Wednesday 12 June 2013

Not quite "The Fly"


So this is what an assay for locomotive ability looks like. I'm a bit more careful with them when doing the actual experiment but you should try filming with one hand a whacking flies to the bottom of a tube with the other (I can see that sentence being misquoted).

For added benefit check out the sound effects. That weird drone is the sound of the carbon dioxide being pumped out to keep the flies unconscious (and probably myself soporific). The really unpleasant sound is Radio 1 playing in the background - possibly the cruelest thing the flies are subjected to.

Now I need to edit it so that it looks semi-professional in my presentation. The moving pictures may distract the audience from the less than stellar results.

Don't worry, I'd never try and submit that as supplementary data in a paper.

Monday 10 June 2013

Swamped

I am still here but work/life has been pretty busy the last month and will remain so till July. This week I have a departmental talk to do which I have yet to start but have been busy pushing for data on it.

Today has been a case of trying to get stats to show something meaningful which always sounds dubious. The problem I have is that while I can show significant differences between genotypes, I can also show significant differences within genotypes rendering the whole thing a bit pointless. Although there is one obvious outlier that is literally putting a fly in the ointment. Or ointment on the fly in this case.

I fear I will be having nightmares about spreadsheets tonight.