Krazy Krystal's Laboratory

This is so me

When i was a kid i always wanted to be a ballerina. Well, until I was about seven, then I decided I wanted to be a scientist. Then... well.... not much changed.

posted by Dr Krystal @ 11:25 am 0 comments

Open Invite - Easter Monday Yum Cha

With apologies to all those not in Melbourne...

Open invitation to Yum Cha

When - Easter Monday Public Holiday, April 9th
Where - Red Emperor, Southbank
Why - It's the best Yum Cha in Melbourne
Cost - $45 all you can eat (ouch, i know, but it's *so* worth it) - or order al a carte
Time - 12:30pm

Please RSVP if you'd like to come, cause we've booked a table, but will need to know exact numbers.

posted by Dr Krystal @ 11:12 am 1 comments

CD review - We are the Pipettes

When I grow up I want to be a Pipette.

Who wouldn't want to be a space rocking girl, exploring the universe in thigh high moons boots whilst grooving along to the anthematic opening track? They are so cool they make cheesey rhyming couplets sound kick arse. These are not the kind of chicks to cry in front of the mirror and wonder if they look fat in their fab lime green jumpsuits - they are ace and they know it. Fun loving party tracks like “Pull shapes” assert themselves boldly whilst ballads such as “Judy” are honey coated malice in perfect three part harmony, exactly the kind of track you'd want played at your ten (fifteen) year high school reunion.

It's all about fusion; if you're a pipette you can be everything. The track “Why did you stay” sounds like surfer girls turned prom queens, freezing the room with stone cold stares as their riffs slide over you. It's a celebration of chicks that rock across the decades - 60's meets 90's - as if all the members of Hole went out and got beehives.

This is the perfect album to listen to when gearing up for a Saturday night out dancing. I can see myself putting on mascara, drinking a G and T, occasionally pausing to rock out in front of the mirror, whilst pulling my dancing shoes on. Lots of vogue poses interspersed with obligatory hand clapping.

The Pipettes strikes me as the kind of band that would be amazing live. Their strength of character and performance style just leaps off the cd and onto the stage in my mind. I really can see the start of the ballad “A Winter's Sky” in a single spotlight of forlorn longing, and imagine the gentle swaying of the back-up vocals.

However for all my adoration, I'm not sure how this collection of songs works as an album. I love each track individually, but overall it lacks a certain cohesion as it rollercoasters from one track to the next. But perhaps that is part of the appeal, cause if you want to be a Pipette, you've got to be on your toes.

Because just when you think you've them pegged as 60’s mod, along comes the “hey mickey”-esque 80's stand off “Your kisses are wasted on me” - which then internally defies itself with haunting sliding lyrics reminiscent of “The Clouds”, before jolting you down to earth with the cutting acid statement “You're just a child”. Nice.

So don’t let The Pipette’s dulcet shalalala-ing lull you into a false sense of security, their show stopper “It hurts to see you dance so well” has lyrics to die for: “Half past one on the dance-floor, and my thoughts have turned to murder” ultimately sums up the feelings of all forced to face the one who’s jilted them. Saucy subject matter is playfully explored in “Dirty Mind” and “One night stand” and I am sure I have dated the guy in “ABC”, or at least the statement “He knows all about the movements of the planets, But he don't know how to move me” resonates well. “Because it's not love (But it’s still a feeling)” is my favourite ballad, but the opening track “We are the pipettes” is the song most often played on the internal radio of my mind.

I like these girls. If I met them at a party we'd get along just fine and the alcopops would be on me.

posted by Dr Krystal @ 10:48 am 1 comments

My Paper

Aim: To determine the amount of condiment present in single serve sachets of common table seasonings.

Introduction: Condiments are a ubiquitous presence in eating establishments in the UK, however there is little information in the literature regarding standard doses. The mass present in a single serve sachet of common sauces, such as tomato sauce and brown sauce, is often displayed on the packaging (1), however similar figures for salt and pepper are rarely given. This study aims to determine the mass contained in a single serve sachet of salt, and of pepper, in order to provide perspective regarding common condiment consumption.

Materials and Methods: Salt and Pepper sachets (n = 5) were sourced from the University of York. The mass of contents was measured using an analytical balance.

Results:

• 0.8415
  
• 1.1621
  
• 1.0639
  
• 0.8230
  
• 0.8156
  

• 0.1790
• 0.1509
• 0.2076
• 0.1292
• 0.1214

The maximum mass of salt present in a single sachet serve was 1.1621g, whilst the minimum value was 0.8156g, thus giving a range of 0.3465g. The average mass of salt per sachet was 0.9412 g with a standard deviation of 0.1609g, which when expressed as a percentage is 17%.

The average mass of pepper present was statistically significantly less than that of salt (p < >-5). The maximum mass of pepper present in a single sachet serve was 0.2076g, whilst the minimum value was 0.1214g, thus giving a range of 0.0862g. The average mass of pepper per sachet was 0.1576g with a standard deviation of 0.0358g, which when expressed as a percentage is 23%.


Discussion: Increased intake of dietary salt has been linked to poor health outcomes, including the development of hypertension, which is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, obesity, and premature mortality (2). Recent data suggests that salt consumption in the UK is falling, but that the average adult intake of salt is still greater than the recommended 6 g per day (3). This has lead to the launch of programmes such as the Salt Campaign (4), which encourages consumer awareness regarding the consumption of this condiment. In this study, we (being I) have shown that there is significant variation in the amount of salt present in single serve condiment sachets, and that this amount is much greater than that found in less health-adverse condiments such as pepper. It is foreseeable that an average university student, who's dietary needs are supplied directly by the university, may add 1-2 sachets of salt to their food per meal, and in this way, breach the recommended daily dosages. For this reason we (being I) recommend that clear indications of portion mass be given on packaging to heighten consumer awareness and assist the populace in healthy lifestyle choice. That or enhance the quality of university food such that auto-condimentation becomes obselete.

References:

1. http://www.heinzfoodservice.co.uk/

2. http://www.food.gov.uk/multimedia/pdfs/saltandhealth0503.pdf

3. http://www.foodstandards.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/2007/mar/saltconsumptioncampaign

4. http://www.salt.gov.uk/no_more_than_6.html

Acknowledgments: The author would like to thank KLM and TBFM for their encouraging support of this research.

posted by Dr Krystal @ 10:19 pm 0 comments

Recommended daily dose

After working a 70 hour+ week my mind has turned to paste and so i am left completely perplexed by the mundane things in life. My weekly quota of mental energy has been spent on other things however, the big question that's plaguing me all day has very little to do with Leishmania;

Who decided the measure of condiment present in a single serve sachet?

I mean really, how do you determine what the daily allowance of black pepper is? Or indeed how much pepper is generally appropriate for garnishing one's meal? Is it a metric thing? Did they pick some nice divisible number like 100 mg of pepper per sachet so they could sell 1000 packets per 100 grams? I've never thought to look and see if the amount is on the label, and off the top of my mushy mind I can't even provide a decent guesstimate. Based on my knowledge of weighing out various powders, I would assume that it's in the hundreds of milligrams ball park, but I may be way (weigh) off.

Ok, so I know salt is very unfashionable, but I can't help it, I am addicted. And before you throw your hands up in horror and book me in for by-pass surgery, let me explain. I happen to have quite low blood pressure, not dangerously so that I pass out all the time, but I am prone to fits of swooning (and not just cause i've seen the latest Johnny Depp film). So I have decided to take salt medicinally, and now refer to it as "my blood pressure medication" *giggle*

So when I take my blood pressure medication, I would generally give the salt shaker a good five or six shakes over my plate I'd say... but how much salt is that? Is that how they (whoever "they" are) determined the individual portion size? Did they get a panel of six people to add condiments to their meal, and weigh the serving vessel before and after application to gauge usage? How can we control for population variance? Would you need to normalise to the weight of the person to get a dose in mg per kg? Would the data be normally distributed? Where are the peer reviewed publication on this issue ?!?!? I need answers!!!

No, actually, what i really think i need is some sleep. But hey, that's what 26 hour long haul flights are for I guess *giggle*

posted by Dr Krystal @ 10:23 pm 0 comments

First impressions

I love the rain. I've got quite vivid early childhood memories of sitting at home in the lounge room by the large glass doors watching the sky open up and pelt down rain onto the patio during a summer thunderstorm. There's something relaxing about watching rain fall - renewal, provision - and I often catch myself staring out the window, hypnotised. This happened last week, when I was in the lab and it was raining from a deep grey green bruised sky. After a while i noticed something odd; it was as if the rain started to defy gravity, slowing the rate at which it fell, like someone had paused the sky and put it on slow forward. I realised at this point in time that it was no longer rain, but snow. A gradual phase shift, imperceptible at first but solidifying into soft magical powder that floats to the ground. It's completely mesmerising. Like trying to determine the exact moment of sunset, it is an elusive yet lingering moment of time. Even more strange is watching the flakes caught in a draft, spinning upward, like frozen angels dancing over the rooftops. This snow didn't stick, the life span of the beauty was short, as the flakes melted away to nothingness as they hit the ground.

Of course, wonder is relative. I now have first hand experience of words such as "flurry", "flake" and "sleet". No longer text on a page, I have an imprint of what they are. It's a kind of privilege to be able to have first impressions of things as an adult, and not a child. To ask a British person what they thought about the first time they saw snow is possibly akin to asking an Australian what they first thought about the beach. In both cases, there are people who were adults the first time they saw these things, but on a whole, these experiences are embedded in childhood and thus not particularly well annotated in memory. And so now I wonder what else is there that we all take for granted, accept as normal, which is actually slightly surreal. Perhaps rain even. Water falling from the sky - how terrifyingly strange and exotic it would seem if you'd never experienced getting soaked by a storm, or lightly drizzled on by misty rain.

I guess this cartoon really sums it up for me, that we do take so much in our stride, and really, sometimes it's nice to be the crazy Australian laughing on her way to work, cause it's snowing and it's beautiful.

posted by Dr Krystal @ 12:58 pm 0 comments

Erratum

The editors of "Krazy Krystal's Laboratory" would like issue the following corrections:

Firstly

Word on the street is that the Purple Turtle is currently closed for renovation. The new venue, which is definitely open for business, is The Lambsgo Bar (in keeping with the funky animal name themed bars).

Date: Saturday the 21st of April
Time: From 7pm onward
Where: The Lambsgo Bar
Address: 135 Greeves St, Fitzroy - Between Smith St and Brunswick St
No RSVP required.. open invitation, bring your friends, housemates, siblings etc..

Secondly

Incorrect dates were given for the Wollongong leg of Dr. Krystal's Whirlwind Australian Tour
The correct dates are:
Dinner with urban family (wollongong) on Thursday the 19th
Night out on the town with gay best friend on Friday the 20th


Thirdly

The arrival of spring was prematurely heralded, as arctic blasts of snow have hit England this week.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

posted by Dr Krystal @ 3:43 pm 1 comments

Dr. Krystal's Whirlwind Australian Tour

Dr. Krystal will be touring Australia in April 2007, with stop-overs in Melbourne, Canberra and Wollongong/Sydney. Her dates are now confirmed and we are pleased to announce her availability for bookings.


Schedule
Departs London Heathrow: Monday April 2nd at 2205
Arrives Melbourne Australia: Wednesday April 4th at 0445
Staying at - maia's place

Planned Activities: Recover from jet lag
Cards night with the white wine spritzer crew on the Easter long weekend - date tba
Spend a day at WEHI catching up with everyone - date tba, probably after the easter weekend
All things Melbourne! - Drink proper coffee, brunch, Sydney Rd, Brunswick St, Bridge Rd, Smith St, The Gin Palace, Ginger, The Brunswick Green, Brunetti's, Warwick Thai, Cookie, Hairy Canary, Yum Cha... EVERYTHING!!!

Dates and events are flexible, I want to catch up with as MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE, so if you're going to be around on the Easter long weekend, please let me know and we can make plans.


Departs Melbourne Australia: Friday April 13th at 1615
Arrives Canberra Australia: Friday April 13th at 1715
Staying at - my sister's place

Planned activities: Catch up with sisterly gossip on the 13th
Housewarming/birthday cocktail party on the 14th
Sister's birthday on the 15th
Spend the 16th with My Bestest Girl.

Tuesday the 17th - Departs Canberra, driving up to Wollongong (Shellharbour) with sister #2
Staying at - my mum's place

Planned activities: Mother-daughter bonding including shopping, coffee, and catch up chats.
Dinner with urban family (wollongong) on Thursday the 18th
Night out on the town with gay best friend on Friday the 19th

Departs Sydney, Australia: Saturday 21st April at 1300
Arrives Melbourne, Australia: Saturday 21st April at 1430
Staying at - maia's place


Date: Saturday the 21st of April
Time: From 7pm onward
Where: The Purple Turtle
Address: 166 Johnston Street, Fitzroy - to the east of Brunswick St
No RSVP required.. open invitation, bring your friends, housemates, siblings etc..

posted by Dr Krystal @ 11:39 am 2 comments

Ides of March

Not that I suffer from a "Caesar complex" or anything, but could today be worse?

posted by Dr Krystal @ 5:35 pm 0 comments

Turn, turn turn.....

It is the one time of year in York when the 'Minster falls to second place on the loveliest tourist attraction list, usurped by Clifford's Tower, which is resplendent with daffodils. Yes, the daffy's are out and they look lovely today. Officially spring doesn't start till the 21st of March, but with the oh-so-mild winter well and truly over, the flowers have poked there heads up to greet the sunshine. And I haven't worn my coat to work all week. It's fabulous.

In fact, drum roll, when I was in London on the weekend I sat with my sister at an outside table of a real cafe, drinking real coffee, wearing a short sleeved shirt and I actually felt warm. That pale yellow globe in the sky was not merely for decorative purposes. It felt like I was in Melbourne or something. Though it was only 16 degrees, it's the first day in a long time where you could actually sit outside and enjoy it.

Hold on, what did she say? Did she say sister? What's with all the weather chat when there's news?!?!
My sister (number 3) and her husband have moved over to the UK and are doing whole Aussies-living-and-working-in-London-so-we-can-go-travelling thing. Hooray for having a next of kin in the country! So this weekend I got to go down to see them, which was ace. Of all the crazy sisters (n = 4) cate and I are the most alike. In fact, sometimes we're so similar it's scary, as if we are the same person who has been cloned five years apart. Of course we're not identical, we do have our differences (like she's good at learning languages and i'm not) but that could be the whole nature-versus-nurture debate. I do often think that she and i have just defied all Mendelian probability and received the exact same combination of genes from our parents. Sometimes I look at family photos and think "Gee, I look a bit funny in that group shot" till I realise that i'm looking at her instead of me. In fact, my brother-in-law was telling me a story that once my sister got a haircut that looked so much like one i had had in the past, that it felt a bit weird to him when they kissed!!! So it shouldn't have come as such a surprise this weekend when cate and i both said "thanks very much" in the same voice at the same time to the same waitress, that we simultaneously started running down the street under the influence on saturday night, and that we both firmly believe that even numbers really are the best. It's just imprinted, and it was a lot of fun to see her again this weekend. They're hopefully going to come up to visit me in May, and check out Ye Olde Yorke, which will be loads of fun. I mean, heaps of fun. Of course.

In honour of spring - a time of renewal and revitalisation - I have decided to make a new season's resolution. Recently I have noticed a tendancy in myself toward excessive ranting, especially about frustrating issues that seem to arise at work on a near daily basis. To the point where I met up with a friend for lunch the other day and he began the conversation by asking "so, has anyone annoyed you today?"** which i guess reflects the narrow nature of my conversations of late. So, I am taking a vow - in order to avoid getting a (further) reputation as someone who rants and raves and storms and stresses. Each day I am going to extend a "tolerance" card to the world, so if a situation arises which evokes frustration and annoyance, I can just decide to "play the card" and be serene. Of course the world only gets one per day, and after that all hell can break loose as far as I'm concerned, but this afternoon at 2pm when someone hadn't done the thing I had specifically asked and organised them to do, I simply took a deep breath, and got on with the task at hand. Which, to be perfectly fair, didn't kill me and actually made the rest of my afternoon much more pleasant. Maybe I one day I could consider an alternative career as a Buddhist monk.

* Where sight = daffodils and sound = fornicating ducks
** where annoyed you = a polite paraphrase so as not to offend my mother (hi mum!! *waves*)

posted by Dr Krystal @ 10:55 pm 0 comments

Conference Day - a rant by Dr. Krystal

For anyone out there who is under the illusion that science conferences are about the open exchange of information between peers to further advance scientific knowledge and facilitate future discovery, do not read on.

SPOILER ALERT.

It's all about pressing the flesh. To see and be seen. Shake the hand, nod, smile. Repeat. Today's internal conference was essentially a flag waving exercise in P.R. to welcome the new dean and to appear en masse as a vital and active research team within the department.

Advice: Do not fall asleep in the third row, particularly when the first two are empty. If in doubt, there is one word that can save you. Coffee.

As the conference was being held in a function room at the racecourse, I thought I would entertain the bit of my brain not interested in eye movements and hallucination in macular degeneration and glaucoma by rating the speakers' fashion on the field. The Dean made a bold statement with a baby pink tie and matching kerchief. He was also sporting a somewhat retero 70-esque white tie clip, which i thought spoiled the line of the tie, but others thought was a stunning return to masculine fashion accessories. Small repeating geometric patterns on coloured ties were quite popular, and i'm pleased to report our very own Prof. was up with the trend. One of my best dressed finalists pulled off a pin striped suit with style, whilst a more casual approach from a biology academic in a brown leather jacket was crisp and contemporary. On the shame list was the wearer of blue socks with brown loafers, as well as those who cannot tie a tie with a decent sized knot. What happened to the full windsor i ask? I was very disappointed to see that the wearing of ties with cartoon characters on them is still being used as a personality replacement by some senior scientists; in general i think character ties should be banned. Overall the worst dressed award of the day goes to the wearer of the jeans that looked as if they were freshly sprayed on this morning, coupled with a black turtle neck so saggy and baggy that i feel the term elephant neck would be more appropriate. And why am I going on about ties and suits jackets? Where is the discussion of dresses and skirts I hear you ask? Well the complete ABSENCE of female speakers from the day's programme has severely inhibited my analysis of ladies' fashions. Which, let me, tell you is the least I have to about that issue. Grrrrrrr...

And if it seems i'm being harsh on visual presentation style, don't start me on the communication skills displayed. Or the actual science for that matter. Though one guy did show some experiments he's doing in collaboration with NASA growing cells under conditions that simulate zero-g, which i just think is extraordinarily cool. Any biologist with a NASA collaboration rocks my world.

Random thoughts about things I learnt today which will amuse few people other than myself:

When you're the Dean it's fine to have >6 spelling mistakes in your presentation.

Always aim to speak in sound bits when addressing an audience of people who may one day review your grants.

Your choice of recreational leisure centre is highly significant in establishing collaborative research projects. The moral of the story - play sport.

People come from grants. Not cabbage patches.

Diseases need catchy one word titles to make the news.

It's ok to use the phrase "that's horse shit" in your seminar if you're the 40% shareholder in a biotech company with a current estimated worth of 30 million pounds.

You cannot escape references to dendritic cells at a conference. Ever. Or Toll-like receptors for that matter. In fact if i attended the international concrete conference, I am sure that the DC subset that expresses a TLR recognising gravel will get a mention.

The people who volunteer for clinical trials represent the entire spectrum of the community, ie "retired people, shop keepers and history students".

Heroin was advertised as a sedative for coughs in the 1940s but is no longer available at tea breaks. However talking to industry reps has been suggested as a alternative.

Academics cannot stick to 10 minute time slots.

Hedgehogs secrete indole in their faeces when ill which attracts ticks.

- Just don't ask me about the last one -

posted by Dr Krystal @ 10:16 pm 3 comments

070307

I really like today's date. There's just something about it's symmetry that appeals to me. I commented on this today, when I was attending a lecture on trypanosomiasis, and then spent the next ten minutes ignoring the obligatory introductory parasite lifecycle slides whilst scribbling down dates on a piece of paper that I am looking forward to.

070707 - Slightly obvious but still fun
030507 - Prime numbers all in a row
030407 - All the numers add up (2+5 =7)
020507 - See above

and then looking beyond this year... there's coolness in binary to be had!! I mean how ace is "111111" going to be. And then getting all palindromic, what about "011110" and "101101" ?!?!!

It's enough to make me want to plan specific experiments that fall on those key dates, just so i've got a great excuse to write cool dates on all my important samples.

And then it got me thinking about numbers. I wouldn't normally call myself a numbers person, I almost failed 1st year maths, (insert excuse here) but I do seem to get a sense of delight from combinations of digits that make sense. For example, in the modern world there are lots of four digit numbers to be remembered - PIN codes for your bank account, security codes, photocopier codes, etc, the list goes on, but i quite like it when i can make a little mathematical equations out of things. For example.. if my building security code was "7265" (and it's NOT) then I would tell myself "seven minus two isn't six it's five" so i'd remember. Of course I wouldn't be happy with a code that had so many odd numbers..

Which brings me to my next topic.. Do you like odd numbers or even numbers best? Personally I get a bit distressed by things like prime numbers. You can't do anything with them. I mean "19". What am i meant to do with that? Nothing. It's so obtuse. A monolith. That's why I love 24, it's a great number. You can divide it by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12... it's so versatile! Plenty of scope for factorisation there. But 17? It's just... difficult. So overall I'd say that i relate well to even numbers far more than odd ones. My favourite number is probably 16, I mean it's 2x2x2x2, and that in itself is just so ace. Though I do wonder how much one's birthdate influences these things. I was born on the 6th, so maybe I have an internal bias. And my theory holds true for a sample space of at least n = 2, cause the most recent person surveyed preferred odd numbers and was born on the 5th.

Or maybe it's the address you had when growing up. I lived at number "108" and I thought that was just way cool. You can divide that by a lot of things..

Speaking of dates and numbers, I'm departing the shores of mother england on 020407 and arriving in sunny australia on 040407 (oh no! I'm going to completely miss 030407 !!!). I'll be hanging around, dashing from state to federal to state capital cities, till 240407 till I depart and arrive back in the land of spring on 240407 .

So, in the words of go team! "2, 4, 6, 8, 10..... 2, 4, 6, 8, 10"

posted by Dr Krystal @ 11:16 pm 3 comments