A tale of two kittens Part Two July 18, 2011

The first few weeks with the kittens, they were terrified of me. I would sit in the room with them for hours, watching movies, working or reading, but they’d still panic if I got too close. I had tie the curtains up to stop them from climbing them, I took the legs off the bed so they couldn’t hide under it. I was constantly finding new hiding spots and having move/remove furniture to block said spots.

Completely abusing the "cat cave" bed

I knew food was my greatest weapon, so I bought them canned food and only let them eat when I was in the room. I also discovered via the Tough Love videos that kittens LOVE baby food. That is, actual baby food for human babies! I found a brand that had a variety of meat flavours, and even in their most feral state I could get both kittens licking the baby food off my fingers. It’s like crack cocaine.

There were really tough days. Days when neither of them had eaten and I would be in tears worrying that they would starve. But they didn’t. They won’t. Domestication is better than starvation, but some days I felt like a terrible person for not feeding them.

Maverick was the first to come around. She was always a guts when it came to food, so she’d always be the first to crack and come to me for a meal. In late February we had a huge earthquake in Christchurch, so I was stuck at home for a few weeks while the university was closed. I used the time to work even harder on the kittens. By now I could pick them up (sometimes with thick welding gloves, provided by none other than the Engineer). Maverick scruffed easily, so I could pick her up and sit her on my lap. Goose, however, would twist and squirm so he could still scratch me. Ouch.

Maverick with her new collar

Goose with his new bling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because I was able to handle them, around this time I managed to worm Maverick, plus flea-treat and collar both of them. They looked gorgeous in their new collars, and how can you be angry at kittens that jingle as they run about the room? I started feeding them only when they were on my lap; once again Maverick took to it quicker than Goose. In fact, I think she kinda liked her cuddles.

My cat likes to hide in boxes

Maverik with legs akimbo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The time had come to take them on their first vet’s visit. One morning I packaged them both into a carry cage (they were unimpressed) and took them to the vet to be desexed. They were only there for an hour before I got the phone call to collect them because they were “freaking out”. The lovely vet had done my babies first so that they could go home quickly; I had them back recuperating by lunchtime. All said it was fairly uneventful. Maverick had dissolvable stitches so she didn’t have to go back again, and Goose didn’t need stitches at all.

After the big earthquake in February, sadly a bunch of animals went missing. The SPCA’s response was to provide free microchipping for all animals. Too late for those that went missing, but perhaps some insurance for those of us who still had pets. I took both kittens in for free chipping, plus another cat I was fostering at the time (Beast, an adult torti whose family had lost their home after the Februrary ‘quake). Maverick, again, did well but Goose ran around the vet’s room and I had to catch him with the welding gloves on to get him to sit still long enough for the chip to be inserted.

But then they do this, and everything is okay again…

Maverick sunbathing

Now they were both desexed and microchipped, I could start thinking about letting them outside. And add about ten years to my life….coming up next post.

A tale of two kittens Part One July 11, 2011

Between January and June I was sharing my home with two kittens, Goose and Maverick. I caught them running feral outside my department and spent months turning them around to a domesticated lifestyle.

When I first brought them home I had a hell of a time finding information about what to do with them. Now that their life with me is coming to an end, I thought I’d write up their story in case anyone stumbles across this one day and can use some camaraderie. Plus I get to show off their glamour shots and tell cute stories.

Yes, their names come from Top Gun; although Maverick turned out to be a girl. Female ginger cats are unusual, I assume this is because the gene for ginger coats is recessive, so a female would have to have two copies of the recessive gene in order to be ginger. Males, meanwhile, only need one copy because coat colour in cats is derived from a gene on the X chromosome. Males only have one X chromosome, so they only get one coat colour gene. Ta da! Science

A very feral Maverick

The twins were approximately four months old when I brought them home, though of this I can’t be sure. They were definitely weaned and the mother wasn’t in sight, so four months is I think the lowest age. I read around online and much of what I found was disheartening. “Some cats can never be tamed”. “Over four months of age the likelihood of taming decreases rapidly”.

A few weeks in and they were crazy. My hands were covered with bites and scratches, the spare room I housed them in stunk of cat pee. What on earth had I gotten myself into? I tell you what, bites from kittens HURT. I haven’t seen myself bleed that much since I copped a branch in the nose while out on field work a few years back. They’d clamp down and hold, it was all I could do not to shake them off and send them flying across the room.

There were many teary phone calls and texts to the Engineer in this time period. I was convinced I’d gotten in over my head, that it was too late for them to be tamed, that they weren’t making progress fast enough. My hands hurt and it broke my heart to see them so terrified of me. Luckily the Engineer is far more steadfast than I am and managed to talk me off the ledge every time.

Suspicious

I had no idea what to do with them to start with. The most useful resource I found were a series of videos from the Urban Cat League in NYC. The aptly titled “Tough Love” videos were the sole reason I kept going with the twin terrors. Right to the point where they say there will be discouraging days, but don’t worry the kittens will not starve themselves.

Next post: what brought them round.

Welcome to postgrad June 2, 2011

I’ve had an exciting day. For the past few months I’ve been acting president of our postgraduate students’ association on campus. Right when I was feeling unmotivated and unappreciated I got a much needed boost. An impromptu meeting led to an hour of excited chatter about what postgrads need and how we can provide it. There’s something so energising about meeting someone on the same wavelength as you; perhaps it’s just having someone agreeing with you!

This week I’ve been frustrated at people who are all talk and no “do”. I far prefer to shut my mouth and get things done. So I went into this meeting with the attitude of “what can I do for you right now?” When one of us came up with a good idea, I asked “so what do we have to do to get this started?” Both of us left knowing what we needed to do and I’m pleased to say my side of things are already underway.

The postgrad association has been offered a great opportunity to put together a welcome presentation for incoming international postgraduates. When an idea bites me, it bites me so hard I can’t think of anything else. So now I’m committed to putting together a welcome package that can be adapted and used after I’m gone.

All afternoon I’ve been reading other university websites, checking in on student services, and pulling up resources that will be useful to postgraduates.

Not sure who’s reading this at the moment, but if you have any ideas on what information you wanted when you first started postgraduate studies, I’d love to hear them. I’m sure I’ll stumble across some interesting information that I’ll post and discuss here.

Research etiquette May 31, 2011

It’s taken me a few goes to get this post written. I’ve tried to get to the core of last week’s issues without pointing the finger at anyone else. I may have failed, but I promise I did try.

Human lab rats are a special kind of researcher; by lab rat I mean those of us who spend our time working in the lab, pipetting, centrifuging, and checking facebook. Within our ecology field group, we largely share interests and research subjects. But a lab group can comprise of a wide array of students. I generally stick out as a sore thumb, the ecologist who turns up every now and then to run genetics work.

In the genetics laboratory we have to work with people from all sorts of research backgrounds. We’re all working on different topics, even if we use the same techniques, and we have to find a way to co-exist and get our research done. I see it as similar to flatting. You move in with a bunch of people, you’ve all got different interests and priorities, and you need to find a way to co-habit. You can be the flatmate who never replaces the toilet paper, leaves dirty dishes in the sink, and uses up all the hot water. Or you can pick up after yourself, be responsible and courteous. I’ve lived with all sorts, and now I live alone. There’s a reason for that…

Since my last post I’ve encountered a major issue in our lab. A problematic chemical was left sitting out on the bench where I was blithely using it and consequently messing up my results. It seems everyone else knew of the problem except me. No finger pointing, but the situation did remind me of the flatmate who leaves the empty toilet paper roll in the bathroom for the next person to deal with.

Luckily this is a case of all’s well that ends well; because I’d been anally retentive about saving my samples it only took about a day and a half to re-run said samples with good results. But it’s still frustrating, and I’ve been trying to work out what to do to avoid the situation coming up again.

It’s a little sad that it probably comes down to looking out for yourself. In my experience, the bad flatmate doesn’t change their colours very quickly so instead you have to adapt.

I’ve been thinking pretty hard lately about why the lab work seems to be such a sticking point for me, and I think it was highlighted this week. When I’m working on my own – in the field, writing, reading, data analysis – I get to control all the aspects of my research. If something goes wrong, it’s my fault and it’s easy enough to back-track and work out what happened. The same is not necessarily true within the laboratory, with this particular issue I had already gone back and checked everything only to find out the problem was something else entirely.

In this situation, I’m the more senior person in the lab. So I’m doing my best to lead by example, being responsible, tidy and courteous. I’m also not above a little bit of bossing around. But I think it comes down to having to look after myself. I can’t assume things have been left the way I expect it. A shame, but probably a lesson better learnt than unknown.

I like to believe there’s a silver lining if you’re willing to look, and in this case I have vastly improved some of my lab techniques. So I found it interesting when I stumbled across the same sentiment in a Glamour article on scientist Felisa Wolfe-Simon. (Wolfe-Simon is the first author on the eyebrow-raising research claiming to have found an arsenic-based life form). I decline to comment on the arsenic thing, but one of Wolfe-Simon’s four tips was: “Ask yourself: what’s the part of my job I like the least, and why? If it’s because you’re not good at it, practice”. I’d already been doing that, by checking and improving my lab methods. Now I’m seeing the results and once again I’m enjoying being a lab rat.

Squeak.

Planning for de-motivation May 23, 2011

Monday again so here goes for a weekly post. Last week I was working in the genetics lab, but it feels like I’ve got nothing to show for all the hours I did. A couple of weeks ago I tried extracting DNA from seed coats for the first time. I get DNA out of it, but it’s contaminated and low concentration. I figured I’d try running them through a PCR anyway, but late Wednesday I got results that weren’t encouraging.

For a few days now I’ve had a word document open on my laptop with a lab to-do list; I’ve yet to do anything on it. Ending a day with discouraging results makes getting motivated the following day near impossible. So now four days have passed since I’ve been in the lab and I can’t be bothered picking it up and trying again.

Perhaps I should be looking ahead to avoid those discouraging results coming at bad times? I knew I was going to be busy half of Thursday and all day Friday, and that it takes special motivation to get into uni on a weekend. So last thing on Wednesday, when I was rushing off to dinner with the Engineer, probably wasn’t the smartest time to find out I’ve got to redo work.

Looking at the to-do list, I can do two of the three things today. The third I’d really like to do today, since I have to leave the resulting sample over night before I can test it. But let’s start easier first, and focus on those first two. I know I’ve got most of this week to focus on lab work, so I don’t need to look ahead to avoid the same bad timing as occurred last week.

In non-PhD life, the Engineer “set me up” with a woman he met who owns the same kind of motorbike as I do. I wasn’t thinking too much of it because I’ve tried to set up rides with other women before and they never pan out. But she contacted me first thing yesterday and we ended up going out for a ride and coffee. It was fun riding with another female! I love the boys I ride with but riding with her was a nice break from their antics.

Update: Forgot to post this before I left in the morning, I got 1.5 things done off my list – the remaining 0.5 was out of my control. Tomorrow!

Back into the fray May 16, 2011

It’s been a while! I think it’s somewhat appropriate that my last post was about the stress of PhD work. Life pretty much went down the toilet since I wrote that. Briefly: genetics work failed, my father died, we shifted into a new research building, we had two massive earthquakes, I got depressed, PhD work was non-existent.

That said life is pretty good right now. I’ve finally got some perspective to look back on the past year and think that I might have some things to say that could be useful to other people. There’s been a lot of pain and self-growth in the past year; it’s easy to forget the progress.

So I’m coming back to this blog for two reasons. First, to share some of the hurdles and lessons relating primarily to the PhD. Second, because I need focus and accountability. It’s easy to let entire weeks go by where very little gets done, so I had the idea to write here weekly updating on PhD work. We’ll see how I go…

But first, a state of the union. Though I say I haven’t been working on my thesis, actually I have got some stuff done. Almost all of chapter one is written, plus a few sections for other chapters. I’m still struggling with the genetics work I spoke about last time, but I’ve doubled the number of loci I’m working on and will have an idea soon what I can use them for. Analysis takes me forever and I keep getting sidetracked, so at some point I have to set myself some goals to just finish the damn stats.

Wish me luck!

Thesis word count: 15,400

A doctorate in panic April 26, 2010

I might have just experienced my first panic attack this afternoon. Tomorrow I will finally put a first lot of samples through to be genotyped and it’s a really big deal. I’ve been working towards this for at least the last year, and particularly over the past few months. This week I will find out if it had worked, or of it’s all been for naught. I really hope it’s the first!

Today, in between rushing around to seminars, I was getting the samples ready for tomorrow’s run. I broke into a sweat while I was doing this, so much that I could barely pull my gloves off when I was finished due to my soaking wet hands. I convinced myself that everything that I could possibly mess up, I had. Once they were all done and in the fridge to wait, I sent myself home early. There was nothing else I could do, and if I stayed I was only going to fret about what happens if it doesn’t work.

Driving home I had the shakes, stomach pains and couldn’t think straight. Even after I got home my hands were shaking and I couldn’t eat. Wow, I thought, is this what panic really feels like?

I thought it might be cathartic to put it down in words and think it through. Yes, it’s a really big deal if tomorrow’s run turns up problems, but at least I’ve gotten this far at last. A real problem means a delayed finish time for my thesis. An issue given I’m already making plans to go over-time. But should I have to go back to the start and repeat the process, at least I already know how to do it and theoretically I would be faster the second time around.

It’s still not a nice feeling though. Research can be fickle like that sometimes. I’ve talked to several other students over the past few days who have similar research problems. They can be collecting samples, sorting and preparing them, and it can be months before they know if they’ve collected the right thing, or will have any data at the end. Some students do safer projects. They do things that are guaranteed to work, and consequently they’re the students who finish on time and get nice easy grades.

The rest of us, well we take the harder route. We do things a little more unknown, a little scarier, and apparently we pay for it with the odd panic attack. But it should in the long run mean more exciting research, more important results, and you would hope a better all round thesis.

I figured I had a few choices to calm myself down once I got home. I chose the tub of chocolate ice cream, since I figured that was the best bet to both calm nerves and ensure I’m in a state to work tomorrow (if you catch my drift). I’ve been knitting and listening to music: the knitting pattern I’m working on at the moment is fairly complex, and I find the concentration takes my mind off other things. Plus there’s this post, which I hoped would put things in perspective.

What do you do to calm down and regroup when you’ve had a day? Have you ever had a panic attack, or similar, and how did you cope with it? I’ll take any tips, since the week might just get worse from here!

Science in the News – April 23 April 23, 2010

A few articles on New Scientist this week peaked my interest. My reading should, of course, be much wider than simply New Scientist – but it’s easy and fun to read, so I do.

UK university ordered to give data to climate sceptic

Queens University in Belfast has been ordered to submit their data on tree rings to an “amateur climate analyst and sceptic”, the legal basis being the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

It’s a scary thought, in some regards, that a scientist’s work is not necessarily protected Intellectual Property (IP). My university encourages IP of its academics and postgraduates, but almost purely in the thought of potential commercialisation. My work doesn’t fall into those parameters, I’m certainly not going to commercialise or patent anything resulting from my research, but it’s comforting to know that my research is protected. We have right of embargo on our theses, to ensure that we can publish results without anyone pinching data and pipping us at the post. We also maintain copyright over any original work produced while a student at the university.

The citizen requesting this tree ring data (the “amateur”, although I wonder what constitutes that title) is an outspoken climate change sceptic. He thinks this Irish data will show that there was a period of warming a thousand years ago which roughly approximates the warming recorded in our lifetimes. The scientists, however, have already published a study claiming that tree rings in one of their study species (Irish Oak) are useful in estimating rainfall, but not necessarily temperature. So here I see a danger of an “amateur” analysing data he is presumably not qualified to analyse, and taking from it fallacious conclusions.

Of course science should be communicable to the public. Clearly I believe in that simple fact since that’s the whole point of this blog. [For those not in the know, I would like to pursue a career in science communication once I’ve finished my PhD in Biology]. And I truly believe any article published in the journal Dendrochronologia is unlikely to be accessible to that public. Heck, most of you probably don’t know what dendrochronology is! [It’s the science of analysing tree rings, the mostly annual rings laid down by a growing tree in its trunk]. But surely there is a better way of getting this information across without the public having to submit for data under freedom of information laws. Apart from anything else, we use pretty tricky data analysis in science, and I would never assume that someone without past experience could follow our, sometimes convoluted, analyses.

This sceptic should be able to access this data. It doesn’t appear to me, at first glance, that it would help his cause, but he should have access to it anyway. So why is science failing him in that respect? What does it mean for IP and the correct analysis of scientific data if anybody can lay a claim to hard won data?

Why the science candidate is standing for Parliament

On a related note, Michael Brooks wrote a piece for New Scientist explaining why he is running for a seat in the UK Parliament.

It strikes me as slightly sad that he even needs to explain this at all! Surely there are too many benefits of scientifically literate members of Parliament to need to lay them out. But apparently he needs to.

I say it’s a related note, because clearly IP and freedom of information laws are made by politicians. So it would probably help if they understood the stance of the scientists, engineers and likewise who are collecting data and wish to have protection of their hard work.

But there’s the other aspect that is clear to our generation; climate change (warming, ocean salinisation, desertification) is and will continue to be a leading topic for our lives. Governments will spend much of the next few decades trying to sort out what to do about it. Where should funding for research go? How should countries be supporting the remediation of environmental problems? How are we to ensure the persistence of humans on an overly crowded, rapidly deteriorating little planet?

So they should be looking to include scientists in parliament. Just as the amateur from the story above might misinterpret and misunderstand tree ring data, so too might politicians lose out when trying to interpret scientific data.

“Science is not just an indulgence for the curious”, says Brooks. And he is right; science is also at the forefront of working out these issues of the current global environment, and doing its darndest to remediate and mitigate. A scientist in politics is just too good an opportunity to pass up. That’s even without counting the fact that we’re considered more trustworthy than even the police! I’m not sure where that leaves a scientist turned politician though – somewhere in the middle, perhaps?

Where in the world? April 21, 2010

This week I’m working in the genetics laboratory. Mostly this involves sitting around waiting for various machines to finish doing their thing. I try to work, but inevitably I end up sitting around listening to music and surfing the internet (it’s just so damn boring in this room!). Today, however, I stumbled across something pretty interesting – interesting enough to inspire me to blog for the first time in a few months.

New Scientist has written a short series of travel articles, called Wonder lust: Scientific expeditions without a PhD. Of course the title caught my eye; after all, if I don’t get off the damn internet I’m never going to finish my PhD!

The first piece to catch my eye was on Chernobyl. How fascinating, I thought, to spend some time in Chernobyl and see the after effects of the most popularised nuclear blunder. I’ve always had the idea that I would one day visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki – now I add Chernobyl to the list.

Some of the other places they listed also peaked my interest, like the Russian Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Centre, or the Trinity Test Site in New Mexico, birthplace of the atomic bomb (are you seeing a theme to my interests yet?).

The big slide show on evolution travelling kind of bored me. Sure, it would be amazing to head to the Burgess Shale (the holy grail of fossils from the Cambrian Explosion half a billion years ago), or the Neander Valley, home to the Neandertal fossils. But let’s face it, most of these places you go for history or information; you’re not going to be tripping over fossils. I had to cringe when I read that a tourist park is being planned for a site of dinosaur fossils in China. Not all tourist ventures are bad, but they don’t exactly inspire confidence.

It got me thinking though, where else would I like to travel to that might be a little off the beaten track, or at least something unlikely to show up in a Lonely Planet? The Leakey dig in Kenya is right up there – although I’ve just finished reading LeCarre’s “The Constant Gardener” which features a murder close to the Leakey site, so I’d be a little nervous. I’d head to the Galapagos Islands and take a look at the finches there, amongst the other wildlife. Cape Canaveral, the Hawaiian Islands (purely for the evolutionary history, honest!), and Wallace’s imaginary line in south-east Asia would also make the list.

I probably wouldn’t head to Darwin’s House – but then I seem to be one of the few biologists in the world who isn’t completely enamoured by his legend. Give me a Lamarck or Fisher any day!

There’s a surprising lack of Africa on that list; surprising because I was addicted to the idea of “Africa” growing up. I think that reflects my change in interest from wildlife to a broader interest in “science”, and specifically its place in history and society.

The conspiracy theorist in me would love to visit Loch Ness and Nevada for that interesting spot of land. Then back to that abnormal interest, I’d like to see some concentration camps and Gulags, I’ve always believed one shouldn’t shy away from scary or upsetting pieces of history.

Where would you like to travel to that might not factor into Joe or Joanne Blogg’s P&O cruise or package tour? Might it be scientifically orientated like mine, or would you pursue the birthplace of art movements, musical hotspots or battlegrounds? Am I the only one with a morbid fascination in the horrendous blunders of humankind?

If you manage to make a list like mine of weird and wonderful places to visit, do you think you would ever actually go and do it? Or is it just easier to do the same old tours as everyone else?

Humblest apologies for the lack of posts recently – the PhD rules my world right now, and it’s a terribly cruel mistress.

TV as empowerment January 25, 2010

Once again I’ve been slacking on my blog writing “duties”. I’m staying in a studio unit temporarily while I wait for my new place to become vacant, and it’s not a terribly conducive environment for writing. Sitting at the desk I have a pile of towels to my right, a pile of books and DVDs to my left, a TV and DVD player hanging above my head, and worst of all – if I open the blinds, every Tom, Dick and Harry walking by can (and does) look directly into my bedroom. So I’m startled at the number of half-finished posts sitting on my laptop. I’ll endeavour to finish them, but in the meantime I’ve got a little tidbit to tide you over.

I said previously that I would try to write a monthly book review – and I’m already behind (typical). Partly that’s because some of the stuff I read over the holidays just needed more time to process. But there is one book I’m just about finished that is so powerful and profound that I bet I’ll still be mentioning it in six months time.

That book is “Half the Sky” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The title comes from a Chinese proverb, “Women hold up half the sky”, and says much about the intent of this husband and wife duo. Their message is that globally women are discriminated against, abused, trafficked and die needlessly – and that it’s time for this to stop.

I stumbled across this book through reading a New York Times piece written by Kristof and WuDunn, The Women’s Crusade. It strings excerpts from the book together into a concise argument as to why and how women are being mistreated, and what needs to be done to truly see gender equality worldwide.

It’s a powerful article, I suggest everyone reads it, and the book is just as impressive. I’m sure to post more about it later, but for now I want to leave you with one interesting point; TV as a source of empowerment.

Towards the end of the book, the authors mention two new studies that were released while they were in the writing process. Both studies point towards the role of television as changing behaviours in countries with a gender bias.

In Brazil, the introduction of a network known for soap operas was followed by lower birth rates in subsequent years. The Italian economist who uncovered the trend suggests Brazilian women had decided to stop having children (or as many children) to emulate the stars of their soap operas.

Likewise in India, women became more autonomous after the arrival of cable TV in rural areas. Before the cable programmes arrived, women tended to think that a husband had the right to beat his wife, that sons were more desirable than daughters, and that a husband’s permission was required in order for a woman to leave the house. Through the wonders of television, these rural Indian women were exposed to a world outside of their own. They saw the way modern women were treated elsewhere in India, and began to change their own world views in step.

It’s fascinating to think of television having this kind of effect. For us here in the West we’re told that TV does all sorts of nasty things, including being implicated in the current buzz word; obesity. But that TV in the house is also a window into another world. Whether we are watching the way that other people in our country live and behave, or experiencing another culture’s world view. Of course, in this age we have radios, movies, books and the internet all serving a similar purpose. But could any be more powerful than TV? Wired “free” into your living room, requiring no literacy or a large time commitment. Seems like despite the bad rap, television might yet be serving another, quieter purpose.

Food for thought. Until next time, when I find a window that opens and I can write for more than ten minutes at a time!