Grad student does what a grad student does

Recently turned twenty-three old, confused graduate student here. Still double minded about my career choice. Still get the train timings wrong after second and third reads. And apparently still procrastinating.

[molecularbiologistproblems]

And you thought we wore lab coats to protect ourselves from chemical spills and whatnot. Hah!

[m1ssred]

chemical reaction

[thehandsthatthieve]

THIS POST IS FUCKING ME UP

[setbabiesonfire]

Yes.

[monitorlizardappreciator]

SCIENCE

[itsokaytobesmart]

Tripedal to the Metal

That’s some loco motion, huh? Found this neat little GIF showing how an ant’s legs move at a full gallop. While calmly strolling though the picnic grounds, ants have five of their six legs at a time in contact with the ground. But when it’s time to put the (tiny) pedal to the metal, they change their gait to this alternating tripod motion.

This pattern isn’t controlled by the insect’s brain, but rather by bundles of neurons in the leg called central pattern generators. While moving at such a clip, it just so happens that three legs is the minimum number it needs on the ground at a time to balance its rigid exoskeleton without toppling over.

Is that part of the reason that insects have six legs and not another number like four or eight? Or did the gait evolve to match the hardware? My guess is the latter, but I am not sure. What say you, insect folks? 

(GIF via NC State University)

[whatshouldwecallgradschool]

WHEN I SIT AT MY DESK SO LONG MOTION SENSOR LIGHTS TURN OFF

credit: theplacewherethingsgo

[janjan-the-ninth]

Today at work in a laboratory a co-worker and I decided to give our new mixer the name Dalek. It’s great to work with another whovian.

[psicologicamenteblog]

[itsokaytobesmart]

In case you like troubling news delivered with a side of cute pictures.

[fuckheadcunt-deactivated2013081]

a thought

When aliens in galaxies 70 million light years away look through a telescope at Earth, they see dinosaurs.  

[fille-lioncelle]

#GET IN LOSERS #WE’RE DOING SCIENCE

[ashsmain-deactivated20220609]

[geekyvegan]

Is that why there has been no alien contact? Because as far as aliens are concerned, there is legitimately no intelligent life on earth?

[serinos-kitt]

shit son there still isn’t intelligent life on earth

[likeafieldmouse-deactivated2015]

[rawmagicalfrequencies]

Iori Tomita - New World Transparent Specimens (2005-)

Fisherman-turned-artist in Yokohama City, Japan, Tomita creates art using the skeletons of various dead marine specimens, which he preserves and then colors with bright shades of dye.

The process strips down each creature to the toughest parts of its remains and Tomita has dyed more than 5,000 dead creatures since 2005, which is amazing, considering each piece takes at least a few weeks to complete, and some up to a year.

"Although these are just transparent specimens, they’re filled with the drama of organisms which I have so much love for. I want people to enjoy the beauty of life, treat life with respect and understand that there is drama happening that is not centered on themselves when they look at the specimens. These specimens which you see here are actually animals that have died for some some reason or whose carcasses were discarded from pet shops or fishermen. I use those animals which passed away and repurpose them."

[itsokaytobesmart]

Clearly amazing.

[angelicinnovator]

Biologists are jerks.

[molecularlifesciences]

Our sense of humor is infectious. 

[gingerblivet]

This needs to go viral.

[shortylego]

I need an antibiotic for how bad these puns are.

[thebrainscoop]

This is StarStuff. 

The cloudy, nebulousness of this vial are nanodiamonds, carbon molecules only a thousand atoms strong, bonded together. During the formation of our solar system a cloud of dust ballooned from the collapse of a massive molecular cloud and was circling around what would be our new, baby sun. These carbon atoms were trapped within larger molecules and compounds and became inclusions, embedded within meteorites which would become evidence of the earliest solids that condensed from the cooling of protoplanetary disks.

The Field Museum has part of the oldest known meteorite - the Allende meteorite - from which these carbon nanodiamonds were extracted through chemical processes developed by Philipp Heck, our Curator of Meteoritics. We know how old the solar system is by dating these inclusions from the Allende meteorite, giving us an estimate that our solar system is 4.567 billion years old. The carbon atoms I’m holding in the above photo are, in a sense, our greatest ancestor, and ultimately became the building blocks for all life on our planet. 

TL;DR I’m holding our greatest ancestor in the palm of my hand.

[corruptedspacecore]

Carl telling us how (not) to science.

[kny111]

"conclusion: dinosaurs" is still my favorite rebuttal to just about anything tbh.

[itsokaytobesmart]

Second perhaps only to “Therefore: aliens”

[tstarchive-deactivated20190307]

Courtesy of C. Saito.

[itsokaytobesmart]

I see what you did there.

File under “things I never saw during grad school”

[learninglog]

When I was a student at Cambridge I remember an anthropology professor holding up a picture of a bone with 28 incisions carved in it. “This is often considered to be man’s first attempt at a calendar” she explained. She paused as we dutifully wrote this down. ‘My question to you is this – what man needs to mark 28 days? I would suggest to you that this is woman’s first attempt at a calendar.’ It was a moment that changed my life. In that second I stopped to question almost everything I had been taught about the past. How often had I overlooked women’s contributions?

Sandi Toksvig. (via femmefatty, learninglog) (via spinsterprivilege) (via owlcommie) (via avainguard) (via sarathespitfire)

[skeptigeek]

[gainen]

[ladyt220]

[itsokaytobesmart]

via ladyt220:

Oh Chemistree, oh chemistree,

How lovely are your beakers.

You wish your chem lab was as cool as mine.

Der Tannenbeaker ist sehr schön.

(And don’t miss the menorah in the back!)

[thebrainscoop]

More images of bones that were 3D printed from a CT scanned cheetah (photos of that process here).

Anthropologist and conservationist JP Brown modeled and rendered this skeletal for an upcoming exhibition about biomechanics, opening in March. This will be incorporated with an exterior model, the end result revealing a partial skeleton. Museums utilizing new technology in this way means we can share our research outside of our walls without having to worry about obtaining permits for protected species remains, or risk damaging permanent collections items. 

And, you know, it’s a printed cheetah.