Thursday updates

My weekends seem to have shifted to Thursday and Friday... the things that a single homework does to your schedule! I attended a proteomics lecture today, got very little between the ears, and learnt more at lunch with the speaker. That Harvard has around 8000 labs in all and takes in less than 70 students every year was news to me.

Till not so long ago, I was performing titrations in labs and despairing whenever my readings would be way off the expected values (which was more often than not). I also had the honour of recording the highest ever error in gravimetry during my masters. I zoomed out of every window on the Prof's grading scale and was lucky to escape with a B-. The students in the course I TA for have a pretty challenging job at hand. The tolerance levels are stringent and their experiments are graded on the basis of their accuracy and precision. The only saving grace is that this contributes to only a third of their total grade for the experiment, meaning that even if something goes wrong, they still earn some points.

I also stumbled onto the fact that Hargobind Khorana worked for ten years at an Institute five minutes from my place and was also awarded the Nobel during this period. That reminds me of an interesting story that I would pose as a question here. Who is the only person to have declined the Nobel prize? Answer coming up on Sunday (cheap publicity, I know!).