My Internship at NCBS: The Beginning

Well, I've just finished a one month long internship at the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS). I really cannot put into words how insightful and engaging my experience was, but, these next few posts is me attempting to make that possible.

When I first walked onto campus, I was, to be completely honest, utterly and thoroughly confused. I didn't know which way was which, where the hallways ended and where they began. But I did spend a significant amount of time observing the people around me and what I saw intrigued me. There were students gathered around professors who were deeply concentrated on making their point about something important and there were large clusters of people engaged in heated discussions. But all I really saw were their faces.They were simply enraptured. I mean they were literally lost in the wonderful world of science and discovery. And that's when it hit me.. I really did want to be there. Learning about scientific research and actually seeing it unfold is what I really wanted to do for the rest of my life. So in spite of being lost on my first day, I soon realized that I was definitely in the right place.

Research for Everyone?...Maybe

Imagine having all of science's cutting edge research literally at your fingertips. The world would be a completely different place, and I'm not exaggerating here. Having the chance to read, review and criticize all kinds of research would provide people everywhere around the world with an opportunity, unlike any before, to potentially redefine the world of research. Granted, some of this research is within our reach even today, but not in the most accessible and affordable of ways. 


Thankfully, we've got some good news. The UK government has announced that they have plans to make academic research readily accessible and free of charge to the public. This has come after several years of demanding that academic research be made available for the public by many scientists and their affiliated research companies. 


For me personally, I find this piece of news extremely uplifting because honestly, who better than students like myself can sympathize with this global need and demand for accessible and affordable academic research? I mean, I'm speaking from my own experience here. I've found it to be quite frustrating to click on an eye-catching link about stem cells in the heart, or whatever it may be, and suddenly find myself reading a brief abstract along with a link to the entire paper available only for subscribed users. What this has come to mean is that a majority of research papers are only being read and reviewed by people who have subscriptions to such highly influential journals like Scientific American, Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine. So, for lots of other people in the world, students, teachers and anyone else really, this is a huge limitation. At the end of the day any research, be it chemical or mathematical, is carried out with the sole purpose of benefiting the world in some way. Therefore, shouldn't we all be entitled to know what exactly is going on?


UK's Science Minister David Willetts outlined two possible models for this initiative:-

-One would see to it that universities and others who fund the research cover the costs of the review process,
-and the other would allow publishers to restrict access to the research for a limited period of time in order to recoup costs before a wider release.


This is what Research Libraries UK's executive director David Prosser had to say on the issue.                                                                                                                                            

"We think it will drive innovation and work out cheaper for the UK as we are presently paying a lot on duplicating access to materials. It would also bring wider benefits to the economy as biotech firms and other small start-ups would find it easier to access research."

In fact, to bring some more hope to this issue, one of the world's largest research charities, The Wellcome Trust, is helping to support the efforts made by scientists by establishing a free, online publication to compete with established academic journals. This is a strategic move because not only will it garner more support from scientists, it will force other publications to increase free access as well.

So, all in all, the future for free, accessible and quality research is looking optimistic. Yes, these announcements have been made in the UK and are thus going to aim towards benefiting the people there first; however, the word will spread like wildfire and soon enough, everyone everywhere will have access to all kinds of research.

dissections of a heart!!

wow, i just had the most awesome biology class ever!!!

we dissected a goat's heart today and it was amazing!!! now, i have to take into account that it was only that much more fascinating once we had finished studying the heart in detail. how else could we have identified the magnificent aorta, or traveled down it into the left ventricle with our tools? and the chordae tendineae was simply amazing! we even saw the cardiac muscle!

the one thing that did take me by surprise was how small the atrium really are! can you imagine such a small volume of the heart continuously pumping blood for the rest of the body?

so, if you have any comments or thoughts on dissections of any kind, feel free to post them :)

amazing stuff is happening guys!!!! :)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=mapping-the-mind

My Take on Science

Its amazing how simple and uncluttered 5th grade science used to be. Draw a few electrons here, stick a few purple leaves into your notebook over there and bada bing bada boom, science class is over. But now, 6 years and a slew of inspiring science teachers later, I've come to realize just how little I know about the world around me. But therein lies the beauty. What we don't know.

There is just so much knowledge that no one knows about, knowledge which, if everyone has access to it, can change the way we think altogether. And that's what I've set out to do with this blog. I'm going to try and change the way you think about biology, and by extension, science as a whole. Because like it or not, science is inescapable. Its what makes us who we are. Heck, we're walking models of science. So why not make the effort to learn more about it?


Here are some awesome sites to check out :)

• http://www.scientificamerican.com
• http://nature.com
• http://sciencedaily.com