P-C! Congrats on the finishing of the thesis! (what was it about? Can you say it in words that I can understand?). The waiting part is not so nice, though. Do you have things to do to keep you happily busy while you wait?

P-C! Congrats on the finishing of the thesis! (what was it about? Can you say it in words that I can understand?).

Thank you! It's on voltage-gated potassium channels and lipid interactions. Basically, cells need channels for potassium ions to pass through and create an electrical current for many, many reasons, one of the main ones being muscle contraction, an important muscle being the heart. Voltage-gated channels, as you might expect, respond to changes in voltage (which is how an electrical signal is propagated, it goes from cell to cell depolarizing the membrane). My thesis is on how the membrane lipids (since the channel is stuck floating in the membrane) influence channel function. The meat is an examination of various lipid metabolites that have been shown to enhance or block the current, or affect the kinetics (how fast the channel opens and/or closes). For the most part, we have no bloody clue how they do the voodoo that they do. Well, we have a few bloody clues, which it was my purpose to point out, but we haven't proven anything yet.

...Did you get all that?

The waiting part is not so nice, though. Do you have things to do to keep you happily busy while you wait?

I have the first season of Oz to finish, and I need to find a job. Oh, you said "happily." Well, I need to go to the library and read Rob Thomas's books.

...Did you get all that?

Yup. Voodoo, no clue, few clues, pointing. Oh, and there was something about electricity and cells and channels and kinetics.

No, actually that's very interesting. Did you know what you were looking for when you started, or did you just shoot at several directions at once and checked what made an impact? Do you have analytical results, or only experimental ones?

Oh, you said "happily."

I must insist.

I still didn't get a chance to even open the book you gave me as a present in August. Lame me.

Christian Kane's and Amy Acker's pilots were also picked up.

Dennis Haysber, Scott Foley, Regina Taylor and Robert Patrick:

On the heels the departure of its veteran military drama "JAG," CBS is putting on the air another military-themed series, "The Unit," which is said to be headed for midseason. The show, from 20th Century Fox TV, Shawn Ryan and David Mamet, revolves around the personal and professional lives of members of an elite military anti-terrorism unit. In addition to Haysbert, the ensemble cast includes Scott Foley, Robert Patrick and Regina Taylor.

(From the article linked above.)

I really should not have to update outdated and unused webpages just because my currently being an idiot coworkers keeps giving out the link to it. I should just blast it, but I don't need to make us look stupider than he's being about this.

YAY P-C, but seriously? I read that all as "blla blah banana blah blah blah electricity blah blah blah cooked banana"

No, actually that's very interesting. Did you know what you were looking for when you started, or did you just shoot at several directions at once and checked what made an impact? Do you have analytical results, or only experimental ones?

It was basically a review paper, so there was no experimentation involved. I pored through hundreds of abstracts and scores of papers trying to find what was already out there. What the studies had found, what they had concluded, and more importantly, what they didn't know. I came across some pretty weird things. Some lipids are pretty straightforward, and they do the same thing always, and then there are ones that act differently in cloned systems vs. native systems, and ones that act extracellularly (how the hell did they get on the other side of the membrane?), and ones that have opposite effects on different channels, and it's all very wacky. The purpose was to take everything in the literature and put it in one paper so people could get an idea of what our current knowledge was. I was two references away from having a hundred, although, admittedly, I used up gobs just describing what voltage-gated potassium channels were. I'd say the lipid modulator papers comprised less than half. Wait, hold on, I can do this! Ah, it's more than half, actually, even taking out the two sections where I basically summarized a review and stole all its references.

I still didn't get a chance to even open the book you gave me as a present in August. Lame me.

It's okay, you've been busy. But when you're not, it will keep you happily busy. Okay, that construction didn't work well with the sense.

YAY P-C, but seriously? I read that all as "blla blah banana blah blah blah electricity blah blah blah cooked banana"

That's cause you weren't even trying. :-P (And if you were, I really could try to break it down even further, perhaps using fruit metaphors, since you like bananas.)

cloned systems vs. native systems

What exactly are the two? I'm not familiar with the terms.

The purpose was to take everything in the literature and put it in one paper so people could get an idea of what our current knowledge was.

I think that's very important. Just knowing what questions to ask when trying to understand a phenomena is a really big step. go you!

I was two references away from having a hundred

98 is a much nicer number than 100. It has that lovely combination of 3² and 2³

And CBS' answer to NBC's successful midseason drama "Medium" is "Ghost Whisperer," a Jennifer Love Hewitt-starring vehicle based on the work of James Van Praagh about a newlywed communicating with dead people who have not quite crossed over to the other side.

WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THIS?!?