Scientific Research

Research according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary it means "studious inquiry or examination; especially : investigation or experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts, revision of accepted theories or laws in the light of new facts, or practical application of such new or revised theories or laws"
I have a lot of respect for researchers and the people who carries out researches and experiments. Since I started this job at MUST, I learned that I have to learn and know how to extract RNAs, plant's RNA in particular and real time RT-Polymerase Chain Reaction amongst other fun things. Well I had some extraction practices using Heay's E. coli. But today was my first time extracting plant RNA from O. rufipogon, one of the rice strains. The result? Not as good as it could have been. First of all, my rice leaves weren't fresh from plant. It is very important to have fresh leaves to work with when dealing with RNA due to rapid degradation of RNA. Second, when I had to grind up my rice leaves, I found out that I was running low on liquid nitrogen. So my grinding didn't went well. Lastly (at least I hope that's my last mistake), maybe I wasn't gentle enough and cautious when pipetting my sample and reagents. The suction created by pipetting might actually tear apart those fragile RNA structures. *The electrophoresis gel shows that there were a lot of degradation of RNA. So one (in this case, ME) MUST pipette samples gently. Then after the process I have to run the RNA through an electrophoresis gel and quantify it using a spectrophotometer. On top of all that my boss won't be in for today and tomorrow so who can I go to for answers??
Back to my point, my respect for those people for do researches for a LIVING and INTEREST and PASSION and LOVE for science. So today I only did RNA extraction for ONE strain of rice. Can you imagine if I have to repeat this experiment for say ten more strains of rice? And that the result you get is not always what you want to see? And you have to troubleshoot if there's anything wrong with the results? Oh by the way, that person, who has to work with ten or more rice strains, will be me in about three to four months time. I will have plenty of rice strains to work with since Imma start germinating and planting them today!
Wish me luck ppl!

PS. Oh yea and a Happy New Year!!!!!
PPS. Just in case you just realized that you have to buy me my burfday present. Just a book will do! =P LOL.