I was going to write about my run this evening. I tried something a little different, to change things up and to motivate myself in these cold and dark days, I went on a small group run at the local running store. Maybe I will write about it sometime in the future as I think I'll be back, I really liked the people and it was challenging in a good way.
When I got home from the run, I was reading a new entry on one of the runner's blogs I follow, the one of Kristin Armstrong's. She is the ex-wife of Lance Armstrong, and also an avid runner, who has done multiple marathons and even some ultra-races, like 50 km ones. Besides this, she also has a wonderful way with words. I guess that's why she has her own column at Runner's World magazine, Mile Markers . This week, she wrote about a woman named Erin Lahr, who has passed away while running in the White Rock Marathon in Dallas, TX last weekend. She was 29 and an experienced runner. She was also on pace to qualify for Boston. The autopsy showed no heart abnormalities, which is usually the cause of sudden death during strenuous athletic activity. This story made me think of someone I used to know years ago, and I wanted to write a little about this memory.
It was almost 9 years ago now, we were traveling to a fencing competition in Bratislava. It was always the same people going to these tournaments; Hungary is a small country, and the fencing community is even a smaller one. We all knew each other pretty well, even people from different cities and clubs. Marianna was my age, she came to our club once a week to fence and we always saw each other at competitions. That particular day, she was fencing one of my good friends and clubmate. Entirely unrelated to the fencing, all of a sudden, she collapsed. I was watching from the side with several other friends and our coach. He though that it was some tactical thing and that she wanted to take a break. It didn't make any sense though since she was only a point or two away from winning the bout.
We could tell something was very wrong, but we were too young to understand the whole situation, I think. Eventually, everyone was sent out of the gym and the tournament was suspended. We saw her coach performing CPR on her - there was no doctor at the venue (very Eastern European), although we later found out that it wouldn't have made a difference. She had a congenital blood vessel defect and suffered a rupture in her aorta. I am pretty sure the same thing happened to the actor, John Ritter, a few years ago. It's something that's not easily picked up on routine tests: as athletes, we got yearly physicals, including EKGs. The most heart wrenching thing about it was the fact that her sister - also a good fencer - and their Dad were at the tournament. I remember him literally tearing his hair out while walking up and down the gym, wailing.
I know it's easier to handle situations like these if you believe that there is some sort of higher plan or power and that there is a reason for things like these happening.I don't believe in that though. I think it's biology, genetics, horrible luck, whichever you chose. It's incredibly unfair and it could happen to anyone. Not just genetic dispositions to diseases; any day, anyone could get into an accident and die. Part of why life is so exciting is that we realize that it could end any moment. It's not something we should think about all the time - it would probably drive anyone insane - but I think we should keep the thought in the back of our minds and appreciate every piece of joy and misery: they both mean that we are alive and we are feeling. I know that I don't appreciate the little things enough and that I take many things for granted, all too often. Maybe we can all try a little harder to live in the moment, to appreciate and care about others now, and to stop and evaluate things every once in a while. And to keep those who are no longer with us in our memories and our hearts. For Marianna and Erin. Carpe Diem!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Extremes
This past weekend was a strange mixture of craziness, hard work, and incredible laziness. It started off with the annual HSS (hospital where my lab is) holiday party, which is held at the Grand Hyatt, one of the fancier hotels in Midtown NYC. I have been hearing that a lot of companies are canceling or at least cutting down on expenses associated with holiday parties in this time of financial crisis, but not HSS! The party still had a huge variety of yummy dishes from sushi through pasta and steak to mussels and all kinds of things I didn't even recognize. There was of course a bar, or may I say many little bars and a DJ who played cheesy but perfect dance-like-crazy-to-music for 4 hours.
A good 15-20 people from my floor in the hospital came too, making it even more fun being with all the coworkers I really like. It's also fun to see people you work with really let go and have fun. Needless to say, we had a little more fun than necessary. In the process, we might have "borrowed" what was part of the party decoration, but it was just screaming out "Adopt me!" from across the room all night.
All in all, it was a fantastic night spent with a lot of people I really like and it included some craziness that I feel has been missing from my life recently. The next morning was less enjoyable though, after waking up from an alcohol-induced coma at dawn, taking some Advil, and trying to sleep it off, all I managed to do all day was going to buy food and then crawling back to bed with it. This was the first time since the summer that I was seriously hungover, and while it's a good and conscious decision on my part, it does mean that my tolerance has gotten lower and the hangover was probably worse than what it used to be like. It wasn't even the headache or feeling ill, but the bad mood and extreme laziness that comes with it that really pissed me off. I was literally unable to get off the couch all day. At first I was getting annoyed at myself for this - I had originally planned to go swimming in the afternoon - I realized as the day went by that this was my first totally lazy day in a very long time. In fact, I cannot even remember the last time I completely took a day off, with no work, no thinking about work, no places to be, things to do. It must have been sometime in the summer when things were less busy in school and lab and a lot of my friends were on vacation. Ever since that, I have been so busy I never even stopped to think about it. While I still felt unproductive and fat at the end of the day, it was something I needed badly.
Showing how tired I really was, I slept about 13 hours straight the next night and woke up being pretty tired still. I knew I had to get out for my long run no matter what. The obnoxious rain from all last week finally stopped and it was relatively warm (above freezing) so after some 2 hours of getting ready (after sleeping for too long, I always have trouble with this) I finally made it to the park and miraculously finished my planned 10 mile (16 km - I like saying it in km's, it sounds like it's so much more) run with barely any pain - no more than I would have had on any day of a long run without any injury, it's just that I am more sensitive to any kind of soreness or pain after having had an injury - and felt great at the end. It took me about 97 minutes to do this distance, which I was very pleased with. I had only run a 10M race once, back on Mother's day when I was near my fastest, but a week after a half-marathon, and then I finished in exactly 90 minutes. Considering the couple of months I had to take off, this is not bad. Definitely progress I am very happy about.
I was already thinking about how contrasting the days during this weekend were. Then today, it was a high of 67F (almost 20C) outside after the near freezing temperatures of Saturday as well as the forecast for tomorrow - the weather around here has been totally crazy, with some spring-like days, torrential rain, and freezing days with snow. To add to the list of extremes, I was reading an interview online with the winner of the Budapest marathon a couple of months ago, and when asked about his training schedule, he said that he ran on average 160-180 km/week (100-110 miles). Now I know we are talking about a professional runner and this is his job basically, but I still think it's insane that someone runs several half-marathons and possibly a marathon every week, with some speed-workouts scattered in there too. This wasn't enough yet either. During a seminar today, the speaker was introduced as someone who had published 7 first-author and 15 contributing author articles just while he was in graduate school! It was also mentioned that we, as graduate students, should all strive for similar achievements. Are they kidding? I would be extremely satisfied with 1 first-author paper at this point!
What the marathon runner who trains 160 km/week and the professor who published 7 papers while in grad school have in common, is extreme hard work in one area of their lives. What I wonder about is whether they really enjoy this and whether there is room for anything else in their lives. For all I know, the amazing scientist is happily married with 6 children (although he had no wedding ring, which of course, means nothing) and the marathon runner has plenty of time to enjoy life when not on the road, but what I suspect is that they spend most of their waking hours in the lab or on the road and that there is very little balance in their lives. I keep coming back to this question of balance. It's so hard to find it in this crazy busy world where everyone is trying to prove something and trying to be a little better and a little faster and little more published and where everything is about competition. Is there any way to be good at something without it taking over your entire life?
A good 15-20 people from my floor in the hospital came too, making it even more fun being with all the coworkers I really like. It's also fun to see people you work with really let go and have fun. Needless to say, we had a little more fun than necessary. In the process, we might have "borrowed" what was part of the party decoration, but it was just screaming out "Adopt me!" from across the room all night. 
All in all, it was a fantastic night spent with a lot of people I really like and it included some craziness that I feel has been missing from my life recently. The next morning was less enjoyable though, after waking up from an alcohol-induced coma at dawn, taking some Advil, and trying to sleep it off, all I managed to do all day was going to buy food and then crawling back to bed with it. This was the first time since the summer that I was seriously hungover, and while it's a good and conscious decision on my part, it does mean that my tolerance has gotten lower and the hangover was probably worse than what it used to be like. It wasn't even the headache or feeling ill, but the bad mood and extreme laziness that comes with it that really pissed me off. I was literally unable to get off the couch all day. At first I was getting annoyed at myself for this - I had originally planned to go swimming in the afternoon - I realized as the day went by that this was my first totally lazy day in a very long time. In fact, I cannot even remember the last time I completely took a day off, with no work, no thinking about work, no places to be, things to do. It must have been sometime in the summer when things were less busy in school and lab and a lot of my friends were on vacation. Ever since that, I have been so busy I never even stopped to think about it. While I still felt unproductive and fat at the end of the day, it was something I needed badly.
Showing how tired I really was, I slept about 13 hours straight the next night and woke up being pretty tired still. I knew I had to get out for my long run no matter what. The obnoxious rain from all last week finally stopped and it was relatively warm (above freezing) so after some 2 hours of getting ready (after sleeping for too long, I always have trouble with this) I finally made it to the park and miraculously finished my planned 10 mile (16 km - I like saying it in km's, it sounds like it's so much more) run with barely any pain - no more than I would have had on any day of a long run without any injury, it's just that I am more sensitive to any kind of soreness or pain after having had an injury - and felt great at the end. It took me about 97 minutes to do this distance, which I was very pleased with. I had only run a 10M race once, back on Mother's day when I was near my fastest, but a week after a half-marathon, and then I finished in exactly 90 minutes. Considering the couple of months I had to take off, this is not bad. Definitely progress I am very happy about.
I was already thinking about how contrasting the days during this weekend were. Then today, it was a high of 67F (almost 20C) outside after the near freezing temperatures of Saturday as well as the forecast for tomorrow - the weather around here has been totally crazy, with some spring-like days, torrential rain, and freezing days with snow. To add to the list of extremes, I was reading an interview online with the winner of the Budapest marathon a couple of months ago, and when asked about his training schedule, he said that he ran on average 160-180 km/week (100-110 miles). Now I know we are talking about a professional runner and this is his job basically, but I still think it's insane that someone runs several half-marathons and possibly a marathon every week, with some speed-workouts scattered in there too. This wasn't enough yet either. During a seminar today, the speaker was introduced as someone who had published 7 first-author and 15 contributing author articles just while he was in graduate school! It was also mentioned that we, as graduate students, should all strive for similar achievements. Are they kidding? I would be extremely satisfied with 1 first-author paper at this point!
What the marathon runner who trains 160 km/week and the professor who published 7 papers while in grad school have in common, is extreme hard work in one area of their lives. What I wonder about is whether they really enjoy this and whether there is room for anything else in their lives. For all I know, the amazing scientist is happily married with 6 children (although he had no wedding ring, which of course, means nothing) and the marathon runner has plenty of time to enjoy life when not on the road, but what I suspect is that they spend most of their waking hours in the lab or on the road and that there is very little balance in their lives. I keep coming back to this question of balance. It's so hard to find it in this crazy busy world where everyone is trying to prove something and trying to be a little better and a little faster and little more published and where everything is about competition. Is there any way to be good at something without it taking over your entire life?
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Festive firemen
How your morning starts off can really determine your mood and general outlook on the world for the rest of the day. This morning, on my way to work, I saw this heartwarming little gathering and I just couldn't help but smile. I am still smiling:)
There was a fire truck parked in front of the main building of New York Presbyterian (I got a little worried for a moment) and then I saw that the ladder was high up near the windows of the hospital. Oh no, I thought, is this some sort of rescue? It didn't make much sense considering that if anyone was hurt, he or she would have been stuck inside the biggest hospital in NYC. In any case, it turned out not to be a rescue...
There they were: Santa and a Reindeer, waving to people in the windows and ringing bells. I have to say that if I was a patient in one of those rooms and woke up to Santa and a reindeer waving at me from outside the 10th floor window, I might have freaked out a bit. But then again, they could always blame it on the medications. There were people on the ground taking pictures with their cell phones, wondering what all the commotion was about. I wanted to keep looking but it was already pretty late for me to be getting to work, so I went inside, and there was even more going on there.
All of Ladder 13 of the FDNY seemed to be singing Christmas Carols, with tons of people - patients, doctors, nurses, visitors and security guards - gathered around and taking even more pictures. It was a merry scene. Very heartwarming and it's stayed with me for the rest of day, at least so far. Thanks to the firemen!
There was a fire truck parked in front of the main building of New York Presbyterian (I got a little worried for a moment) and then I saw that the ladder was high up near the windows of the hospital. Oh no, I thought, is this some sort of rescue? It didn't make much sense considering that if anyone was hurt, he or she would have been stuck inside the biggest hospital in NYC. In any case, it turned out not to be a rescue...
There they were: Santa and a Reindeer, waving to people in the windows and ringing bells. I have to say that if I was a patient in one of those rooms and woke up to Santa and a reindeer waving at me from outside the 10th floor window, I might have freaked out a bit. But then again, they could always blame it on the medications. There were people on the ground taking pictures with their cell phones, wondering what all the commotion was about. I wanted to keep looking but it was already pretty late for me to be getting to work, so I went inside, and there was even more going on there.
All of Ladder 13 of the FDNY seemed to be singing Christmas Carols, with tons of people - patients, doctors, nurses, visitors and security guards - gathered around and taking even more pictures. It was a merry scene. Very heartwarming and it's stayed with me for the rest of day, at least so far. Thanks to the firemen!
Monday, December 8, 2008
Hamster popcorn
Just too cute not to pass along. Although I am not sure what they fed this hamster with, my Hammy would never in a million years lie still like that.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Running with friends
This past week has been really busy. Busy in a really good way. I had a close friend from Germany in town who stayed with me for a couple of days and then another friend from Hungary via Boston visiting for the weekend. Coincidentally, both of these friends are runners. Earlier in the week we went out for a shorter run in the morning, which is always a great way to start the day. The weather was relatively warm and sunny, and after two laps around the Reservoir, we jogged home and my leg felt great even on the pavement. A couple of days later I felt really strong and the weather was beautiful, so I braved the road again in the park and ran most of 7 miles (~11-12 km) on the pavement. Maybe this wasn't the best idea, but it felt great at the time.
I was already signed up for a 10K race for Sunday, which would be my last of 9 races to qualify for NYC Marathon 09. I knew that no matter how, I had to cross the finish line for the race to count. The time doesn't matter so I figured I can walk or even crawl on all fours if I had to. Also, my friend from Boston was coming pretty much for this race - I might or might not have convinced him to run in it - and so I knew I had to do it no matter what. He arrived the day before and so we did some walking around the city, and I think I was wearing shoes that were too flat and the tendonitis I had had a month or so ago in my posterior tibialis tendon started acting up again. I started getting worried, changed shoes, but I still had to work and walk and it wasn't getting better by the time I got home in the evening, so all I could do was ice it and try to hope for the best.
Of course I was super stressed about this and could barely sleep at all last night, but my leg surprisingly felt better this morning, and so I was all ready for my first race since the shin injury. Luckily, the shin splints haven't come back yet, I am doing things differently now with more warming up and stretching and cross training so I hope that it's really making a difference.
The three of us - me with my two friends from out of town - braved the freezing morning. Fortunately the snow from last night had melted and the road was dry, but the wind was pretty strong and the temperature must have been near freezing. Once we started the loop around the park and warmed up, the run was actually pretty nice, and when we hit the 4 mile mark, I felt really strong and despite knowing in my head that I shouldn't, my legs and my heart told me to take off. I started a bit too early and right before one of the bigger hills, so at the end, even though I felt like I gave it all, I ended up finishing just outside my goal of 1 hour, at 1:00:05. Nothing to be upset about considering I had been out for almost 2 months and I was running with a bit of tendon pain. I realize now that no matter what I do, whether it'd be fencing or running, I am just a competitive person. It's a personality trait and it's not going to change. I could never jog across the finish line unless I was in a lot of pain, and if I don't give it all I have on the last couple of miles, then I don't feel good about the whole race.
At the end, all that matters is that we all had a good time, made it home before freezing, and warmed up with a huge brunch and some well-deserved Bloody Mary's and got to spend some more time in the wondering in the city before my friend was heading back to Boston.
The area around my Achilles is a bit tender and sore now, but I am still hopeful; it's nothing like the pain in my shin was. I am going to rest for a couple of days and then we'll see. Miami is 7 weeks from today, which is still quite a bit of time considering that I am now up to 7 miles or so.
Now I am exhausted; my friends have left, which I am sad about, but it's nice to spend a night lounging on my couch and doing nothing. It's been a great week and I am glad I got to share the race and some running with my friends. Unfortunately, Rachel has been out pretty much since I started back a few weeks ago, with a stress injury in her foot, so we hadn't run together since September. Hopefully, we'll both be ok for Miami and that would be a great occasion to reunite as running buddies.
I was already signed up for a 10K race for Sunday, which would be my last of 9 races to qualify for NYC Marathon 09. I knew that no matter how, I had to cross the finish line for the race to count. The time doesn't matter so I figured I can walk or even crawl on all fours if I had to. Also, my friend from Boston was coming pretty much for this race - I might or might not have convinced him to run in it - and so I knew I had to do it no matter what. He arrived the day before and so we did some walking around the city, and I think I was wearing shoes that were too flat and the tendonitis I had had a month or so ago in my posterior tibialis tendon started acting up again. I started getting worried, changed shoes, but I still had to work and walk and it wasn't getting better by the time I got home in the evening, so all I could do was ice it and try to hope for the best.
Of course I was super stressed about this and could barely sleep at all last night, but my leg surprisingly felt better this morning, and so I was all ready for my first race since the shin injury. Luckily, the shin splints haven't come back yet, I am doing things differently now with more warming up and stretching and cross training so I hope that it's really making a difference.
The three of us - me with my two friends from out of town - braved the freezing morning. Fortunately the snow from last night had melted and the road was dry, but the wind was pretty strong and the temperature must have been near freezing. Once we started the loop around the park and warmed up, the run was actually pretty nice, and when we hit the 4 mile mark, I felt really strong and despite knowing in my head that I shouldn't, my legs and my heart told me to take off. I started a bit too early and right before one of the bigger hills, so at the end, even though I felt like I gave it all, I ended up finishing just outside my goal of 1 hour, at 1:00:05. Nothing to be upset about considering I had been out for almost 2 months and I was running with a bit of tendon pain. I realize now that no matter what I do, whether it'd be fencing or running, I am just a competitive person. It's a personality trait and it's not going to change. I could never jog across the finish line unless I was in a lot of pain, and if I don't give it all I have on the last couple of miles, then I don't feel good about the whole race.
At the end, all that matters is that we all had a good time, made it home before freezing, and warmed up with a huge brunch and some well-deserved Bloody Mary's and got to spend some more time in the wondering in the city before my friend was heading back to Boston.
The area around my Achilles is a bit tender and sore now, but I am still hopeful; it's nothing like the pain in my shin was. I am going to rest for a couple of days and then we'll see. Miami is 7 weeks from today, which is still quite a bit of time considering that I am now up to 7 miles or so. Now I am exhausted; my friends have left, which I am sad about, but it's nice to spend a night lounging on my couch and doing nothing. It's been a great week and I am glad I got to share the race and some running with my friends. Unfortunately, Rachel has been out pretty much since I started back a few weeks ago, with a stress injury in her foot, so we hadn't run together since September. Hopefully, we'll both be ok for Miami and that would be a great occasion to reunite as running buddies.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Dance your way to a PhD contest
We all know scientists are a creative bunch. You might look at us in a whole new light after watching a video made by grad students at the University of Sydney, Australia, who, among many others, entered a worldwide challenge to re-create their research projects through interpretive dance and post the videos on YouTube. They were the winners of the graduate student category by "dancing out" the role of Vitamin D in beta cell function in the pancreas. On YouTube you can find the description of the performance, which starts with: "Every PhD begins in the dark, but it takes only a few bright sparks to kindle the flame of discovery...", which is essentially the short description of grad school. The goal of their project is to find out whether "vitamin D has an effect in improving beta-cell function and increasing insulin secretion". If you read the description, the dance makes a whole lot of sense and I have to say that it is brilliant! I love it!
The project website also has tons of other videos posted, it's worth looking through them. Enjoy!
The project website also has tons of other videos posted, it's worth looking through them. Enjoy!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
The Darwin Beat and science themed tattoos
This evening there was a lecture given at Rockefeller University as a part of the "Science in Media" and "NYC Skeptics" series. Rockefeller attracts a lot of interesting people since it's the leading research university in the Biological Sciences in the world, with the most Nobel laureates in the field as faculty. Since Cornell is literally across the street, we get announcements of events taking place there. Tonight the speaker was a science writer named Carl Zimmer, who often writes in the Tuesday Science section of the New York Times and other magazines such as Discover and the Scientific American.
Being a journalist, he was extremely well spoken and a very good presenter, so his lecture was a ton of fun to listen to. His talk was titled "The Darwin Beat: Reporting from the Frontiers of Evolution". He talked about many examples of how amazing nature is and how scientists have learned so much incredible information by studying the evolution of species. For instance, much of what we know about the migration of the continents to their present locations comes from evidence from evolutionary biology. People studying a small immoblie species of spiders found that genetically related groups of them were living in the southern tips of South America, Africa, as well as in Sri Lanka and Australia. The only way this is possible - since these animals don't move more than a few inches in their lifetimes - is if these continents were once all part of a huge ancient supercontinent, which of course is a well-known scientific fact today.
Zimmer also talked a lot about snake venoms - apparently there is a scientist in Australia who has dedicated his life to studying venoms and he travels around the world collecting them from different snakes. He figured out that many venomes are compounds that exist in other species at different locations - one very poisonous venom is a pancreatic enzyme that must have mutated during the course of evolution to be made in venom glands of snakes instead of the pancreas, conferring an advantage to the snake that could kill its prey by injecting a digestive enzyme into the prey's circulation, which one can imagine, would be a pretty dangerous. These are just a few example that stayed with me after the lecture because they beautifully illustrate the elegance of nature and the fact that everything is the world is interconnected and indeed, we have a lot more in common with snakes and spiders than we like to admit.
Inevitably, when there is any talk of evolution, the issues of creationism and intelligent design also come up. Towards the end of the lecture I almost felt like I was listening to Richard Dawkins. After having lived in the US for 8 years and having read and listened to Dawkins' work, I wasn't surprised to hear the statistics of people's beliefs about evolution and creationism in this country. While the situation is a lot better in Europe, it still amazes me that there are plenty of educated people around the world who deny the validity of evolution and would rather believe that humans were created as they are now 10,000 years ago by a supernatural being.
Again I have realized how much I love science or the ideas behind science. The complexity and beauty of nature never seize to amaze me and that's why I have been studying it for many years and why I am in graduate school now. I have been discovering, however, that doing the actual science - as in doing the experimental work itself - is not nearly as beautiful and glorious as the big picture is. In experimental science, everything lies in the smallest of details and a lot of what we do in the lab is troubleshooting the experimental designs. While this is absolutely necessary for the advancement of science, I am not always sure that I have the kind of personality ad patience to do it for the rest of my life. But for now, I have no reason to complain. I am working in a field that is truly my passion and that I have a huge admiration for, and even if research turns out not to be the exact part of it that I also enjoy doing, it's never too late to try something new.
Last but not least, Carl Zimmer writes a pretty interesting blog that I would like to recommend: The Loom. A section of the blog deals with science themed tattoos. He did mention today that he had once met a scientist who had something related to his field of research tattooed on his body somewhere and how this gave Zimmer the idea to look for other people with similar ink. On his blog, you can find many of such tattoos, some of which I think are super cool. Also, this is further evidence that scientists are a little nuts, and that grad school makes people do silly things - like quite spontaneously getting a nose piercing after a long day in the lab. (I have absolutely no regrets about it.)
One of my favorites, a DNA double helix, on the ankle of an immunologist, and I love that she even says in the description that "The two double-stranded breaks don’t bother me; adaptive immune cells have those as part of normal development." (Sorry, for non-immunologists, normally, breaks in DNA are bad, that's how a lot of mutations arise, but in the case of some cells in the immune system, it's a really good thing, because that is how they acquire a huge repertoire of recognition molecules through which our immune systems are able to recognize such a wide variety of pathogens.)
Being a journalist, he was extremely well spoken and a very good presenter, so his lecture was a ton of fun to listen to. His talk was titled "The Darwin Beat: Reporting from the Frontiers of Evolution". He talked about many examples of how amazing nature is and how scientists have learned so much incredible information by studying the evolution of species. For instance, much of what we know about the migration of the continents to their present locations comes from evidence from evolutionary biology. People studying a small immoblie species of spiders found that genetically related groups of them were living in the southern tips of South America, Africa, as well as in Sri Lanka and Australia. The only way this is possible - since these animals don't move more than a few inches in their lifetimes - is if these continents were once all part of a huge ancient supercontinent, which of course is a well-known scientific fact today.
Zimmer also talked a lot about snake venoms - apparently there is a scientist in Australia who has dedicated his life to studying venoms and he travels around the world collecting them from different snakes. He figured out that many venomes are compounds that exist in other species at different locations - one very poisonous venom is a pancreatic enzyme that must have mutated during the course of evolution to be made in venom glands of snakes instead of the pancreas, conferring an advantage to the snake that could kill its prey by injecting a digestive enzyme into the prey's circulation, which one can imagine, would be a pretty dangerous. These are just a few example that stayed with me after the lecture because they beautifully illustrate the elegance of nature and the fact that everything is the world is interconnected and indeed, we have a lot more in common with snakes and spiders than we like to admit.
Inevitably, when there is any talk of evolution, the issues of creationism and intelligent design also come up. Towards the end of the lecture I almost felt like I was listening to Richard Dawkins. After having lived in the US for 8 years and having read and listened to Dawkins' work, I wasn't surprised to hear the statistics of people's beliefs about evolution and creationism in this country. While the situation is a lot better in Europe, it still amazes me that there are plenty of educated people around the world who deny the validity of evolution and would rather believe that humans were created as they are now 10,000 years ago by a supernatural being.
Again I have realized how much I love science or the ideas behind science. The complexity and beauty of nature never seize to amaze me and that's why I have been studying it for many years and why I am in graduate school now. I have been discovering, however, that doing the actual science - as in doing the experimental work itself - is not nearly as beautiful and glorious as the big picture is. In experimental science, everything lies in the smallest of details and a lot of what we do in the lab is troubleshooting the experimental designs. While this is absolutely necessary for the advancement of science, I am not always sure that I have the kind of personality ad patience to do it for the rest of my life. But for now, I have no reason to complain. I am working in a field that is truly my passion and that I have a huge admiration for, and even if research turns out not to be the exact part of it that I also enjoy doing, it's never too late to try something new.
Last but not least, Carl Zimmer writes a pretty interesting blog that I would like to recommend: The Loom. A section of the blog deals with science themed tattoos. He did mention today that he had once met a scientist who had something related to his field of research tattooed on his body somewhere and how this gave Zimmer the idea to look for other people with similar ink. On his blog, you can find many of such tattoos, some of which I think are super cool. Also, this is further evidence that scientists are a little nuts, and that grad school makes people do silly things - like quite spontaneously getting a nose piercing after a long day in the lab. (I have absolutely no regrets about it.)
One of my favorites, a DNA double helix, on the ankle of an immunologist, and I love that she even says in the description that "The two double-stranded breaks don’t bother me; adaptive immune cells have those as part of normal development." (Sorry, for non-immunologists, normally, breaks in DNA are bad, that's how a lot of mutations arise, but in the case of some cells in the immune system, it's a really good thing, because that is how they acquire a huge repertoire of recognition molecules through which our immune systems are able to recognize such a wide variety of pathogens.)
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