I haven't spoken about spit in a while and I thought it time to remedy that. In case you're new here, part of my PhD research involves collecting saliva to assess particular hormones released when people are distressed (because I stress them out - muah ha ha haaaa). In case you're not new, well sorry you're having to read about this again!
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| Not my actual samples, but it kinda looks like this [via]. |
Yesterday I finally ran the assays for the rest of my samples. I've been waiting a while for this as it's supposed to be my last study of my PhD. Unfortunately it's taken over a year to get to this point, as for some reason watching a distressing film and spitting into a tube does not seem to be a popular experiment to volunteer for. In case you are very grossed out at this point, I will mention that the samples all get irradiated to kill any germs and we still wear gloves anyway. So no touching of spit actually occurs. Also to make sure I don't gross you out I definitely won't talk about all the FLOATIES in the samples...
... err anyway. Now I'm a bit nervous to actually run the statistics - what if it doesn't work? It has been my plan to finish my thesis by November 12 (AKA arrgh-no-more-scholarship-must-hand-in-dreaded-thesis-day). However if my experiment is a total dud I instead will have to run another one or two experiments, taking my PhD into mid next year. I do not particularly care for that option.
Either way I will keep you all updated since I'm sure you're all dying to know what I've found in people's spit.
P.S. Totally unrelated to this post, something quite unexpected happened - I was voted the Featured Blogger for August over at 20SB! Thank you so much to the people who voted for me, I really appreciate it. An extra special thanks goes to Little Missy Me who nominated me: you're awesome! :)
Okay, this is kind of gross, but also I'll be crossing my fingers for you! I hope it all works out.
ReplyDeleteAnd congrats on featured blogger. You rock, girl. :)
WOOO HOO! No worries my dear, I love your blog!
ReplyDeleteSo you get to use microtitre trays?! And you do assays and such? Brilliant! I feel like I understand a little bit more. Hope your data works out! I didn't know you were at Mac Uni, my friend is doing her PhD in Neuroscience there too.
Even though I've been a reader here for a while, and we've 'talked' about the thesis, this is the first time I've read about what you're actually doing. I really hope this experiment works out and you can meet your deadline. On a totally random note, I've been doing the Maybe Baby Ovulation test that is saliva based and omg it's so much fun seeing the patterns etc! LOL xoxox
ReplyDeleteHi! I just saw your blog via 20SB. My husband just started his Ph.D studies at Temple med. sch. for biomedical neuroscience and your blog grabbed my attention right away. Good work :)
ReplyDeleteI just read this on my feed (I get behind) and then found myself skipping ahead to see if you'd updated about the spit. The fact that I find this really interesting is probably a little weird. I really wonder what makes people decide to go ahead and let you stress them out and then spit in a cup. Maybe just so they can say they did it?
ReplyDeleteI saw you on 20sb! Congrats :)