Justin's Microbiology Journal
Friday, January 30, 2004
Yay, not sick anymore.
I'm off to watch some researchchannel.org and study up on my O-Chem. Spent part of today programming for my friend Wayne and getting my family web site back up. Also downloaded some forum software written in ASP.NET that I'm going to host on my site, with a link from this website as well.
I think I'm going to bid on a set of 200 prepared slides to get my feet wet using and understanding whatever microscope I do buy. Here's a link on ebay that has what I'm interested in. That's a lot of slides.
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Still sick, so not much to report. I've pretty much decided on the Motic BA450, but waiting for the owner of Martin's Microscopes to call me back. There's a lot of infrastructure for upright microscopes, so I'm going to stick with that. In the event that I'm able to set up my own infrastructure to develop lots of cultures in petri dishes, I'll look at inverteds again.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
No bio news. Sick today. I did manage to scrape enough energy together to go get my new car, a silver 2004 Prius. Motor Trend's Car of the Year. Waiting list is currently around 125 days if you want one now. Toyota site here.
Spent about 3 hours last night researching microscopes. I'm trying to decide between a standard upright microscope and an inverted one. Right now I'm leaning towards a Motic AE31 Inverted scope with an adapter for my Sony F828 digital camera from Martin Microscope. Here's some pictures from the 828 from their website.
The only problem with the inverted microscope is that they are generally limited to 400x resolution, since 1000x requires immersion oil. Here's an example of the difference between the two. So if I want to see subcellular structure, I may have to go for an upright one.
Time passes, the scientific community learns and the world is changed thereby. So many changes, so many things to learn. I'm a former Microsoft employee who's semi-retired and looking to do good. I hope to prove that curiosity can overcome comfort, intellectual challenges can satisfy more than leisure, and a 39 year old can completely reverse direction and eventually contribute to a field he's had no practical or theoretical experience with.
My scientific education focused heavily on computer science, mathematics, and physics. No biology since sophomore year in high school, and only a basic chemistry class. I'm going to see if someone can self-teach themselves all the way into a PhD program with enough time, energy, and money. Then the goal is to contribute to the world either via disease treatment, or understanding of the soft sciences via the hard science of biology.
The first book I read was Instant notes on Biochemistry
Good overview book, made me realize I need to lots more organic chemistry :)
I've been watching the research channel on satellite and recording interesting lectures on microbiology. There is an excellent series on biomedical research that I've been trying to watch an hour a day on. Link is here: Biomedical Research Series
I'm also going to go off and check out their interactive web site. Haven't done that yet though, just noticed it.
I decided to take classes at San Jose state this spring, but I then decided to wait until fall since I want to visit New Zealand and Australia while my family has this free time. To prepare, I've been using the MIT open coursework classes to self-study.
Goals: Endeavor to be more rigorous about studying every day. Get a microscope and set up a mini lab.
