Student health care and combinatorial abilities

Beer is healthy! No doubt of that. Some of you have probably heard of scientific articles saying that beer improves breast milk quality. My own mother was drinking half a pint of beer every couple of days when she was feeding my sister. I do not know if it is because of that or of something else but my "baby"-sister packs the strongest punch I have seen in a girl. Do not expect any face-slapping from her, only a good honest bone-shattering right straight. Beer yeast tablets are said to prevent or at least diminish the extent of acne. You all know them, those annoying zits that threatened to ruin your perfect image of an adolescent god(ess). Furthermore, beer contains alcohol (amazing, is it not) and hops and both of those have antiseptic properties.

What I discovered during a late-night rain cycling yesterday, (I always get brilliant insights into the nature of things when water is pouring on my head, though I prefer the bathroom conditions) was that beer has a positive on the adaptive immune system as well. For those of you that have not witnessed my great progress in the field of immunology, this is the part of the immune system that governs the antibody response and deploys the majority of the white blood cells, or leucocytes. Now, in the recent decades, people in Europe and North America suffer considerably less frequently of parasitic infections. Tapeworms, amoebas, trypanosomas, they only get those when they omit hygenic guidelines or have too much fun in African or Asian lakes. As a consequence of this, a whole part of the immune system that usually deals with exactly those infections, is left unemployed. Eventually it got bored of just sitting idle and doing nothing, and started manifesting itself as allergies. At least that is one hypothesis why there are so many different allergies in the Western world and why their numbers rise constantly.

Sweden is one of the best examples. People here have allergies against pretty much everything: gluten, milk, meat, fish, crabs, onions, soya, potatoes, chocolate, strawberries, bread, you name it. It is almost impossible to gather more than 10 people for dinner without at least one of them complaining about some ingredient. Poor chefs in this country! Not to mention the vegetarians and the vegans. If God has wanted me to eat only grass and leaves, He would have given me the intestine and dental apparatus of a cow. I have my canine teeth and no cellulosa-degrading bacteria in my gut, so I intend to make good usage of my situation and stick to the steaks.

Well, not all Swedish parties are like this. I am a member of a certain oenological society and we have the nice idea of sitting together and taste, discuss and enjoy a selected amount of different beverages, including, but not limited to, beer. In order to make the whole thing a civilised and cultured event, we also consume food, thus skipping the vomit and the headaches. And here comes the health part. Of all thirty or so people, the total number of allergic, vegetarian or vegan drinkers equals exactly... zero. So, join the oenological society and you will not only get to taste things you have never heard of but you will improve your overall physical condition as well!

As a side note, I was playing scrabble against a Swede and a Costarican yesterday. We were playing in English, because that is a second language to us all, so there would be no strange forgotten dialect words. None of them seemed to happy when I made the word DODO and scored around 24 points because of a certain "Whole word multiplied by four"-square. Even one other Swede, who was observing the showdown, did not want to acknowledge it. My salvation manifested itself in Virginie Delporte, last year chairman of the oenological society. She needed nothing more than a look on the word to confirm my version. After this, the Swedes left and I continued beating the Costarican. I was leading with around 60 points when a friend of ours, Hitesh (see this post) came and messed the whole board. Bloody Indian! So, the moral of the story is that beer not only improves your health, it expands your general culture as well!

Mythology hunting and science hypocrisy

Hail there, good folks. Accept my humble apologies for the lack of a new story for such a long time. There were quite a few of you that liked my ramblings. I guess this made my muse jealous and she flew away, shouting something about Jamaica. I found her yesterday evening, she was hiding behind the couch, trembling and eating popcorn. It did not take me long to determine that the trembles were due to the generous amount of Jamaican rum she had consumed. Before passing into a much-needed hibernation, she promised me to help me write something today. So now, here she is, having a massive hangover but eager to cooperate. Right, dear? *shakes the whip meaningfully* That's a good girl.

Now then. In the morning we had a protein purification lab. Well, the lab is still going on but we are taking a one hour break. I am very amused by the subtle ways the university is trying to get rid of us students, thus supporting Terry Prattchet's hypothesis that the students are just a minor inconvenience when you are trying to run a university.

We were supposed to perform a protein separation technique called SDS-PAGE (Sodium dodecyl-sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis). Impressive, is it not? The technique itself consists of putting two glass plates together and filling the interspace with a solution which is then left to polymerise, i.e. become a gel. To complicate things a bit, there is a comb-like device inserted into the liquid before it solidifies, so that wells can be formed. And here comes the insidious plot against us, dramatis personae in the comedy called higher education.

We were given two types of glass plates, one with interspace of one millimeter and one with 0.75 millimeters. However, we were oblivious to this fact (and put our trust in the lab assistants who were supposed to know what they were giving us). Since we took it for granted that there should be only one plate and one comb type, we continued happily with our preparations. We were supposed to insert the combs into the gel solution very carefully, so no air bubbles are trapped. If you have ever tried to insert a one millimeter comb into a 0.75 millimeter space than you would know that it is necessary to use force. Combining strength and force, you crouch down so you level your face with the device you are trying to prepare and switch on your hand-eye coordination.

So what, you ask. Well, the "so what" part comes here. Acrylamide is toxic. So toxic we have to use special gloves and work on special ventilated benches. Fully aware of this fact, I tried to force the comb between the glasses without trapping those infernal bubbles. And then it happened.. the comb went all the way in, cracked one of the glasses (fortunately it did not break) and splashed all the surplus acrylamide-containing solution straight into my face. Strike one for the plotters. Huzzah! Luckily there was a sink nearby so I was able to wash my face without sustaining serious damage.

Now I have to go back to that place and conclude my experiment. I am entering the dark jungle of the immunology experiments. Wish me luck!