So I'm still here. I've just been busy! There's been a grant to write, classes to teach, lines of undergrads wanting to talk to me, papers to revise, turnover in the lab, equipment breaking and getting fixed, all stuff that takes my attention away from here. Finally this weekend we were able to get away for a bit, then come back and relax, watch the Superbowl and dismantle my espresso machine. Obviously the lack of decent espressos has been making me work slower. But now that the semester is in the groove, hopefully I can get back with new and exciting posts.

Today I heard from someone who was complaining that Arial is an abomination. I'm not the biggest fan of Arial either, but I'm superstitious, and most of my successful grant proposals have been written in Arial. So I keep using it. In general I don't like sans serif type, but somehow they never seem to work in grant proposals for me. Manuscripts, that's another story. There I've had luck with a mix of stuff. But back to Arial. Arial was based on the much storied Helvetica, designed in the 1950's. Arial was a knockoff and was one of the fonts bundled in Microsoft Windows 3. While there are differences when you compare both fonts side by side, to me it is very hard to tell, and I bet the same for most folks.

So here's a challenge. Download the linked PDF file and (without cheating) tell me which paragraph is in Arial, and which in Helvetica.

There must be something interesting that could be done with all those discarded Christmas trees I passed on my walk to work today. Maybe an instant backyard magical forest for the kids? Bonfire? Late season sukkah? Nordic-themed soccer goalposts? Skinny totem poles? Rat hutch? Eco-friendly jousting poles?

So, 2012 is finally fucking here! Of course I will be ringing in the new year with a few grants to submit, preparing a couple of manuscripts (if the folks in my lab get around to writing them), teaching a large undergraduate course (with the help of my chicken), and overall busy stuff. Nevertheless, I've made a list of things I'd like to do in the new year. Of course things like spending quality time with my wonderful family, traveling, not procrastinating, etc. are obvious, so I did not explicitly put them on the list. My list is more of a plan of side projects, and since this is the season for making lists here it is:

1. Carve wooden masks

2. Build a tree-house

3. Smoke a salmon

4. Become proficient at fingerpicking

5. Write, illustrate, print and bind a book

6. Paint something large

7. Build a brick oven

8. Begin printmaking again

9. Build a robot (virtual or otherwise)

10. Make a totem pole

11. Build a sundial

Can I do all these things? Who knows. Some might get done, some might get ignored, some might take more than a year, but at least I'll try. Also, I figured there hasn't been any James Brown around here for a while, and he's got soul, and he's superbad. So enjoy this clip, complete with some robot dancing, pre-Michael Jackson:

Despite my carefully crafted holiday gift guide, I instead received this:

It's not totally random. A few years back we were driving in Maine and pulled into an old antique store. You know the type: an old barn stuffed with all sorts of old junk, from dusty accordions, to cast iron skillets to discarded taxidermy. In this store I saw this beautiful stuffed chicken which I totally wanted to get, but somehow I ended up not doing it and have regretted it since. Thus, supercool wife decided to, well, get me a taxidermy chicken.

He now resides in my office to keep me company. I can't wait until the students come back and start complaining about their grades. Then I can just lift up my hand and say "Nope, go tell it to the bird..."

So the holidays are rapidly approaching! And you have no idea what gifts to give your loved ones. Neither do I, but I do have an idea of the kinds of gifts I'd like to receive (hint, hint). So here it is, the first ever, Take it to the Bridge's holiday (or year-round) gift guide!!

Purkinje Cell - G.Dunn

Pencils

I love pencils. I think they make the ideal writing/drawing implement and love the feel of them on the page, especially soft dark pencils. Plus I always feel I take better notes and write better outlines when using pencil. I would be happy with a box of 4B Palominos. I also hear that their revived Blackwing 602's are nifty. That should keep me well stocked for the upcoming grant and manuscript writing season. Also, if you're into pens and other writing implement also be sure to check out this other awesome online store that sells Japanese writing implements.

Paper

Of course a nice pencil deserves nice paper. I love taking notes on graph paper, reminds me of my pimply-teen D&D playing phase. These French note pads are silky smooth and cool looking. I've never tried the notebooks, but they look like they have potential.

Cajal

I've been lusting for this book, "Cajal's Butterflies of the Soul", since I saw it at the Society for Neuroscience meeting. I didn't buy it because  I didn't feel like lugging it around the convention center or carrying it all the way back home (its a big book). I reproduces amazing hand-drawn images of neurons from the 19th and early 20th century. It is beautifully produced and a joy to look at.

Big Neurons

This dude, Greg Dunn, is a neuroscience graduate student who makes beautiful large-scale paintings of neurons in his spare time (grad students have spare time?).  He usues a style that reminds me of traditional Asian painting. The paintings seem to be by commission but he also sells prints. Maybe I'll get some pyramidal cells for my office.

Typewriter

Not sure why I want this. But wouldn't it be fun to have a nice refurbished manual typewriter to mess around with? Every time I write using a different medium I come up with different ideas and perspectives. This would just add to the mix. Plus I think my daughter would also get a kick out of this.

Model Rockets

I'm not sure these are even legal in my state, but I've had this urge to assemble some model rockets and fire them off. We used to do this when I was a kid (we being my cousins and I) and had a lot of fun. I remember spending weeks carefully assembling and decorating them, and then losing half of them, especially when we retrofitted them with a much to0-large fuel cylinders. Somehow they seem to have  lost popularity, or maybe not, I just don't amble upon those circles any more.

Paper Craft

A few years ago I saw these little Japanese kits to make robots out of paper. The kind you cut, build, glue and assemble. They seemed a bit pricy and somehow I didn't get them. But then recently I saw a whole book with a bunch of little monsters you could cut, and assemble, each cooler than the last. I didn't buy it because my kids were screaming about one thing or another, and in the chaos I left the store without buying it.

SpikerBox

OK, so I already have one of these, but it would make a great gift if I didn't. I bought one of these amplifiers that allow you to record neural signals from cockroach legs (and maybe from other critters) for one of my classes, and the activity was a big hit. The maker, Backyard Brains, are always working to improve their boxes and come up with new experiments.

Strumstick

No, it's not what it sounds like. A strumstick is a stringed musical instrument apparently similar to a mountain dulcimer. The frets are set such that it only plays a major scale, and it only has three strings. So if you press any fret on any string, you will always generate a pleasing sound when you strum all three strings, so no matter what you do, it always sounds cool. It looks like it would be a lot of fun to play.

Coffe Crisps

Canadians do a lot of things right. But the best thing they've got going for them are the awesomest candy bar known as a Coffee Crisp. Imagine a Kit Kat on steroids and dunked in a cup of espresso. That's a Coffe Crisp. Light, airy, crunchy and coffee-y chocolate. Everyone I know has a standing order that if they ever go to Canada they must return with Coffee Crisps.

Boomerang

Why the hell not? Wouldn't you like to learn to throw a boomerang? Just make sure its a lefty one.

So there you have it. Now you know what gift to give me... if you ever feel so compelled. What kinds of things do you like?

We spent this Thanksgiving in a quiet northernly locale with a few friends. It was low key and relaxing. Since clear skies were forecast, I thought it would be fun to bring over a small telescope I have and do some stargazing. Full of turkey and other goodies, we headed to a clearing where we could see the night sky. It was dark. It had also snowed the day before and the ice was melting and falling in chunks from the trees that surrounded us, making plopping noises that would occasionally freak us out. The Milky Way snaked its way across the sky  and there was a shitload of stars. Jupiter was high in the sky and was super bright. Using a high-magnification eyepiece we peered at it and you could clearly make out the four Galilean moons – Europa and Io on one side, Ganymede on the other and Callisto dangling right next to the planet. You could also make out the bands on Jupiter's surface. Galileo found these moons in the 1600's and described them in his book Sidereus Nuncius, so it was cool to replicate some 17th century science. We could even make out three of the moons with binoculars.

We then pointed our telescope West, somewhere about half way between Jupiter and the constellation Cassiopeia, above Pegasus, where we found the Andromeda Galaxy. The Andromeda Galaxy is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way, about 2.5 light-years away, and is roughly of about the same size. Even thought it is bright, I had always had trouble spotting it from urban locations due to light pollution. And every time I'd found it, it looked like an unimpressive smudge. But where we were you could see it with the naked eye and was impressive even with binoculars. On the telescope it was beautiful. I used a 35mm eyepiece to get a wide view and even then it barely fit in the field of view. You could even make out some detail in its structure, which was groovy.

Next up, was the Pleiades. The Pleiades is a star cluster which can be found by tracing a straight line from the direction that Orion's belt points to. The Japanese named this cluster Subaru, thus the logo in Subaru cars. With the naked eye most people can see 5 or 6 stars (I just see a blur) but with a telescope you can resolve hundreds. This was also one of  Galileo's observations. The Pleiades are actually prettiest when seen with binoculars, since you can fit the whole thing into your field of view.

The Pleaides, by Galileo. From Sidereus Nuncius.

By then we were getting cold, so we ran inside for a few sips of bourbon before heading back out. When we returned, Orion was high in the sky, offering a nice view of the Orion nebula. If you look at Orion's belt, there is a smudgy-looking thing right next to it, where his sword or whatever would be. That is the Orion Neubula, which is an area of massive star formation. Again, this object is pretty impressive with binoculars. With the telescope we could sort of see the trapezium, which is a small cluster of stars contained within the nebula.

Finally, we aimed our scope at Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star. It is huge, if centered within the solar system, its size would reach roughly the orbit of Jupiter. To find Betelgeuse, look perpendicular to Orion's belt. On one side you will see a bright blue star named Rigel. On the opposite side is a bright red star. That's Betelgeuse. In the telescope, Betelgeuse stood like a flaming red ruby in the center of a field of stars, staring back at us from 640 light-years away (now I'm getting all Carl Sagan-y), making a nice conclusion to our viewing session.

I first became interested in amateur astronomy during graduate school. During this time there were two very bright comets which showed up in the sky: Hyakutake and the somewhat less impressive Hale-Bopp. A friend recommended using binoculars to see them and I was impressed how much detail you could actually see. Then I was taking a microscopy course, and the professor showed some pictures he took of the comets with a telescope he built himself (a 16-inch reflector, he even ground his own mirror). The pictures were some NASA-quality shit. This totally sold me. So I got a subscription to Sky and Telescope, bought a copy of "Turn Left at Orion" (highly, highly recommended – this is the most useful observing handbook ever) and got myself a $50 pair of binoculars. It is quite impressive what you can spot with binoculars once you know where to look. A cheap pair of binoculars is far superior and has a better field of view than the telescope Galileo used. So you should be able to see Saturn's rings, craters on the moon, Jupiter's moons, etc. with your binoculars. After a couple of years I'd saved up some money and bought a 6-inch reflector and soon after a used small 3-inch refractor (which is much more portable). Since I had kids and started my job my astronomy hobby has gone somewhat by the wayside, but after this weekend I was inspired to pull out the big scope and start observing again. If you want to get hooked to, next time the moon is  at it's half, go outside and look at it with your binoculars. You'll be impressed, trust me.

Recently I was having a conversation about how many things one finds around the lab could be quite useful in the home. For example, parafilm seems like a much better substitute than your typical plastic wrap, and is probably even biodegradable. Those 50 ml conical tubes would be great for storing spices or as little travel containers for shampoo. This led me to thinking how I could concoct a meal in the lab with available equipment, and so I bring you a recipe for a delicious Lab-a-roni and Cheese, complete with catalog numbers:

First make a béchamel sauce. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a 100 ml flask over a gas bunsen burner (VWR 89038-530). On a stirring hotplate (Corning 6795-420D) warm up 2 ½ cups of milk in a 500 ml beaker (Corning 1060-500). In a separate hotplate transfer the melted butter to a separate 500 ml beaker and set to heat gently. Slowly add 2 tablespoons of flour to make a roux, stirring with  a 5 ml disposable serological pipette (Fisher 13-676-10C) until it is bubbly and begins to brown a bit. While stirring add the hot milk slowly to the roux making sure it does not get clumpy. Add a large magnetic stir-bar (Fisher 14-513-67) to the sauce to stir and heat very gently. Take 250 grams of sharp cheddar cheese and shred it in a lab blender (Waring 710S) at low speed. Add about half of the cheese to your sauce. Add NaCl (Sigma) to taste to your sauce and 1g of cayenne pepper as well as some black pepper which you have just ground using a glass tissue homogenizer (Potter-Elvehjem 07-358029). Keep the sauce on low, with stirring on. Meanwhile fill a 4 liter glass beaker (Corning CG-8048-4L) with water and 10g NaCl and set to boil on a hotplate. Cook 1 box of pasta (De Cecco No.97) until slightly underdone. While the pasta cooks use a large microtome (RMC Products, Rotary Microtome MR2) to make 1 mm thick coronal slices of Genoa salami. Make about 10 slices. Cut the slices into thin strips with a No.10 scalpel (Fine Science Tools).  Drain pasta using the wire top of a rodent cage (Alternative Design # WL76F) suspended over the sink. Put the cooked pasta in a glass tray (Corning 3175-7) and add half the cheese sauce. Add half of the remaining cheese in a layer, then add another layer of pasta and the remaining sauce. Arrange the strips of salami on top. Cover with the leftover cheese and add some more ground pepper. Put tray in a dry-heat autoclave (Graham FIeld 8376) at 180°C for 20 min. Use a portable bunsen burner (Fisher 14-648-15) to brown the cheese on the surface. And there you go!

Please note: This is only a parody. I do not actually condone trying this in your own lab, don't blame me if you destroy your lab equipment, get cheese all over the autoclave or if you get kicked out for bringing food into the lab. However, you can try this at home, with regular cooking supplies, and make yourself a delicious dinner.

I was just visiting the International Spy Museum while taking a break from the large Society for Neuroscience meeting.  I was a bit disappointed with the hokeyness of it, but it was fun seeing real spy gadgets from the 40's to the 70's involving dart-shooting umbrellas, film cameras hidden in pens and buttonholes, radio transmitters in shoes and a German WWII Enigma machine. I also liked the fact that at some point the Russians had created a cipher based on an obscure science fiction novel that nobody had read. I think the interactive exhibits could have been made more engaging and not quite as dumb. All in all it was fun, and the little stories about different modern-day spies and how they were caught set me thinking about how we create our identities. Which comes to the real point of my post. As a starting scientist, how do you create an identity? How do you let people know who you are. Of course one is through publishing papers and presenting at meetings, but often people forget presentations and may only get to know you by name. My postdoc actually had a creative idea.

A few weeks back we were having a conversation in the lab about business cards. I personally never use them and don't really know many other scientists that do. The postdoc wanted to know whether it would be a good idea to make cards to hand out during the meeting to people he met. While some people thought that this would be kind of cheesy, and that too was my initial reaction, upon second thought it seemed like a great idea especially when trying to network and get yourself known, particularly if your training was abroad and you really are almost a complete newcomer. So he had some cool cards made with some background design that looked like old histological staining, an old-fashioned drawing of our model organism and some cool looking figure showing some of his data. Then it just had his name, his degree, institution and email. I thought it was brilliant. That way people not only have his contact info but also lots of context that reminds them of the conversation, as well as a cool looking card that you're not prone to just throw away.

So what about you? Do you use a business card? Is it plain, special or covered in rainbows and unicorns?

One thing people don't tell you about tackling big meetings, such as the Society for Neuroscience where I'm currently at, is that one has to perfect the art of looking without looking. That is, when you have a list of about 20 posters you might want to visit in the next couple of hours and have to decide which ones to spend time at, chatting with the presenter. But the trick is in making this decision by giving a preliminary glance at the poster without engaging the presenter. Otherwise you might be stuck and, out of politeness, you might have to stick around and listen to the whole 20 min spiel. I usually do a super preliminary walk by and asses whether the person put effort into making the poster. A bad poster most of the time signifies bad data. It does not necessarily have to show aesthetic appeal, but rather that at least some thought was put into it. I also see whether there is too much data. My attention span at meeting is short and I cannot focus on a poster with 60 graphs on it. After the first walk-by I circle around and have another look. I usually wait until the presenter is engaged with someone else so I can casually approach the poster and peruse its results. If its a good poster I can usually get the punchline with a few glances and that usually is enough. I take a few notes and go. If the data is interesting, then I look the presenter in the eye and ask for the spiel. I can usually handle about 6-8 of these in-depth views in one poster session before my brain starts to get sluggish. The rest I give cursory glances and hope I don't get ensnared. That way also whenever I present a poster I just let people know to tell me if they'd like the spiel or have questions, that way they don't feel pressured to stay.

That being said I saw some great posters today, by many of my collaborators and some by fellow bloggers, where I showed up incognito (sort of). I ran into my postdoc at some point who is attending this meeting for the first time, and his brain looked much more fried than mine. Maybe he doesn't know about the drive-by poster watching technique.