Tobias Baskin's sort-of real time science blog
I am writing this in the Dublin airport, waiting for a flight to take me and Laura back across the ocean. The day is one day short of 365 since the first entry for Lab Fab season three. What a year! In the past 43 posts, I have regaled you with the twists (yes! twists) […]
Last week, with a sufficiently large—I hope—collection of root images cached, I indulges in a few extras. I entertained a visit from a friend (Mike Blatt) and his wife (Jane), washed out reagent bottles, and fitted in two experiments. Well, not really experiments, more like explorations. One afternoon, I imaged celery xylem stained either with […]
To be fair, the word gallop overestimates my speed last week; more accurate, if dull, is steady trot. I trotted for lap after lap, day after day, putting roots thru their imaging paces and getting things ready for a few supplemental experiments next week, the last week in the lab. Going around in circles like this, I have […]
On four days last week, here is my day. I get to the lab a little after 8 AM. I unshroud the microscope, flick on the infrared light, and arrange bits and pieces on the lab bench, an operation that includes filling three small dishes with 3 mL of 1% congo red and making sure […]
I am living the cliché: it comes together at the very end. I hope that I don’t come apart. On Monday I caught up on a few things because the roots were too short. When the plate with seedlings is placed on the horizontal microscope, I can move the stage down only so far. With […]
I have about a month remaining on the board here. Today, rather than look forward to the trade-offs and pressures of the coming weeks, I’ll do the usual and look backward, telling the tale of the past week, which certainly included trade-offs and pressures. I was busy. For my plants, I think I have sorted […]
During the past week, I enjoyed a holiday. Laura and I were visited by our son, brin, and husband, Poe. Along with generally lolling around, we visited, among other places, Winterbourne Gardens, the Pen Museum, and Coventry cathedral. Streamed Dr Who. Good times all around. But yesterday (Saturday), I cycled into the lab to check […]
I have progressed since the previous post two weeks ago, but to label the progress baby steps would be to exaggerate. Two weeks have elapsed since that post because last Sunday (aka post day) I was in Glasgow. I had been invited to give a seminar by Mike Blatt at Glasgow University. Laura and I went up […]
Not a new start as much as a new vehicle: getting off the tram and onto the bus. Or to put it more accurately, getting out of the car with smoke spewing from the radiator and hopping on a bicycle. Will I make my destination? Dunno but at least I will be moving. At long […]
A silver lining of a frustrating week at work was that it spurred me to a prolonged jaunt yesterday (Saturday). I took a train to Kidderminster, avoided the lure of a sign to their carpet museum (with difficulty!), walked for ten minutes thru a fairly dilapidated town to a bus stop, sat at the one […]