I semi-walked through the (crime)scene...!

From: ubc.systems@ubc.ca
> Subject: Announcement re Biological Sciences Building
> To:
>
> There has been a police incident at the Bio Sciences Building, which is located at the intersection of Main Mall and University Boulevard at the University of British Columbia.
>
> On the advice of the RCMP, the Bio Sciences Building has been locked down. Building occupants have been instructed to stay where they are, to secure the room in which they are located, and to await further instructions from the RCMP.
>
> No person will be permitted to enter or leave the Bio Sciences Building without RCMP authorization.
>
> Out of an abundance of caution, the RCMP is advising that others on campus stay where they are currently located. All campus occupants should be aware of their surroundings and report any suspicious circumstances to the RCMP at 911. Persons who are not on campus are advised to remain away from the campus until further notice.
>
> Further information, as it becomes available, will be posted at http://www.ubc.ca.
>
> Stephen J. Toope
> President and Vice Chancellor

Ha!

My bio teacher actually made an announcement today about what I emailed him! He apologized to the class for misleading us. It was sweet.

Science-ing it up like ne'r before

On 24-Jan-08, at 12:55 PM, claire tuttle wrote:

Hello professor. I have a question regarding some things we talked about today (Jan. 24) and the textbook.

In chapter 14 the book talks about methylated base repair, but it says that "mismatched repair in eukaryotes is not based on a methylation signal....researchers have not been able to determine how the eukaryotic enzymes recognize the newly synthesized strand versus the original strand." It then goes on to talk about excision repair in humans, however. So I don't understand how excision repair is really any different for methylation in knowing that bases are mismatched and subsequently having enzymes fix the bases. Can you shed some light on this?

Thanks,
Claire Tuttle (92641075)

Good for you. I should be more careful. Most work on the molecular machinery working with DNA is developed first using bacterial models. THen they try to extend these findings to eukaryotes and often, people like me, teaching the material fail to distinguish cases where what occurs in bacteria does not actually work for eukaryotes. They know there is some sort of repair system but the signal whereby the system recognized the new vs the template strand is unknown. Also it isnt completely clear that methylation is not in any way involved in eukaryotic mismatch repair---there is some in vitro (iei in a test tube) work that suggests it may be involved but the story is not simple. In eukaryotes DNA is methylated (typically at the cytosine residue) and although the full significance isnt understood, it seems to be involved in maintaining a particular developmental state---so it is important say in keeping a muscle cell as a muscle cell or a nerve cell as a nerve cell. Presumably it determines in some way which genes get transcribed in the differentiated cell. Mutants of the gene that methylates (methyltransferases) are usually lethal which would suggest an important role, whatever that may be.

I will try to remember to bring your question up in class on Tuesday.

Martin

______________________________

I just thought that was a post-worthy erudite exchange. It is even more hilarious for me that I call him "professor" because he looks exactly, exactly, exactly like Dumbledore. So it's all pretty Potterish, which is always a good thing.

Semester 2 so far

20 Days into 2008

Many things. Many things to say.

Semester two is looking great. Stressful, but happier in a way. Less frustration. More ease in my comfort with timing and figuring out which classes can be ignored more than others. It is also nice that I have learned to take time off on the weekends to just go out and explore beyond the campus.

Getting off campus...
...is amazing. The bus system here is great! All the Vancouverites rag on it, but if they only knew Edmonton's ghetto havoc ETS, they would know the greatness they have. The bus drivers are amazingly nice as they haven't been accosted by belligerent junior high kids with too much eye liner or oversized hoodies who think they are all that. These bus drivers will literally stop and pick you up if it is raining, even if the bus isn't headed where you are. They will drop you off at the closest stop to get you where you need to be, just so you don't get soaked. Happened to me so I know this fo shizzle!

Karla and I usually find ourselves out and about on the bus system sometime during the weekends. A new word for our bus adventures is that they are "weekend-ary". This was at first confused with (and quite rightly so) thinking she said that "[our] bus rides seem to be wheat and dairy". While we have made trips to Safeway to buy items including wheat and dairy, I didn't think she meant those purchases were our defining weekend activities, so I put what she had said together quickly after my initial foible. It's now a joke in which we actually say "wheat and dairy" in relation to weekend activities.

(Weekend) Activities...
...are looking better than semester one. For example, I have signed up for Girl's Flag Football which is a Totem Park-wide activity that will have games on Sunday mornings. I am excited! Our floor only has 6 people signed up but apparently we will be absorbing the four girls from 6th who signed up, so I'm sure we'll make a great team to represent Dene. I'm really hoping my soccer skills transfer. Such skills involve being shifty and deceptively fast and from what I have heard, these things should help me out on the permafrost mud-field.

Weekday extracurricular activities now include volunteering at the afterschool program at Strathcona Community Centre. I am excited to the max! I signed up for the UBC Trek Learning Exchange Program and attending an orientation on Saturday morning. There was a small group of mainly first year students who were interested in helping out the community, and we all got to pick which place we wished to volunteer at for the minimum of four months, 1-4 hours a week. I will be helpin' out the kids on Mondays from 3-6 pm doing various activities. I thought I would start out somewhere with smaller kids and next year I will go somewhere I can academically help or supervise. But either way, I am really excited because I am so PASSIONATE about helping out. I would really like to be a teacher in some capacity. The positive feeling people talk about when they explain how rewarding teaching is...I can feel that.

I am also feeling...

• Music! I've rediscovered my passion for sound! For a while I was stuck in a soley Carrie Underwood phase which, do not get me wrong, was great, but now I am branching out and re-entering the world of Other Artists. Among them: Sara Barielles (sounds like Fiona Apple), Belle and Sebastian, Kimya Dawson, The Kinks, Satyajit Ray, and Rilo Kiley (they have finally won me over after a longstanding one-sided anger stand-off). I am so glad Dennis the Menace (my iPod) decided to stop acting like his namesake. No more random battery drains!
  
• Red nailpolish*. The deep blood colour. It's a hard shade to find and I am still on the prowl. I will find my bottle, though. And for under $10 because I am no sucker.
• Sleeping! After my little episode throughout the Christmas break, it is nice to get a full eight hours. There's nothing like three weeks of insomnia to make you appreciate steady hours of rest.
  
• French. Maryse Duggan automatically makes this semester is great. She is more like a teacher than a professor. This means she is not some fool who thinks they are awesome because they have 200 people looking at them with tears in their eyes. Concept: she actually cares.
  
• Watching my roommate stress eat. It's just funny.

'Tis now the late hour of 10:50 and said roommate is getting ready for bed which means I should probably being doing so as well. I have come to the conclusion that living with a roommate is something akin to a mother dealing with a newborn: you have to start being stereo with the other person in order to get stuff done. Studying, for example. If I am studying, it is my feeling that she should also be doing so. Sleeping, as well. If one of us has fallen asleep for the night and the other lumbers in 4 hours later being loud, it doesn't make for the best situation.

With these great thoughts, I shall bid all 4 of this blog's readers bon nuit.
--C

*The obligatory but necessary/true statement: I was onto this red nail polish thing way before that site or anyone else knew the happs. Just so y'all know.