Coooffffeeeeee

The yearly round up of most caffeinated professions was published this past summer and guess who made the list?  Coming in 2nd place, scientists were among the most highly caffeinated professionals, outdone only by those working in the food industry service.  Easier access to the goods perhaps?

It's no surprise that we are coffee junkies (or whatever form you prefer your caffeine in). We have a reputation for taking highly significant, important scientific discoveries, and boiling them down to a pile of jargon and acromyms, alphabet soup.  We're so technical in sharing our information, that the beauty of what we do is completely lost.  And yet, we are fascinated by what others would call mundane, or uneventful. At least we recognize our dependencies and most academic departments provide ample supply of the fueling nectar at every seminar and even throughout the day.

In starting this new postdoc position, I have the opportunity to work with a new virus, but also, a new in vitro cell system.  Put simply, tissue biopsies from the respiratory tracts are mashed up, cleaned up, and put into culture dishes.  These living, breathing cells then take it upon themselves to grow, divide, and become the appropriate mixture of cells that make up the surface of our respiratory tract.  As long as I keep "feeding" them, they keep on living for a few weeks, and start behaving like the cells they left behind.  They turn into various types of cells, produce mucus, and even grow cilia.  Even more astonishing, the cilia will spontaneously begin to beat in a rhythmic fashion.  There's no stopping these cells from doing what they were meant to do!

Last week, I observed these cells for the first time.  Under a simple light microscope, I could see the cilia beating and I was amazed by the beauty of life and the honor it is to be able to do this kind of research and have an appreciation for it.  I was thrilled at the opportunity to use this system in my research, all the while working towards better basic science understanding and better medical care for people all over the world.

What we do, as scientists, is pretty amazing. Perhaps we might want to share that excitement with our colleagues and the public once in a while without making it a technical mess.  There's no need to make it into a Hollywood production, either.  We just need to share the true amazement of life around us and what that means to the "regular" person.  Maybe then we might not need so much coffee just to get through the day.

Until then, can you pass the cream and sugar?

http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2012/03/10-quick-creativity-hacks.html