Lab-Life

I am slowly beginning to look for a job ; at least, for what I’ll do after my Ph.D. (there is still a lot of work in order to finish it!) (some people find that I am too slow at this quest for a job). I worked hard to develop the behavioural lab but I think that I wouldn’t be able to continue in this field (behavioural science doesn’t get a lot of funding). Anyway, I have some other people to see before I perhaps decide to reject this career option for/by myself. ...

As I previously wrote, I’ve discovered the Beamer class for LaTeX some months ago and I really like it! It’s very easy and straightforward to use (provided you know a little bit of LaTeX, of course). I’ve also noticed it forces me to actually prepare my slides and illustrations before beginning to create the slide show. This is a good point since 1) it forces me to stress the structure (rather than doing it as one goes along the slides) and 2) it allows me an easier and better re-use of illustrations and slides previously shown (in Powerpoint or Impress, you had to think of what objects you have to copy ; here, you have only text to copy). ...

Since nearly two weeks, we are chronically exposed to 50-200 radioactive disintegrations per second in the lab.

Every morning since the beginning of my Ph.D., I check the temperature and relative humidity when I am arriving in the lab. Now, after nearly 4 years, I have really nice curves (ok: nice charts, if you prefer) … As you can see, temperature for the animals is always between 20°C and 25°C (this is good) and relative humidity in their room usually fits in the 20-80% range (ideal range is 30-70%). For a lab where we are only able to monitor the temperature and relative humidity, it’s good. I am sure that if we had the possibility to control it, it will be better (we only have a pot of water if the relative humidity is too low or an additional heater if the temperature is too low). ...

Today (March 21st) is the International Sleep Day. The Belgian Asociation for the Study of Sleep contributes to the Sleep Day by inviting sleepcenters to organise information sessions ( list here). Unfortunately, neither the University of Liege human sleep lab nor my animal sleep lab are participating (we lacked time to organise something good and we are lacking people to welcome the public). :-( But, if you have time, today, pay these sleep centers a visit.

The National Academies Press are putting some of their books on-line. I was particularly interested in the Guidelines for the Care and Use of Mammals in Neuroscience and Behavioral Research. The only “trick” is that they provide the book one page at a time (either in HTML or in PDF format). If you want entire chapters or the whole book in one file, you have to purchase it. I think it is a fair deal (how many publishers do that?). ...

Today was the last day to get rid of all the old computers and electronic devices we could “store” in our lab. As you can see below, they are mainly broken screens …

After the IR camera, I bought a dB meter and a light meter for the laboratory. They were the cheapest ones available (but they are still costly, around 150 euros, knowing money is coming from my own pocket). The dB meter measures noise level. In my office, it measured 62 dB (approximately). According to the Wikipedia article on Decibel, it’s between “Office or restaurant inside” and “Busy traffic at 5 meters”. The problem is that I am exposed to this continuous environmental noise everyday, at least 8 hours a day. Now I can put a number on the reason why I appreciate silence and calm. Fortunately, I only have a few months left, here. ...

Two weeks ago, I bought a small IR camera on eBay. I received it this morning and I managed to have some time to test it. The camera is quite small (approximatively 15cm long, 10cm in height without the mounting kit) and comes from a Chinese factory ( Shenzhen Lianyida Science Co. Ltd ; I have the LYD-806C CCD model). The box is in plastic. It is said to be “weather proof” but, anyway, this one will stay indoor. ...

I was looking if a XMLDTDs already exists for my field in biology (and, of course, I didn’t find any). It seems that bioxml.org is not available tonight (and wasn’t available before ; a WHOIS search told me that it is owned by someone from the bioperl project). I’ve found three collection of links to biologically-related DTDs: one by Paul Gordon, one by XML.com ( XML.com DTD repositories) and one by Andreas Matern. If you are interested, you can even try a seach in the XML.org registry. Most DTDs are focused on genes / genetics / genomics, proteins / proteomic, … but very few DTDs exist in other biological fields. And, of course, I am looking for a DTD in another field! All right, all right, I’ll try to write my own definition … ...