Fresh Eyes

2011-12-07

Rusty

I saw a lecture by Fred “Rusty” Gage today about neural stem cells. To me, his most interesting work right now is on the role of line elements or “jumping genes” in diversity among neural stem cell progenitors. Recent discoveries in his lab and others have revealed that jumping genes (ie the “selfish genes” of Richard Dawkins) that move around in the genome of stem cells end up making more cells turn into neurons than other cell types. One idea that has not yet been demonstrated is that this diversity might be involved in differences in people’s ability to form memories. One line of evidence supporting this is that many people with autism have abnormalities in the number of copies of line elements.

The talk also reminded me that in 7th grade I read a biography of Barbara McClintock and did a report on this woman and her crazy ideas about the genome. Using corn as a biological subject, she figured out a lot of what we know of transposons outlandishly ahead of her time. I keep wondering whether there is anything like that left for biologists to discover. Could I find out something as groundbreaking as the jumping gene?

2011-10-28

I’m Back!

It’s been almost one year since I posted on this blog. I like it, so I’m reviving it.

This blog is still about neuroscience. I’m a graduate student at University of California, Berkeley, now, living with my husband and Baby Kitty in beautiful Berkeley, CA. I’m still up to the same old antics - cooking (lately: cauliflower in its many forms, kabocha squash pie, tomatillos in white wine, and cookies galore), reading (mostly young adult fantasy), studying zebrafish (for now), and going on adventures. I have a nerdy band now too, and we’ve just started to get hired for gigs!

I’m not going to the SfN this year, but hopefully I’ll be posting some interesting neuroscience tidbits soon!

2010-11-27

Okay, the holiday is over and now I’m sure you’re wondering: what will I eat? How can I fill this gaping hole in my belly? Well, I’m about to go back to work after a week at SfN and a week of sickness and snow, so I’m preparing for the shock of returning to the lab by planning my provisions.

I bought a Costco box of sweet potatoes for my thanksgiving contribution and have only managed to finish off 5 of the 10 lbs. I’ve been cooking recipes exclusively from smittenkitchen these days because I’m lazy and I haven’t cooked a bad recipe yet. First I’m going to try out the swiss chard and sweet potato gratin, but I’m subbing a mix of cheddar and peccorino romano for the gruyere since that stuff is seriously expensive. I’m also getting a pared down set of ingredients for the acorn squash quesadillas (just onion, poblano, squash and muenster) because they are dreamy and oh-so-easy and I have cubed squash in my fridge that could have no better purpose than that. The idea of using muenster cheese for the quesadillas is genius. And now that my roommate bought an immersion blender, I’ll be able to make the salsa properly!

2010-11-22

Values

And as soon as I returned from the meeting I fell ill. It’s hard to write a blog when the only thing I’ve been doing is reading Harry Potter books, sleeping and petting my cat. My fiancée came to the rescue with this gem of an article from Genome Biology, an opinion piece on the decision by SUNY Albany’s president to cut several humanities departments from the university. For a really good time, read the recent article in the New York Times about economic risk and the sciences, too.

I think one particularly good lesson in thinking about whether the “product” of a university, whether it be a basic research paper or a new essay on Kant, has value is to realize that economists still go to college, especially liberal arts colleges, and that these people often end up making the most money. A liberal arts education is in extremely high demand! It’s telling that SUNY Albany’s president hasn’t ever been involved in academia.

2010-11-17

I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of this luggage checking madness, but I thought I’d mention one of the minisymposia I went to yesterday. The talks on neural mechanisms of color vision were truly phenomenal. The wide range of tools, models, and systems being used to investigate how the brain computes color - from multielectrode array recording to calcium imaging to a beautiful gene therapy study - is so exciting. I can’t even begin to think of a succinct way to describe the many amazing findings from that group of talks. If you’re interested in learning more about what was covered in the minisymposium, Journal of Neuroscience published a review by the speakers this week.

2010-11-16

Oh no they didn't!

Rate and comment on posters, and watch the video.

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The last day!

Well, tomorrow is the last day of the meeting, and a fairly important one for me since I’ll finally be presenting my poster. I’ll be at II18 tomorrow afternoon from 1-5 unless I decide to leave to check out a few more posters. Add it to your itinerary and stop by!

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I wish my internet were good enough to actually watch this whole video from Science Times today on molecular animation. I’ve loved The Inner Life of the Cell ever since I first watched it during a biology class in college.

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I’ve been spending most of my time in the poster section for the last few days, but thought I would share a little factoid from the Jans’ talk yesterday afternoon. I know their talk was all about dendritic growth and function, and it was really interesting, but the thing that most caught me off guard was when Professor Lily Jan mentioned that they were expressing a protein of interest in axolotl eggs because, unlike Xenopus eggs, axolotl eggs are poly-spermic. Polyspermic! That means multiple sperm can and do enter the egg during fertilization. I really thought that kind of thing only happened in plants under normal circumstances, but I guess it can happen in animals too. It seems that the DNA from the sperms that arrive later are still degraded and you usually end up with a diploid, but tetraploidy or other multiploidy animals are not impossible.

It just goes to show how useful basic research can be: finding out some weird facts like that can lead to a solution to a problem in an entirely different field of research such as the study of dendrite ion channels. Normally Xenopus eggs are really great for studying functional properties of ion channels because they are huge eggs and they don’t express that many ion channels themselves, so it’s like a blank slate that can be manipulated by injecting DNA for the protein of interest. But the channel Professor Jan was interested in is expressed in Xenopus eggs and is used for preventing multiple sperms from entering the egg. Since the axolotl egg doesn’t have that mechanism or that channel, is a more appropriate blank state for studying the protein they are interested in.

Also I’m really digging the fact that someone made an axolotl stuffed animal.

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Sushi in San Diego

I’ve been to dinner at two different sushi places here in San Diego, Nobu and RA Sushi. Both are national luxury chains, and Nobu was by far the better restaurant. It was also $4-10 more expensive for everything, and it definitely showed.

Nobu feels grown up - the servers are definitely more professional and the food is more thoughtful. I sat at the sushi bar, and when the sushi chef found out that I hadn’t been to the restaurant before, he put together a special sashimi for me to show me what the restaurant could do. It was tuna and something, with microgreens and a tasty, tangy sauce. The rolls were beautifully crafted. I had a spicy tuna roll (not so spicy, but superbly flavorful) and a jalapeno tuna roll (extremely interesting) and the house rose wine was excellent. So my per diem isn’t amazing, but I did my best on my budget and felt like I’d gotten quite a bang for my buck. I sat next to a family that seemed to order everything on the menu, including a beautifully plated urchin dish and something with roe the size of rat’s eyes. They goggled at their bill when it came, but they looked full and happy nonetheless. I received a complimentary fruit dessert - overall, a fairly nice experience.

RA Sushi is another animal. The restuarant was youthful, from the Lady Gaga on the radio to the blonde, bubbly servers who chatted me all the way to my seat. The sushi chefs there are all Mexican rather than Japanese. I’m not sure if that really makes a difference, but I never spoke to my chef, just handed him a list, so it was definitely a more anonymous experience. The cheaper food allowed me to eat my fill. The spicy tuna roll was quite spicy and extremely simple - just tuna, rice and a bit of cucumber. The miso soup was served piping hot. A reasonably good meal, but I didn’t linger.