Do you mind if I ask you a question, and please don't take this as a dig at all.
I know quite a lot of people who have done PHDs doing scientific things, like research, and to me the job seems tedious, dull and unless it's a rare case, leads not much further than where it starts.

I'm not an academic man, no in the slightest, but a job that I see very little appeal in, is 'research', weather it's doing something like testing millions of samples of blood, or checking to see who your local area votes for.

Don't get me wrong, statistics are awesome, and every time an interesting new API opens sharing massive databases, I glee a bit at the potential... for example, Spotify has an API and I can think up loads of uses for it. Google and Yahoo offers so much data that someone like me can make a website by myself and fill it with millions of content without much effort... but I would hate to be the collector of that data.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:43, 2 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

I just like working in a lab mostly
But i also like finding out new stuff and expanding our knowledge. I especially love the fact that everything in the body is controlled by genes and all the pathways feed back into each other.
It's just something that inspires me
(The Ginger Penguin la la la la la la, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 19:45, Reply)

Ahh, cool.
The mental image I've got is having millions of, say, samples of blood, looking at it under a microsocope or putting it into some Whuuurrr Buzzzz'nator type thing, and the results showing you something similar or different each time, like, say [and forgive me here, I really don't know] Blood Type/Chromozone/DNA strand, and then marking it down. That then compares to an ID of an indevidual who has XYZ 'wrong' with them, and then at the end of the millions of tests you can say "Ahh, people with _this_ genetic marker tend to have _this_ desease. When they end up taking _this_ chemical, _that_ genetic marker is reduced, and so are the symptons".

Except, there is an almost infinate amount of sinarios and possiblities, and you can't test out some of the theories because, well, you can't just give someone a chemical, it has to go to a board of people.... which is where I would personally get fustrated as I would like to do something with the results.

Have I got the right idea about it?
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:21, Reply)

It sounds about right
That sounds quite similar to what i'm sort of involved in, looking at genetic markers for disease susceptibility. It's got the potential to be really fascinating but just gets bogged down in other stuff.
Sometime research can be really exciting. Honest! Sometimes i wish we had magic CSI-like machines though.
(The Ginger Penguin la la la la la la, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:28, Reply)

Cool, what kind of stuff gets in the way of doing bits you want?
Are there hundreds of you in the lab, or just a few? What would be your ideal lab gig?
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:47, Reply)

Just a few of us
I think the main thing at this place in the way is the people managing the group, they're a bit twitchy about us having more reponsibility and publishing stuff. Not sure why cos it would just make them look better if we had more papers out.
Ideal lab gig? I would really like to work on growing new organs. I think it's a real possibility for the future but there's loads we don't know about the pathways involved in organ development. It'd be pretty cool to grow someone a heart in a jar in a lab :)
(The Ginger Penguin la la la la la la, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:52, Reply)

Grow someone a new pancreas
that would be awesome.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 21:42, Reply)

Spleens'R'us

( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 9:25, Reply)

Fallopians 4 U

( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 2 Jul 2010, 10:06, Reply)

Gonz, you are always doing research.
Finding new food, new tech, finding out how Bert's brain works. All sorts of stuff. I think that what you mean, is that you don't think you could be disciplined enough to do it on a single subject.
( Bartleby A dead man on vacation, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:13, Reply)

Kindda, I'm always learning, and I really can see the appeal of expanding knowledge.....
... I love it when I try a new methordology in programing, or a new API, or find an alternative use for some technology that it wasn't intended for.

But that's different to research, research is a lot more involved. If I try (for example), a recipy, and it semi-works, I'll try again adjusting it... but I can't see me ever marking down the exact quantitys, or trying to get a machallin-star level of quality.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not putting eaither thing down, in fact, I think it's more than [donno the word] to expand the knowledge of humanity on a global level, that if you're curing aids or coming up with something that'll lead to helping anyone out (even if it's just something 'minor', like coming up with a shampoo that doesn't sting the eyes), that's amazing.... It's more of a case of me trying to understand the appeal of doing that as a job.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 1 Jul 2010, 20:29, Reply)