Still really busy. Been spending most of my time writing my Ph.D. thesis.
One thing I have noticed is that when one start to become closer to graduating people tend to treat you differently or maybe I just started acting differently and people responded in kind? It is a good kind of different not a bad kind. People seem to listen more to my thoughts and ideas. It is pretty cool. I am starting to more and more feel like someone who is not crazy. I am starting to feel like I have good ideas and not just lame ideas.
Anyways, on to NASA.
I was recently at the Gordon Conference on Synthetic Biology. If you have never been to a Gordon Conference and have $1200 to spare you should apply(not everyone can go they only take ~150 people). It was a great time met lots of great people including George Church and Drew Endy. Drew is probably the most laid back scientist I have ever met. I met Masood Hadi a Synthetic Biologist who is at NASA and he encouraged me to apply for the NASA Postdoctoral fellowship program. So I have been working on that also. I would goto work with him at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA next to Google headquarters and Stanford. That would be super awesome. We would work on developing sustainable technologies for space travel using synthetic biology such as engineering bacteria to produce chemicals or food or whatever is needed.
On the side I have been spending lots of time attempting to create an integrated lab environment using Arduinos, Linux and a webpage. So one can view the status of and change the function of any lab instrument integrated in the environment. So far I have I made it so that one can communicate to an Arduino attached to a computer through a webpage. I have started building a PCR machine and a heated incubator/shaker and a power supply and gel electrophoresis setup. All controlled using Arduino all are in various stages of disrepair but I nothing I am building is entirely new so I know it can be done and will be done I just need time. I will probably work on it this weekend along with my NASA proposal.
I have posts I am working on that should be done sometime in the next week/month/year, who knows?
