It’s been a very busy summer here in Oz. How do I know? It’s October and I’m just now talking about what happened this summer (facepalm). In June, I defended my PhD dissertation. I’m officially a doctor now. I finally achieved what I set out to do as an undergrad.
Not one to rest on my laurels, in July I saw the results of my own little experiment in Mendel’s laws of unit inheritance and independent assortment.
Meet Charlie
She’s a nice mix of her father and I. Here’s an interesting tidbit of trivia: Do you know how many genetically unique offspring two individuals can have? Each human parent has 23 pairs of homologous chromosomes
223= 8,338,608 genetically distinct gametes
Each parent contributes one gamete a zygote, so double that number for two parents:
= 16,677,216 unique offspring
And that’s without recombination. So even the Duggars haven’t scratched the surface of their genetic potential.
In August, I started my first post-graduate job, a postdoc. Gainful employment, a real paycheck, and intellectual stimulation (not related to my dissertation), yay! Juggling a new job, commute, babysitter, husband, household chores, classes (did you know there were any more classes to take after getting a PhD?!), kids, sleep deprivation, breast feeding, research, meetings, networking, family – scary and exhausting. Notice that blog appears nowhere on this list, and the dearth of posts is understandable.
I’m beginning to get my bearings now – just finished a midterm exam last week (more on that later), and discovered that I miss the intellectual outlet that is Freethinkers. So expect the posting frequency to increase as I figure out this postdoc gig. Now, if I only had an office! I’m borrowing space from another fellow who went on maternity leave just as I was starting. If they don’t find space for me soon, I’m afraid I’ll be sitting in the hallway.
Tags: postdoc
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