Trees are the best, man.

It was one of my best friend's birthday yesterday (yay Heather King!).  She grew up in the forests of Washington, so I thought she might like a painting of her homeland.  Here it is!  I'm about to walk it over to her house ... hopefully she will be happily surprised.

I took a few pictures of it in progress.  Here it is at Phase 1:

 And this is Phase 2:

Anyway, hope she likes it.  Anyone else want a painting?  Let moi know ;)

Spring 2012 Sketchbook Paintings

I painted quite a bit this spring, at least before Mr. Green and I had to think about moving.  Since then, unfortunately, I haven't made time for my little sketchbook. That changed this weekend when I picked the book up, opened it, and realized that there were only a few blank pages left to fill.  I don't think I've ever completely filled a sketchbook before, so I excitedly made some little drawings, and my goal is to finish it before the end of 2012. Since I've ignored my little Sketchums for months now, I almost forgot about my sketchbook paintings.  Here are a few of them:

 

Snow melting on snow drops.

 I really got into painting forests.  The first of these three is an image from the internet, but the other two are from pictures I took at the Indiana Dunes.

 This one doesn't really go with the others ... but I was struck by this image and felt the need to paint it.  The image was a meme briefly (I'm pretty sure I got it from my facebook feed), but it has sunk back into the shadows.  Things come and go on the internet.

Thwarted once, but not twice!

So PNAS didn't want my "all the animals" cover image, but the Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry wanted one of my "BrdU artifact" images for their cover. Thanks, JHC editors, for making the right choice. Also exciting: the article is open access so everyone can read it!  Don't you want to? Wait, what, you don't?!?!  I am shocked.

(But is it space or brain?). 

All The Animals

 

Our lab just had a big paper accepted at PNAS.  We submitted this drawing of mine as a potential cover image.  Although this picture was deemed "appealing," the PNAS editors decided to use an image from a different article. I was a little sad, but not too much.

Beyond the Bench: Celebrating the Diversity of Scientific Careers

Blog posts have been scarce lately (I just moved!  Busy, busy, busy.), so here's something I wrote a while back for the University of Chicago BSD Alumni newsletter on the variety of career paths for biomedical PhDs.  This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately, and will probably post more on soon!

The article: 

Sometimes it feels as if graduate school will never end. Despite this feeling, one day, inevitably, it will. But what comes next? The most obvious course of action is to jump on the so-called “post-doc treadmill,” hoping to eventually land a tenure-track position. Every once in a while, however, we graduate students hear troubling statistics, such as those published by the National Science Foundation, stating that in 2006 only one quarter of biomedical PhDs held tenured or tenure-track positions. If we assume that graduate school is an apprenticeship to become a tenured professor, this study suggests that we are training far too many PhDs for the available jobs. Is this assumption correct? Alternatively, what else can one do with a biology PhD?

To explore these questions, the University of Chicago Biological Science Division (BSD) organized several career panels with BSD and Pritzker alumni. For instance, on December 2, 2011, Carol Olson, the Vice President and CMO of Immtech, Robert Schickel, the Managing Director of S&BD Consulting, and Michael Silverman, the President of BioStrategics Consulting, Ltd, gathered to discuss careers in industry. During the panel discussion, Olson mentioned that she never considered going into industry while she was in graduate school. She believed, “Industry was not a good place to be. If you’re really good you’ll be in academia.” Academics, however, tend to study one topic in great depth, and the panelists were interested in exploring a broad array of subjects. Working in industry allowed them to, as Silverman put it, “wear different caps.” Today, each of these panelists manages their own independent consulting companies, prompting Olson to mention, “you can’t predict where you’re going to be in 25 years.”

Another career panel occurred on March 30, 2012, with Fabiola Rivas, a Scientific Editor at Cell Press, Paul Magwene, Assistant Professor at Duke University, Yolanda Vallejo, Program Officer at NINDS/NIH, and Emina Stajkovic, Assistant Professor at Northeastern University. Of these individuals, Yolanda Vallejo explored the widest variety of careers. While finishing her PhD in neuroscience she found herself asking, “What kind of lifestyle do I want?” At first, a job as an industrial research scientist seemed ideal because she loved bench work, but she was unexcited with product marketing. As a dare, she applied for a job with the Central Intelligence Agency, mentioning, “It’s very interesting to interview for a job when they can’t tell you anything about the job.” After working as a CIA analyst for several years, she applied for a job with the National Institution for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), explaining that, “It seemed like a logical choice to come back around to neuroscience.” Vallejo’s career path illustrates how important it is to explore every new opportunity, and ultimately you will find the career that is the best fit for you.

Perhaps one of the best ways to explore career options is to visit Christine McCary, the newly appointed BSD career counselor at the Career Advising and Planning Services (CAPS). McCary received her PhD in Immunology from Northwestern University, and started working at CAPS in November of 2011. McCary’s role is to provide one-on-one counseling sessions with students and post-docs, and she also organizes exploratory learning opportunities such as externships and career panels. Recognizing that a graduate student’s free time is a precious commodity, McCary has been showing up to BSD coffee hours to provide impromptu resume help and to find out what career advising services students actually want. “I’m just trying to find ways to interface with you guys better,” McCary said. McCary recognizes that due to the poor economy this is a challenging time to be searching for jobs both inside and outside the academe. Even though it can often feel quite overwhelming, McCary’s advice is, “don’t panic, come to me, and we’ll figure it out.”

From attending these career panels and speaking with Christine McCary, it seems like a great deal can be done with a biology PhD in addition to pursuing a tenure-track position, suggesting that we need to broaden our concept of what constitutes a successful scientific career. Scientific consultants, industrial researchers, administrators, editors, educators, counselors, and writers have not failed at science. Rather, they have found the best way to use their talents to promote research and to share scientific ideas. The world of science is larger than we think, extending far beyond the bench, and I think it important that we embrace this world in all its diversity.

Gordon

When I was in middle school, I really loved the Barenaked Ladies album, "Gordon." One song I still very much enjoy is "Brian Wilson." From time to time, if I'm feeling vaguely melancholy, I'll put on that song. "You can call me Pavlov's dog," I'll sing.

I’m thinking about this album because I’ve spent this past week at a “Gordon” conference on neural development, in Newport, Rhode Island, learning about recent and exciting neurodevelopmental research. We’re not supposed to discuss any of the science we learned at this conference, as it’s all cutting-edge, unpublished, top-secret stuff. Apparently the first rule of the Gordon conference is that you don’t talk about the Gordon conference. This is a rule that I am about to break. “You say you think there’s a traitor among us,” the Barenaked Ladies might say. 

Last Sunday, I waited in a lounge in the Embassy Suites for a bus to take me to the conference center. I was typing merrily away on my computer, when an old man came up to me. “Do you work here?” he asked. I did not, I assured him; I was a bona fide scientist. But I still helped him figure out how to get his bus ticket and how to log onto the wifi network. After that, we were friends.

And you really need friends at these conferences because they are quite intense. Everyone seems to be friends and enemies, collaborators and competitors, all at the same time. It generates, in my opinion, a tense atmosphere that is overlaid with a somewhat disingenuous camaraderie. You can tell that there is a shared passion and love for science, but there is also a commonly held fear that at any moment the scientific machine will spit you out. For me, at least, it’s an incredibly complex emotional landscape. It almost makes you want so spend the week, “lying in bed, just like Brian Wilson did.”

Of course I didn’t spend the week lying in bed (partly due to the fact that no matter what I did to the thermostat, my room stayed at 65F the entire time). I went to all the talks, and I participated in and overheard many conversations about the world of science. Many of these conversations were a little disquieting. For instance, I overheard a woman who had just started her own lab speaking with a postdoctoral fellow. “The interview process is exhausting,” she warned him. “Setting up your lab is exhausting. Make sure you have the emotional reserves.”

In another case, I was having lunch with a bunch of scientists, including an Australian who was two years into having his own lab. “My first year with my lab was the worst of my life,” he told us. “I was sick all the time, both physically and mentally. I was always at the doctor or psychiatrist.” The rest of us at the table stared blankly at him for a moment, not sure what to say. Suddenly he grinned and said, “Sorry to be so bleak. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”

There were so many other examples of these types of stories, including a graduate student who told me that all the non-tenured neural development faculty at his institution had been abruptly fired, and a University of Chicago postdoc who divulged that her graduate PI was “broken” when he didn’t get tenure. “Science is a harsh mistress,” I remarked at one point to a table of graduate students and postdocs. They laughed and nodded in agreement, and we all sipped thoughtfully on our diet cokes.

One nice thing about this conference is that we had “free time” scheduled every afternoon between 1:30 and 4pm. I spent a lot of this time with Sarah, a postdoc from the University of Chicago. We toured one of the Newport mansions, the Breakers, once owned by the Vanderbilt family. We both agreed that the overwhelmingly ornate décor made us uneasy – it seemed unwelcoming and over-the-top. For example, over one doorway there were carved cherubs sitting in front of a steam train, and one of the cherubs was holding an anchor and a railroad spike. This confluence of classical architecture with the romanticism of industrialization was a little terrifying. “What have we done and what are we continuing to do to this planet,” I wondered.

Walking along the ocean was by far the most pleasant aspect of this scientific vacation. One afternoon, I went on a long solo quest along the “cliff walk.”  I peeked into tide pools, and eventually came to a pristine beach with beautiful white sand. The light was glittering on the waves, which reminded me of a children’s story I used to love. It was about these beings called the “glitz,” which are born from the sun, and spend the day dancing on ocean waves only to die with the setting of the sun.  I couldn’t resist rolling up my pants and wading in, experiencing a brief moment of bliss.

Speaking of bliss, I learned at this conference that I still love science. Not every talk at this particular conference was fascinating, but I love the scientific method, I love the crazy new techniques that these top institutions are developing, and I think that furthering the overall knowledge of our species is incredibly rewarding. I’m not surprised that so many people want to do this as a career, and I think it’s so important to train people to think scientifically.

But I also decided that a career at one of these top R01 grant institutions would likely break me. Those who have made it, who have tenured positions at top institutions, seem incredibly happy. They have the freedom and money to research anything they want, and they have the undying respect of everyone in their fields. But the path to that point is fraught with so much peril and, given the problems I’ve had with anxiety and depression, I worry that I would be unhappy pushing my way towards the top of the scientific heap.

I’m still staying in the world of science, however. Science media, writing, and editing are a few exciting career opportunities. This conference gave me the opportunity to speak with editors from Neuron, Nature Neuroscience, and Development, and my friend from the Embassy Suites has a son who works as an editor for Developmental Cell. Yay networking! I’ve also come to think that working at a smaller institute, like a liberal arts college, could be a great path for me. In addition, it’s possible to continue working in science as a “research professional,” which is a less stressful way to stay in research. Learning about these so-called “alternative” careers gives me a great deal of hope for the future. There are so many ways to serve science other than being an R01 researcher.

So thank you, Gordon, for this new perspective, for the beaches, for the mansions, and for the people. And I’m so happy to be going home now.

"I don't think I need a rubber room, but that might be nice.
I'm not a manic depressive paranoid or schizophrenic
So I don't need your advice.
I am crazy just like you."

Wedding in a Lost Land

I spent my childhood summers in a magical place called, somewhat unromantically, Baldwin’s Mills, which is a small town in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. It is beautiful, as it surrounds a lake and is overlooked by a mountain. It’s the perfect setting for a Canadian fairy tale, if such a thing existed.

Back in the 1980s, my parents, aunts, and uncles managed to synchronize their reproduction and, as a result, by the 1990s there was a gaggle of almost 20 kids, each related to one another in some way. We were set loose in the giant playground that is Baldwin’s Mills: always together, having endless adventures, and surrounded by beauty. We took it for granted back then, but now I am so grateful for those days. They instilled in me a sense of wonder and optimism that the subsequent years have been unable to eradicate.

Even so, going back can be hard. Everything is still beautiful, the water is still clean, and the air still rejuvenates. But one thing has changed: we children have gotten old! Now, instead of playing “kick the can” we make small talk, discussing the weather, our careers, or our latest workout regimen (at least until someone breaks out the beer horn). When I’m there, I feel the sadness inherent in the passage of time. It’s like an undercurrent of emotion that flows through the landscape, and you can taste it in the raspberries and blackberries that grow beside the mountain trails.

This past weekend I attended my cousin Oliver’s wedding in Baldwin’s Mills. My father Nelson, brother Jonathan, stepmother Madonna, and stepsister Meagan were all present. Meagan and I spent the morning before the ceremony hiking the mountain, and then we stripped down to our underwear to swim in the lake. Afterwards, we returned to Dad and Madonna’s cabin to share an avocado.

Then it was time for the wedding. I wore a purple dress; one of my aunts told me that I looked like a hollyhock (a compliment, I believe). The readings at the ceremony were from a Neil Gaiman book and the Velveteen Rabbit, neither of which I could hear from my spot at the back of the crowd near the gurgling creek. The hall was incredibly hot and crowded, so people gathered in small pockets outside, smoking cigarettes and watching the distant flashes of lightning. Near the end of the evening the groom was almost too drunk to stand up, but his new wife steadied him on the dance floor, and they gently swayed to their own rhythm. It seemed a good metaphor for a successful marriage.

At one point Meagan and I went for a walk to escape the crowded hall.

“Seeing people you know so well but haven’t seen in a decade is stressful,” she said.

“I didn’t even recognize Jim,” I replied. “When he came up to me and asked whether I was ‘attached,’ I was a bit flabbergasted.”

Meagan laughed. “Jim is hilarious. Always on the lookout for a wife for his youngest son.”

We continued walking amicably along the main road, and we came across an ancient barn with an equally ancient silo. The silo was only about 10 feet high, which seemed unusually short. Meagan was impressed. “This silo is fantastic,” she said. “It made this walk. There’s no need to go any farther.”

 

Back at the wedding, one of my cousins was rescuing half-full wine bottles, and had stashed them on a bench near where we were sitting on the deck. Her father, David, my uncle, wandered out, inspected the bottles, and started emptying them over the deck railing. My cousin was furious. She yelped, “Dad, what the hell are you doing with our wine?!”  He gave us a sheepish look. “Oh, just cleaning up,” he replied, and wandered off guiltily.

Later he came back with a beer. Meagan looked at him, grinned, and said, “Hey David. Would you like me to dump your beer on the ground?” That got a big laugh, and in retaliation David gave Meagan a big kiss on the cheek.

At 9:30pm it felt like midnight. The sky opened, and we drove back to the cottage in a torrential downpour. I felt a little strange … partly nostalgic, a little sad, but also happy.  Two memories from the wedding were floating around my mind. In one, my cousin Jori threw her arm over my shoulder and told me that she was buying a house in Baldwin’s Mills, and that I could visit anytime. In the second, one of my uncles asked me, “When are you coming home?” At the time I responded, “I’m not even sure where home is anymore.”

But the best moment of this trip happened just as I was about to leave. Meagan gave me a hug and said, “Goodbye, sis.” At that moment, in the lost land of Baldwin’s Mills, I felt like I belonged.  

Toronto Layover

I’m sitting in Toronto City Airport listening to Eddie Vedder’s song “Society” on youtube. It’s a song that was featured in the movie, “Into the Wild.”  These are a few of the lyrics:

It’s a mystery to me | We have a greed with which we have agreed | You think you have to want more than you need | Until you have it all you won’t be free.

I’m not a Pearl Jam fan at all, but I’m listening to this song because the person who sat next to me on the airplane recommended it.  I rarely speak to the people I’m forced to be in close contact with over the course of a flight, but I noticed that my seatmate was reading a book called, “Buddhism with an Attitude.” This seemed a bit of an oxymoron, so I asked him if he liked the book.

We then proceeded to discuss meditation, which is something I’ve started practicing this past spring in an attempt to deal with the death throes of a PhD. Finishing my thesis and deciding what to do next with my life has been emotionally overwhelming, and practicing meditation with a friendly group of people has been an immense relief. I crave a calm mind, and I attempt to build a skillful mind, but most of the time what I have is a mind of madness.

I’ve discovered that I’m not alone in feeling like this. Lately I’ve been much more open about my anxiety – I’ve spoken about it to my fiancé, my friends, my mom, my boss, my coworkers, and now to a stranger on the airplane. What’s kind of amazing is how supportive people are, and I think it’s because so many people can relate to overwhelming anxiety. One of my coworkers, who always seemed a very relaxed and pulled together person, confessed to having frequent panic attacks and to carrying clonazepam on her at all times, just in case.

The story of my Porter airplane seatmate is that, once upon a time, he was living happily ever after – he was his company’s CEO and a professor at the University of Wyoming. But out of the blue he started having panic attacks, was repeatedly hospitalized, and was put on all sorts of medication. At one point he was on seven different types! We gleefully went over the names of different anxiety medications, comparing notes. “Did you try Wellbutrin? Clonazepam? What about Citalopram or Lexapro?” I asked. He laughed, “I’ve been on them all.” 

His tale is ultimately one of success, as he now no longer takes any medication and can manage his anxiety with meditation and exercise. “I’ve awakened,” he said. “Once I was unconscious, living in a dream, but now I’m conscious.” In a lot of ways he reminds me of my fiancé’s oldest friend, who lives in Northern California and never seems to let anything bother him. I wish I could be like that – a totally chilled out dudette. Although, I can’t help wondering, “Who is actually deluded here: the happy or the anxious people?”

I guess I’ll never know the answer to that question, and maybe the answer doesn’t matter. What seems most evident is the immense power my mind has over me. I invent almost all my suffering, and I often believe the insane, catastrophic, and utterly unrealistic things my mind tells me. It makes no sense! My life is really awesome! Give me a break, mind. Sheesh.

My airplane seatmate left me with this phrase, ‘My mind is mine but it is not me.’  “Meditate on that,” he said, grinning and waggling his eyebrows. In response, I had two simultaneous thoughts: “That is stupid” and “That is awesome.” I wonder who said which, me or my mind?

And now, after satisfying my curiosity about Eddie Vedder’s “Society,” I will turn off this somewhat cloying music. It’s time for some green tea and Joni Mitchell. I have a long layover, after all.

Hot Flash Niceties

One of the most pleasant moments of this particular heat wave occurred after a great party in Bridgeport, Chicago.  Mr. Green and I needed to get back to Hyde Park, so we called a cab. This cab was amazing. The guy was blasting his AC on the highest setting. It was the most refreshing environment I've experienced in days. Then, after assuring us that he knew our neighborhood like the back of his hand, he turned up his stereo and loud, soothing reggae filled the car. I wanted basically to live in that car for the rest of my life.

I tried to draw the experience on my iPad. Still have a lot to learn about this drawing program :).

America's Next Top Carnivore

I drew this coyote from a photo I took at the Tucson Desert Museum. This animal was sitting in the coyote enclosure on a rock, grinning like a fool. Later on I heard coyotes celebrating a kill outside my boyfriend's family's house in the Catalina Foothills.  That high pitched doggy laughter was the eeriest sound I have ever heard.

This experience cemented my admiration for these amazing animals. I became interested in coyotes in high school after reading Canadian author Thomas King. Thomas King writes hilarious and enchanting novels about First Nation communities in Western Canada, and he is particularly talented at capturing the trickster spirit of Coyote. I absolutely loved the concept of a character that was neither good nor evil, and that was somehow immune to both the natural laws of our universe and the ethical laws of human society.

But what about the biology of these animals? American author Barbara Kingsolver introduced me to coyote biology in her novel, 'Prodigal Summer.'  I found it incredible that although coyotes have been hated and hunted by humans as much as wolves, their numbers have only multiplied over the years. How, I wondered, has this persecuted beast persisted and even thrived? They are truly biological tricksters.

To find out more, I decided to interview a coyote biologist, Dr. Stanley Gehrt from Ohio State University, for the Groks Science Radio Show. Dr. Gehrt is the lead researcher on the Cook County Coyote Project, where he studies the urban coyotes living in Illinois.  Here are a few things I learned from him:

(1) Coyotes understand traffic. Coyotes started moving into large Midwestern and Eastern cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. about 20 years ago. Their territories include densely populated places like the Loop in Chicago. I actually saw one on the University of Chicago campus!  These street-savvy tricksters understand traffic - if you look to the side of the road during your morning commute, you might see a coyote observing the passing cars. Scientists have compared packs of coyotes living in a rural setting to packs living in, say, downtown Chicago, and have found that the rates of traffic-related death are almost indistinguishable.

(2) Coyotes regulate the population of urban "vermin." There are quite a few benefits to having coyotes as neighbors. They'll happily dine on our garbage, but they also eat mice and rats, rabbits, goose eggs, and even deer. In this way, coyotes regulate the population of these pests, which promotes greater biodiversity within the urban environment. In addition, geese, rodents, and deer are kind of nasty in that they can spread diseases (deer and Lyme disease) and generate a lot of waste (goose poop). So, oddly enough, coyotes help keep our cities clean.



(3) Coyotes have a rich family life.  The alpha male and female mate once a year, and raise a litter in the spring/early summer. Other "subordinate" members of their pack are actually offspring from previous years. These older siblings help the alpha pair raise the family. Built in babysitting!

(4)  Coyotes thrive under human persecution.  Coyotes have a lot of tricks to survive being hunted by humans. When their population density decreases, female coyotes reach sexual maturity at an earlier age and coyote litters increase in size. Coyotes are also very intelligent, and can inform other coyotes of traps within their territory.

So watch out, city dwellers! These canines are here to stay.

PS. I drew all these pictures.

Compassionate Littering

We're enduring a heat wave here in Chicago. It's a definite complain-worthy event, but let's not go there today.

Instead, I'd like to tell you about a friend of mine. He is a big, muscly neuroscientist who cannot bear the thought of animals being cold in the winter. He once confessed to me that it worried him to think of the squirrels and birds shivering in parks during the cold months. This peculiar compassion is one of his most endearing traits.

During this particular hot spell, I've been too busy taking cold baths and squirting my face with water to worry too much about the animals. This morning, however, as I was trudging to work, I encountered a tiny baby chickadee sitting on the sidewalk. Its mother (I presume) was squawking away in a nearby bush. "Good lord," I thought to myself, "the adorable baby animals are dying from the heat!  Only I can save them!"

Baby chickadee in (assumed) distress. It was the size of a walnut.

I went back home and filled a plastic, disposable bowl (left over from a recent camping trip) with water, and grabbed my trusty squirt bottle.  I returned to the chickadee 'hood, but there were no baby birds to be seen. I still heard the very recognizable "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" call from a nearby tree, so I left the bowl of water in the bushes, squirted my face with water, and continued on my way.

It occurred to me, as I was trudging along, that bringing one of those babies home would have made my heat-exhausted cat very happy. I quickly banished the thought.

Human Embryo

I drew this little dude back at the beginning of February. I'm posting it in honor of a good friend of mine, who is growing one of these little wonderful little things inside her right now. Isn't it amazing that they go from this to a mature human being? Those tiny little buds along the side of the body turn into arms and legs! I think embryos are beautiful mysteries.

Look at what I saw today!

Transit of Venus!  Photographed through a friendly stranger's telescope.

 Here it is about 45 min later ...

The Green One

This is a picture I drew of him back in January.  He will be a Doctor soon!  Huzzah!

My PhD project, illustrated.

This is a drawing I did back in February.  In a way it represents my PhD project, which examines the evolution of the six-layered cerebral cortex, or neocortex.  This extensive forebrain structure, found only in mammals, is thought to be responsible for the advanced cognitive skills associated with humans.  Even though only mammals have a neocortex, our lab (and others, although it's controversial) maintains that key neocortical cell types are present in non-mammalian amniotes, like birds and other reptiles, but are arranged into different anatomical patterns. For example, in mammals these cell types are organized into layers, but in birds they are organized into large aggregates of cells, called 'nuclei'.  So I love this picture of a monkey hugging a pigeon, and here's the dialog I imagine:

Monkey: "Hey pigeon, we are not so different."
Pigeon: "I know.  Cut it out with this mammal-centric approach to cognition.  A 'bird brain' is nothing to be ashamed of!"
Monkey: "There, there." [pat pat]
Pigeon:  "Coo."

Solar Paint

So apparently there's solar paint now.  From the Scientific American blog:

"The paint contains nanoparticles of titanium dioxide—which gives whiteness to sunscreen and powdered sugar. The particles are coated with semiconducting cadmium nanocrystals, and mixed with water and alcohol, to create a golden yellow paste. The researchers dubbed the product “Sunbelievable.” They brushed it onto a conductive glass electrode, and attached that to a counter-electrode, to create a complete circuit."

So can I paint myself with this stuff and basically make my own energy like a plant?  Apparently it comes in any color.  Let's paint the world green. 

Happy New Year, spaceship Earth.