Summer is the time to catch up on work ... and procrastinate on the blog

Lots of things have happened since my last post:

March 2014 - San Diego Fly Meeting - probably the best fly meeting I've been to in terms of networking, actual career planning, and overall science. It probably has to do with where I am in graduate school (finishing up projects, making good progress on requirements, thinking about the next step). 

April 2014 - Seminars, seminars, seminars to give. 

May 2014 - current - working on paper manuscript, working on my thesis project, working on experiments for grants.

Hopefully, this post will break the rut and I hope to be posting on a more regular basis again. 

Google Now is the modern-day laboratory timer

Our time in the lab is punctuated by the incessant and demanding beeping of timers. They are to the research environment what bird songs are to the rainforest. Timers have not changed much in the 10+ years I have been in a lab environment, nor should they. They have one task to perform and they perform it with aplomb.

But sometimes, we have to leave the lab and mingle with other people. Maybe we need to attend a seminar or go grab something from the cafeteria. In the 10+ years I have been in a lab environment, carrying around a timer has always been a hassle (let's not even talk about clipping it on to our lab coats or pants).

Not anymore, thanks to the prevalence of smartphones and Google Now.

Google Now is the context-aware personal assistant on your modern Android phones. It has a lot of features, but I would like to focus on this one ability :

Type reminder in Chrome universal bar. It understands plain English.

Get a reminder on your desktop computer and on your Android phone a la laboratory timer. 

My other workspace

If you happen to stop by my lab on a typical day, you probably will not find me working at the bench or sitting in front of my desk. 

Now, it's easy to see how this can give the wrong impression to some people (Is he off to get coffee again??).

But in reality, I'm holed up in a small non-descript room with the single most expensive piece of equipment that I've ever worked with. This is our imaging platform. 

I've seen go through a number of upgrades (motorized XY stage, LED illumination system, upgrade to the Z stepper unit and the actual stand itself) and have had some harrowing close calls (managing to drop something INSIDE the stand itself).

I'm quite lucky to have such a capable imaging platform in-house as I was really able to spend time and get very comfortable with microscopy through the years, both for gathering data and acquiring publication quality images. 

Fighting noise with noise - dealing with a loud lab environment

Labs are noisy places and I'm not just talking about the sounds of researchers working and talking (sometimes a lot of talking). Even an empty lab generates a lot of noise and it comes from all the incubators, fridges, freezers, and other doodads that are constantly humming in the background.

This becomes very apparent when you happen to be in the lab when the power goes out. All of a sudden, it becomes eeriely quiet--so quiet that people unconsciously start whispering to each other like they would in a church or an art museum. I work in an open lab floor layout and I can hear people talking and paper rustlings down to both ends of the hall.

Unfortunately, I can't rely on power outages to give some peace and quiet in the lab when I'm trying to write or prepare a talk.

Enter the white noise generator.

I've heard about white noise generators and how a lot of people swear by its ability to generate a cocoon of focus-promoting sound bubble. I gave it a try and, I must say, I am one of those people who actually find that it works. In fact, it works, amazingly well.

I downloaded this app called White Noise Lite on to my phone. I also use one of those noise-isolating earbuds. There's a bunch of different sounds like beach, clock, crickets, fan, etc. I personally find the airplane sound to be the most effective.

With this setup, I've been able to work anywhere: at my desk, in the break room, in the cafeteria. More importantly, my focus stays on for much longer than I normally would. Give it a try and let me know if you have other tips and tricks to staying focused while in the lab.

My first slide presentation using the Chromebook and Google Slides

Finally, I was able to use my Chromebook and Google Slides to do a long slide presentation.

I presented a journal article in a joint lab meeting. It's with a friendly crowd so I didn't feel pressured if there are technical difficulties that come up (there wasn't, by the way). However, it was detailed and lengthy enough that it's a good stand-in for the more formal seminar setting.

First, Google Slides had all the features that I usually use. It really shone when laying out and aligning blocks of text and images. I would say, in this area, it performed better than Powerpoint. It defaults to a widescreen aspect ratio for the slides. For people with older VGA projectors, remember to set the slides to regular 4:3 format before doing much work. I don't use a lot of animations or fonts. Whatever was available was sufficient for me. Other people might find it a bit limiting.

Since my Chromebook only has HDMI out, I had to buy an HDMI-to-VGA adapter, like this one. Connecting the Chromebook to the VGA projector was smooth. I didn't have to power anything down prior to connecting, as some people suggest. However, the HDMI-to-VGA adapter can't draw enough power from the HDMI port alone. Initially, the projected image had a pinkish/reddish tint to it and some colors were not as bright. Thankfully, the port comes with a short USB cable that connects to adapter itself to draw additional power. This solved the issue completely but is another piece of cable to remember to bring.

I was even brave enough to not plug in the Chromebook. It was nothing to worry about, though, as I didn't even see a noticeable reduction on the battery meter.

All in all, it was a success and I'm definitely going to use the Chromebook again for presenting.

San Diego Fly Meeting

This year's annual Drosophila conference will be in San Diego from March 26-30, 2014.

I am particularly looking forward to it because: 1) I have not been to San Diego, and 2) I have money from my fellowship to support my travel.

Due to the shifting demographics in our lab (i.e., no other male lab members) and non-committal responses from other area male Drosophilists, I am ending up having to split the lodging cost with ... a stranger.

This might turn out great, or it can be a disaster. Whatever it turns out to be, it will be an interesting story.

Here's my roommate ad posting, if anyone's interested.

Introductions are in order

At the time of this writing, I am a senior PhD candidate in Genetics, working in a Drosophila research lab studying cell migration.

Majority of my research experience (almost 10 years now) has been working with Drosophila. They are an awesome and versatile model organism and highly adaptable to a variety of experimental techniques. 

However, the real strength of Drosophila research lies in its roots: genetics.