The end is in sight

Over the last few days, I've thrown out 7 shelves of plants - that's 45 trays or 315 tobacco plants. I did take samples from them, so they didn't die in vain. More to the point, I'm in the last stages of processing my data from over 300 samples.
I've also heard that each growth chamber at the plant growth facilities cost us £4000 a month to maintain. As I've been using half a chamber, that's £2000 a month I've been clocking up for the lab bill, if the rumours are true that is. Our group alone use the better part of 5 rooms, adding up to a ridiculous amount of money spent on lighting and humidity control alone...

Anyway, hopefully not too long left doing experiments!

Plants versus zombies

It's amazing what we can do with G.M. technology these days.

Pregnancy tests for viruses

There are several ways to check if your plant is infected with Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). If your plant of interest is Nicotiana benthamiana (i.e. such a sickly thing that it wilts at the mere sight of a virus) then you wait for them to die. Though that could mean it was infected with any one of scores of plant viruses.

To narrow down the list of culprits, and to do so before plant death, then look out for the dark green veins surrounding light green patches of leaf tissue, where chlorosis has occured due to insertion of the virus coat protein into the chloroplastic envelope. The leaves will become mottled and curl up. These symptoms could be attributed to a much smaller number (i.e. less than 10) of different virus species that cause the same symptoms.

If you're more pedantic about your viruses and want to know if your plant has TMV, you could use antibodies against TMV-specific proteins, or primer sequences that complement TMV-specific RNA sequences in molecular-based assays.

However, you can also get tests to check if your virus is TMV/CMV/boy/girl/indeterminate gender. They look like a pregnancy test, work in the same way as a pregnancy test, you interpret your results in (I'm told) the same way as you would a pregnancy test. The only difference is that instead of peeing on a stick you put plant extract on it. (And no, you cannot train plants to pee).
And yes, my brain is addled from too much data analysis.

M.I.A. - Have you seen this PhD homo sapiens?

I haven't updated my blog for a LONG time. I've found that being an unfunded fourth year PhD is a time-consuming job, despite being technically unemployed. Not only have I become jaded and bitter, but my life is increasingly asocial and self-centred. My thoughts are unable to drag themselves away from the *exciting* lab experiments that pre-occupy them (and inevitably don't work) long enough to compose any meaningful or entertaining prose. Of course, that has always been the case, so what's new?

Anyway, I realised that this lack of communication with the world outside my lab room 123 was getting out of hand when my mum had to resort to sending me a facebook message to check I'm still alive. I shall endeavour to be something more resembling a human being.

Please humour me if my next few blog updates are all work-related. It's an uphill endeavour.

CNY

It used to be that I looked forward to Chinese New Year in Cambridge, and this year especially I was looking forward to the celebrations without the stress and intense practising for lion-dancing. I've had some great times with the lion dance troupe, and made good friends with the members, both past and present. When I decided to leave last year, I was afraid at first that I wouldn't see any of them much anymore and I would have missed them. So I was really very happy to find myself socialising and getting to know my friends better outside of practices.

Lately though, I've been hearing a bit too much about lion-dancing. As far as I can tell, it boils down to insufficient communication between the committee members, and the feeling that some are taking the bulk of the work and stress that comes with CNY more than others. After trying to listen patiently for several weeks (yes, weeks), and resisting the urge to butt in, all I can say is 'why can't you guys sit down and talk about it and sort it out amongst yourselves?!!!'. As a friend, I'm happy to listen about problems they might have, and sympathesize. As an ex-coach/ex-president/ex-almost everything I'm also willing to give my advice when asked. But I keep finding myself being placed in the most difficult of situations, being asked for advice in a friend capacity. Frankly, I know them too well to be impartial, nor can I step in and help because, even if I had the time, it would be rude and stepping on people's toes. It is not my responsibility nor my inclination.

I'm starting to find myself avoiding social events where I might see more than a certain number of lion-dancers together in the same place. An impossible situation as I spend a lot of my time with Malaysians. I'm also starting to feel resentful, because I can't seem to look forward to Chinese New Year, nor can I relax when the subject of lion-dancing is brought up. Most of the lion-dancers don't discuss lion dancing with me, other than inviting me to watch their performances or making light talk, but I feel myself tensing up whenever I hear 'lion' and 'dance' in the same sentence, even if it's 'lion cubs' and 'dancing with wolves'. Perhaps when I hear about 'leona lewis dancing in a new mtv' I will find my shoulder muscles bunching up.

Anyway, perhaps it's my fault for getting too involved. There's no particular reason why I should feel responsible. I might just hide under my bedclothes and avoid them all this weekend. Wake me up in the New Year please.