Contest Entries: Hypatia Of Alexandria

Sanity check

Hi everyone, I overheard a very troubling conversation between a neighboring grad student and my PI. In this conversation, the neighboring grad student said the following:

She has no work-life balance. Most of the times, she comes in very early in the morning (before 7 or 8 AM) and leaves very late (after 10 PM).

She says she’s fine with this but also says she’s under constant state of stress because of her PI’s expectations, and my labmate and I have actually ran into her crying in the stairwell.

She’s actually concerned about her peers when they can relax in the evenings instead of being in lab or at least working from home, or when they get to do things on the weekends.

I just want to see how other PhD students are handling their work-life balance after hearing this conversation just to make sure I’m not slacking off.

For me, I come in 9 AM - 5 PM (sometimes staying later depending on experiments, but this is NOT the norm). Sometimes, I come in for a few hours on the weekends to speed things up or if need be (also not the norm). After dinner, I usually do homework, prepare powerpoints for journal clubs or seminar presentations and other non-lab related things, but sometimes I do some work (interneuron quantifying, schedule and plan experiments for the next day/week, etc). I do want to incorporate more literature reading in the evenings or mornings. Regardless, the majority of my work is done on the weekdays 9 AM - 5 PM.

My reasoning is that I’d rather go “normal” pace and steady since I’ll be here for 3+ years to avoid burning out. I want to enjoy my work, and that’s not happening if I feel like I NEED to be here and NEED to do all these things on this impossible schedule. I have been having thoughts of mastering out in the back of my mind, but at the end of the day, I do enjoy my work and my PI’s mentorship and I think I can learn a lot more being here for 3+ years of my PhD.

In addition, we get paid barely above minimum wage as a grad student if we work 40 hours a week. During crazy weeks (which everyone has), that increases by a lot, which means we get paid less than minimum wage, for very specialized and skilled works. Yes, we are in training as PhD students, but if the expectation is for us to work all day, all night, all week, then the PhD feels less like training and more like slave labor disguised as training.

How are your schedules like as PhD students? @cancerbiophd @queenofthebench @whitecoatjourney @adorable-amygdala and many others!

protestants: god is not an absent father! talk to god like a friend! god is always with you! bring your problems to god, no matter how small! it’s not at all weird to call god “daddy!”

catholics: god is far too important to give a fuck about your lost keys or your algebra exam. please address your petty concerns to one of god’s ten thousand holy secretaries. if it’s really important, consider asking his mom.

There was a sensitive pragmatic question which needed to be answered, however. To put it bluntly: Was Arya going to be naked on camera? Many cast members have appeared nude on the show, though typically signed on when they were at least 18 years old (and often agreed to nudity as part of their deal). The 22-year-old Williams joined Thrones when she was 11 and has grown up in front of fans. Williams says the showrunners let her decide precisely how much to show. “David and Dan were like: ‘You can show as much or as little as you want,’” Williams says. “So I kept myself pretty private. I don’t think it’s important for Arya to flash. This beat isn’t really about that. And everybody else has already done it on the show, so…”

Still, when it came time to film the encounter, Williams had to be naked-ish on set, and that was a naturally a bit awkward. “In the beginning, everyone was really respectful,” she says. “No one wants to make you feel uncomfortable which kind of makes you feel more uncomfortable, because no one wants to look at anything that they shouldn’t look at which in turn makes you feel like you look awful because everyone is kind of like—” [Williams averts her eyes]. “You want people to act more normal.”

Continues Williams: “Then [the scene] was rushed. We were [directed by] David Nutter, who has a habit of speaking fast anyway. By the end we’re rushing to finish the scene and David is going, ‘Okay, you’re going to come in and do this and do that and, great, take your top off’ — and then walked off. And I’m like … ‘Okay. Let’s do it.”

Dempsie suggested the experience was strange for him too for given how long he’s known Williams, who’s about a decade younger than him. “It’s obviously slightly strange for me because I’ve known Maisie since she was 11, 12 years old,” says the 31-year-old actor. “At the same time, I don’t want to be patronizing toward Maisie — she’s a 20-year-old woman. So we just had a lot of fun with it.”

But Williams says what’s most important to her about Arya’s battle-eve night of romance wasn’t reading the scene or even filming it, but rather what this moment meant for her character. Year after year, Arya has been laser-focused on survival and training and revenge. Being with Gendry meant that, for one night at least, Arya had an experience that put her back in touch with her humanity.

“It was really interesting because it’s a very human relationship for Arya,” Williams says. “This is something she’s stayed away from, an emotion we’ve never really seen her engage with. David and Dan were like, ‘It’s the end of the world, what else would you have her do?’ This may be is a moment where Arya accepts death tomorrow, which she never does — ‘Not Today.’ So it was that moment where she says, ‘We’re probably going to die tomorrow, I want to know what this feels like before that happens.’ It’s interesting to see Arya be a bit more human, speak more normally about things people are scared of.” — Maisie Williams discusses Arya’s surprise Gendry scene

science side of tumblr tell me why

ain’t nothin but a heartache

Hitchhiking bacteria might help their host navigate via magnetic fields

Deep in the mud of the Mediterranean Sea, scientists have caught microscopic protists dancing to a strange beat—the beat of Earth’s magnetic fields. Now, a new study reveals how these tiny clusters of cells orient themselves along those fields: by letting magneto-sensing bacteria hitch a ride on their outer membranes.

Researchers used microscopes to examine protist-packed sediment taken from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea near Carry-le-Rouet, France. When they placed a magnet with its north pole facing a water droplet from the sediment, the hundreds of protists inside immediately began to swim toward the droplet’s edge. When the researchers reversed the magnet so its south pole was facing the droplet, the protists fled in the other direction (above).

Colleen Conway-Welch (1944-2018) was an American nurse, known for her public health advocacy and numerous projects. She served as Dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing for almost 30 years.

She received her doctorate from New York University and went on to work in various hospitals and universities throughout the United States. Under her leadership at VUSN, the university introduced an accelerated master’s programme and a PhD programme. She was named a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing.

Right lateral thoracic wall mass from a 10 year-old, female-spayed, Golden Retriever.  Approximately six months ago the owner noticed a small, firm swelling on the patient’s right chest.  No doubt it grew with time, as it finally got large enough for the owner to become truly concerned!  The patient is clinically healthy otherwise.

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The most prominent feature on the cytology were these gorgeous globules of magenta, streaming material!  In fact, the entire slide was imbued with this color when you looked at it without a microscope.  The substance is most likely matrix produced by cancer cells.  Matrix of this color is commonly observed in chrondrosarcomas.  Occasional malignant spindle-shaped cells were found imbedded in the matrix.

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Diagnosis:  Chondrosarcoma.  Well , that’s the most likely diagnosis given the location and appearance of the neoplastic cells and matrix!  Other possibilities include a myxosarcoma (which produces a mucous like material!) or osteosarcoma (malignant primary bone tumor).  Chondrosarcomas are often regionally invasive but rarely metastasize.  If the owner is on board with a chest wall resection, the patient will have  a good prognosis :-)