My wish was to be buried in the Churchyard at Downe. Now I find Mr Huxley, thumbing his nose at the Queen for refusing me a knighthood, arranged to have me planted in that mausoleum Westminster Abbey. He knows I hated London. And burying an agnostic in such a place is carrying whimsy just a little too far.

So I was delighted when a mob of angry biologists and historians broke into the Abbey one night and removed my remains with a view for a quiet burial in the village I loved. But no. Someone called Dawkins had a better idea. I don’t remember corresponding with him. Maybe a friend of that ghastly man Marx who kept sending me those books. Did he come to anything?

Anyway, I woke up in a thunderstorm, a bolt in either side of my neck, Dawkins on the phone saying, ‘there’s another book in this!’ My re-emergence into society in my bicentenary year has caused something of a stir, not least to myself.

Those of you who have actually read my writings (as in not just provide opinion on them) will know that I am a retiring man, not much given to attending either science or society functions. But I could not resist an invitation to visit my old friend, the Beagle. As I wrote not long before my first death, my time aboard her was the most important event in my life: without her I would have become a clergyman.

So we took the train down to the coast and there she was. A brand new HMS Beagle, sitting alongside trim and pretty as though she had just been launched in 1820. My heart gave a lurch (which worries you, when you have died) when I saw her again. The decks were clustered awaiting my arrival, and the welcome I received was embarrassing.

Still. the moment I stepped aboard, I felt the clammy sweat, the salivation of my old nemesis: seasickness. I suffered it for five years and frequently wished myself dead. Some observant soul saw this: ‘I know how you feel. Every time we go out I’d throw me ring up if I didn’t take these.’ He handed me two tablets. ‘Or you could always eat some jam.’

‘Do preserves cure seasickness?’ I asked, amazed. ‘No, it just tastes nicer when it comes up.’ I shall have to catch up with the new humour, I see. But it was good to be made game of: I am a bearded man who has been resurrected from the dead, but I am no God.

The upper deck was much as I remember leaving in 1836: the wheel with Nelson’s immemorial words: ‘England expects every man will do his duty’. The Captain – he did not have Fitzroy’s haughty bearing – saw my affectionate glance at the helm and in an exasperated way said, ‘If that was today, Nelson would have to say “England expects every man will fill in a risk assessment.” Anyhow, look at this.’ The inanimate piece of glass sprang into colourful life. ‘GPS.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Global positioning system. It uses satellites 22,000 miles above us to calculate our position to the nearest ten feet. It has charts for the whole world.’

‘No more sextants?’ I asked. The daily taking of sights at noon and of shooting the altitude of starts was a great ritual every day aboard the old Beagle. ‘Oh, I still have mine, and my requisite tables. Sometimes, the electrics pack up.’

‘So the whole of the world has been charted? And they are stored in this small grey box?’

‘Yes. And watch this!’ He punched a button. ‘Depth!’

‘So no more casting weighted lines?’

‘No, Mr D. And here.’ The display changed again. ‘Radar. It paints a picture of the land and sea around us. We can see boats before they appear on the horizon, can sail safely through fog and storms.’ It looked like paintings my little Frankie used to do after Emma had been a little too free with the alcoholic tincture of laudanum. She used to give that a lot for colds. With so much changed, I suppose science will have found cures for such simple ailments by now.

My old stern cabin was very different to the one I shared with Stokes and King. Cramped still, but with cabins and…what did I feel? The captain had the shame to shuffle his feet. ‘Heating,’ he mumbled. ‘Air conditioning, too, when it gets too hot.’ A click and an electric bulb glowed
into life. I had seen these in a house, but on a boat. ‘And that?’

‘You haven’t heard of iPods, then?’

‘Something to do with plant reproduction?’

The captain shook his head and vanishing down a set of ladders told me to ‘mind my head’. My 200 year old knees cracked a bit. Age had stooped my frame, but still in the bowels of the ship, I had to hunch, and what a different sight to the stinking, rodent infested hole I had last seen in 1836.

‘Engines. 440 horsepower, folding propellers, push us along at eight knots when there’s no wind. And generators provide mains electricity for all you scientific types – the stuff you lot need – and 24 volts for the boat.’

Fitzroy sailed us around the world and I wrote The Origin of Species without electricity, I mused. We crouched as we walked between rows of gleaming boxes and hoses. ‘Diesel and water tanks. Freezers. These are for food, these are for your metagenomics samples.’

‘Metagenomics?’

‘Don’t tell him about that! It’ll kill him again!’ A voice yelled from behind us. ‘We’ve got to get him up to speed with the peas first….’

Moving past the captain, I confronted the hovering woman in the white lab coat. ‘What’s this about peas?’ I asked. And so, standing in the hold of HMS Beagle I was given a brief introduction to the science of genetics. Well, well. It seems monks are good for something after all – transmitting variation from one generation to the next. Not that monks do that, I mean.

Anxious not to delay my host, I emerged again into the main deck, now lined with small comfortable cabins, very different to the hammocks of my day. In between the cabins, a table was bolted to the floor. ‘Lab space. We’re doing what you did, Mr D. we’re going round the world, sampling the seas, looking at how the world’s changed since you saw it, how the rainforests have been cut down, the glaciers have melted, where the species have moved to, how many have gone extinct. A lot of the people here are doing it because of you. A lot of ‘em read the Voyage, the Origin, and that’s why they’re here.’

I felt humble that my work on this little ship had touched so many. And a pang of envy. Their breathable waterproofs. Heated cabins. Running water. Hot running water. Next I will learn that they will not have to wait to arrive at shore to communicate with the rest of the world. Maybe they are even able to identify specimens without consulting a museum or book!

The captain excused himself. ‘We need to be off, we’re taking a copy of your first edition of the Origin across the Atlantic to Harvard.’ He slapped the mainmast. ‘Give her a good try out before we go off round the world. Been a pleasure to have you aboard. Bit of a headwrecker for me, mind. I hope,’ he shuddered, ‘they don’t dig up Fitzroy and do the Frankenstein on him, bring him aboard. God, could you imagine that? Having the old skipper aboard too? But you know you’re welcome aboard. Anytime.’

The crew shook my hand one after another in a most civil manner and the captain saw me safely over the gangplank, and promptly started bellowing – as captains will – about starting engines, getting ready to slip. As my feet hit dry land, I was met by an attractive young woman, a species I have always liked. ‘Hi,’ she drawled, took my arm and walked me towards a car. ‘Yah. I’m Jocasta your agent for media-facing events. Oh, God look at you, we’re going to have to do something about that beard. We’ll have to book you in for a makeover and get your colours done, I’m thinking autumnal: you’re doing the all the TV breakfast shows tomorrow morning. Darling, you’re going to be huge. But Charles Darwin. A bit old, Victorian. Our branding people have been brainstorming and felt Chaz D…’

I tore myself from her grasp, opened my hand , gulped down the two seasickess pill I had been given and with a sprightliness surprising in a 200 year old, cantered up the gangplank. ‘You did say any time,’ I reminded the captain, ‘my science is a little rusty, but I think I can be of some use.’

The HMS Beagle Project aims to launch a replica of the HMS Beagle, an icon of scientific progress, for the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth in 2009. She will circumnavigate the globe in Darwin’s wake, crewed by aspiring scientists and researchers. They will carry out original research both at sea and on land, updating Darwin’s observations, breaking new scientific ground and relating the adventure of science to enthuse a new generation of young students. If you support this vision please visit www.thebeagleproject.com for details on how you can help.

(Originally published April 18th, 2008)

But before you apply to this lab or any other, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, be realistic about graduate school. Graduate school in biology is not a sure path to success. Many students assume that they will eventually get a job just like their advisor’s. However, the average professor at a research university has three students at a time for about 5 years each. So, over a career of 30 years, this professor has about 18 students. Since the total number of positions has been pretty constant, these 18 people are competing for one spot. So go to grad school assuming that you might not end up at a research university, but instead a teaching college, or a government or industry job. All of these are great jobs, but it’s important to think of all this before you go to school.

Second, choose your advisor wisely. Not only does this person potentially have total control over your graduate career for five or more years, but he/she will also be writing recommendation letters for you for another 5-10 years after that. Also, your advisor will shadow you for the rest of your life. People will always think of you as so-and-so’s student and assume that you two are somewhat alike. Finally, in many ways you will turn into your advisor. Advisors teach very little, but instead provide a role model. Consciously and unconsciously, you will imitate your advisor. You may find this hard to believe now, but fifteen years from now, when you find yourself lining up the tools in your lab cabinets just like your advisor did, you’ll see. My student Alison once said that choosing an advisor is like choosing a spouse after one date. Find out all you can on this date.

Finally, have your fun now. Five years is a long time when you are 23 years old. By the end of graduate school, you will be older, slower, and possibly married and/or a parent. So if you always wanted to walk across Nepal, do it now. Also, do not go to a high-powered lab that you hate assuming that this will promise you long-term happiness. Deferred gratification has its limits. Do something that you have passion for, work in a lab you like, in a place you like, before life starts throwing its many curve balls. Your career will mostly take care of itself, but you can’t get your youth back.

If, after reading this, you want to apply to this lab, we would love to hear from you.

With the Federal Canadian Election is coming up fast! (October 14th), I thought it would be handy to provide a flowchart pin-up detailing the choices you can make based on:

i. Wavelength of the Party’s colour.

ii. Albedo of the party leaders’ hair colour.

iii. Environmental platform. For a good overview of the policies that each political party favours, go read this.

*Note that the Parti Quebecois is not included in this graphic as I was unable to find out what exactly was their environmental platform.

My wish was to be buried in the Churchyard at Downe. Now I find Mr Huxley, thumbing his nose at the Queen for refusing me a knighthood, arranged to have me planted in that mausoleum Westminster Abbey. He knows I hated London. And burying an agnostic in such a place is carrying whimsy just a little too far.

So I was delighted when a mob of angry biologists and historians broke into the Abbey one night and removed my remains with a view for a quiet burial in the village I loved. But no. Someone called Dawkins had a better idea. I don’t remember corresponding with him. Maybe a friend of that ghastly man Marx who kept sending me those books. Did he come to anything?

Anyway, I woke up in a thunderstorm, a bolt in either side of my neck, Dawkins on the phone saying, ‘there’s another book in this!’ My re-emergence into society in my bicentenary year has caused something of a stir, not least to myself.

Those of you who have actually read my writings (as in not just provide opinion on them) will know that I am a retiring man, not much given to attending either science or society functions. But I could not resist an invitation to visit my old friend, the Beagle. As I wrote not long before my first death, my time aboard her was the most important event in my life: without her I would have become a clergyman.

So we took the train down to the coast and there she was. A brand new HMS Beagle, sitting alongside trim and pretty as though she had just been launched in 1820. My heart gave a lurch (which worries you, when you have died) when I saw her again. The decks were clustered awaiting my arrival, and the welcome I received was embarrassing.

Still. the moment I stepped aboard, I felt the clammy sweat, the salivation of my old nemesis: seasickness. I suffered it for five years and frequently wished myself dead. Some observant soul saw this: ‘I know how you feel. Every time we go out I’d throw me ring up if I didn’t take these.’ He handed me two tablets. ‘Or you could always eat some jam.’

‘Do preserves cure seasickness?’ I asked, amazed. ‘No, it just tastes nicer when it comes up.’ I shall have to catch up with the new humour, I see. But it was good to be made game of: I am a bearded man who has been resurrected from the dead, but I am no God.

The upper deck was much as I remember leaving in 1836: the wheel with Nelson’s immemorial words: ‘England expects every man will do his duty’. The Captain – he did not have Fitzroy’s haughty bearing – saw my affectionate glance at the helm and in an exasperated way said, ‘If that was today, Nelson would have to say “England expects every man will fill in a risk assessment.” Anyhow, look at this.’ The inanimate piece of glass sprang into colourful life. ‘GPS.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Global positioning system. It uses satellites 22,000 miles above us to calculate our position to the nearest ten feet. It has charts for the whole world.’

‘No more sextants?’ I asked. The daily taking of sights at noon and of shooting the altitude of starts was a great ritual every day aboard the old Beagle. ‘Oh, I still have mine, and my requisite tables. Sometimes, the electrics pack up.’

‘So the whole of the world has been charted? And they are stored in this small grey box?’

‘Yes. And watch this!’ He punched a button. ‘Depth!’

‘So no more casting weighted lines?’

‘No, Mr D. And here.’ The display changed again. ‘Radar. It paints a picture of the land and sea around us. We can see boats before they appear on the horizon, can sail safely through fog and storms.’ It looked like paintings my little Frankie used to do after Emma had been a little too free with the alcoholic tincture of laudanum. She used to give that a lot for colds. With so much changed, I suppose science will have found cures for such simple ailments by now.

My old stern cabin was very different to the one I shared with Stokes and King. Cramped still, but with cabins and…what did I feel? The captain had the shame to shuffle his feet. ‘Heating,’ he mumbled. ‘Air conditioning, too, when it gets too hot.’ A click and an electric bulb glowed
into life. I had seen these in a house, but on a boat. ‘And that?’

‘You haven’t heard of iPods, then?’

‘Something to do with plant reproduction?’

The captain shook his head and vanishing down a set of ladders told me to ‘mind my head’. My 200 year old knees cracked a bit. Age had stooped my frame, but still in the bowels of the ship, I had to hunch, and what a different sight to the stinking, rodent infested hole I had last seen in 1836.

‘Engines. 440 horsepower, folding propellers, push us along at eight knots when there’s no wind. And generators provide mains electricity for all you scientific types – the stuff you lot need – and 24 volts for the boat.’

Fitzroy sailed us around the world and I wrote The Origin of Species without electricity, I mused. We crouched as we walked between rows of gleaming boxes and hoses. ‘Diesel and water tanks. Freezers. These are for food, these are for your metagenomics samples.’

‘Metagenomics?’

‘Don’t tell him about that! It’ll kill him again!’ A voice yelled from behind us. ‘We’ve got to get him up to speed with the peas first….’

Moving past the captain, I confronted the hovering woman in the white lab coat. ‘What’s this about peas?’ I asked. And so, standing in the hold of HMS Beagle I was given a brief introduction to the science of genetics. Well, well. It seems monks are good for something after all – transmitting variation from one generation to the next. Not that monks do that, I mean.

Anxious not to delay my host, I emerged again into the main deck, now lined with small comfortable cabins, very different to the hammocks of my day. In between the cabins, a table was bolted to the floor. ‘Lab space. We’re doing what you did, Mr D. we’re going round the world, sampling the seas, looking at how the world’s changed since you saw it, how the rainforests have been cut down, the glaciers have melted, where the species have moved to, how many have gone extinct. A lot of the people here are doing it because of you. A lot of ‘em read the Voyage, the Origin, and that’s why they’re here.’

I felt humble that my work on this little ship had touched so many. And a pang of envy. Their breathable waterproofs. Heated cabins. Running water. Hot running water. Next I will learn that they will not have to wait to arrive at shore to communicate with the rest of the world. Maybe they are even able to identify specimens without consulting a museum or book!

The captain excused himself. ‘We need to be off, we’re taking a copy of your first edition of the Origin across the Atlantic to Harvard.’ He slapped the mainmast. ‘Give her a good try out before we go off round the world. Been a pleasure to have you aboard. Bit of a headwrecker for me, mind. I hope,’ he shuddered, ‘they don’t dig up Fitzroy and do the Frankenstein on him, bring him aboard. God, could you imagine that? Having the old skipper aboard too? But you know you’re welcome aboard. Anytime.’

The crew shook my hand one after another in a most civil manner and the captain saw me safely over the gangplank, and promptly started bellowing – as captains will – about starting engines, getting ready to slip. As my feet hit dry land, I was met by an attractive young woman, a species I have always liked. ‘Hi,’ she drawled, took my arm and walked me towards a car. ‘Yah. I’m Jocasta your agent for media-facing events. Oh, God look at you, we’re going to have to do something about that beard. We’ll have to book you in for a makeover and get your colours done, I’m thinking autumnal: you’re doing the all the TV breakfast shows tomorrow morning. Darling, you’re going to be huge. But Charles Darwin. A bit old, Victorian. Our branding people have been brainstorming and felt Chaz D…’

I tore myself from her grasp, opened my hand , gulped down the two seasickess pill I had been given and with a sprightliness surprising in a 200 year old, cantered up the gangplank. ‘You did say any time,’ I reminded the captain, ‘my science is a little rusty, but I think I can be of some use.’

The HMS Beagle Project aims to launch a replica of the HMS Beagle, an icon of scientific progress, for the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth in 2009. She will circumnavigate the globe in Darwin’s wake, crewed by aspiring scientists and researchers. They will carry out original research both at sea and on land, updating Darwin’s observations, breaking new scientific ground and relating the adventure of science to enthuse a new generation of young students. If you support this vision please visit www.thebeagleproject.com for details on how you can help.

Metric: pH

Range: 0-14 (no units)

Measures: Degree of acidity or alkalinity. It is a logarithmic scale expressing the concentration of Hydrogen ions in solution.

A solution is “acidic” if pH is less than 7 (Hydrogen ion concentration is greater than 10⁻⁷ M), “neutral” if pH equals 7 (Hydrogen ion concentration equals 10⁻⁷ M), and “alkaline” if pH greater than 7 (Hydrogen ion concentration is less than 10⁻⁷ M). As was pointed out here, pH measures intensity and not capacity. This is similar to temperature, which is actually a measure of how hot something is and not the amount of heat carried by a given material. Or, as another example, People Magazine’s “Sexiest” issue measures a given star’s allure and not his or her sexual prowess (Richard Gere – handsome man, requires gerbil-related stimulation).

History: The pH scale was originally described in 1909 by Soren Sörenson, also known for his position near the end of the line when names were being handed out. Demonstrating the niceties of chemistry to his young son (Soren II), Sörenson spilled concentrated ammonia on his hand. He started to scream “Fff–” but stopped short, remembering that his impressionable child was standing next to him. When asked what was wrong, Sörenson told his son through clenched teeth that the liquid daddy spilled on himself was high on the “Ffff” meter. The recent invention of the telephone (where “ph” first could be pronounced “Fff”) gave rise to the name we currently use. The pH scale has seen widespread application over the years. It is a subject of obsession at various skin care conglomerates and at your friendly neighbourhood grow-op.

Planning for 2009’s “pH Centennial Celebration” is well underway.

Related quote:
“Tune in, turn on, drop out” - Timothy Leary (on acid)

Use of “pH” in a sentence:
“In the hip hop lexicon, ‘phat’ is spelled with a pH.”

Earlier this week, we had the chance to sit down with a member of a growing army of naked bubble mice. In thousands of biology labs around the globe, these lab mice quietly do their part in the pursuit of science and medicine. Called Nude Mice, these striking creatures are a result of spontaneous inbreeding, natural genetic freak shows if you will. More importantly, they are bereft of both hair and immunity – things that would normally protect them from the elements of the sky and the cooties of the world. And lucky for us, traits that not only afford some big advantages in the research arena but make for a great interview. The nude mouse we interviewed was just finished with a talk biopsy, so we met in his lab while he worked through his lunch.

I want to shoot straight from the hip here: On having no hair. How is it?
It can get cold sometimes, but generally it doesn’t bother me. Besides, most females prefer it that way.

Okay, okay. Then I’ll stay on this pattern: On having no immune system. Your thoughts?
Well, I have to say that as bad as it sounds, I love it. I mean – it’s who I am. If anything, the part I hate is having to explain what having no immune system actually means. If you go into B cells, T cells, antibodies and the like, people just glaze over. It can really kill a conversation.

I’m with you on that.
In the past, I’d talk about being like the bubble boy. Nowadays, I usually just say rent the movie Fantastic Voyage – yes, that Fantastic Voyage, with Raquel Welch in the tight suit – and watch out for those bad ass white cells eating the spaceship. I tell them that not having an immune system means stuff like not having any of those bad ass white cells.

Sort of After-School Special-ish, no?
Don’t judge me, ‘kay?

Of course not. How about, Give us your reflections on the media.
You’re asking me?

Yep.
The media I can live without. We’re fairly private creatures, so the whole publicity thing is not cool. Besides, they almost never get it right. One time, my uncle had a human ear prosthetic grow on his back, and well, Christ, with all the press that ensued, you’d think he was sleeping with Jennifer Anniston. Not only that, but if you picked up a newspaper, you’d see this picture of poor naked Uncle Orv with a huge human ear on his back, and you’d be totally thinking that he could hear out of this thing. Which, of course, is not at all true. A shame really – that experiment was pretty elegant in my view.

You’re kidding me, right?
Not at all. Engraft a hollow polymer scaffold (shaped like an ear) on Uncle Orv’s back, infiltrate it with tissue cells from a burn victim needing an ear prosthetic, and wait for growth. Unky Orv ends up doing good because he has no hair, and he also doesn’t have the biology to reject the foreign ear tissue. How brilliant is that?

Point taken. Let’s move on. On stem cell research. React.
Basically, and to quote a GREAT movie, “bring it on!” Although to be honest, my opinion is pretty biased. They do a lot of bone marrow research on types like me, since having no immune system means I’m great as a clean slate. Just put some stem cells in my spleen and hey, you just might reconstitute my immune system. That’s awesome when it happens, because then I can actually leave my bubble for a while. I hate living in a fucking bubble.

On scientists playing God, creationism and intelligent design.
Seriously, do I look like something that is a result of intelligent design? And I don’t care much for those creationism types either. Did you know that only humans get to enter the gates of heaven? What’s up with that?

I have no problem with that, if you’re asking. But let’s keep this one-way. On the ethical treatment of animals. Everyone’s always bitching about that.
Look, it’s really not so bad. I get nice living quarters, and plenty of food. And every once in a while, they bring in a wheel or a bunch of females, sometimes both. Plus, I know I doing some good in this world – the experiments they carry out can actually help people. Really, what more could you ask for?