What is Great Science?

At the symposium on cardiovascular regenerative medicine, Professor Amy Wagers presented their interesting result on Strategies to Reverse Age-related Dysfunction in the Skeletal Muscle and Cardiovascular System: Based on the discovery of the aged mice's hearts are thicker and stiffer, which means greater possibility of heart failure, they raised this question: can the ageing process of heart be reversed? They supposed some factors in direct contact of the heart might be highly related with such process. Mice are joined together by surgical technique, with or without merging circulation system. Among the young-old pairs, they found a change in the heart wall: the heart weight-to-tibia length ratio wa significantly lower in old mice exposed to a young circulation comparing to an old circulation after 4 weeks of parabiosis. After further protein screening, they identified GDF11 as a protein that declines in ageing mice. This was later reconfirmed by injecting GDF11 into old mice to restore the protein to levels similar to those of young mice, and the result was the older mice experienced a reversal in the thickening of heart muscle tissue. Later they published this result on Cell.

When hearing this result, Etai turned around: "This result shows why we want a young partner!" I just couldn't help laughing.

What is great science? In my view, it's not decided by which institute you are working in, nor by in what journals you publish your result. Great science comes from the work of great minds, which is to change or renew the understanding of the world we are inhabiting, such as the work of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Dmitri Mendeleev. All their achievements share a general feature, that is they came from the combination of intensive thought, massive calculation and confirmatory experiments. When we look back into history, we can clear see how their work changed our perspective on the world and thus drove the development of human civilization.

Great science is the solid basis of technology. Technology is directly related with productivity, that's why many people believe that technology is the decisive force of social evolution. However, while thinking this way, it is extremely easy for people to ignore the contribution of basic science research.  Today, an indisputable fact is, the scale of technology has already exceed the scale of science. 

Currently, most countries are facing up the threat of economic depression. Accordingly, there's an effort to reduce funding for scientific research, and it has already come into effect. Also during this symposium, when it came to question time, an old researcher argued with NIH administrators for nearly ten minutes on why they wouldn't continue to sponsor his research,"...go and read my poster, you'll know how encouraging results we've had. Why should they spend that amount of money on primate research?!" It was really embarrassing moments. 

Generally, I do agree with the decision of reducing funding for scientific research in these difficult times. Even I am also engaging in research, I would still hold the point that, not everyone can work out  great science. Scientific research, as well as art, is the outcome of human society development, in other word, scientific research is kind of luxuries rather than necessaries for the ordinary people. Then how can many so called scientific researchers raise their families by doing research? It's time to reassess what  is desirable science. Just as what I've mentioned above, great science most probably comes from those scientists who are talented, well-trained and able to keep moving in their lifetime, and only to these people should the funding goes. During the several years as a PhD candidate, I already witnessed talented and mediocre researchers doing so differently on the way of research, and how we consumed the massive investment in the research area without producing anything but papers. I don't think people should have too much sympathy for those who have to making a living by doing scientific research-if we are sympathetic, who is going to pay for their salaries and those dispensable projects? Can most tax payers agree with our sympathy? I guess not.

The most challenging part is, scientific research is not as simple as"The best, or nothing." So the criterion for great science, especially in subjects that related with biology and life science, is of most importance. As what are the great science that must be financed, I think everyone in different area would give a unique answer. For me, I think research such as the one of Amy Wagers group can serve as an example. 

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心有猛虎，细嗅蔷薇；盛宴之后，泪流满面.

-Backing from CSSA's Moon's Day party. 

Not Necessary to Know My Name.

-In front of us is the Grand Teton National Park, which includes the major peaks of the Teton Range...
-Excuse me, Mark, what does Teton mean in English?
-Hmmm...well, actually, Teton is from French, means nipple.
 Even had been working as a quite competent tourist guide for years, Mark still seemed to be a little embarrassed to answer such a question.

When the sightseeing bus stopped, tourists were busy taking pictures.
-May I borrow your telescope for a minute, please?
Our guide suddenly asked, just before we got back to the bus.
-Sure.
I handed him the telescope. He looked, with a thoughtful and solemn mien.

The bus went along I-15, in most east California area, what we saw was a vast gobi desert, the Mojave Desert, dotted with drought-enduring creosote bushes and yucca. The tourists were about to fall into asleep.
-Look out from your left hand side, my friends, this is the helitherm system for heavy oil pipeline. As part of California state government's green technology program, the system used thermodiode solar plate to convert solar energy into thermal energy, heating the heavy oil line and keep the heat in the insulation layer, thus reduced the use of drag-reducer and enhanced the efficiency of oil pipelining. Though the California government tried to invest heavily on green energy, this new technology won't be easily popularized because of the low-yielding.
I lifted my eyes and saw a group of solar panels lying as an orderly matrix in the desert.

In Yellowstone National Park, after the tourists all feasted on the beautiful scenes, Mark started his so-called digression:
-Former Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev once categorised the human civilization into three types: Type I civilization is one that controls the energy of an entire planet, this kind of civilization can control the weather, prevent earthquakes and mine deep in the earth's crust; Type II civilization is one that controls the power of the sun, which means directly utilise the power of the sun to drive its machines and begin to colonise the local star system; Type III civilization uses the power of the entire galaxy, and may probably has mastered Einstein's equations and can manipulate space-time at will. Our current civilization is equal to 0.7 comparing to this theory. Now we derive most energy from fossil fuels, and the day we exhaust the world's oil and coal is already can be seen. Not to mention the threaten from war and nuclear weapon. That's why the next 100 years is extremely important for the survival of our civilisation. The next 100 years! The fate of mankind will be determined by us, our sons and daughters and their next generation.
The silence in the bus lasted for a while.

On our way back to LA, we had a stop in Las Vegas.
-It's necessary for you to have a try of your luck, since you have been here, in Vegas. I can't teach you how to win, but I'm experienced to teach you how to lose. In fact, I've contributed most of my income here.

I talked with Mark later, and was surprised to know that he came from my hometown. He graduated from a key middle school there and went to U.S. in 1996, studying accountancy. I don't know what had happened all these years between his college and his current career-he seemed not willing to mention it. -How is your family? Mark gave a short laugh, said, I don't have a family yet. This time, it was my turn to feel much embarrassed.
I asked our guide, whether he could tell me his name.
-It's not necessary to know my name. If you want to do me a favour, please write me a good review on our website, I appreciate.
So that was what I did.

Ethic Dilemma

"If they live together, they die together. This is just a way to reduce the unnecessary stress they experience before they die."The ARP people told me.
"So I just kill them all."
"No, you're not killing them, you are SACRIFICING them."
"Yes, "I convinced myself,"for the welfare of human being, we have to scarify them."
Carbon dioxide began to accumulate in the transparent box, the mice started to choke. Couldn't endure to see this, I turned around.
"Did they die in torment?"
"No. Some researchers may have a morally guilty feeling on seeing their suffocation, but actually they already lost consciousness when they suffocated, thus there was no suffering for them."
But I still couldn't get rid of the sense of uneasiness: Can this be true? How can we know a mouse's feeling before its death? Suddenly I thought of what happened during World War II in the concentration camps.
Finally all mice stopped moving.
"Cervical dislocation."
"Haven't them died?"
"Yes, but in case they revive once there's enough oxygen. You definitely don't want to see them wake in cold and darkness, sustaining themselves by eating the bodies of their own kind and finally die in fear and desperation. This kind of thing once happened."
After cervical dislocation, all the bodies were sent to cold room. Even when this kind of thing has become part of daily routine, I still remember every detail of my first lab animal training. Even everything we do all exactly according to the SOP, to put an end to life is definitely not an enjoyable thing.
I used to have the impulse to take one mouse out of the destiny of death, and keep it myself-they look so lovely and smart-but I can't. They don't belong to the normal, wild world. They never exposed to the open air since the day they were born, not to mention see the beam of sun. The only reason they were created is for scientific research, since they are highly inbred strains and usually carry some specific gene mutations, which make them ideal model for some human diseases. Once leave the barrier system, they couldn't survive.
So I can just pray, pray for those innocent creatures to rise to Heaven after their death, but someone once told me that animals have no soul. What a pity! How dull it would be if there are only humankind living in the garden of G_d, without any animal?
This is an unsolvable ethic dilemma on the issue of lab animals.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, God,
for letting me lack of nothing during my awakeness,
and letting me have a restful sleep.