Incomprehensible Act of Evil in Newtown Connecticut

My eight-year-old nephew was in his third grade classroom in Sandy Hook Elementary School during the mass murder on December 14, 2012. In the moments after receiving the call that the school was in lock down in response to a shooting, my brother frantically raced to find his son. Arriving at the school he encountered an ominous scene, police cars, ambulances and emergency personnel everywhere. My brother could hardly breath with fear. Someone told him to go to the nearby firehouse. There he found his boy grouped together with classmates and teacher. Although not physically harmed, my nephew heard the screams and murder of his principal over the intercom as well as hundreds of rounds of gunfire.

Our family was very fortunate, but not so for the families of the 20 beautiful children and six heroic women teachers whose lives were ended by this incomprehensible act of evil. The tragedy in Newtown compels all of us to act to prevent gun violence in our nation.

Living and Breathing Science: Research in a time of austerity

These are trying times for academic scientists across this country. NIH grant success rates reached an all time low in 2011. With prospects of obtaining new funding being poor, many lab directors are struggling to sustain their research laboratories. Here are few approaches that might help. In addition to dedicating energies to applying for new grant funding, investigators need to work diligently to stretch the limited funds that are available. Place your fellows and students on a budget. This will force them to be frugal and better justify their expenditures. Require that graduate students and fellows apply for fellowships and travel awards. Perform an inventory of all of the reagents in your lab. You may find that you already have reagents you are about to purchase. Post inventories and require that they be maintained. Reach out to other scientists to freely provide reagents such as antibodies, cells lines and constructs. Take some time to work with sales representatives to get the best pricing on consumables. Make sure experiments are properly designed and controlled to avoid unneeded redos. Go micro and scale down reactions volumes to save reagent and supply costs. Get your animal housing costs under control. Reduce unnecessary drains on your resources by submitting mouse lines to the MMRCC Program at Jax for cryopreservation and distribution. Consider sharing effort/salary of your technician with another PI. Twenty five percent effort of your experienced technician may be worth more in productivity to another PI than what might be obtained through them paying 100% of the salary of an inexperienced technician.

Next, explore new avenues for funding. Since your experience is a valuable asset, let others who are writing grant applications know that you are interested in collaborating and that you, your team and resources can bring value to their program. Don't miss out on grant opportunities that could fund your research. Subscribe to receive notifications of new grant opportunities from COS or Grants.gov. If you have a scored, but unfunded grant application, consider submitting it to the HealthResearchFunding.org, a database that serves as a clearinghouse for unfunded research proposals. 

Living and Breathing Science: The Traditional Laboratory Notebook Needs to Go Electronic

Laboratory notebooks of scientists such as Michael Faraday and Thomas Edison not only provide details of experimental methods and the day-to-day progression of their historic research, but also offer insights into how they thought and accounts of the moments of breakthrough discoveries.

For centuries, scientific recording keeping involving handwritten entries in paper notebooks has sufficed. Over the last two decades I have witnessed dramatic changes in laboratory record keeping that have stemmed from the advent of digital data. 

In academic research, it is customary for a scientist’s original laboratory notebooks to be kept by the principle investigator. So, on shelves outside my office are rows of the laboratory notebooks that have been generated by postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and technicians who have worked with me over the last 20 years.

Looking through these notebooks one can see the variety of ways in which researchers have documented their experimentation. In addition to handwritten entries there are an assortment of films, gels, photographs, graphs, spreadsheets and printouts from all kinds of instruments that have been taped, stapled or simply placed between pages. In more recent notebooks there are attached storage disks containing electronic files. It is evident these scientists have had different degrees of success dealing with problems of annotation and cross-referencing of disparate types of data, particularly digital data.

Generally, once a year I discuss with members of my lab group how to maintain a laboratory notebook and store their digital data. I stress how vital stringent record keeping is to the scientific process and that valid records preserve rights to our discoveries. Despite this, upon periodic inspection of notebooks of my personnel I am often surprised to find what actually is being recorded. Rather than adhering to the conventional format some have adopted a ‘relaxed’ style for their notebook entries. Particularly disturbing are notebooks that lack discussion of results and conclusions. I have also found it difficult and sometimes impossible to locate digital data related to particular experiments described in my people's notebooks.

These experiences not only underscore breakdowns in record keeping training and compliance, but also highlight inadequacies of current record keeping approaches generally employed by basic researchers. I am therefore a proponent of implementation of electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) that automate collection and recording of data. Such systems are not widely employed in academic research, but the NIH and research institutions need to take steps to see that these systems are implemented.

Southern deep-fried turkey marinades and cooking instructions

Deep-fried turkeys are delicious and have been part of our family Thanksgiving Day menu here in Charleston, South Carolina for many years. This year, I will be deep-frying two turkeys, one with a Cajun style injected marinade and the other with a Low Country-inspired marinade.

Ingredients for Cajun style marinade:

3 tablespoons Mexican hot sauce

1-teaspoon salt

1-teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 cup lemon juice

½ cup olive oil

½ cup chicken broth

¼ cup wine vinegar

Ingredients for Low Country-inspired turkey marinade:

1 teaspoon minced garlic

3 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley

1-tablespoon sage

3 tablespoons rosemary

1-tablespoon ground thyme

½-teaspoon ground cumin

½-teaspoon ground coriander
2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves

1-teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

¼ cup champagne wine vinegar

¼ cup Sauvignon Blanc

1-tablespoon soy sauce

4 tablespoons lemon juice

Determining the amount of oil needed to deep-fry your turkey:

Prior to marinading your turkey you will need to determine the amount of oil needed to fill your frying pot. To do this, place the turkey into your pot and fill the pot with water until the turkey is just covered. Leave plenty of room to avoid overflowing the pot. Remove the turkey and mark the height of the water to indicate how much oil to add.

Preparing and injecting the marinade:

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and cook for 10 minutes.

Blend and strain.

Place the thoroughly thawed turkey in a large bowl. Using paper towels remove any water from the turkey.

Using a syringe and a large gauge needle, inject the marinade at a dozen more sites in the turkey.

Pour any remaining marinade over the turkey.

Lightly dust the turkey with cayenne pepper.

Place your turkey onto the deep frying rack in a large bowl. Allow all of the marinade liquid to thoroughly drain.

Deep-frying the marinaded turkey:

Set up your fryer outdoors in a flat, uncovered area free of foot traffic. Have a fire extinguisher handy.

Add oil (I use a peanut/soy bean oil blend) making sure to add no more than needed to cover the submerged turkey without over flowing the pot. The volume of oil needed should be determined beforehand as described above.

Heat oil to 390 degrees, allowing approximately 1 hour for the oil to reach temperature.

Put on oven gloves and an apron.

Turn the flame off and carefully and slowly lower your marinaded and unstuffed turkey into the oil.

Cover and turn on the flame.

Cook 3-3.5 minutes per pound.

Turn the flame off and carefully remove the turkey from the oil and place the racked bird on a large cookie sheet to drain and cool.

Let the turkey cool for 30 minutes prior to carving.

Living and Breathing Science: Advancing Basic Scientific Research Despite The Will Of The Skeptics

Today on Face The Nation, CBS News’ Chief Washington correspondent, Bob Schieffer, articulated a passionate and effectual argument in support of basic research (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/29/ftn/main6816315.shtml). Aware that basic research has led to therapies that offer hope of recovery to his friends that have recently been diagnosed with cancer, Mr. Schieffer commented on the restraints being placed on stem cell research. He likened the inability of many to recognize that there is knowledge to be gained from embryonic stem cell research to those that refused to look through Galileo's telescope, convinced that they already knew what they would see based on their doctrines and traditions. Where would we be now if the will of such skeptics had prevailed?

Cleaning Oil Contaminated Beaches with Fertilizer-Bacteria Technology

Numerous studies describe the necessity of adding nitrogen and phosphorus to facilitate microbial degradation of hydrocarbons. For example, a field trial of a controlled-release, hydrophobic fertilizer together with crude oil degrading bacteria was conducted in 1992 on an oil contaminated sandy beach in Israel (1). The results of the study showed an approximately 86% degradation of pentane compounds as compared to only a 15% decrease in a control plot of beach. Later that year the entire beach, containing approximately 200 tons of crude oil, was cleaned using the fertilizer-bacteria technology.

1. Petroleum bioremediation - a multiphase problem. Rosenberg E, Legmann R, Kushmaro A, Taube R, Adler E and Ron EZ. Biodegradation, Volume 3, Numbers 2-3, 337-350 1992

Give Companies Marketing Oil Eating Bacteria a Chance in Gulf Oil Spill Clean Up

There are a number of companies that specialize in production of hydrocarbon-eating microbes for use in bioremediation of oil spills. For example, Clift Industries, Inc. markets a blend of a dozen microbial strains, enzymes and nutrients designed to digest hydrocarbons. Similarly, Alabaster Corp. also sells a blend of naturally occurring, non-pathogenic oil degrading microbes. A number of other companies offer products that accelerate biodegradation by providing the necessary support and stimulation for native microbes to multiply and produce enzymes to speed up the metabolic process of biodegradation. For example, Universal Remediation Inc. sells miniature spheres comprised of bee’s wax and soy wax, which encapsulate oil and allow bacteria to break it down. BioNutraTech markets a biostimulant composite particle that can accelerate biodegradation by providing the necessary nutrients for native microbes.