Research & Yard Work

Currently, two activities are taking the majority of my time; research, as a matter of course, and yard work. I have been a little stir-crazy now that school is out and I have no mountains to climb. I asked my friend/room mate/lab mate/landlord, Jeremy, if I could do something with the back yard, he graciously obliged. First, let’s discuss research.

In the lab I am working on a program called MolProbity Compare. First, MolProbity is a validation tool used by structural biologist [translation: MolProbity is a computer program that can tell scientists what’s wrong with a protein model that they are proposing, think of this ‘model’ as a virtual Skittle for this purpose. MolProbity can find imperfections in the Skittle]. Sometimes one would want to put two of the ‘same’ protein models through MolProbity; the two models are the same in the sense that they are the same protein but differ in another way (i.e. resolution) [translation: continuing with our Skittle model, a scientist has two virtual green Skittles but surely they are different if you look really close]. It would be useful to compare the MolProbity output of the two models [translation: its useful to compare the two green Skittles.]. MolProbity Compare allows the user to compare two models of the same protein, which will point out differences in the models [MolProbity Compare, which is a computer program, allows the user to compare the two virtual green Skittles thereby uncovering differences in the Skittles.]. This program will be useful in my research for potentially uncovering systematic errors made in low-resolution crystallographic structures [translation: forget it!]. MolProbity Compare will also be useful to others; therefore, I am converting the program to a web application so that anyone can use it.

On to the yard work, my outlet from lab work. This week Jeremy gave me the lay of the land in our backyard. He then said I could beautify as I saw fit. I subsequently mowed the lawn, cut down two trees, pulled weeds, and began to turn the soil in a bed by hand. I quickly found this work very slow and not producing the desired results, I needed a tiller! Looking around the yard I realized the expanse of not one but three large beds and decided to just go ahead and rent a tiller. This morning I spent a good three plus hours wrestling with a tiller. For those who are not familiar with the joys of handling a tiller allow me to explain. Have you seen a child walking an over-anxious dog where the dog is taking the child for a walk? It’s kind of like that. I wish that I had taken ‘before’ pictures but I did not. Here are shots of the beds that I tilled in our backyard.

Quote for this post:

'Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself.'

--W. C. Doane