Dr Mosi's Kraal

Not the usual fare

2008-02-02T07:52:00.000Z

I got the opportunity to visit Kanyama Clinic in Lusaka. This is a government-run clinic that's at the forefront of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Based on reports from my eyeball (aka an unauthoritative opinion), they are operating at about 8 times greater than capacity. Kanyama has been flooded with rainwater lately, because the rains in Zambia have been far greater than normal. The capacity to handle that much drainage is lacking. The clinic itself was OK when I visited, it hadn't rained badly for 2 days or so. Otherwise the clinic grounds would have been under about 12cm of water. The houses of the clinic staff on the clinic grounds were flooded, and the path leading from the houses to the hospital building is still flooded.

Makeshift paths had been created by putting concrete, rock, or bricks into the water to provide stepping stones so that people could go about their business.

Outside the clinic everything is under water. The tar on the roads gets washed away under these conditions and mud is the only thing left. The schools were shut down for a few days, now they are open again. Many children take off their shoes to walk through the water, otherwise the problem is that their feet will be wet all day.

The gardens inside the clinic are well tended. Of course, they have no water problems right now.

The vice-President had visited the area the other day. By-elections are to take place shortly in the area. Relief was promised and there was a truck with a pump on it trying to pump the water from the clinic staff's houses.

About 20% of the population of the country is HIV+. That's 1 in 5 people. A few years ago drugs were only available for the very rich. Now they are available free of cost for poor patients so there has been an increase in average lifespan. It's up to 40 now, according to the World Health Organisation, it was at 33 prior to the availability of antiretrovirals. I'm not sure if there are any studies that have directly determined that the increase in average life expectancy is due to the ARVs. But I'm sure that keeping people alive and healthy longer does have a huge impact.

Ph.D. student anthem

2007-11-02T09:18:00.001Z

(Sing to the tune of... Rock Star by Nickelback, with due apologies to the band)

I'm through with standing in line
to the parking lots I'll never get in
It's like the bottom of the ninth
and I'm never gonna win
This life hasn't turned out
quite the way I want it to be

(tell me what you want)

I want a brand new project
with a PI who rocks
And a laboratory I can play baseball in
And a king size bench big enough
for ten plus me

(yeah,so what you need)

I'll need a, a HHMI grant that's got no limit
And a big huge office with a bedroom in it
Gonna never leave lab if
At all I can help it

(Been there done that)

I want new libraries full of old articles
And my own name in the Nobel Committee
Somewhere between Crick and
Amartya Sen is fine for me

(So how ya gonna do it?)

I'm gonna trade this research for a Ph.D.,
I'd even finish my manuscript to impress my committee,

[CHORUS]
'Cause we all just wanna be big postdocs
Live in our labs reading fifteen graphs
The grants come easy and the reagents come cheap
We'll all stay skinny cause we just won't sleep
And we'll hang out in the coolest labs
With the scientists who discovered Alzheimer's and SARS
Every good student's
Gonna wind up there
Every good project
will be in our lair
and well..
Hey hey I wanna be a postdoc
Hey hey I wanna be a postdoc

I wanna be great like Salk without the hassle
Order around eight techies who love to clone and dazzle
Attend a couple product seminars
So I can eat my meals for free

(I have a quesadilla... on the house)

I'm gonna dress my ass
In a nerdy fashion
Get a front door key to the BSL-4 mansion
Gonna date a lab computer that loves to
Run my simulations for me

(So how ya gonna do it?)

I'm gonna trade this research for a Ph.D.,
I'd even finish my manuscript to impress my committee,

'Cause we all just wanna be big postdocs
Live in our labs reading fifteen graphs
The grants come easy and the reagents come cheap
We'll all stay skinny cause we just won't sleep
And we'll hide out in the conference rooms
With the latest manuscripts
for today's review
We'll get you any collaborator
with that knowing smile
Everybody's got a
nobel winner on speed dial
well..
Hey hey I wanna be a postdoc

I'm gonna do the research
that disproves the naysayers
Gonna dispense my solutions
from high throughput pipeters
Get Beckman robots doing all my stuff
And the reviewers just can't get enough

'Cause we all just wanna be big postdocs
Live in our labs reading fifteen graphs
The grants come easy and the reagents come cheap
We'll all stay skinny cause we just won't sleep
And we'll hide out in the conference rooms
With the latest manuscripts
for today's review
We'll get you any collaborator
with that knowing smile
Everybody's got a
Nobel winner on speed dial
well..

Hey hey I wanna be a postdoc
Hey hey I wanna be a postdoc

No fair!

2007-06-06T01:30:00.000Z

At dinner:

Scientist 1: I'm so not used to my experiments NOT working. I can't figure out what's wrong.

Scientist 2: You gotta watch your audience before you make comments like that. 'Cos me and Sci 3 are definitely the wrong audience.

Scientist 3: I'm going to blog that.

How to propose to a scientist

2007-05-04T12:09:00.000Z

The other day I had occasion to think about how one would go about proposing to a scientist. This is what I came up with.

Dear PZV [use initials]

I have completed part of my life cycle but feel empty due to the lack of a genome. I have interacted with many others, but my affinity towards them was low. When I interacted with you I recognised you specifically as being perfect for me. Please come through the portal and take up your residence inside my capsid. I promise to keep you safe from threats such as antibodies and complement. I can offer you the world, we can interact with multiple hosts in Asia, Africa, Europe, or anywhere there are any living things. If you love extreme sports, we can hang out in hot sulphur vents, under the Antarctic ice sheets, or deep in the ocean. If you love risk and are selfless, we can always be in lab, sacrificing our lives for the good of humanity. I don't mind where it is, as being with you completes my life cycle. Let us get together and assemble progeny.

Yours always

ABV


There are no guarantees for this working, so don't blame me if your would-be fiancee throws the ring back and runs away for dear life. Of course the sure fire way to get a scientist would be to promise funding their pet projects with grants for the rest of their lives :) Then I guarantee she will never leave.

Why single ladies avoid me

2006-10-17T04:11:00.000Z

lack of the correct body odour...

to prove how similar we are to chimps, Danny takes part in a potentially humiliating experiment.
The scent of male sweat is controlled by their genes, in both chimps and men. In a blind test, three women were asked to sniff the sweat of Danny and Cody the chimp, to see which one they fancied most.
When they found out afterwards that one of the odours was from a chimp, there was laughter. When they realised that two out of three had preferred the chimp, there was nervous laughter.

And the Nobel goes to...

2006-10-08T04:50:00.000Z

The awardee of this year’s Nobel Prize for literature has never made any money from her writing. She has never signed with a publisher or seen her writing in print. Nobody but she herself knows who she is or where she is or what she does other than dictating her life experiences into her literary efforts. She has a following of millions, however, who regularly read her online journal, also known as a blog. It all started with the first post, appropriately titled, “The first post” 10 years ago. The only person who noticed this post was called “Anonymous” and left a message about how the blog was very interesting and she should click on a link that promised money. Since the very ordinary beginning, extraordinary stories began to flow out. Stories that reminded the readers of their hopes, their dreams, their ambitions, and above all the universality of human needs such as love and companionship. Taxi fliers in Nairobi and CEOs in Shanghai and parking meter robots on the Rakesh Sharma base on the moon could all identify with at least one of the stories. As we explore new frontiers, these writings have reinforced that we carry the same core within all of us. The open comments on each post attest to this. And so, the Nobel Prize for Literature 2049 goes to…

You know you spend too much time in lab when...

2006-07-08T02:35:00.000Z

You pat the top of any machine after putting your sample in and whisper "Good Boy" to help it perform better...

Normal people answer the phone at home with "Hello." You use "XXXX lab..."

Your nightmares include being late / unprepared for a lab meeting...

You wish they would have a cafeteria / shower / gym in lab so you wouldn't have to leave...

You spend time making up such lists...

Your lab fridge is stocked with beer and other essentials. Your desk shelves are full of snacks. Your home fridge has 3 month old leftovers that may just be alive...

You have a spare set of clothes in lab while your laundry is undone at home...

You get home early one day and wonder what there is to do...

You can name the 32 amino acid residues that you work on in your sleep but you don't know who's playing in the world cup finals...

Your idea of fun is exploding a dry ice bomb (and you're 30)...

Your other idea of fun is throwing liquid nitrogen on the floor...

You wonder if you can borrow something from the neighbouring lab to meet their new member...

You talk to yourself all the time and nobody notices...

You dream of having grants funded instead of winning the lottery...

You run down the lab hallway for anything other than a life-threatening situation...

It's Friday night and you are running just another gel...

It's Saturday night and you are planning your Sunday in lab...

You have named your pippettes / trash / bench...

(from Mayuri)
When you use lab keys to try and open your apartment door. Happens all the time.

You get spam email asking you to 'increase your thesis size.'

You can personally identify with more than 5 of the preceding items...

Lab song...

2006-06-17T05:31:00.000Z

Yes... this is our lab song!

...oh those Russians...
ok i can't get enough of these guys... here's another one...

Dolphin call

2006-05-09T16:40:00.000Z

Dolphins play name game - Underwater whistles give bottlenoses their own moniker.: "Dolphins play name game"

This is pretty awesome... dolphins in the wild have whistle names for each other... now the speculation is if they talk behind each other's backs :) good stuff.

According to Lova, Malagasies also have whistles in their language, sometimes we're not sure if he's calling us or the dogs...

If virologists could name movies...

2006-02-27T01:17:00.000Z

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Virus Structure
Father of the Publication I (and II)
The Apoptositor
The Glycoprotein Transporter
Finding Neuro
Love Vaccine No. 9
Bird Flu Little
Brokeback Dimer
Charlie and the Hepatitis C virus
101 PCRs
Outbreak is Not So Bad
Harry Potter and the Freezer of Secrets
Bacterium Strikes Back
Nightmare on Podium

Ok must get back to preparing my talk now. It isn't as funny as it was in my head, but I can always improve it. Feel free to suggest stuff.

Chikungunya Picture

2006-02-07T00:01:00.000Z

I noticed that given the recent Chikungunya epidemics, people are looking for a picture (and landing on this site). There is no picture of Chikungunya that exists; however there is a picture of Sindbis, which looks exactly like Chikungunya below:

This is a cutaway showing a slice of the virus so you can see all the cool stuff that makes it up. I am trying to understand how the inside of this puts itself together, the pretty stuff in the centre of the picture that are arranged in 5's and 6's.

Revenge of the virus

2006-02-01T03:11:00.000Z

Couldn't be in lab for much of today, had a bad cold, felt very sick so took the nyquil and slept for 7 hours at home during the afternoon. This is a strange cold, with headaches and body ache and lots of fatigue. Very tired again so will sleep some more, hopefully it gets better tomorrow. I probably should have taken it easy on sunday when it started, instead of running around in lab like a maniac and it might not have been so bad today. It's the virus' revenge for working against them!

Chikungunya puts virology in perspective

2006-01-30T22:19:00.000Z

Chikungunya virus in Reunion

This reminded me that some day the research we do will have a use. Chikungunya is related to Sindbis, which I work on. The currently infected people will have to suffer it though. How did we let mosquitoes hang out for so long?

Virology outside lab is scary

2006-01-27T22:51:00.000Z

I got to thinking that there's a lot of stuff we talk about in lab that when outside, for instance at an airport, could be (and has been) misinterpreted severely. So here's the list of stuff we talk about in lab that could land us in lots of trouble with the authorities when said outside.

1. Did I give you Dengue or did you get it from Tom?
2. I have the bloody diarrhoea bacteria
3. I didn't get the clone
4. I got the clone (don't know which is scarier)
5. So we're going to mix the DNA of x virus with y virus
6. I have mutations up the wazoo and don't know what to do with them
7. The smell of a fresh culture of bacteria in the morning really wakes me up
8. Caution - carcinogens and reproductive toxins inside this lab (on every lab door)
9. Did you infect the cells?
10. How's the virus in a test-tube project going?
11. So I mutated the HIV...
12. Did I give you the radioactivity?
13. I got lots of west nile virus (OK that one is really scary)
14. Skulls and crossbones on most chemicals that we use
15. I don't use gloves for that, but I've had kids and don't care anymore
16. Damn, the mutant doesn't grow
17. I made the virus glow
18. I got contamination, how about you?
19. This is the wrong clone
20. It's a free t-shirt, so what if it says 'Rubella rules'?
21. I'm a virologist, if you see me coughing, run away

Disclaimer : OK so it has happened to us that we're at a public place talking about work as if we were still at work and everyone stares at us funny and a little scared :) but rest assured in lab we follow all the safety practices and the public and we are safe from clones and mutants and virus chimaeras.