Friday, August 18, 2006

Notes from the Rat Catcher

Well my summer’s worth of work has almost reached its end and so I have decided that a few things are noteworthy.
1. When I grow up I want to be just like Ruth.
Ruth is one of the researchers who work in the lab which I have been working in and there are a good few reasons why anyone should be aiming to be like her when they grow up. For one thing she wears neon socks on unpredictable days. Secondly she is sufficiently greyed to be around 50 (or else has had some hard years) and yet still finds it perfectly acceptable to discuss rubberwear and pornography at inopportune moments. She is deaf as a dormouse and frequently comes out with comments such as, ‘Ah the soul, a robust but notoriously difficult thing to quantify.’ She recycles and cycles and in short is just great.
2. Killing rats is hard and could well be morally unforgivable, animal rights activists may well have a point.
c. It is a tricky thing spending hours and hours and days and weeks discovering something only to find out that nobody cares and it will probably not change much if anything at all in the world.
4. I don’t like new buildings on the whole.
5. Technicians are nice if you buy them biscuits.
m. And finally, Epidermal growth factor has a pro-survival effect in dorsal root ganglion neurones placed in serum starved conditions. This effect may involve the PI3K signally pathway in 0-2 day old rats and both the PI3K and MAPK pathway in 7-9 day old rats. Riveting.

Incidently rat related online diary which is very pretty is here

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