More fluorescence

As I was saying... here are a few more AWESOME images demonstrating the use of fluorescence in biology. Yes, you can make a whole organism fluoresce!

Here we have fluorescent mice, fluorescent macaque monkeys, and, my favorite: a picture painted with different colors of fluorescent yeast.
The cool part about the yeast painting is that you first paint the picture with microscopic bits of yeast, then grow the culture in an incubator before you see the image you made.

And, I can't stress enough, this isn't just scientists playing around. This technology won the nobel prize a couple of years back by a team that isolated the fluorescent protein from jellyfish. The fluorescence is used as a "marker", not as in a crayola marker, but a marker as in a "signifier". For example, the monkeys shown were being used to study Huntington's disease, neurodegenerative disease. A protein associated with the disease was cloned into these monkeys along with the fluorescent protein and you can tell that they in fact are expressing the actual protein of interest because you can see that they also express the fluorescent protein marker. Pretty neat trick, huh?

Super beautiful image of fluorescence staining of epithelial cells. In blue are the nuclei. The green and red are the "cytoskeleton" which are structural proteins that give the cell its shape and enable it to move by rearrangement of the cytoskeleton. In red are "actin" filaments, which direct movement, and in green are "microtubules" which are involved in cell division and intracellular transport.
I'll probably post more images like this because there are just some absolutely astounding pictures of florescence staining - and, yes, these cells are actually glowing, like a firefly.

Happy Holidays from Cara and I

This year's christmas card!

...and counting.

I have less than 2 weeks left in the UK. I honestly can't believe it. It feels like yesterday that I was standing in Logan airport with mom saying goodbye. This has, without a doubt, been one of the most exciting semesters of my life and a trip I will never forget.

Returning home is going to be extremely difficult. I am entirely reluctant to leave my friends here. I find myself asking questions like "how can I stay longer?", "how can I spend the spring here?". Though, of course, this isn't actually possible.

It will be so difficult to say goodbye to my flatmates. I have made some great friends while living here. In the past few weeks the reality of the term coming to an end has really set in. My flatmates constantly remind me that I can not be replaced and that they won't be able to help but feel some resentment towards the person who moves into my room. It's so strange to think that someone will be moving into this room in my place. This flat is a unit; we are like a family in many ways. It's difficult to imagine that when I return, the rest of the flat will still be here together for another term. ...Oh well, such is life I suppose. All and all, I am grateful that I have been able to see England, enjoy living in Norwich, and make new friends here. It has been more than I could have hoped for.

Listen

Renovations

So I have decided to change the entire concept of this blog from a way of keeping in touch while in Norwich, to a much more general blog about everything and anything that is on my mind. I'll post good youtube videos that I find, songs that I'm listening to, news articles that I think are worth sharing, and general tidbits about my day. I think it will be much more fun for me to keep up with and, hopefully, it will be much more fun for everyone to read!

When you begin to think that biochemistry is foreign and impossible, consider this: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/science/space/13lhc.html?ref=science

Yes, that's right, two highly respected physicists have proposed that by attempting to activate the LHC we produce some sort of particle/waves that resonate backwards through time preventing the machine from working. Now, physicists seem to love metaphors that use "god" - this has nothing to do with any sort of god. That part of the article annoyed me.

If you haven't heard of the LHC before, its pretty neat. I saw a discovery channel special on it a while back. The most incredible thing about it (mentioned in the article) is that it's 18 miles long!! When it was first built, some thought that its activation would induce a black hole - destroying our existance. I think they were also originally hoping to isolate the "graviton" with this - i.e. the (theoretical) subatomic particle responsible for gravity.

This is the sort of stuff that our former next-door neighbor, Dave, knows all about. Unfortunately, I have only the mildest idea of what I'm talking about. Very far from my territory, but neat nonetheless. And if that's not enough to stimulate, look at the cost of that thing - 9 billion! I know this isn't so much money these days, but still NINE BILLION DOLLARS SPENT BUILDING A MACHINE FOR 15 YRS AND ONCE IT'S BUILT AND FAILS TO WORK SCIENTISTS PROPOSE THAT FORCES FROM THE FUTURE ARE HINDERING IT FROM FUNCTIONING!!!

I just had to share my thoughts.