I have just spent several days designing primers to amplify bits of DNA from wheat genomic DNA. Lots of days looking at AGTCGTCGTAA and other such sequences.
Now I've just realised that I want the antisense sequence so I have to start all over again.
AAARRGGGGGHHHHHHH
(or should it be AAATTGGGGGCCCCCCC?)
PS this post is unlikely to make sense to any non-molecular biologists. But I'm happy to share the bewilderment.
2010年1月27日
2010年1月15日
Self-thought in the face of sadness
Yesterday, a woman in Manchester tried to stop someone from stealing her car from in front of her own house, and was run over and killed. Her partner and five year-old son witnessed this.
Looking at the photo of the woman, she might have been one of our regular customers at the takeaway my parents own. When people have died, they are remembered perhaps extra fondly, but if it was the woman I’m thinking of, she really was always very smiley and chatty. I hope it wasn’t.
It’s awful that even when I’m reading the news like this, although my reaction is sorrow for the victim and family, and disbelief at the callousness of the act it’s also horror that I can’t work out whether the woman is someone I recognise and have talked to many times or if it’s someone I don’t know. I always feel that my natural reactions are more selfish than they should be.
This happened about a mile away from my parents’ house, so it’s a really high chance that it was one of our customers. It was in quite a nice, relatively well-off area too, which you might expect to be fairly safe. But then again, the car thieves were probably an organised group who target relatively well-off areas. Opportunistic thieves wouldn’t usually be so brutal, would they?
I don’t know whether it was her. If I was at home in Manchester I would find out very quickly. People know each other there, so the community might be a bit subdued.
Have you ever wondered, how all the people you’ve known are doing now? Whether they are married, migrated away, divorced, still alive even? Whether they are happy? People that used to play important parts of our lives but we have now lost touch with…
I wonder if anyone ever wonders how I am, if they still remember me after many years of non-contact.
Looking at the photo of the woman, she might have been one of our regular customers at the takeaway my parents own. When people have died, they are remembered perhaps extra fondly, but if it was the woman I’m thinking of, she really was always very smiley and chatty. I hope it wasn’t.
It’s awful that even when I’m reading the news like this, although my reaction is sorrow for the victim and family, and disbelief at the callousness of the act it’s also horror that I can’t work out whether the woman is someone I recognise and have talked to many times or if it’s someone I don’t know. I always feel that my natural reactions are more selfish than they should be.
This happened about a mile away from my parents’ house, so it’s a really high chance that it was one of our customers. It was in quite a nice, relatively well-off area too, which you might expect to be fairly safe. But then again, the car thieves were probably an organised group who target relatively well-off areas. Opportunistic thieves wouldn’t usually be so brutal, would they?
I don’t know whether it was her. If I was at home in Manchester I would find out very quickly. People know each other there, so the community might be a bit subdued.
Have you ever wondered, how all the people you’ve known are doing now? Whether they are married, migrated away, divorced, still alive even? Whether they are happy? People that used to play important parts of our lives but we have now lost touch with…
I wonder if anyone ever wonders how I am, if they still remember me after many years of non-contact.
2010年1月8日
2010年1月6日
Cold snap
Since when has it dropped to -20 degrees (Celsius) in the UK? Temperatures that low are what I used to associate with Siberian winters, not what I would ever have predicted to occur in Scotland. Even in the south of England, at least around the Luton area, it hasn't risen above freezing for several days, and it's meant to get worse. 
And whilst it's all very picturesque, it's also deeply annoying, and I'm sure, rather deadly for some people in the more remote parts of the country. It snowed again last night, and the number of people at work has dropped to maybe about 30 %, mainly because so many live in semi-countryside areas, or where there are just no trains to get to work. None of us who live in Luton town have been stupid enough to try and drive in, as last time the roads were so congested that apparently it took people over 5 hours to drive the 8-ish miles in from Luton.
When people worry about climate change, they always forget that it's not just global warming. In fact, it's not global warming per se at all. It's definitely much colder than I've ever remembered it in England right now. Perhaps 'The Day after Tomorrow' wasn't so outlandish after all.
2010年1月5日
What they don't tell you about gingerbread houses
1. You need four hands (or more) to hold everything up whilst you wait for the icing to set
2. Your decor will never look as good as the pictures you see in cookery books.
3. The stained glass windows will melt at room temperature, so soon your house looks like a derelict building, but that's ok because
4. After a few days, the walls will start to go soggy too, so it becomes a rather good impression of a derelict building.
2. Your decor will never look as good as the pictures you see in cookery books.
3. The stained glass windows will melt at room temperature, so soon your house looks like a derelict building, but that's ok because
4. After a few days, the walls will start to go soggy too, so it becomes a rather good impression of a derelict building.
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