Battling Impostor Syndrome

It was 8pm on a Saturday. We had been sitting in the common room of Haverford University since 9am waiting for the interview committee to make a decision. We had exhausted the energy bars and chips they had provided. At that point, I think most of us had decided that we were not going to...

Slowing down: The benefits of working and living “inefficiently”

My alarm would go off at 5:45 am. That gave me about 30 minutes to eat my peanut butter and banana on toast, pack my bag, and run to the boathouse for rowing practice. Yes, there was a bus. But running was faster. I got impatient waiting for the bus. Inefficient use of time. I...

Life update: I’m still using beads to make DNA 13 years later

I couldn't stop laughing when my mom sent me a picture of this DNA model from sixth grade. It appears to be constructed from wire and jewelery-making beads, each color representing a different molecular component of the DNA. If I remember correctly, I got extra credit for making the styrofoam base "spin." Today, I know...

p is for…?

There is one letter (well, a letter that represents a numerical value) that determines if a scientist will publish her data or pursue a hypothesis further. It can make the difference in a grant application or tenure decision. While we want many numbers in our life to be high -- income, number of papers published,...

Can a mouse have depression?

And if not, why do neuroscientists study the biological basis of depression, and other psychiatric disorders, in rodents? We have a challenge in neuroscience. We've uncovered the regions of the brain that underlie a number of basic functions, such as memory and fear. We've even discovered some of the chemicals that are involved in these...

On feeling fulfilled

My brothers spent a lot of time playing video games when I was little. The soundtrack to my childhood is the electronic theme music and the ping! and bang! of World of Warcraft and Halo. I myself had a little Gameboy that I played while waiting for the dentist or on the car ride to school. I can't be...

Teamwork makes the dream work

It is remarkable to think how much of my life I have spent waiting for the frozen ingredients for my experiments to thaw. We store most of these ingredients (what we labfolk call "reagents") in freezers between -20 and -80° C. We have to thaw them on ice so they stay relatively cold, which can...

Dear Oxford…

Dear Oxford, When friends ask me what you are like, I joke that living among your centuries-old architecture, meadows full of cows, and quaint coffee shops is like inhabiting a snow globe. Except we get rain instead of snowflakes. I might as well be in a glass dome, protected from the harsh realities of the...

Can science explain consciousness?

I recently attended a debate at Imperial College London entitled: "The Brain & Beyond: From Neuroscience to Exceptional Experience." The discussion was between a neuroscientist, Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, and a parapsychologist,* Dr. David Luke. The topic of the debate was whether the psychedelic experience under the influence ofhallucinogenic drugs, such as LSD or DMT,  is due to chemical...

“The Smartphone Psychiatrist” (from The Atlantic)

This article in The Atlantic about Tom Insel, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health in the U.S., touches on a number of themes that have been on my mind lately, including: the role of technology in medicine (and the philosophical implications of a machine knowing more about us than we know about ourselves) the...