Sentences I thought I'd never utter

'I'm sorry, but I believe my plum just rolled under your foot.'













Needless to say, it was one of those days when my bag was just so overflowing with stuff that it just voluntarily poors out without any manual manouvering involved. This time it was my lunchbox that plunged into a three-feet dive down from the tabletop as it crawled out of my gaping leather underarm companion. The cucumber made it in one piece. The tomato suffered some splittage down its invisible seams. The honey-and-avocado sandwich left some blood on the carpet. But the plum, it had had enough of life in a box and rolled away under this girl sitting at a computer in the cluster. Being a dark and discrete creature, the runaway fruit went unnoticed by the girl under her pumps. Lucky for me she didn't feel an urge to bend her knees to 90 degrees, which would have resulted in plummicide.

After some thorough rinsing, all pieces of lunch ended up victims of my hungry teeth.


'I'm sorry, but I believe my earring is stuck to your bum'

It was the end of our journalism workshop and as always, technology failed us. Four technical staff of the Manchester University were scratching their heads trying to figure out why the newspiece produced by the TV crew just didn't want to play. Anxious to leave and haunted by thoughts of my unfinished Master's report, I started fiddling with my silver snake earring that I'd had since I was 14. Struck by fate once again, the snake suddenly lauched toward the girl sitting in front of me in the auditorium. I was left with only the back clutch between my surprised thumb and index finger. I tried to peer down to her seat, in an attempt to find the stud behind her bum. I soon realised what I was doing probably seemed rather suspicious to people around me, not to mention inappropriate. I couldn't see the stud. Instead I noted that the girl had the most amazing hair, mainly because of its colossal size, but also because of its mesmerising princess-like waves that paved their way down her designer blazer.

The session ended. The girl leaned back on her seat and got up to leave. A silver serpentine had studded its way onto her behind. I had no choice but to tap on her shoulder and say in the politest possible of ways...

Disclaimer: Innuendos were neither wanted nor intended with this blogpost!!!!

'It was only a dog'

These words pierced through me and I could only wonder at the heartlessness of the person who uttered them.

Was it because she was completely void of empathy and regard to other people's feelings, especially those who are suffering at the time? Or was it simply because she is a cat person? I will never know, but I lost an awful lot of respect for this individual, who dared to belittle my feelings and ruthlessly express her subzero-temperatured opinion on my recently deceased canine best friend that was Tiffany the Coton de Tulear.

Of course her utterance couldnt be further from the truth. Tiffany was like the Mother Teresa of dogs. She was a friend of everyone. She made little girls conquer their dog phobias and even dried up old men cried at the news of her death. Even the vet who put her to sleep, who only knew her for her very last moments of confusion and desperation, was so touched by her kind and benevolence-radiating presence, that he shed a tear following her sleeping off to doggie heaven.

Fanny never had enemies, only countless friends. She even had two boyfriends in two different cities, both of which were called Simba, funnily enough. The Simbas have also long since passed away. At least now she's with them.

In addition to the lifelong friendship and altruism, she shared something more profound with me as well. I've always been an animal lover, and this presented itself a problem when my degree depended upon animal lab work. When I glance down at my laboratory mice about to be put into water mazes, I see the same inquisitiveness and innocence that was present in Fanny's eyes. It surprised me that their black beady eyes dared to resemble my Fanny's beautiful chocolate buttons. Perhaps it was simply that animalistic cuteness that is universal to all furry creatures. But more likely, it was a look that was meant to make me question what I'm doing, whether I have any right to experiment on animals that were born into captivity. I still haven't figured this one out, but my respect for living things has deepened. Animal testing will always be needed to get the best possible medicines, but for now, I will give it a miss as a career choice.

Most importantly, to an only child Fanny was something to look forward to when coming home from school, dragging me away from the TV screen - which more or less raised me until computers came into the picture. She was the wet nose and superspeed wagging tail that carefully and playfully woke me up on weekend mornings with her chocolate eyes peering from under the white silky fringe. Leaving her to go study in the UK always left me feeling guilty. After the first few times she started forgiving me - and instead of pretending like she didn't know who I was, she lovingly cried of joy and jumped in my lap everytime we were reunited. Im a few days, she'd trust the fact that I was back, following me around and sleeping by my feet. I always let her down and got on that plane. I always tried to explain that I'd be back, but it didn't ease the heartbreak.

Her heart couldn't take it in the end. Separation anxiety from not only myself, but my travelling mother also, undoubtedly contributed to her heart eventually giving up on her. The final scan showed that it had expanded, causing her trouble breathing. Her backlegs also had had enough, with nearly 12 years of walking in a world of long-legged creatures.

Three of Tiffany's most memorable characteristics were materialised in a cake that I made for her memory - she was white, fluffy and very sweet. Thus I made an ice-cream cake filled with strawberries and topped with oven-goldened mareng (she had a brown 'candy-stripe' on her bum which Coton's sometimes have). For Fanny, or her spirit, I laid down a bowl of carrot sticks and boiled eggwhite, her favourites. I'd like to think she appreciated the thought.

Faithful Molly, my beloved friend Fanny, I will miss you always.

Deleting cancer genes

Scientists are constantly on the lookout for genes that cause cancer, the killer disease of our times that is estimated to affect one in three people. Research conducted at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge has revealed a new twist to the story of how cancer develops. Instead of focusing on which genes are implicated, the question seems to rather be where the genes are located.

The current study was led by Professor Michael Stratton, the co-leader of the Cancer Genome Project. In fact, it was only last December that the Stratton group was in headlines previously, with the report that they had managed to crack the ‘entire genetic code’ of the two most common types of cancer. Our current understanding of how cancers develop involves the deletion or mutation of genes, so that cells cannot maintain normal functions. Stratton’s group have found that in skin and lung cancers, in fact a whopping 20-30 000 genes are mutated.

The most recent study, published just two weeks ago, aimed to investigate “unexplained” gene deletions that have been observed in cancers. It was found that these genes are located in inherently weak regions of DNA. The DNA molecule consists of an intertwined double helix which is itself looped around proteins called histones. Because of all the twisting and turning going on, it’s easy to see how the molecule might get a bit worn out in some bends. In fact, in ‘weak’ locations, breakages of the DNA molecule can occur, and now researchers suggest that this is the reason why there are so many different genes implicated in cancer.

The problem is that such ‘weak’ bits of DNA, is where we often find genes that protect the cell from becoming cancerous. When these regions with protective genes are broken, the cell tries to ‘tidy up’ the damaged DNA by snipping out these essential regions, and the disease develops.

The researchers also found that cancer cells are much more resilient than we thought, compared to healthy cells. Deletion of a whole 11 percent of its genes went unnoticed by the cancer cells, while in healthy cells, anything over 2 percent results in cell death. The fact that cancer cells are so resistant to gene deletion contributes to the difficulty in designing treatments that target and kill these cells.

By focusing future cancer genomics research into such vulnerable regions of DNA, we can gain invaluable insights into how cancer develops.

This article was published in Student Direct on the 1st of March 2010, and can be viewed at www.student-direct.co.uk here.