I haven't been doing anything but school, lab, school, and more lab, so that's what I have to write about this weekend. I am making this post because I should be preparing a presentation about neuroethology for my First Year Group (a professional skills workshop everyone has to take).
My neurobiology class has been pretty great. It is like a review of all the neuro I took at UChicago plus an hour and a half of more detail, which is exactly what I expected it to be. We also read papers and discuss them, which sort of burns everyone out, so there is a lot of delicious comisery to enjoy every morning.
My first year group is pretty annoying. This is something I should have expected because I have never enjoyed anything involving learning real-life, non-theoretical skills... and this is one of the first times that I actually MUST learn the skills because I will need them for the rest of my life. I'll adjust.
The problem I have right now is that we are all giving these 5 minute talks, then Q&A, then the class critiques us so we can improve. Everyone in my group gave their talks on their molecular biology research, and they were especially focused on the therapeudic benefits of whatever anyone talked about. Even the few behavioral neuro people in my group talked about their research on alcoholism and drug abuse, which has obvious clinical implications. My research is a little more abstract than that. I have this firm belief that any research that advances our knowledge of how a brain is working can be used as a stepping stone for further understanding, especially in light of the fact that every organism's brain is obviously incredibly different from a human brain, and we cannot perform experiments on living people. So I need to give a speech to convey that defense of my research.
But anyway, I love my research. It is so awesome. I spent almost 30 hours this week staining tissue for my project, and next week Kendra (the post doc) and I are going to put the tissue on slides and take pictures of it under the microscope for me to analyze on my computer. Kendra is trying to correlate song output with vasotocin expression. I have been preparing to write an NSF grant proposal and getting extremely interested in individual behavior patterns within a species, or, as I have learned to call it, "behavioral polymorphism." The individual's life history in regards to environmental conditions pattern it for a specific type of behavior as an adult, and this maximizes the fitness of the species in a variety of environmental conditions-- i.e. an abundant vs. poor summer. I'm really interested in that right now, so I assigned myself a lot of reading for the weekend.
Ughhh. It's time to clean my apartment, exercise, write my speech, fix my powerpoint, and read read read read read. I'll work on being more entertaining next time.
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3 comments:
Imagine if Newton and Curie had had to devote lots of energy to explaining the immediate and practical benefits of their research. Only in the anti-science climate fostered by the W White House would scientists get all nervous and sweaty about their funding being withdrawn because they weren't able to give the exact number of lives their research had saved that year.
I happen to be opposed to all tests performed on animals (let me know if Newton or Curie did any; what about Darwin, my hero?). It simply strikes me as a gross historical wrong turn. Just imagine how the Sam Gilbert White House would affect your grant applications.
Also, have you read "Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches"? Very neat book.
i agree that it's really unfortunate that we have to experiment on animals to learn certain things about them -- i would prefer to do everything by observation if it were possible. however, any animal research that i have observed has been totally respectful and humane. i wouldn't do something if it involved torturing anything living.
oh but wait... does dating count???
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