I had fully intended to do a complete write-up of my hours spent in a lab. But as I started, I realized that a simple retelling would not be the most efficient use of my time or my readers’. Working in a lab is like working in any other building. It’s a long day sprinkled [...]

The Characters: Dr. Cary Lai: Dr. Lai—oh right, Cary, sorry I keep forgetting—Cary is the newest addition to the Indiana University Psychological and Brain Sciences Department . He was previously employed at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He arrived here early this summer and is excited about working at Indiana University. Cary [...]

The Search: When first told about this assignment, I have to admit several emotions came over me. I was excited, of course. I knew it would be interesting to observe a lab. But I was also nervous. I had never watched a “real” lab in action. The last time I was in a lab was [...]

“When I meet someone for lunch, we talk about our days, our families, the stresses of school, and how good and nutritious the food court’s pizza is(n’t). We don’t talk about multiple universes! These guys are definitely science people. They live, breathe, and even eat science.” 2008.11.17, 6:00 p.m.

Dr. Richard Hardy’s virology laboratory is located in a secure area of Simon Hall, surrounded by loud red signs warning to keep out. The building smells faintly of cleaning supplies and yeast, a combination that I associate closely with scientific wet-work. Dr. Hardy’s laboratory studies the Sindbis virus, an alphavirus from the Togaviridae family. Michelle [...]

I am watching a toddler from behind a two-way mirror. Vivian— 36-months old, female, physically and mentally healthy— sits on a couch in a playroom with bins full of games and tabletops speckled with candy surrounding her. She cranes her neck, looking at her options, but touches nothing. She has been told not to by [...]

Reporter’s log: Thursday, November 20th, 2008. 8:57 am. Earth. I somehow ended up on the roof while looking for Caty Pilachowski’s office. Swain West, the building that houses both the physics and astronomy departments, is a bizarre labyrinth of offices and labs. Additions over the years have been strangely illogical (for example, you can only [...]

Early last fall, the student newspaper sent me to collect specifics on a large grant awarded to a group of IU chemists studying viruses. The chemists let me play with nanotubes, showed me models of icosahedrons—a term describing something shaped like a twenty-sided soccer ball—but the most impassioned and optimistic of all my interviewees was [...]

Thursday November 21: 9:00-10:30 am I have to admit I was not too fond of sitting in a lab for 10 hours. The assignment was intimidating, and as much as I tried to get into different labs, there were many obstacles. Everyone in the class had an interesting lab, they were working with neuroscience, or [...]