"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." - Friedrick Nietzsche
Atheist, scientist, secular Buddhist, rat lover, etc.
Originally from Iowa,I am a biology graduate student at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Well, just sent my protein samples to UVic for analysis. A year’s worth of work and $100,000 of funding are resting on this. Please, please let the plane not crash.
Guess who has two thumbs and might have just found a new clavulanic acid-producing species? This kid right here! Science for the win!
Note: results are all very preliminary, much more work needs to be done, and then a paper shall be written and published. Can’t give away too much info until that happens. :)
A paper just referred to a conjugation strain as “promiscuous”. I lost it.
Slutty E. coli.
I just won $500!
Guess who won (two-way tie) the research portion of the conference I presented at this weekend? That’s right, this kid! The title of my presentation was “Towards a better understanding of antibiotic biosynthesis: A proteomics study of Streptomyces clavuligerus”. It was a super-simplified overview of my research on clavulanic acid biosynthesis geared towards a general audience with no molecular background. I’m pretty excited to win this, not just because I get $500 to apply towards travel to future conferences, but because communicating scientific research to the general public is something I really want to excel at. I might not be as good as Bill Nye or Neil deGrasse Tyson, but I’m getting there!
What’s In Your Gut? Ask Citizen Science | Co.Exist
The American Gut Project is trying to create a better picture of the human “microbiome.” Give it some of your info, and they’ll tell you a lot about all the bugs that make up your digestive system and how they’re affecting your health.
Also I did a pretty bang-up job at my oral presentation to the bio graduate student society today. And I submitted my abstract to this year’s CSM conference. All of the science communication one can handle in one day.
Anyone going to the CSM (Canadian Society of Microbiologists) Conference this year? Because this kid is! And will probably be presenting. You wouldn’t want to miss that.
So, there’s this $87,000 incubator sitting in my office right now. It emails you when your cultures are ready. Beautiful.
ATP hygiene monitoring system
I was watching the new episode of Bar Rescue because I love that show and in this episode Taffer uses a handheld device that supposedly tells you the level of bacterial contamination on a surface - immediately. I was skeptical if this was even a real device, as usually any sort of test for contamination requires at least 18-24 hours for a sample to be taken, grown, and tested (usually with biochemical tests). For a level of contamination, dilution plates would usually be needed. So, what was this device measuring? After a short google-research stint I discovered this product. It measures the amount of ATP present on a surface. Every cell - bacterial, human, fungus, plant - contains ATP. When the ATP comes into contact with the luciferase/luciferin regent in the handheld, light is emitted in proportion to the amount of ATP present, and this is what the meter detects. Very interesting. I want one of these just to play around with.
This summer I really need to get my study on for the CCM certification exam (Canadian College of Microbiologists). Has anyone taken it? Any study tips?
edit: I will likely be taking the RM exam.
