In Its Endlessness Life Abounds

A quick post this morning: I wanted to leave y'all with some beautiful, if poignant, thoughts from India's one of the most beloved poets of all times, the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Written originally in Bangla (the vernacular of the people of Bengal), this composition of his deals with the pain and grief we experience many times over in our daily lives, and speaks of the continuity of life and the importance of positive thoughts. This translation to English was done by yours truly a while ago; I hope you like it.

"You know you've worked in the lab too long when..."

I got a fascinating list - titled as above - that I could just nod my head to - from my dear wife, who collected it from an emailed newsletter she received from a professional body (N.B. PDF here, open at Page 22, if you are reaaaaally interested. Else, it's all below).

As a matter of habit, I started looking for the source; I searched Google with the title. And lo! And Behold! What jumps up but my Nature Blogs colleague Linda Lin's brilliant post with the same title and photos and all, posted early last year! I felt so sad for not having discovered that gem sooner. To assuage my grief, I promptly (of course!) joined the Facebook group that she mentioned in her post.

I also fondly recollected how much fun I had, dropping various microliter volumes of water onto the remaining liquid nitrogen in an ice bucket, to watch the water freeze instantly into globules of ice. Another perennial favorite has been to pour some dry ice in the sink and turn the water on, to make white, cold, billowy smoke. Sigh!

But I understand. We are busy scientists, and can't go running to find every little thing, can we? So here is a definitive list, compiled from above-mentioned, multiple sources, for your kind perusal and enjoyment.