luck

for some unknown reason, I have been really, really lucky with all things science this year. Everything I've tried works, or at least works with minor issues. Yesterday, I managed to get a fairly decent western blot from a new antibody that isn't very homologous to my protein (it's only 70% with the recommended minimum is 75%). To add to all that, the antibody was held up in Australian customs for a week without refrigeration, so I really had no idea if it would work at all. And, it even works when it's really diluted (1:50,000) so I don't have to worry about using it all up. All in all, it was a good day.

Translation: a western blot basically allows you to identify proteins. You grind up tissue in a special buffer with things that keep enzymes from destroying your ptoteins. Spin all the non-protein junk down to the bottom of a tube, figure out how much protein you actually have in your tube using a very cool assay that changed from green to purple when it finds protein. Then you load your proteins onto a gel to separate them according to size, transfer all the proteins on the gel laterally onto a membrane using an electrical current, then apply your antibody to your membrane. Unfortunately, you can't see what your antibody is binding to at this point so you have to apply another antibody, called the secondary, that recognizes a little tag on your first antibody. The secondary has its own little tag that can be made to give off light. So you expose your membrane to film and develop it and you have a western. If an antibody is 70% homologous it means that the chunk of your protein that the antibody binds to has 70% of the same amino acids. The more amino acids that are the same, the better the antibody binds.
Now you can all call ourselves molecular biologists. Funny enough, there's also Southern and northern blots. East was left out of the party, but we can save that lesson for another day.

Spamalot and Thanksgiving fun

I almost forgot...after an amazing Thanksgiving lunch with my supervisors and other grad students, a couple of friends and I went across to Melbourne to see Spamalot, which has just started playing. I never got to see in on Broadway, but it was fantastic! It's showing in one of Melbourne's largest theatres, but it was still very small by NY standards. We had awesome seats in the front row of the balcony. I was laughing the whole time, and they even threw in some uniquely Australian moments. The only thing that was not done perfectly was actually funnier as a result. It's very hard for Australians to imitate a French accent so the French characters had an Australian twist to their accent that was fantastic.

A new PM

Well, ir has been an eventful couple of days for Australia. In a landslide victory, we have overthrown the sitting government and elected a new prime minister, Kevin Rudd. It has to be pretty big news if anything related to Australia makes front page of the NY Times. I watched the election coverage on TV saturday night. It was rather amusing. Voting is mandatory in Australia; if you don't do it, you're fined. To circumvent people with excuses like "I don't have time between 8am, and 6pm on Saturday to vote", you can vote at polling booths in the few days preceeding the election, or you can send in your ballot by mail. On the ballot, you number the candidates in order of your preference. If your first preference doesn't win a certain percentage of the votes, your second preference is counted, and so on. This has the very interesting consequence that a vote for a minor party doesn't detract from a major party's ability to win the election.
There was a gradation of silliness on the network channels in terms of election coverage. ABC, the national company, was the most serious; completely lacking such embellishments as cartwheeling cartoons of candidates as parliament seats were won or the 'tower of power': a projection of the number of seats won by each party onto the tallest building in Melbourne. The networks also vastly disagreed on the early outcomes of the election with one channel declaring Kevin Rudd the winner almost two hours before ABC finally caved.
Because Australia has such a relatively small population, the votes get counted very quickly. For many parliament seats, almost 100% of the votes were counted just 2 hours after the polls closed. It definitely made for much more exciting election coverage.
I'm off to a conference in Perth toward the end of this week and from that point onward life becomes really exciting for a while. First, seeing Perth will be amazing because it's a completely different side (literally) from Australia and I'm excited to present at my first conference. Only a few days after I get back, Becca arrives and we begin a several-week long adventure around Australia and New Zealand (since she convinced me to see NZ with her as well). I am sooooo excited, although from the looks of it the NZ part of the trip is much better planned than the Australian part. I think we will get on alright, though and have some awesome adventures on the great barrier reef and in the outback.

rockies

So sad.

At least they made it into the series.

Really?

I get daily US Info e-mails from the embassy in Canberra designed to keep diplomats up to date on the state's version of current events. Generally, they are pretty bland articles (i.e. "Librarian Nancy Pearl promotes reading, library services"), split between regions of the world. Today, under the Africa section, was the following headline:

U.S. Soft Drink Company Teaches African Teens About AIDS

Now, what does it say about our global influence that we entrust a soda company to educate a country on a life-threatening disease? I read the article out of curiosity and it turns out Coca-Cola actually is doing some interesting philanthropic work in Africa. However, that work is mainly limited to sponsoring concerts, etc, that are supposedly simultaneously teaching African teens about AIDS. On another note, it's also poignant that this was the only article under the Africa section. Apparently the US Department of State deems Coca-Cola's influence the only newsworthy event for the continent.

THEY DID IT!

The Rockies made it to the world series!
I'm totally skipping a day of work to watch them in the series

A not-so-boring weekend

I'll just skip over Saturday (complete with errands, grocery shopping, cooking, and laundry ugh!) and head right into Sunday since it contains enough adventure for many weekends.

I got up in the morning, went for a run, then headed out to a farm that I nearly ran by earlier in the morning where a colleague of the guy I rent a room from lives. Gus is a mechanical engineer (Graham, if you turn out like him in 30 years, I'm totally coming to live with you) who works at Avalon airport, the Chicago Midway airport of Melbourne. I have always really wanted to go flying, and I thought I might get to go flying with him. Then again, I wasn't really sure what was going to happen so I didn't want to get my hopes up.

When we arrived at his farm, we talked for a while about Australian farming politics and unions and then started a pre-flight check for a 44 helicopter that we would take to the waterfront (about a 10 minute flight). The helicopter is for tourists and normally charges 130 an hour, according to Gus, but due to complaints about helicopter noise it parks at Gus's farm every night so he can take free flights into the city of Geelong whenever he wants to since the helicopter has to get there anyway.

So, that was an experience in itself and I was thrilled. We flew over Geelong and around Port Phillip Bay and it really felt like we were floating. I got to sit in the front and the windows were so huge you could really see everything. We eventually returned to the farm and had morning tea and then Gus said he was going to take me out in his cessna, which he keeps in a barn attached to his house. Now I was really excited! We took off from a makeshift runway/pasture and flew to a nearby tiny airport to refuel. Then we took off again and flew around the Bellarine Penninusla, over Queenscliff and over the rip, an area at the mouth of Port Phillip Bay where water moves faster naturally than any other place in the world. Visibility was so high that we could see clear across the bay to the skyscrapers of Melbourne. Then we turned South to follow the coast (i.e. the Great Ocean Road) and I got to fly. I got to fly! So I flew down the coast until Anglesea when we encountered a rain storm so we skimmed across the Eastern part of the Otway mountain ranges and back toward Geelong. I flew over Deakin Uni and over the house where I am staying before Gus took back over the controls to land us back at his farm. It was so much fun! The best part is that he goes flying at least once a week and he said I could come back and fly with him again. We're planning trips to go further down the coast to fly by the Twelve Apostles (some cool rocks) and over the true Otway ranges as well as a night trip to see the lights of Melbourne. AND, as if you didn't have enough reasons to visit me in Australia, Gus is emphatic that I bring any visitors out to the farm so he can take them up as well.

I think I'll be dreaming about flying for a long time. I'm still really elated.

Here's a rough map. The farm is near where the main road from Geelong splits off to go to Queensfliff. Queenscliff is on the tip of the penninsula and Anglesea is at the bottom left. Lake Connewarre, my study site, is the big lake in the middle of the penninsula.

BTW, my favorite baseball team, the Rockies, are officially in the National League championships. They are such underdogs that even though they haven't won the World Series since 1995 and even though they have had an amazing season so far (only one loss) the story of the game didn't even make the front page of the NY Times sports section. I have a secret plan to convert everyone I know in Geelong into Rockies supporters so they will have a strong contingent somewhere outside of Colorado.