Un Montón de Cosas

From the dudes and chicks who brought you the awesome Planet Earth series, here are clips from Life:

1. The Pebble Bouncing Lizard


2. Jesus Christ Super Lizard


3. Hydrophobic Gecko


The Planet Earth series rocks my world and is definitely on my Christmas list. You learn oodles about the Earth and David Attenborough's voice is so peaceful! I end up falling asleep real relaxed and happy on the couch everytime I watch an episode. Its just brilliant! I'm super siked we have more biology knowledge being dropped on us.

So it looks like I won't be running the Nov 1/2 marathon :( I was just hurting myself trying to get back in shape after my tendinitis, so I decided to stop running for a while. I'll start up again in Nov and should have plenty of time to prepare for the March 1/2 marathon up in Oro Valley. The entry fees are a little more pricy, but I hear the shirts are cool and you get a medal when you're finished so that's pretty neato.

Work has been bananas! I finally figured out why our Trypanosome positive pack rat blood samples weren't amplifying via PCR, thanks to a little shop talk with a phlebotomist that drew my blood last week. The EDTA in the collection tubes we've been using to extract plasma is a PCR inhibitor- duh! I could seriously kick myself for not thinking of the anticoagulant as a possibility for why the PCR wasn't working on our positive samples. Unfortunately, we weren't able to extract enough blood from our first heavily infected pack rats to go back and test the serum. Boo! Good news is that we know how to fix the problem and it shouldn't hold up our research anymore. Now if I could only finish that damned dog Giardia paper... I shake my fist at you zoonotic transmission papers!

The Boyfriend's Mom came for a visit this weekend and we had a lovely two days together. I think she's awesome and have the best time just sitting and chatting with her. We took her to Cafe Poca Cosa for her birthday, which was delicious! The first time I went I wasn't super excited about the experience, although it was a nice restaurant. This time I got the only thing I can eat off of the menu now, tamale pie, and it happened to rock my world. Now I can take The Boyfriend back there without him feeling guilty about my being limited in what I can eat on the garlic laden menu.

I'm pretty sure I have more stuff I can post, but I'm having a brain fart and need to get back to pouring boiling hot media to grow my Trypanosomes. I hope everyone is having a good start of the week!

Oh! PS, Tina Fey is my hero and 30 Rock season 3 is awesome.