Life of a Lab Rat

If any of you are actually Australian, you might be interested in this.

(Not as good as Audra's place, but then very little is.)

It's been rather damp in Sydney for the last week. And of course the locals say to me,

"Hur hur, it must feel like home with all this rain!"

So I point out that, actually, Sydney gets more rain than I'm used to.

Seriously. The thirty year mean annual rainfall in Cambridge (UK. What? There's another one?) is ~550 mm (source). On average it rains on 106 days a year. In Sydney the annual rainfall, averaged over 150 years (look, when you don't have much recorded history you make the most of it) is ~1200 mm (source). That's over twice as much. And the number of rainy days per year? An even hundred.

Same number of rainy days, twice as much rain. Now tell me it should remind me of home.

Just for comparison, I checked the annual figures for Manchester (806 mm), Oxford (642 mm), Auckland (1150 mm), Canterbury Plains (the driest place in New Zealand: 635 mm), Jerusalem (660 mm) and New York (1140 mm).

The interesting difference is that Sydney has 50% more sunshine hours than Cambridge. So when it's cloudy in Cambridge, it might not rain — or it might snow. In Sydney clouds mean rain. And an imperial shedload of it.

I have arranged to meet a colleague for coffee and cell biology tomorrow morning. She works in Zoology.
She says the "zoology (biology) building, A08, is in Science Road".

So I go along to the University's map page, and click on 'Z' for Zoology. Nothing found. OK then, 'B' for Biology. Something there, but not what I want. Search for the building code, and find that I actually want the Heydon-Laurence Building.

Well that was bloody obvious, wasn't it?

For those of you who might have been put off by the thought of all the noxious native flora and fauna in Ozstrayla, worry not!

The wildlife is too busy eating each other.

This one's for the Whiffler:

From the ABC, I read

More acute for the Wallabies was that for the third time in tournament history it was bitter rivals England who were their World Cup executioner

and would like to comment that ultimately, England's verdugoship proved too much for the struggling Australian rugby team.

I thank you.

Last week, I asked a PhD candidate in our lab whether she'd got a date for her thesis defence. 'My what?' she asked. We looked at each other in mutual incomprehension before light dawned.

It turns out that there is no viva voce requirement for an Australian PhD.

I was shocked and stunned, and not to say a little amazed. No thesis defence? And no auditing of examiners. Well, well. Just how much do you think that little book is worth, then?

Today I read that there are calls to reinstate the viva voce, which raised a little cheer from me. But the whinging has started already:

Nigel Palmer, president of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, said: "Students are always going to be cautious about anything that looks like a viva.

"Particularly towards the end of their candidature, PhDs are close to exhaustion. It's a very daunting proposition to come out and give a stunning presentation. Also, (a viva) disadvantages international students."

Poor wee grad students! Heaven forbid that an Australian PhD candidate should be daunted by anything. Won't somebody please think of the children?

In civilized countries it is not enough to be able to write something; you are called upon to answer criticism of your work and defend your conclusions, to be able to prove that you can contextualize and think independently, and — importantly — recognize when you've got something wrong and be able to reassess, to think on your feet. It's a public exam — and in some countries the defence really is public, the people who paid for your studentship can verify that you were worth it. International students are no more disadvantaged by a viva than they are when it comes to reading the literature (and writing the damned thesis in the first place). Someone who can not give a talk in the language of the country they do the lab work (I'm ignoring humanities/arts. Sticking to what I know) has a more fundamental problem than being able to defend a thesis. The argument about external examiners does not even get off the ground. Additionally, if someone can not complete a (non-coursework) PhD in three to four years, then serious questions about their ability, and that of their supervisor, need to be asked.

Look, a PhD is not about doing great science. It is about teaching you how to think like a scientist. That's why it is possible to fit it into three years. No one seriously expects a PhD to be your "life's work", or a new PhD to have a great publication record. We know the pressures of a PhD and we're looking to see if you have the nouse and the gumption and the sheer bloodymindedness to cope with real research. You do not actually start to be a scientist until you begin your first post-doc, when you will be expected to think for yourself and not have your hand held all the time, and cope with serious deadlines. In the real world, people are not going to wait for you not to be exhausted and daunted before doing something. And guess what boys and girls? Part of the training is to be able to give a full seminar, not just answer questions about your work.

And yes, a PhD is bloody hard work; exhausting and daunting. That is precisely why they are so valued.

Out at Black Towers, on the fringes of the Inner West, we have an air conditioning unit.

Today was the first time we've ever used it in anger. On reverse-cycle. There was frost on the grass. Frost! In Sydney!

I'm glad we didn't move here for the weather.

So I'm sat here about to compose an email whining about an incident in the 'hot room' (i.e. the radioactivity lab)* when I realize that I can hear Greensleeves. And it's coming from outside.

Puzzling. It's not someone's phone, and it's going on and on and on. Leaning over my desk and peering out of my window I can just make out an ice cream van parked in the building site in front of the Cage.

For once, I don't quite know what to say.

One of my readers (Hi Boris!) kindly took some photos of the cycle path that I spoke about on Sunday. Mad props.

(click through for larger images)

April and May are lovely months of the year in countries where you can actually tell the difference between the seasons. Boris Johnson talks about chestnut candles, and it is with a slight pang that I realize I have missed the daffodils and cowslips, and soon the may blossom and bluebells will be out.

I write this because I found out on Friday that the cycle path Cambridgeshire Council had been wittering on about for years has finally opened. I remember the council promising to do it, and starting surveying — and then there was a hiatus as they said it would have to be lit at night and that would be too expensive. But all of a sudden it has been built and opened (from start to finish under a year. Amazing).

The path links one of the villages to the Addenbrookes hospital site, upon which is the MRC Lab of Molecular Biology, where I spent six years solving protein structures and generally having a wonderful time. I had to cycle up Granham's Hill (in the snow, once. That was interesting) to get to work, and the path across the fields would have made the journey much more pleasant (not so much because it cuts out the hill, but because it avoids the traffic).

Finally, a use for VB.

The climate and terrain here are completely wrong for haggis (either wild or farmed). So what is the local equivalent?

I can't see myself Addressing a Kanga banger, to be honest. Doesn't quite work.

Because today it was very windy in this harbour city, I thought you might like this:

I saw, on the train the other day, that some wag had doctored one of the polite CityRail notices.

The much improved (I thought) version read

At night, rave near the guard's compartment naked with a blue light.

We have had a 'water' audit (yes, we have mainly aqueous solutions) and yesterday had an 'energy' audit (yes, we have to turn things on to use them). I wonder if we are going to have a 'tree-hugging sandal-wearing clipboard-holding hippy' audit, or maybe even a 'is this the best use of public money?' audit.

Talking of hippies, we have had an epidemic of students handing out random pieces of paper this week on campus (which begs for a 'how many rainforests the size of (New South) Wales do students account for?' audit). Especially noteworthy was the juxtaposition of the 'clean energy on campus' sandal-wearing etc. coves with the 'student power' activists.

As the regular reader of this weblog (both of you) may have picked up, I arrived in Sydney and therefore started work at the Maze not so very long ago. I did go through the very useful "Oh, you must be new here, I'm XXX, who are you?" phase — useful because I had an excuse for not knowing who anyone was — but that honeymoon period was brought to an abrupt end when I gave a departmental seminar just a couple of short months into the job.

Because my name was all over the department on seminar notices everyone learned who I was. And I was lucky enough be able to put importantsenior names to faces because my host kindly said the names of those who asked questions (and my thoughts were along the lines of "Ah! The assistant head. Right. I'll make sure I remember him"). Problem is, I never forget a face, but have a lousy memory for names. So when I was introduced to a group of ten or a dozen people I'd count myself lucky if I could remember the names of two of them. Usually I can bluff my way through the first couple of meetings with someone new to me until I get their name into the rather disorganized filing system that is my memory, so people don't often see the turmoil I'm actually going through.

But aside from that, one rather ego-stroking upshot of giving a seminar early on is that the senior staff know me, and always say "Hello Black" when we pass in the corridor or on the stairs. That is nice because it makes me feel like someone (I'm not sure who, exactly, but anyway). The problem of course is that non-senior people also know me, people who do not have their photos on the name board downstairs. And these are the people I actually might want to work with, or steal reagents from, or — heaven forbid — take out for a beer.

Outside the Maze there are some trees. I first noticed them late last summer when the green-leaved trees mysteriously vanished overnight, and were replaced by morning with trees bearing red and gold and yellow leaves. And the trees were now in boxes.

Time passed. As winter took hold, the trees suddenly had no leaves. More time passed, and this morning I noticed that the trees had small, green leaves.

I have a theory that explains what is happening. Some might say that it is all part of the natural cycle of life, that these trees change the colour of the leaves in autumn, and then they fall off in winter, to be replaced with new buds and leaves in spring.

I scoff, I laugh at such fanciful notions. Ha ha ha ha!

No. It is obvious that the trees are being replaced in the night by new trees that have the appropiate foliage for the time of year. I have not yet seen anyone doing this, but then I am not around the campus at oh dark hundred so it is not surprising that I can not corroborate my theory with evidence. I am also convinced that if the person (or persons, or Person) changing the trees knew I was watching, then he would wait until I fell asleep, or something.

Why else would the trees be in boxes?

Misguided?
Misunderstood?

Unravel the truth . . .

After filling in my tax return form last night (and there is a rant to let brew for maximal flavour) tonight I will be filling in the census form online.

An email just came around our lab (I think someone must be reading this weblog). I heartily endorse the sentiment and hope the meme within gets spread rapidly.

Fine, encourage us to submit tax returns online.

I have a perfectly adequate computer system at home (and at work) that suits my needs, except that I can not use it to file my tax return. I seriously doubt that the Feds want to influence my choice of computing platform (because that would be anti-competitive, right?), so the only conclusion that makes any sense to me is that the Australian Federal Government encourages software piracy.

All right you life-long Sydney-siders, tell me this:

Why, at the busiest time of day (home time), do they only put six-car trains on the Inner West lines? It was like a bloody cattle-truck! And in the opposite direction ran virtually empty eight-car trains.

Of course, in the morning, it's the other way around: The short trains are running into town and the long trains are coming back, empty. Something, somewhere, isn't quite right.

Seriously, Sydney radio is crap, isn't it?