Despite the slowness of work and my pessimistic attitude toward it, a few good things do turn up now and then. For example, a couple weeks ago I made this!
What is it? It's a plate of media called sheep blood agar (thus the red color) on which I grew fecal samples from mice who had either gotten regular water (left) or water with some antibiotic in it (right). The point was to wipe out the bacteria that normally live in the mouse intestine with the antibiotic. And, obviously, it worked, because almost nothing grew on the right side of the plate, whereas tons of little grey blobs showed up on the left.
A simple "experiment," not really proving anything novel or exciting, but it was thrilling to have something actually turn out the way I wanted it to! I'm stickin' that picture up on the refrigerator, Mommy!
Another glimmer of hope came today when a Western blot (thing to detect small amounts of protein) I developed showed much higher levels of protein than I had expected. The bad news is now I have to do the blot over again because the protein levels are TOO high, but the good news is that it "worked."
I often wonder what it would be like if I worked in some other field. Do they ever have experiences like my experiments that I do over and over and over again but get no positive results. I suppose that in most fields people do who this don't last long because they're classified as unproductive workers. Eek...am I an unproductive worker...???
1 comment:
Wow, you seem to work in a really cool field of study. I would think that you would feel great about your work, not unproductive. You are just eliminating the possibilities correct? Any ways, just happened upon your entry and really, really, really enjoyed it!! That is def. something you should hang on your fridge (hope the fridge feels honored! What kind of fridge do you own? You should name you fridge mabye...). Have a good day and God bless Ruth!
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