Your Content Goes Here What are you often doing at that hour? I am often on my way into the building or already there getting ready for a special event that helps connect the public with science happening at WID. When working in the John D. Wiley Gallery for Art in Science, I can be found adjusting the legs on the glass bacteriophage sculpture in case any have gone askew overnight, wiping down the display cases, choosing the colors for the pedestal lights, and generally making sure everything on display looks fresh for new eyes to take it [...]

Your Content Goes Here Where are you at this time and what are you most likely to be doing?  Josephine Putnam in the lab At this time, I am most likely to be adding isopropanol to tubes of extracted DNA from soil bacteria. Next, I invert the tubes many times to mix them well and precipitate the DNA so that it becomes visible to the naked eye. Seeing threads of DNA become visible out of a clear solution will never cease to amaze me! Extracting DNA from soil bacterial isolates sent to our lab at the [...]

Your Content Goes Here Where are you at this time and what are you most likely to be doing? (Or, What is going on in your lab at this particular time?) Bryce Sprecher demonstrating VR technology This is a good time to start setting up our data processing for long photogrammetry renders of 3D models, such as visualizing a model of a shipwreck. For shipwrecks up in Lake Superior, they’re like 150 feet below the surface of the water and totally inaccessible. This is one way to show off hidden resources and archaeological and historical events. [...]

Your Content Goes Here Where are you at this time and what are you most likely to be doing? (Or, What is going on in your lab at this particular time?) My lab is thinking about theoretical proofs or doing numerical results to gain ideas. What would you be shocked to find yourself doing at this time? Doing biological/chemical experiments (We are not a group that does this type of work.) What’s your favorite thing about this time of day? Having great ideas generated! How can you tell if your work is going well? If the proof is [...]

Your Content Goes Here Where are you at this time and what are you most likely to be doing?  May Lab 2nd floor/ Working on experiments or analyzing data at my desk or taking meetings. What’s your favorite thing about this time of day? Core times of the day when I get to interact with my workers, get lunch with them and indulge in science/ enjoy the snacks I've prepared the day before and brought to work Least favorite? It gets busy at the WID How can you tell if your work is going well? I smile and [...]

Your Content Goes Here Where are you at this time and what are you most likely to be doing? Once a month I’m at an online research meeting with scientists in Singapore. Our group here at WID is collaborating with a group of Singapore scientists to examine the gut microbiomes of people in the two countries. We're interested to see how two very diverse populations with different diets look microbiome- wise. We're starting with a depressed population, and will use an app called Healthy Minds to see whether we can intervene and make people less depressed. Our data from [...]

Your Content Goes Here Where are you at this time and what are you most likely to be doing? Cells, viruses, and molecules don't sleep. The cells in our incubators will be doubling (every 12-24h), the viruses will be infecting the cells (making more viruses), and the molecules will be finding partners to form molecular chains (polymers). As we sleep, the living world inside our lab incubators is wide awake. Cells are dividing, viruses are invading, and infections are spreading. In our lab, we make the invisible visible: this movie shows a rabies-like virus sweeping across a [...]

Your Content Goes Here Where are you at this time and what are you most likely to be doing? Running simulations from my computer -- sometimes I do this from my desk in the WID, but often I am at home, sending code remotely to CHTC (the Center for High Throughput Computing). My research involves simulating the progression of chemical reactions to examine how abiotic reaction networks might have displayed evolutionary and ecological characteristics before the origin of life. I need to run many replicates of my simulations to collect data and it would be impossible to do [...]