Tomorrow

Procrastination’s setting in
like the setting of the sun
Soon it will be all dark as sin
and time will be all done.

Last Day!

Today is the day that I am all done
No more mass spec, its time to have fun
No longer before dawn will I rise out of bed
Eat breakfast alone and kiss wife on the head
And measure all day, like a beaver and dam
No, never again hence today, that’s the plan!
I will go home today a burden relieved
Although that’s what I thought last week, woe is me!

Scrap-booking in China

To Beijing China I did go, with poster in a sling
To speak some science and to show, my work with modeling
But when I got to where I was to post and show it off
I realized my dimensions wrong, I cursed and oft did scoff!

But innovation came so swift with scissors and with tape
A scrapbook poster there would fit my fate I would escape
Surprisingly the poster there as rough as it did look
Attracted conversation sweet suspended from that nook!

What I do

A number of people have asked me to post a brief description of exactly what I do. So here it goes…



You may have learned back in high school that plants take in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen during photosynthesis. This is only partly true. While the net flux of gasses is carbon dioxide in and oxygen out, other plant processes take in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide at lower rates than photosynthesis. Some of these processes are a big headache for the plant and result in wasted energy and lost carbon. I am looking at possible ways to minimize the amount of carbon dioxide that bleeds from the plant during these processes in order to maximize the potential carbon gain of the plant. If you want more specifics, check out the Wikipedia article on photorespiration.

Ode to Yair

It all comes down to energy
And how the carbon too
Is balanced ‘twixt all the demand
And what can be produced.

And if those two things do not jive
You’ve dropped the ball to curb
For either you’re not steady state
Or mass is not conserved!

Shakey Science

The forth and fifth floors of Heald have been mothballed
No more science in those halls, only rusted centrifuges and cracked test tubes
Once they were the best
Humming labs unwrapping the cell
Now they are dusty
decontaminated according to the facility operations postings
never to be used again
Like a Barry Goldwater dashboard mount.

No more Eureka’s
One day Heald will be torn down
The crack in the foundation
Runs like a prophecy down the front steps
Maybe to be replaced
Or maybe to lay out as a green patch for the rabbits
And so might our science
If it too has cracks.

Nobel Surprize

At least three Germans that I've heard
fled their homeland from the war
but worried for the things behind
they disguised some stuff for none to find

three Nobel medals were so dissolved
in caustic acid, in bottles stalled
marauding armies passed them by
a clear concoction does not catch eye

when bombs were done and guns grew still
the laureates returned to their hills
precipitated gold amassed
and had their prizes then recast!

Plant Sense

Leaves go up and roots go down
but how do they know where's the ground?
They have no eyes, they cannot see
let's investigate this mystery

Leaves and stems respond to light
lengthen when dark, in sun grow tight
thus as chicks stretching neck for meal
our earth-bound friends hunger's fulfilled

the roots respond, gravity is felt
with statoliths that drop in cells
and signal for the downward stretch
to gather water and nutrients

for us to hear to smell and see
is not to do, we are quite free
but plants cant help but to respond
from arctic wilds to your front lawn.

Mendeleev

The founder of atomic chart
lived in old Russia under the Czar
and cut his hair but once a year
perhaps because his marriage dear
was miserable to say the least
they lived apart and did not speak.

But after many years of this
a young art student caught his list
her parents did quite disprove
of the hairy advance of this old kook
so sent their daughter off to France
but Mendeleev proposed at last.

The laws of Russia required first
seven years to grant divorce
but the scientist paid off a priest
30,000 did the deed
he was defrocked for this disgrace
but Mendeleev got what he paid.

An irate noble begged the Czar
"Grant me divorce! You did before!"

His non-rhyming reply-
"Mendeleev may have two wives,
but I only have one Mendeleev"

PS During the siege of Stalingrad, Mrs. Mendeleev 2.0 was still alive and received double rations for the work her husband did.

Metabolism

I used to think,
Metabolites
moved like a factory
from step to step
from start to done
by specialized machines.

Nothing wasted
Just because
production was so tight
with inputs in
and outputs out
with prudence and foresight.

Now I feel
that's not the case
because efficiency
is born through strife
and battles for
substrates limiting.

In my mind now
the fact'ry's gone
and all the parts are junked
the living cell's
production is
more like a big pot luck!

Bunsen Burner

Doctor Bunsen, of burner fame
Enjoyed his elements
Of all of them
Beryllium
Was his mostest favorite.

One day a fly flew in his prep
And upon his proboscis
His sample dear
A portion there
Flew away from thence.

He chased the bug around the lab
Until he had the thief
And crushed the flea
Most carefully
His science could not be beat.

He laid it in a crucible
And burned it into ash
Recovering
Most lovingly
One-tenth a milligram!

Carl Bosch Visits Montenego

There was a German chemist
who loved his fancy eats
and visiting Vienna
He ate some tender meats.

So fancy was this dinner
the bill was much adorned
with calligraphy and gilded edge
The price he prob'bly mourned.

He placed the leaf in pocket
continuing his trip
soon off to Montenegro
to try the spinach dip.

but at the border trouble brewed
no documents he had
declaring nationality
no passport! He was sad.

The guard did eye him sternly
this border would be closed
without some sort of paperwork
he thought quick on his toes.

Bosch figured Montenegroen's
German not too sharp
and handed him the bill of sale
from his viennese lamp chop.

The patrol looked over carefully
to see if it was true
impressed with the embellishments
he let the chemist through!

Abandon Hope all who enter science

Science is a funny thing
You work so hard for sights unseen
And try the test time after time
They never work, and that’s the sign
For when you have quite given up
And lost all hope, despair for sup
Is when the assay finally works
You’d think Science was a sort of Jerk!

Photosynthetic Slug

Along the eastern seaboard of our fine United States
There lives a slug who slurps algae for hunger to abate
“Not too unusual”, you say when hearing with a glance
Until you realize its evolutionary stance
For not like us they take their food and put it in their gut
They strip away the chloroplast and leave them living up
and let the organelles survive and get hit with the sun
to make them food long after the algea’s carbon is gone
You feed them with some algae for a fortnight then you wait
An entire year they will live on with no food, not a taste!
But before you think that would be cool for us this trait to share
to meet our needs we’d have to be 100 meters squared!

Willow Tree

One could argue the first to reason
Through the changing leaves of season
In a humble willow tree
Jan Helmont sought epiphany
For how a plant grows from the earth
And dirt still there, what gives the birth
To all the mass of trunk and leaf
“I’ll try out science!” t’was his belief

And so he started with ground well weighed
Sprigs of trees with no delay
And after days turned into months
Five trips around the golden sun
He separated root from clay
And measured out the soil’s decay
As well as how much bulk the plant
Had gained during its growing spat
“The soil did not give its matter
To make this willow get so fatter,
It was the water that it got
For what else could it be but not?”

With irony I’ll add right here
That CO2 gives trees their beards
And guess who first supposed that gas
Came in different kinds and flasks?
Our good friend Helmont did, its true
Let’s celebrate with no ado!

Light Reading

The energy for you and me
Is made in our front lawn
By converting the sun’s bright beams
to excited electrons.
That drop potential blow by blow
And pull protons behind
A giant turbine turning flow
To ATP sublime!

Electrons once they’ve paid their dues
And formed a PMF
To ferredoxin are passed to
NADPH left
To create all the happy things
That all of us delight
From apple pie to cheesy string
And making darkness light.

But some do scoff at all this fun
And science they do diss
I’d like to see them in a run
Without photosynthesis!

Hydroponic Help

When my plants are young,
I put them in rockwool
and then they grow a week.

But then some shrivel up and die,
Before they get to speak!

Bulb

Just a root
that sat on the planting table.
Then a green thrust
like the spikes on a deer.
Soon, it grows
impossibly tall
for such a small bulb.

How can so much fit in so little?

Eureka

Sometimes,
I am late in my office
I am reading an old article
and two little Legos snap together in my brain
I want to jump up
tell the world
how to calculate the efficiency
of photosystem II
by shining light on a leaf
and measuring what it throws up.

But then I realize
that they probably won't care
and by tomorrow I'll have to re-learn it anyways

The Eurekas of today
aren't what the used to be
or are they?

Leaf Disk

To study a leaf
I take a round punch
and try it
push it
and measure it
and it goes on
like it is still a whole leaf
oblivious for a while
that it is severed from its life force
a dead end
slowly oozing life
while I make a graph.

We aren't much different than that leaf disk.