The high of being a scientist.

Today was our Annual Research Day. The best part of the day apart from the gorgeous white chocolate chip cookies and the carrot cake is that we get to see the ongoing research of the entire faculty. The faculty of science is particularly a diverse one with physics, astrophysics, maths, material sciences, forensics, psychology and us the humble biologists. And come to think of it, in our departmental research forums we used to think that biology is so diverse! It’s absolutely fascinating to sit through presentations you have no technical knowledge about and also to talk to people who are not from your discipline. It means refining your language, making it jargon free and exciting for people who may understand the threads but not particularly appreciate the relevance outright.
I found the entire day to be an absolute high and I would recommend every university and faculty to organise one. I don’t know what about it particularly made me feel so good. Was it just the sugar overload from the cookies or the natural high of talking to like minded people or the fact that most research students have similar experiences and grievances and that you are probably not the only one self doubting your capabilities. According to me and possibly the judges the quality of posters and the oral presentations were so competitive that even we students struggled with our votes for the student prize.
There is some fascinating research ongoing at UCLAN. From calculating the age of the universe through its composition of gases to chat up lines as male sexual behaviour study. From social behaviour and gaming culture to ecoli detection with superior methods to glioma cell research to building a database for forensic analysis of knife wounds on bones to essential oils, altitude training benefits for rugby players and novel methods to cleaning up pesticide water to modelling polymer structures for building computer chips. I haven't even covered a third of it all.
We are a very small group of sports physiologists among biology and most of the time we get overwhelmed by all the cancer research and stem cell research of our department. However, today was as much our glory day as much as the life savers’ as we call them. We were all as important with our individual pieces of passion that came together and created this wild atmosphere of a young vibrant lot each passionate about what they wanted to achieve, each looking outwards as much as introspecting inwards. It was a stop-time moment to reflect on the littleness of our contribution to the vast information bank of science and a chin up moment for being such an integral part of it.
Today was the day when we, as well as our professors were reminded of why despite the recent outcry about appalling pay checks in academia we still belong here. Today no matter who won the shield everyone left the camp a winner.

Deepdale car park after a recent downpour

Don't bother if you are not a celebrity.

Two back to back pieces in the news bulletin this morning brings out the perfect mood and state of our current society. It’s an interesting snapshot reminder of how far we have come….. And what a distance it is.
A woman who had been stalked for seven years and her life totally dictated by this lunatic won the case against her stalker (well, if you call that winning that is). The stalker gets a whole five months in lock up. Absolutely fitting, for the slow process of terrifying this young girl who will probably take longer than seven years to trust anyone on the street.
But, to cheer you up let me inform you that the posh fashion magazine InStyle was celebrating its birthday. And in great style, it was the red carpet event to kill for. All the famous dresses worn by some movie stars could be purchased at the auction (of course CSR was in place and the money being donated to charities etc etc etc …. You get the point). But, allegedly these frocks were sooo ridiculously expensive that they each had a LIVE bodyguard to guard it all times.
So, we have a young girl who is stalked for years and no protection was or is available to her, even though we make this farce of calling experts on our news programs to discuss the psychological implications of stalking. But, the dress worn by Julia Roberts or what’s that bond girl’s name …Halle Berry should be protected by tough looking huge guys, just in case a size 6 starlet runs away with one of them. Those are the only ones that will perhaps fit into those frocks.

Marlboro Mum.

The government spends millions of pounds to educate people on the harmful effects of smoking. The campaigns are particularly aimed at teenagers and secondary school students.
However, walk down a typical British high street and one of the scenes will be a mum pushing the baby carrier with one hand, all her shopping loaded on the handle and puffing away a cigarette with the other hand.
No matter what you put up on the billboards if you have grown up watching your own mum smoking a cigarette while she cooked your meal, shopped for groceries or clothes, walked you to the park, how are you going to take the billboard any seriously?
I am not trying to blame only the mothers here, the same applies to the fathers too I guess.
Until and unless we don’t set an example, I don’t think we have a right to expect anything from our future generations. I don’t see the point of news analysis and business programs on TV bringing in distinguished guests to discuss the social education policies when we don’t respect the mind of a young impressionable kid. The level at which the child looks up to his or her parents needs to be put in a more correct perspective and strategies need to be aimed at more appropriate audiences. Its time we stopped making such a noise about the Marlboro man and paid attention to Marlboro mum and dad.

Men are Dogs.

You know how movies about prision life depict the territorial nature of men. It’s not that different in gyms. If I have learned anything from working out in gyms all over the world is one thing, never ever get bullied. The first few days are your acid test for inclusion- exclusion criteria and they will follow you for the rest of your time in that facility. So just like Tim Robbins in Shaw Shank Redemption you stand up for your self when this huge guy comes along and either gets all pushy or worse, pretends he doesn’t see you.
I have just changed gyms to a very fancy huge commercial gym from the low laying all friendly university gym. Nobody said anything to me the first few days, then today I was doing my sets in the vicinity of the power cage, and 3 guys; huge, muscley and mean looking came over, pretended I wasn’t there with my iddly piddly weights and just moved in and started squatting, expecting me to take my stuff and move to another place; as the kings had arrived. I waited politely for 2 of them to finish their sets and just before the 3rd one could get in, I racked my bar, lifted it, grunted my reps away, racked the bar again smiled at the 3rd guy and said, "would you like to take turns?". He said, "Sure" and moved in. From that point on, they did not ignore me, they finished their turns waited for me to do my sets and world peace was restored.
Here is the interesting bit. After about 30 odd mins I was in another section and two guys there were working out. I generally have my ears plugged into the music and my eyes on the floor as I prefer very little chit chat in between my workouts. One of them actually went out of his way to get my attention and then chatted with me on my workouts and other general stuff. What I am amazed at is the pattern of behaviour whether it is Bombay, New York, Aberdeen, Delhi, or Preston.
All these fellas don’t even talk to each other, but someone picks on the new punter, everyone watches and then makes deductions on what the group dynamics of that particular gym crowd will be.
Superb, don’t you think? I couldn’t help but smile in the shower as I was waiting for this very break through. I am in the pack from tomorrow, that’s for sure!!

Emperor's new clothes.

An Ohio man has been awarded a patent for a cordless jump rope.
-new scientist

The world... in the privacy of my ears.

I have recently taken to podcast subscribing like a fish to water. I love it. I think it fills my time off my computer with valuable inputs of information from sources that would have otherwise been very difficult to catch up with by just reading on my bed before drifting off to sleep.
Now I listen to podcasts in the gym, while I run, while I walk to work and sometimes if my brain feels sharp and confident enough even while I do chores that don’t require too much attention. I am not saying it has replaced my music playlist…. But, it surely has put it in the endangered species slot!

I used to be a bit worried about the social implications of iPods (I am using the word as a generic term for all 'personal digital players'). I thought people would now ever more not acknowledge strangers. At first, we had to risk being indifferent or even rude, depending on the society we were in, if we chose to ignore another person around us. But, now with ipods we don’t have that burden no more. We pretend that we are so involved in our worlds, that we genuinely don’t see the people around. That’s a shame, init? (Picked this one up most recently!!!)

What I am driving at is; I felt like a fake listening to music and ignoring the people around me. Deep down I did notice them and even enjoyed having them around, but was either too shy or pissed or arrogant or uncomfortable to go up to someone and smile or even say hello. I am someone who needs a lifetime to open up, once I do, I am unstoppable. My iPod made this transition bearable but interestingly even slower. All throughout I felt guilty though. Not any more!!!!
I am now listening to real people on the podcasts (I know musicians are real, but you get what I mean). And, the argument in my head today is, how often am I going to get such rich ideas with just regular chit chatting. So its good for now, I guess, until I will need a hug and have only my iPod to stare at…. That too probably knowing my luck might need recharging!!

P.S. – trivia on British MS word dictionary – I had to add iPod to it but, init is already in it!!

Every Breath you take.... the 'Police' is watching you.

New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specializes in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. If you are one of the millions of people using social networking websites, be careful what you reveal about yourself, further warns the New Scientist.
The NSA could use advances in internet technology to combine the data with personal details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing it to build profiles of individuals. The idea is to identify terrorists and other criminals, but who will monitor any of this?

On one hand every website I go to whether it is to buy books on Amazon or to transfer my monthly rent to my landlord, insists that no eyes will ever be able to decipher the clear mumbo jumbo of alphabets and numbers I create as passwords or be able to misuse any of the information I feed in. They encourage me to read their privacy policies all of 2 pages long in font size 2.
Now, Jon Callas, chief security officer at PGP, a Silicon Valley-based maker of encryption software talks about how you should always assume anything you write online could be stapled to your résumé. He says we don't realize that we could get Googled just to get a job interview these days. How very charming.
Once again I come back to the same emotion of helplessness, which accompanies any dealing with large corporations these days. Apart from the random and far and few in between incidences of an underdog biting a large corporation, the rest of us are just dog tired barking our lungs out with no effect whatsoever, except noise pollution. What could be more huge than the NSA? Of course Americans have to deal with phones being tapped, we just crib about the abundance of CCTV monitoring here in Britain. I too am warming up to the Big Brother environment. I can perhaps identify with the housemates a bit more now. Every time I write a blog, or enter my home address on a website or even say hello to my mother through an email, I feel I could be nominated for eviction. Here is to the power of the internet that was hailed as supreme by none other than top dog Tom Friedman.
Why does my Goldfish have this cheeky expression now?

Why don't I ever buy a bag of raisins?

Is this just me or there are more of you out there? We the ones who buy cereal with raisins in it and all other assortments not because it makes the breakfast interesting, but because we can dig in the box every now and then and pick raisins out of that mountain of bran!

If I really want to eat raisins on their own, why don't I just buy them on their own? It doesn't make sense at all. But, I just dont buy a bag of raisins. I never do. However, I love eating them. Everytime I am in the kitchen cooking or cleaning; I pick my cereal box and dig out the raisins.

Is this The Pleasure of Finding Things 'Out' (Sorry, Prof. Feynman, I just couldn't resist this one!) rather than just getting them? Is this some perverse way to take the harder route? Or is this just one of those habits you have no clue where and how you picked it up? Or, probably its about time I got me a life. Do you think they stock that on the same shelves as the raisins?

Where have all the monsters gone?

The power of pressure.
It makes you doubt your sensibilities when someone with more power opposes your view.
It makes you stay up late without any problems the night before an exam.
It makes teenage US marines randomly slaughter Iraqi civilians, including small children.
It drives eminent scientists like Hwang Woo Suk to fabricate erroneous results.
It gets young kids into drugs.
It forces a mother to jump in the river with her 10 year old son.
It’s what makes a good espresso brew.
It gets people to smuggle human organs and bones for money.
It gets nations to listen to President Bush.
It cultivates bad sexual habits and culture.
It drives athletes in pursuit of the summit to steroid abuse.
It forces families on the southern West Virginian Mountains to sell their land to billion dollar mining companies.
It makes us sell our souls to the media.
It makes the Indian government pass ridiculous bills such as increased reservations in academic institutions.
It makes guys in the gym pick up more weights than they can handle.
It gives bipolar disorder and manic depression to 6 year olds.
It makes researchers masturbate with statistics on the same data set to build a publishing record.
It’s what makes people click on pro anorexic web sites.
It makes people migrate from the villages to the big cities without security of any sorts.
It makes people retire in the country side to escape the cities.
It’s what helps keep WTO in check when hoards of individually helpless people join forces.
It’s what cooks your dinner in less than half the normal time.
It’s what puts the thoughts in my head under a spotlight. It’s what scares the monsters away. And that’s what keeps me from blogging every night. It’s what takes a bit of my privacy away. But, it also helps me shift out of my comfort zones and so hopefully the monsters will return and get used to the stage.