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I used to think you understood, taught me right and learnt me good

I’m currently waiting to start writing my final biology assignment. Waiting because I don’t know how many words its supposed to be since mcot hath failed to put that on the question sheet and he is on holiday till Tuesday*.Anyways I have spent the last two and a bit weeks reading about parasites, parasites and even more parasites. Being me I frankly found the meagre 10 books in the library (two duplicated) a fairly pathetic offering. But this is just me I know. I know because of the look mcot gave me when I told him that it was a fucking pathetic selection, it was a look that said “everyone else is perfectly happy with them, you are just being awkward”. Which I am a bit, but I don’t in all honesty consider it proper reading around/outside research if its just from the college library. This again though is my competitive streak, and that infuriating man brings my competitive streak out good and proper. So I borrowed a whole stack of basement stock from the central library.

Some of the books were in the basement clearly because they were in four humours medicine territory, and I half expected to see discussions about what kind of leeches* you need and whether the moon should be waxing or waning. However, these older books from when Britain was still holding onto the delusion of a much cherished empire were actually quite useful for photographic resources since early C20th doctors thought nothing of taking pictures of some parasite ridden dying person what ho’. Something of a human rights nightmare in printed form, but more evocative than descriptions, which is by and large what most of the modern books contain.

And of those modern books I think they’re in the basement for one of two reasons. Reason 1, is just one book, which is pages and pages of horrendously unparagraphed wittering. Scientific wittering I’ll grant you, but still wittering. Seriously research scientists of the world, people will not read your work if it is not fucking readable. Grammar is not some naff thing that only social scientists and arts people use, you don’t lose nerd points for using full stops. It is perfectly okay to have sentences that don’t run the risk of being at her majesty’s pleasure. Okay its pretty likely that when you’re writing about something in a very in depth fashion lay readers aren’t your audience, but that doesn’t mean you have to write as if it were some rambling ongoing conversation in your lab. And publishing houses-you, you are just as bloody guilty, just because people have a lot of letters after their names and have cured 6 different diseases [before lunch] doesn’t mean they don’t need editing for coherence and introducing to the concepts of full stops, commas and colons.

Reason 2 is that the central library has by and large been taken over with fiction, or how to books. Now I love fiction, I better bloody do I have enough of it on my shelves (and intermittently in my life), and I am actually rather fond of those Dummies and Idiots guides. I don’t love that it seems to be the only two things that most libraries seem to keep on the shelves. I understand that some things aren’t going to be that popular and so you want to keep minimal shelf stock, but my local library for instance has a medical section that is composed of 4 books. If you aren’t a middle aged woman there’s essentially nothing there for you. The main library of second city that I live between has a psychology section comprising 7 books. Seven books, seriously, for a main library? Personally I find psychology as dull as dishwater but 7 books is pathetic honestly, that doesn’t even allow one per type of psychology, let alone enough for someone to properly read about the subject. Not to mention the most irritating habit that libraries have gained from bookshops, my ex-employer being guilty of this, which is having stupid shitty “why does that bloke I fancy not fancy me” books in psychology. That isn’t psychology, psychology dull as it is to me,  is a proper scientific study, it is not a self-help guide about celestial bodies nor a pile of twaddle about how to lure the man of your dreams. It is proper quantitative research into behaviour. Similarly the past year’s worth of Radio Times bundled together in a folder, and a very old copy of Halliwell’s film guide does not constitute a proper media and communications studies section. I know libraries are underfunded and underused but hoofing out most of the academic content in favour of thirty separate books telling you how to crochet (if the first three don’t work you ain’t going to crochet, welcome to being me) is just daft. There doesn’t even seem to be much variety in the fiction…and of the two city libraries only one has one BS Johnson book and even that’s in the bloody basement.

I finally picked a parasite though. Or more correctly I picked a disease that interested me, and the cause followed.

For my research piece I interviewed, amongst others, the lovely Max who mentioned that she finds it easier to relate to scientific concepts if they relate to an emotional or social context. I think unless you’re exceptionally good with abstract concepts (theoretical physicists and mathematicians step forward) this is true of all of us. The main point of the assignment is supposed to be the parasite itself but frankly, to me, one protozoa looks much like another, and one nematode is fairly indistinguishable from the next. What they do though is much more interesting to me, and the response of the host against them too is more interesting than the little protozoic chap on his own. I would absolutely recommend Carl Zimmer’s Parasite Rex for being able to see not only the immediate relationship of parasites with their hosts (ie the diseases they cause), but also the evolutionary adaptations they have spurred. One example from the book is that of Sickle Cell Anaemia as a defence of cells against malaria by changing the cell shape, but the change in the cell shape also makes it tricker for them to move through the body, hence the anaemia.

But anyways the social/personal context has made it easier to get my interest levels up. I don’t think I could ever be a molecular scientist or a biochemist. Not only would the teeny tiny detail get on my nerves, but that lack of anything to hinge it onto. Yes everything is ultimately part of a bigger picture, but I couldn’t imagine spending years looking at one very specific cell function. I admire those that can, but I think the way my brain works that would be a sure fire route to leaping out of the nearest window.

My parasite of choice incidentally is Trypanosoma cruzi…google and then count yourself lucky you’re not exceedingly poor and living in S.America (as if there weren’t already very many enough reasons to be happy you’re not living in a Brazilian shanty town…). It’s bothered me this, properly, if you’ll excuse the phrasing, got under my skin. I’m angry at my own niaevty for never having heard all about this before, and really trying not to be cynical think that perhaps I’ve not heard about it because the 14,000 people who die every year are 14,000 poor people. I’m really trying not to be cynical, but the right this minute I’m failing at that a bit…

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*On which point can I just say how much I fucking hate out of office replies. a) I know its half term already ‘kay, b) I wouldn’t expect a bloody reply on a Saturday night anyway I just send my emails when I remember, and c) am I the only one who reads out of office replies with a “ner-ner look at me I’m on holiday and you’re not” voice in their head?
* Yes I know. And my thoughts on the resurgence are largely unprintable (which is saying a lot considering my language use)…for now I’ll just *sigh*.

Tags: biology, college, jnbt, library, mcot, parasites, protozoa, science witterers, The Housemartins