Long time,no see

I have a new job!! A proper, postdoctoral job, and all! I am back with a twist...

Saturday at work

Working at a uni, we have open days for future students. Today, it's our turn, so I've ropped into doing demo to applicants and their parents. It's lunchtime now, and I'm waiting for the new batch to come. And it's boring...I've checked facebook, my emails, the news, the daily gossip.Ouff.!

Letting other people change your personality

Bad news all around in my family this week. My grandma has cancer. Of course it's a slow burning thing and she is 84, so it's not as bad as it could be. However, living 2,500 km away from home and all that, I wasn't told at all, even after the mastectomy she had. So I'm sad.
Also, I have this massive grudge against this person at work. I just can't stand her. She's pompous and self-centred but with a massive black hole where her heart should be and a little puddle of mud for a brain. Fortunally, she has made the right alliances on anatomic mattresses, so there's little I can say to her. So I'm pissed off.
The end is result is quite a struggle: I feel like the Gollum.

Hand made

http://autographcollectors.blogspot.com

μοκετοκατάσταση

back to life, back to reality

I had to take a break from the written word, after my short personal contribution to the abuse of science...Hence the silence.
With my thesis out of the way, I have the viva exam on it next week. Re-reading the stuff has been stressful to begin with but it's growing on me.
Deciding what to do with the rest of my life appears to my problem of the month. Academia or industry? This research group or another? Greece, UK or somewhere else?
Dunno really and sadly my dirty old grandad is dead for a few years now, and I have found none else that can give sounder advice than his. My favourite quote is: "shit always floats", something that has been verified every single day of my life: especially the golden rule of sleeping your way through a degree and a PhD, even if you have shit for brains. What can you do...Unfortunately, I had to do it the hard way.

The plague of blogs

Writing a blog is good for the soul for many reasons. It often provides with anomymity, allows you to blow some steam off your own stressed up life and can be self-phychoanalysis of sorts. Sometimes it is a kind of journalism. Other people express themselves and make art throu blogs. Also, it can a be a type of voyerism into the life of a famous person, only with their permission. That's why I think it's a great thing and I can't understand why in countries like Greece "the cradle of civilisation" it was been deemed as evil as Bob of Twin Peaks fame.

Done and dusted

I have finished writing my thesis...
It's been years that I've been longing to be able to say that. It feels as good as I expected. There are some minor things to do and I'll try to submit next week before Easter closure for my uni. By the way, this has cost me four years and five months of my life.

Petty hates

I hate it going to bed having worked a solid 12 hours for the 4th day, I still haven't finished my last chapter. I hate it when I wake up, and the thesis has done nothing on its own, whereas if it were an experiment, even a bad one, it would have moved on a bit. I hate that when I read through what 've written, I find spelling and syntax mistakes. I hate that my supervisor still hasn't given me any meaningful corrections to my three other chapters.

Another chapter done.

I have one left, and all the appendices and that's that! Besides the mandanity of the task, it gives me such a relief...

Thumbs up agent Cooper!

Two chapters down and two more to go. I can see light at the end of the tunnel!

No worries then

I am sorted financially. And he's so supportive my supervisor. I just dread for the day when he'll just snap and kick me out of the lab.
My chapter is moving on. I might even dare say that I now understand why I did the work to begin with. It's a revelation really.

Intention to submit

I filled in the form that I intend to submit my thesis. That gives me 2 months to finish it....And my super said today: "You must be almost done now?".Hmm, it all depends how one defines the word almost,I guess. I'm meeting him tomorrow for a chat. Let's see how that goes. I'm curious if I'll need to look for a new job when my contract ends in a couple of months.

Tired and stressed

Damn this chapter! I hate it. It never ends and once I read it again, it sounds too weak and make even more changes.

About competition in science

Public consensus largely beautifies scientific research. One thing that is overlooked it how competitive it really is. Big fish academics compete with each other over who has the most, or any, publications in important journals aka Nature and Science. Then, that all important Nature paper becomes the fish hook for PhD and sometimes project students, that drives them to work like mad, or at least pretend so. And,oh dear, such grief when the paper is rejected and people have to downgrade and send it to a lesser journal. The worst of all, for me, is that they become so full of themselves even at the notion of such recognition. People who are most of the times emotionally immature and cannot cope with either fame or failure. I sincerely worry about some of my colleagues, and wish they could see the forest for the trees. This way they could try to fit some pragmatism into their life plan, and become better scientists in the way. Perhaps even turn into more decent human beings.

7:35 de la manana

Ιστορία εν μέσω πολύ βαρετής ανάλυσης φασματογράφου μάζας

Σκηνικό: σκοτεινή επαρχιακή πόλη Αγγλίας.
Φοιτητικό σπίτι. Χτυπάει η πόρτα. Είναι ο N., πλούσιος κολεγιόπαιδες που μας φορτώνεται συνεχώς ως πρώην συμμαθητής της συγκατοίκου μου.
-Κερδίσαμε παιδιά, κερδίσαμε!
- Τι έγινε, Ν.;
-Κερδίσαμε την υπόθεση του βασιλιά στο ευρωπαϊκό δικαστήριο.
(Η έλλειψη του "πρώην" στη πρόταση του έπρεπε να με είχε υποψιάσει.)
-Ναι, θα τα κρατήσουμε εμείς;
-Τι, τι λες; Κέρδισε ο βασιλιάς, είναι ανθρώπινο δικαίωμα του να κρατήσει την περιουσια της οικογενειας του.
Σε αυτό το σημείο κατάλαβα ότι αν σχεδόν μισό αιώνα μετά τον εμφύλιο και τον διχασμό, ακόμα υπάρχουν δεξιοί και αριστεροί, και σημαίνει κάτι αυτό. Στο περιβάλλον που βρισκόμασταν δεν ήτανε ιδεολογικό το περιεχόμενο της διαφοράς, αλλα μονο θέμα ψυχής.
Επίση κατάλαβα ότι έπρεπε να αλλάξω συγκάτοικο...
Και φυσικά, μερικά χρονια μετά ο πρώην ξεπούλησε την περιουσια της οικογενειας, κουτάλι κουτάλι και πιάτο πιάτο, σε δημοπρασία.

About today

The weather has been better these past two days, although I haven't been out of the house for at least two weeks. My thesis is now 130 pages and my last experimental chapter almost finished to a high level. I think it''ll be about 160 pages long with 50 pages of appendices.
I had the best dream this morning just before I woke up. I was in Strefi Hill (Λόφος Στρέφη) in Athens and had a walk with V. and A., two friends from uni that have now moved to Barcelona. We chatted and walked and it was summer. I love that place. It's an bizarre Athenian mutant of Park Güell and Green Park, only with the occasional added flavour of dealers and junkies.
Now, I can go back to what my 48th plot in my 54th page of chapter III really means !!???

Somalian cinema ;)

Chipped teeth, or how to diagnose periodontal disease using a microchip

Did you ever imagine there would come a time when you could self-diagnose major diseases at home, much like using a home pregnancy test? That day has come one step closer, according to an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Herr et al, doi:10.1073/pnas.0607254104). It all happened when an oral research and dentistry group at the University of Michigan combined forces with the Biosystems Research Department at Sandia National Laboratories to develop a microfluidics chip that can detect dental disease.

Point-of-care (POC) diagnostics are already part of our every day live. Home pregnancy tests, blood glucose monitors, and sexually transmitted diseases kits are globally used thanks to their fast results. POC tools measure characteristics symptomatic of a particular pathology, known as biomarkers. For example, a high cholesterol level combined with increased blood pressure is indicative of cardiovascular disease.
So how does this chip really work? It detects periodontitis, a chronic inflammatory oral disease caused by bacterial plaque depositions on our teeth. The microchip uses a salivary protein, called matrix metalloproteinase-8 (MM-8), as its biomarker. First, a fluorescent antibody, able bind to MM-8, is loaded onto a porous polyacrylamide gel that forms part of the chip. A mere 20 microlitres of saliva provided by a patient is then poured into the device. MM-8 present in the sample complexes with the antibody, becoming fluorescent itself. An electric potential is subsequently applied to the gel. Charged molecules will separate in bands depending on their size and charge; biochemists routinely use this technique, known as electrophoresis. The distinct bands can finally be identified by fluorescence and the amount of MM-8/antibody fluorescent complex is quantified against standards also present in the gel. High concentrations of MM-8 in saliva are thus indicative of periodontal disease.

The oral diagnostics area is so hot right now that the New York Academy of Sciences is published an entire volume on it (Oral Based Diagnostics, Volume 1098, March 2007, ISBN 1-57331-661-X) with articles from leading scientists, including researchers at the USA National Institute of Health. Tests based on blood have traditionally been considered to convey more information on systemic diseases, like cancer and HIV. However, advances such as this periodontitis chip guide us towards a future where commercially available kits could provide results rapidly, cost-effectively and chiefly from minute sample volumes.

À Propos

Light existentialism: when should I turn on the lights?

It's so gloomy and dark today and it's only 11 am. I have the lights on but there is always this conundrum for me, when do you turn on the lights during the day? It's supposed to be late morning and still light but I can't see enough to read. What's more important: one's comfort (perhaps not going blind) or staying true to social form and turning on the lights when the sun goes down?

Επειδή το κλίμα στην Ελλάδα είναι πολύ βαρύ, ένα τραγούδι που ταιριάζει.

About Greece

As I have been contemplating the thought of moving back to Greece at some not-so-distant future, I read this great post that everyone considering emigrating to my beautiful home country should read:
http://anatomyofmelancholy.wordpress.com/2005/02/15/for-sale-cushy-job-cigarettes-coffee-essential/

"obsessions are like sex, simple and complex" Suede

Thesis, thesis, thesis. It is so tedious that I deeply enjoy it. Today, I re-discovered my passion for the new wave french cinema movement. These auters really knew how to create a dreamy sequence. One more thing, they definetely knew was how to pick their women. My absolute favourite: Anouk Aimée. What a beauty!

( Picture from http://www.filmreference.com/Actors-and-Actresses-A-Ba/Aim-e-Anouk.html)

new beginnings

After an xmas break of epic proportions, I am trying to get back into the thesis mode. I hope this year is better than 2007, that personally fucked me up in any way possible esp. my health. So happy new beginnings to everyone, and don't forget that today could be the start of something amazing and beautiful.