Martha Stewart in the lab ?

What if we invited Martha Stewart to the lab ? She could do a show on how to pour the perfect sequencing gel, or how to make competent bacteria, purify DNA .... humm.... just imagine ...
fade out...

So, today we will be pouring a sequencing gel. A sequencing gel is a 0.5 mm thin slab of gel uniformly spread between two glass plates, it is used to separate DNA fragments that are just one nucleotide base larger than the next.

So, first we'll need:

• two glass plates, these are about 50 cm tall and 35 cm wide, note that one is about 3 cm shorter
• two spacer strips 0.5 cm thick
• a comb (we will use to create the wells in the gel where the sample is applied)
• a 8M, 1X TBE, 20 % acrylamide solution
• a 8M urea, 1XTBE solution to dilute the acrylamide
• 10 % ammonium persulfate
• TEMED

now, there are as many ways to pour a sequencing gel as there are scientists in a lab. my preferred technique is using these silicon gaskets. I find them quite practical to avoid leaks.

etc. etc. ....fade back in ... maybe I'll do that, I'll make a video and post it, ha ! I do it often enough with the students, next time I'll just tell them to watch the video...

Everyone knows that science is a lot like cooking, so she should have no trouble at all to adjust.

The commute, part one

After years of relying mostly on my bicicle and the scooter (we were inseperable ! which was not always a good thing) I began using public transportaion in Paris. Paris has a highly extended network of metro lines, RER lines (commuter trains to the rest of ile de france and suburbs) and buses. The trains stop running at around 1 am (now 2 am on sat !) but they are taken over by a very efficient night bus system which has been recently revamped (we all love Delanoe ! the mayor of Paris, but he deserves another post of his own). There is also a brand new slick Tram line, more from Dolanoe's effort to make people leave their cars at home.
Of course I had previously taken public transport, however not exactly during rush hour. There are a lot more people on the metro between 8 and 9 am ! That was quite something the first few days. Took a few weeks actually to get used to seeing these rivers of people flowing through the corridors, tiling up on the quais, jamming into the trains. All kinds of different people, wow, so much to look at, so many fashion faux pas ! so many fashion victims (not that I am anywhere near an expert on the subject, but my uncle is, and a bit must have rubbed off). I had no idea there were so many people in paris, you see a lot less from the scooter. These rivers of people sometimes are more like swarms. I don't know if you've ever seen the birds in Rome. They fly in large groups and they make like big black flowing clouds. The closest analogy is actually the bats in Austin, TX: there is a large long corridor at the entrance of the RER, at the end of the corridors there are deep escalators to either side going to the trains, invariably the river will veer off to the right, like the bats coming out from under the bridge. Only a few people will take the escalator on the left. Same thing happens when people get off the train.

The commute, prologue

About 13 months ago I stopped using my scooter to commute to the lab. A flat tire resulted in having to abandon it near the port royal RER station. I only brought it back home after christmas break, by then it was snowing (see photo). By then I had moved to the new apartment, very near many metro and RER lines, walking distance to Bastille, the marché d'Aligre and several nice cafés. The scooter spent more and more time on the sidewalk. In addition it is an old model, running on leaded gas. Having to add the concentrated lead solution to the "green" petrol was not so much fun either, and each time it caused a little pang to that part of me that worries about the polar bears swimming to their death.
So I caved in, bought a carte orange (the monthly metro pass) and began to commute to work by public transport.

kid photo

guess who this is ...

Geek alert !

dear friends, if you know any rich santa for next year, please tell them I would really like to have one of these thingies: the new apple iphone
thank you ! (not eve spock had something this cool)

X-mas cookies

yes, we survived yet another holiday season. sara mitch and I made xmas cookies... one of my favories is the bear that swalled a giant E. coli on the lower left hand corner, mitch made that one.
the whole family came over for new year's, and we did a bunch of entertaining at the house. It was worth investing in a slightly bigger apartment, so that everyone can come over and be confortable, we even lit a fire a couple of times.

New year's eve menu :

mariarosa and rossella's warm apetizers
mitch and sara's salmon and blinis
homemade thick tagliatelle with shrimps, zaffron and red pepper
brasato, gratinéed leeks and endive
chocolate mousse
pandoro with creme anglaise
armagnac

(recipes to follow...)

oh, I finally found the charger for my camera, so there might be more photos in the posts to come. the weather is unusually warm in paris these days, kinda eerie.