General

eClutter No More!

Posted on by admin

A nice clean desktop and organized inboxes for the new year...
A nice clean desktop and organized inboxes for the new year…
As each year draws to a close, I find myself making a mental list of everything that I want to change for the new year. I’m going to work out more often, I’m going to eat less starch (goodbye, my dear French bread), I am going to declutter my closets…the list goes on and on.  Unfortunately, my list looks very similar year over year, so I think I’m going to make one, true resolution and stick with it this year. I am going to do a big, fat, clean sweep of my computer. It doesn’t sound like a big task, but I have a veritable electronic war zone in front of me and I am feeling the need to purge.  Having this amount of eClutter is just as disruptive to my productivity as is having a messy house.

I was completely embarrassed a few days ago when I was having some computer issues at work.  The wonderful staff at the help desk logged into my computer remotely and saw the roughly 90 bajillion icons and shortcuts on my desktop. This was, electronically speaking, akin to having your in-laws over for dinner and having them see a pile of laundry laying in the middle of the livingroom floor. There is nothing suspect or devious about the material on there, but the sheer mess of it was embarrassing. My personal email accounts are also a terrifying disaster. I have, over the the years, subscribed to way to many newsletters and newsfeeds. It’s to the point that I have roughly 3000 unread personal email messages that are all old newsletters, promotions, and offers that have long-since expired. I am electronically suffocating under all the mess.

So here’s my plan for 2013:

  1. I am going to clean up my shortcuts and delete all the stuff that I don’t need.
  2. I am going to clean my gmail inbox, and
  3. I am going on a unsubscribe extravaganza.

If I can manage to get all of that cleaned, I just may have time to hit the gym!

Rats Avatars: A New Twist On Virtual Reality

Posted on by Kelly Grooms

Imagine playing a simple game in a virtual-reality setting. You move an avatar around a room trying to entice your opponent’s avatar to move closer to you when you are in certain spot. Meanwhile, 12 km away, cameras track your opponent’s movements around an arena that also contains a robotic representation of you. The cameras are telling your opponent’s avatar where to move in your virtual reality setting based on where they move in their actual setting.

Your goal is to score the most points by moving the virtual you into proximity with your opponent’s avatar while you are both at a certain location within the virtual room. If you succeed, you score a point. If you and your opponent get too close anywhere else in the room, your opponent scores a point. Your opponent, however, is not terribly interested in points; your opponent wants to get close to the robotic you because it has snacks. Your opponent is a rat, Continue reading “Rats Avatars: A New Twist On Virtual Reality”

American Society for Human Genetics Meeting

Posted on by admin

To everyone who stopped by the Promega booth at the ASHG meeting last week, thank you! We had some great conversations about science, life in the lab, and the projects you are all working on. I enjoy this meeting every year. I enjoy speaking with the graduate students, the post-docs, the clinicians, bioinformaticians, and genetic counselors. I did not have a chance to go to any of the talks this year, but the discussions that happened within the Promega booth were fascinating! It is heartening to see the tools that Promega provides helping scientists to unravel some mysteries about the human genome and human disease. I am proud to be a collaborator in this effort, and I look forward to next year’s meeting. The next chapter of each of your research stories will be, no doubt, as interesting as the last.

It’s the crunchy bits I like the best

Posted on by admin

I was supremely lucky this past fall to get six delicious fresh figs. It’s a rare treat for me since figs have such a short season and an even shorter shelf life. This year, I nearly had to leg wrestle my way to the bin at the store to score some of these fresh beauties. I had commented to another patron at the store that I couldn’t wait to get these little fellas home, stuff them with some goat cheese, wrap them in a bit of bacon, give them a quick balsamic and honey glaze, and pop them into the oven. Now, tender, sweet figs stuffed with rich, herbed goat cheese and wrapped with what is, quite possibly, the world’s most perfect meat makes me weak in the knees. The bacon, of course, is sublime, but the sweetness of the figs with the delicate crunch of those seeds really sells it.

My fellow shopper replied with “Well, good for you. I couldn’t possibly eat any of that. I’m vegan.”  Fair enough. In a past life, I worked as a personal chef and did a tremendous amount of work with vegetarians and vegans alike. Although I may never personally understand a life without cheese, I can respect it and I can certainly cook in that fashion.

One portion of that exchange, however, didn’t quite seem right. I actually followed Mr. Vegan (I didn’t ask his name) into the next aisle and asked for some clarification. “I’m sorry,” I continued, “but what did you mean by you couldn’t eat any of it? Cheese and bacon are out, but who could ever turn down a looker like this?” I asked, tapping my fresh figs ever so gently.

He just smiled and told me to look it up. Harrumph. Continue reading “It’s the crunchy bits I like the best”

Happy Birthday to You: Are Your Hands Clean?

Posted on by Kelly Grooms

My daughter has been actively planning her birthday for about three weeks now (and she still has almost two months to wait). At the top of her wish list this year? Hand sanitizer. As my kids headed back to school this week, I noticed that one of the most popular pieces of backpack “bling” among her little friends was little bottles of: you guessed it, hand sanitizer. In bright colored silicone covers, with yummy sounding scents, little bottles of hand sanitizer bounced along on the backpacks of a lot of the youngsters walking into the school.

The first thought that might come into your head is “Wow. Those kids are going to be so healthy. All those nasty germs might as well look elsewhere for victims.” And you would be at least partially right. Proper hand hygiene can decrease the transmission of cold viruses as well as other germs, and hand sanitizer can play a part in good hand hygiene when it is used properly and in the right quantity.

What hand sanitizer can not do is take the place of washing hands. It does not, for instance, remove dirt or other contaminants. (Although it can help smear the dirt around so that it forms a more evenly dispersed layer, prompting your child to claim their hands have been cleaned). Hand sanitizers also will not effectively eliminate nonenveloped viruses such as the norovirus. These are the nasty little things that are responsible for the majority of acute gastrointestinal illnesses. (1,2,3). In fact, using hand sanitizers may actually increase the spread of these viruses if it results in a decrease of hand washing with soap and water.

Hand sanitizers that are most effective contain ethyl alcohol (62% to 95% concentration), benzalkonium chloride, salicylic acid, pyroglutamic acid, and triclosan. These ingredients, while making the sanitizers effective against some germs, also dry out the skin and destroy some to the naturally existing fauna on the skin, which gives other germs a chance to take hold. An example is Clostridium difficile. This gram-positive, spore-forming bacteria can cause severe intestinal upset and diarrhea when competing bacteria in the digestive track have been wiped out by antibiotics. A 2010 study found that some people who were over reliant on sanitizers had C. difficile spores colonizing on their hands (4).

C. difficile infections are probably not a big risk for the average school-age child, but the example highlights the fact that hand sanitizers are not the silver bullet of hand hygiene that they are sometimes portrayed to be. The center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. lists the following guidelines for hand washing:

  • Wet your hands with clean running water (warm or cold) and apply soap.
  • Rub your hands together to make a lather and scrub them well; be sure to scrub the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails.
  • Continue rubbing your hands for at least 20 seconds. Need a timer? Hum the “Happy Birthday” song from beginning to end twice.
  • Rinse your hands well under running water.
  • Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry.

Washing hands with soap and water is the best way to reduce the number of germs on them. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol. Alcohol-based hand sanitizers can quickly reduce the number of germs on hands in some situations, but sanitizers do not eliminate all types of germs. (5).

My daughter’s birthday is still two months away, but I am going to suggest to her that she start practicing for it now. I am going to suggest she sing “Happy Birthday” to herself twice while washing her hands, and leave the hand sanitizer on her backpack for those times when soap and water are not available.

References

  1. Liu P, Yuen Y, Hsiao HM, Jaykus LA, Moe C. (2010) Appl Environ Microbiol. 76, :394–9.
  2. Hand sanitizers may actually cause outbreaks of norovirus. Medical New Today website. ww.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232708.php. Accessed August 29, 2012.
  3. Hall AJ, Vinjé J, Lopman B, et al. Updated norovirus outbreak management and disease prevention guidelines. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr6003a1.htm. Accessed August 29, 2012.
  4. Jabbar, U., Leischner, J., Kasper, D., et al. (2010) Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 31, 56–70.
  5. CDC website http://www.cdc.gov/features/handwashing/ Accessed August 29, 2012.

Molecular Connections Between Sleep Deprivation and Inflammation

Posted on by Isobel Maciver

Anyone who has travelled across time zones knows how unpleasant it is when the regular rhythm of your biological clock is disrupted. Jetlag results when the body’s internal clock, or circadian rhythm is out of sync with external cues for “day and “night”, resulting in insomnia, extreme tiredness, difficulty concentrating and various other unpleasant symptoms.

On the bright side, jetlag is at least a temporary misery that is usually over after a few days of acclimation to the new time zone. Long-term disruption of the natural sleep/wake cycle, such as encountered by frequent long-distance travellers, shift workers, or people with physiological conditions that affect circadian rhythms, can be much more debilitating. Longer term health effects that have been associated with constant disruption of circadian rhythms include, insomnia, concentration problems, and increased susceptibility to diseases associated with chronic inflammation such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Despite the fact that many of the genes and proteins involved in central control of circadian rhythms are known, the reason for the implied association between circadian clock components and immune function is not understood. Recently, a paper was published in the July issue of PNAS that identified a potential link between a circadian clock component and chronic inflammation. Continue reading “Molecular Connections Between Sleep Deprivation and Inflammation”

Orchids and Dandelions: Parenting the Flowers and Weeds

Posted on by Kelly Grooms

My seven year old daughter has a necklace I made her that says “Dandelion Girl” . I made it for her because she remains enamored with these cheerful yellow flowers despite other people’s best attempts to disillusion her. To her they are not weeds, but pretty flowers that turn to a white puff ball that a nature-made toy. Imagine my surprise when I came across an article referring to the genetics of “Dandelion Children”.

The name come from a Swedish expression describing dandelion children as those who can survive and thrive in whatever circumstances they encounter. The opposite of these are “Orchard Children”, children who are highly sensitive to their surroundings and when properly nurtured, blossom, often spectacularly, but when neglected often fail just as spectacularly. Continue reading “Orchids and Dandelions: Parenting the Flowers and Weeds”

Curiosity Rover on Track for August 5 Landing

Posted on by Promega

[wpvideo kN9KABwW]With the amazing, beyond belief success of the Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the expectations are high for Curiosity. However, the task is far more difficult. With a much larger rover to land, the landing is more difficult. If you haven’t seen NASA’s “Seven Minutes of Terror” video, it’s worth a look.

Where will you be on August 5? Will you be awake and holding your breath and watching your twitter feed—looking for the first news of a successful landing from NASA?

The Overachiever’s Kryptonite a.k.a. The Migraine Headache

Posted on by Karen Reece

Sometimes I feel like a super hero: taking on several projects at once and testing my ability to multitask and schedule to accomplish all my goals on time with quality work. When I get on a roll, I feel like no one and nothing can stop me. Like any super hero, however, I have my Kryptonite: the migraine headache. When the migraine comes on, my progress is brought to a complete halt and I am powerless. Light becomes unbearable, sound becomes intolerable, and I feel like a hatchet has sliced through my cerebrum and is lodged in my skull. For years, I suffered from these headaches and felt totally helpless. When the migraine came on, all I could do was lay in a dark, silent room, sometimes for days, praying for relief, as no over-the-counter medication could touch the pain. Continue reading “The Overachiever’s Kryptonite a.k.a. The Migraine Headache”