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\nSpot the difference<\/strong> Polka-dots are all the rage in my hypothesis<\/em><\/p>\n
\nI’ve been fiddling around with this interesting hypothesis<\/a> since Christmas, reading a lot of background literature, making a few new molecular tools, running some pilots and gradually ramping up<\/a> the experiments to test it. And today, I settled down in front of the microscope to look over the results of my first really big experiment. Human cancer cells, genetically manipulated and then frozen forever by formaldehyde into a snapshot of their seething, immortalized life, stained midnight blue, cherry red, emerald green and that elusive fluorochrome Cy5, which, with a maximal emission at 670 nm, is nearly impossible to see with the naked eye, so you have to let the computer do the honors and take on faith that the signal is real. (Somehow, I don’t tend to trust signals unless I can see them under the oculars; CCD cameras can make light of even the most dim background staining if you are not careful, but the eye is seldom fooled.)<\/p>\n \nEven after all these years, I still get very excited just before the results of a major experiment. This afternoon, I slowly nudged the electronic stage from well to well, forcing myself to take it slowly, peeling away each variable in my carefully crafted test. All was silent and dark in the little room, just the opening and closing of the shutter and the purr of the filter cubes rotating from channel to channel. My labmates have a running joke about which is better to look at first, the boring controls or the bottom line \u2013 I’m afraid I always force myself to start with the housekeeping and save the pleasure (or more likely, pain) for last. So there is that delicious anticipation as the stage whirrs towards the verdict, as the bright colourful shapes swim into focus in their sea of velvet black \u2013 anticipation, and the bracing yourself for that crushing disappointment.<\/p>\n \nToday, Dear Reader, the news was…good. Everything is consistent. No assumptions have crashed and burned. I am not convinced yet, not by a long shot \u2013 but I am one step closer to belief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don’t know about you, but when I have a hypothesis that bodes particularly well for fame, glory and high-profile publication, I am far less likely to believe in it. Somehow, it’s always the mundane that seems the most plausible. … Continue reading