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ImLookingForTime
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"ImNotLookingForSweetTalk"
# Statistics
Favourites: 32616; Deviations: 2801; Watchers: 695
Watching: 626; Pageviews: 72097; Comments Made: 11566; Friends: 626
# Comments
Comments: 2979
Thanks for all of your favs of my plushies!!
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Ah you're very welcome! Thank you for sharing your lovely work
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thank you for the llama!
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You're very welcome!
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Thank you so much for the watch! <3 ;u;Β
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You're very welcome!
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Your profile and photos are fantastic! Have a llama for your hard-work.
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Aww thank you so much that's really kind!
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Thanks for your fav of my dragon plushies!
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You're very welcome!
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You're very welcome!
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Thank you very much for the Llama <3
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you're welcome!
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Thanks for the llma, have one in return. ^^
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Thanks a lot, for another lama friend! 83
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You're welcome
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Thank you so much for the llama! 
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You're welcome! And omg yay!! What area of genetics do you want to go into?? (Sorry if I'm being nosey haha)
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Haha, nah you're not being nosey XD Molecular genetics 
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ohh that's cool!! Yeah, definitely a wise idea to keep options open
Well, in my first year we had to do broad modules in biochem, microbio, molecular bio and genetics, and then for my first semester of second year I've had to do modules called 'molecular biosciences' which is basically biochem and molecular genetics...I understand we need a broad knowledge but GOD I CANT WAIT FOR NEXT SEMESTER TO DO LOTS OF GENETICS XD
So tbh I don't know much about the different fields of genetics so far -.-
But I worked in a lab over summer extracting DNA and running PCRs and analysing samples with nextgen sequencing for some animal conservation and understanding projects so that was really awesome! I enjoyed that so id like to go into something conservation animal related or evolutionary stuff I suppose XD still figuring it all out, phew!
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Oh wow! You did a LOT more than me XD I'm in fourth year yet our labs were pretty crappy in all honesty. Definitely broad stuff to learn as well (math? physics? Why did I even need this for molec genetics let alone bio? -_-), I'm glad that now in the senior years I get to pick more specific options, but still grrrr! And I honestly don't know about the different fields all that much either XD I definitely don't want to do anything involving animal research (so I won't go into medical genetics or research), but I actually would really love to put it to use for animal conservation as well!
Actually, starting in Jan I'm taking a course (it's pretty much like the thesis I guess XD) where I'm going to be working in a hospital with my biol prof. I'm gonna be looking at the bacterial pathogen P. aeruginosa and try to identify the genes that allow it enter this "dormancy" state in which it can survive for years without any nutrients, and then going to try to figure out the biochemical mechanism behind this. So I'm pretty excited 'cause I'll get to use a bunch of really fancy equipment, but at the same time I'm nervous since it's been a while since I've been in any lab at all XD (Plus the ~30 page final report at them end *sob*) It's a pretty standard project I guess. I'm not sure how much research has gone into this, but I know it's the research focus of my prof so there we go haha.
Yeah, we got time to figure out what we wanna do. I began this thinking I'm gonna go into research and all of that high-tech stuff, but the more I learn about it the more I don't like it and the more I realize it's something I can't do because it would go against my values and beliefs (for example, I'm actually against GMOs and some aspects of genetic engineering used in immunology and other fields). I realize I really love animals (always have) and want to try to protect them and understand them better, so I'm going to try heading into that direction. And like I said, if I can apply my art skills to science, then all the better! :3
I got a little excited and chatty here hehe, oops XD What year of uni are you in?
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ahh, my labs on my course are really good too tbh im lucky! the uni i go to is heavily research based though so that's probably why, we've always spent ~6 hours a week in labs since i started uni and then in my third year its mostly a big lab project
ah i had to do some shitty 'biophysics' too, like energetics of moving particles and shit, I DONT CARE ARGH i HATE physics and maths with a passion
i'm looking forward to being really specific next year xD
OMG that project sounds so cool, arghhh!!!! that will be really really interesting
yeah, i can definitely understand how science can intrude on peoples beliefs a lot. i'm completely athiest and always been very SCIENCE IS THE WAY FORWARD FUCK ETHICS but i can totally understand why some things make people uncomfortable and worry-althoug great things can be done with genetic engineering, it would need to be so tightly controlled, and who gets to decide what's right and wrong? it's very dangerous potentially
i adore animals and am really against unnecessary animal testing etc., but for my Summer project this year I'll be investigating how Heliconius butterflies can produce cyanogenic compounds and to do it we have to kill some pupae to extract DNA from, which makes me sad 
ahh it's fine! it's good to talk to other people
i'm currently in my second year (BSc is 3 years in England), so nearly half way through now arggggg
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When somebody can tell me what the hell physics and math help me with as someone going into molec biology, then maybe I'll have more appreciation for their shitty courses XD I think we need to take them just 'cause profs don't get enough students in those classes (it's like that at my uni), so they don't make enough money then! Stupid reason, but apparently that's why, grrr!
It does sound pretty cool don't it!
In my case, I'm not sure. I like the idea of pantheism, so I guess my belief falls somewhere there, though I haven't entirely dismissed the idea of God XD Humans are, imo, the worst judges of right and wrong :/ I've just finished my human genetics course (still got the exam to write in a couple weeks, heh), and the last part of the course dealt with assisted reproductive technologies. That was like a shit bomb dropped on me lol. Goes against everything I believe in, I had to crawl my way through it like through mud haha. This is probably an example of places where I think humans have pushed too far with science. "Designer babies" comes to mind, among other things, as a very real possibility in the future, seeing as people are losing more and more the common sense and values that were once held. (That's just my opinion though XD)
I'm actually completely against animal testing haha! I can see how it helped advance science, but I have no doubt in mind we can progress without the need to use animals. This is why I'm glad we're discovering new ways to research, like using human stem cells and the like, where the need to use animals has been eliminated. Some will argue that we need live models, because cells can't show us what happens at the macro level, but no matter what animal we'll use, it's NEVER going to be exactly the same as what we observe in a human body. Either way, I really hope there comes a day when we don't have to use animals for research anymore ; ^ ;
I don't even kill insects/bugs haha! I pick them up and take them out. I feel bad you'll have to kill pupae (they are, technically, still alive), I can imagine it'll be horrible, good luck >_>;; And yeah, I just needed to look at the research summary posters posted on my uni walls to convince myself I'd never be able to kill mice for research or purposely give them cancer (they actually showed the huge tumors those poor mice had, ugh ; ____ ; ).
Oh I didn't know BSc is only 3 years in England XD Ours is 4 (although I'm lazy and taking it slow, so I still got a bit to go, even though I'm in 4th year hehe 
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ahhhh the crappy maths and physics I have to do is incorporated into my modules meh, it's not too bad thankfully just so bloody boring and not what I wanna pay 9 grand a year for aha
Oh yeah I need to read a lot more into my project too! Interesting but lots of reading XD
But god yes, the idea of designer babies is horrible, like yeah maybe get rid of the gene or fix the gene for Duchesne MD cos that's awful, but then where do you draw the line at what does and doesn't need fixing? 'oh my kid is gunna be kinda short, can you make him taller so he can reach things better cos being short would limit his life'? Haha
I really really REALLY hope there will be a day where no animal testing is needed. Like you say, with all these advances we have nowadays it should soon be obsolete!
Aha I'm the same, I never kill anything ;_; except evil wasps... so yeah this will be really hard for me, I had no idea I needed to do it before I signed up for the project mehhhhh
Idk why its only 3 cos a lot of countries do 4? Although a lot in Europe do 3 year too I think... eh XD
But yeah I don't often come across arty people online who do science, not at uni anyway!
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And therein lies the problem, it's our money that goes into those courses, and that adds to our debt >_>
Exactly, use genetic engineering there where it's supposed to be used. Gene therapy is already makes leaps and bounds and it's going to get even better in the future I believe. Other than that, don't fix what ain't broke
LOL, evil wasps?
Haha, yeah, I think I know what's awaiting me at the lab... and what's awaiting me when I get back home from the lab. Straight into the shower with me, my clothes straight into the washing machine, complete disinfection procedure XD My mom is seriously scared I'm gonna bring back something from the hospital where I'll be doing the research, whether it's the bacteria itself or some other hospital bug haha.
I could never talk with my science colleagues about art, they'd probably be looking at me wtf LOL! Meh, oh well
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i've never been stung by wasps and bees either actually! i try and chase wasps outside, but we have 2 dogs and a cat so tbh i'd rather squish a wasp than it sting my pets. buuttt i do everything humanly possible to save bees THEY ARE FABULOUS
omg haha bless her, my mum washes my lab coat between each semester cos i always get it covered in chemicals and all sorts xD but other than that she's not too bothered, at first she was like wtf you work with E. coli? but it's all harmless strains so she's gotten over it xD
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Aah wait, I lied, now I remember. I got stung by a honeybee once, by accident. I was running in sandals in a grassfield and the poor little guy got caught in my sandal and stung my second last toe then died T-T That was the only time though, I feel so bad 'cause it was a honeybee too >_> And (honey)bees need to be protected, yes!! I mean, where am I gonna get all that yummy bee spit (read: honey) to eat if they disappear!? XD
I usually put mine to the washing machine only when it gets so bad that the smell of chemicals can't be ignored XD An alkene lab I did in second year left me with no choice but to put it to wash straight away after the lab because alkenes are so stinky it's unbelievable o_o
Haha, yeah in my case I'm going to be trying to induce a mutation in it that makes it more resistant (allows it to survive under different, unfavorable conditions) so I can see where her worry comes from XD Yeah, E. coli is a baby compared to some of the other things out there! And I'm just happy I took the time to read up on the bacteria before deciding to do the project, at least I'm not stuck working with some fairly dangerous pathogen XD (I'd never go anywhere near HIV, for example, noooo way.)
The Heliconius project you'll be doing, what are you extracting the DNA for? To identify what genes are involved?
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Aww no that is sad! I love bees, we had a big huge sack of garden waste on our back garden for a few weeks and some bees moved in so I was like THE CRAP STAYS so we've had this huge bag of leaves and twigs and stuff on our garden for months haha
Ahh thankfully I don't deal much with smelly thingsxD literally the smelliest things are probably the bottles of culture and yeast and stuff and I don't tend to spill them on myself haha, I always wipe dyes and spills of acids up with my coat though bc lazy
Oh god yeah, ah! The most I've done is give E.coli kanamycin resistance, and if they let 180 first years do that then I'm sure it can't be that dangerous hahaha! I would definitely be scared of more dangerous pathogens, eek!
Do you know what mutations you'll be doing yet, like in what genes and how, or is that yet to be decided?
er as far as I've gathered, we know the gene involved and the fact it's expressed inΒ 3 copies in heliconius but only 1 in some other butterflies, and we're gunna see where it's expressed in the heliconius and how much etc. and try and use it towards helping understand speciation of the different heliconius species? I'm not entirely sure, I was supposed to be doing a project on wing pattern and colour expression but the girl doing the cyanogenesis project changed her mind at the last minute :c so we swapped, soΒ I've still yet to read up a lot about this project
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I replied soooo late! I'm so sorry! XD I had a final exam yesterday (23rd) that I had to study for haha
Haha! I would have done the same thing -- screw the rotten smell and all! XD
Yeah, I've never spilled anything in the lab. I did, uh, set a beaker on ethanol on fire in my second year though, by accident X'D My lab coat gets dirty 'cause I wipe my hands on it too
Nope, I don't know what genes yet! My project specifies I'll have to ID the genes, so most likely I'll have to derive the sequence somehow, then compare it to existing databases (some bioinformatics for me there, it'll be my first time hehe). It's not all clear at the moment because I've yet to meet with my prof and figure out how we're gonna do the lab stuff. I need to get a bit of training beforehand most likely, and then we'll have a breakdown of the procedure. Basically I'll be conducting some mutagenesis procedure to create a mutant pool of the bacteria. The mutant will be tested in water to induce dormancy vs normal growth in broth so I can select against mutants that don't survive in water (i.e., don't go into dormancy). Then I'll sequence the DNA of the mutant pool. The mutants that are identified as absent from incubation in water will be identified by analyzing their DNA sequence, and I'll test to see whether the genes identified confirm their role in dormancy of the bacteria. That's what I got so far from the application I had to fill out. So I still have some things that aren't clear, but once I get to talk with my prof more then I'll get all the juicy details
Oooh, 3 copies of the gene? As in the butterfly is not diploid? O: I just skimmed quickly through some stuff about Heliconius, something about hybridization having to do with their speciation XD Haha you wanted to swap or had to? The wing pattern and color expression project seemed pretty cool too, maybe even cooler than this one XD
Merry Christmas by the way (or whatever you celebrate XD) and if I don't hear from you before the new year, happy New Year as well!
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Oh god don't be daft that's totally fine! I hope that the exam went well! An exam so close to Christmas is really mean
ahaha, yeah sometimes the bakersΒ yeast smell makes me hungry when we use it XD
Ooh that's exciting! I keep meaning to look more into bioinformatics stuff, we had some lectures on it recently and people always go on about how it's really advantageous to have skills in that field so I hope iget to do some decent bioinformatics work in my project
That all sounds so exciting though!! I probably sound really sad and boring but I enjoy figuring stuff out like that, it feels so satisfying when you get results (although when you don't it's traumatising hahaha)
As far as I've gathered, I think they're diploid but at some point in their evolution the gene's duplicated on the chromosome so they have 3 copies of it per chromosome, idk if maybe these genes have evolved to do different processes or be expressed at different placed/times in the butterfly or all do the same thing or what yet haha but that's what I've gathered so far
Well, the other girl is in her third year so this summer is her last chance to do aΒ summer project AND she got in touch with our supervisor before me, so I kinda thought it was only fair she got to choose XD but yeah, id have rather done the wing pattern one, that was the whole reason I got in touch with this supervisor tbh XD but oh well!i'll be doing all the same processes just on something a bit less exciting, to me anyway. But it's not all bad, cos this project has more of a set outline, whereas the wing pattern one, you needed to write your own project proposal (which the other girl wanted to do) and I am not capable enough of doing that right now as a weak exam stressedΒ second year hahahah
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Well, I think the exam went well. If I can answer the questions, it usually means I did decent XD It was for human genetics haha. Although I'm positive I f-ed up on 2 of the questions that had to do with anthropology-related stuff (why was it part of my genetics course anyway, gaaah!) >_>;;; And I knoooooow! It sucks when exams are like that, because all I can think of during the exam is that I wanna be home watching a movie, eating popcorn and drinking a beer instead of sitting in a shitty chair with a bunch of other noisy people for 3 hours Β
Yeah, I've learned a bit about bioinformatics, I mean as much as we learn in the classroom, but never applied any knowledge from it. It's definitely an advantage to be able to learn how to use these things, expands my post-degree options. I hope anyway haha.
Haha I would too, if I had any decent interest in the field. I mean, I enjoy learning about genetics and molec bio, but I don't like research XD So nah, you're not sad or boring
That's so strange! I mean, humans' genome has practically duplicated since our evolution, but pretty much any gene duplications now are usually disastrous, resulting in a bunch of weird shit. (I've seen things I've learned in my human genetics course that I want to unsee >_>). Maybe only one copy of the gene is functional? The others could be pseudogenes perhaps? Or maybe they're just silenced? Hmm, curiouser and curiouser 
I chose this project because it seemed interesting AND I didn't have to write any project proposal
Exam stressed? Well you're done with them for this semester aren't cha?
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Omg the marine centre sounds so so cool! That would be awesome XD and yeah sometimes I think I should have maybe done zoology or something but as long as you work hard I think you can get where you want (within reason ofc haha)
Yeah, I've done a teeeeny little bit on genome duplications so it'll be interesting to practically find out what happens! And haha yeah its summer
Haha yeah, I'm always so nervous about new things so I'm glad I don't have to write a proposal, iwouldnt have the first clue on my first go!
unfortunately no, in England we don't start uni til right at the end of September/beginning October, so exam periods here (in general) are January/February :c so all Christmas to panic meh. My exam period's 17th Jan to 6th Feb so I don't go back to uni til 8th Feb! But my exams are 19th and 26th Jan which is annoying cos then I have like 2 weeks off before I go back to uni with nothing to do I COULD BE REVISINGTHEN IF MY EXAMS WERE LATER IN THE EXAM PERIOD MEHHH
I suppose icould try and relax but xDD
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Marine center sounds really neat huh?
So I replied semi-late again... d: Been getting busy. I started working in the lab today... and I've got so many things to remember (re-learn) how to do, along with new things! XD It felt like a long day, even though all I did was prepare the media and incubate E.coli and 2 Pseudomonas strains 
(I'll keep things short and not too detailed, because it IS my prof's research after all, so I doubt she'd want me to give out all the details lol.)
I cannot believe you have uni throughout the month of December O_o I would be panicking too, going through Christmas while knowing I have exams to prep for, ugh >_> Just study then do some 'down-time' for relaxing, use your time wisely, relax if ya can, why not! Any time spared away from school is just heavenly at this point, enjoy it while you can
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Ah no worries! Ah I always find the moat simple labs seem to feel like they take the longest xD
We don't have uni all the way through December so its not too bad! We break up for Christmas some time in mid December and have exams in January/Feb then go back to lectures some time in Jan/Feb
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Repetitive work especially seems to make everything feel like it takes a long time XD I actually don't think I've ever remember doing one of those moat labs, haha! What do you do in those?
You know what sucks? After doing a hell of a lot of plating and spreading yesterday (something like 30-something plates total 
That's actually quite nice! You get a whole freaking month off! I only got 12 days
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Omg I'm so sorry I meant most not moat ahahaha
Omg noooo that's such a ballache ;_; I hate it when that happens!! How did the repeats go??
And omg you only get 12 days?!? I get 7 weeks incl exam time cos I don't have to go to uni except for exams then either! Most unis here get at least a month off!
Tbh its not the studying that's hard to get back into (with there being exams I have to study ridiculously hard all break), its the sleeping pattern xD I'll go to bed at 4am and wake up at 1pm and then be like OH SHIT BACK TO UNI HAVE TO WAKE UP AT LIKE 7/8AM ARGH
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