Another course done

Hi there, me again. We had a fabulous Hungarian chemistry prof this morning—brilliant, nearly incomprehensible, animated, and funny. I might not achieve any of those except incomprehensibility, and even my status as being a foreigner is slipping away. My temporary work permit came in the mail, so now I can get a job at McDonalds, or Starbucks, or something similar that pays more and gets more respect than teaching.

I did my presentation today, which went well. I think there was an inside joke or competition between the instructors to get me to present last, but I’m not quite sure why. The only thing I can think is that they wanted a correlation between the order of presentations and the average order of arrival in the morning… In my defense, I showed up at the right time, I was just in the wrong place. I think it was unsporting of them to change the class location twice, especially when it convened BC (Before Coffee)!

As usual it was sad to see the class end. I made some friends with my colleagues, and I really hope to keep in touch with some of the guest speakers. I made a connection at Woods Hole institute near Boston, and she says I should be able to bring my class there for a field trip! A few of the researchers who spoke were fascinating, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to dedicate time to study microbes. Although the field trips are fun! The speaker who most piqued my curiosity was the virologist who talked about viruses in ways I’d never thought of before. I forgot to mention him on Wednesday so I’ll briefly describe now.

He proposed several interesting concepts, including that viruses were the first form of life. I don’t have my notes in front of me, but I believe the thought was due to their ubiquity in nature and the fact that there’s viral DNA in every living organism.

He talked about the numbers of virus particles on the planet, and the numbers were staggering. Due in part to these enormous numbers, and the fact that viruses generally can infect more than one species, he sees viruses as gene banks for entire ecosystems (possibly the world?). He talked about the constant battle between (evolution of) viruses and immune systems, and how in the pools he had studied the species stayed constant, but the immune systems and viruses were constantly changing and adapting. It wasn’t until he put genetic data together from multiple pools that he saw as a virus was getting eradicated in one pool, it would simultaneously spread by wind or other means to another pool, ensuring that it didn’t become extinct. This went on in cycles, maintaining a balance.

Another interesting thought he dwelt on was viruses as agents of evolutionary change. We know that retroviruses can cut DNA from one organism and paste it into another. Sometimes this happens with “useless” genes, but what about when it happens to important genes? What kind of traits could be swapped between species? This is particularly important in microbial species, where this happens all the time. It turns out that bacteria aren’t particular about with whom they mate, even if they’re the same species. (Jokes spring to mind, all inappropriate.) In fact, another speaker wanted to do entirely away with the idea of species; she said that especially at the microbial level, all organisms are just genetic variants in one big gene pool. This challenges our traditional notion that birds are birds and pigs are pigs, and ne’er the twain shall meet. In fact, they do, via bird flu, but that was another part of the lecture…

While I was busy getting carried away with class, Cara started getting packed up. It didn’t hit us until then what it was going to be like to be apart. For the past six weeks we’ve spent almost all our time together, and we haven’t been apart this long since two Christmases ago! Well, if everything goes well it’ll only be a week, and I’ll be busy with class during the day while Cara will be busy in Boston.