’t think the department would appreciate that much. Sigh, guess I’ll go back to finishing my actual science then…

If you had infinite money, what scientific quesiton would you ask?

You’d think someone who stayed up all night writing a research proposal wouldn’t want to think about research proposals anymore. But in fact, that is all my brain can comprehend at the moment. And since I’m about to go pass out and potentially sleep most of the day away, I felt I should get a nice discussion topic up here for you guys.

If money was not an issue, what scientific question would you ask? How would you go about doing your research? Please expand on the significance, innovation, and approach of your specific aims…wait, no, scratch that last part. Babble in a blog comment.

Also, thank you to the gigantic spider than nearly crawled over my hand at 5am. Your fear-induced energy gave me the second wind required to finish my paper.

Grad School Spirit

From PhD comics:Uh…

1. I know we’re the Huskies, but I have no idea what our specific mascot is called. I see a lot of undergrads wearing sweaters that say “Dawgs” on them, is that related?

Wikipedia informs me our mascot is Harry the Husky. Um, okay. Purdue Pete is way cooler.2. Purple and gold, right? …*checks Wikipedia* Phew, I’m right. It’s not some crazy-specific description like Purdue’s “old gold” (yes, there is a difference).

3. I have no goddamn idea. The only reason I learned Purdue’s fight song was because we were basically brainwashed during freshmen orientation.

4. Division I, Pac 10. I only know this from going to my undergrad at another Division I school.

5. No idea.

6. Derp?

7. I went on a bus by it once!

2 points. I am a graduate student!

Hey, I’m not as bad as some people. I’ve now been inside seven buildings on campus! …Though I’ve only been inside two of those more than once. Sigh.

End of semester madness!

What am I up to? I’m writing a “fake” research proposal for one of my classes on doing a genome wide association study and exome sequencing to search for genetic components of homosexuality. I say “fake” because it’s a project for a class, not something I’m actually submitting to the NIH or NSF. Well, I mean, I could theoretically submit it as a grant if it ends up being super awesome and a mind-blowing scientific idea, but at this rate I’m just trying to not embarrass myself when turning it in.

On top of that I’m attempting to finish my actual research from this quarter since our presentations are next week. I’m not nervous about the speaking part – heck, I do that for fun now – but talking about science is a bit harder than making jokes about atheism. So, yeah, again – aiming for not embarrassing myself. Frantically trying to learn R to make my graphics, since my professor nearly had an aneurysm when he saw I was using Excel to make my charts.

Aren’t the end of quarters great?!

I know a lot of you are also students – consider this an open thread to complain about all the work you have to do and to procrastinate doing it. Non-students welcome to whine too.

The Hipster Bible

I appreciate this much more after having lived in Seattle for a couple of months:The only reason I don’t like hipsters is because they screw up my gaydar. Seriously, I might as well flip a coin. Especially in Capitol Hill.

Check out the rest here. I wish the whole Bible was translated this way!

(Via Godless Girl)

And the media sensationalizes science again

I came home to a flurry of emails, tweets, and blog posts about NASA’s big announcement. I was momentarily floored when I saw headlines like this:

“NASA Finds New Life” – Gizmodo

“NASA-Funded Research Discovers Life Built With Toxic Chemical” – The Richard Dawkins Foundation

“Bacteria first species observed to use arsenic-laced DNA backbone” – Ars Technica

Though upon actually reading about the discovery, the most accurate title came from Boing Boing: Weird life form on Earth – kind of, maybe.

Look, it’s an exciting discovery, but everyone is over-hyping it. This bacteria is not an arsenic-based life form in the sense that we are carbon-based life forms. It does not use arsenic as a source of fuel. It does not exclusively build its DNA backbone using arsenic. It doesn’t even really like to do that at all in the wild – it incorporates arsenic under laboratory conditions that force even higher concentrations of arsenic upon it. It is not a different type of life that arose separately from phosphate-using lifeforms.

What it is is an excellent example of evolution. While coming from a phosphate-using ancestor, this bacteria has somehow adapted to an extreme environment that would kill most other organisms. I’m more interested in how it avoids death by this toxin than the fact that it incorporates a molecule extremely similar to phosphate into its DNA. PZ has a more thorough scientific breakdown over at Pharyngula.

Way to go, shoddy science reporting. Creationists are probably wetting themselves over this “new life form,” ready to tell biologists how it could have only been designed. I mean, just look at how this redditor is reacting to your sensationalism:

Is it ok that I’m already discriminating against arsenic based life forms because they are fundamentally different than me? Bunch of arses, they are.

Sigh. Well, at least I don’t have a whole new DNA structure to memorize. Getting a PhD in Genomics was already hard enough.