Torfinn Nome - Life as a …

I’ve not been able to do much work in the lab lately. Mostly because I’m a Master of Procrastination(TM). But also because I’ve been working on finishing the practical part of a course I’m taking this semester, chromatography. We’re having three lab exercises, using three separation techniques. Ion exchange column, GC (with FID) and HPLC. Instead of the tidious work of writing lab journals, posters are to be presented in plenum. This course is very relevant to my thesis, as I will be using eluation techniques for purifying my precious chitin binding proteins.

Vi vurderer å selge seilbåten vår, en Fabola Campus 600. Lettseilt liten seilbåt på rundt 19 fot (6,15m), senkekjøl, overnattingsplass for fire, storseil og fokk, og påhengs. Ikke at jeg egentlig vil selge den, har hatt mange fine turer med den. Men det blir vanskelig å få tid nok (eller ta seg tid…) til å bruke den fremover. Får vel prøve å slenge inn en annonse på FINN.no.

Edit: The ad went public one evening at 23:00. 600 page views by 11:00 the next morning, 4 phone calls, several emails. I had to disable the ad within 12:00. SOLD!

Langpanne:

300 g smør smeltes
2 kopper vann

4 kopper sukker
4 kopper hvetemel
8 toppede ss kakao
2 ts vaniljesukker

1 kopp kulturmelk
2 ts natron

4 sammenpiskede egg

180 grader 20-30 min

Glasur:
Smelt to plater sjokolade (Koke-, Dronning-sjokolade, etc) i vannbad, miks det så sammen med litt sterk kaffe, smør og melis til passende konsistens. Jo mer smør og melis, jo mer “kremete”. Jo mer sjokolade, jo mer “glasur”.

1) Smelt smør og ha oppi vann.
2) Bland det tørre.
3) Ha oppi smør.
4) Bland melk og natron. Ha oppi deigen.
5) Pisk egg og ha oppi resten.
6) Stek midt i ovnen.
7) Vent med glasuren til kaken er avkjølt.

I attended an open lecture/seminar today for employees and students, focusing on what is being done concerning ethics and code of conducts at the university. Dag Helland, from the University of Bergen, held the introductory, talking mostly about the responsibilities of being a co-author of a paper. All this in light of the infamous stem cell stunt in South Korea (Hwang Woo Suk), but also the norwegian researcher Jon Sudbø who also manipulated and produced false research data. None of the co-authors actually seemed to have read the articles being published. One of the audience argued that we have all kinds of control organs in our society; making sure the food is safe to eat and water safe to drink, that animals are treated well, etc, but there is no institution for making sure that what scientists publish is not a pile of crap. Or even better, a pile of crap that others have already published… There seemed to be a concensus in the audience that conserving research data, having a generalised system making them available for later reproduction, was as important. Concerning education: I was told that an ethics course is compulsory for master students at another norwegian university. It’s only a suggested course here.

Initiating a new transformation process this Friday, I spent most of the weekend in the lab. Mostly … waiting. This evening, at 19:30, looking at the result (after restriction enzyme cutting): The transformation was successfull! Nothing to write home about, really… But. After a week of feeling crappy. Lacking results. Nothing going the way you want them to. Finally looking at a successfull result materialising in front of your eyes somehow makes it all worth while, and then some!