Etch a Sketch for Adults

Yesterday marked a new venture of work: actually learning to use and manipulate the NMR machine to adjust my sample and the magnetic field surrounding it until they were in perfect harmony.  This involved several hours nervously sitting at a computer while I made nearly every mistake possible.  To manipulate the magnetic field, I had to navigate the NMR program using a series of coded commands, as well as use the buttons and swiveling wheel thing on a small control panel-like rectangle.  As I monitored the subtle changes on the screen, I felt like I was playing a primitive video game.  It was sort of like playing Pong, but with results that could, years down the road, affect the treatment of heart transplant patients.  And yet, the comparison stuck with me, and I thought about it a lot as I swiveled the wheel back and forth and clicked back and forth between Z1, Z2, and Z4.  Both technologies can seem deceptively simple when you look at them; they're just a bunch of squiggly lines on a screen.  And yet, both of them were revolutionary in their own ways and among their own circles of followers.  Both had some seriously smart folks adapting technology to new purposes and working to improve that technology.  On the other hand, NMR is less of a competition and more of a prayer that something, something will work out and emerge from the data.

After about fifteen minutes, my wiggly lines wouldn't wiggle despite my most furious button-clicking and swiveling, and I slunk over to ask Ignasi for help.  It turns out that I'd somehow managed to shut down the command to acquire new scans... and had gotten into the wrong screen.  There's a reason I only took one semester of programming.  I have inherited the gene of technological ineptitude.

At the end of the day, according to Thursday tradition, the lab assembled for its group meeting.  Group meeting, a lab tradition throughout the world, allows members of the lab to hear about each others' work and offer insights, critiques, and comments.  It can be really helpful in advancing ideas and predicting problems, but it can also just be really fascinating (or boring).  This week, Paula was presenting on her work.  I think I've mentioned that, though my lab works on cardiovascular issues, it's a diverse group of people.  Paula highlights this; she develops all sorts of models to mimic heart problems. During this presentation, she showed her results from a silicon model, a computer-generated model, and an electrical circuit model.  Yep, she just reduced heart problems to a series of resistors, currents, and voltmeters.  And here you were, thinking that the human body is so special and complex.  Nope.  At the end of her presentation, nearly all of the old adult males in the room were sort of bowled over and how successful her modeling had been.  They all mentioned how skeptical they'd been that her electrical circuit could accurately represent a human heart.  I was, too, but mostly I was just glad that I remembered enough about circuits from first semester PChem to follow it all.  Hurrah!

I know this is the part where the after-work adventures usually begin, but I must disappoint you.  Due to a very confused phone with a full inbox, an alarm that was not loud enough to wake the dead, and a built-up sleep debt, I managed to ruin all my well-laid plans with Naaman, some donuts, and a museum and instead slept for roughly eleven and a half hours.  So for all of you who thought I was dead because I didn't return your texts/e-mails/Gchats or blog, never fear.  I have arisen, and will continue my adventures tonight.

Spotted: Fans.

It's been getting pretty hot in Barcelona these past two days, and the fans are coming out.  I had thought these were just a tourist item inspired by the (incorrect) assumption that Barcelona is a Flamenco hotspot.  In fact, people here actually use them all the time.  While waiting for the Metro, it's common for all of the well-dressed Spanish grandmothers to be swish-swish-swishing their fans as they gossip, or just sit there and look regal.  At the monastery yesterday, the woman standing behind me during the Escolania performance was absentmindedly hitting my head every few seconds as she cooled herself.  Basically, fans have fans.  For more on the history of fans, see this article.