Aurora Timelapse
I apologize profusely for the lack of updates on this blog. Especially the last day of the SD-Edmonton Road trip. Will have something great for you in the next few weeks!
Until then,
Here’s a video I made last night at Elk Island National Park. I’ve been into Timelapse videos lately, which are a sped-up representation of extended time shots. Check the video out on facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/v/10100813520585054
Vince
Bigvinny Relocation Project Day 5
First day we got to sleep in. I mean.. reeeally sleep in, until about 11am. Our plan for today was to visit Mati’s lab at University of Calgary. Feeling rested, we decided to walk to the lab as Google Maps told us it was 2.5km away, about a 30 minute walk for us.
We walked right by McMahon Stadium, where the U of Calgary Dino football team and Calgary Stampede (CFL) play.
The security there? Non existent…. We walked right onto the field while the players were doing walkthroughs.
We got kind of lost, and was helped out by a few construction guys who pointed us in the right direction. Everyone’s nice here! We sprinted across 16th Ave, which is apparently a highway, devoid of any pedestrian crossings, and approached the University of Calgary Health Sciences Center.
In the parking lot we saw a bunch of outlets at the head of each parking spot. Tats was amazed as he thought everyone drove electric cars.
Turns out, these outlets are for the engine block heaters installed in cars for the wintertime. See, when it gets cold, the coolant freezes up, even if you use antifreeze. But it regularly gets to 0F and below here, so each car is fitted with a heating element in the coolant sump, and keeps the temp just above freezing so your car can start right up! Guess that will be a modification for my car in the near future.
Inside the Health Sciences Center are actually multiple buildings – interestingly, the way that things are built here, buildings within buildings, underground tunnels, etc… allow access to most buildings without going outside, useful when the weather outside is adverse, which I guess is most days out here.
We met Matiram in Dr. Marc Poulin’s lab, an investigator well known for his work in hypoxia.
There was an experiment going in the hypoxic chamber, but because we are responsible researchers, the subject was not photographed… (Research ethics, right Sue??) The study was looking at various responses to intermittent hypoxia (60 sec on, 60 sec off) to hopefully mimic OSA – Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Cool stuff!!!
We were given a tour of some of the equipment and the work done in the lab. It’s a very busy lab, multiple experiments happening. Met a few other graduate students. It’s always fun chatting science with other students and getting excited over new findings, and trading ideas for collaborations.
We then took off to get lunch, because we skipped breakfast. First stop was the bank, because I hadn’t had a chance to exchange my US Dollars for Canadian Dollars. Canadian money is infinitely more interesting, with shiny strips and different colors! First thing we bought with the new money was Chinese food- asian people in Canada WHAT??
Next stop was the main campus at U of C. There were logos depicting UC – Tats and I laughed because nobody else would get the joke if he brought home a UC shirt. (University of California) Nobody in the bookstore found it funny either. Other stops of note, the Kinesiology Corridor, where the exercise physiology research facilities were, and the fitness center, volleyball courts, etc.
Calgary hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics, and they built the Olympic Oval, a facility for speed skating.
Lots of cool things going on, we asked for a tour of the facilities, claiming we were graduate students from San Diego. Here is Tats inspired about picking up speed skating
Youth teams were practicing their speedskating skills, hockey player on the ice, and I think the Chinese speedskating team was visiting and training, doing drills on the artificial track and stuff.
Here are some other pics of buildings and sculptures of the beautiful campus of Calgary.
I can’t praise it too much because University of Alberta is supposedly their big rival. I need to get in that mindset… Go Golden Bears!
Tonight we are planning a full nights rest before taking off to Edmonton in the AM.
Bonus: we stopped at a liquor store to buy some beer, and were outraged at the prices. This couple was buying a 24 pack of Bud Light and the total came to be over $30 dollars. I asked them, is it worth it? Wrong on so many levels… We left with a six pack of Unibroue ‘La Fin du Monde’. Hopefully we will live to see another jour.
Until tomorrow!
Vince
Bigvinny Relocation Project Day 4
WORDPRESS DELETED MY WHOLE NARRATIVE GAHHHHH…. Since it;s 2:30AM MTN now….. I’ll post pics and will fill in the rest later.
Leaving Helena and the Red Lion
Colonial Hotel
2 Gate to the Mountains
3 Gate to the mountains, pier view
4 “Road Trip”
5. Lunch Stop in Augusta…. PS Small Town Montana has some of the nicest people!!!
6 Lunchtime – Fried Gizzards with the spiciest mustard outside of Philippes in LA (Shawn!)
7 Glacier National Park – Sunroof mounted Cam
8. $25 bucks for a day pass? I’ll come back later…
9. Alberta Border… Super nervous to get my car tossed! Thanks to dad for his super organizing magic in the car.. and to Nicole! (shoutout!)
10. I survived! Study permit good until Aug 31 2015
111. Southern Alberta is FLAT FLAT FLAT. Tatsuya slept a good 3 hours….
112. WE GOT SOOOOO LOST IN CALGARY. Downtown Calgary!
Tomorrow: VIsiting Matiram at University of Calgary, Hypoxia Chamber experiment!
Skee ya!
Bigvinny Relocation Project Day 3
Leaving Salt Lake City…. Wow.. what a gorgeous, clean, and friendly town! We went up into the mountains (Snowbird, Alta, Catherine Pass, etc) and drove around. We were actually able to drive up to 10,000 ft before being stopped by a gate.
GORGEOUS 
views….
I got smart and thought… Hey… I can open the sunroof and extend my tripod through, so I can get above-car shots….Here’s a particularly nice shot that turned out..
To see the behind the scenes, check out the video posted on My facebook…
http://www.facebook.com/v/10100423688731214
Then Tats and I went to visit Walter Wray at the University of Utah. When I was an undergrad at UCSD I worked with Walt and Russ Richardson in Vascular Research… They’ve since moved their lab to the VA.
Ultrasound Doppler and Knee Extensor Ergometer
Then we had lunch with some grad students from the Exercise and Sports Science (ESS) department at “The Point,” a nice restaurant unlike any hospital cafeteria I’ve ever seen, in the Huntsman Cancer Center, on the North Campus of the Medical School of the University of Utah. Great view of the city…
Tatsuya looking out over SLC thinking… “I might just move here…” (seriously).
We then Left for Helena, MT…. on a 475 mile, 7+ hour journey that took us through Idaho…. snooze…. Trucks… Bugs on the windshield… But curiously full cell phone reception
Crossing into Montana the scenery automatically gets more interesting:
We decide that we won’t get into Helena in time for any restaurants to still be open, so we Yelp’d a cool little steak house in Butte, MT.
Awesome food… great steaks should be ordered Rare (Rare+ in my case). Tatsuya likes his run through a warm room… or “Body Heat Restored” as Mike would say. Best Filet Mignon I’ve had to date. 
And I’d know! Stop by this place: Derby’s in Butte, MT if you’re ever driving through.
Finally, we’re at the Red Lion Colonial Hotel in Helena, where I finished off the night with a local brew: Cold Smoke Scotch Ale, brewed in Missoula.
Tomorrow: International border crossing into Canada! Our posts on Facebook and stuff will probably be less plentiful once we cross…. Wish us luck!
Bigvinny Relocation Project, Day 2
Day 2: Left Las Vegas with little sleep….
Hash House a Go Go for breakfast. My treat since Tats was a good sport about watching me win money last night.
Bit of a wait…
Great food though!
Hit the road… 2 more states to go:
Obligatory Border Pic
Entering Utah
Rolling into Salt Lake City (Technically not SLC, Sandy, UT)
Then finally using my Birthday Dinner at Benihana’s all the way in Downtown SLC
Casa de Wray for the night.
And GOODNIGHT!
University of Alberta
My blog posts are scarce, I know!
Here’s a little bit of news: I’ve decided to attend the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to continue on for my PhD!
First impression…. even before I landed……. DANG IT’S COLD! The captain came on the announcer and informed us it was currently -20F…. I literally don’t know what that meant until I got off the plane!
The view of the frozen tundra that is Alberta
One of the many snow covered parks on the Medical Campus. Stunning
I visited the campus in mid-February, and met some of the people I’d be working with; namely, my future adviser, Dr. Michael Stickland- a well known and up-and-coming PI in exercise and gas exchange. His primary responsibility is to the Pulmonary Research Group, in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry. Dr Stickland showed me around the University and I was quite impressed with the extent of the laboratory space, and most of all the collaborative efforts between clinicians and academic research staff.
The newly built Edmonton Clinic, a beautiful building, isn't it? http://www.edmontonclinic.ca/
Alberta is known for their oil, their beef, and beer! Interestingly, the Northern Oil Sands are the second largest oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Arabia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athabasca_oil_sands Unfortunately, you can’t just stick a pipe in the ground and wait for oil to come out, the oil sands require extensive and expensive extraction techniques. Now that oil is well over $100 a barrel, the need for oil has really afforded the province of Alberta a great wealth of revenue! The Alberta Heritage Trust affords research and educational funding coming from the revenue from the oil production up North. The result is a trickle down effect that benefits everyone.
Downtown Edmonton, a great view from my hotel room. Lit up, just on the edge of the river vally is the Capital.
Some more details about my future at University of Alberta: I’ve been offered full tuition and a nice stipend, in return for student teaching and work as a graduate research associate for Dr. Stickland. I will technically be a PhD student in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation. My work will be in pulmonary physiology, studying exercise and gas exchange. I hope to be able to bring in my previous work in exercise physiology here at SDSU and UCSD and make significant contributions to the field!
The Butterdome, Home of the UofA Golden Bears and Pandas!
Until next time…
Vince
Corbett Hall, one of the many Clinical Research Facilities on Campus
The University of Alberta Hospital
Update coming soon!
So I haven’t posted in awhile – Thesis has been a mixed bag of frustration and jubilation, but I have kept my head down and furrowed through the work. A full formal post is coming soon, but I figure I would oblige your visual appetite.
Below is a video I made for my undergrad Applied Kinesiology class last spring. Simple project, but you can see the anatomical breakdown of Fred Cook’s shotput throw. Check it out:
Ireland Highlights Part 1
Ireland Highlights:
Ok I admit it, I failed at updating every day like I intended to, and some time has passed since the Ireland trip but here goes my best recollection.
The first night in Dublin, Mike, Steve, and I hopped in a cab to go to a tiny town called Malahide, and took our driver’s recommendation to go to a nice seafood restaurant right on the water. It was beautiful, and our first real taste of irish culture… I ate a nice seared ahi tuna, very fresh, simply seasoned with salt and pepper. My favorite quote of the night: Upon Steve’s close inspection and admiration for the label on that night’s wine, our waiter came by and asked if we wanted another bottle.
Steve: “Um, no we’re going to take it easy tonight, we just had a long flight across the Atlantic and we’re just tired…”
Waiter: “Sir, you do know what country you’ve landed in right? This is Ireland…. You can have more than one bottle between the three of ya!”
Galway/Oranmore
On the long drive to Oranmore, we stopped at Clonmacnoise, the most important 6th Century Christian monastery site in the Irish Midlands, and the final resting place for the Kings of Tara. This site was over 1400 years old, and it’s ruins really showed the many attacks on the monastery site by different parties and tribes. Today it stands as a very holy and solemn site dotted with high Celtic crosses overlooking the River Shannon.
The next three nights we stayed at the Oranmore Lodge hotel, which is the former ancestral home of the Blake-Butler family. The place was very B+B-ish, although much bigger, and the service was very nice. The hotel included a big lap-swimming pool, a steam room, sauna, gym, and jacuzzi; all of which I took advantage of. Right after settling into the hotel we had a full rehearsal with the group, which we all felt a bit shaky about our first performance which would be the next day in Kylemore Abbey.
Dinner that night was at Bunratty Castle, built in 1425, and it was a Medieval Banquet that started with live entertainment and mead, a honey wine, followed by a four-course meal which included curry soup, pork ribs, chicken, and well, the rest is a bit fuzzy as I was able to convince the ladies of the castle to let me have my own pitcher of mead. David Chase was dubbed the Duke, and was charged with the responsibility of being the guest of honor – thus the decision on food selection, quality and criticism, was on him. It was a fun night!
Connemara Region and Kylemore Abbey
We took a long drive out to Kylemore Abbey, a late 1800 castle built into a steep hillside and sitting on a lake, originally built as a gift by a wealthy man, Mitchell Henry for his wife who died shortly after of dysentery after a trip to Egypt. On the far bank of the lake is a small gothic chapel, dubbed the cathedral in miniature – This is where our first concert would be held. Logistically it was a nightmare as the chapel was narrow and thus we ended up stacking bassists 5-6 deep in the far back of the altar. The performance itself, well, just OK – many people including myself made some key mistakes, singing on rests, singing flat or missing pitch completely, etc… but it was nice to get the jitters out on the first day.
My favorite moment of that day: Our repertoire consisted of many different types of music from different times and regions of the world. Our first encore was an old Irish tune called “I know my love.” There was a sweet old Irish lady sitting in the front row directly in front of me, and her face exploded in joy when she recognized the tune and she started singing aloud, her face was just full of life and I could tell she was transported back to her childhood when she first learned that song, and it nearly brought me to tears, it was a very precious moment for me.
Cliffs of Moher
This geological attraction is one of the most popular in Ireland, it is on the western Irish coast, and the monstrous sandstone shear cliffs are absolutely breathtaking. One Facebook comment on my wall about the Cliffs of Moher alluded to the Princess Bride J. It was the first real test of my photographic skill on this trip, and I tried my best to capture the grandeur of it. Also this was the only meal on the trip I really did not enjoy. I guess a chicken sandwich is a little too daunting of a challenge, ha.
Roundstone
Easily my favorite place to stay, Roundstone is a tiny fishing village on beautiful Galway Bay, in Connemara County. It actually faces east across Galway Bay, but it give the false impression that you are looking across the Atlantic. Our group was so big that we were split up into 5 different B+B’s across the village, but we were within 5 minutes walking distance from each other.
The first night, we had a community music sharing night with the local people. I was simply stunned – the opening act was a group of very young local artists, some of which had turned professional and made a long trek home from Dublin to make the performance. Here’s a link to a video clip of them dancing and playing. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1563986581278&ref=mf
More later…..
Dublin Day 1
Ireland Day 1
I’d been pretty apprehensive about the trip in general; I’m the youngest one on the trip… Fred drove me to the airport and as soon as I got there, Ray, one of the bassists, brought me a plastic baggie of green goo – turns out it was lime jello shots with peppermint schnapps…. And there began the adventure. The plane ride, absolutely awful. I think the worst part is not being able to sleep. Well, or sleeping for 1-2 hours and then waking up, thinking that we only have one or two hours to go, just kidding, 5 hours! But they served us dinner, which was a piece of potroast with mashed potatoes and gravy, and a roll.
I met a new friend on the trip, Lauren, who’s the violinist accompanist. She’s a 25 year old USC graduate who won the Young Artists Competition with La Jolla Symphony. We sat on the plane together and played the movie game until we fell asleep. Well, she did. When we got off it was cloudy and rainy, but I was SO freaking happy to be getting off the plane. My sinuses were hurting really bad, even though I took like 8 sudafed. The terminal was long and had the moving walkway-escalator types. It’s pretty modern and clean. Then was the wait for customs…. Long snaking line. The customs agent I got was a gorgeous blonde girl, with these crazy blue eyes. My stay in Ireland is starting off well. She asked if I was there for business or pleasure, I, in my best james bond voice replied, “Both.” She laughed and asked if I was with the singing group. I was, and she requested that I prove it to her, and I sang her a little tune!
Got out of the terminal and the first thing I did was change out some dollars for some Euros. The excahange rate is about 1.35 at the moment. After that I went to buy a simcard for my iPhone. I bought a 10E simcard for O2 and made my first calls. Outside the weather was quite dreary, but I welcomed the wonderful fresh cold water splashing on my face after being cooped up in a plane for so many hours. We hopped on the tour bus, we had 2 drivers/guides, TJ and Sean. I was surprised that I had data serveice on my phone and promptly updated my facebook status. (Surprise im a facebook whore).
After getting into the hotel, which, admittedly was quite beautiful and modern, the rooms have a built in energy saving decive in where it forces you to put in your key to work the lights, we rested a few hours before having some breakfast downstairs. The irish eat a very hearty breakfast. Mine consisted of white and black pudding (or also known as blood pudding), sausage, a fried egg, and of course, potatoes. I would soon learn that this was a pretty common breakfast and we continted to have it every morning.
After breakfast we went and saw the Book of Kells, a manuscript of the 4 holy gospels, with very elaborate scripting and images, imagine the huge ornate first letters of pages. I tried to take pictures of it, and I got in trouble.. Boo. It was after this we had our first late-comer…. Nathan was 15 min late, and some people went back into the museum to find him. Upon walking back to the bus we realized that my roommate Mark was nowhere to be found. Another search party failed, but as we were about to pull away we see him running frantically towards the bus!
Sorry for the rare updates. More to come! Wi-fi is kind of hit and miss in the countryside…
Pictures are up on facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2540139&id=3303735&l=e2074b30a6
4th of July, Mountain Style – Continued
Zach has a secret talent – dancing with fire… For the last few years he has been practicing this ancient warrior-style dance… Pretty awesome. I was able to capture alot of it with my flash, with extended shutter time. For photo-guys I strobed at 1/8th power, shutter at 1/10th of a sec, and f/10. This way I was able to get him, and his priceless expression, plus the movement of the fire-stick.
After the show we go inside for a wonderful tri-tip dinner masterfully crafted by Scott, accompanied with root veggies, and cranberry walnut salad with balsamic vinegrette. 
Well done. I can say if anything, the food up here is worth the sickness, for I haven’t lost my appetite. We chat some more about local sights and world traveling. Scott has been the cook up at Barcroft Lab and Crooked Creek Lab for hte last three years, and he absolutely loves what he does, and it shows.
After dinner we decide to see if we can catch the rest of the fireworks show at the Bishop Airport. By the way it is below 30 degrees outside with a crazy windchill so we are wearing huge “oompa loompa” puffy jackets to stay warm!
We then hop into the rental SUV and drive down to the gate that locks up the trail to Barcroft. For those people not affiliated with the research station who still want to hike up the mountain, this adds another 2 miles to their hike. We did run into a few day-hikers during our mini-hike, and another one with a dog walking in pitch black darkness. As we are driving down the lights of Bishop, CA are shining through, and suddenly we see a burst of fireworks. We get out of the car and admire the show from afar for about an hour. Unfortunately I have no pictures of this, and also none of the stargazing we did afterwards but by far the clearest and brightest I have ever seen the Milky Way. PS…. how can we be in the milky way and still see it? In August I will come back better equipped to do some astrophotograpy with the guys from UCSB.
Inspired by the fireworks display we just witnessed, we put on a show of our own! These were the ones we bought from Phantom Fireworks the day before: The 3 volcanoes – Mt Etna, Mt Kiluaea, and Mt. Vesuvius, 2 “Electric Shock fountains” and our favorite, the “Firecracker Fountain” or affectionally known as cracker mountain by the staff. 
Current time? 2:24 AM PST. I’m still nursing the headache… insomnia like none other, and suddenly nosebleeds. I guess I better drink some more water. It’s damn dry up here, and the low pressure makes it even worse. We are heading off at 7am tomorrow AM to see the Bristlecone Pines, which I have been DYING to photograph all weekend. San Diego ETA: 7pm.
Vince
Arrival to Barcroft Lab at White Mountain
Just arrived to Barcroft Lab at 12,500ft. 7 hour drive, and 12,000ft gain in elevation in 2 hours, brutal.
Quick update because my head is pounding:
Physiology:
- Heart Rate – 144
- O2 Saturation - 69
- Respiratory Rate – 35
My head is pounding…. I can hear my heart beat over my thoughts, and my face is flush… Nothing too bad yet. Just ate some dinner and met Scott, the cook for the lab up here. So far there are 7 of us up here: Scott, David and Zach, the investigators of the project, Johnny, the undergrad helper, Me, Daniel, and Joe – the three subjects for the current study.
Th
e drive up was kind of nice – Johnny drove us through hours and hours of boring nothingness – we stopped for food at mcdonalds (blech) and also for fireworks because we’re spending the 4th of July up here. (Happy Birthday America). Both Johnny and Daniel were in the car, both undergrads who just graduated, and are planning to go on to careers in medicine.
The view from the drive was absolutely breathtaking. Driving through Lone Pine we saw the backside of Mt. Whitney, the tallest peak in California. The towns we drove through were tiny, like Independence, Johannesburg, Lone Pines, etc.
Then we turned off the path to Bishop and headed to White Mountain. The road was very windy, luckily none of us got car sick very easily, but it was pretty scary at times, going from 2 lanes to one, and having to pull over for another car to pass us. Blue skies and rocky terrain made for some amazing views. We drove about 15 miles on a paved road, passing some really exceptional views of both Mt. Whitney and the trail to White Mt. Along the way also were these interesting and weird trees, called Bristlecone Pines. Supposedly they are the oldest trees in the world, and they don’t degrade after they die. We passed several of them, and there is a “Patriarchal Reserve” where the oldest tree ever, Over 4,700 years old…. We will check that out tomorrow, but it is the same tree that is in Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Time”. 
After we hit the turn off for white mountain, the road was just dirt and rocks. It was a pretty bumpy ride. But we were rewarded with a sweet view. Check out some cool POV shots from the car.
Anyways, head is now pounding… Gonna try and get some rest. Will post the rest of the pictures tomorrow. Happy 4th of July Everyone!
Vince
How to read a scientific article
Ever get lost while reading that article your PI sent you… There’s a sticky note at the top that you wrote: READ THIS, IMPORTANT!! It can be extremely challenging to digest all of those big jargon words… much less explain it to your professor the next day, and give an opinion on it…
Copied from a PDF sent to me as an undergrad.
“Probably what you should learn if you are a graduate student is not a large number of facts, especially if they are in books, but what the important problems are, and to sense which experiments, work that has been done, probably aren’t quite right.”
James Watson, of Watson & Crick (DNA fame)
When students in the sciences are first faced with using the primary research literature, the prospect sometimes seems overwhelming. Finding pertinent journal articles often seems to involve a maze of abstracting journals, indifferent librarians, missing volumes, CDroms from hell, and bound periodicals that refuse to flatten themselves for photocopiers (no matter how hard you press on them, CPR-style). Even once an article has been located–or, in the case of this class, provided–there is the problem of reading it. The worst way to assimilate a research paper is to read it word for word, title to literature cited, as if it were a textbook. This approach is a waste of time, because perhaps as few as 1 in 4 articles that find there way into your hands should be committed to your brain, and is deadly boring.
Before reading one word of an article, ask yourself: What am I looking for in this article? Knowing what I do about the subject, what gaps need to be filled, what knowledge needs to be expanded, and what controversial points need to be corroborated? Generate expectations of a journal article before you read it. This will help your analysis of the work in front of you, plus keep you more interested in the material. Then what:
1. Read the authors’ names. Where and with whom are they working? What is their expertise? Names may mean little at first, but as you “wade through” a scientific subject or topic you will find familiar names cropping up, and you will develop those with whom you agree and those whom you question.
2. Read and digest the title. It should summarize the work of the article well, help you to clarify your expectations of the paper, and it should be an attention-getter (if you are reading the article, it has probably already accomplished that task!).
3. Read the abstract carefully and try to understand it (though it may be the densest prose you will ever encounter). Abstracts are as difficult to read as they are to write, because an entire publication must be summarized in an understandable way in only about 200 words. By now, you should have a good idea of what the paper is about and what you have gotten yourself into. At this point, it may be obvious that the paper does not answer your questions. If this is true, move on, but be conservative because the authors’ interpretation of the research presented in the abstract may not be the same as yours after reading the full paper. Never cite an article after having read only the abstract!
4. Picture time–flip through the article and study the figures, illustrations, and tables, including the legends. It will probably become necessary to consult the Methods and Results section to clarify figures and understand the experimental design. If the article is closely related to your research, closely examine the techniques described in the Methods section. There may be problems there, but more likely there will be a new, perhaps better, approach to your own research. It should be clear to you by now whether this paper will be truly helpful. If so, now it is time to be critical (please, see the note below about this word).
5. Read the Introduction and be sure the author knows the field, has adequately researched past work, and understands where their work “fits into the puzzle”. Generally, the Intro and Literature Cited sections go hand-in-hand. Most importantly, within the first paragraph or 2 of the Introduction the authors should have made it very clear what their objectives for the research were, and what their paper will tell you.
6. Check to see if the Results adequately and accurately describe the data presented in the paper. Are there additional points that should have been brought up? Is there something in the figures or tables that does not substantiate the authors’ claims that was not mentioned? Do the figures and tables clearly, succinctly, and attractively present the results of the paper? Remember that great data presented clumsily or sloppily will not be seen as great, only clumsy or sloppy.
7. Now read the Discussion. This is perhaps the most important section, because it is here that the results (the “what” of the research) are explained. That is, here is where the authors should [at least try to] explain “why” they saw what they saw. Beware of unsubstantiated speculation, though do not fault, off-hand, the presentation of hypotheses for future work or even expectations of findings from those future experiments. On the other hand, there are authors who are prone to timidity, understatement, or who are just plain invertebrate about their ideas. You should not be left guessing, or left to fumble to your own conclusions because an author was unwilling to take even a small step out onto a limb. As a moderate example of such understated conclusions, Watson and Crick ended their historic presentation of the structure of DNA with the sentence: “It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.” In fact, the complimentary base pairing they presented was no less that a quantum leap in our understanding of biological systems, in terms of both modern biochemistry and evolution!
Bear in mind that the ultimate burden of assessing published material lies with you, the reader. Take the time and energy to do this and you will gain more and be further along that the person who depends on the author for interpretation. Having just completed a critical reading and assimilation of a journal article pertinent to your work, you should be able to paraphrase the significance of this paper with 3 or 4 sentences free of technical jargon. You should also be able to both praise and criticize several points of the paper (this is important–see note below). A general rule of thumb, regarding what goes where, when both reading and writing a scientific article is:
Title: Short, succinct, eye-catching, all-encompassing
Abstract: Summary of Methods, Results, and Discussion starting off with a statement of why the research was done and with emphasis on why the results are significant.
Introduction: When was past work done, by whom, why was their work important, what you plan to do in your paper, and why what you did is important.
Materials and Methods: How you did what you did and where you did it–nothing more.
Results: What the data show you–nothing more.
Discussion: Why the data show what they show, and how your analysis relates back to your objectives from the Introduction.
Note: Some journals will allow the Results and Discussion sections to be combined. In this case, the data should be divided up into logical groups, and for each group (generally separated by a subheading) the What and the why are presented together.
A note on critiques: A critique “considers the merits and demerits of something and judges accordingly” (Webster). When critiquing an article (or anything, really), remember that there are positive points to be found, and made, about everything. To present only negative criticism is wrong. Never forget to acknowledge that, while we all make mistakes and do things incorrectly, we also all do things correctly sometimes. A pat on the back can go a long way.
She’ll be comin’ round the mountain when she comes…
Damn. I was so optimistic last week about scheduling subjects and making sure people are available to help out. It’s nearly impossible to schedule busy doctors man… And between my own schedule, I’m missing alot of this summer. The White Mountain research trip got moved up a few days so I am leaving July 3rd through the 6th. But that trip is going to be alot of fun. I’ll post from the mountain and upload a bunch of pictures.
It’s a really nice facility: White Mountain is right out of Bishop, CA in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Barcroft Laboratory is owned collectively by the UCs and run by UCSD facility, which is used by many different labs on campus. The Barcroft lab is at 12,500 ft, and the summit of White Mountain is at 14,252. The UCSD Physiology Lab uses it for human studies concerning high altitude and changes to different systems. Some labs up there deal with weather/meteorology, and others deal with animal studies, plant studies, etc. It’s going to be interesting to see what and who I will encounter up there. Here are some pictures from http://www.wmrs.edu
Another VO2max Test
It’s 1:50 pm and I’m awaiting our 2nd subject to come in to do a VO2Max test. It should be a good one – 38 year old professional elite triathlete… The lab is all set up to go. Kinda nervous!
V
My New Blog
Hey Welcome to my new blog. Mainly I decided to put this up so I can chronicle the progress of my thesis project, and also post about my travels this summer. More soon…
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Hello world!
Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!
