Cranky Friday

I did my first mutagenesis and transformation ever yesterday. Looked at my plates just now...no colonies. *cry* The mutagenesis protocol was from a kit, so we have to order more before I can try again.

(Transformation is the process of introducing foreign DNA into cells. This can occur spontaneously, or you can make cells take up DNA by shocking them with electricity (electroporation) or heat-shock. The plasmid I was supposed to put in yesterday contained, aside from the gene of interest, an ampicillin-resistance gene as a "marker" to separate transformed from non-transformed cells. Then I spread the cells on agar plates containing ampicillin. Since they're all dead, I don't know whether the transformation was unsuccessful or I just killed all of them -_-;; )

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Also, the weather is shockingly cold today. It's the depth of cold that makes breathing - normal breathing, not even panting or hyperventilation - painful, and makes your fingers hurt within seconds of exposure. I'm truly glad for my Seirus balaclava. When you have it over your mouth and nose, it gather condensation from your breath, so the air you inhale is humidified and warmed. It's basically an artificial extracorporeal heat-exchange membrane.

Steve has a really awful sore throat and fever though - he's gone to the doctor twice in two days, and despite this had to teach three physics classes yesterday. I feel almost guilty for having such a good immune system...you'd think kissing would transmit anything infectious but so far it hasn't. Plus, I registered to go on the Grad Christian Fellowship's women's retreat to New Glarus tonight. We're going to stay in a nice lodge with a hot tub, which is a nice place to be with the coldest temperatures of the decade rolling into town, but I still feel guilty for leaving.

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On the bright side, two funny things: For my cell biology course, we had to read a paper about a protein called XBP-1. Did I mention that I hate cell biology's sense of naming conventions or lack thereof? They make acronyms upon acronyms, and they're all unpronounceable, so people will insert random vowels in order to say them. Well, what does XBP-1 stand for?

X box binding protein, that's what. Someone sue Microsoft.

The X box is actually a DNA sequence that's involved in the expression of certain immune-system related (MHC) genes, but now XBP-1 gives me a mental image of a gaming console covered in green slime or something. Or fanboys.

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The other thing is, my boss gave Keith (our lab's "old guy who knows everything") a Spanish-English calendar for Christmas. Today's sentence:

Hace un tiempo horrible.
The weather is horrible.

I couldn't agree more.