More photos from the "I @$%#ing love science" facebook change

http://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience?fref=ts

Post-presentation deload

So following my in class presentation today that took an hour and twenty minutes including me talking and getting drilled with questions I am pretty brain drained. I met with the Professor already and she thought I did a really good job and I will receive an awesome grade, much better than I expected. However following this I had to scramble and put together my presentation for my lab which (I timed it) was literally 10 times shorter due me only working for 3 weeks and the questions were much more laid back. However now I am brain drained so I left lab at 5 (which is super early for me) got some Chinese food at Fortune Cookie which I have never had before (it's not bad about as good as Great Dragon but not nearly as cheap) and am now deloading watching the news and then probably some Hulu and maybe a movie or some FIFA tonight. Tomorrow I am back at is as I have an exam next Tuesday. LIfe marches on!

Shocking fact

So today on the news they showed a segment of an interview with Hillary Clinton as she leaves office as Secretary of State. They claimed that in the last 4 years she traveled to 112 countries and logged over 1 million miles! That is pretty insane. Regardless of your political opinion you can't doubt the dedication of some of people serving our country and personally I'm shocked she made it all the way to the end of her 4th term before she had health problems. Thanks for your service Hillary, now go get some rest!

How to advertise for boring science presentations

The key is bribery ("treats")

ESPN article about the future of US soccer

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/name/soccerusa/id/1055?cc=5901

So I've had a lot of soccer posts lately but this article picture was too funny to leave out. Ray Lewis on a soccer field? That is just comical.

Journalism

Sometimes I wonder about the state of journalism in this country. For instance, this article
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/j-j-redick-went-justin-bieber-concert-because-162302456--nba.html
why is this news? This was on the front page of Yahoo news. I guess a better question is why I still continue to go to Yahoo to look for things to read. It's one I continue to ask myself.

Correction

Apparently Eastern Tennessee State is ranked 72 in the country. They did have some pretty solid players although they were outmatched across the board. Apparently this weekend is a mini-tournament to qualify for the National Indoor Tournament in a few weeks in Seattle. OSU plays Miami tomorrow for the bid I am trying to decide if I am going to go. Miami is not as highly ranked as I would have thought (about 70 as well) which is surprising for being a warm school and the amount of talent in the state of Florida.

Buckeye tennis

Taking some time to relax this afternoon and go to my first Buckeye tennis match. The indoor facility is only about a 5 minute drive from my apartment so I thought I would head over to watch their meet today vs Eastern Tennessee. It wasn't a very close meet (OSU is ranked 4th in the country and ETSU is unranked) but it was fun to watch some tennis again. Definitely a good break before I head back into and work on my presentation some more which is sucking my life away. Next Sunday 6th ranked Georgia Bulldogs come to town so hopefully I can study a lot for my Tuesday test beforehand so I can go to the meet AND watch the Superbowl. We shall see however.

9 year old bicycle kick

So Barcelona is known for their famous youth academy called "La Masia" that produced greats like Leo Messi, Xaxi, Iniesta, and many many more. This video of a 9 year old producing a bicycle kick in a youth game just proves that this place will continue to turn out talent. I'm not sure how they do it but whatever approach they take to soccer could be applied to so many more things such as school, music, and other extracurricular activities.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/video/espnfc/video?id=1312831&cc=5901

Snow at the Colony Square Apartments

Can't see the enormous flakes in the photo but the snow has really come down today. Traffic on Olentangy River Road was about 25-30 mph on a 45 mph road.

New Star Wars Director?

So recently we found out that Disney bought the rights to the Star Wars franchise and were making 3 more episodes. As a kid I loved Star Wars (nerd yeah I know, deal with it) so I was surprised but happy to hear the news. Today they announced JJ Abrams is going to direct this movie. After a quick google search I realized that JJ Abrams indeed directed many quality movies and television series. He directed "Alias", a great action TV series, "Lost", one of my favorites until it got crazy and I never actally managed to finish the series, "Fringe" which is another freaky TV show, "Revolution" which is a new hit series that I personally liked, and numerous movies such as a few of the "Mission Impossible" movies. He also happened to direct the most recent and also the upcoming Star Trek movies. Now the last one was awesome (I saw it at midnight even though I'm not a Star Trek fan and it was awesome) but it is very funny that the Star Trek director is directing Star Wars. Star Trek vs Star Wars was a common lunch table argument back in elementary school and my high school "Pops" concert one year had a "Space" theme where one of the sketches is people dressed as characters from both movies get into an argument at a convention. I streamed "Pops" live on my computer that year I happened to be stuck in a hotel for tennis. Anyway the irony of the situation amused me and I thought I would write about it. Now back to preparing my presentation for Wednesday.

Snow in Columbus

Not much but enough for a photo.

A new low?

Kicking a ball boy? Seriouslyyyyyy
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/video/espnfc/video?id=1310799&cc=5901

Survival of the fittest

So today it is about 10 degrees here in Columbus but as I went over the river to one of my classes I noticed a large group of ducks still in the river. If you can see you will notice large chunks of ice along the shore line of the river (which has also alarmingly decreased in water level again). I'm not sure what these ducks are doing but you would have thought they would have gone home for winter. Also as surprising as this is the ducks still sited in Mirror Lake as thousands of drunk college students jumped into the lake. Please refer to the "Mirror Lake" in November for a refresher.

Pictures of cells

So here are some photos of my preliminary work in my lab. The first photo is a bright-field microscope shot of 293 T cells which are immune cells grown from embryonic kidney tissue that are good for transfection (infection) studies such as the one we are doing in the Wu lab.
 

The second photo is a fluorescence microscope photo of 293 T cells that were not infected with a virus. The virus contains a gene called GFP that produces a protein that glows green so you know when cells have been infected and you can thus measure the level of infectivity. Photo 2 is a negative control (was not infected) and thus it accurately shows no green proteins.

 

 This photo contains cells that have been infected and as you can readily see some of them are glowing green. After this we put the cells through a machine to see the infectivity rate and we go from there.

 I thought these photos were kind of cool looking and a good chance to give everyone a very basic idea of what I am doing here. Hope you enjoyed!

Important life lesson

Always good to challenge yourself by putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation and seeing how you handle it. I think it is important to regularly challenge your own beliefs as well and so you do not become ignorant. In addition, you might just learn something new that will open your eyes.

Benefits of moving South

So today the temperature in Columbus is 21 degrees. It's definitely cold and a change from the warm 40s of the weekend but it certainly doesn't compare to the -10 degrees it is in St. Anthony Minnesota at the moment. These "freezing" Ohio winters other students were trying to tell me about must not be too bad.

Called it!

49ers vs Ravens in two weeks. You heard it here. I had a few friends over from the program to watch the game/ play FIFA and it was a very enjoyable Sunday off. Tomorrow I have lots of homework to do but I will only have to stop by lab for a few minutes so tomorrow will not be too strenuous as well. I will potentially return to predict the Superbowl if I am confident in my picks.

Superbowl predictions

Today I predict the San Francisco 49ers will win their game. The other game is a bit of a toss-up but at the very least New England's 9.5 spread is absurd so either the Ravens will win or they will lose by a touchdown or less. I predict the Ravens win after their gutsy win last week and we have a 49ers vs Ravens Superbowl. You heard it here folks

Some cool photos

So I've been following the facebook page "I #$%@%^# love science". Profanity aside they have some pretty cool posts on there. Here are a few of the cool photos.

Cool little story

Is winning all that counts? Are you absolutely sure about that?

Very little has been said about this…..On December 2, Basque athlete Iván Fernández Anaya was competing in a cross-country race in Burlada, Navarre. He was running second, some distance behind race leader Abel Mutai - bronze medalist in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the London Olympics. As they entered the finishing straight, he saw the Kenyan runner - the certain winner of the race - mistakenly pull up about 10 meters before the finish, thinking he had already crossed the line.

Fernández Anaya quickly caught up with him, but instead of exploiting Mutai's mistake to speed past and claim an unlikely victory, he stayed behind and, using gestures, guided the Kenyan to the line and let him cross first.

Ivan Fernandez Anaya, a Basque runner of 24 years who is considered an athlete with a big future (champion of Spain of 5,000 meters in promise category two years ago) said after the test:
"But even if they had told me that winning would have earned me a place in the Spanish team for the European championships, I wouldn't have done it either. I also think that I have earned more of a name having done what I did than if I had won. And that is very important, because today, with the way things are in all circles, in soccer, in society, in politics, where it seems anything goes, a gesture of honesty goes down well."

He said at the beginning: unfortunately, very little has been said of the gesture. And it's a shame. In my opinion, it would be nice to explain to children, so they do not think that sport is only what they see on TV: violent kicks in abundance, posh statements, fingers in the eyes of the enemy ...

Modern Art

So today's science lesson is about a technique called a Western blot that we often do in lab. The technique is used to test a cell culture for a certain protein by using a molecule (antibody) to attach to it and give off a fluorescent signal so you can see it. You run it down a charge gel to sort by size and then pour the antibody on it and take a picture. It's called a Southern blot because the original idea was from a guy named Edwin Southern probing for DNA. Then there's the Northern blot for RNA, Western for protein, Eastern for fatty acids, and over 10 more variations (South by Southwest, reverse Southern, far Eastern, etc...)....This is what one is supposed to look like.... 

This is what mine looked like.....

I'm not really sure what happened but needless to say I had to redo the experiment. I have deemed it to be "Modern Art" and have printed off and signed several copies for people on the floor. Better luck next time!

Scandals

While everyone seems to be talking about the Manti Te'o scandal this is all I can think about
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/story-man-outsourced-china-could-135701981.html

Australian Open

Keeping along the line of sports, the Australian Open started this week. Obviously for me it's a big deal being one of the 4 Major tennis tournaments of the year but with the time change it's difficult to watch. Last night I caught a little when I got home from work/study around 10 last night for a half hour or so and hope to watch a little more as the week goes along. Definitely a good unwinding activity for me. Still undecided whether the new time zone is better, worse, or not a factor for watching this tournament.

Pep to Bayern Munich?

So this is significant only to people who follow soccer but Barcelona's legendary coach, Pep Guardiola, has come out of retirement and signed for a new team. This is cool news because Bayern Munich is super talented and I'm curious to see how the future will change for them. That is all for notable news today.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/name/laliga/id/336?cc=5901

Bittersweet Day

So today marks the beginning of the Kohawk tennis season and for the first time in 4 years I will not be there to participate. Don't get my wrong, the first few weeks of practice are miserable. The days are long and repetitive, the conditioning is tough, the challenge matches test all of your nerves and after it's all done you have to go do your homework. But through all the hard work during the season and plenty in the off season I eventually got to experience a few remarkable moments and so I've decided to put a few photos together from my career for old times sake. 

Photo of me my freshmen year. Long (full) head of hair and clean shaven :)

The Racket Center

Winning B flight singles my Freshmen year at conference.

Finally winning conference 5-4 against Luther.

Seniors and Coach Rodgers

Banquet speech after delaying the start for over an hour due to my extensive singles match (more later)

This (and the top photo) are from when I won the 5th and deciding point against Wisconsin Whitewater in my senior day meet. What a moment!

Winning conference led to an appearance in the NCAA tournament

And of course any experience with Rob (Bobo)

Here is my award winning Prezi of Rob now with over 170 views :) 

http://prezi.com/9djdfcx7bsbe/rob-bobo-rye-and-his-career-at-coe/

Coaches and Rob trying to imitate coach

The team

And to top it off a few photos of where the journey began on the city courts of St. Anthony Village. Yes our jerseys were blue....