Sequelae: Word of the day

The common advice for encountering unknown words is to "look at the context"... well, that doesn't really work in academia, let alone biomedicine:

Among any groups of patients given the same radiation treatment, some show more sever normal-tissue reactions than others, and a small proportion suffer unacceptable late sequelae.

What is sequelae? Well it is apparently bad and can potentially result from radiation treatment. I decided to try my handy new Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, Twenty-fifth Edition and looked up the word:

sequelae plural of sequela

Had I taken Latin I suppose I could have seen that coming.

sequela any lesion or affection following or caused by an attack of disease.

Only slightly more helpful, I suppose - "any affection"? I went to wikipedia to understand better and got

a pathological condition resulting from a disease, injury, or other trauma.

Ah! Much better! Just in case it isn't clear yet, let me translate. A sequelae is something (usually known as a symptom or bad shit) that occurs because of something medical happening. If I was writing the textbook, (maybe I can volunteer for the 7th edition) the original paragraph could have read:

Among any groups of patients given the same radiation treatment, some show more sever normal-tissue reactions than others, and a small proportion suffer from some bad shit so they refuse treatment .

Back to what I know

So it has been a week. A week of reading papers and textbooks and trying to learn what the different cell lines and genes and tissues are. I've had some success - yesterday I attended the MIPS (Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford) seminar, and I actually understood a few of the things the speaker said. Not much of what he said, but it was a comfort to see I had made some progress.

Enough is enough. My brain is melting and I can't read any more papers and textbooks. At least, I can't occupy 8 hours a day with it. While I feel like I've fought to have my new "research life" look very different from my old one, I can feel myself going back into the same pattern. I need to go back to what is comforting, what I know. Unfortunately, this also is what will piss me off: computers.

Now, the slide already began a few days ago. The Stanford MedWiki (my group has their internal site on it) is done in Confluence. So I set up a personal space to take notes on all of the stuff trying to force its way into my brain (and complained about the lack of plugins). Now I'm spiraling further down. First, I'm upgrading my laptop. Sure, I used to be one of the first to upgrade. Then I realized how much time I was 'wasting' configuring my laptop. It is time for some upgrades, file clean up, and configuration! This will kill what, 2 weeks?

Truly, what I am after is simulation software. I found a medical suite using GEANT4 that I wanted to start playing with. I wanted to try to radiate some stuff and see what happens. My initial plan was to run everything locally, so the simulations would take some time - I could still do some reading while all of this is going on. GAMOS has a binary for Ubuntu 10.04, which is why I'm upgrading.

So I go back to the land of computers. Since I have to wait 1.5 weeks to get my animal training and over a month to get my radiation training, this was more-or-less inevitable. Hopefully bricking my laptop isn't...

Zombie Cancer!

Theory: The original zombie myth came from an old "disease" caused by immortal cancer cells.
Plan: Write a screenplay based on this.

Well, sortof. The HeLa cell line has gotten a lot of publicity lately due to the book that is still on the best-seller shelves. In brief: cervical cancer cells from a biopsy half a century ago are still alive and replicating and are one of the standard human cell lines in biomedical research. "Normal" cells stop replicating after about 50 times since there is always a little bit of DNA lost in the process. There is a bunch of "junk" DNA at the end that is lost so good stuff isn't lost. "Immortal" cells like the HeLa line actually repairs the end of the DNA so it can keep replicating (so do stem cells).

Some people (ok, maybe just one) believe the HeLa cells should be considered its own species, Helacyton gartleri. Whether or not they are, they have contaminated a variety of other cell lines and caused problems in biomedical research. They spread. They are hard to kill. They sound a bit scary... like some sort of disease... but it gets worse.

Drove to work today (Day 2)

Yesterday was my first day "at work". It was quite exciting - I fought with Ubuntu to add a printer (without searching the entire Stanford network first), I did some online training, and then I searched for the women's restroom. That last part was far more traumatizing than you might imagine.

Now I'm on Day 2. I've brought my coffee mug, some posters, and the PDG. While the PDG is far less applicable to my new field, it still is the single most useful book I've ever had. Also, it weighs a ton. So I drove to work today! I more or less filled the back with stuff I wanted to bring in, so it didn't feel like cheating... too much.

Goodbye Carlsbad, NM

I only have a few minutes left of my last shift at WIPP. Did I manage to do everything I ever wanted to do here in Carlsbad?

• Eco Location The last thing I did was stop in a small store in Carlsbad with cute hand-made gifts and very friendly people working there! I'm glad I stopped by.
  
• Swimming in the Pecos I always figured it would just happen one night if I drank too much, but last night was my last chance. I got to chase some geese. The water was warmer than I imagined, and my skin didn't melt off. Overall, a success.
  
• Hobbs, NM Yesterday I drove to Hobbs after my shift to go shopping. I only had about an hour before I thought stores would close, so I had to work fast and didn't end up making it to all of them. But Il Cicerone was awesome - much cheaper than the stores in Italy, but very similar stuff. Also a great Western Wear shop that had some great Ariat shirts on sale.
  
• The Living Desert This small 'zoo' showcases the different ecosystems of the local desert, including some exciting wildlife. Unfortunately it is so small that most of the animals are by themselves, and a bit depressed. I really wanted to rescue the badger - who knew they were so cute? Also: mountain lion. The sign said not to try to pet it, no matter how cute it looked.
  
• Bat Flight I've gone once a summer to see the bats fly. I absolutely love it - not only do you get to see ~300,000 bats leaving the cave, but you can actually hear their wings flapping. And smell them. How often does one get to smell bats?
  
• Roswell I went... I wasn't abducted. Unfortunately we got there after most everything was closed. And my camera battery was completely dead. But I can at least say I've been there!
  
• The Wellhead my favorite New Mexican microbrewery makes delicious beer and a delicious prime rib.
  

I can't really think of anything I missed. While I could have gone shopping in Artesia one last time, hitting up Hobbs was better. I had hoped to go salsa dancing around here... but it seems to not exist. No dancing for me.

So, goodbye, Carlsbad.