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7/24/2012 0 Comments

Wunderbar Deutschland (Wonderful Germany): Do nanoparticles glow? - Week 2

Week 2: A Day in the Life...

By Pin-Wen Wang

A day in the lab starts around 9 a.m., but I tend to get in a little earlier. Something about being in Germany makes me wake up before my alarm and greet the sunlight coming through my windows with a smile.

I love getting into the lab early because I get to watch others slowly trickle in and go about their
morning coffee routine. My first job in the mornings is to refill our camera with nitrogen. Most of my lab time is spent working in what is called the “dark room,” where laser measurements are taken in complete darkness for more accurate data. The apparatus in this room shines a laser at different intensities onto my nanoparticles with the goal of capturing the emission of light given off by their electrons. The camera attached to this apparatus allows us to see the nanoparticles; the problem is, these nanoparticles are really small, and if the camera isn’t sharp enough, we can’t see anything. That’s why we use liquid nitrogen to cool down the camera and minimize vibrations or noise that would blur our images. I don’t know if you’ve ever played with liquid nitrogen, but it’s a lot of fun-- liquid nitrogen evaporates quickly at room temperature, freezing everything around it, andI love to watch the air condense into white clouds as I guide the nitrogen into the canister.

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7/24/2012 1 Comment

Experimenting with the Life of a Scientist(a) - Week 2

Week 2: A Day in the Life...

by Stephanie Wang

The best thing about research is that each day is your own, each slightly different, full of potential and possibility.  I have a monthly calendar, just sheets of paper I printed out from the Internet, and it gives me great pleasure to plan  ahead, projecting new experiments and reanalyzing my main goals and the many steps needed to reach them.  These tentative plans change with the accumulation of new data, and that, too, is exciting.

I groan when I hear my alarm clock turn on, the yellow numbers shifting slightly as I blink awake: 7:30AM. The fan is humming beside me, and though Winthrop House (a dorm at Harvard) has no A/C, the feel of the moving wind and the coolness of the early morning is pleasant. It is a struggle to get out of bed.  I stumble out anyways, change, brush my teeth, and by 7:55AM, I am rushing out the door.

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7/9/2012 0 Comments

India Presents: A ʺNew World Symphonyʺ* - Week 1

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Shaira outside Mysore Palace in Mysore, Karnataka (India)
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Shaira (on left) with colleague
Week 1: All Sorts of Introductions 
 
Namaste from India! I’m Shaira, a rising junior at Harvard College
studying Economics with a minor in Global Health and Health Policy. In the few free days before starting my summer internship, I nearly forgot I was here—in Bangalore, southern India—to do research on protein intake and pregnancy outcomes at what had been called the Johns Hopkins of India: St. John’s Research
Institute at St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences. Instead, I at first felt like I was here to survive a video game. If a hole wasn’t burnt through me by the piercing stares I got on the street because I was visibly different, and I wasn’t hit by a car while scattering like a little fish through the tidal waves of traffic (among other unusual circumstances), perhaps I would make it out of here alive. These are the honest chronicles of my experience in India—as a woman, a researcher, and a first-timer.

 * * *
The first thing I learned about India was just how far it really is
from Los Angeles, California (my hometown). You can, of course, trace the path across a map, but the distance means very little until you move the miles yourself. On the afternoon of June 13, I started my journey at the Tom Bradley International Terminal in Los Angeles, California. 

Over the Pacific and the Indian, through Tokyo and Singapore, I
ultimately made it onto my final flight to Bangalore. Ironically, by the time I stepped foot onto the last flight, what was only a four hour ride seemed endless. As we flew over the Bay of Bengal and at last descended onto the subcontinent, I looked out the window at the expansive landmass wondering what it would be like—sand what I had gotten myself into. 

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7/9/2012 0 Comments

Through the lens: the intricacies of Diabetes - Week 1

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Hello fellow Scientistas! My name is Juliet Snyder and I am a rising sophomore at Harvard College. Although I am a Harvard girl, I am spending my summer in sunny San Diego working at the University of California, at a Pathology lab. San Diego is home for me - I made the decision to ignore my Freshman advisor and go home to do research instead of staying on campus to do research. Normally I am one for listening to authorities - well that isn’t completely true - but this time realized that sometimes you just have to go with your gut. I am glad I did because I can honestly say that I wake up every morning incredibly excited for work and for the project that I am working on. But I am getting ahead of myself. 
The Calcutt lab is a pathology lab at UCSD and I have the pleasure to work under Corinne Jolivalt for the summer. My project concentrates on several components of diabetes. Diabetes is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, a rate that is only higher in Mexico, where diabetes is the leading cause of death. I also have a personal connection to my project. My grandfather had diabetes and my mother had gestational diabetes. A major component of diabetes is nerve degeneration, or diabetic neuropathy – a symptom which I witnessed firsthand in my grandfather. He had his foot amputated after his foot developed gangrene from a cut.

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7/9/2012 0 Comments

Wunderbar Deutschland (Wonderful Germany): Do Nanoparticles Glow? - Week 1

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Hey you! Yeah. You! Thanks for checking out my blog. I’m really excited to have this opportunity to tell the Scientista community about my research internship studying gold nanoparticles in
Germany this summer.

Before I tell you about my research, I want to introduce myself. My name is Pin-Wen, and I’m a rising junior at Harvard College studying electrical engineering and computer science (EECS). I’ve always imagined engineering as a special operations task force, charged with the mission of strategizing solutions to any problem.

As I grew older, solving problems, from math equations to a broken window- became even more interesting, but the role of an engineer became more and more complex. 
Choosing engineering as my concentration is the first step in figuring out why there are so many e’s in an engineer. My goals for now are to explore the science and engineering field until I find an area that is just right for me.  All I know is that I love the field of science and technology and I want to be a part of this community.

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7/9/2012 4 Comments

Using Unusual Animals to Study Human Disease

A Summer Research Project in Veterinarian Medicine Week 1

By Natalie Punt
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Hello Scientistas!

I am excited to share my summer research experience
with you! My name is Natalie Punt and I am a soon-to-be second year veterinarian student at Western University College of Veterinarian Medicine in Pomona, California.

Being a veterinarian student is a challenging and rewarding
endeavor. As a future veterinarian I am responsible for the health of every species but one. Because veterinarian medicine naturally 
utilizes a comparative biology approach to study the physiology and pathology of the animal kingdom, veterinarians are experts at identifying features that are shared across all animals from those that are unique to a particular species.  This knowledge is becoming exceedingly valuable in biomedical research to identify conserved biological systems in animal models.    

Prior to attending veterinarian school I knew I was interested in biomedical research for the opportunity to study animals and pursue my passion for scientific discovery. With that self-knowledge I naturally gravitated towards the campus research community. By the first semester I found a mentor with similar interests in comparative genetics and had access to many mammalian annotated and sequenced genomes. 

True to the nature of science- my initial research 
project bears no resemblance to my current project however they are intrinsically linked. My initial research project was elucidating the genetics behind high altitude adaptation in the Snow Leopard. Yet my current project is focused on identifying the anti-cancer genetics of the Naked Mole Rat. 

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7/9/2012 0 Comments

Using the Hubble Telescope to Discover Elements of Interest - Week 1

By Rabeea Ahmed
Rabeea Ahmed
My name is Rabeea Ahmed and I am from Islamabad, Pakistan. This summer, I am very excited to be working at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland!

As an undergraduate student of Computer Science and
Astrophysics, I am enthralled by the power of computers in data-analysis, and fascinated by astronomy as a science that uncovers the deepest mysteries of our universe. My work at the STScI resolves around combining these two fields as I work on data-quality assessment for the Hubble Legacy Archive.

The Hubble Space Telescope - launched in 1990 - has collected a great volume of useful ultra-violet data throughout its life. This data will form the basis of many studies of our
cosmos for  decades to come. However, the catalogs that astronomers currently use to gather this data are not very user-friendly, and so much of the time spent during research in astronomy today is invested in data-collection and refining. The Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA) project seeks to reduce this time frame by providing scientists a quick and easy “one-stop-shop” for all their data needs. In short, my job this summer is to work with a team of scientists, programmers, and researchers in helping the scientific work on the Hubble data to occur faster by providing great research-quality data to the general astronomer audience in a fast and efficient way. This way, we hope to allow scientists to invest more time in uncovering the wonderful physical laws hidden behind the array of numbers.  
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7/9/2012 6 Comments

You Think What You Eat: Link between malnutrition, DNA, and mental health - Week 1

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By Riana Balahadia

Hey everyone! I’m Riana, a rising junior in Kirkland House. I'm very excited to be blogging on Scientista. Here are some tidbits about me: I concentrate in Human Evolutionary Biology with a secondary in Global Health & Health Policy. And yes, I do ride the struggle bus of endeavoring Harvard pre-meds! During the semester I enjoy singing with my a cappella group, the Veritones and planning activities for Harvard Philippine Forum and Undergraduate Global Health Forum. This summer, I’m staying on campus as part of the SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) Program hosted by the Global Health Institute. I will be working with Dr. Janina R. Galler on the Barbados Nutrition Study at Judge Baker's Children Center, with my focus on linking nutrition and epigenetics to mental health. But before I go more into that, let me tell you about why I'm super excited for this job.

My true academic passions lie in nutrition and chronic diseases, particularly in developing countries.
You may have heard of the double burden of disease and malnutrition. This describes the co-existence of both undernutrition and overnutrition which leads to the rise in noncommunicable diseases. For example, numerous developing countries are undergoing a shift towards Westernized fast food or packaged foods, which are cheaper and more available to people of low socioeconomic status. Such countries who have traditionally suffered from malnutrition and infectious diseases are now experiencing incredible rates of metabolic syndrome (obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases) at the same time.

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7/9/2012 0 Comments

Experimenting With the Life of a Scientist(a) - Week 1

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By Stephanie Wang

Hey all! I'm glad to have the chance, as I begin my new summer blog series, "Experimenting With the Life of a Scientist(a)" to introduce myself. I'll be living the life of a researcher this summer, going to lab full-time--five, sometimes six days a week-- in search of the potential mechanisms behind muscle aging. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

My name is Stephanie Wang. I love walking barefoot in the grass, eating fruit, and playing frisbee (the simple things in life). I am concentrating in Chemical and Physical Biology, which gives me ample space to explore all the hard sciences. Crazy as it is for me to realize, I will be starting my senior year in a few months.
During the school year, I live in the best house on campus: Eliot House (affectionately called the “Domus").  Right now, as part of PRISE, a summer research program at Harvard, I'm living one house over, in Winthrop House.  My room has a river view, and I have a great roommate who works in the same lab as I do.

Speaking of lab, it's been a long journey, but the saying's true—the third time is the charm.  The Wagers Lab is the third research group at Harvard that I've worked with, and I can finally say that I love what I do day-to-day at the bench.   

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7/9/2012 0 Comments

18.085: My Summer at MIT - Week 1

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Hi! My name is Amy Beth Prager. I’m spending my summer in the mathematics department of MIT. I am pursuing coursework in applied numerical methods, taking a class known as 18.085, Computational Science and Engineering.

Why am I doing this? Because I believe that great power lies in mathematics. My goal in learning these advanced techniques is to better carry out my own work and research. Applied and computational mathematics can solve problems that would otherwise be intractable and provide insights that are unimaginable without modern methods. For example, in our first week of class, we discussed the science of weather forecasting. While it may seem shocking in the internet age, it was not too long ago (and within my lifetime!) that weather could not be accurately predicted beyond a day or so. In the 1960s, just as computers were becoming capable of complex calculations, an MIT professor
developed an algorithm for long-term weather prediction. At the time, nobody in the scientific community believed that weather could be predicted several days in advance. However, using the best and most powerful computers available at the time, this professor proved his methods were useful and accurate. As an interesting commentary on how technology has advanced over the past 50 years, our class implemented his “unbelievable” algorithm on our laptops using software downloaded in minutes from the internet. How times have changed!

It has been my lifelong dream to be an MIT affiliate living in Cambridge, and now I am! So far, the places I’ve explored and people I’ve met have been truly inspirational. All of my suitemates and I are visiting from all over the US. I am the only one from the eastern half of the United States. One of my suitemates said it best: at MIT, it doesn’t matter where you come from, what your parents do, or how much money you have; all that matters is what you are capable of. I am very happy to be here, and I greatly look forward to sharing my experiences with all of you this summer.
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    The Lab Journal

    Welcome to the summer internship series of 2012! Follow 9 Scientista bloggers through their summer internships to catch a glimpse of what it is like to be a scientista^TM. 

    FeedWind

    By Title

    - India Presents: A "New World Symphony" 
    - Through The Lens: The Intricacies Of Diabetes 
    - Do Nanoparticles Glow?
    - Using Unusual Animals to Study Human Disease
    - Using the Hubble Telescope
    - You Think What You Eat
    - Experimenting With the Life of a Scientist(a)
    - 18.085: My Summer at MIT
    - Science Heals: A Summer of Global Health Research

    By Blogger

    Rabeea Ahmed
    Riana Balahadia
    Shaira Bhanji
    Nzuekoh Nchinda
    Amy Beth Prager
    Natalie Punt
    Juliet Snyder
    Pin-Wen Wang
    Stephanie Wang

    Archives

    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

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