As much as I love my job, sometimes I wonder how really important is what I do. Well, I am starting almost each scientific paper from “Polychlorinated biphenyls are important environmental contaminants” or something of this sort. But are they really? To keep me going believing in it, I really need from time to time to read the articles like this about PCBs being found in whales or like that, featuring PCBs and other currently monitored pollutants in human blood, both published by National Geographic. But in fact I never seen PCBs being present in more “contemporary” literature before. Until today. I am currently “reading out” Edna Buchanan crime stories, and here it is, on page 43 of “Suitable for framing”. They are talking about PCBs which were found in copier ink and are contaminating air in the office. Can be as well true! I guess it means that somebody, not just us scientist, not only knows, but also cares about those PCBs around them. And it reminds me as well about the interesting PCB-related web page somebody mentioned on last meeting. It was started by a parent who found out that PCBs may be present in caulk, and contaminate soil around schools, where children play. Really, when I think how little research translation most of us, scientist do, I wonder where people really find all this information! I am sure they don’t read our scientific papers and journals, I don’t read them myself! I will print out and read articles related to my work, and that’s it. They are just plain boring. But that’s good that they do, and that’s good that I am working on something that matters. After all.

Technorati Tags: Polychlorinated biphenyls, National Geographic, PCBs, Edna Buchanan, research translation

It is no mystery to people who know me even a little bit, that I can read everything in the form of book, phone book included, if I am desperate, but I definitely prefer mystery books. If I read one book of an author I like, I will check out from the library every single other book by same author, as long as supplies last. Sometimes, in chronological order, but it doesn’t make any sense if I started from the latest ;). It makes me instantly open my New York guide book or Google, whatever results in better photos, and read more.
Last fascination- Linda Fairstein. And, believe me, these are not ordinary mystery books. I am reading a lot of comments about her works, none mentioning what I am finding the most fascinating about them. From “Bad blood” describing Saint Hogs, through Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island in “The Deadhouse”, and Edgar Allan Poe’s short episode in New York in “Entombed”, Cloisters in “Bone vault “- I am learning incredible stories, places and historical anecdotes.
I wonder, as the histories are not necessary part of the book stories, why all this interesting material get into the books? Is author doing the research with the story in mind, or she finds the “pearls” by accident and research out of her own curiosity?

Anyway, I am finishing off “The Deadhouse” tonight, already wondering what I am going to learn from “Death dance”.

Technorati Tags: Linda Fairstein, Roosevelt Island, Edgar Allan Poe